Hallow Haven Cozy Mysteries Bundle Books 1-3 by Mara Webb (books to read fiction .txt) 📕

“Why weren’t you on the quadbikes with them? Why weren’t you invited?” Effie asked.

“I was, but I had some things to do at home. Tidy house, tidy mind!” he smiled. I realized I was still holding his hand and it had gone on for an awkward length of time. I pulled away.

“Well, all right then,” I said.

“You guys are nuts,” Kate laughed. “Effie clearly needs to have a bath or something. Why not do one of your expulsion ceremonies?”

I screwed up my face in confusion, but saw Effie let out a long sigh before nodding.

“That might help actually,” Effie said. “I just need to clear my mind. Come on, Sadie.”

“Bye!” I hollered as Effie dragged me out of the restaurant.

We were soon back out on the sidewalk and Effie was walking so quickly that I had to jog to keep up.

“You must be excited for this!” Effie said.

“I have no idea what’s happening,” I chuckled.

“An expulsion ceremony! It’s a bit like meditation I suppose, only it involves magic. Do you have anything from your past that is haunting you?” she asked.

“The only thing haunting me are ghosts,” I laughed. “What do you mean?”

We turned a few corners and marched downward towards the lower ground. The cemetery was on our right and I had a flashback to the day I arrived on the island and found a body there. Maybe I was haunted by some dark memories, but isn’t everyone?

“Any crazy ex-boyfriends that you would rather not think about ever again?” she said. “Because, let me tell you, I have helped Kate perform this ceremony, like, a hundred times. I wish I were joking.”

My dating life back in Virginia didn’t involve a whole lot of people. I’d only dated one-person long term, and when that fell apart, I jumped on a plane and brought myself here. With all the chaos of finding out about magic and ghosts and werewolves, Justin had been at the back of my mind.

“You are going to remove Max from your memory?” I gasped. “Is that safe?”

“It’s not permanent, it just dulls the memory a little for a few hours. It’s like taking a break from it, I don’t know how to explain. Look, it’s all written in my book. I can show you a bunch of stuff. Have you looked at any of the spell books in your house?”

“What?” I laughed. “There are spell books in my house? Where?”

“Sadie, you crack me up,” Effie laughed. “We’re almost at the house. You are about to have your mind blown!”

Kate had once explained that the houses in the lower ground were built on stilts because the whole area was prone to flooding. She also told me that weirdos lived down here. Kate and Effie lived here together, so they were obviously weirdos too.

Effie pushed open a small iron gate into the front yard of a strange house. Just inside the fence that surrounded the property were piles and piles of sandbags. Giant wooden beams were holding the house twenty feet above the ground, the lower half of them looked darker from water damage. Effie was climbing the metal stairs that led to the front door and whistling an unfamiliar tune.

“Are you coming up or what?” she called.

I ran up the stairs behind her to catch up. “This house is…” I began.

“Legendary? Awesome? Mind-blowing?” she laughed. “You’re gonna love it in here.” She turned the key in the door, and we stepped inside. “You wait here for a minute, I’ll be back.”

As Effie rushed off into another part of the house, I stood gawping at the living room. There was a huge stone fireplace built into the far wall. Above the log pile in the bottom of it hung a giant cauldron from a thick chain.

The walls around the fireplace were decorated with paintings of the moon in different phases and a large tapestry of a blue eye. I wondered how the wooden stilts were able to support the weight of all the stone, but I supposed there was some magic involved.

Strange sculptures lined the shelves, prints of text in a language I couldn’t read were framed on a side table and the whole place was heavy with the scent of lavender. Somewhere in the house it sounded like Effie was throwing stuff around. I could hear her muffled grunts of exertion along with a few curse words.

This house was so different to my house on the beach. It seemed more cluttered, but in a way that made sense. There was so much to look at, paintings, fabrics, figurines, precious stones. Every single thing looked like something that Effie and Kate would be into, there was no mistaking who lived here.

“Darn it!” Effie shrieked. I made my way along a hallway that branched off from the living room and found Effie stood outside an open door.

“What’s going on?” I asked. She was running her fingers through her brightly colored hair and closing her eyes as if trying to shut out my question.

“I’ve lost something. I mean, I haven’t seen it in a while, but it is really gone. This is, like, the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone. I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s bad,” she said. She brought her hands out of her hair to rest them on each hip. I saw her fingers trembling.

“What have you lost?” I pressed.

“I don’t suppose you remember Kate making a silly joke about a black book earlier?” Effie said. “A black leather with a tiny little gold crescent moon on the front?”

“Vaguely,” I answered.

“Well it seems that she wasn’t joking. I thought maybe she was just goofing around the last few times I asked her where it was. It’s not in my room, not in her room, not in the living room… This is like, a situation,” she sighed.

“What is it?”

“The black book? It’s just a handwritten book of spells with some black magic in there, you know, standard stuff,” she shrugged. “The expulsion ceremony