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

“Yeah, I’ve been there enough times,” he said. Honey was still reluctant for us to leave her, but we said our goodbyes anyway and wandered down towards the palm trees, following Miller’s internal map.

“What do you suppose happened then?” I asked. “Has Pete shot at Skerry island before?”

“What is the equivalent of ‘trigger-happy’ for a cannon owner? Fuse-happy?” Miller laughed. “I don’t think he is firing actual cannonballs, or at least I hope he isn’t. It’s more of a loud noise and a lot of smoke, the phrase ‘all bark no bite’ comes to mind.”

“So, he is sending a message?” I mused.

“Probably. The people on this island hate the people on that island and vice versa. The main island is definitely the friendliest place in Hallow Haven, and even the residents there can have prickly personalities,” he said. “Maybe the people on Skerry went paddling in the ocean on a day that they shouldn’t have, or they cooked a fish that made the air smell bad. Petty problems keep this place going.”

It seemed that Miller was taking us to the lagoon first. I could see the ocean just beyond the tree line and the gap in the land where the water was coming in. The ocean was full of movement, but the lagoon was serene and a vibrant turquoise that felt as though it didn’t belong in nature.

“Pete!” Miller shouted, waving down to the man on the sandy shore to our right. The lagoon was framed with white sand and Pete was laying on his back staring up at the sky, his sword still in hand. If I’d been dancing like he had last night, then my whole body would have been a wreck this morning.

“This place is beautiful,” I whispered. I didn’t want to speak loudly and ruin the tranquility of the moment. Why hadn’t I brought a camera? This was the type of thing that Hallow Haven should have in a travel magazine; tourists would eat up pictures of this water. Maybe the people on Green Holt wanted it to stay as their little secret.

Pete waved a hand in acknowledgment of our approach but didn’t sit up properly. Something moved in the trees behind him, and I stopped in my tracks. It wasn’t creating a shadow, but I could see eyes looking at me. I felt my heart start to pound as I stared at the shape, waiting for it to step out into the sunlight and reveal what it was.

Miller didn’t seem concerned by it, which made me think he couldn’t see it at all. Pete was lying only feet away from the thing and was equally oblivious. I had fallen behind a few feet and ran to close the distance between Miller and I so that he wasn’t approaching it alone, but as soon as I started to run the thing retreated into the trees and disappeared completely.

“I knew you’d be coming for me; I suppose firing that there cannon of mine is not what you’d call ‘legal’, eh?” Pete laughed. “You know, it’s hard to resist firing the darn thing. It’s so much fun. Would you like a turn?”

“Not today, Pete,” Miller sighed. “Do you wanna fill us in on why you’re firing at Skerry this time?”

“Well, I can show you if you like. No better way of describing it than by showing you with your own eyes.” Pete then did some strange flip maneuver that brought him from lying flat on his back to standing upright in one smooth move. Jeez, this old pirate man was built like an Olympic gymnast.

He walked through the trees towards the ocean, and we followed behind, my eyes darting back and forth to check for signs of whatever had been staring at me only moments earlier. Soon we were back in the glare of direct sunlight and staring across the water at the island of Skerry.

If I had to guess, I would have said that Skerry was a few hundred meters away. No great distance at all. You could probably swim there if you had to. Well, theoretically you could. There seemed to be a barrier preventing that sort of travel from being possible.

“Have you guys dumped rocks into the sea to build a wall there?” I asked. There was a line of rubble that rose above the water and seemed to stretch far to the left and right of us.

“That beauty is a mile long,” Pete said, proudly. “It was not rubble two days ago; it was a mighty wall that separated us from the unsavory types over there on Skerry. The thought of having to look at their rotten faces every day was clearly too much for the Green Holt ancestors, so they constructed a wall to keep them away, if I recall correctly.”

“What did the people on Skerry think of that?” I asked.

“They helped build it!” Pete chuckled. “They got the idea from Winston Churchill, of all people! Do you know Churchill?”

“The British guy?”

“That’s the one! He did something similar on the islands off the Scottish coast, or so I’m told,” Pete smiled.

“But why are you shooting at Skerry then?” I asked.

“Well, they’ve turned this wall into rubble!” he shouted, loud enough that the people on Skerry could likely hear him. “I think they are planning an imminent invasion and I for one won’t stand for it. I’ll show them what the people of Green Holt are made of!”

Oh boy.

5

I stared at the crumbled wall and tried to wrap my head around the idea of building a wall in water. Had they used magic to construct this? It would be madness to think they had done this manually, right? It was so strangely uniform in the way it had crumbled, there wasn’t a clear spot that seemed to have been struck by something. What did Pete think the people of Skerry had done here?

“We should get over to Skerry and ask a few questions before you load up your cannon, Pete,” Miller