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

location of the cemetery on the main island, which was why people were now buried in above-ground tombs. Nobody wanted the flood waters to unearth more coffins.

Effie and Kate’s house was also in the lower ground, but it was raised high off the ground on enormous stilts. Something I hadn’t considered asking them was how they got to their house when the surrounding area was underwater, as it currently was.

“Are we supposed to swim to this guy’s place?” I asked. “Or just walk-through rainwater up to our necks?”

I remembered that Kate had built a portal from Pete’s Za, the pizza place she worked at part time, and her house. Maybe the mailman had done something similar? But that had to be a long shot, he might not have any magic at all.

“Looking for a boat?”

I turned to see a familiar face driving down the hill towards us. Wes Conerty. He had driven the bus that had brought me from the island airport to the beach, and also drove a taxi around town. It was as if he had a monopoly on all forms of land transport in Hallow Haven.

“Do you have a boat, Wes?” I asked. His sun-kissed hair fell in curls to his shoulders, one arm hanging out of the window as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He didn’t appear to have a boat with him either.

“You’re looking at it!” he laughed.

“The taxi?” I said, raising an eyebrow suspiciously. He had to be joking, right?

9

I was surprised that Miller had so few questions about what Wes had just said. I heard one muttering of ‘are you sure?’ before he got into the back seat, Fitz jumping in after him. I was still standing on the sidewalk looking down at the flood waters.

“Guys be serious. That is a car and over there…” I pointed down the hill, “is at least five feet of water! Look at the top of that fence, the whole rest of that fence is submerged. Is that not giving anyone else a good enough reason to think that this car won’t make it? It’s not like driving through a deep puddle, Wes.”

“Come on, Sadie. Have I ever steered you wrong?” Wes smiled. Dang. He had such a quiet confidence about himself that it made it difficult to argue with. He was almost too relaxed.

“No,” I agreed. “But I feel as though you are about to steer us all into a dangerous situation.”

“Sadie, get in the car!” Fitz yelled. “Come on, we don’t have all day! Do you honestly think that Wes hasn’t got a magic car? What planet are you on?” Magic car?

I had to admit that it seemed obvious now Fitz had said it out loud. Wes was from a family of magic, so it made sense that he would have given his taxi a little boost. Despite my initial reservations, I got into the car and closed the door.

“There you go,” Wes smiled. I watched him reach over to the passenger seat and pick up a cassette tape with the words ‘Wet Taxi Jamz’ written on with a permanent marker. I looked over to see if Miller had noticed, he had. The two of us widened our eyes and smiled as the sound of Wes singing began to play over the car stereo.

“Is this one of your mixtapes?” Fitz asked.

“Yeah, man!” Wes grinned. “Do you like it? I play all the instruments myself you know. There’s just something about a kazoo that adds a touch of class to a record, know what I mean?”

“Mmhmm,” I nodded, forcing a smile. The car rumbled beneath us as he began to roll along down the hill towards the edge of the flood water. The front wheels would be swallowed, I was sure of it. With Wes still having the windows open I braced myself for the water to start pouring in, but it didn’t.

We were no longer driving downhill. The car had leveled out and we appeared to be driving across the surface of the water as if it were a solid road.

“Wh—?” I stuttered.

“Sadie, you gotta trust and believe!” Wes smiled. “There are a whole bunch of folks that need to get from A to B around here and they pay me good money for the privilege. Of course I put a little magic on the car, no other taxi on the whole island can handle the lower ground. Just me!”

I was about to reply, but Wes immediately began harmonizing with the recording of his own voice and I didn’t want to interrupt. Miller leaned forward enough to point Wes in the direction that we wanted to go, and Wes steered the car accordingly.

With so many witches living in Hallow Haven, I wondered why none of them had used their magic to solve the flooding problem. Wes held down the rewind button on his stereo so that the song would play again and began to sing along louder than he had the first time. Fitz, now knowing the words, also joined in. I started to consider climbing out of the open window and swimming the rest of the way.

“Here you are!” Wes said, bringing the car to a gentle stop. Miller dug into his pocket looking for cash and Wes batted a hand at him. “No charge today, call this a little promotional offer. If the peacekeeper wants to tell a few people that she took a float through the lower ground in my cab, then I’d be super grateful.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I smiled. I opened the car door and blindly stepped out of the vehicle, immediately plummeting into the water that the car was floating on. My arms and legs flailed as I tried to swim upwards, scrambling for the surface. A hand grabbed mine and pulled me up, it was Miller.

“This is the second time you’ve tried to drown in front of me, do you want to get away from me that badly?” he smiled.