Page 13 of Kestrel & Kee

“I mean, sure, yeah, I don’t mind an extension on the final paper because I don’t have any ideas what to write for Asian studies, but cutting me from the roster for the baseball team for a week? That’s just terrible. I trained so hard to get on the team, and now I’m benched for a week. A week. That’s seven days of no sports at all. Do you know how many games I’m missing?”

I did, actually, know. He’d lamented the number as we ate a light breakfast then packed up for this trip to find a scabies bear. No, not scabies. That’s a human thing. Mange! We’d walk for acres and acres with some incense to rout a mangy bear.

“Five,” Phil stated as the shop’s lo-fi tunes could be heard once more as the frother fell into silence. “Five, Arch. Five games. That sucks.”

His brow fell to the table just as Candy arrived carrying our iced matcha lattes.

“That’s not nice. You haven’t even tried them yet,” she pouted prettily and placed our drinks in front of us.

Phil lifted his head, still wearing a sad hound dog face. “Sorry, not the drinks. My…uhm…twisted ankle. I can’t play baseball for a week.”

She pulled a chair over and sat in it. “Right, Cody told me. You have to rest it while you’re going home for a family thing.” Phil nodded, took a sip of his drink, and let his brow fall back to the table. Candy gave me a look. I patted my boyfriend’s rounded shoulder. Her bright blue eyes fell to my Kee family journal and went round as pie plates. “Hey, wow, what is this? It looks super old.”

“It is.” I gave the creaky leather cover a tender rub. “It’s a journal of my ancestors’ interactions with specters over the centuries. I’ve been reading it over for information about cryptids, but it’s not giving me much. I guess my predecessors were more spirit-centered.”

“Sit right there.” She bounced up to her feet and ran into the back room. A few thumps and a loud bang followed by a dirty word floated out to us. Phil remained where he was, a slouchy sweetheart with a dick father and no small ball to hit with a big wooden bat to help clear out the senatorial douchery. “Coming! Coming! Don’t leave yet!”

Candy bounded to us a moment later, a takeout container of four matchas in her hand. She sat with a huff, her thick blonde Ariana Grande pony falling over her face. She whipped it back and placed her hands over Phil’s. He picked his head up at the gentle touch.

“These are on the house. I’m super sorry you have a family emergency. Sip these and think of all your friends back here in Liverswell when things get too dark,” she said softly.

“Thanks,” Phil muttered, casting a look at me. I smiled and added my hands to the pile.

“We’ll enjoy them on the ride,” I assured her because it was true.

“Peachy!” Candy smiled her winning smile. So the good was slightly outweighing the bad now. Fingers crossed it stayed that way throughout this trip.

***

An hour later, we were officially on the road after making a small stop.

“Thank you for the library run,” I said, feet on the truck’s glove box, a recently released book by a cryptozoologist in Oregon resting on my thighs. I’d also picked up two others that we’d not carried at our store. Our cryptid section was sadly lacking. The second was a book geared more toward conspiracy theories, and while I was skeptical of it containing any real knowledge, I’d picked it up. The third was a quirky little tome with a drawing of a pleasant-looking female witch feeding chickens some corn on the front. I think the title was what had drawn me in. The Hedgerow Guide to Evicting Monsters and Keeping Unwanted Lovers Away by Elspeth Cairngorn. Huh. The same last name as Candy. Was this old witch a relative? Seemed unlikely since Candy was from California. I’d ask her when we got back to Liverswell.

I personally have never met a hedge witch but have read about them. Women of the woods, they were sometimes called. Healers, midwives, and herbalists who, it was rumored, crossed “over the hedge” to the mystical realms. They seemed to be solitary practitioners who used nature-based magic. Most were helpful souls who protected hearth and home. Many were rumored to weave wicker effigies to aid in their rituals. Maybe that was pure bunk, as Yeye is known to say. Why I grabbed the skinny tome, I couldn’t say. It had just called to me. Perhaps old Elspeth would have a trick or two to handle whatever we’d be facing. I’d read it over at the motel.

“I think these books will be a lot of help.”

Phil gave me a quick glance before merging into traffic and heading to the Massachusetts Turnpike for our first leg of the three-hour trip. The ’80s tunes were playing, the wind was whistling in the cracked windows, and my boyfriend was still mourning his lost baseball games. I thought he was more upset about the family stuff than the loss of at-bats or whatever it was called, but I didn’t want to prod him too much. Phil was a talker, so when he had his mental ducks in a row, he’d talk. I’d just have to bide my time. With books.

“But we’re not looking for Bigfoot,” he said, easing into the left lane. “We don’t even know what it is we’re looking for, so how can a book help?”

“Well, I think I can cross-reference them. This book only has a Sasquatch on the front to draw attention from the cryptid fans. There are other legends listed after Bigfoot, though. Lots of them. Champ, for instance, is a Loch Ness Monster cousin of sorts that swims around Lake Champlain. There’s a Lake George monster called Georgie, and something called a Numley. If you branch out from the mountains to include the East Coast, there’s Mothman, the Jersey Devil, the Maryland Goatman, and a thing called a Squonk.”

“Lots of monsters,” he commented, his sight darting to a blue van coming up to pass us before moving over in front of us.

“Lots of legends,” I said, pulling my sight from the cars surrounding us then focusing back on my book. “Not much proof. Standard science scoffs at the field of cryptozoology as it does parapsychology, which is where we sort of fit in. The study of paranormal phenomena: telepathy, near-death experiences, and hauntings. Since there’s no way to prove I can see and speak with the dearly departed, we’re pretty much considered jokes by the established scientific community.”

“And my father,” he added in a low mumble.

I flipped my book shut to look over at him. “I know we kind of had a short bitch fest about the senator after you woke up to sign the papers, but I feel like you’re holding a lot more in than you’re letting out. It’s not too late to turn around and go home.”

He threw me a fast look and fastened his gaze back on the van in front of us. “We signed papers, Arch. Legal ones. You can’t back out of legally signed stuff.”

“Rich people do it all the time.”

“We’re not rich.”

“Yeah, no, we’re not.” I sighed deeply. “But we could hire a lawyer.”