the point. What if he doesn’t?”
“Reach the landmark? Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because he’s a hundred years old. He could die any day. Any minute. Writing ahead might jinx him.”
Tipping her sunglasses down, Sadie stared. “Have you met the man? Rhetorical question,” she said before her cousin could respond. “He smoked a pipe until he was ninety-two. I hate to think how much whiskey he knocks back in a day. He tells dirty jokes nonstop at the dockside bar that’s basically his second home in the Cove, then laughs until his face turns bright red. If none of those things have gotten him, me writing a series of articles two weeks ahead isn’t likely to do it.”
Molly’s chin came up in a rare show of defiance. “Maybe that’s what your recurring dreams mean.”
“What, you think they’re telling me not to fly in the face of God and/or fate? They’re stories, Molly. Feel-good articles that will, I hope, help stop the residents of our twin towns from going for each other’s throats every time one’s name is mentioned to the other. I’m sure this kind of resent-the-twin thing doesn’t happen in Minneapolis or St. Paul.”
“Raven’s Hollow and Raven’s Cove aren’t twin towns. We’re more like evil stepsisters. The Cove has nasty raven legends. We have a history of witches. You’ll never mesh those two things. Just—never.”
As if cued, a man Sadie recognized from Raven’s Cove strolled past. His name was Samuel Blume. He carried a racing form and a rabbit’s foot in one hand and a copy of the Chronicle in the other. A huge smile split his weathered face.
“Afternoon, ladies. I see you’re forecasting big rain and wind tonight, Sadie. Must be your Bellam blood rearing its witchy head, because the radio and TV both say sunny and hot for at least three more days.”
She shrugged. “You choose, Sam. My newspaper’s going with the rain and wind.”
“Good thing I brought my lucky charm. I’ll be sure to get myself out of here and home safe before whatever storm you’re brewing up hits.”
“I rest my case,” Molly said when the man moved along. “We’re Bellams, he’s a Blume. He assumes we’re all like our ancestor. It’s a battle of sarcastic wills. Hollow witches versus Cove ravens. Whose legends pack a bigger wallop?”
“Well, now you’re getting weird.” Sadie used the folded preview edition of the Chronicle to fan her face. “We’re not supernatural versions of the Hatfields and McCoys, and we’re definitely not Cinderella’s stepsisters in town form. Besides, the Raven’s Hollow police chief’s a Blume, and he doesn’t believe in legends at all. So pax, and thanks for the Tylenol.”
Sadie turned to leave, but a tiny sound from Molly stopped her.
“Problem?” she asked, turning back.
“No. It’s just—you look very nice today.”
Sadie glanced down at her green-black tank top, her long, floaty skirt and high wedge sandals. “Thank you—I think.”
“You seem more city than town to me.”
“Okay.” Her eyebrows went up. “Does that mean something?”
“I wonder how long you’ll stay.”
“I’ve been here for two years so far, plus the seven I put in as a kid.”
“I’ve been here my whole life. You have a transient soul, Sadie. I think you’ll eventually get bored with the Hollow and move on.”
“Maybe.” She waited a beat before asking, “Is that a bad thing?”
“For you, no. But others belong here.”
It took Sadie a moment to figure out where this was going. Then she followed her cousin’s gaze to the police station and heard the click.
“Ty and I were only engaged for a few months. We realized our mistake, ended the engagement and now we’re friends.” Her eyes sparkled. “A Bellam and a Blume, Molly. Can you imagine the repercussions if we’d challenged the natural order of things and followed through with a wedding? Although,” she added, “it’s been done before, and neither the Hollow nor the Cove fell into the Atlantic as a result.”
“Are you teasing me?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry. Really. I know you like Ty. It’s good. I like him, too, just not the way a potential life mate should.”
Molly’s cheeks went pink. “Everyone likes Ty. I didn’t mean—I don’t have a thing for him.”
“No? Weird,” Sadie repeated. She grinned. “Bye, Molly.”
“Bye, Sadie.”
With a quick—and she had to admit—somewhat guilty glance at the station house, Sadie started off again.
The fact that it took her fifteen minutes to make what should have been a two-minute walk no longer surprised her. Ten people stopped her on the sidewalk to jab fingers at the clear blue sky. Thankfully, only three of the ten inquired about the source of the Chronicle’s forecast.
She didn’t think any of those three actually believed in witches of the warts-and-pointed-hats variety, but more than a few of them probably subscribed to the notion that Hezekiah Blume, founder and first citizen of nearby Raven’s Cove, had, upon marrying Nola Bellam, in reality wed a witch.
According to Cove legend, the union had led to a fatal fallout between Hezekiah and his younger brother, Ezekiel. Ezekiel had tried to kill Nola, Hezekiah had ultimately killed Ezekiel, and the entire tragedy had ended with the gates of hell blasting open between the two towns—in the literal sense back then and still in a figurative one today.
Taking her right back, Sadie thought with a sigh, to the beginning of last night’s dream.
Resisting an urge to swallow more pills, she pushed through the doors of the wood and stone building that housed the Chronicle.
She’d inherited the newspaper from her uncle two years ago. Next to the techno-sleek environs she’d known in Boston and D.C., it was a New England dinosaur, complete with antique wiring, fifty-year-old basement presses and fourteen employees for whom the word change had little or no meaning.
It had taken her the better part of a year to nudge the place past the millennium mark in terms of equipment. The employees continued to be a work in progress. But she considered it a major step forward that several of them had gone from calling her Ms. Bellam to Sadie over the past year.
She spent the remainder of the afternoon reviewing advertising layouts with her copy editor. At seven o’clock precisely, the man creaked to his feet. “My knees have been acting up all day, Sadie. Figure you could be right about that storm after all.”
“The weather center in Bangor could be right,” she countered. “I’m only the messenger.”
“Said Tituba to her inquisitor.” With a wink and a grin, he limped off down the hall.
“I
