Outside an unkempt, manufactured home, a nearby tree with spindly branches seemed to reach out, grasping for the moon. The fog rolling through the air outside bore a curious, smoky scent, mixed with dead leaves and dampened earth. It smelled like Halloween.
The Harvest Moon was hanging on a wide, dark canvas, just half past three in the morning. There were no stars visible outside of Toby’s bedroom window. No chance of a wish to protect him, no Peter Pan to whisk him away to a world of play. However, the moon conveyed its message well enough to compensate for the silent vigil: She was coming.
This time, nobody was left to argue.
Inside Toby’s bedroom, from corner to corner, the naked walls seemed to lean inwards. All of the stacked books and action figures barricading the windows didn’t help either; they veiled the walls with their looming shadows and the moon’s dim, amber glow. The indoor lights had already died some time ago thanks to an unpaid electric bill, which was only more collateral damage following the disappearances of his parents and uncle.
Toby wondered, his gut sickening at the unbidden thought, what CPS would do later in the day when they arrived to claim him. Would they find him? Would they care enough to ask around for answers?
A police report was crinkled between his fingers, prepared with sufficient details for such an investigation.
The officer who’d overseen the case had tiny writing deeply pressed into the pages with dark blue ink. Cold with dread, Toby needed no reminders of the report’s content. He needed the man who’d written it.
You won’t believe one word of this report, but it’s happened, and will continue to happen in similar fashion. And you are going to see that there’s a fate worse than death.
911 dispatch – B&E in NE Pensacola
The initial complaint came from Emma Sheffer (70 y) who’d been preparing to host an auction via video call. The auction was to take place in her garage. She says that she was unable to hear any disturbances from there and had no idea there was anyone in her home until ten minutes before the bidding was meant to start. Ms. Sheffer went into her house for a cup of coffee and found Baylee Knight (13 y) in the living room watching TV.
As I took Knight into custody, she explained that breaking into Ms. Sheffer’s residence had been the condition of a dare by some of her friends.
The possibility occurred to me that Knight had not acted alone. When I asked her if she’d had any friends come with her, she appeared nervous and didn’t answer. I lowered my voice to tell her I knew she wasn’t the ringleader, and that she shouldn’t waste her future for someone unwilling to protect her.
A downcast Knight replied that she already had no future, but looked up past the staircase. I asked Ms. Sheffer whether she kept any valuables upstairs and in which rooms; alarmed, she informed me that a collection of designer bags by Demelza Robbins was stored inside her bedroom closet. I went upstairs with Knight, and found Lowan Percetti (14 y) trying to escape through the window with one of the bags.
I apprehended the second suspect, who quickly turned on a third one he identified as Noah Zoro (age u/k). Once Knight and Percetti were both detained safely in the squad vehicle, I turned my focus towards finding Zoro. It took a nearly forty minute search before I finally checked the laundry room and found him hiding inside the dryer. His statement to me before I took him to join the others indicated that both his parents are deceased, and his relatives seem to have abandoned him.
I’m not sentimental enough to use flowery expressives, but I wish I could do more to help. As I hold little to no experience with kids, I’m resigned to calling in CPS and letting them take this case from there. Nothing was broken or taken from the residence of Ms. Emma Sheffer. With luck, these kids will face minimal charges and receive the benefits of court-mandated counseling.
Toby blinked repeatedly in the empty darkness, as if by doing so he could blink it away; as though he could blink his tears back into their ducts and somehow reverse time.
Then he allowed himself to remember the rest – because Larento’s report covered more than just the beginning. Why the detective hadn’t turned it in, Toby still couldn’t quite grasp. He’d merely discovered it that morning stuffed in his mailbox sans envelope.
…a fate worse than death.
The name Demelza was curiously emboldened with black pen over the blue. Demelza was the key in this testament manifested from Larento’s tomb.
Demelza Robbins was called eccentric, a token of appreciation for her contributions to the fashion of high society. Lower-born company deemed her something else entirely, something she’d earned with her quiet, intense hatred of men and the numerous disappearances of those who crossed her path.
The children even had a rhyme for her:
Moonlit beaches don’t scare me
Miss Demelza, set me free!
Deep down, everyone knew and was just too afraid to say: Demelza Robbins was a witch.
In the case that this document never makes it to Captain Maya Valentine’s desk, it will mean that Toby Holloway is reading it right now – and it means I’ve failed. I’m sorry.
Teeeer! A harsh scraping noise from outside startled Toby out of his reverie, plunging his senses into ice-cold terror. Toby’s shallow breath shook hard in his lungs as he waited.
I never took Noah Zoro into the station after he told me his uncle had disappeared without so much as a missing persons report filed-this in itself was not the reason I brought in Baylee and Lowan but not him. I didn’t bring Noah in because he revealed himself as a key witness for several of the ongoing investigations. He would only talk to me if I could protect him.
First, we went to Indigo Beach, where he’d been living alone since May of 2022-surviving off of the profits from his break-ins. Baylee Knight and Lowan Percetti never roped him into stealing anything – it was always the other way around. Apparently he’d told Knight and Percetti that Emma Sheffer’s house was the score of a lifetime.
“The score of a lifetime?” I interrupted him. “Who even talks like that?”
Noah scowled. “I do! Now listen -.”
“How old are you anyway?” I wondered out loud.
Ignoring me, Noah cast his tale. “Uncle Redd had always been nervous about this place. We didn’t have money, so there wasn’t much choice in that. But he hated the smell of the Atlantic waters, and the noise of seagulls screaming. Most of all, he didn’t like being so close to her.”
“Who?” I asked as he pointed towards a cliff built up from the sand.
Noah hesitated, and I sensed he was going to reveal a mind-blowing truth. Or, more likely, an obvious lie.
Demelza Robbins? My mind echoed the name, unsure that we were indeed talking about the overpriced purse designer. People in this town thinks she eats babies and communes with the Devil. However, I didn’t live near them. In my opinion witches were either Wiccans or trick-or-treaters in costumes. Anything else sounded completely absurd to my ears.
“Okay,” I said finally. “We’re going to the precint.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Noah snapped. “Demelza did something to my uncle! I saw it!”
Noah fell silent. He still didn’t trust me, and I didn’t have time for this.
He glared. “Don’t ‘sorry kid’ – you’re what? Ten years older than me?”
Then he was about twelve years old. I made a mental note – he looked much younger than that.
“You have an uncle,” I tried. “How about an aunt?”
He shook his head. “Aunt Nelly left awhile back to look for Uncle Redd, and she’s still gone.”
I hesitated. “Do you think Demelza Robbins did something to her too?”
“Maybe. I don’t know yet.” He seemed so downcast, and I couldn’t blame him at all.
“Alright, I’ll look into it – if you agree to tell me your real name. Can’t do much without it.”
The kid’s jaw hit the ground. “How did you know?”
I snorted. “One Piece fan. “Roronoa Zoro is the best, hands down. So, am I talking to your neighbor or not?”
The kid raised his eyebrows. “You’re not nervous?”
“I don’t believe in witches.”
“Do you believe in serial killers?”
“I believe in guns,” I assured him.
He looked uncertain. Then, “My name is Toby Holloway.”
I nodded my appreciation. “Thanks Toby. Don’t leave town.”
As I went to the door, I could have sworn he rolled his eyes.
I really should’ve left it alone, but I’ll admit that I was curious. So then. Off I went to see the Dark Artist of Pensacola.
Toby had been waiting on Larento’s return ever since. Now he feared the worst.
Fear. It was just an illusion to protect oneself from danger. Nothing shameful about it, nor anything necessary for this moment in time.
Darkness. Scratches behind the walls. Tall, shadowy figures in the moonlight.
They wouldn’t hurt him. They couldn’t hurt him.
But Toby was terrified of the stillness and silence.
Demelza probably preferred to advance when everything else was stopped. It made her victims’ screams louder for her to enjoy.
Toby wondered if Larento had screamed in the end.
A crisp ocean breeze blew into his little home suddenly, blasting his bedroom window off its hinges. The wait was over.
Toby, came a soft whisper. Toby. Come home with me.
Toby, it said again. Don’t you want to know about your detective friend? I can show you.
“No,” Toby whispered again, all of his pleading useless.
The room brightened, and Toby blinked at the scene. Larento was knocking on the crest-white painted front door to Demelza’s beach house.
A statuesque figure with bouncy ebony tresses opened it.
Larento immediately devolved into a giddy high school senior. Clearly he’d been expecting Scary Granny Witch Demelza.
Young, hot, fashion icon witch Demelza was going to eat him up.
“Ah, hello?” Larento coughed. “Demelza Robbins?”
For a moment, Toby saw Demelza’s eyes narrow as they did at the sight of any man, and then they lifted in a politely puzzled expression.
“Yes?” she replied, a slight pitch in her voice hinting at a faded British accent.
“Hi, I’m Detective Larento with the Pensacola P.D.”
Toby groaned nervously at the transparent question mark Larento had left at the end of his introduction. Apparently Demelza’s cheerleader body was costing him his certainty that he was a cop.
“Did you find him? My lost dog, I mean?”
Larento hesitated. “Ma’am, I’m sorry about your dog, but I’m here on another matter.”
Her face fell with a practiced grace. “Oh. What can I do for you then, Detective?”
Larento hesitated, and Toby knew he was the one who was lost. The poor sap must have been a virgin.
“Is it all right if I come in?”
Demelza flicked her long eyelashes in wide-eyed surprise. “Of course.”
NO! Toby’s heart sped into a frenzy.
Once Larento and Demelza were settled at the kitchen table with a teapot in the middle, Demelza took full charge of the conversation.
“This is a special leaf blend of mine,” she gestured at the teapot. “But you don’t need to drink it. I know there are words whispered about me around town.”
Larento coughed again, and Demelza offered him a cup.
Then the idiot drank the tea.
“How does that make you feel?” he asked, now a therapist rather than a police officer.
Demelza shrugged. “Makes perfect sense. I cross the pond and wind up in a fairly superstitious part of the country. But I don’t make my livelihood selling fortunes and reading palms, Mr. Larento.”
Larento ignored the drop of his title and surmised, “You make purses.”
Demelza laughed, and it echoed through Toby’s veins as he watched the scene play out.
She sobered. “I hope to branch out and create more than handbags eventually. But yes.”
“It’s an impressive career.”
“I owe it all to the people who helped me get this far. But you didn’t come out here to discuss fashion accessories.”
“No, in fact, I came to ask you about a man named Redd Rivers.”
Demelza’s dark brown eyes flashed cold for a moment. Larento must have seen it, because he continued, “His disappearance and the subsequent vanishing of his wife left their nephew without a guardian. I need to find them before he’s placed in the foster system.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” she murmured. “Why come to me about this?”
“Because, according to Toby Holloway, you were the last person Rivers saw before dropping off the face of the world.”
“Hmm.” Demelza seemed nonplussed. “Fair enough.”
“Do you have any idea where he went?”
Demelza smiled. Only smiled. “Poor Toby,” she said at last. “He has quite an imagination, doesn’t he? Did he tell you the locals’ running theory that I turn those who cross me into handbags?”
“Please answer the question, Ma’am.” When Demelza did not respond, Larento asked the most intelligent question used so far in this “interrogation.” “Did you…turn Redd Rivers into a bag, ma’am?”
Demelza grinned wide, and the basket containing all of Toby’s hopes fell to the wayside. “You’re cute. I think you should stay,” she cackled at him, the scene reverting back to Toby’s bedroom. Demelza’s cackling still reverberated from the walls.
“What did you do to him?”
For the first time tonight, Toby felt bold. For a brief thirty seconds, he’d felt like he could finally have an actual friend in Larento.
Toby whirled around to see Demelza standing at his door. She had a tartan handbag slung around her arm – the one that was left behind after she was finished enchanting his uncle. Toby gulped.
“Yeah. I’m guessing he just went home to binge One Piece. What about this report?”
“Oh that?” she waved a dismissive hand. “He knows what your fate was all along Toby. To be an orphan, abandoned and unloved. He could have fought for you, but he mailed off a half-baked apology and abandoned you instead.” Her eyes flashed in the dark. “Just like Nelly and Redd. Just like mommy and daddy. They all could have had a gift to cherish but they wasted it.”
Then it hit Toby, bringing a lightning sharp shock to his senses, making him sick to his stomach.
The real reason Demelza was ridding the people around him, for the purpose of her claim – the one thing Larento hadn’t been able to do anything about.
Demelza Robbins’s lost dog.
“Mistress,” he remembered, disbelieving.
Demelza’s smile returned, twisted in malicious amusement as Toby dropped to all fours.
“Let’s be a good boy and get going. I have a new bag to pick up for my collection.”
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