Fantastical Island (Old School Book 2) Read online

  Fantastical Island

  Jenny Schwartz

  Someone is hunting the fantastical creatures of Catalina Island.

  When a magical amulet gives marine biologist Naomi Twain the power to see through glamours it plunges her into a world of danger and intrigue. Fantastical creatures are everywhere, but hidden, on Catalina Island—and someone is hunting them, putting at risk a unique, magical ecosystem.

  Corey Madrigal is bathing a behemi, a flying miniature pig, when Naomi crashes into his life. With a natural talent for seeing through glamours, he feels a responsibility to the creatures of his island home, creatures who were the friends of his childhood. Now, he’s a Hollywood special effects artist, and he’s going to be an amazing ally for Naomi in her quest to capture the hunters of the island’s fantastical creatures.

  But the hunters have their own agenda.

  And then, there’s the ghost…

  Intense danger, wild storms, and passionate loyalties put to the test. Fantastical Island is a stand-alone adventure in the Old School series.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Note From The Author

  Chapter 1

  Naomi Twain’s hands shook as she opened the containment box. Around her, the boarding house was quiet. Everyone had scattered to their Sunday activities. The landlady was at a church social. The other five residents had hospitality jobs and were at work as waiters and kitchen staff. Naomi’s small room held a narrow bed with a clean navy-blue quilt, a desk, a chair and a large oak wardrobe that leaned toward the door. Or rather, the floor slanted and the wardrobe leaned with it.

  The containment box was roughly made of pine with brass hinges and a brass clasp. It was the sort of cheap object that people bought in a craft shop to bring home and decorate. But this box was plain, untouched. Inside, ordinary bubble wrap protected the contents.

  Naomi’s breathing went shallow.

  When you grow up without magic, but surrounded by people who can use it, finally acquiring a little magic of your own is a dizzying moment.

  She sat cross-legged on the floor with the box in front of her and drew out the contents. The bubble wrap fell away and her fingers closed around a silver amulet. She was barely conscious of standing, moving to the bed and sitting with the box abandoned at her feet.

  The amulet was smooth and cool. It had the form of an owl with big eyes and stylized wings. It was closer to a flat two dimensional ornament than to a real bird. But the fact that it was an owl, Naomi took as a good omen.

  She traced the markings on it, the hint of feathers and its predatory beak, and she listened.

  Her blood pulsed in her ears, a heavy thud-thud-thud that proclaimed her excitement but wouldn’t have masked other noises. The boarding house remained silent.

  “It’s okay.” Although whether she whispered to herself or to the owl she didn’t know. Because of the cloak and dagger way the amulet had been delivered to her she’d waited till the boarding house was empty to open the containment box.

  Now, there were no wards between the amulet and the world. She relied on the high level of ambient magic on Catalina Island to prevent anyone detecting it.

  She didn’t have the full story of how her friend Sadie had found the amulet, but she’d been told enough to know that it had involved deadly danger.

  “I won’t lose it,” she promised.

  The amulet warmed with her body heat. She relaxed her tight grip on the owl and considered the chain it was fixed to. The clasp was closed, but someone had snapped the chain itself and the two broken ends dangled uselessly.

  She considered joining the sundered links with thread, but that didn’t feel secure enough. Until she could have the silver chain repaired, she couldn’t wear the amulet. She would have to keep it in a pocket and be very, very careful she didn’t lose it.

  Winding the broken chain around the amulet, she stood to tuck it into her jeans pocket, before smoothing her cherry-red sweater over it. The slim-fitting sweater would help to keep the amulet secure. Quickly, she scooped up the containment box and snapped it shut.

  The movement left her facing the window.

  “No way!” She fumbled the containment box onto the desk, pushing aside books and her phone, uncaring if anything fell. Then she dragged the white lace curtain out of the way and leaned both hands on the cold glass, hardly daring to believe her eyes.

  The boarding house, being one of Avalon’s cheaper accommodation options, lacked a view of the harbor. Naomi’s window looked inland, over rooftops, to the hills. Usually, it was a boring view.

  People often said, “when pigs fly”, to mean never, absolutely not, impossible.

  Naomi was looking at the impossible.

  “A behemi,” she breathed. The amulet in her pocket worked—and what a way to prove itself!

  The behemi resembled a miniature pot-bellied pig with black and white piebald markings and large white wings. It flew around the chimney of a house set one street back from the boarding house, on the edge of open land. The house’s distinctive design had caught her eye when she moved in a month ago, but she’d been too busy with her research and her disturbing suspicions to waste time exploring the neighborhood.

  “A behemi.” Giddy excitement welled up, along with overwhelming relief. Maybe her suspicions were wrong. If there was a behemi here in the town of Avalon, maybe Catalina Island didn’t have a life-altering problem, but was simply good at keeping its secrets.

  Only now—her hand dived into her pocket—she had the amulet, and the island’s secrets were hers to discover. Starting with the behemi!

  She grabbed her key and phone, and ran down the stairs. The worn carpet on the stairs muffled her footsteps even if there was no one to hear them. She leapt the last three steps to skid across the tiled entry and catch her balance with two hands against the front door.

  Note to self. A broken leg will make behemi stalking difficult.

  Her sensible self wasn’t listening. Barely waiting for the deadlock on the front door to click closed behind her, she ran uphill. There was no sidewalk on the narrow road, but fortunately there wasn’t any traffic either.

  The houses were piled in higgledy-piggledy, built in the 1950s and showing their age. They bulged out and up with extensions added on over the years. Golf carts, the island’s primary form of transportation, squeezed into tiny spaces. At the corner, she forced herself to slow to a walk. A mad dash was not the appropriate tactic when stalking any creature, let alone a shy fantastical one. She scanned the sky, but couldn’t see the behemi. She couldn’t see the house it had been flying over, either, but she knew where it was.

  Jacaranda trees lined the wider street, their branches bare. They wouldn’t flower till late spring. For now, their latticework of limbs allowed her to see through them to the sky.

  She touched the amulet.

  Still no behemi.

  She hurried on till she glimpsed the rooftop of the house the behemi had been circling. There was a flash of white wings and a glimpse of the attached body diving down.

  Naomi broke into a jog. She reached the house and stopped. She was out of breath, more from excitement than the small burst of exercise. The house was white with a green roof and a wrap-around veranda on both levels. It sat in a yard that was large for the town of Avalon. An old-fashioned garden, one with roses, hibiscus an
d a frangipani tree, gave the house some privacy from the street. What lawn existed was roughly cut. A faded, green concrete path led straight to the house’s front steps. The same colored concrete formed a driveway that carried on past the house.

  A faint squeal drifted on the wind. It sounded as if it came from the backyard.

  Naomi shoved the amulet deeper into her jeans pocket and walked quickly down the driveway. There was no golf cart in it, so hopefully no one was home, and even if someone was—she crossed her fingers for luck—maybe they wouldn’t look out a window and see her.

  The thick strap-like leaves of agapanthus lined the edge of the driveway against the house. It was a shame the owners hadn’t planted something taller, something she could hide behind.

  She should have worn clothing more discreet than a bright red sweater, but then, she hadn’t anticipated spending Sunday trespassing.

  But a behemi! She couldn’t miss the chance to observe one up close.

  She reached the end of the house. Directly in front of her was an old, double-door garage painted green and white. A statue of a garden gnome propped open the garage’s side door. In front of that was a large, rectangular area that stretched from the garage to the back of the house and wide to the side fence. Its grass was as roughly cut as the front lawn and in the center of it stood a broad-shouldered man, bent over a portable tin bath tub.

  Naomi gripped the corner post of the veranda. The post was too skinny to hide behind, but she tried.

  Fortunately, the man had his back to her. His light gray t-shirt was dark where water had splashed him, and muscles shifted and rippled as he struggled with something in the tub. Suds slid over the rim and onto the lawn.

  The “something” kicked the tin tub with a sharp, desperate scrabble, echoed by a high, thin squealing sound.

  “This is your fault, Cliff.” The man had a low, calm voice. He sounded determined. “You chose to roll in that dead fish. You can’t come in the house till you’re clean.”

  Another squeal answered him. The scrabbling, kicking drumbeat intensified, and the black and white behemi she’d seen circling the house scrambled out of the tub and made a dash for freedom—straight toward Naomi.

  The man turned, saw her, and his eyes widened in shock. They were the crystal clear green of peridot, unique and arresting. Otherwise, he looked ordinary. His face was square with a wide nose and wide-spaced eyes. His dark brown hair was short. His mouth was firm-lipped and well-cut.

  Naomi only had an instant to take it all in, before instinct had her reacting. As the behemi ran squealing toward her, its wings too wet to fly, she tackled it to the ground. The behemi smelled of rotting fish and pet shampoo, and it was slippery. She understood how the man had lost hold of it.

  “I’ve got him.” He crouched beside her and his large hands grasped the behemi behind its front legs. That was probably the best, or only way, to hold the rotund, slippery beast.

  Well and truly caught, the behemi ceased squealing and snuffled the man’s neck in a friendly fashion.

  The man didn’t appear to notice. His frown and attention were all for Naomi.

  She stood up slowly, self-consciously aware of how wet—and smelly—her sweater now was, but also trying to get a feel for the situation. The man bathing the behemi had to know it was a behemi. Glamours worked to hide fantastical creatures, but she’d never heard of a glamour that survived the truth of touching a creature. The man had to know that his miniature pig had wings.

  So his question would be, had she noticed the behemi’s wings when she tackled it? Should she tell the truth or should she run? Lying wasn’t an option. She hated lies.

  “There’s a bucket by the back door,” he said unexpectedly. “It has a melon rinds in it. Can you bring it here, please? I’m going to have to bribe Cliff to stay in the tub.”

  Bemused, she followed his instructions.

  The man had Cliff back in the tub and was scrubbing the behemi when Naomi returned with the melon rinds. “Do you mind feeding him? You don’t seem scared of pigs.”

  Ah, so the stranger was going to try the old hide-in-plain-sight strategy. Nothing to see here. Just a man scrubbing a pig. She could go along with that. She fed the behemi a piece of melon rind and its snuffly crunching became a backdrop to their conversation. “I worked at a vet clinic while studying at university. I’m afraid I acted on instinct when—is it Cliff?” The stranger nodded, his hands moving briskly, cleaning the creature. “When Cliff ran toward me.”

  “I’m glad you did. Cliff’s not a fan of bath-time.”

  The behemi squealed.

  Naomi fed him a second piece of rind.

  “Although I’m curious how you came to be here?” The man paused in scrubbing the behemi to glance at her. Why was she trespassing in his backyard, he meant

  “I…um.” Her thoughts scattered, stampeding in all directions as she noted the soap bubble stuck to his chin. He wasn’t much older than her; probably not yet thirty. The fact that she found him attractive—those green eyes!—made everything worse. She should have done some reconnaissance before venturing down the driveway. Even with the temptation of the behemi’s presence, at a minimum, she should have found out who lived here. “Your house is unusual. I was curious.” Both were true statements, although she’d been more curious about the behemi than the house.

  He washed the behemi’s wings while she, embarrassed, looked everywhere but at him.

  Sneaky! She was impressed. If she hadn’t peeped at him, he’d have used her embarrassment to wash the behemi’s impossible wings while she wasn’t looking.

  Okay. Think! If he was trying to hide the behemi’s wings from her, he might believe that the behemi’s glamour had worked on her and that she thought Cliff was an ordinary pig, even if he knew better.

  Which raised an interesting question. How did the man see through the behemi’s glamour? She had the amulet. Did he have one or was he a wizard?

  “I’m Naomi Twain.” She fed Cliff a third piece of rind and held out her empty hand to the stranger, inviting him to introduce himself.

  “Corey Madrigal.” His handclasp was firm despite being slippery with pet shampoo. The soap bubble clinging to his chin popped. “Can you keep Cliff occupied with the melon rinds?”

  She grinned at the behemi’s blissful expression as it chewed the latest rind. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

  “Great.” He lifted the behemi out of the tub, then lifted the tub and poured the water down an outside drain near the garage.

  And yes, Naomi was distracted enough to watch how his muscles moved beneath the wet t-shirt and jeans. She glanced away as he returned.

  His actions were swift and efficient as he set up the tub again and filled it with water from a hose and buckets of water that had been lined up along the garage.

  “Hot water,” he explained as he tipped them into the tub. He was very organized.

  “Obviously not your first time bathing a b-uh, a pig.” Shivers. She’d almost said behemi.

  And judging by the narrowing of his green eyes, Corey had noticed. He picked up Cliff and put the behemi in the tub, rinsing the animal clean. “Can you grab the towel on the line, please?”

  An old-fashioned—and plain old—clothesline was strung along the side of the yard, ending near a lemon tree that gifted the sweet scent of its blossoms to the midday air. A faded and fraying blue towel was slung across it. Naomi grabbed the towel and brought it back to the tub.

  Corey held Cliff in place with one hand and held out the other for the towel.

  Naomi refused. “It’ll be easier if you pass me Cliff.”

  “He’s too heavy for you.”

  The behemi was well-fed.

  But Corey didn’t insist on the towel. Instead, he lifted Cliff out of the tub a final time and put the behemi down on a sunny patch of lawn.

  Naomi knelt and began briskly drying off the animal. Cliff snuffled and grunted, obviously enjoying the attention now that water was
no longer involved. He really was cute and his wings—

  She looked up at Corey, suddenly aware that he’d given her the chance to feel through the behemi’s glamour and touch Cliff’s wings. And now he knew that Cliff’s identity as a behemi wasn’t a surprise to her. She hadn’t exclaimed when her fingers touched the wings.

  “That’s how you came to be here.” Corey stood squarely, his t-shirt and jeans drenched and clinging to him. The sun highlighted a scattering of freckles over his nose and broad cheekbones. “You saw Cliff flying around, playing the idiot, and you followed him, here.”

  “Yes.” The towel was soaked. She stroked one of Cliff’s stiff flight feathers a final time, awed to have had this experience of touching a rare behemi, then released him. The little flying pig ran to the bucket of melon rinds, stole one and lay down to crunch it. His clean fur and feathers gleamed.

  “It’s been a while since anyone saw any of the creatures that visit, here.” Corey went to rub his forehead and halted, his nose wrinkling. “Ugh. I need to tidy up, shower and change.”

  Her sweater was just as wet and smelly, but that didn’t matter to her. Not now. “You said ‘creatures’, plural. Do you have more behemis?”

  “No.” He laughed. “One’s enough. I found Cliff at the bottom of a landslip when he was a baby. He had a broken leg, some cuts and bruises.” Corey tipped the water from the tub down the outside drain. “I fixed him up, fed him, and he hangs around. I didn’t intend to make a pet of him, but he prefers the comforts of domesticity to foraging for himself. Smart pig.”

  “Did you find him on the island? Are there more behemis?” She heard the intensity in her tone, but it was too late to dial it down.

  Corey left the tub upside down on the lawn to dry and casually threw the old, wet towel over it. He considered her thoughtfully. “People who see a behemi, they’re amused, delighted. You were that, but there’s something more. Are you a visitor to the island?”

  She’d given him her name. He could find out who she was, so hesitating was silly. She’d trusted him on instinct. Nonetheless, there was far more involved here than her reputation, which meant she really needed to know more about him before their discussion progressed.