Page 37 of Hexes and Hiccups
And, in his other hand, sat a shimmering and pulsating red potion. Daisy could recognize it from smell alone: pungent cherries, a roasting fire. Perhaps it might’ve been a pleasant smell, but Daisy could only wince at the sight of it. The potion was deadly and dangerous, capable of making a crater so large, it could collapse the entire building.
Daisy stared at Wesley until his eyes snapped up towards her.
Uh-oh.
17
Daisy
“W-What are you two doing here?” Wesley’s heavy, cracking voice rang through the office. He waggled the book in the air, the potion not entirely secured in his hands whatsoever. He jerked it forward, not even meaning to, earning a resounding scream out of Sasha, the medical examiner. “Q-Quiet!I-I can hardly think! I-I need to think!”
Daisy glanced over at Tessa, who carried the same worried expression as her. If there was one thing that was for certain, it was that Wesley was under an immense amount of mental stress, and the last thing they needed was for him to go off like a bomb. The power he held in one hand was tremendous, something that would be foolish to ignore. To press too far could result in all of them suffering at his reckless hands. Daisy breathed in deep, holding out her hands for the old man to see as she inched further into the room.
“Mr. Sharp,” Daisy said in the calmest voice she could muster. “You remember me, don’t you?”
He watched her with wide eyes. “D-Daisy Fields. Lotta’s granddaughter.”
“That’s right, Mr. Sharp!” Daisy spread a placid smile across her face. “Lotta’s granddaughter. You know me. You knowus,don’t you?”
Tessa was beginning to slowly walk closer to Sasha, intent on getting the innocent examiner away from the danger as soon as she could.
But then Wesley jerked about, the potion wobbling and almost spilling out the lip of the bottle. The movement forced them to freeze. Even the slightest drop could have catastrophic ramifications, something they wouldn’t be able to prevent, especially if Sasha was right in the crossfire.
“E-Everything’s out of control,” he murmured, his lower lip trembling. “It’s too out of control!” Wesley rested the Book of Gossip against his forehead. “Too out of control.”
Daisy pressed her lips together. They needed to get Sasha away from him as soon as possible. Whether or not Wesley was the culprit remained to be seen, but as far as Daisy was concerned, she was in a state of irreversible danger if they didn’t act soon. He was obviously on the edge of spiraling down a hole they wouldn’t be able to pull him out of. Daisy took small steps closer to him. Somewhere within her satchel, she carried a potion capable of stopping him without harm. All she needed was to get close enough, to have the chance, to have the right path forward.
“Tell me, Wesley,” Daisy said, catching his attention.
His eyes snapped over to her, wide and unsure.
“Go on,” she whispered, giving him a smile. “Tell me what has gone out of control. We can fix it, Wesley.”
“Fix it?”
“If you let me,” she continued. “Tell me what’s out of control.”
Wesley’s eyes were stuck on her, exactly what she was aiming for. On the other side of the room, Tessa inched through theshadows, growing closer and closer to Sasha without daring to make a sound.
“It’s thatboy,” he spat. “That dreadful boy.”
Daisy’s eyes narrowed. “What boy, Wesley?”
“Tyler Stevens!” Wesley shook his head so hard that the potion sloshed again, pulling a simultaneous flinch out of the three women in the room. “That damned boy and the damned useless people at Town Hall! I told them, I did! I told them every day – he was looking where he shouldn’t! I told them! I warned them he was causing trouble!”
Daisy gulped down her nerves as she pressed forward. Her eyes glanced towards the Book of Gossip. “Where did you get that, Wesley?” Perhaps pulling the conversation away from someone he clearly got riled up from might help Tessa get closer. “That book… I don’t think it belongs to you, does it?”
“This?” Wesley waved it around before dropping it against the floor with a loudthud.“A distraction,” he whispered. “The scapegoat. The rumors…the gossip…the writing on the wall…”
Daisy shook her head, unable to understand his incoherent rambling. “A distraction, Wesley? You have been writing rumors around town?”
“No,” he snapped. “Riven wrote the rumors!”
“Riven is petrified.”
Wesley’s face warped into an unpleasant smirk, his thick brow arched and menacing. For the first time, Daisy began to see the old man in a different light, one that was deceitful and outrightly dangerous.
“Good work, was it?” He let out a sharp laugh. “Back in my day, petrification was an outlawed practice. Did you learn that, Ms. Fields? When they made you a Coven Inquisitor?”
