Sand Witches in the Hamptons (9781101597385) Read Online Free PDF Page A

her IMs, and sent a short email. Y OU HAVE GONE BEYOND THE LINE. M Y PERSONAL LIFE IS PRIVATE. M Y ARTWORK IS LEGALLY PROTECTED. P LEASE REFRAIN FROM CONTACTING ME IN THE FUTURE.
    So there.
    Next I sent a message to Matt. I knew he’d still be at the vet clinic, so I didn’t want to call or text his cell. Besides, I didn’t want to hear him make some lame excuse for not coming into the city this weekend again. Cat scratch fever, my ass. If he could claim that, I could say I had the desert flu. And too much work.
    So there.
    What I had was a rash I didn’t want anyone to see. I signed off with love and misses, which were true.
    No sooner had I sent off the email to Matt than the new message dinger dang. B ITCH. I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS. Y OU’LL BE SORRY.
    I already was.

C HAPTER F OUR
    I had a rash and a rabid reader. Hysteria hadn’t set in yet, but panic was close, even with the laptop shut down. I checked the door locks, again, put some cortisone on my lip and hand, left over from when I had chiggers. The stuff hadn’t worked then, but I had nothing to lose now. I made hot chocolate and found the Oreos I’d been saving for a rainy day. Fear counted, didn’t it?
    I sat at my drawing table, but no ideas came except Deni creeping up the three flights of stairs to my apartment, next to a redheaded, freckled guy with a shillelagh and a good voice. Irrational, but better than imagining her with a gun in her hand. Or a knife or a baseball bat or—
    No, there was work to be done, hard work I’d been struggling with for days. Work could get my mind off the rest. I hoped.
    More frustration. The professor whose book I was under contract to illustrate described his magical creatures for me to paint, but how do you draw beings who were more spirit than solid? Hard enough to get the colors right when I knew they were phosphorescent, scintillating, swirling rainbows that changed continuously. I’d been working with glitter pens and sparkle dust, even gold leaf, mixing styles to fit my usual cartoon efforts. Despite the hard work, I’d been having a wonderful time experimenting with watercolors, gouaches, and metallic paints on the usual fairies, elves, piskies, and selkies. The latest phantasms stumped me.
    I reread Dr. Harmon’s notes about the Andanstans. Their actions were amusing, how the tiny hominids kept stealing from each other, stealthily absconding with their sworn enemies’ hoards of treasures, only to have the booty stolen back the next dark night or high tide. I knew what they
did
, how they used magnetics, telekinetics, and the strength of their numbers to shift whole piles of loot. I did not know how they looked. Jimmie Harmon was a dear man, the grandfather I wish I had, but his memories of what he’d written so many years ago had faded. If I asked too many times, in person or on the phone, his voice wavered and his eyes moistened. He did not need any more reminders of what had slipped away from him.
    No way could I hassle the true gentleman who’d put his own life on the line to save hundreds of people on a sinking ship. He did it again, to save Paumanok Harbor.
    Maybe I could paint the Andanstans as sentient water, gathering molecules at will to form arms and legs and—that stank. And they looked like wee leprechauns. Yeck. For sure Jimmie would have remembered if they were green. I tore the page off my sketch pad and turned the computer back on. I had to check on desert fever, didn’t I? And cat scratch fever too, while I was at it.
    Both of them really did exist. The health info site said cat scratch fever, Bartonella, was a bacterial infection caused by contact with an infected cat, which made sense in Matt’s case. Vets must get scratched all the time. Symptoms were blisters at the site, fever, swelling of lymph nodes, fatigue, and malaise. No wonder he didn’t want to schlep into Manhattan.
    I felt terrible for doubting him. I