Lost and Found (Mysterious Tales from Fairy Falls, Book #1) by Sharon Ledwith

“This town sucks!”

“Now you listen here, young lady, your father entrusted me with you and I’m not going to let him down! Are you listening to me, Meagan? Meagan! Stop that damn texting and put your phone away this minute!”

Meagan Walsh cringed at her Aunt Izzy’s grating words, but she didn’t put her phone down. She was too busy texting her best friend Cassie back home in Happy Valley-Goose Bay about how stupid she’d been for getting caught breaking into Aunt Izzy’s superintendent’s car’s glove compartment last night to steal a pack of smokes. There. Done. Send. The shiny, red cell phone had been a gift from her father—including the costly monthly fees—so that she could call him any time, day or night. Meagan barely called him, though. She’d rather chew raw whale blubber.

It had been two weeks since her father had shipped her to Fairy Falls—a small, boring, northern tourist town—just because he wanted to keep her out of trouble and provide a better education. So without much of a warning, Meagan was flown hundreds of miles to an aunt she’d only met a handful of times. Now here she sat, in her aunt’s apartment building lobby on a warm, sunny afternoon in June, waiting for Aunt Izzy’s wrath. The brown faux-leather chair Meagan was planted on stuck to her jeans in all the wrong places, so she wiggled from side to side in an attempt to get comfortable. When that didn’t work, she stared at her bejeweled sandals resting on the brown tile floor to avoid her aunt’s caustic stare.

“Well? Don’t you have anything to say to me, Meagan? It took a great deal of groveling to my super, Mrs. Arbuckle, for her not to call the police.”

Startled, Meagan looked up. She brushed her raven bangs away from her blue eyes and tucked the red phone in her back jean pocket. Her slender nose flared. “Eww. Is that dog crap I smell?”

Aunt Izzy stiffened. She checked the green scrubs she wore, lifted one foot, and then the other. There it was. A clump of brown poop wedged in the bottom of her sneaker. Compliments of the Fairy Falls Animal Shelter, where Izzy Walsh worked scooping litter boxes, wiping dirty animal butts, and cleaning up after the messy dogs and cats for minimum wage.

“I was hoping for more of a ‘thank you’,” Aunt Izzy replied, placing a chubby, pale hand against the beige wall. She slipped her shoe off. “Oh, and a ‘please don’t tell dad’.”

Meagan zipped up her thin, purple hoody to conceal the pink T-shirt she wore underneath and shrugged. “Tell him. Maybe he’ll ship me to another relative in a less boring town.”

At first Aunt Izzy glared at her, and then her features softened. She hunkered down to face Meagan and rested a hand on one of her knees, but Meagan was too busy staring at the shoe with the poop on it. Was Aunt Izzy going to slap the side of her head with it? Or worse, rub it into her nose like a disobedient puppy? Meagan clenched her teeth.

“Meagan, dear, I know it’s been hard for you, especially with the loss of your mom in that terrible car accident.”

Meagan’s stomach tightened. Her mind replayed that night five years ago that had changed everything. It was the yearly award night at her grade school. Even as Meagan walked across the school’s stage to accept the Most Improved Student Award, she kept glancing at the empty seat next to her dad, wondering why her mom was so late. As soon as the ceremony finished, two constables with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were waiting outside the auditorium’s doors to escort Meagan and her dad to the office to let them know why mom never made it to Meagan’s special night. She swallowed hard, tasting sour bile. Tractor trailer. Cut a sharp corner. Mom never saw it. Sheared off the top of her car. Killed instantly.

Meagan lowered her head. Her bottom lip quivered. She shoved her hands into her hoody’s pockets and her right hand toyed with the nail clipper she’d used to break open the glove box.

Meagan raised her head and frowned at her Aunt. “Since you think I’ve been through enough, then why don’t you cut me some slack?”

Aunt Izzy sighed. “Meagan, I know you’re in a strange place with stranger people, and believe me, I’ve made tons of mistakes myself. Bad relationships. Bad habits. Bad choices.” She paused to lightly touch the long scar running down the left side of her face. “Look, your dad is giving us both a chance to start over, make things right. Only this time, I’m the teacher and you’re the student.”

Meagan inclined her head. “What do you mean?”

Aunt Izzy smiled, making her facial scar crinkle like a jack-o-lantern’s sardonic smile. Meagan pursed her lips. She had heard rumours about how her aunt had received that scar. A bar room brawl over a man. Thrown beer bottles. Blood spattered everywhere. Drugs had been a factor, too. After it was over, the other woman had needed over a hundred stitches—her aunt had gotten away with only fifty.

“I mean, I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I have. That’s why your dad sent you to live with me for a while. So you don’t walk in my shoes.”

Meagan glanced at the poop-encrusted sneaker. “I totally agree. I never want to walk in those shoes.”