It’s all fun and games until something blows up.
Thanks to the recent explosion in Pinyin Bay, most of its residents got out while the getting was good. Not Dixon Penn. He grew up there, and from the power plant to the strip malls, the city is full of fond memories. But if the mysterious corporation that bought up the shoreline doesn’t stop drilling, memories may soon be all that remain.
Yuri Volnikov is finally fitting in. He crossed an ocean to find a loving home with Dixon. Now, that home is threatened. And he won’t give it up without a fight.
The drilling has attracted plenty of attention. While a harebrained reporter covers the scene, a traveling geologist shows up who might shed some light on the situation. He’ll need all the light he can get, since he can hardly see three feet in front of his own face.
Whoever is digging up the shore, they’re using Spellcraft to exploit every possible loophole so no one can put a stop to their operations. Can Dixon and Yuri defuse the Craftings before Pinyin Bay goes up in smoke?
I want to start by saying there has yet to be a cover in The ABCs of Spellcraft series that isn't brilliant and that Dixon and Yuri don't look Yummy in but there is something about What the Frack? that has that little something extra. Is it the hardhats to give the men that hard-at-work look? Is it Dixon in flannel and bibs to give him a rugged edge? Is it Yuri with the sledgehammer in his hand teetering between work and rest? Or is it that slight tip-of-the-hat that gives them a gentlemen yet blue collar look? I don't think I can narrow in on any one thing, it really captures the characters and gives you an inkling into what their latest "case" will entail. Then of course there is the colors, the purplish, bluish, aquaish blend that draws your attention and an almost graphic novel artistry that tells you no matter how much drama they face, Jordan Castillo Price hasn't lost the comedic slice that help get Dixon and Yuri in AND out of trouble.
And who says a cover is just a cover?😉
So let's get to What the Frack? This is the finale of the second story arc in ABCs of Spellcraft, Dixon and Yuri continue to grow and strengthen their relationship. We get to see some of the ins and outs of Pinyin Bay, and though it may not be New York City, Atlanta, or Chicago in the hustle and bustle part of activity, it's no sleepy little burg either. So as the title suggests, the guys are faced with mining in Pinyin Bay and knowing the way these two get themselves into trouble it won't be welcomed by everyone.
What could go wrong? More like what won't go wrong?😉😉
I don't want to give anything away so I'll end it there and just add that if you are already a reader of JCP's newest series then you know it'll be brilliant, if you have yet to experience The ABCs of Spellcraft, now is the perfect time as the second story arc is finished and we await a new set of adventures for our lads. This is a series that must be read in order but you won't regret it. The blending of magic, mystery, romance, mayhem, and humor is enough to tick all my sub-genre boxes making What the Frack? and The ABCs of Spellcraft as a whole a perfect choice no matter what kind of mood I'm in.
RATING:
1
DIXON
At the cusp of summer, Pinyin Bay should have been packed to the gills with people. Once the north end of the beach blew up, however, it was practically a ghost town. The snowbirds who summered here fled back to Florida. Year-round residents with relatives nearby decided it was a great time to visit family. And a lot of folks just loaded their valuables into their cars, picked a direction, and drove.
It was the day after the explosion shook the Boardwalk. Up in the attic Yuri and I called home, I was batting some pesky cobwebs off the ceiling joists— with our cockatoo, Meringue, supervising loudly from above— when my mom texted, COME DOWNSTAIRS. I’ve shown her how to release the caps-lock I don’t know how many times. Clearly, her phone was defective.
My father drops by all the time, but Mom says she’s not big on “visiting” anybody but the bakery. I peeked out the louvered window and saw Dad parked out front in the Monte Carlo, with Mom standing on the sidewalk, glaring at her phone. On my way, I texted back, before she climbed any more stairs than she needed to and started her day on a less-than-chipper note.
I greeted her with a hug and a kiss and another big hug. She’s especially fun to hug because she’s so squishy, though I no longer came right out and said so like I did when I was little. “Did you want to see some photos of our latest project?” I asked. “That lighting fixture we found out behind the store looks pretty spiffy in our reading nook. Not that we do any reading there— the folding chair isn’t exactly the type you’d want to sit in. But there’s nothing to perch on nearby and Meringue hasn’t pooped on it.” Yet. Though now that there was a convenient light fixture right above it….
Mom looked me up and down, then spoke as if we were having an entirely different conversation. “You know we have plenty of room, for you and Yuri both.”
“The car looks pretty full to me. Great packing job, by the way.”
“Not in the car. In the motel. Your father Crafted for them when they had that huge bedbug scare a few years back— apparently some folks can’t tell a carpet beetle from a bedbug— and they upgraded us to a suite free of charge.”
“That’s awfully generous of you guys—”
“A suite.”
“— but Yuri and I have talked about it, and we think it’s important to stay.” After all, drilling was currently banned in Pinyin Bay, so how dangerous could it be?
“Those out-of-own people are working hard to get the drilling ban lifted.” Mom said the word people as if it meant something offensive. “They have lawyers. Fancy lawyers.”
All the more reason to stay and make sure the city council of Pinyin Bay didn’t cave in to the pressure, what with Mayor Dunce being the first one to skip town. But Yuri, as a freelance Seer, had way more latitude than the Seers affiliated with specific shops, so if any Seens needed painting on the spot, he could paint them. And if we discovered any Spellcraft to be undone, I was the best guy for the job. Plus, Sabina had an irrational aversion to motel rooms. We didn’t want her to get lonely while Uncle Fonzo was off on a romantic getaway with his current lady friend.
“It’ll be fine,” I told my mother. “We’re not even that close to the shore. In fact, we only lost one windowpane to the last blowup.”
“I don’t like it, Dixon. You know who shut their doors? Pack in the Day. And they’ll work through anything. Even dumpster fires.”
The shipping shop at the end of the strip mall Practical Penn called home was nothing if not persistent. “They probably needed to recoup all the business they lost when their stingy owner used all those torn-up magazines as packing material.” Girly magazines. And not the kind that gave advice on lipstick and dieting, either.
Mom was not to be deterred. “What if there’s another explosion?”
“Nobody’s drilling.”
“Maybe not right this very minute. But mark my words. You don’t just haul in all that heavy equipment for decoration. At some point, the drilling will start up again. And when you least expect it— kaboom!”
Mom has always had a good, strong pair of lungs, and at this point in the conversation, both Yuri and Sabina came outside to see what the enthusiastic chatter was all about. “Did something else blow up?” my cousin asked. “Why didn’t we hear it?”
My mother attempted to recruit Sabina. “Nothing’s blown up… yet. You kids need to get out of here while you can.”
“I’m not willing to drop everything and go live in a room where the bathroom drains are full of stranger-hair! Besides, we’re at least a mile from the beach.”
“And if your cousin decided to run toward the explosion? You wouldn’t just follow— you’d race him there. The two of you have always been more dangerous together than apart.”
Yuri settled a hand on my shoulder. “I will keep an eye on them.”
My mother looked only slightly mollified as Dad rolled down the window and called over, “Come on, Florica, we’d better check in before they give away our room!”
“It’s a suite,” Mom muttered, then subjected each one of us in turn to her trademark head-grab and forehead kiss. She climbed back in the car, Dad gave a jaunty honk, and the two of them drove off.
Once Yuri was done blushing, he said, “Your parents are right to be cautious. The only reason no one was killed in that explosion was that the cabins were empty. Now all the heavy machinery is so close to the Boardwalk, people are mistaking it for a new carnival ride. We should stay clear of the shore until all of those machines are—”
A van with a satellite mounted up top squealed around the corner. “Hey!” I said. “Is that Bayside News?”
As the news van hurtled down the street, Sabina and I both ran toward the pickup truck.
“C’mon, Yuri.” I popped open the locks and climbed in. “Whatever’s going on, we won’t want to miss it!”
Yuri paused.
“Hurry up!” Sabina punched me in the arm so hard I nearly dropped my keys. “We’re gonna lose ’em!”
And with a resigned shake of his head, Yuri shoved me over to the middle of the bench and got behind the wheel.
Yuri can be the textbook definition of stoic when he wants to be, and despite Sabina exclaiming at him all the way to the beach, he took no creative license with the speed limit. Good thing. As we took the final turn that headed toward the beach, we saw a halfhearted demonstration that was well attended… by Pinyin Bay’s “finest.”
The demonstration took place in the scrubby area between the Boardwalk and the dunes, in a crunchy asphalt lot where Streets and Sanitation stored its leftover road salt. The lot was also the only way onto this particular stretch of shoreline, one where the earthmovers and cranes and augers hulked on the beach. The area was crisscrossed with sawhorses and bright yellow caution tape, though given how many people were milling around behind the tape, it was no big challenge to simply walk around it.
Now the cops were all standing around the sawhorses, sweating in their navy blue polyester, eyeing both the activists and the construction crew. They looked like they were daydreaming about leaving town. All but one, who was standing over a guy picking torn up paper out of the grass.
“Oh no,” Sabina said. “It’s Officer Hotti.”
I gave the cop a more interested once-over. “I guess he’s pretty cute, if you go for the stalwart superhero type.”
“No, that’s his real name— Hotti! Remember the bachelorette party I crashed a few weeks ago?”
“The one with the chocolate fountain? How can I forget?”
“When he showed up to warn us to keep the noise down, we mistook him for a stripper and started stuffing dollar bills down his shirt.” Sabina glared in his general direction as he tore a citation off his pad and handed it to the paper-picker. “Served him right for parading around with the boombox. Anyway, he’s got zero sense of humor, and he’s a total stickler for the rules, and he absolutely lives to write tickets. Whatever you do, don’t land on his radar.”
Yuri eased the truck around to the other end of the lot, giving Officer Hotti a wide berth, and slipped into a spot on the other side of the news van. We spilled out of the truck. A few parking spots away, a tall, good-looking Handless man in a very official lab coat and a hardhat was passing out protest signs from the back of a van marked Nature World. He wore glasses— so, of course, he must be very smart.
“That guy looks important,” Sabina said.
Yuri scanned the crowd. “Agreed. And the reporters think so too— they are heading right for him.”
“Perfect!” I said. “Let’s listen in.”
We slipped into the crowd, and someone shoved a sign into my hand that read Kill the Drill. A rhyming slogan? I was warming up to the activists already. But despite the catchy rhyme, I passed the sign on to the next guy so I could edge my way closer to the reporter.
The Pinyin Bay Journal was a local institution primarily known for its fastidious reporting of high school basketball games— and the Pinyin East Pelicans hadn’t made state playoffs in over forty years. Still, Pinyin Bay was proud of its one and only newspaper, even if its main function was to line bird cages and help insomniacs fall asleep.
Pinyin Bay isn’t large enough to have its own TV station, but thanks to the internet, the PBJ recently decided to add live video coverage to its strange mishmash of online offerings and social media. Tiffany Tennant was the face of the Journal’s new spot, “Pinyin Minute”— a show that has not yet clocked in at less than a minute, even once, in the months it had been airing. If folks were being generous, they’d claim that Tiffany had a knack for asking the questions everyone else was wondering about. Otherwise, they’d say, “That woman sure ain’t the sharpest rock in the box.” I’m no journalist, but it seemed to me that the reporter was chosen primarily for her looks. Then again, she had very expensive shoes— and you don’t usually see a reporter’s shoes— so it was possible her wealthy parents had something to do with her big journalistic opportunity.
While Tiffany primped her hair and the lab-coated nature guy looked impatient, the cameraman framed the shot of a big drilling machine behind them. The cameraman counted down, and Tiffany brightened just as he got to number one. “In the aftermath of an alarming boom, while some residents flee, others have gathered here on the dunes of Pinyin Bay to protest the drilling some surmise is the cause of the explosion. I’m reporting live with traveling geologist Dr. Skip Stone. Dr. Stone, what can you tell us about the blast?”
“It’s not surmised that the drilling is the cause of the explosion. It’s… pretty clear.”
“What’s not clear is the reason for the drilling, as no representatives of the new property owners have stepped forward. Why would anyone drill into the shores of Pinyin Bay?”
“In all likelihood, Tiffany, they’re fracking.”
Tiffany did a startled double-take, and whispered, “Language, please! This is live.”
The geologist refrained from rolling his eyes. “Fracking is a process that fractures the bedrock so natural resources can be extracted. It’s very controversial.”
Tiffany looked like she didn’t quite believe him, but the cameraman was making a go-ahead motion for her to continue, so she blithely carried on. “How is it that drilling could cause an explosion?”
“Any number of ways. There could be a pyrophoric mineral that ignites from contact with the air. There could be an inflammable gas that was exposed by the drilling.”
“Don’t you mean flammable?” Tiffany asked.
“Er… no. The term is inflammable.”
“But wouldn’t inflammable be the opposite of flammable? And what are your qualifications, anyway?”
“I hold the Arena Rock Award for ground-breaking advancements in my field.”
“And how do we know that’s a real thing? You seem awfully young to be a doctor.”
Maybe Tiffany really did ask the key questions everyone was wondering. As the scientist rattled off a list of degrees he held and then explained the vocabulary in greater detail— an explanation that went in one ear and out the other— I scanned the horizon, spooked by the thought of flammably inflammable pockets of gas lurking around below us, just waiting for a wayward spark. But the earthmovers were at rest.
For now.
“This has been Tiffany Tennant reporting for Pinyin Bay Journal Online. And if you enjoyed this post, don’t forget to like, share— and visit our sponsor, Happy Jack’s, home of Pinyin Bay’s hottest griddle.”
“They’re closed,” someone called out. “Left town yesterday.”
Undeterred, Tiffany and the cameraman headed off to get a few more shots of the protesting crowd. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to see if the scientist might know more about who was blowing up the beach. “Excuse me, Dr. Stone? I was wondering if you could tell me more about who’s drilling?”
He swung around and regarded me with hands on hips, looking more like an actor playing a scientist at the box office than an actual, real-life person. “Who? More like a what. The Loveland Development Corp is just a bunch of nameless, faceless bureaucrats. You can’t reason with them. I’ve tried. The minute one backs down, another one steps up to take their place.”
I’ve never been one to take no for an answer... not until I’ve done a lot of pestering. “Then what can we do?”
“We need to convince the mayor to hold an emergency land use hearing and permanently revoke their drilling permit.”
Sabina was incensed. “Well? What’s Dunce waiting for— the whole darn city to blow up?”
The geologist shook his head sadly. “Apparently there was an unprecedented loophole in their current permit. The mayor can’t stop them until he finds out what they’re drilling for. They can keep on drilling until they locate something.”
If only we had a dollar for every unprecedented loophole we encountered. Yuri stroked his chin thoughtfully. “What is it they are searching for?”
Dr. Stone said, “That’s what I’m hoping to figure out before anyone gets hurt.”
I got up on my tiptoes, hitched myself up even higher on Yuri’s shoulder, and whispered in his ear, “Loophole?”
He nodded grimly. “Volshebstvo.”
And if we didn’t do something about it, who would? “Now what, Yuri? We can’t know for sure that the Crafting is in Pinyin Bay.”
Even if it was, the Loveland Corporation had bought so many properties, the sheer number of places they might have stashed a small slip of paper was beyond daunting. And while Yuri and I prided ourselves on spotting Craftings in the wild, that didn’t mean we could do it from a mile away.
It was overwhelming. Maybe Mom had been right, and the smart thing to do was pack everyone up and head out of town until the dust settled.
I was about to float the idea past Yuri— just in case he wanted to get out while the getting was good and he was only sticking around to humor me. But when I turned to ask him, the strangest expression crossed his face. Something vulnerable, between hurt and dismay. Just a flicker, and then his trademark don’t-mess-with-me, tough-guy frown slammed back home.
I followed his gaze and saw some debris from the previous day’s explosion poking out from the municipal salt pile. Rocks. Bricks. Planks of wood. I was about to reassure him that the chance of getting hit by flying rebar at this point was pretty slim, when he marched up to the salt pile, grabbed hold of something, and hauled it out.
A hunk of… plywood?
It was roughly the size of a card table, with three smooth sides and one jagged edge where it had broken away from a stud. I caught another flash of that pained expression, and when I did, I realized what we were seeing. I caught up with Yuri, snapped off a tiny, frayed bit from the broken edge, and held it to my nose.
Cedar.
I thought back to the cabin where we’d spent so many idyllic (if crowded) nights falling asleep in each other’s arms to the gentle murmur of the water lapping the shore. Maybe we’d always known our time there wouldn’t last forever… but we must’ve presumed the cabin itself would at least make it through another summer.
“We’ll figure this out,” I said. “Somehow.”
If there’s one thing I know about Yuri, it’s that he’d much rather do something than feel his feelings, so he was all over the chance to take action. “The volshebstvo is powerful, no question, but it is also lazy. Its power diminishes over distance. The corporate headquarters may be elsewhere. But if there is a Crafting which will allow them to keep drilling, it will be hidden somewhere in Pinyin Bay. And you and I will find it.”
DIXON
At the cusp of summer, Pinyin Bay should have been packed to the gills with people. Once the north end of the beach blew up, however, it was practically a ghost town. The snowbirds who summered here fled back to Florida. Year-round residents with relatives nearby decided it was a great time to visit family. And a lot of folks just loaded their valuables into their cars, picked a direction, and drove.
It was the day after the explosion shook the Boardwalk. Up in the attic Yuri and I called home, I was batting some pesky cobwebs off the ceiling joists— with our cockatoo, Meringue, supervising loudly from above— when my mom texted, COME DOWNSTAIRS. I’ve shown her how to release the caps-lock I don’t know how many times. Clearly, her phone was defective.
My father drops by all the time, but Mom says she’s not big on “visiting” anybody but the bakery. I peeked out the louvered window and saw Dad parked out front in the Monte Carlo, with Mom standing on the sidewalk, glaring at her phone. On my way, I texted back, before she climbed any more stairs than she needed to and started her day on a less-than-chipper note.
I greeted her with a hug and a kiss and another big hug. She’s especially fun to hug because she’s so squishy, though I no longer came right out and said so like I did when I was little. “Did you want to see some photos of our latest project?” I asked. “That lighting fixture we found out behind the store looks pretty spiffy in our reading nook. Not that we do any reading there— the folding chair isn’t exactly the type you’d want to sit in. But there’s nothing to perch on nearby and Meringue hasn’t pooped on it.” Yet. Though now that there was a convenient light fixture right above it….
Mom looked me up and down, then spoke as if we were having an entirely different conversation. “You know we have plenty of room, for you and Yuri both.”
“The car looks pretty full to me. Great packing job, by the way.”
“Not in the car. In the motel. Your father Crafted for them when they had that huge bedbug scare a few years back— apparently some folks can’t tell a carpet beetle from a bedbug— and they upgraded us to a suite free of charge.”
“That’s awfully generous of you guys—”
“A suite.”
“— but Yuri and I have talked about it, and we think it’s important to stay.” After all, drilling was currently banned in Pinyin Bay, so how dangerous could it be?
“Those out-of-own people are working hard to get the drilling ban lifted.” Mom said the word people as if it meant something offensive. “They have lawyers. Fancy lawyers.”
All the more reason to stay and make sure the city council of Pinyin Bay didn’t cave in to the pressure, what with Mayor Dunce being the first one to skip town. But Yuri, as a freelance Seer, had way more latitude than the Seers affiliated with specific shops, so if any Seens needed painting on the spot, he could paint them. And if we discovered any Spellcraft to be undone, I was the best guy for the job. Plus, Sabina had an irrational aversion to motel rooms. We didn’t want her to get lonely while Uncle Fonzo was off on a romantic getaway with his current lady friend.
“It’ll be fine,” I told my mother. “We’re not even that close to the shore. In fact, we only lost one windowpane to the last blowup.”
“I don’t like it, Dixon. You know who shut their doors? Pack in the Day. And they’ll work through anything. Even dumpster fires.”
The shipping shop at the end of the strip mall Practical Penn called home was nothing if not persistent. “They probably needed to recoup all the business they lost when their stingy owner used all those torn-up magazines as packing material.” Girly magazines. And not the kind that gave advice on lipstick and dieting, either.
Mom was not to be deterred. “What if there’s another explosion?”
“Nobody’s drilling.”
“Maybe not right this very minute. But mark my words. You don’t just haul in all that heavy equipment for decoration. At some point, the drilling will start up again. And when you least expect it— kaboom!”
Mom has always had a good, strong pair of lungs, and at this point in the conversation, both Yuri and Sabina came outside to see what the enthusiastic chatter was all about. “Did something else blow up?” my cousin asked. “Why didn’t we hear it?”
My mother attempted to recruit Sabina. “Nothing’s blown up… yet. You kids need to get out of here while you can.”
“I’m not willing to drop everything and go live in a room where the bathroom drains are full of stranger-hair! Besides, we’re at least a mile from the beach.”
“And if your cousin decided to run toward the explosion? You wouldn’t just follow— you’d race him there. The two of you have always been more dangerous together than apart.”
Yuri settled a hand on my shoulder. “I will keep an eye on them.”
My mother looked only slightly mollified as Dad rolled down the window and called over, “Come on, Florica, we’d better check in before they give away our room!”
“It’s a suite,” Mom muttered, then subjected each one of us in turn to her trademark head-grab and forehead kiss. She climbed back in the car, Dad gave a jaunty honk, and the two of them drove off.
Once Yuri was done blushing, he said, “Your parents are right to be cautious. The only reason no one was killed in that explosion was that the cabins were empty. Now all the heavy machinery is so close to the Boardwalk, people are mistaking it for a new carnival ride. We should stay clear of the shore until all of those machines are—”
A van with a satellite mounted up top squealed around the corner. “Hey!” I said. “Is that Bayside News?”
As the news van hurtled down the street, Sabina and I both ran toward the pickup truck.
“C’mon, Yuri.” I popped open the locks and climbed in. “Whatever’s going on, we won’t want to miss it!”
Yuri paused.
“Hurry up!” Sabina punched me in the arm so hard I nearly dropped my keys. “We’re gonna lose ’em!”
And with a resigned shake of his head, Yuri shoved me over to the middle of the bench and got behind the wheel.
Yuri can be the textbook definition of stoic when he wants to be, and despite Sabina exclaiming at him all the way to the beach, he took no creative license with the speed limit. Good thing. As we took the final turn that headed toward the beach, we saw a halfhearted demonstration that was well attended… by Pinyin Bay’s “finest.”
The demonstration took place in the scrubby area between the Boardwalk and the dunes, in a crunchy asphalt lot where Streets and Sanitation stored its leftover road salt. The lot was also the only way onto this particular stretch of shoreline, one where the earthmovers and cranes and augers hulked on the beach. The area was crisscrossed with sawhorses and bright yellow caution tape, though given how many people were milling around behind the tape, it was no big challenge to simply walk around it.
Now the cops were all standing around the sawhorses, sweating in their navy blue polyester, eyeing both the activists and the construction crew. They looked like they were daydreaming about leaving town. All but one, who was standing over a guy picking torn up paper out of the grass.
“Oh no,” Sabina said. “It’s Officer Hotti.”
I gave the cop a more interested once-over. “I guess he’s pretty cute, if you go for the stalwart superhero type.”
“No, that’s his real name— Hotti! Remember the bachelorette party I crashed a few weeks ago?”
“The one with the chocolate fountain? How can I forget?”
“When he showed up to warn us to keep the noise down, we mistook him for a stripper and started stuffing dollar bills down his shirt.” Sabina glared in his general direction as he tore a citation off his pad and handed it to the paper-picker. “Served him right for parading around with the boombox. Anyway, he’s got zero sense of humor, and he’s a total stickler for the rules, and he absolutely lives to write tickets. Whatever you do, don’t land on his radar.”
Yuri eased the truck around to the other end of the lot, giving Officer Hotti a wide berth, and slipped into a spot on the other side of the news van. We spilled out of the truck. A few parking spots away, a tall, good-looking Handless man in a very official lab coat and a hardhat was passing out protest signs from the back of a van marked Nature World. He wore glasses— so, of course, he must be very smart.
“That guy looks important,” Sabina said.
Yuri scanned the crowd. “Agreed. And the reporters think so too— they are heading right for him.”
“Perfect!” I said. “Let’s listen in.”
We slipped into the crowd, and someone shoved a sign into my hand that read Kill the Drill. A rhyming slogan? I was warming up to the activists already. But despite the catchy rhyme, I passed the sign on to the next guy so I could edge my way closer to the reporter.
The Pinyin Bay Journal was a local institution primarily known for its fastidious reporting of high school basketball games— and the Pinyin East Pelicans hadn’t made state playoffs in over forty years. Still, Pinyin Bay was proud of its one and only newspaper, even if its main function was to line bird cages and help insomniacs fall asleep.
Pinyin Bay isn’t large enough to have its own TV station, but thanks to the internet, the PBJ recently decided to add live video coverage to its strange mishmash of online offerings and social media. Tiffany Tennant was the face of the Journal’s new spot, “Pinyin Minute”— a show that has not yet clocked in at less than a minute, even once, in the months it had been airing. If folks were being generous, they’d claim that Tiffany had a knack for asking the questions everyone else was wondering about. Otherwise, they’d say, “That woman sure ain’t the sharpest rock in the box.” I’m no journalist, but it seemed to me that the reporter was chosen primarily for her looks. Then again, she had very expensive shoes— and you don’t usually see a reporter’s shoes— so it was possible her wealthy parents had something to do with her big journalistic opportunity.
While Tiffany primped her hair and the lab-coated nature guy looked impatient, the cameraman framed the shot of a big drilling machine behind them. The cameraman counted down, and Tiffany brightened just as he got to number one. “In the aftermath of an alarming boom, while some residents flee, others have gathered here on the dunes of Pinyin Bay to protest the drilling some surmise is the cause of the explosion. I’m reporting live with traveling geologist Dr. Skip Stone. Dr. Stone, what can you tell us about the blast?”
“It’s not surmised that the drilling is the cause of the explosion. It’s… pretty clear.”
“What’s not clear is the reason for the drilling, as no representatives of the new property owners have stepped forward. Why would anyone drill into the shores of Pinyin Bay?”
“In all likelihood, Tiffany, they’re fracking.”
Tiffany did a startled double-take, and whispered, “Language, please! This is live.”
The geologist refrained from rolling his eyes. “Fracking is a process that fractures the bedrock so natural resources can be extracted. It’s very controversial.”
Tiffany looked like she didn’t quite believe him, but the cameraman was making a go-ahead motion for her to continue, so she blithely carried on. “How is it that drilling could cause an explosion?”
“Any number of ways. There could be a pyrophoric mineral that ignites from contact with the air. There could be an inflammable gas that was exposed by the drilling.”
“Don’t you mean flammable?” Tiffany asked.
“Er… no. The term is inflammable.”
“But wouldn’t inflammable be the opposite of flammable? And what are your qualifications, anyway?”
“I hold the Arena Rock Award for ground-breaking advancements in my field.”
“And how do we know that’s a real thing? You seem awfully young to be a doctor.”
Maybe Tiffany really did ask the key questions everyone was wondering. As the scientist rattled off a list of degrees he held and then explained the vocabulary in greater detail— an explanation that went in one ear and out the other— I scanned the horizon, spooked by the thought of flammably inflammable pockets of gas lurking around below us, just waiting for a wayward spark. But the earthmovers were at rest.
For now.
“This has been Tiffany Tennant reporting for Pinyin Bay Journal Online. And if you enjoyed this post, don’t forget to like, share— and visit our sponsor, Happy Jack’s, home of Pinyin Bay’s hottest griddle.”
“They’re closed,” someone called out. “Left town yesterday.”
Undeterred, Tiffany and the cameraman headed off to get a few more shots of the protesting crowd. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to see if the scientist might know more about who was blowing up the beach. “Excuse me, Dr. Stone? I was wondering if you could tell me more about who’s drilling?”
He swung around and regarded me with hands on hips, looking more like an actor playing a scientist at the box office than an actual, real-life person. “Who? More like a what. The Loveland Development Corp is just a bunch of nameless, faceless bureaucrats. You can’t reason with them. I’ve tried. The minute one backs down, another one steps up to take their place.”
I’ve never been one to take no for an answer... not until I’ve done a lot of pestering. “Then what can we do?”
“We need to convince the mayor to hold an emergency land use hearing and permanently revoke their drilling permit.”
Sabina was incensed. “Well? What’s Dunce waiting for— the whole darn city to blow up?”
The geologist shook his head sadly. “Apparently there was an unprecedented loophole in their current permit. The mayor can’t stop them until he finds out what they’re drilling for. They can keep on drilling until they locate something.”
If only we had a dollar for every unprecedented loophole we encountered. Yuri stroked his chin thoughtfully. “What is it they are searching for?”
Dr. Stone said, “That’s what I’m hoping to figure out before anyone gets hurt.”
I got up on my tiptoes, hitched myself up even higher on Yuri’s shoulder, and whispered in his ear, “Loophole?”
He nodded grimly. “Volshebstvo.”
And if we didn’t do something about it, who would? “Now what, Yuri? We can’t know for sure that the Crafting is in Pinyin Bay.”
Even if it was, the Loveland Corporation had bought so many properties, the sheer number of places they might have stashed a small slip of paper was beyond daunting. And while Yuri and I prided ourselves on spotting Craftings in the wild, that didn’t mean we could do it from a mile away.
It was overwhelming. Maybe Mom had been right, and the smart thing to do was pack everyone up and head out of town until the dust settled.
I was about to float the idea past Yuri— just in case he wanted to get out while the getting was good and he was only sticking around to humor me. But when I turned to ask him, the strangest expression crossed his face. Something vulnerable, between hurt and dismay. Just a flicker, and then his trademark don’t-mess-with-me, tough-guy frown slammed back home.
I followed his gaze and saw some debris from the previous day’s explosion poking out from the municipal salt pile. Rocks. Bricks. Planks of wood. I was about to reassure him that the chance of getting hit by flying rebar at this point was pretty slim, when he marched up to the salt pile, grabbed hold of something, and hauled it out.
A hunk of… plywood?
It was roughly the size of a card table, with three smooth sides and one jagged edge where it had broken away from a stud. I caught another flash of that pained expression, and when I did, I realized what we were seeing. I caught up with Yuri, snapped off a tiny, frayed bit from the broken edge, and held it to my nose.
Cedar.
I thought back to the cabin where we’d spent so many idyllic (if crowded) nights falling asleep in each other’s arms to the gentle murmur of the water lapping the shore. Maybe we’d always known our time there wouldn’t last forever… but we must’ve presumed the cabin itself would at least make it through another summer.
“We’ll figure this out,” I said. “Somehow.”
If there’s one thing I know about Yuri, it’s that he’d much rather do something than feel his feelings, so he was all over the chance to take action. “The volshebstvo is powerful, no question, but it is also lazy. Its power diminishes over distance. The corporate headquarters may be elsewhere. But if there is a Crafting which will allow them to keep drilling, it will be hidden somewhere in Pinyin Bay. And you and I will find it.”
Author Bio:
Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price is the owner of JCP Books LLC. Her paranormal thrillers are colored by her time in the midwest, from inner city Chicago, to small town Wisconsin, to liberal Madison.
Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who's plagued by ghostly visitations. Also check out her new series, Mnevermind, where memories are made...one client at a time.
With her education in fine arts and practical experience as a graphic designer, Jordan set out to create high quality ebooks with lavish cover art, quality editing and gripping content. The result is JCP Books, offering stories you'll want to read again and again.
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What the Frack? #7
Series
