Sand Witches in the Hamptons (9781101597385) by Celia Jerome Read Free Book Online Page A

more beachfront washed away on the south, oceanfront shore than ours, so they won’t help. They predicted the next storm would bring the sand back, but it didn’t.”
    That had to be the weekend Matt and I stayed inside, which I would not think about right now. “There’s always another storm out there.”
    â€œBut no sand for the winds and the tides to carry ashore. If we cannot get our beaches back, we have no tourism. No tourists means no money for the school or the streets or the police. Not the arts center or the library. No jobs, either. And no sand means we have no protection from the next hurricane or nor’easter. Any storm surge could flood half the village.”
    I knew she was right, but I had to try: “We lose some sand every winter.”
    â€œAnd gain it back when the storm patterns shift, but not like this. Besides, every other beach up and down the bay coast is fine. Three Mile Harbor, Louse Point, Noyac. The North Fork of the Island barely got Desi’s wind or high tide.”
    No, the sea serpent came right here, after trying to capsize the ship with the professor on it off Montauk.
    If it weren’t for help from other beings from the world of Unity, which incidentally banished the kraken to our world in the first place, the ship would have sunk. Instead, a new breed of dolphins pulled the ship’s passengers from the cold water, a disappearing parrot guided rescuers to other victims onboard, odd lantern beetles lit the way through the ship’s dark corridors . . . and a tall underwater sandbar held it up.
    A sandbar that wasn’t there the week before.
    A sandbar that we blew up to get the cruise ship off.
    I threw the pens across the room. Little Red picked one up and ran under the couch. It was too late to take back what I’d unconsciously drawn. Not too late to curse and stomp my foot and bite my lip and scratch at the rash on my fingers. And curse some more.
    Dots filled my sketch pad, dots in different colors, dots in loose, random configurations. So loose I could just make out the shapes of tiny people if I squinted sideways, people made of grains of sand. Ann. Dan. Stan. Sand.
    Now I knew what the Andanstans were and what they stole.
    My life.

C HAPTER S IX
    I had a mission. And a migraine.
    The mission: get the sand back, get rid of the Andanstans, cure the rash. Desert fever? Hah. Revenge of the Andanstans, more likely, for miners digging holes, for terrorists and their land mines, for us blowing them and their sandbar to smithereens.
    The migraine: why was I in charge? I didn’t bring them here. I couldn’t talk to them. I never saw them. I had no idea how to proceed, except buy stock in hydrocortisone cream. The simple thought of them tapped inside my skull with sandy sledgehammers.
    That’s assuming the missing sand, the rashes, and the minuscule thieves were all connected, of course. The odds of there being that many oddball occurrences were as small as the Andanstans. Every cop show and detective novel says coincidences are rare and suspicious. Cops and writers never came to Paumanok Harbor, where situations like this are commonplace.
    There were two possibilities. One, the Andanstans had been around our world forever, spreading disease. Two, if mold spores or fungi or naturally occurring toxins truly caused the early documented infections, the Andanstans did not arrive here until last month, at some higher power’s bidding, not mine. Sure I’d asked for help to fight the sea monster. How could mere mortals destroy a creature of magic on our own?
    I did not ask for nasty, gritty little beings who’d stay here and start rashes. They’d done us a favor, but now they and their plagues weren’t welcome.
    I had to talk to Oey, the male/female parrot/fish who came to warn us about the kraken and ended up adopting Professor Harmon . . . or vice versa. Like all otherworldly creatures, Oey could