Excerpt

With a soft whistle, Bev made her way into the town square of Pigsend. The town hall building was on one side with the schoolhouse, and the faint sounds of schoolchildren reciting their daily lessons, directly across from it. In the center of the square was a large marble dragon spurting water into the air.

Bev continued to the town hall, pushing open the thick wooden door. Inside was the town meeting space, where the townsfolk would gather to discuss…usually nothing important. The mayor was sitting in her office, her door mostly closed. But on the opposite side was the small office that housed the only law enforcement officer assigned to their quaint little town.

Rustin was broad-shouldered, tanned with curly brown hair and piercing brown eyes—not that Bev could see them. He was fast asleep, his feet kicked up on the desk as he leaned back in his chair. A shiny pin sat on his tunic, which was new. Most everyone knew who Rustin was, so he rarely saw the need to wear his official pin carrying the seal of the queen. But perhaps with the arrival of her soldiers, he wanted to dress up.

"Um…" Bev pushed his foot. "Rustin."

"Hmmm." The sheriff grunted and scratched his stomach. "Five more minutes, Ma."

"Not your ma," Bev said, poking him in the stomach. "Wake up."

He jolted, shock flooding his face as he looked up, then recognition dawned. "Oh, it's you, Bev. You scared me."

"Sleeping on the job?" she asked with a smirk.

"Just trying to get ready for the soldiers," he said. "They aren't…here yet, are they?"

"Not yet," Bev said. "But we've got bigger problems. There's a sinkhole in the road outside town."

"Oh." He blinked, the wheels turning slowly in his head. Brilliant, he was not. "What's the problem?"

"It's in the road, Rustin," she said patiently. "Someone's liable to fall in. We need to fill it before that happens. Can you help me round up some people? Maybe in the morning we can—"

"Sorry, Bev. Would love to help. But I gotta keep myself available to the soldiers." Rustin wiped his mouth as he stood. He gave Vellora a run for her money in terms of height, but Bev thought the butcher might edge him out. "Have you heard why they're coming?"

"You're the one who told me about them," Bev said with a shrug. "I've gotten nothing more than that."

"Yeah, me neither." He rubbed his smooth chin nervously. "Hope they aren't here to replace me. You never know with these soldiers from the capital."

"I mean," Bev cleared her throat, "if you're worried about them thinking you're not suitable for the job, maybe gathering an entire town to help fill a hole would change their mind?"

"You think?" He scratched the back of his head. "I guess that would make me look pretty smart, eh?"

"A real hero," Bev said, nodding solemnly. "Especially if they can't get their wagons around it. Sin and I sure had trouble. It's in the center of the road, you know."

"I see, I see. I'll—"

There was a knock at the door, and a raven-haired, pale-skinned beauty with red lips swept inside with a smile on her face—Mayor Jo Hendry. Her cheekbones were as sharp as her political acumen, and her eyes were as quick as an eagle's. She practically purred as she said, "My dear Sheriff Rustin."

"Ma'am." Rustin all but bowed to her. "What can I do for you?"

"Have the queen's soldiers…? Oh. Bev." Mayor Hendry's dark eyes swept over Bev as if she were disrupting a spell she'd cast on the sheriff. "What are you doing here? Trouble at the old inn?"

"Not at my inn, no," Bev said. "But there's a sinkhole outside of town that needs filling."

"Oh my. Well, that certainly sounds like a problem that is someone else's to solve," she said with a breathy chuckle. "Rustin, I need you."

"Of course!" He practically stumbled over himself as he scrambled after her. "Whatever you need."

"There's a painting in my office that needs to be hung before—"

Before what, Bev didn't know, because at that very moment, the ground began trembling again.

The trio scrambled to hold onto something sturdy, but it was in short supply as the ground violently shifted back and forth. Paintings and maps slipped down Rustin's wall, and his ink and quill set tipped over, spilling black onto the wooden floor. A vase toppled off a table, and a piece of the ceiling fell just beyond in the town hall room.

It lasted a full two minutes—per the clock on the wall—before things settled.

"What in the…?" Hendry said, her raven hair askew across her face. "What was that?"

"Earthquake," Bev said. "One happened just before the sinkhole appeared outside of town."

"That's ridiculous," Hendry said. "We don't have earthquakes or sinkholes in Pigsend."

"We do now," Bev said.

The sound of concerned voices echoed in the town hall, and Bev, Rustin, and Mayor Hendry rushed outside. Bev's breath caught in her throat as she stared at the gaping hole where the dragon fountain used to be. She walked forward slowly, peering down into the second sinkhole in as many hours. This one wasn't as deep, but the beautiful dragon fountain was in pieces on the ground.

"Oh, no," Bev said, putting her hand to her forehead.

A crowd had already begun to gather in the square. The town of Pigsend wasn't all that big to begin with, and everyone lived where they worked, practically.

"What a shame," Bardoff Boyd, the local schoolteacher, said. The schoolhouse was right next to the town hall, so he and his gaggle of students had rushed out when the shaking started. "Has anyone told—"

"My statue! My beautiful statue!"

Ramone Comely, the local sculptor, came running into the square, their hands pressed onto their cheeks. The artist used to work in the big city for some royal benefactor but had retired to Pigsend some years ago. They were always a bit unsettled by changes in the weather and wind, and Bev could only imagine how long they'd be in a tizzy over their statue's destruction.

They stood on the edge of the hole and sighed. "What the earth gives, it takes away." They picked up a handful of dirt and threw it into the pile. "It was garbage anyway. I can do better."

"It was a beautiful statue, Ramone," Bev said. "It's all right to mourn—"

"Ugh, why look in the past when the future is so bright?" They turned and stalked away, muttering to themselves.

Within a week or two, they'd undoubtedly have an even more ornate statue sitting in the town square.

Earl Dollman, the local carpenter, jumped into the hole and walked around, testing the integrity. "It seems it's done growing. May have just happened because of the earthquake. A fluke."

"It's not a fluke," Ida said. She and Vellora had come from the butcher shop. "Bev said she came across one in the middle of the road leading into town earlier today."

A couple pairs of eyes swept to Bev, and she nodded. "That was bigger, I think. I can see the bottom of this one."

"Two sinkholes in one day?" Shasta Brewer, who worked at the tea shop in town, frowned.

Stella, her twin who worked with Barnard at the apothecary, nodded. "Sounds like it's a problem."

"No problem at all," Mayor Hendry said, parting the crowd with ease. "My dear friends, these things unfortunately happen. We live on shifting earth, and occasionally, our fountains get the bad luck of the draw."

"I've lived here seventy years and never seen a sinkhole," cried Etheldra Daws, the semi-retired owner of the tea shop.

"Things happen sometimes," Hendry said. "Either way, we shouldn't concern ourselves with it. It's not as if they're going to show up all over town and swallow our houses."

But the image seemed to unnerve the crowd, who murmured amongst themselves, some rubbing their hands together. Hendry, noticing her error, held up her hands once more and the murmuring stopped.

"Dear friends," she said with a soft smile. "I promise you, there's nothing to worry about. But if it would help you sleep easier at night, I'll put my best people on investigating the cause of these sinkholes."

There was only one person she had at her disposal, and he was staring off into space.

"Rustin," she prompted. "You'll look into it, won't you?"

"Who, me?" He jumped. "Right, yeah. What am I looking into?"

Hendry smoothed the wrinkles on her shirt. "The sinkholes, dear. The one right in front of us and the one outside town. You're going to look into them."

"Right." He turned to peer into the hole.

Bev coughed to hide a chuckle as Hendry took Rustin by the shirt and pulled him close to her to whisper angrily in his face.

Finally, he nodded slowly. "Right. I will investigate the cause of the sinkholes in the town and stop them from happening again!"

"There you go, big boy," Bev said with an affirmative nod.