A Shower of Arrows

Chapter Five: Avoidance

Oliver could see the note attached to the arrow but right now he needed to calm Grace down. She had ran down to the porch and was looking in the trees for a shooter. Oliver could hear her heart beating fast so he could tell how scared she was. Oliver quickly picked up the note and stuffed it into his pocket.

She soon came marching back to her front door and picked up the arrow. She examined the arrow and looked at Oliver. It quickly dawned on her that Oliver was holding an arrow with the same design this morning. 

"You had an arrow exactly like this, this morning. Is this your idea of a joke? Pranking me?"

Oliver didn't know what to say. He could see her attempting to make sense of what just happened. 

"Grace--"

"No. You don't understand. I cannot have people around Lacey who could be a danger to her. It's fine if this was a prank but someone could've gotten really hurt."

Oliver made several attempts to speak but Grace kept talking over him. 

Grace took a deep breath and continued. 

"Oliver I think you should leave."

"Grace, this wasn't me."

"Well you need to explain to me why this is happening. I want an explanation."

Oliver didn't know what to say. What was he supposed to say? A witch was doing this. She wasn't in the right head space to find out about this. 

Grace took his silence as a guilty omission. 

"Please stay away from me and Lacey."

Grace shut the door in his face and locked it before he could open the door.

Grace knew a man this perfect had to have some flaws and she just found them. He was sick and thought it was funny to mess with peoples lives. 

"Grace - "

"No! You need to leave or I will be calling the police."

Oliver could feel the anger rolling off her, through the door. 

Oliver thought if he give her some space she would see she's behaving illogically. Oliver backed off and began walking to his house. 

Hazel was sitting on the stairs with Darcy reading her a book. She looked at Oliver and her face showed concern. 

"Darcy, why don't you show daddy your new book?"

Darcy nodded and ran upstairs yelling for her dad. 

"What happened Oliver?"

"Yeah what happened Oliver?" Liam had arrived and was leaning against the door frame with a smirk on his face. 

Oliver walked over to him and punched him in the face. Liam gasped and fell to the floor, holding his mouth.

"Hazel come talk in my office." 

Hazel followed Oliver through the house and into the office.

"Grace received an arrow and thought it was a joke from me." 

"How could she think that?" 

"One was at my office this morning and she saw me with it. She thought I was just making fun of her."

"Did the arrows have any messages?"

"The one from this morning did. It had a photo of Grace, Lacey and I at breakfast with the caption "Like sitting ducks, who's going to fall off the perch first? I haven't read this one yet though."