An apparition of a little girl clad in petticoats of an earlier era sat on the edge of the old well that served as the focal point for the town square. She waved at me and for a moment I hesitated before acknowledging her, but then I figured that the tourists already thought I was a sham anyway so why be rude on their account.
I raised my hand and waggled my fingers.
“I’m not supposed to play by the well. I don’t want to fall in,” the little girl said. “My feet are cold.”
I shuddered as I looked at her little leather boots. There was water dripping from the bottom of her skirt, but the ethereal droplets dissipated before hitting the bricks on the paved ground beneath her. Spirits often said disturbing things like that, especially those who passed away early in life.
I didn’t know what to say back to her. Chances are she wouldn’t understand it or remember it five seconds later and then she’d repeat something similar. So many ghosts I ran into were stuck in a loop. Very few witches knew how to coax them out of it and I certainly wasn’t one of them.
“I like your dress,” I told her, smiling.
“Thanks. Mama made it.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Does she sell them?”
“I think so.”
“Do you know her name?” I asked, hoping to get a clue to who she was. “Maybe I could buy one.”
The spirit of the little girl stared off into the distance, her image flickering as she shook her head no. “I’m not supposed to play by the well. My doll fell in once.” She looked over her shoulder and teetered on the edge. “My dolly…”
“Don’t!” I cried, reaching out for her as she tipped backwards.
My fingers closed around a wisp of smoke and she was gone. Tears pricked my eyes as my heart raced. I looked up to see that group of bystanders staring at me like I was crazy. But Juno, the quiet girl who had taken my picture, had a completely dumbfounded expression. Her eyes locked with mine as her jaw hung open.
She looked familiar to me even though I’d never seen her before, with bright green eyes so much like my own. I wondered if they could see what mine could.
“Stop messing with those tourists or worrying about that little ghost,” a voice called out from behind me. “And bring me my hyacinth!”
Chapter 2
I whipped around to see Faustine, one of the owners of Elements, a magic shop. A real magic shop. In fact, there was a sign in the window declaring it to have been voted The #1 Magic Shop in Dewdrop. The only problem was, there was a similar sign on a rival shop across the square. Neither sign said who’d voted because nobody actually did. Dewdrop didn’t exactly adhere to FCC regulations.
The overpowering scent of handmade jasmine incense hit me as I walked through the door. I sat the basket of hyacinth on the counter like I did several times a week and watched as Faustine pulled out her scales. Her curly gray hair was gathered into a bun as it always was, but today it was held up by one of her special alabaster hair sticks with a ruby on the end and she’d clearly glamoured away some wrinkles and a few extra pounds. She was also wearing a floor length cape of green velvet, which I could have called excessive if I myself hadn’t been in that white dress.
“I’ve been watching that little girl all week,” Faustine told me. “And she keeps falling in the well, looking for her dolly. So sad.”
“Does anyone know who she was?”
“I mentioned it to Isla, but every time she drops by to get a look at her, the little thing disappears. I don’t know what triggered her. I’ve never seen her in all these years.”
“That’s odd. She obviously died a long time ago.”
Faustine nodded. “A very ghostly Hettymoot this year. Too many restless spirits for my taste.”
I flashed on the body hanging from the gallows. “Definitely.”
I sighed, placing the bundle of hyacinth on the scale and pulled out my phone to take a picture. After showing it to Faustine, I sent a Snapchat picture to the rival shop across the street. Only so much of this powerful variety of hyacinth grew and our family had an ancient agreement with both stores to never favor one over the other and sell them exactly the same amount, down to the gram. And even though we’d never shorted them, not once in all these years, they still doubled checked the harvest every single time.
Honestly, it was a little offensive. We were cousins, after all.
The shops had been open for over 150 years and the families that owned them had been at odds for even longer. I didn’t know why. I doubted even they knew why anymore, but when asked they would tell you that one’s grandmother wronged the other’s and the betrayal has rippled through the family to this very day. What exactly was the betrayal? A detail that no one actually knew. Someone should really summon the two ladies one day and figure it out.
Both lines came from the Fire side of the family, so things could easily get a bit heated.
It didn’t particularly concern me, though. There was plenty of business to go around and healthy competition kept the prices in check. Though to be honest, I preferred the vibe of Spark, the shop across the street. Elements was a little stuffy and old fashioned. Plus half the shelves in the shop wobbled and needed to be shimmed. I never understood that. It’s not like they needed to call in a handyman. Cast a boring old housekeeping spell every once in a while, you know?
“Don’t you have anything else to drop off?” Faustine asked, eyeing the satchel at my side.
“Not today.” I shifted on my feet and the potion bottles in my bag clinked together. “Aunt Maudrey said we should sell the potions at the sidewalk sale this weekend. Her grandkids are in town for Hettymoot, so she won’t have a chance to make any more.”
Faustine’s back stiffened. Her family sold our wares in their shop at a handsome markup. That markup was ours for the taking at the sidewalk sales. She was trying to keep us in the dark and she’d been caught. Why she’d thought that would actually work, I had no idea. There was no such thing as a secret in this town, not for long anyway. Fortunately for her, I was too polite to call her on it. I’d leave that one to my aunt.
After bidding a tense farewell, I crossed the square to my next delivery with Faustine watching my every step in case I was hiding some hyacinth. The little ghost girl was sitting on the well again. I didn’t wave and stop to talk this time, but couldn’t help notice that tourist Juno was looking right at her.
“Gemma!”
I was greeted with a warm hug the second I walked through the door of Spark. That was typically the case whenever Feather was working the front. She was my fourth cousin on her mother’s side. In a town where everyone is related, that was pretty close. She came over to dinner at our place occasionally, but that was mostly because we hit it off so well and had since we were kids. Feather had a richer witch legacy on her mother’s side, the Mercer family that owned the magic shop.
Spark had such a refreshing atmosphere. Unlike Elements, which never changed in either décor or selection, Spark was always showcasing something new in the front case and they had recently upgraded the shop with modern fixtures and lighting. To be honest, Spark had an advantage. The Mercer family was much larger and there were always people available to work on improving the family business. Faustine ran Elements with just her sister and two first cousins, which meant there was seldom more than one of them tending the shop.
“I’m sorry about this, Gem,” Feather said as she pulled out her scale. “We trust you, we always have. But…”
“I get it. Besides, it’s tradition.”
“Yeah.” We shrugged at each other as we weighed out the hyacinth and took a picture to send to Faustine, who was watching us from her window. “So are you excited about Hettymoot?”
“Not as excited as the tourists are,” I replied with a laugh.
“Oh, I know. It’s so strange. Last year there were three outsider groups, but they didn’t hang around town all weekend!”
“It’s not like there’s a lot to do here.”
“Rig
ht?” Feather agreed. “I mean, unless you’re a witch. Hopefully they’ll buy something at least. The tourists from last year definitely wanted souvenirs.”
I glanced over at the case full of bouquets. Spark didn’t normally have them because there were flower shops down the street, with a similar ancient family rivalry, of course. But during Hettymoot, demand for flowers increased exponentially and most of the stores carried them to keep up. The arrangements with the bright pink hollyhocks my Aunt Clea grew were almost sold out, at ten dollars each. They probably only paid us fifty cents for the flowers. They were making a killing!
Honestly it shouldn’t have bothered me. I didn’t think I would be happy running a storefront, I was too used to being outside all day. But I enjoyed a sidewalk sale just like anyone else and my great aunts absolutely lived for them. It was practically the only time they got out into the real world. I couldn’t believe that Elements and Spark could put their differences aside and band together to keep us in the dark. I couldn’t stay silent about it, not with Feather.
“So…” I mumbled. “When were you going to tell me about the sidewalk sale?”
“Gemma, I swear I only just found out this morning,” Feather said, glancing over her shoulder at her grandmother who was polishing crystal balls. “I promise. I think Neoma is casting that spell on a whim. Something about the stars in perfect alignment, which they aren’t, by the way. As if she’s the only astrologer around here.” She rolled her eyes. Astrology was one of Feather’s strong suits. “How did you find out?”
I pursed my lips at her and shook my head. “Word gets around.”
“Honestly, it’s bad timing. Who wants to go to a sale when Venus is in retrograde?” she scoffed. “And so much of our inventory will be low after Hettymoot. There won’t be enough time to stock up.”
Feather’s reassurances didn’t do much to ease my skepticism, but I didn’t want to escalate the situation. “Tell me about it. I don’t think we have a single flower left on the farm.”
“And it’s not like you can sell your aunts’ powerful, undiluted Concentration potions to the masses,” Feather said. It was a thinly veiled attempt to get me to part with the vials she knew I had in my bag.
“Aunt Clea doesn’t feel the same way…”
“Oh, come on Gemma, please. We’re all out.”
“Well, you can have one,” I told her, pulling out a glowing indigo potion bottle. “But I’m not stepping on my aunt’s toes.”
“But it’s Hettymoot!”
“And any witch worth her salt can make one herself with that hyacinth,” I laughed. “If she takes the time.”
“They never come out quite the same,” Feather grumbled. “It’s like drinking too much caffeine.”
That’s because Aunt Clea augmented hers with yarrow planted next to a buried opal three days after the new moon, her secret ingredient that she would take to the grave. I only found out on accident and if I ever breathed a word, I’d wake up with my lips sewn shut.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Feather said as I was leaving.
“Don’t bring that dog!” her grandmother called after me.
“We’ll see you there!” I grinned at the old woman sweetly even though I suspected that she was the reason no one told us about the sidewalk sale. Firiam never did like my aunts, her second cousins, very much. I think she resented becoming dependent on their potions later in life to do her crossword puzzles and Sudoku.
As tempted as I was to go straight home and tell my family about the snub, I’d brought my laptop and a change of clothes with me so I could spend a little time at Wicked Brew, the coffee house that my cousin’s family owned. This was a pair of ‘real’ cousins, not just we-live-in-the-same-witch-town distant relatives. We were first cousins, or perhaps we were half first cousins technically, although I didn’t like the sound of that. Our fathers were half-brothers, but what really mattered was that my aunts got along well with their mom.
The town square was empty of the tourists when I left Spark. I wasn’t sure where they went off to, but I hoped it was far away. I really was starting to sound like an old witch myself complaining about too much traffic and unwanted outsiders. But it wasn’t my fault, that’s how I was raised!
Unfortunately, I found the group of looky-loos in the coffee shop where I intended to spend my morning in peace.
“Did you hear about the sidewalk sale?” my cousins asked in perfect unison as I walked through their door.
“I did.”
“Good,” they replied.
Luna and Soleil were identical twins. Identical. In every way. They frequently spoke in unison, their laughter came out at the same tempo, and I swear, they even blinked at the exact same time. Even right then as they were wiping down the counter, their arms swung out in wide circles that mirrored each other’s perfectly. They didn’t do this on purpose. I’d seen them trying to walk out of step with each other only for one to trip and land on the same foot as her sister.
The twins were accustomed to moving in synch, the witches here were used to it, but tourists found it fascinating. Last year someone even took a video of them stocking bagged tea on the shelf behind the register and put it up on YouTube. Now they were something of a mini tourist attraction themselves, much to their dismay.
It didn’t help that the twins were insanely gorgeous, but their beauty just enhanced their synchronicity if you weren’t a jealous witch. They were tall and slender, yet still curvy with long auburn hair that fell in tight ringlets to their hips and a beautiful ochre complexion dotted with freckles. But beyond their physical attributes, there was just a grace that radiated off of them and filled the room with warmth and light.
“I love that dress.”
“Oh, shut it, Luna.” I rolled my eyes.
“I really do!”
“She really does,” her sister confirmed.
“It has so much history.”
The dress was literally over two hundred years old, but whiter than white. I swear, pure bleach would dull it some if such a lowly substance could ever penetrate the magic that kept every inch of hand stitching and embroidery in perfect condition.
“You know technically, you’re allowed to wear it. If you wanted to take over hyacinth duty. It would look better on you anyway.” The twins had a whimsical style. I don’t think I’d ever seen either of them with less than five pieces of jewelry on and flowing skirts made up half their wardrobe. I was more of a jeans, t-shirt, and boots kind of girl.
Luna scrunched her nose as Soleil giggled. They knew they had a sweeter deal in their mom’s coffee shop. “Well…”
“That’s what I thought.” I stuck my tongue out playfully.
I ducked into the bathroom to change. This white dress tradition had to go. It suited my aunts’ bohemian style in their youth and before that dresses were the norm for everyone, but the Little House on the Prairie thing was definitely out of fashion today. Although it did go along with Dewdrop’s story that we were mere herbalists, a façade that we definitely needed to keep up, especially this day in age where we’d apparently gone viral.
Luna and Soleil both grinned as I emerged looking much more like myself and we all glanced at the tourists disdainfully. We couldn’t gossip about other witches with them in the place! It would just add fuel to the fire.
I ordered a cappuccino, whispering that I wanted to add a shot of stress relieving ground dove feathers. I didn’t want the outsiders to hear me. Soleil eyed them carefully as she dipped down and discreetly pulled the ingredient from under the counter. There was usually a chalkboard sign listing all the reagents they could add to their teas and coffees, but it was nowhere in sight this morning. That was bad for business. I spotted the board behind the counter and knew it would be back up the moment those tourists walked out the door.
Flopping down in my favorite seat by the window, I sipped my scalding hot brew carefully and opened my laptop. I couldn’t resist anymore. I had to see this stupid site for myself.<
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I googled ‘Witches living in Massachusetts’ and nothing pertinent came up about Dewdrop. It was all predictably about Salem, which I had to chuckle at. There are lots of Wiccans and palm readers out there even to this day, but the real witches here didn’t take any of that seriously. Scratch that, there was one respectable network of covens, but they understandably didn’t advertise. And thankfully, Salem was far away on the coast whereas Madison County was hidden farther inland, nestled in the mountains near the Vermont and New York state lines.
After trying various search terms, I was about to ask the dang tourists what it was and cursing myself for not doing this at home where I had the name of the site written down somewhere. But then it occurred to me and I typed ‘Hettymoot’ into the search bar.
Resting Witch Face Page 2