by Amy Boyles
“What harm’s it going to do?” Norma Ray asked.
Malene shifted in her seat, her gaze bobbing around the room as if she was looking for an escape, which she may have been.
“Here’s the thing,” Malene said. “I used to have a son. He’d be about your age now.”
“A son?” I said.
She waved at me as if to stop me from talking. “Yes, a son,” she said hurriedly. “I was married, if you can believe that?”
“Did you shoot his butt up with shotgun pellets?”
Norma Ray snorted and Urleen laughed. “No,” Urleen answered, “but you can bet that Malene thought about it a time or two.”
They laughed some more and I didn’t quite get the joke, but I let it go. “Okay, so tell me what happened.”
“My son fell for Sadie.”
Urleen cleared her throat.
“What is it?” Malene snapped.
“Aren’t you going to tell her about that exactly?”
Malene glared at her.
Norma Ray spoke. “If you don’t, I will. Malene believes that Sadie put some sort of love spell on him, which was ridiculous, because everyone knew that Sadie didn’t have magic.”
“She was no spell hunter, I’ll say that,” Urleen added.
Norma Ray shook her head. “No, she wasn’t. But you know sometimes magic skips a generation. We all know that Hannah had power, and no one ever saw Sadie work a spell, so it was assumed that she didn’t.”
“Well, then Hannah made the potion,” Malene said loudly, trying to grab ahold of the conversation. “Anyway, those kids fell hard for each other, in love, as it were. Next thing I knew, my son disappeared.”
My jaw dropped. “Disappeared?”
Malene nodded. “Left a note saying that they’d broken up and he was going to find himself. But he never called, and that was not like Matthew. I asked Sadie, but she said she didn’t know any more about it than I did.”
Urleen shot me a pointed look. “And you know trying to get Tuney Sluggs involved in anything important is harder than pulling a buried-up flea off a dog’s back.”
I ran my thumb over my mug. “So you blamed Sadie for your son’s disappearance?”
“Dang right, I did,” Malene said. She tapped her finger on the table and squinted at me. “My boy was torn up about what happened between them. But then he disappears and never comes back? I think Sadie had something to do with that. Course, I’ll never know now, will I? She’s gone and with her went her secrets.”
My right thigh started to throb from sitting in the same position, so I shifted my legs. “It seems to me that losing your son like that, you’d have wanted answers a long time ago.”
Malene stared at the table. Urleen squeezed her hand. “She did everything possible to find him. She hired private detectives and even begged Sadie to tell her what she knew. But Sadie always said that she didn’t know anything about Matthew.”
Urleen spoke. “That’s what made Malene think that Sadie had cast the love spell on him—because he was gone too long. He should have returned.”
Silence filled the room, and I knew exactly what Urleen meant. If Sadie had given a love potion to Matthew or had Hannah do it, and they broke up, Matthew wouldn’t have been in his right mind. He might have done something foolish—might have hurt himself.
Now I understood Malene’s anger toward Sadie. She held her directly responsible for Matthew vanishing. But I had known Sadie for years. She’d never told me about him, why?
Had she simply felt guilty about it, or had there been something else? Had Sadie done exactly what Malene said? Had she enchanted Matthew and then broke it off, sending him into a tailspin?
Every day I knew less and less about my so-called best friend. “I’m so sorry about what happened to Matthew. I don’t know if Sadie was responsible because she never mentioned it. After today I’m not sure who she really was, to be honest; some of the choices she made were so different than what I would have believed possible. But I do know that she helped people.”
My own company excluded, of course. But was that true? Sadie and I had started the business together. She had never been anything but kind and wonderful to me. She had been a great best friend while she lived.
Malene sniffled. “Sadie wasn’t my favorite person, as you know, but I’m sorry she’s dead. I’m sorry that she put you in this financial situation that you’re in.”
I nodded. “It’s okay. I’ll be all right.” I inhaled deeply. “Hopefully, I won’t lose the business. Now, ladies, I believe it’s time we cleaned up this kitchen and went on our way.”
We worked together in silence, and I locked up the house exactly as I had left it. After swinging by the bed and breakfast to drop Sadie’s clothes off with Hannah, I returned to my house.
Yes, I had been tempted to ask Hannah about Malene’s son but didn’t see the point. The past was the past. Asking about it wouldn’t bring Matthew back, nor would it resurrect Sadie.
By the time I got home, I was exhausted and hungry. Lady was too. She gave me a pretty reproachful look when I entered, scratching at my jeans.
I poured her a bowl of dog food, made myself a grilled cheese and slumped onto the couch, ready to veg out on home remodeling shows.
Yes, y’all. I have an addiction to remodels.
But after decimating my sandwich and flicking on the television, a thought struck me—Rufus.
He would go to Dooley’s farm—I just knew it. Growling, I heaved myself from the couch and called Lady.
She scampered toward the door.
“Come on, girl. Let’s go stop a wizard from remembering who he is and ruining my life for a second time.”
Chapter 19
The road out to Dooley’s was filled with ruts. My truck bounced up and down the dirt path that stretched on for a good mile before forking. Straight led to Dooley’s home, and off to the right led into the orchard and the forest beyond it.
I went slowly and kept an eye glued to the left, in the direction of the house. If Dooley saw me out here, sure enough, he’d be revving up his pickup and driving out to see who was trespassing on his property.
I wrapped my fingers tightly around the wheel, my knuckles becoming pale mountains. The truck lurched right and left as we hit rut after rut.
Poor Lady kept getting jostled. I pulled her toward my hip, securing her against me.
“It’ll be okay, girl.”
She pressed her wet nose against my arm in response, and finally after several minutes, we rounded a grove of trees and saw orbs.
There must have been hundreds of them—all different colors and sizes. The spells in the forest had been more similar in size, but these were not. Some looked to be the size of dimes while others were as big as peaches.
And in the middle of them all stood Rufus, his back to me once again. I could just see the smirk on his face as he realized that I had come to fetch him.
Or help him, I supposed.
After killing the engine, I scooped up Lady, and the two of us approached.
Rufus slowly turned around. I had switched my beams to low and they illuminated him. I had to suck in my breath. In the lights he cut a distinctive figure. The first night I saw him, I noticed how broad his shoulders were, but now I noticed how they narrowed into his tapered waist and strong thighs. The jeans he wore helped, too. They fit him perfectly.
I found myself barely able to speak above a whisper. “You got new clothes.”
He smiled, his gaze darting to the ground in embarrassment. “Julie Bender found them for me in her husband’s old things.”
Julie had kept her husband’s clothes when he died a few years ago. She told me that she didn’t have the heart to get rid of them. I could understand.
“They fit you well.”
We stared at each other a moment as a spell floated up to me and bounced against my forehead before bobbing away. The magic reminded me of lightning bugs on a humid summer’s night.
“Ho
w did you get out here?” I asked.
“Uber,” he replied.
Yep, even in small towns we had Uber.
“Would you like to help me?”
“I—I came to keep you from getting your rear end full of buckshot.”
“I see.” He opened his palm, and a red spell fell onto it. Deciding it wasn’t the one, he dropped his hand away. “So only you and I can see them.”
He referenced what Willard Gandy had said earlier today. “Malene told me that she and some of her friends used to be spell hunters. They caught spells and sold them to witches, maybe humans.”
“The good kind, I imagine,” Rufus murmured.
“I guess.” Grass crunched under my feet as I approached. Lady jumped around, snapping at spells as if they were butterflies. “Lady, stop. I don’t want you eating one of those. They’re bad for you.”
She sulked away.
I took a spot off from Rufus and started inspecting the orbs. “But now even Malene and her spell hunters can’t see them anymore. No one can. Hannah, Sadie’s mom, hid all the spells from everyone.”
“So it’s just you and me. Is that right?”
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe it’s not supposed to,” he murmured.
I glanced over and found Rufus studying me. Heat flared in my cheeks, and I turned away. There wasn’t supposed to be some sort of weird chemistry between us.
I hated him.
Right. Didn’t I?
While he quietly studied spell after spell and released them back into the atmosphere, I realized that there wasn’t much to hate.
I hated that, too.
Just the thought of it made me brittle.
“So does that make you a spell hunter?” he asked, amusement filling his voice.
“I’ve never seen any of these before. Not until you showed up.”
He seemed to consider that. “Maybe I’ll take up a new line of work, then. Become a spell hunter.”
I stared at him openly.
He laughed at my expression and poked a spell, sending it arrowing away. “What else have I got to do? I don’t know who I am or where I live, so I don’t know where to go. I also need to make money, so perhaps it isn’t a bad idea.”
I snorted. “You tell Dooley Hutto that he’s got spells out here and you’re searching through them, he’s going to want a cut of the profits.”
“I could give the money to you.”
His words made my entire body stutter. “What?”
Rufus gave me a sidelong glance before turning back to pluck a golden ball from the air. “You need it more than I do.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“But I feel like I do.”
I rocked back on my heels and turned my face away so that he wouldn’t see the fear in my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I just feel that I know you, is all. Just one of those things, I guess.” He laughed. “It’s silly, I know. We’ve only just met, but you’re easy to be around.”
I exhaled, relieved. That was all Rufus was saying—that I was a comforting presence. He didn’t suspect.
“There are a lot of people who are easy to be with. But I’m surprised you’d say that, given how I was a bundle of nerves today.”
“You had a right to be.”
I opened my palm, and a magenta-colored orb slipped into it—a talking spell. Interesting. I’d never seen one of those before. You never knew when you might need a good talking spell. I slipped it in my jean pocket. It vibrated against my groin.
Great.
“My parents both died when I was younger,” I murmured.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.
“My mother first and then my dad. They were both very sick and left me when I was barely eighteen.”
Why was I telling him this? Why was I revealing my secrets to Rufus? Maybe because it was a beautiful night. The stars shone high above us, and the spells were simply delightful to behold.
“What did you do after?” he gently prodded.
“Well, I went to school and got a construction and design degree, of all things. I like designing. I like building.” I glanced over and smiled. “I guess I just like it all.”
“Hmm, I wonder what I like,” he murmured.
A jolt of anguish raced up my back. Perhaps I should tell him, just go ahead and blurt it out. You like playing Frankenstein. You once attempted to steal my powers! But now you seem like a nice person, so please don’t return to those ways or else I’ll have to fight you.
Right. As if.
He sighed. “I think that’s one thing I yearn for, knowing what I used to do in my old life.”
“What do you like to do now?”
He tapped an orb, and it spun out, flitting through the night. “Apparently I like to spend my free time searching for spells.”
“Perhaps you are the new spell hunter.”
Rufus gazed at me earnestly. “That would mean that both of us are.”
It was my turn to chuckle. “I think I’m okay. I prefer to renovate buildings.”
“As you wish.” He paused. “But I wonder what makes it so that we can both see these?”
I hesitated. “I think it’s something to do with you. I don’t think it’s me. Somehow”—I plucked a yellow orb and held it in my palm—“all of this is connected to you.”
“Perhaps it’s because of my amnesia. I’m a clean slate, as it were.”
I flicked the ball into the air. “Maybe I’m not the only one who can see the orbs with you.”
He strode over and plucked a blue orb from the night and held it in his palm, studying it. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
The ball shimmered different hues of blue, flashing from one to the next, twinkling in his hand. “They are.” I glanced up at Rufus, expecting him to be staring at the ball, but found him gazing at me. A knot formed in the back of my throat, and I stepped back. My heel caught on a root and down I went, falling.
Quick as lightning, Rufus’s arm coiled around my waist and righted me. My breath hitched as I stared into his dark eyes.
His brow quirked. “Seems I’m good at something.”
“Yes,” I whispered, feeling the moment build in intensity. Suddenly I wondered what his lips would feel like, what his mouth would taste like.
I wanted to scream.
I was supposed to want to scratch his eyes out, not plant my lips on his.
He glanced away, giving me a front-row seat to his profile—a strong brow, eyebrows etched so beautifully that they looked like an artist had painted them on one at a time.
And don’t even get me started on those eyelashes.
I wriggled from his grasp, and Rufus’s hand fell away. “Sorry, for a moment it felt like we’d melted together.”
A laugh tittered in my throat, and I refocused on the orbs, trying to push away all the thoughts and feelings that zoomed in my body at the speed of a roller skater doing tricks on a Friday night at Skateland.
Yes, we had a Skateland in Peachwood, of all places.
I turned away, not wanting him to see my red cheeks. They blazed as if burned by the sun. I needed a moment to get control of myself.
A green orb flitted by, and I wrapped it in my hand. An electric current jolted through my body as I recognized the spell immediately.
“Have you found anything?” Rufus asked.
Before I could answer, a shotgun clicked shut behind us. My heart jammed into my throat.
Dooley’s voice rang loud and clear. “Get your hands up and turn around slowly.”
I moved to place a hand in my pocket and Dooley shouted. “No sudden moves. I ain’t playing.”
“It’s just me, Dooley.”
He saw my face and lowered the shotgun with a sigh. He stood in silhouette, lit by my truck’s headlights. Dooley cussed as he pulled a handkerchief from his overall bib and wiped his brow.
“Doggone it, Clem, what the heck do you think you’r
e doing out here?”
I grimaced. “Sorry, Dooley. We were looking for old wood or something that we could use in your new barn.”
He strode forward, the thin lines of his scowl making parentheses on both sides of his mouth. “Why the heck didn’t you tell me? You ’bout gave me a heart attack. Not only that, but you almost got a butt full of lead.”
I made my voice real thick sounding with apology. “Well, to be honest, I didn’t want you to know. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
He rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. “Next time you want to do something like that, you need to tell me—you hear?”
“Yes, sir.” I glanced over my shoulder at Rufus. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“What? You’re gonna leave now?” Dooley said, bewildered.
Rufus strode forward. “I think we’ve searched all that we can and haven’t found what we’re looking for.” His gaze cut into me. “Don’t you think, Clementine?”
It felt like Rufus could see the secrets pocketed in my heart. As if he knew what I was thinking, even, and what I had hidden in my jeans, near the talking spell.
I smiled widely and kicked a pebble in my path. “Yep, we’ve searched about as much as we can.”
Orbs still glowed. They flitted about, but Dooley didn’t stare at them because he couldn’t see them.
As we got into my truck and I slid behind the wheel, I felt the orb in my pocket, the new one I had tucked away. Its warmth oozed over my leg, almost like water running atop my skin.
Rufus sighed as he slinked down into his seat. He stared out the window and said heavily, “Looks like that spell is harder to find than I imagined.”
The memory spell in my pocket slipped a little to the right. My fingers tightened on the steering wheel as sweat from my palms slicked the surface.
I patted Lady, who curled up beside me. “Yep, I guess you’ll just have to keep looking. You’ll just have to,” I repeated as we rumbled back toward the main road and away from Dooley’s farm.
Chapter 20
I got home late that night. Every muscle in my body ached—from my shoulders to the bottoms of my feet. Lady was tired, too. As soon as I opened the front door, she scurried to the kitchen for a drink of water from her bowl and then hopped onto my bed, ready to call it a day.