“Do you have any in mind?” I ask as he picks up the box to move it.
It’s opening time and we put the kittens behind the cash register, placing them on a covered heating pad set on low. Hopper finagles the heat lamp to hang over them where they’re nestled inside a sturdy wooden container. “I’m thinking,” he says.
Spring added several blankets for them to nestle in, and I retrieve one of our popular teddy bear rice bags. They’re great for children, scented with lavender, and easy to warm in the microwave. The rice will absorb the heat and give the kittens something to curl up next to, a surrogate mother.
Hopper sits on the floor behind the counter watching them. “They need big names to counterbalance how small they are.”
Spring returns from the kitchen, bringing each of us a piece of her warm blackberry pie and a cup of coffee. I take a bite and a drink before I go to the door and unlock it, flipping the sign to announce we’re open.
“I agree,” Spring says to Hopper. “Since there are five, we should do a theme.”
I down more of the pie and coffee. “What about famous landmarks?” One of my dreams is to travel to foreign places—which will probably never happen, since I have so much responsibility here.
The bell over the door jingles as our first customer arrives and the noise wakes one of the kittens. She mews plaintively.
Spring greets the customer, leaving me and Hopper to watch the babies. Two more begin crying as well, and he pets them gently. “This one’s the color of whiskey,” he says. “We could use different types of liquor.”
The other three stir, adding to the chorus of cries. Hopper laughs softly as they all try to climb onto his hands.
Most of them sound like kittens to me, only the one I heard earlier occasionally communicating something more human sounding. He’s the runt of the litter, but his cry is deep. They all have different vocal qualities reminding me of a human choir.
“What do you have back there?” The customer leans over the counter. She’s a young woman with dark hair and even darker eyes. “Awe, they’re so cute.”
After another moment of admiring them, she returns to shopping and Spring joins us. “Boy, for little guys, they sure are loud,” she says, laughing.
“Yes, they have their own symphony, don’t they?” I ask.
Hopper snaps his fingers “That’s it. Rock bands?” He points to his t-shirt.
Hmm. Not quite what I was thinking. “How about composers?” I offer. “Mozart. Bach, Chopin? Something classy, you know?”
He looks a little crestfallen and shrugs. “Okay, but don’t forget Beethoven.”
“Those are male names,” Spring says. “Are the kittens all boys?”
“Two females.” I’ve already checked. “How about Vivaldi for a girl?”
Hopper nods. “There are plenty of female composers.”
I’m ashamed of the fact my sister and I look at him blankly.
“You know,” he says “Clara Shuman? Fanny Mendelssohn?”
We both shake our heads. Some feminists we are.
“Surely you’ve heard of Hildegard of Bingen.”
Shameful shakes again.
“Come on, St. Hildegard? Also known as Sybil of the Rhine? She’s one of the earliest women composers on record. Lived in the twelfth century. She was a German Benedictine Abbess, a real badass.” He ticks things off with this fingers. “A writer, philosopher, Christian mystic and visionary. She’s considered the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.”
At our blank looks he hangs his head. “I can’t believe you ladies haven’t heard of her.”
“Wow,” Spring says. “She sounds like a goddess. That’s impressive.”
It certainly is, but I can’t imagine naming either of the females—both with dark gray stripes—Hildegard. “I do like Sybil.”
Hopper scratches his whiskered jaw. “Hildegard is an awesome name. Kickass like you sisters.”
The way it rolls off his tongue, I have to agree. Plus, I enjoy how he’s smiling at me, his compliment. “St. Hildegard,” I try it out. “Not bad.”
Hopper pulls out the formula and dropper and begins feeding the kittens once more. “So, we have Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Vivaldi, and Hildegard. What an awesome bunch.”
Our dark-haired customer returns with a bracelet, a can of loose tea, two bottles of essential oils, and incense. “If you need to find homes, let me know. I’d love to adopt one or two.”
I see Hopper resisting the idea, and won’t be surprised if he tries to take them all home.
She leaves, the kittens go back to sleep, and I finish my pie. Somehow when it’s made from berries we picked ourselves, it always tastes better.
Hopper hands the books he brought to Spring. “Came across these at Mariel Fontaine’s estate sale over the weekend,” he tells her. “She had a huge library with quite a collection of antique and vintage editions. These have information on Raven Falls, and one is all about legends concerning this area. Summer told me you’re interested in the history of your property, so I thought you might like them.”
Spring and I exchange a glance. He has no idea why she’s so interested in what’s happened here through the centuries, and I don’t plan to tell him. I can never leave our forty-four acres in the Pacific Northwest because my sisters and I are gatekeepers, ensuring an entity remains imprisoned in the earth here. The thing we call a demon killed our mother last fall on Samhain, and Spring encountered it again at Beltane. One of its minions referred to it as “the master.”
Whatever it is, it’s evil, and we’re trying to find a way to destroy it. Unfortunately, so far, we haven’t had any luck.
“That’s awesome, Hopper,” she says, accepting them. “Thank you.”
Hopper grabs the bag next and hands it to me. “I bought a dozen or so boxes as well. A couple have vintage jewelry in them. This is one of the pieces. I thought you might like it because of the stones.”
Inside is a Victorian style necklace in the shape of a snake. I hesitate to pull it out, afraid of the Touch kicking in but I can’t exactly not examine it with him watching me.
I spread the cloth napkin Spring gave me earlier on the counter and gently tip the bag so the necklace falls onto it. I pull on my gloves and see the eyes are garnets.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell him. “You should really keep this in your store and sell it.”
“I’d rather you have it. I’m not even sure the gemstones are real.”
Garnets are much more than pretty, semi-precious stones. They’ve been used for protection, strength, and light since before the Bronze Age in all sorts of cultures.
Pharaohs had jewelry made from them, Christians used them as talismans. In my energy healing work, they help to strengthen the physical body and aid blood flow. Some days when I’m feeling tired or off balance, I carry a set of polygon garnets in my pockets or bra. They never fail to give me a boost and protect me from energy vampires.
Because I’m so familiar with them, I can recognize them and confirm they’re real. “It’s an amazing piece,” I tell Hopper, “and these are definitely real.”
“I want you to have the necklace,” he says, and pats one of my hands. “Those stones are kind of fiery, aren’t they? When I saw them, they reminded me of you.”
Fire is my natural element. It’s why I love this season so much. Mother named me after the hottest days of the year, and fire is in my blood.
Hopper’s touch makes that internal fire climb higher, and I’m mesmerized by his cool, gray eyes. In all honesty, he’s perfect for me. Calm, steady, grounding.
With my element, I usually seek the air to feed it, so I need water and earth to balance me out. It’s why Spring and I get along well—she’s heavy on the earth element, yet has enough air in her birth chart to keep me burning.
Something passes between me and Hopper, like it often does when I stop long enough to really look at him. He’s a gentle teddy bear inside the body of a gruff giant, an
d I wish with all of my heart our relationship could develop beyond friendship.
His touch becomes firmer, his fingers brushing mine, and I have to pull away. Not because I don’t like it—I love it. But the lace gloves are fingerless and touch means pain if I get a hit about his future again.
He backs up and clears his throat, glances at the kittens as if nothing happened between us, but I feel his uncertainty now, his disappointment I didn’t return his affection.
“Guess I better get back to my shop,” he says. “Almost time for me to open, too.”
“Thank you for everything.” I follow him, guilty about my reaction and desperate to smooth things over. “I mean it. Your timing was perfect this morning.”
Spring pretends to be busy cleaning the dishes and cups, giving us a sense of privacy. Hopper stops at the door and turns to me with a shy smile. “I can help more, if you need it, with the kittens. Just call if you guys get too busy, or have clients and can’t watch them.”
I risk laying a hand on his arm. I wish he was one of the people I couldn’t read.
“I could use help this afternoon with a client, if you have time, Mrs. Sorensen’s arthritis is too bad to drive, so she can’t come here for her regular weekly treatment. I have an idea about how to help her, but I have to go to her.”
This seems to cheer him up. “What time do you want me here?”
“Two o’clock?”
He gives me a roguish smile before opening the door. “See you then, Summer.”
After he leaves Spring says, “What kind of treatment?”
“I’m going to haul spring water to her.”
“The hot spring helps her joints, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, she’s been soaking in it once a week for the past month. Between that and our energy sessions, we were seeing real progress. She skipped last week because one of her daughters was in town. Now she’s so stiff, and her joints are in so much pain, she can’t drive. I’m not sure why her caretaker can’t bring her, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t mind going to her house.”
“It’s going to take a lot of water, isn’t it?”
“That’s why I need help. I’ll fill up her bathtub, use magick to heat it, and put her in it.”
“I’ll babysit the kittens while you’re gone.” She disappears into the kitchen.
I check on the small bodies and see they’re still sleeping. The necklace lies on the countertop and I sincerely wish I could wear it.
Sometimes I can clear the energies lodged in an object, but it usually takes some doing. I’m not sure it will be a problem, but I go to my treatment room cabinet and pull out a large glass bowl and a bag of Himalayan salt.
Back at the counter, I pour salt into the bowl and use a pencil to pick up the necklace and drop it in. With the pencil eraser, I push the necklace under the tiny pink chunks.
For the next several hours, I work on the Conjure blog, upload an informational video on citrine to our YouTube channel, rearrange a display of crystal wands, and take care of the kittens, holding and feeding them each time they wake.
Autumn arrives at noon for a client consultation, and Winter drags herself in shortly after that. Both of my older sisters immediately fall in love with the kittens and offer their help.
Winter doesn’t like to run the shop, but she agrees to take over while I help Mrs. Sorensen. Spring brings me the latest recipe to put on the blog for tomorrow and I get that scheduled.
I move the bowl off to the side and plan to leave it overnight before saging it to clear the previous owner’s energy.
As it nears two, I try to slide past Winter. She’s leaning over the makeshift kitten incubator. My skirt catches on a hook we hang keys on and Godfrey darts across my feet. In an attempt not to step on him, I bump into her.
Balance…one thing I lack.
She tries to catch me as I tip sideways, but in an effort to keep us both from going over, I reach out to grab the counter. My hand sends the bowl flying in the air.
Salt spills. Instinctively, I throw both hands out to try and catch it, and hear the bell over the door at the same instant. Hopper’s smiling face comes into view as salt flows over my hands and the bowl crashes into the stool behind the cash register.
Godfrey hollers and jets off.
Winter has better luck, but I end up with the necklace on the tips of my fingers as I crash to the floor. My fingers close over it and I latch onto the silver.
The room spins. In the blink of an eye, I’m no longer in the shop.
The house smells like old people, filled with Victorian furniture and oil portraits on the walls. There seems to be a party going on and people laughing and drinking, talking and dancing in a large room.
“What do you think, my dear?” A man asks. He holds out a velvet box. “Do you like it?”
He opens it. I gasp and reach for the necklace inside—the silver snake. The hands I see are not mine, they are much more elegant, and one has a beautiful garnet ring on it. I don’t know what’s happening, but I hear myself say, “I love it. It’s beautiful.”
The man moves to clasp it around my neck. “Happy birthday, darling.”
I feel a rush of love for him.
The Touch is showing me the last owner receiving the piece as a gift. I’m feeling what she felt, seeing what she saw.
And then, with it around my neck, my stomach cramps, my head spins. I feel lightheaded and dizzy. “I must sit down,” I tell the man.
Strong hands grip my arms. “What’s wrong?”
I see him again—his moustache and beard, his very serious eyes searching mine. He helps me to a red velvet chair.
“I’m not sure,” I say, my voice breathy. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth, a buzz of something familiar around my heart. It’s magick, but none like I’ve felt before. “Perhaps I should go upstairs and lie—”
Everything goes dark.
3
I wake to find Hopper’s handsome face hovering above me. His lips move, but my ears pop like I’m underwater and I can’t understand what he’s saying.
Everything inside my body aches, my hand spasms, clenching and releasing over and over again. I feel sick, although the sensation is waning. I have to keep blinking to focus, concentrating on the deep lines in Hopper’s forehead as a focal point.
Someone touches the top of my head lightly and I’m instantly filled with magickal energy. It’s refreshing, like Spring because my sister is sending healing energy to help me recover.
As the underwater sensation seeps away, I begin to hear a variety of sounds—mewing kittens, the ringing phone, the soft spell Spring is speaking over me. Hopper’s questions.
“Summer, can you hear me? Are you okay? Talk to me.”
Things fade in and out like a radio station that can’t quite lock on the right frequency. I swallow past the dryness in my throat, allowing Spring’s magick to calm my stomach the rest of the way and reboot my system.
Godfrey is behind Hopper, cleaning his fur with great nonchalance. Puuhlease, she’s fine, I hear him say. I’m the one who nearly got trampled on!
“I’m okay,” I tell her, which sounds ridiculous even to me, since I’m lying on the ground, knocked unconscious by a cat and a necklace.
The vision of the woman swims in my brain, like a dream I can’t quite hang on to. I raise my hands so Hopper and Spring stop talking, but the phone keeps ringing and the kitties keep crying. My head throbs hard, as if it might burst.
I desperately need to hold onto the last tendril of memory, that connection to the woman who wore the necklace. For some reason it consumes me. Like a spinning wheel, I reel the memory back in, anchoring it in my brain, feeling it in my breastbone. I’m not sure why—there’s something she suspected that cowers in the back of my memory. I have to know what it is.
I don’t want to lose this, so I make myself return to what I saw, felt, heard around me. I log each detail, creating a spell that’ll help me recall it later.
When I f
inally nod, Spring and Hopper help me sit. He raises three fingers in front of my eyes. “How many am I holding up?”
He’s so endearing, for a moment all I can do is chuckle. “You’re holding up fingers?” I tease.
It’s a bad joke. He thinks I’m serious. “We need to get her to the hospital. You hit your head pretty hard,” he says to me. “You must have a concussion.” He calls over his shoulder. “Can somebody get an ice bag?”
The back of my head does hurt, and some ice would be good, but the pain is melting away, thanks to Spring’s spell. “I’m okay,” I stress again. “Just let me sit a minute.”
Spring kneels beside my legs. “What happened?”
“The Touch.” She’ll know what that means.
Hopper holds my shoulder as I lean against the side of the counter. “What’s that?”
I glance to my left, still feeling the energy from the necklace lying on the floor, abandoned. The phone has stopped, thanks to Winter, but the kittens are still agitated and my ears are insanely sensitive. I feel their cries all the way to my bones. Salt spilled around us and I realize the necklace will need a lot more cleaning than I suspected. The woman’s spirit is strongly attached to it.
I meet Hopper’s worried gaze, knowing if I tell him, he might decide I’m too weird for his comfort zone.
Maybe that’d be a good thing. I can never have a lasting relationship with anyone, especially not if they want a family.
My heart beats hard, fear of losing him flooding my system. I can almost see the future. Sadness will swamp me if he gets that look in his eyes that says I’m crazy and he needs to get away from me.
This is Hopper, I tell myself. He would never walk out on you. He would never look at you that way. He knows you’re a witch and he still comes to see you every day.
He’s reading my hesitancy, and he puts his other hand on my knee and leans toward me slightly. “It’s okay, Summer. I know you have secrets. I do, too. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Of Curses and Charms Page 2