by Chris Cannon
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Discover more Entangled Teen books… Ionic Attraction
Lions and Tigers and Boys
Phoenix Fire
Kiss Me, Kill You
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Chris Cannon. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
10940 S Parker Rd
Suite 327
Parker, CO 80134
[email protected]
Entangled Teen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Erin Molta
Cover design by Elizabeth Turner Stokes
Cover photography by
Irina Bg/Shutterstock
Quinn Sedam, Jordan Neufeld, and Meindert van der Haven/Getty Images
ISBN 978-1-68281-527-4
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition January 2020
Dear Reader,
Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance you’ve come to expect, and we couldn’t do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.
xoxo
Liz Pelletier, Publisher
Chapter One
Meena
There are days where I wonder if everyone else on the planet is batshit crazy…and if they’re not, does that mean I am? Just because I prefer to stay home with my cats and my books doesn’t mean I’m strange. It means I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t fit.
I’d love to say that I’m a sparkly unicorn, but I’m more like my cats Marshmallow and Pumpkin…I’d rather eat, take naps, and ignore the world.
Unfortunately, my book addiction needed to be fed, and in a small town like Crossroads there weren’t a lot of opportunities for gainful employment over summer vacation. Most of the jobs available to seventeen-year-olds involve the phrase “Do you want fries with that?” Which is why I was currently interviewing for the position of part-time cleaning lady with Old Lady Winslow, also known as Wacky Winslow due to her well-known belief in things that go bump in the night.
“You’re the fifth person who’s applied for this job,” she said. “Why do you want to work for me, Meena?”
Should I be honest? “Money…I need money to support my book habit.”
She eyed me from the top of my dishwater-blond messy bun down to my rhinestone-covered flip-flops. Maybe I should have worn something a little nicer than my favorite blue sundress, but it was ninety degrees outside. With her silver hair sticking out in all directions and her purple T-shirt, black capris, and purple Birkenstocks I didn’t think she had much room to judge my sense of fashion.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I mean why do you want to work for Wacky Winslow?”
Okay…I knew people called her that. I may have uttered the unkind name once or twice myself, but hearing her refer to herself like that made the situation all sorts of awkward. I scraped my flip-flop back and forth on the warped floorboards of the front porch where she’d left me standing for the interview rather than inviting me into her house. “Well, I thought working for someone a little different might be interesting.”
“You find dusting and vacuuming interesting?” She asked like she thought I was the odd one.
“It’s better than wearing a paper hat and flipping burgers. Plus, I like putting things in order.” All of my books were organized by genre and title.
“Then I have one more question for you.” She paused like she was about to ask me something earth-shattering. “How do you feel about cats?”
I sucked in a breath. “I love cats.”
She grinned and brushed a stray silver curl off her forehead. “This might work out.” She stepped back and pointed down at the threshold for the door. “Come in, but don’t break the salt line.”
A thick line of rock salt lay inside the doorway in a small silver tray embedded in the hardwood floor. I’d watched enough ghost stories to know why she’d put it there. “Does that really keep out spirits?” I asked.
“Not spirits,” she corrected. “Ghosts. And most of the time it does.”
Okay then. The front room I’d stepped into had a well-worn brown leather sectional, a coffee table with a few impressive scorch marks on the top, and a red brick fireplace. Different colored crystals were scattered about on the scarred oak table, and some sort of smoky sweet incense burned in the wall sconces that should’ve held candles. That was weird, but not as weird as the glass cases high on the wall which held jars of murky silver liquid. “What’s that about?” I pointed at the odd display.
“Those are the souls of my enemies,” she said with complete sincerity.
Wow…the salt and crystals I could deal with, but this was a whole other level of strange. I glanced at the jars full of pearlescent liquid which seemed to swirl around…all on its own…and then back at her face. “Do you expect me to do anything with those?” Because there was only so much I was willing to deal with for seven dollars an hour.
“No. You’re not to touch those. Ever.”
“Works for me.” Time to get down to business. “What do you want me to do?”
“Follow me and watch for the salt.”
“Sure.” She led me into what could have been a dining room due to the lopsided crystal chandelier, but she’d set the room up as an office. An old Apple computer perched on top of an antique desk, which was surrounded by mismatched bookcases full to the brim with antique leather-bound books…the kind with the titles made of gold letters stamped onto the spine. My fingers itched to grab a book and flip open the cover. What type of secrets would these books contain? In a house like this, anything was possible. Were the books off-limits? I’d have to ask.
The next doorway led to the kitchen. The rooms in her old farmhouse seemed like a bunch of connected boxes. Definitely not the open concept style they always talked about on those home decorator shows. Every door had a crystal knob and a skeleton key sticking out of the lock, along with a salt line on both sides of the threshold.
In the kitchen she opened a walk-in pantry. “Here’s where I keep the holy water and the cleaning supplies.”
“Holy water?” Maybe I hadn’t heard her right.
“Yes.” She pointed at a giant glass water cooler like you’d find in an office but this one was six feet tall. “Whenever you clean anything, use water from this tank. These b
ottles of cleaner right here,” she pointed at some unlabeled spray bottles, “are made with it. The concentrates to make the cleaner are in the cabinet along with the rock salt.” She opened the doors of an antique armoire. One side held bottles of industrial strength cleaner. The other side housed a barrel full of rock salt.
She grabbed a red Solo cup from a package next to the water tank. “Before I can hire you, you’ll need to have a drink.” She filled the cup halfway and passed it to me.
I eyed the clear liquid with suspicion. “What’s in this stuff that makes it holy?”
“Father Jack comes by and blesses the delivery for me once a month. Plus there’s a silver rosary in the bottom.”
How bad do I want this job? “Do you mind taking a sip first, so I know it’s safe?”
“Smart girl.” She smiled and took a drink from my glass. When she didn’t go into convulsions, I drank. It tasted like regular water, so I downed the cup.
“Any more tests I need to pass?”
“If Goblin approves of you, you’re hired.”
Hopefully I wouldn’t regret asking this. “Who’s Goblin?”
“My cat.”
We exited the closet. She walked over to the kitchen table, picked up a bag of seafood cat treats, and shook it. Funny how that seemed to be the universal method for calling cats.
A black feline with golden eyes poked his head around the corner from the dining room. He spotted me and stalked over, sniffing the air as he came closer. I must have passed inspection because he rubbed the side of his face all over my flip-flops, scenting them. My cats would not be pleased.
“Hello, Goblin.” I leaned over and stroked his head. He purred, leaning into my hand.
“You’re hired.”
“Cool.”
She sprinkled a few cat treats on the floor and my newest feline friend ran to snap them up.
“Can you give me a list of everything you’d want me to do, so I can figure out my week?”
“Sure.” She sat at the kitchen table and opened an envelope, pulling out some papers. “Here’s what I’d like you to do and how often it needs to be done.”
I sat in the spindle-backed chair opposite her and read the list. She wanted me to vacuum and dust the living room and dining room, and mop and clean the bathroom and kitchen once a week. Plus I needed to check and make sure the salt lines were unbroken. That was a little weird, but it left me plenty of time to relax and read. She passed a contract across the table. “Look this over before you sign it.”
Like I wouldn’t have done that if she hadn’t told me. I skimmed the legal mumbo jumbo, making sure I wasn’t agreeing to sell a kidney or perform demonic rituals. Everything seemed straightforward. The only odd part…I wasn’t allowed to go upstairs to the second floor or down into the basement.
Her farmhouse was so old the basement probably had a dirt floor, so not cleaning it was fine by me. I guess she didn’t want me snooping in her bedroom, not that I would have, but it meant less work so it wasn’t a problem.
When I reached the bottom of the contract, I blinked. The ad in the Penny-saver had said seven dollars an hour, but the contract said ten.
“Not that I object, but did you mean to write this up as ten dollars an hour?”
Goblin jumped up onto her lap and purred as she rubbed his ears. “The extra three dollars an hour is if you’re willing to run some errands for me.”
“Like picking up groceries?” Hopefully that’s what she had in mind.
“Sort of. I special order items from Madame Zelda’s. They come in about once a week. If you’re willing to pick those up whenever they’re ready, then I’ll pay you ten dollars an hour.”
Madame Zelda was second runner-up for most eccentric citizen in Crossroads. She was a fortune teller who had a shop specializing in mystical items like the crystals I’d seen on Mrs. Winslow’s coffee table. She was probably responsible for the incense, too. The shop was real popular around Halloween, other than that business was probably slow. It made sense that they’d be friends. “Sure, Mrs. Winslow, I can do that.”
She flinched. “Mrs. Winslow was my mother-in-law’s name. We never hit it off. Why don’t you call me Carol.”
Calling adults by their first name always seemed odd, but if that’s what she wanted… “All right, Carol.” I signed the paper and handed it back. “I’ll start tomorrow afternoon, if that’s okay.”
Her cell rang. “Excuse me while I take this.” She answered her phone and walked toward the sink. Goblin hopped on the kitchen table and padded over to see me until we were nose to nose.
“Aren’t you a handsome guy.” I stroked him from his head to his tail. He purred and flopped down so I’d continue petting him.
“He’s taken quite a shine to you.” Carol smiled. “That was Zelda. My order came in. If you’ll go pick it up, I’ll count it as an hour and you can start cleaning tomorrow.”
It was a twenty-minute drive down gravel and dirt backroads to Madame Zelda’s shop, which was the first floor of her old farmhouse. It was strange that she’d want people coming in and out of her house, but I guess the commute to work was short.
I parked in the double-wide driveway, climbed out of the car, and sucked in a lungful of humidity. Ninety degrees with ninety percent humidity should be illegal. I dreamed of leaving Crossroads one day and moving somewhere…anywhere the temperature never went above eighty degrees.
Zelda’s house gave off an odd vibe…maybe because she’d painted the porch on her old white farmhouse a violent shade of neon green. If she was going for a New Age Mother Earth scenario she’d missed by a mile. The front door she’d installed on the house, with its decorative silver frame, only added to the rumors that her house was haunted.
Heat shimmered off the broken concrete as I walked up to the front door. When I grabbed the silver knob and pulled, nothing happened. Weird. The black-and-white sign hanging in the window said the shop was open. Maybe Zelda ran out for lunch and forgot to flip the sign over?
I peered through the glass. No one was in the shop, but I heard voices. Someone must be working. Maybe they didn’t realize the door was locked. I knocked harder.
I heard a string of curse words, and then a guy called out, “Just a minute.”
…
Jake
Why did Aunt Zelda always seem to get customers when I was in the middle of doing something? Probably some old bat who needed white sage to clear ghosts from her house. I didn’t get it. Maybe the closer you got to being dead the more you believed in this crap.
I made sure the water valve under the sink was completely shut off, so I wouldn’t get another unexpected shower when I tried to put the washer in the faucet again. Despite what my mom claims, I am capable of learning from my mistakes. I dried my face with a paper towel and then went to answer the door. Halfway across the room I realized the person on the other side of the door was definitely not my aunt’s age. Tan legs and a blue dress that hugged some nice curves made it seem like my day was about to improve.
As I came closer, I smiled at the cute brown-eyed blonde. I flipped the lock and then opened the door for her. “Sorry, I thought it was open.” Total lie, but she didn’t need to know that.
She tilted her head to the side and studied me. “Is it raining in here?”
“What?”
She pointed at the dark gray water spots on my light gray T-shirt. “No. I was trying to fix the faucet for my aunt. Thought I turned the water all the way off, but I was wrong.”
“That makes more sense.” She glanced around the room. “Mrs. Winslow sent me to pick up her order.”
“Oh…that might be a problem because Aunt Zelda left an hour ago for some woo-woo séance thing. I don’t know when she’ll be back.”
“Woo-woo?” She grinned. “Is that a technical term?”
“Yes.” This girl was
funny and cute. Maybe my summer wouldn’t totally suck. “I’m Jake, by the way.”
“I’m Meena. Speaking of things that aren’t quite right, I started working for Carol today, and I don’t want to go back to her empty-handed. Can you help me find her order?”
“Sure.” I pointed to the counter displaying crystal jewelry. “The smaller packages go back there.”
She checked behind the counter and sorted through some small boxes and manila envelopes. “No. Nothing here.” She leaned against the glass case and tapped her fingernails. “If her package came today, other things might have been delivered, too. Do you know where your aunt keeps her mail?”
“She’s a packrat.” I’d had to clean a ton of stuff out from under the sink in the guest bathroom before I could reach the water shut-off valve. “The delivery guy comes to the back door, so we can check the stockroom but it won’t be easy to find one package.” I rubbed the back of my neck as I tried to come up with an accurate description of the situation. “It’s easier to show you than to try and explain.”
She followed me from the main front room down the hallway, past the bathroom, and into the stockroom beyond. I waited for her reaction.
“Holy crap.”
“Exactly.” The walls were lined with cabinets and bookshelves stuffed full of books and boxes and packages wrapped in brown paper and tied with blue string. Less than half of them were labeled.
“What’s all this stuff?” she asked.
“I asked that same question. Aunt Zelda said I shouldn’t touch any of this without her permission. She mentioned something about hexes.”
“Hexes.” She nodded. “Got it.” She headed toward the back door where four boxes wrapped in brown paper were stacked one on top of the other. “These look like they were delivered today.” She peered at the labels. “Any idea what this says?”
I joined her and checked out the writing on the brown paper. It was some foreign language. “It would be cool if I knew, but I don’t. You could take all four of them. If they’re not hers bring them back.” Not a bad plan. That way I’d have another chance to see her again. It’s not like I knew anyone in this backwoods town.