Trouble Brewing

by Jane Tara

  Taran rolled onto his side and stared at the woman beside him. Her red hair fanned across the pillow. Her lips were full and pink and her eyelashes endless. She was a knockout. He’d never been this fascinated by anyone before. Back home he had a reputation for loving and leaving women. In his defense, he certainly didn’t encourage women to throw themselves at him. It just happened. And it’s not like he slept with all of them. Hell no! If he did, he’d never have time for anything else. And he was never cruel, just honest. He was yet to learn the lesson that they are often the same thing. His art came first and he’d never been interested in commitment. Not that such honesty ever stopped the women. It got so bad that his twin brother Finn stopped introducing his girlfriends to him. And then Taran met Tye.

  Taran had been spending time with his sister in Hamlet, Massachusetts, where Tye also lived. They’d become friends, and he was attracted to her, mainly because she seemed wary of him – a challenge. Eventually she told him that she’d dreamt of the man she’d end up with her whole life … and it was him, only with blond hair. Tye didn’t know that Taran had a blond twin, and Taran took advantage of that fact. Until Finn arrived in town and Tye realized what Taran had done.

  Of course, Tye and Finn ended up together, as they were meant to. But Finn was hurt.

  Taran tried to argue his case. “Come on, Finn, it doesn’t count. I met her first.”

  “And she told you she’d dreamt of me all her life. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  Deep down, Taran knew Finn was right. Tye wasn’t just any woman. “I’m sorry, Finn. I didn’t think things through.”

  “You never do,” Finn admonished. “Didn’t you realize how much trouble this would cause between us?”

  “How was I to know? I’m not psychic like the rest of you.”

  It was true. While Taran saw ghosts, he wasn’t as gifted as the rest of his family. But it wasn’t just about Tye. Finn was completely sick of Taran’s attitude to all women, especially the ones he himself dated. Finn wasn’t angry – sweet-natured Finn never really got angry – but it was the final straw.

  “I’ll never be able to truly trust you around Tye until you know what love is.”

  “Finn, you can trust me.”

  “You’ve slept with three of my girlfriends and flirted with countless more.”

  “Well, you have really good taste,” Taran joked weakly.

  “I don’t want you in my life until you know what love is. Simple.”

  “Oh come on, Finn. I love you and Rhi.” It was true. He’d take a bullet for his siblings.

  “Love with a woman. Romantic love. And then you’ll understand just how fragile the heart can be. And hopefully, you’ll never break mine again.” Finn was adamant. “Don’t call, don’t visit and don’t email until you’re in love.”

  Taran was devastated. Sure, he’d never truly loved a woman, but he loved his brother. Finn was his other half, and the only person who truly understood him. Finn knew Taran’s thoughts before he’d finished forming them. Taran felt lost without Finn, but there was only one way to fix it – to fall in love. So he went on a series of dates set up by friends. And was bored out of his brain. He liked a challenge and women had a habit of being way too easy for him. He wished it weren’t so. He craved a deeper connection, but he just couldn’t find it with someone who didn’t keep him on his toes.

  Calypso kept him so high on his toes he felt like Baryshnikov.

  When he was offered the gig at the Gate, the timing was perfect. A couple of months in London. They could get to know each other properly. Taran was certain that Calypso, the only woman he had ever truly connected with, would be the one to help heal the rift with his brother. Perhaps even the rift inside himself.

  She began to stir and he pulled her closer and nuzzled her neck. He felt himself go hard and decided it was time to wake her up properly.

  *

  Calypso was aware of Taran’s arms around her. He kissed her neck and she moaned softly. A gentle touch, soft persistent probing from behind her, and then –

  She gasped as he gave her the most pleasant wake-up call she’d had in a long time. Afterwards she lay there with the sheets tangled around her and decided on the best way to approach the inevitable.

  “Let’s go out for breakfast,” he suggested.

  She stretched languorously “I can’t. I’ve got stuff to do today.”

  “I thought we could hang out.”

  “Sorry … no can do.”

  “Lunch.”

  “No.”

  “Dinner?”

  Good goddess he was persistent. “I’m busy.” Calypso stared at him for a moment. Oh, what the hell. “I’m going to a stand-up gig tonight. My best friend Megan is a comedian. You can come if you want.”

  Taran looked like he’d just won the lottery. “Excellent.” And then: “Do you mind if I bring my friend Simon? I should spend some time with him.”

  “Not at all. The more the merrier.” And safer, thought Calypso.

  She extracted herself from Taran’s arms and climbed out of bed. “So I’ll see you tonight then.”

  “Are you throwing me out?”

  “I know it’s not something you’d be used to, but yes.”

  “C’mon babe, why don’t you crawl back in the nest with me.”

  Calypso burst out laughing. “Does that shit work with other women?”

  Okay.” He grinned. “How about another shag?”

  Tempting! “I have an appointment.” She tossed him his pants. “So you have to go.”

  “You should go back to romance school, Callie. Retake Subtle Ways to Say Goodbye 101.”

  “In my experience, goodbyes are never subtle.” Calypso tilted her head to one side. “So … see ya!”

  “I’ve met sledgehammers that are more subtle than you. You’re like a Rubik’s cube. I think I’d have to pull you apart to really work you out.”

  “Well, let me give you a tiny insight into how I work.”

  Taran sat up. She leant toward him slightly, but stayed just out of his reach.

  “I’m not a morning person, Taran. I don’t like chatter until after I’ve had an extremely strong coffee. So the more you talk now, the less chance you’ve ever got of waking up with me again.”

  Taran kept his mouth shut. There really was no way to respond to that.

  Calypso slipped into her robe. “I’m going for a shower. You know the way out.” She gave him a wicked smile. “And if not … you’ll find it.”

  Calypso spent twenty minutes under the hot water, trying to clear her head. It was impossible. Her brain wasn’t foggy due to a lack of sleep, but an excess of Taran Dee. She regretted asking him to Megan’s gig, but she wasn’t in full control of herself when he was around. It’s why he was dangerous. The last thing she needed was a complicated affair with Taran. She didn’t want to feel more for him than she already did. She certainly didn’t want to risk falling in love with him. She needed to stop seeing him … but one more night shouldn’t be a problem.

  Chapter Six

  Cowslip wine will cure jaundice

  Taran dropped by the Gate on the way home and checked out the space properly. He also introduced himself to Helen Galloway, the gallery’s head of press officer. It was her job to make sure everyone knew his show was on.

  “We’ll set up a series of interviews, plus invite a few critics to come and view your work just prior to the opening. We’re thinking of calling it the Web of Life. What do you think?”

  “Appropriate.” Taran was getting a weird vibe off her and didn’t like it.

  Helen gave Taran an appreciative once-over. “We’ll start with the female critics and it would be great if you were here when they came.”

  Taran’s eyes narrowed slightly. He was used to people judging his looks before anything else, but this exhibition was going to change that. “I think my art speaks for itself.”

  “Yes, but we want them to like it, Taran.”

  “
Whether they like it or not is irrelevant.”

  Helen shrugged. “You’re probably jetlagged. We’ll talk more about this later.”

  Taran arranged to meet with Helen and the gallery director and the curator later in the week and caught a cab back to the safety of Simon’s.

  He felt strange, off-kilter, slightly … used, which was ridiculous. Being treated like a prize Hereford by Helen didn’t help, but it was Calypso’s behavior that really bugged him. She’d thrown him out. She made no secret of the fact that she enjoyed the sex, but had more important things to do. Calypso was doing what he’d done countless times himself, to loads of women he’d never called again. The realization unnerved him. Had any of those women harbored strong feelings for him, only to be rejected so flippantly? He’d always prided himself on being honest, but perhaps honesty wasn’t always the best policy. A tiny bit of faked affection, a touch of regret, a lingering farewell kiss would have made him feel a hell of a lot better today.

  Or perhaps he needed a hot cup of Harden the Fuck Up.

  Taran unpacked his canvasses in the bedroom he was using as a studio. He began to feel a familiar tingle in his fingers. Laying his tools out was therapeutic and the hurt and frustration he’d been feeling all morning began to lift.

  He needed to paint.

  Images filled his brain. The room around him faded as he prepared his oils. Inspiration hit! An image appeared, glorious, vivid and alive. He free fell through the layers of his imagination as his hand translated what he saw onto the blank canvas before him.

  Hours passed in the blink of an eye.

  A gorgeous, wild, redheaded woman came to life on canvas.

  *

  A few suburbs away the real-life version of that gorgeous, wild, redheaded woman was about to experience a problem.

  Calypso stood behind the bar and stared at the girl sitting before her. Emily was fifteen, which was why Calypso had booked her in for a daytime appointment. As a rule, Calypso worked behind the bar during hours that suited her. But rules are made to be broken, so quite often she’d see underage clients during the day. She never prescribed alcohol (or if she did, she’d certainly never admit it), but still used infusions and tinctures and spells to fix their problems.

  Emily, the daughter of two well-known television stars, was having problems dealing with her parents’ very messy divorce. It didn’t help that every detail of the split had been plastered all over the press for months. Emily’s mother, Maxine, had fallen in love with an Australian actor and ex-Neighbours star she’d met while doing a pantomime. Emily’s father, Bryce, was devastated. Normally it was he who chased C-list actors.

  Emily’s way of coping was to rebel. She stopped eating, and the whole country watched in horror as her weight plummeted. She suddenly had her parents’ attention, which was nice, but instead of helping her, Maxine and Bryce turned on each other over their daughter’s obvious distress. Emily upped the ante on her “issues” and began stealing, first from Harrods and Selfridges, both of which were caught on camera, and then from her roommates at her rather expensive boarding school, which got her expelled. Finally, she decided to have sex with her piano teacher’s son and film the whole thing to upload online. Fortunately young Markham had offloaded to his mother before Emily uploaded online. That’s when her mother brought her to see Calypso, something Emily didn’t fight because if the truth were told, she was a bit tired from all the rebellion. At heart, she wasn’t a bad kid at all.

  Calypso watched Emily now, sitting slumped against the bar, her large brown eyes cloaked in exhaustion and misery. This one will be a piece of cake.

  “My brews only work when the recipient desires change and healing,” she said gently.

  Emily glanced at her parents and Calypso sensed she couldn’t back down while they were sitting right beside her. Maxine was glued to her phone, while Bryce looked as though he was about to snatch it out of her hand and smash it against the wall. It was hardly an environment that promoted healing.

  Calypso turned to Emily’s parents. “I think this will work best if Emily and I are alone.”

  Maxine looked mortified. “She needs our support and she won’t have that if we’re not in the room.”

  Calypso had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Instead, she said, “Your support is obvious, but this will work better if she’s alone.”

  “Fine. I can’t get reception in here anyway.” Maxine made her way out of the bar, with Bryce right behind her.

  Calypso turned to Emily with a grin. “They’re enough to drive anyone mad.”

  Emily gave a husky little chuckle and shrugged. “They weren’t that bad before they split up.”

  “Okay, let’s get started.” Calypso scanned the pretty girl, but couldn’t immediately come up with anything. Perhaps Emily was blocking her. “You definitely want to do this?”

  Emily looked exhausted. “Yes, I really do.”

  Calypso tried again. And once more, but the veils refused to lift. She shook her head slightly. This time, it was Emily who was concerned.

  “Perhaps I can’t be fixed.”

  “Everyone can be fixed, if they want to be.”

  The one exception to that rule was with destined diseases and conditions. But even then, Calypso could still access that person’s energy and prescribe remedies to help them cope, or to ease their pain.

  Calypso felt uneasy. What was going on? Why couldn’t she break through the veils to help this girl? She noticed Emily was starting to look upset as well, so she needed to come up with something quickly. She could admit she couldn’t pick up on anything, but Emily would take that as a personal failure and this girl really needed help. Calypso decided to fake something now and advise that Emily came back for a second session some other time.

  “Got it,” Calypso announced, sounding way more confident than she felt. “You’re an interesting and complex person, Emily. But I know what you need.”

  Emily looked relieved and Calypso knew she’d done the right thing. She set about making an infusion of chamomile and lemon balm, and also prescribed an Avena sativa tincture. She knew it was a cop out, but the properties of the tea and tincture would still have an effect. Sure, it wasn’t the same as a magical brew, but for some reason she was incapable of producing one.

  Calypso placed the tea in front of Emily and watched while she drank it. Even one of her more generic magical brews would work, the ones that were already made up and stored in the fridge. But she couldn’t put her finger on the core of Emily’s problems, so couldn’t prescribe one of them either.

  The core of Emily’s problems. Her parents!

  Calypso almost laughed out loud. Of course! Didn’t have to be psychic to see that, which was lucky, seeing as for some reason today, Calypso wasn’t psychic at all. “Emily, could you go and ask your parents to come back in?”

  Emily slid off the stool and disappeared out the door. Calypso opened the fridge devoted to love spells. It was the main reason people came to her and she found herself using the same potions over and over again, so now brewed some of them in advance. Unless it was an unusual case, a generic cocktail often sufficed.

  Admittedly, she hadn’t been able to tune into Emily’s parents either, but she’d be blind not to notice the classic signs they displayed. Maxine’s affair followed hot on the tail of whispers in the press about Bryce having an affair. She was obviously trying to make Bryce jealous. It worked, because he had seethed and fumed while she tapped away at her phone. If they had no feelings for each other, there’d be no need to behave like this. Not that this was healthy behavior between two adults, but Calypso had seen all sorts of games and dysfunctions in her line of work.

  Calypso grabbed two highball glasses, filled them with ice and poured in a pre-prepared spell: Aphrodite’s Love Potion, a mix of Angostura bitters, brandy and pineapple juice. Finally, she dropped three caraway seeds into each glass. She was just garnishing the cocktails with cherries when the family arrived back.

&
nbsp; “Emily has certainly made some progress today,” she assured them, “but full healing can’t occur without you two also finding a sense of peace with each other.”

  “There’s more chance of peace in the Middle East,” Bryce snapped.

  Calypso slid the cocktails across the bar. “I always live in hope for resolution, wherever it may be. Drink these, for your daughter.”

  Both did as they were told. The effects were visible immediately.

  “Delicious,” Maxine sighed.

  “Reminds me of the cocktails we had that time in Mexico,” Bryce said.

  The two smiled at each other for a moment, then turned away, embarrassed.

  “I’m hungry,” said Emily, surprising everyone in the room.

  “You’d eat?” Maxine was shocked.

  Emily just shrugged.

  “Let’s go and have some lunch, shall we?” her father suggested.

  Emily and her mother smiled and spoke in unison. “That would be lovely.”

  Calypso advised them to bring Emily back soon for another session, on the house, and her parents agreed. It was the first time they’d agreed on anything for months. After some heartfelt gratitude, and an excessively large tip from a smiling Bryce, Calypso was alone again in the bar. She quietly locked the door and sank down onto the cool stone steps. Worry clawed at her gut. Where the hell had her powers disappeared to?

  Chapter Seven

  Holly can be used for dream magic

  Taran passed Simon his beer and they made their way from the bar to one of the tables crammed into the tiny Quinn’s Comedy Club. Taran scanned the room for Calypso, but couldn’t see her. He was excited, and nervous, at the thought of seeing her. Ridiculous really. He’d only left her – okay, she’d kicked him out – a few hours ago.

  They took a seat and Simon looked down at the program. “Which one is her friend?”

  “Megan something or other.”

  “I’m impressed. Stand-up’s not for the fainthearted. I wouldn’t get up in front of my family to yell fire.”