by Louisa West
And when Rosie opened her eyes, the candle was burning once more.
Chapter 6
Two days later, Rosie and Maggie made their way down Main Street again for her morning shift at the Go-Go-Mart. The weekend had passed in a haze of DIY projects, and the cottage was looking much more hospitable. The living room had been thoroughly dust-busted, and the freshly washed drapes were a pretty shade of cornflower blue, not the murky grey Rosie had first assumed them to be. The couch was going to prove a more worthy adversary, but Rosie was confident she would be able to hire a steam cleaner from somewhere.
Because tomorrow, Tuesday, she would have actual money in her pocket. The kind that she’d earned herself and hadn’t had to coax out of a controlling ex-husband. She chirped a greeting to Ben as she slung her bag under the counter, pausing to scoop her long, chocolate brown hair up into a high ponytail that accentuated her bangs.
“Oh, hi Rosie, Maggie,” Ben said, appearing from the office. He approached the counter with a glance in Maggie’s direction. “Did y’all have a good weekend?”
Rosie smiled, tightened her hair tie, and glanced at the box of unpacked gum waiting for her on the counter. “We did! You?”
“Well, I worked, so...” Ben shrugged. There was a strange catch in his voice, and he was beating around a bush of some kind.
Rosie quirked a brow. “Everything okay?”
Ben took a deep breath and let it out before speaking again. “Maggie? Would you like to read in my office again?”
Maggie nodded. “Yes, please.”
He waited for her to pass through the door into the office but kept his voice low as though he had way too much personal experience with eavesdropping children. “I know that you have a family life, Rosie,” he began, “but I’d rather you didn’t bring personal issues to work.”
She froze, her good mood vanished, and her smile fizzed out in its wake. “What do you mean? I don’t have any personal—”
“Your husband called here yesterday,” Ben interjected. “Something about you were meant to get your daughter back to him for the weekend, and you didn’t show.”
Rosie froze. Ben continued talking, but his words barely registered. She couldn't hear them anyway over the ringing in her ears. Her chest felt tight and full, and she couldn't catch her breath even though she knew she was breathing.
“Okay?” Ben finished. Even though she had no idea what he had said, Rosie nodded. She pulled the box of gum closer to her and began to draw the foil-wrapped packages out in a daze.
She got paid tomorrow. She could ask Ben to cash it for her since she didn't have a bank account yet. That was believable. Then she could hire a cab, or steal Declan's truck. They had enough food to eat for a few towns anyway. They could drive until his gas ran out, and then they could walk.
“Rosie?”
Ben's voice interrupted her planning, and she realized that she was shoving piles of gum into a chocolate bar spot. She hurriedly pulled them back out onto the counter.
“Sorry, Ben,” she felt herself murmuring. “It won’t happen again.”
The trickle of customers thinned to a halt before lunch. It seemed like a good time to get a jump on restocking. Rosie went to the front door of the store and did a quick survey of the street—quiet as usual—before stepping out of the back door and into the loading dock area.
The loading dock was just a big concrete porch with no railings so that delivery trucks could pull right up alongside it and unload. A stack of battered-looking crates filled the right corner of the dock, leaning haphazardly against the store’s brick wall. An old armchair was nearby, and Rosie guessed that this was the unofficial Go-Go-Mart break room. A tin roof extended over the area so that it was out of the weather.
She shuffled towards the neatly piled cardboard boxes on the left of the dock and lifted one box of soda cans. It was heavy, but physical work always made her feel better. She supposed it was the endorphins. After hefting it to the counter inside, Rosie turned and made her way back out to the dock to grab a carton of diet soda as well.
Declan’s truck was parked alongside the dock. He came around the truck to the ladder that allowed access to the asphalt in the alley. He glanced up at her as he climbed.
“Mornin’,” he grinned lazily, turning to step onto the bed of the pickup where wooden cartons waited to be unloaded.
“Hey,” she responded, half in her thoughts.
“Let me take those,” Declan said, removing the case of diet soda from her arms. She let him and stayed on the porch long after he left. She felt far away, staring at the beat-up old truck that he had parked by the loading dock.
“You keep starin' at her like that,” said Declan as he came back for another load, “and I'm gonna think you like my truck more than me!”
Rosie felt tears threatening to overcome her for the second time that morning. She refused to give in to them. She lashed out with her leg instead, kicking one of the empty wooden crates. The whole stack tumbled down onto the loading dock.
Declan’s brows lifted as he watched her episode, his eyes wide. He was by her side in a heartbeat, even though it was clear that he had no idea what to do with the situation.
“Hey,” he finally said in a soft tone, placing a beefy hand on her shoulder as he guided her towards the chair. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Nothing,” she huffed, knowing how stupid she sounded as soon as the words had left her mouth.
Declan tilted his head to the side, eyeing her as though she were a horse that might bolt at the first chance it had. He wasn’t far off. “Don’t sound like nothin’,” he prompted. “I can’t help ya fix what I don’t know is broken, love.”
“Stop calling me stupid pet names,” she snapped. “It’s not your problem to fix. And even if it was, you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway.”
“I know from experience, darlin’,” he said, ignoring her command. “And this is somethin’, not nothin’. And ignorin’ it ain’t gonna do a damn thing.”
To hear perfect sense coming from a man who still maintained that she was the queen of all witches was jarring. Rosie blinked up at him and took a deep, shaky breath.
As though he could sense that the storm had passed, he squatted next to her chair. He was so tall that even like this, he was nearly eye-level with her. “Let me guess,” he said ruefully. “It’s a problem with a fella.”
She let the breath out and shook her head. Her tears came in a flood. “Not just a fella. A… demon.” She looked through the veil of blurring tears and into his gaze, and the words tumbled out. “My ex. Randy.”
Now that she was on the precipice of telling someone about what had happened, Rosie wasn’t sure she wanted to make the leap. What did it say about her that she spent all that time letting herself get run down? What kind of mother was she to not have made the break sooner? Her hands started to shake, and she grabbed the hem of her Go-Go-Mart polo shirt in her fists to stop them.
“You’re alright,” Declan said softly, sliding forward onto his knees as he realized this was going to be a longer conversation than either of them had bargained for. She took in what she hoped would be a bolstering gulp of air. He reached forward to untangle one of her hands so that he could envelop it in his. “You’re alright,” he repeated. “You don’t have to talk about this if ya don’t wanna,” ducking his head to meet her gaze, “but I’m here t’listen if ya do.”
Perhaps it was the sincerity she could read in his usually cheeky eyes. Maybe it was the crushing weight of carrying around the baggage – all those years of putting up with what she assumed was her lot. Dreaming of better but not believing that she deserved better. But whatever the reason, Rosie felt the story start pouring out with her tears.
“I'd been with Randy since I was seventeen,” she began, looking down at their hands entwined. “Since I was a kid. I had lived in the foster care system my whole life—” she scoffed, and then corrected herself. “Well, survived is probably a better way
to describe it. Anyway, by the time I had made it through high school, I was a nobody. I wasn’t rich enough to be fashionable, not fashionable enough to be popular, and not popular enough to be noticed – except by Randy.”
He squeezed her hand. Her lips twitched to smile at the gesture, but she was too lost in her memories. “He made me feel like somebody – at least in the beginning. He was older and had a motorcycle. Most of the girls in my senior year swooned whenever they spotted him around town. They couldn’t believe it when he seemed interested in little ol’ me.”
In her mind, she could see it all like it was yesterday. The gas-station flowers she’d been so impressed by—the promises of protection, loyalty, love. Looking back now, she could see how Randy might have thought he was in love. But love didn’t let people do the things he’d done to her and Maggie.
“I couldn't believe it, either,” she admitted. It felt so foolish now, and she hated herself for having thought that a man could be the glue that would hold the shattered fragments of her life together. “Nothin’ was too much trouble. And he was always complimenting me, tellin’ me things like...” she trailed off, as though she didn’t want to go back to that place where Randy had made her feel anything good. “Don’t matter now, I suppose. What I didn’t know was that he was an up-and-comer with the Marauders biker gang.”
Declan bit his bottom lip, as though he wanted to say something but was determined to listen.
“Any mean streak he’d had in him all along grew wider once he started up with the Marauders,” Rosie told him, brushing a stream of tears away. “They all treated their women like possessions, and he was desperate to fit in. We'd go back and forth, a few months as a normal couple. Him comin' home for dinner, then a few months of him bein' what they wanted him to be. By the time I realized he was never gonna change, it was too late. I was twenty-nine years old and pregnant with a baby I was desperate to keep.”
“Maggie,” Declan said.
“Maggie,” Rosie confirmed, unable to keep a sad smile from her face at the mention of her daughter. “Guess somewhere deep down, I thought that havin’ someone else to love would make up for the love I didn’t already have.”
He watched her face intently. “Did it work?”
“A bit,” she admitted. “But mostly, it helped me realize that my love for her was bigger than my fear of him.”
“So, you left.”
“So, I left.”
“And now he’s comin’ after ya.”
She nodded. “He knows where I am.” She dug her phone out of her back pocket and checked it, worried he might have somehow traced her through it. The screen was blank. Pressing her lips together, she lifted her free hand to sweep her bangs to the side as though it might help her to see the situation more clearly. “It’s only a matter of time before he shows up.”
“Well,” Declan huffed with a determined look in his eyes. “I could sort it out for ya right quick enough,” he told her with another squeeze of her hand, “but that’d be doin’ you no good. What you need is to be able to protect yourself and Maggie.”
Rosie’s gaze danced over his face, looking for clues that he was making fun of her. Finding none, she discovered that she was grateful for his advice.
“And how do I do that?” she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. A moment later, warmth blanketed her cheek. She opened her eyes to find Declan’s hand gently cupping her face, the pad of his thumb brushing her skin. She could see a light dusting of freckles across his large nose, as though the connection had thrown everything into high definition.
“Don't run,” he said, meeting her gaze. She felt her breath catch in her chest to be caught out, but she listened as he swiped his thumb across her cheek. “You got more people on your team here in Mosswood than you realize. I'm one of 'em.”
He reached for the phone in her hand and began typing into it. She felt a fleeting moment of panic. He would have just seen that the only contacts in her phone were Ben, Mosswood Elementary, and Carol-Ann from Wallace Realty. How embarrassing.
“There. Now I’m in your contacts. If there’s any trouble, or ya need anythin’, you call me.”
She looked up at him as he stood, their hands disconnecting. “Thanks, Declan,” she breathed. She sniffled as she stood with him. Even though her problem was still very much a problem, somehow, her head felt a lot clearer about it all. “I really appreciate it.”
“No worries,” he smiled, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Think about getting' some kinda security,” he told her. “Better to be prepared, come what may. Bit harder for problems to be problems when they can’t get at ya.”
A light frown creased Rosie's brow. “Right,” she sighed. “Security.” How much was that going to cost her?
But how much was it going to cost her if she didn't do something about Randy?
Later that night, with Maggie tucked in bed and sound asleep, Rosie sat on a stool at her kitchen counter, researching home security systems on her phone. They were all expensive. She’d have to find a company in a nearby town because there were zero providers in Mosswood. There were smart home options, of course, but as far as she could tell, Fox Cottage didn't even have a phone line, much less high-speed internet.
She closed the browser tab of a company that wanted to charge an annual fee. It was time to change up her search parameters. ‘Home protection’ seemed like the next logical step from ‘home security,’ right?
Search results flooded the phone screen. She flicked through them, noticing one result was a little different from the others.
‘Protecting your Home: Modern Hearth Magic.’
Hearth magic? What on earth was that? There was no other preview text to give her a clue, and after a moment, Rosie’s curiosity got the better of her. She clicked the link, and a bright purple website sprung to life on the screen.
‘Concerned with negative energy in your life? Worried about unwanted people bringing their bad juju whenever they visit? Read on for 13 hot tips on how to use hearth magic to protect your kith and kin...’
With a skeptical brow raised, Rosie read on through the article. It mentioned things like rock salt, moon water, crystals, and sprigs of rosemary. Ironic. She thought about the strange incidents she’d experienced since arriving in Mosswood, even before Declan had insisted that there was more to her than she knew. She didn't really think she was a witch, though, did she?
If she had some of the ingredients mentioned in the article, she could put her growing doubts about her alleged magical ability to rest once and for all.
Rosie managed to round up the rock salt from the pantry and a small piece of quartz from Maggie’s rock collection. A rosemary bush grew at the end of the driveway. The only thing she wouldn’t have would be moon water, whatever that was, so she would have to make do without it. She took the herb back inside and got to work, following the instructions in the article to the letter. She soon had a small bundle tied up neatly in a piece of paper towel. The recipe—if that’s what witches called them—had called for cheesecloth, but she didn’t have any. She was certain that the charm wouldn’t work anyway, so it hardly mattered.
The recipe said to cast the spell at midnight. Rosie took her charm and the carton of salt and set them down by the front door, preparing herself for the next step. She had half considered ignoring it, but it was supposedly the most important part. She took a deep breath and stripped out of her daily jeans-and-tee combo until she was completely nude. And then she picked up her ingredients and stepped out onto the porch.
The charm was to go in the mailbox, which was at the end of the driveway, so she decided to do that bit last. While it was unlikely that anyone would be driving through the woods in the middle of the night, Rosie needed to build a little confidence first. She began on the porch, tipping the carton of salt so that a thin trickle poured on the ground. She tried to remember the chant, kicking herself for not having written it down.
“Mother Moon, please hear my call
> Let your light upon me fall
Shine your shield upon my home
And follow me elsewhere I roam
Charge with power this simple charm
Guard against those who mean harm…”
She continued the incantation, doing a wide circle around the perimeter of her home. She reached the mailbox at last and popped the charm into it.
“By earth and flame and wind and sea
As I pray so may it be.”
A gentle breeze sprung up into the tops of the oak trees surrounding the house like a whisper of approval. The Spanish moss drifted in slow-moving waves. Rosie was so distracted by its beauty she forgot she was standing stark naked on the side of the road. And then she heard a branch snap in the brush right across from her.
She froze, not knowing whether to scream or bolt. Everything was silent until a rustling sound, and moving bushes proved that she was not imagining things. Rosie opened her mouth, but her voice caught in the back of her throat. She took a large gulp of air and was about to scream when a creature snuck out of the woods.
Almost entirely white except for its black head and paws, she almost mistook it for a small dog or cat. That was, until the black face and white stripe gave it away for what it really was: a skunk. It peered at her lazily, black eyes full and child-like in the moonlight. She slipped one arm protectively across her boobs to hide them from its inquisitive gaze, her other hand dropping to cover her lady parts, Eve style.
“Shoo!” she called to the creature, but it took no notice of her. It merely waddled forward across her path, until two small kits caught up to her. They all turned to stare at her, mama and her two babes.