Don’t Stop Bewitching_A Happily Everlasting Series World Novel

by Mandy M. Roth

  Ms. Cherry released her and stepped back, still grinning. “I’m so excited. I gotta go find your grandmother right away. She has to be beside herself over the good news.”

  “Not to sound ungrateful for your kind words, but what are you talking about? I’m not in love,” said Missi. “I’m not even dating. Not since You-Know-Who.”

  Ms. Cherry’s lips pursed. “We won’t discuss him. Thinks because he drives fancy cars and buys you expensive jewelry that he can buy your affection and make you leave us.”

  So much for not discussing You-Know-Who.

  Ms. Cherry tipped her head as if listening to something only she could hear. It was a well-known fact that the Corduas had deep ties to magic in the community as well, though their coven had been disbanded nearly two centuries back. No one really said why, but Missi got the impression it was because they’d practiced dark magic. Ms. Cherry winked. “You will be. Very soon. He’s on his way now. Careful or you’re likely to be hit by flower power.”

  “Flower what? And who is on his way?” asked Missi, her heart rate speeding.

  “Why, your mate, of course,” said Ms. Cherry before hugging her quickly again. The woman took her bag and rushed in the direction of the door, mumbling something about hunting down Missi’s grandmother and then banishing “the Capone wannabe” from the theater for a week to teach him a lesson.

  Missi stood there, watching the woman rush off down the street, in the direction of the cemetery. Ms. Cherry knew Missi’s grandmother well. This time of the day she’d be at the cemetery putting fresh flowers on graves before enjoying a spot of tea with her fellow Historical Society Members—a number of which were deceased.

  The phone rang and Missi jumped in place before letting out a shaky breath and going for the phone. She laughed slightly as she answered it. “Charmed Life Magik Shop, how can I help you?”

  “Missi, my flight just got in and I’m running behind. I only just landed in New Orleans. I swear I had two layovers, missed a connecting flight and then my plane needed maintenance. I think this trip is cursed. My car isn’t where I parked it in the long-term parking lot. The security guard thinks I forgot where I parked. Anyway, the delivery man is at the restaurant already. He needs to be let in. Can you run over?” asked her sister Virginia. “Louis was supposed to but he’s not answering his phone. I tried Momma, but I can’t get in touch with her. Daddy is on a call. Mémé will be out of pocket while she has tea and seances.”

  “With Founder’s Day events kicking off, the restaurant can’t miss a delivery and this guy is human. The spell Momma helped me cast over him only keeps him from noticing the weird around here for a limited time. I don’t even want to think what would happen if Headless Hank decides to go for a morning run, just as the spell on the delivery guy wears off. Can you imagine? I’m going to wring Louis’s neck when I see him. He swore to me he’d handle it if my flight was delayed. I’m always covering his deliveries for the antiques shop. The least he could do was return the favor. He’s probably avoiding my calls.”

  “Louis never carries his cell phone,” said Missi, surprised she was able to get a word in edgewise considering how much Virginia liked to talk. Virginia was a Type A personality and it showed. Just once Missi wished her sister would lighten up, let her hair down, and simply be.

  That would take a miracle, or one heck of a spell.

  “Grr, you’re right,” said Virginia. “Our brother is the worst with cell phones.”

  He was the type of person who got lost in history books and loved antiques. He liked simpler times, when people connected face-to-face rather than on the internet—something he refused to have at his home. It had taken the entire family to talk him into even owning a cell phone. They’d forgotten to bargain with him to actually turn the thing on and carry it with him.

  “My girls aren’t in just yet to open the shop,” said Missi as she checked the time. “Can York do it?”

  “He’s not answering his cell either and last I heard he was heading out for a big catch. Something about getting approved for a bigger haul,” said Virginia, apprehension in her voice.

  “Did you really try York or are you afraid Sigmund will answer and you might have to actually speak to the man?” asked Missi.

  Hedgewitch Cove was a safe haven for the supernatural. Sigmund Bails was a man who had come by way of a trusted friend, in need of assistance and guidance. The kind only other supernaturals could provide. Missi didn’t know exactly what had happened in the man’s past, but she did know Sigmund had not gone unnoticed by her sister.

  “No,” squeaked Virginia quickly before clearing her throat. “I mean, yes, I tried him and no, I’m not worried about Sig answering.”

  “Okay, if that is what you want to go with,” said Missi with a grin.

  “I could ask Thom to help me this morning if it’s too much of a bother for you.”

  Missi cringed at the idea. The last time Thom—who owned the bookstore that was close to Runes, the restaurant her family owned, and Virginia ran and operated—had helped, he’d nearly burned the restaurant down by accident. He’d bumped a burner, turned it on, filled the kitchen with gas and then left. “It’s better if I just run over. Charmed doesn’t officially open for another hour. I should be able to get there and back before then.”

  “You are the best, sis,” said Virginia before she made a strange noise. “Missi, is there something different going on with you?”

  Missi tensed, thinking about Ms. Cherry’s strange behavior. “W-what do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I just got a weird vibe and then the strangest urge to congratulate you,” replied Virginia. “I didn’t sleep well and had a layover so take that as you may.”

  They came from a long line of powerful Caillat witches. Their vibes generally weren’t to be toyed with or ignored. Coupled with Ms. Cherry’s rather odd visit, Missi peered around the shop, half-worried her future husband would suddenly be standing there—whoever he might be. “Do not tell me I’m about to meet Mr. Right. I’ve already heard all about it and it’s not happening. Flower Power my hiney.”

  “Wait. What?” asked Virginia. “I leave town for one week and you find Mr. Right and flower power while I’m gone?”

  Missi laughed. “I’m not finding anyone. I was just informed by Ms. Cherry, who is in the process of trying to banish Rockey again, that Mr. Right is on his way here as we speak.”

  Virginia grew quiet on the other end of the phone. “Tell me you put some makeup on this morning and you’re not trying that natural look thing you’re so fond of. You are wearing shoes, right? You’re not doing that back-to-nature barefoot thing again, are you?”

  Missi shook her head. “Stop it.”

  “What? I find out my sister is about to meet Mr. Right, I’m allowed to want you to look your best and have on shoes.”

  “I’m hanging up now and heading over to Runes. You owe me big,” said Missi as she disengaged the call.

  Chapter Five

  “Petey, what did you eat this morning?” demanded Hugh as he tried but failed to get one of the windows in the back of the Volkswagen van to pop open. From the rate in which the wolf-shifter was hitting at it, he’d save time and rip the door off the hinges sooner, rather than later.

  Curt coughed and pounded on his chest. The smell burned his nose. He wasn’t sure, but there was a high likelihood that his sense of smell might end up damaged beyond repair.

  Petey really did have issues. His fart in the windstorm-ness was going to the extreme.

  Curt waved his hand back and forth. “That is not natural. Should we take him to see a doctor or something? That has to be a sign of something terminal, right?”

  Petey, who had called shotgun, turned and looked at them from the passenger seat. “Breaking wind is natural. If you hold it in, you’ll blow up. I knew a guy who did that once and only once. Instead of letting his wind break, he kept it all in. He popped like he was a balloon, and someone had stuck him with a pin. One seco
nd he was there, the next he was deflating and floating away. Made the loudest sound I’ve ever heard in my life. Shame really. He’d been a nice guy. I wonder where he ended up? Think he landed in Canada? He was headed north. Anyone know the Mounties’ policy on deflated men?”

  “Petey, no one you knew blew up from holding their gas in,” said Hugh as he plugged his nose.

  “Did so,” protested Petey. “You don’t know about him because he’s from the place we’re headed. And what happens in Hedgewitch Cove stays in Hedgewitch Cove.”

  “Sure he is,” said Hugh with a shake of his hand. “How do you open these windows? It’s hotter than Hades back here and now it smells bad too.”

  Curt took over and on his first try he managed to get the window to pop open. He grinned.

  “I loosened it for you,” said Hugh.

  “Sure you did,” returned Curt as he took in a deep breath of fresh air. He leaned back as best he could with the limited leg space the van provided. The spot wasn’t comfortable, so he shifted a bit, unintentionally kicking the crate Wilber had said could end the world.

  Curt froze.

  Hugh gasped.

  Jake sat up fast from his spot in the backseat. “Warrick.”

  Wilber glanced in the rearview mirror, saying nothing. He didn’t have to. It was Curt’s fourth time kicking the thing over the past six hours. It had less to do with Curt having two left feet and more to do with the fact that Curt was hardly a small guy, but the crate was taking up valuable floor space in front of him.

  Hugh grunted. “It’s like you have a death wish.”

  “I once knew a guy with a death wish. We called him Deathwish Dexter. He won a bet and got one wish from Death. Not sure if he ever cashed in on it or not,” said Petey as he rocked back and forth in his seat, staring out the window, seeming almost childlike in his enthusiasm. “Ironically enough, he’s still alive, at least last I heard.”

  Jake flopped back on his seat. “That man once knew everyone.”

  Petey nodded as if he did actually once know everyone. “I’m hungry.”

  “You’re fine,” snapped Wilber. He’d lectured Petey at the roadside diner a few hours back about all the stops he was adding to the already long trip. They’d managed just over twenty-nine hours on the road over the course of three days on a trip that should have only taken twenty-six hours. And they weren’t there yet. They still had another two hours to go. That wasn’t exactly making great time. They’d thought the trip would take two days.

  No one thought to factor in mishap after mishap. They’d had to deal with Hugh, Leo, and Jake’s hugging, which ate up more time than one would think. The hotel they’d stayed at the first night had overbooked so they didn’t have enough rooms. All the men had piled into one room with two queen beds and a sleeper sofa. Curt and Hugh had drawn the short straws and had to share the sleeper sofa.

  The hugging potion hadn’t been out of the man’s system yet so that meant Curt got held most of the night by his best friend. It would have been mock-worthy if the same thing hadn’t happened to Jake and Leo, who shared a bed at Wilber’s demand. That had left Wilber on a bed all to himself and Petey in the van because he thought someone should guard it, even though the crate with the artifacts was in the hotel room.

  As if that hadn’t been enough, they’d gotten two flats through the second day of driving but had only had one spare. The van had overheated. Petey had to go to the bathroom every thirty minutes like clockwork. The motel they’d stayed in last night was questionable to say the least. But they had three rooms so no one had to share a bed.

  They’d been on the road for almost six hours so far today. Curt was fairly sure the trip was cursed.

  That or he was.

  He paused, his hand going to his front pocket, where he still had the gold coin. He’d forgotten to give it to Wilber.

  “I’m starving and I gotta go again,” said Petey with a whine.

  “Again?” asked Jake from the back. He turned, found the picnic basket his wife had sent. He opened it and pulled out various baked goods.

  Curt shook his head, remembering all too well what Penelope and Kelsey had done already with baked goods. He did not want to suffer from uncontrollable urges to hug everyone. He’d leave that for the rest of them. “I’m good.”

  Hugh took the bags from Jake, said nothing, but put them on the seat. He patted them gently as if knowing where they were might somehow make the fact he ate Petey’s bathwater better.

  “Do we know if this stuff is tainted with Petey’s bathwater too?” asked Curt.

  Hugh shook his head. “That’s why it’s staying right here.”

  “How about some tunes?” asked Petey before taking it upon himself to take over the sound system, if that’s what it could be called, in the van.

  In the next breath, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” began to play, crackling somewhat, through the speakers.

  Petey’s eyes widened. “Warrick, you never told me someone wrote a song about you.”

  Hugh leaned forward and reached for the sound system.

  Wilber swatted the man’s hand.

  Hugh grunted. “I’m not listening to this the rest of the trip. No way. No how.”

  “Everyone, sing along,” said Petey, who belted out words to some song. Not the one playing.

  Suddenly, Jake sat up straight and began to sing. The man’s expression did not match the words coming out of his mouth. He looked scared as he grabbed his throat.

  Leo, who had been napping next to Jake in the backseat, his feet up and against a window, raised his head and peeked out from one eye. He lifted a brow in his brother-in-law’s direction.

  Then, just like Jake, Leo began to sing along as well. He too looked stunned and confused.

  He had a great voice.

  When Hugh started singing as well, Curt sat up straight, accidentally kicking the crate once more. This time, he kicked it hard enough to pop the top open.

  Petey played drums on the dashboard as Wilber pulled the van off the highway and down a side road. With no real sense of urgency, the older man parked the van off to the side of the road and then turned to face Petey.

  “Tell them to stop singing,” said Wilber, his voice flat.

  Petey shook his head, rocking out to some upbeat song about some Moonlight Bay. It had a vibe to it that made Curt think of songs from the early 1900s. The drumming that was still accompanying Petey’s singing did not match the song in the least.

  Wilber shut down the van’s radio, but that did nothing to stop Petey from singing about Moonlight Bay or Hugh, Jake, and Leo to stop belting out about how the lion was sleeping that night.

  Curt’s gaze moved to the bags of baked goods on the seat next to him. He knew without asking that their current predicament had ties to the women and their cooking. “Uh-oh. Tell me this isn’t a result of the potion. I would have thought that would be out of their system by now. Did the girls put it in everything they sent too?”

  Wilber rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It gets worse.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask how.” Curt poked one of the bags like it contained poisonous snakes.

  Wilber looked to Petey. “Petey, command them to sing the song you’re singing. Make them sing ‘Moonlight Bay.’”

  With a shrug, Petey did as he was instructed.

  The next Curt knew, the other men in the van began singing, as best they could considering no one knew the song, about Moonlight Bay.

  Curt’s eyes widened as he realized what Wilber had done. He’d just proven that whatever potion Petey had a hand in making left the man able to issue orders that had to be followed by those who ingested his dirty bathwater. Leaving Petey in charge of anything or anyone was a terrible idea.

  “Yeah. That qualifies as worse,” said Curt.

  Wilber opened his van door.

  “What are you doing?” asked Curt as the others kept singing. They were beginning to find a rhythm together and oddly started to sound like a bar
bershop quartet. In the interest of never letting a funny moment go by without documentation, Curt whipped out his phone and began recording.

  If looks could kill, Curt would be six feet under from the expression Hugh gave him before yanking the phone from Curt’s hand and pushing it out of the popped-open window.

  Curt grinned at Petey. “Hey, Petey, how about you tell Hugh to pee on a fire hydrant?”

  Petey stopped singing. “I’ve done that so many times I’ve lost count. It’s never as fun as they make it out to be.”

  Wilber touched Petey’s arm. “I cannot listen to this all the way down to Louisiana. Please make them stop.”

  Curt crawled over Hugh and opened the van door. He got out, stretched his legs, and then retrieved his cell phone.

  Petey got out as well. “Gotta drain the lizard. I once knew a guy who actually tried to drain a lizard. Unfortunately for him the lizard he picked was really a were-gator and the were-gator didn’t take kindly to the action. Pretty sure the draining guy was turned into a purse. Maybe boots. Can’t remember. He was friends with the guy who blew up from holding in his wind, but he and the Dexter guy never got along.”

  Curt shook his head and was about to find a tucked-away spot to join in the draining of lizards when he noticed something gold and shiny on the ground.

  Strange.

  He hadn’t noticed it there only moments before when he’d picked up his phone. But there, bright as day, was the half-dollar-sized gold coin he’d had in his pocket. He bent, grabbed it and went to put it back in his pocket only to realize it wasn’t the same coin. It just looked like it. The other was still in his pocket.

  Confused, he turned the coin around in his hand, looking at the markings on it closer than he’d bothered to before. On one side was the head of a lion and on the other was a circle symbol he’d seen a few times around town. It was something he’d seen some of the witches wear on the ends of necklaces. A sign of magic or power. He wasn’t totally sure. But he did know it wasn’t a coincidence that another coin had turned up near him.