“And he,” Evan said, “is actually the reason why I’m not at work. We’re meeting for a picnic. I have a little extra time on my hands now that I’ve promoted one of my part-timers to full time and hired two new employees yesterday.”
I beamed. Operation Fix Evan had been a huge success. Well, if I didn’t count the whole Finn thing.
I didn’t.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You can go ahead and gloat.”
“No need to gloat.” I kissed his cheek. “I’m just happy to see you happy.”
I’d love to capture a picture of him right now so I could always remember the look on his face. But despite the fact that I had a camera in my hand, he was a Wishcrafter. His radiant face would be nothing but a bright blur, a perfect white starburst. I’d just have to trust my memory to hold on to this moment.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “I’ve got to get going. I’m running late.”
“Before you go . . .” I walked over to the mailbox. “You don’t happen to know anything about this, do you?”
Someone had stenciled GRIM REAPER on the side of the mailbox.
Laughing, he said, “If the name fits. I’ll see you later.”
He was still laughing as he rode off.
Painting that mailbox was my next order of business.
Nick came up beside me and nodded in the direction Evan had gone. “What happens when Scott leaves?”
“I’m not entirely sure. Baby steps. He’s happy right now . . . that’s all that matters.”
Nick smiled as he picked up another piece of headlight. “You’ve got a good heart, Darcy Merriweather.”
A heart that fully belonged to him. I refused to worry about our housing situation until the time came. Right now my life was . . . settled.
I bent down and lifted one of the fence’s finials that had broken free during the crash. I peeked inside its hollow core.
“Did we leave any behind?” Nick asked, looking over my shoulder.
“Nope. I think we found them all.”
It wasn’t until all the smoke had cleared after the crash, all the emergency personnel had gone, and Nick and I were sitting in shock on the front steps of my new house when the moonlight lit the yard just so, making something sparkle from within a fence finial that had rolled near the foundation.
The strings of a velvet bag tucked within the hollowed opening had come loose, letting its secrets shine through.
Under the cover of darkness, Nick and I had found ten little velvet bags in ten separate finials.
Hundreds and hundreds of diamonds.
The diamonds hadn’t been hidden in the house at all, but in the yard. On the property, as the Elder had said way back when. No one had picked up on the obvious clue.
The diamonds were now safely in the care of the Elder, those little bags tucked into the hollow of a weeping tree in a meadow not too far from here. A meadow that wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, thanks to that village council vote.
The Elder had already sent out an announcement to all Crafters that the diamonds had been located after the incident with Finn and had been transferred to a safe place known only to her.
I wished that they’d stay hidden forevermore, because Eleta was right. The biggest power those diamonds held was the ability to cause heartache. I was pretty sure Calliope would agree with me.
I glanced across the street, at the empty green. The Roving Stones had packed up yesterday afternoon. Including Andreus. However, he vowed he’d be back often to visit Ve (ew!) and promised that he’d never stop seeking those diamonds.
I believed him.
While my house—it was so strange to say that—was under construction, I’d make sure word got out to mortal treasure hunters that every nook and cranny had been searched. In other words, no need to break in, people.
When I made that announcement, Scott Abramson would officially have to leave the village and monitor the diamond case from afar. But until then, he had Evan to keep him company . . .
I took a few more pictures of the flattened fence and shrubs before looking back at the house. In my head, I’d already redesigned the bottom floor, creating the perfect office space.
The DODMTrust—Deryn Octavia Devany Merriweather Trust—had paid off Harper’s mortgage on the bookshop yesterday morning.
Our mother had given us both a fresh start.
And speaking of fresh starts . . .
My gaze shifted to Mrs. P’s bench. Mimi and Glinda were sitting on it, chatting a mile a minute. After the showdown with Finn, Nick had seen how much his little girl loved that witch as she cried over Glinda’s unconscious body.
Nick still didn’t trust Glinda, and visitation between her and Mimi was limited, but for now, Mimi was the happiest I’d seen her in a long time.
We were doing okay, too, Glinda and me. I brought her black balloons when she had to spend the night in the hospital for observation because of the hit she’d taken to the head.
And last night she’d dropped off a dead plant as a housewarming present.
I smiled at the memory and wished with all my might that her redeeming qualities would soon conquer her dark side. That the cycle of her wickedness would be broken once and for all.
“Happy looks good on you,” Nick said, nudging me with his elbow.
“It feels good.”
“I’ve been thinking that some daisy bushes along the walkway would look nice—don’t you think?” he asked, a spark in his eye.
He hadn’t said much about this house and me and our future, but that was the way of Nick. We’d figure it out. Until then, one day at a time. “I think that sounds perfect.”
I was about ready to call it a day when the neighborhood mourning dove landed in dramatic fashion on the front porch. Perfect timing! I quickly lifted my camera to finally capture the reference photo for my drawing of the bird who’d become such a familiar comfort in my life.
Only now, I wondered where I’d hang the drawing when I finished it. At Nick’s like I originally planned?
Or here?
Baby steps, I told myself as I zoomed in.
The click of the shutter scared the bird off, and it made a noisy exit, burbling and flapping. I yelled “Sorry!” as I called up the picture on my camera, hoping that I’d got a clear shot of that blue ring around its eye.
But that wasn’t the picture I’d captured at all.
Confused, I stared at the image on my screen.
It was a perfect white starburst.
Read on for a sneak peek at Heather Blake’s next Magic Potion Mystery,
Ghost of a Potion
Coming in October 2015 from Obsidian.
“Carlina Bell Hartwell, you’re not too old for a switchin’,” my mama proclaimed over the phone, her tone sharp and dangerous.
There was very little that struck fear into most Southern girls’ hearts quite like her full name being angrily articulated by her mama.
Fortunately, I wasn’t like most Southern girls, so I wasn’t too worried about my mama’s threat. Besides, in all my thirty years, my mama had never once taken a switch to me. She was a five-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound, blond-haired bundle of bluff and bluster.
The cordless phone was wedged between my ear and shoulder as I unpacked a delivery of potion bottles. “What did I do now?”
It could have been any number of things, truly. An unfortunate result of my quick temper, inability to filter comments when angry, and my natural mischievousness.
Those were just a few of the many traits that proved I wasn’t quite like everyone else here in Hitching Post, Alabama, but at the very tippy-top of the why-Carly-is-not-normal list, the cherry atop my wackadoodle sundae, was that I was a white-magic witch and empath.
There was absolutely no denying that was plain ol’ strange. So I didn’
t even try. I embraced my oddities wholeheartedly and used my abilities to make healing and love potions here at the Little Shop of Potions, a shop that’s been in the Hartwell family for fifty years.
“I ran into Hyacinth Foster at the grocery,” Mama said, her voice rising to earsplitting heights, “and she said you RSVP’d no to the masquerade ball tonight at the Ezekiel mansion. What were you thinking? You know how important this is to your daddy, Carly.”
The black-tie masquerade ball was bound to be as deadly dull as the people hosting it, all stiff and starched, prim and proper.
Everything I definitely was not.
“To Daddy?” I asked as I examined a jade-colored potion bottle, running my fingers along its facets to make sure there were no chips or cracks. Holding it up, I let the light shine through and admired the transparence, which revealed tiny bubbles suspended within the glass. It was a beauty. All the bottles were, really. Specially made by a local glassblower, each was unique, a work of art.
After making sure the stopper was snugged tight, I walked the bottle over to the wall of floor-to-ceiling shelves, which held bottles of every size, shape, and color, and tucked it in, turning it just so. The bottle wall was the shop’s main attraction, and it was easy to see why as sunshine streamed in the front windows and hit the bottles, blasting brilliant rainbow-colored streaks of light across the walls and wood floor.
Glancing out the window, I noticed the color outside almost rivaled the beauty in the shop. Hitching Post in late October was a glorious sight to behold, with sunlight setting afire the vibrant foliage of the Appalachian foothills in the distance.
“Don’t take that tone with me, baby girl. Yes, your daddy. You know how important this event is to him. The Harpies are a big damn deal, and you know how hard he’s worked to even be considered for a spot on the committee. He’s already got one strike against him, him unfortunately being a man and all.”
Poor Daddy. I reckoned she hadn’t minded a whit about his being a man before this Harpies madness started up.
The Hitching Post Restoration and Preservation Society—the Harpies for short—was a small group of five influential townsfolk who were well-known for their successful fund-raisers, restoration projects, and elitism. They primarily consisted of uppity women, and it had taken twenty years for them to admit the first man into their fold—Haywood Dodd. And if the rumors were to be believed, he had only been allowed into the group because of his relationship with Hyacinth Foster, the long-standing president of the Harpies, who, despite being an off-the-charts philanthropist, was more well-known for having buried three previous husbands. There were whispers around town about her being some sort of Black Widow, but no one had ever dared to out and out accuse her of wrongdoing.
If Haywood had heard the whispers, he paid them no heed. He was head over heels for her.
Hay and Hy. The cuteness factor was enough to make me a little nauseous.
In addition, gossip had been circulating all week about a big announcement Haywood planned to make at tonight’s event. Speculation ranged between his popping the question to Hyacinth in front of God and everyone to announcing his resignation from the group.
I was quite curious about it myself, as Haywood was rather shy and not one to seek a spotlight. It had to be something really big. Enormous. And I wanted to know what.
I was nothing if not nosy.
But all I knew was that the announcement was giving him anxiety, as he’d come in earlier for a calming potion. I’d tried to wheedle information from him, but he hadn’t given me so much as a hint to go on. He had just kept saying, “You’ll find out tonight.”
Running low on air, Mama sucked in a breath and started on me again. “As you darn well know, tonight’s masquerade ball is an audition of sorts to see how your daddy fits in, and how’s it going to look if you don’t attend to support him? His only child! His flesh and blood! I’ll tell you how it’ll look. Bad. Horrible. A slap in the face of all that is good and righteous!”
My mama was in quite the tizzy, and Veronica “Rona” Fowl in a tizzy was quite entertaining, let me tell you.
But no matter how fiercely she tried to spin it, I knew this was all her idea. She was jumping through these Harpie hoops for one reason and one reason only.
Daddy was driving her batty.
Ever since his hours had been slashed at the public library, he’d been a bored, mopey mess of a man, and my mama was ready to sell his soul to get him out of her hair.
She’d filled out all the Harpie paperwork and had made an enormous donation to the Ezekiel mansion’s restoration fund in Daddy’s name . . . and browbeat me until I’d made one, too.
It was the only reason I’d been invited to the masquerade ball, which was being held to celebrate the recent completion of the project. All donors were expected to attend. Otherwise, my name would not have made the cut on the invitation list, due to my contentious relationship with the vice president of the Harpies.
Patricia Davis Jackson, the most uppity of them all.
Oh, fine. I supposed she had the teensiest bit of a soft side. After all, her nearest and dearest called her PJ—and had done so since she married Harris Jackson at age twenty-two, when she was fresh out of college.
I called her Patricia Davis Jackson.
Or plain ol’ Patricia.
Or the Face of Evil.
It was a toss-up most days.
She’d almost become my mother-in-law (twice), and we had a long history of hating each other. I’d once poked her in her butt with a pitchfork, and she’d retaliated by ruining my first attempt to marry her son, Dylan Jackson, and had played a big role in the fiery failure of the second marriage try, too.
My mama knew all this, which spoke volumes about her desperation for my father to find a hobby.
“You know how I feel about the Harpies,” I said.
“Carly, this isn’t about you. It’s about your daddy. And you know very well that you don’t have issues with all the Harpies. Only one. You can suck it up for one night, buttercup.”
Her sympathy was heartwarming.
But, she was right about my feelings for the group. As stodgy as the Harpies might be, they actually did good work, as evidenced by the refurbishment of the historical Civil War–era Ezekiel mansion. Before they’d gotten their hands on the place, it had been destined for collapse one crumbly brick at a time. Now it was a stunner.
But Patricia Davis Jackson made my blood boil, and I couldn’t easily overlook that fact. “That one is enough.”
After our second failed attempt at getting married, Dylan and I had split up. He’d moved away, and I was left trying to pick up the pieces of my broken heart.
I’d vowed revenge on Patricia, but hadn’t been able to come up with a good plan to bring her down a notch that wouldn’t send me to jail. I’d been arrested once before (I was cleared of all charges, I swear!), and didn’t care to go through that again.
In the end, it was fate that had delivered the ultimate comeuppance to Patricia. Eight months ago, Dylan had come back to Hitching Post, and this past summer we’d rekindled our relationship.
Patricia had been beside herself when she found out. And she was still beside herself now, three months later.
Bless her heart.
I set the cardboard box that the potion bottles had been delivered in on the floor, and gave it a little kick to the center of the room. Like a mythological siren that called to unsuspecting sailors, the box’s enchantment took only a second to awaken two of the laziest creatures on earth from their slumber.
Roly and Poly, my cats, raced to investigate this new and exciting addition to the shop, slipping and sliding and tumbling over each other to be the first to lay claim. Poly, with his considerable girth, never stood a chance at winning that contest. Slender Roly leaped into the box and immediately flopped on her back to roll about in e
cstasy. Never one to be left out, Poly plopped in next to her, and I lowered the top flaps of their new fort. They’d be occupied for hours.
“And you know what day tomorrow is,” I reminded.
Halloween.
Come midnight, my peaceful little witchy world would be on its way to hell in a handbasket.
At the reminder, a chill swept down my spine one vertebra at a time, raising goose bumps in its wake.
Halloween marked the day when some sort of between-world portal opened, and a few spirits started rising, followed by even more the next day—All Saint’s Day—but it was All Soul’s Day, November second, that made me want to hide under my bed like Roly and Poly did during a thunderstorm.
Because this was my storm. A ghostly one.
All Soul’s Day was when the majority of spirits who hadn’t yet been able to cross over for whatever reason began wandering around, looking for anyone to help them. Only very few could even see the ghosts, and once eye contact was made, that was it. There was no getting rid of them until they saw the light.
For empaths, however, there was an added element to this ghostly dilemma. We could see them, and we could also feel them . . . what killed them, specifically. My best defense was to avoid them altogether.
Because of that, later today I’d close the shop for the night, and I wouldn’t be back until Wednesday morning, November third. During that time, my daddy and my best friend, Ainsley, would cover my absence.
I was going to lock my doors and windows, pull the shades, put on noise-canceling headphones and hole up until it was safe to come out.
Mama let out a gusty breath. “Yes, I know. But that’s not until midnight. Plenty of time to make an appearance, talk up your daddy’s numerous qualifications, and get home before your carriage turns into a pumpkin.”
I glanced up in time to see a miniature zombie waddle past the front of the shop, quickly followed by a vampire, two ice princesses, and a tall witch with a long black cape flowing out behind her.
In celebration of Halloween, the town was hosting a big to-do all weekend. Today’s events included a treasure hunt, a jack-o’-lantern contest, and of course—being the wedding capital of the South—numerous ghoulish weddings.
Some Like It Witchy Page 27