by Mindy Klasky
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Thank You
Also by Mindy Klasky
More Fun Magic Books
About the Author
Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Robyn Peterman. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Magic and Mayhem remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Robyn Peterman, or their affiliates or licensors.
For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds
Chapter 1
The best road trips are the ones you don’t plan.
That’s what I told myself as I shoved two full-size suitcases, a duffle bag stuffed with shoes, and a bag of emergency mojito supplies into the trunk of my grandmother’s Lincoln Town Car. Sure, I could have narrowed things down a bit. Kept myself to half a dozen changes of clothes for the weekend. Taken only eight pairs of shoes for the four-day trip. Left behind the lime and mint and rum altogether.
But where’s the spontaneity in that?
No holds were barred. I was skipping town with Melissa White, my best friend. We were two wild women, hitting the road for a four-day weekend of debauchery and carousing. We were free of all responsibility—no library for me, no bakery for Melissa. And most importantly, not a whisper of a hint of a scintilla of witchcraft.
That’s right. I’m a witch. I’ll spare you the details—suffice to say I spent the past four months learning how to work spells, read runes, bind crystals, and all sorts of other magical fun and games. I had a familiar, Neko, who supposedly bolstered my powers, when he wasn’t off pursuing the man of his dreams. And I had a warder, David, who put the brakes on anything fun I wanted to do with magic. And I’d discovered that just about every application of my new-found powers was illegal fun, in David’s book.
So, yeah. I was ready for a girl’s night out with Melissa. Make that a girl’s weekend out. But despite the mojito fixings clanking around in the trunk, we weren’t exactly wild and crazy rule-breakers. We were actually heading toward the Shenandoah Shakespeare Theater, in scenic Granite Valley, West Virginia.
What can I say? Melissa and I were lifelong Shakespeare nuts. And the SST was staging a production of Timon of Athens. “Worst Shakespeare Play Ever,” said a lot of critics. That’s why neither Melissa nor I had ever seen a production. So we were hitting the road, big-time—four days of being foot-loose and fancy-free, all in service of the bard. We didn’t have tickets yet, but there was no chance the show would be sold out. It was Timon, after all.
Time to get the show on the road. At least it would be, as soon as I drove my grandmother’s car over to Melissa’s tiny apartment above the bakery where she worked. I turned around to give Gran a hug. “Thanks again,” I said, jangling my set of her car keys.
“Just make me a promise, dear.”
Oh, no. Not another one of Gran’s promises. She spent the better part of her spare time reading terrifying articles: Ten Things In Your Bedroom That Will Kill You By Midnight. This Woman Went Skydiving Naked And You Won’t Believe What Happened Next. The One Food You Should Never Eat—And It’s In Your Refrigerator Now.
Gran called me after each new discovery.
“Promise you won’t keep baby powder on your nightstand, dear.”
“Promise you’ll carry a flashlight the next time you go skydiving, dear.”
“Promise you won’t eat fermented sheep brains, dear.”
Over the years, I’d learned it was a lot easier to make the promises than it was to argue about their basic premises. Making promises saved a lot of time. And time was increasingly of the essence—I was supposed to pick up my best friend for our road trip extravaganza in less than fifteen minutes.
“I promise,” I said to Gran, reaching out to hug her again.
“You haven’t even heard what I’m asking,” she said, her voice somewhere between a challenge and a sob.
I forced myself to take a calm breath. “Sorry, Gran,” I said.
After raising me for more than twenty-five years, Gran had mastered the art of accepting my apology. She only pursed her lips a little as she said, “Promise me you won’t sleep in any treehouses.”
Immediately, I imagined trying to haul myself up the trunk of a gigantic oak tree, teetering on rustic steps nailed into the trunk. I pictured a giant “No Boys Allowed” sign rattling in a gust of wind. I was one-hundred-percent confident I wouldn’t miss the lure of treehouse living. “Sure, Gran,” I said. “I promise.”
“I wouldn’t ordinarily ask, but I read an article about a luxury treehouse hotel in Africa, where a couple was attacked by an enraged honey badger that kept them from reaching ground for over a week.”
Melissa and I didn’t plan on dropping by the African continent during our long weekend. And I was pretty sure we wouldn’t run into any enraged honey badgers. It seemed like a safe bet to assure Gran. “No treehouses. Cross my heart.”
Gran brushed a feathery kiss against my cheek and stepped back. I gunned the Town Car out of the garage before she could come up with anymore obstacles to my much-needed getaway weekend.
Melissa was waiting in front of her bakery, Cake Walk. “Where’s your suitcase?” I asked, as I double-parked in front of the colonial brick building.
Melissa twisted so I could see the beach bag she’d slung over her shoulder.
“That’s it? We’ll be gone four days!”
“I think I’ll manage,” she said, her lips twisted into a wry grin. “If I run low on anything, I bet I can borrow from you.” She tossed her bag onto the back seat, then climbed into the front. The scents of vanilla and cinnamon wafted from a pink pasteboard box that she balanced on her knees.
“Please tell me there are Bunny Bites in there.”
She laughed, knowing how much I loved the miniature carrot cake treats that she served by the dozen in her bakery. “Of course. Along with a fresh batch of Devil’s Nips. And I tossed in some Almond Lust and Lust After Dark.”
“Have I ever mentioned that you’re my best friend in the whole, entire world?”
Melissa laughed. “That seems to come up every time you need a sugar fix.”
I frowned, pretending a grumpiness I couldn’t feel—not with the open road calling my name.
Okay, not exactly the open road. More like Washington DC rush hour traffic. Bumper to bumper on the George Washington Parkway. Worse on the interstate, heading west. We devoured all the Bunny Bites. A fair amount of the Almond Lust, too. A pretty generous share of the Lust After Dark. But I passed on the Nips. It didn’t seem right to gobble rum-infused truffles while I was behind the wheel of a land yacht.
Especially not once the rain started.
Rain. Such a simple word. “Rain” could mean sprinkles or drizzle or showers. Could mean. In this case, “rain” meant a torrential downpour that made a monsoon look like a trickle.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. We were starting our adventure on February 1, the holiday of Imbolc in the witches’ calendar. Imbolc was the ancient Feast of St. Brigid, when folks welcomed light and warmth into their winter homes. Halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, Imbolc was a reminder that snow and cold couldn’t last forever.
Legend said that a stormy Imbolc foretold a warm spring—sort of the witch’
s version of Groundhog Day. If those tales were right, our spring was going to be downright tropical. Melissa and I were driving through the nastiest, coldest, wettest rainstorm I’d ever seen.
Still, that wouldn’t have been a disaster if we hadn’t washed down all those sweets with liberal amounts of soda. Two liters of Diet Coke. Each.
We might have made it, if we could have plugged our ears against the constant sound of rainfall. If we could have shut our eyes against the torrents of water cascading down the windshield. If we could each have pressed our knees together and thought of the Sahara, dry and dusty and so very, very far away…
“We’ve got to stop,” I said.
Melissa peered through the darkness. “Where?”
“The next turn-off. Whatever it is.”
Melissa was staring at the bright screen of her phone. “I’m not getting any reception.”
I shifted awkwardly and dug my phone out of my pocket. “See if mine is any better,” I suggested.
But before Melissa could thumb the device to life, I saw salvation. Like a spirit summoned by a magical incantation (yeah, I should know about those), there was a weather-beaten sign on the side of the road. It probably used to be green. It also used to be attached to its metal post, before it was scattered with buckshot and tilted at a crazy angle that made it almost impossible to read by the Town Car’s headlights.
“Does that really say ‘Assjacket?’” Melissa asked.
“Who cares?” I skidded a little as I left the highway.
“I don’t know,” Melissa said doubtfully, as we coasted down the exit ramp. She craned her neck to look up at the trees that towered over us. Their bare winter branches looked like bony fingers, threatening to snag our car forever. “I think that sign was left over from centuries ago.”
A ramshackle Main Street ghosted into view. Each building was more dilapidated than the last. There was a boarded up service station, where the sign still promised gas at $0.89 a gallon. A hotel that looked like something out of Psycho, complete with a damaged neon sign: Assjacket In. The second “n” was dark.
No sane women would set foot outside the fortress of the Town Car.
But no sane women would be driving through the Imbolc storm of the century, buzzed on sugar, floating on soda, and desperate for anything remotely resembling a restroom.
“There!” I shouted triumphantly, pointing at a shattered sign: Ass Diner. The “jacket” part was nowhere in sight, presumably washed away by a long-ago deluge like the one we were trapped in.
“Maybe we should just go back to the highway,” Melissa said.
I gritted my teeth. “Nope. I’d never make it.” I pulled the car up to the crumbling curb. There wasn’t another vehicle in sight. “Come on. There’s a light on inside.” I could barely make out a glow through the filthy, cracked windows.
“Jane…” Melissa moaned.
“Friendship test,” I said. There. She had to keep me company now. Besides, what exactly was going to happen to two healthy, fit women who just happened to need a restroom in some god-forsaken town in the middle of nowhere? “Ready?” I asked, putting my hand on the door handle and eyeing the storm, which wasn’t showing any sign of letting up. “Count of three. One… Two…”
“Three!” Melissa shouted and raced me for the diner door.
That’s why she was my best friend. She was willing to run into the valley of the shadow of death with me. Or at least through the icy rain, over a cracked sidewalk, past the rusting carcass of something that might have been a motorcycle in a former life, into a building that looked like it could come crashing down on our heads at any moment.
We burst through the door at the same time. I had a quick impression of warmth and light, of dozens of people cheerfully gathered around tables. None of that made sense. Not a bit of it matched up with the dire impression of the storm-driven outside of the diner. I didn’t take time to question, though. Instead, I joined Melissa in a footrace toward the back of the room, guided by the neatly lettered sign that announced: Restrooms.
We found the stalls. We did our business. We (or at least I) resisted the urge to groan in satisfaction.
After, we caught each other’s eyes in the mirror over the twin sinks, and we laughed like schoolgirls playing hooky. We also took our time washing our hands with the lavender-scented soap, drying our fingers on plush cotton cloths. Now that I finally had time to check out my surroundings, I could see that the bathroom was spotlessly clean. Not at all what I’d expected.
As we left the facilities, I saw the sign on the door, the one I’d barely glanced at as I’d rushed in. There was the universal symbol for “Women”, a stick figure with A-line skirt. But she was surrounded by half a dozen other line-drawn figures—a cat, a deer, a raccoon, a beaver, a kangaroo, and a dog. Or maybe that last one was a wolf. I couldn’t be sure.
Melissa and I exchanged glances. We shrugged at the same time. And then, like a synchronized symphony, our stomachs growled in perfect harmony.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Should we get some dinner before we head on to Granite Valley?”
“Might as well,” Melissa said. “Man was not meant to survive on Lust alone.” She led the way into the dining room.
The silent dining room. The silent dining room with scores of people sitting at dozens of tables, every eye turned directly on us.
Those tables were all made out of heavy, dark wood. They were covered with charming tablecloths, sweet country patterns that looked like something Gran might have stashed in the cedar trunk at the foot of her bed. Every napkin I could see was made out of a different fabric. Instead of the bulky white ceramics I’d expect to see in a roadside diner, each place setting came complete with a dainty floral teacup and matching saucer.
I loved it.
“Table for two?” someone finally said, shattering the silence. I turned to face a sturdy woman with a serious face. Her eyes were black, matching the dark stripes she’d dyed in horizontal chunks across her brown-grey hair. Her fingers rested on the shoulder of a gorgeous little boy, as if the weight of her hand was the only thing keeping Melissa and me from being bombarded with the sweet enthusiasm of a giggling child.
“Yes, please,” I said. I squinted a little, and I could make out her name tag. “Wanda,” I added.
She waved Melissa and me over to the only empty table in the place, a small two-top in front of the large window that faced the street. “Here you go. DeeDee will be your waitress.” She nodded toward the only other person in an apron, a tall, thin woman who looked like she was equally likely to take our order or flee into the storm. “House specialty is the cheesecake,” Wanda said. “Make sure you save room for dessert.”
There was a murmur at that, a collective sound of surprise from all the other customers. Clearly, no one thought Wanda should be inviting Melissa and me to stick around for any longer than was strictly necessary. But welcome or not, I was ravenous. And a quick glance at the menu, with its traditional country meals, told me I was staying to eat, no matter what the locals preferred.
Country-fried steak. Smothered pork chop. Home-style meatloaf. Pan-fried catfish. Chicken pot pie.
I wanted one of everything. Okay, not the liver and onions. But everything else on the menu sounded like heaven.
DeeDee approached soon enough, holding her pen like it might bite her. Her hazel eyes were wide as she asked, “What can I get you?”
I ordered the pot pie. Melissa got the meatloaf. We both asked if we could substitute succotash for collard greens. DeeDee inclined her head gracefully and promised our food would be right up.
As soon as she pranced away, a massive crash of thunder rattled the building. Ornate silverware clinked against delicate teacups. Somehow, the rain beat even harder against the filthy windows.
Except the windows weren’t filthy, inside the diner. From the vantage point of our table, I could see Gran’s Town Car perfectly. There was no haze, no soot. Maybe I’d imagined the dirt I’d s
een before our mad dash inside.
“I should call Gran,” I said, reaching for my phone. “I don’t want her to think we’ve drowned in this.”
I realized, though, that my phone wasn’t in my pocket. “I’m sorry,” Melissa said. “I put it in the console, when you turned off for…Assjacket.” The last word turned up, becoming a question on her lips. She fished out her own phone and offered it to me, but it was still off the grid.
“I’ll call her when we get back to the car, then.” Before the words were out of my mouth, there was another crash of thunder and a fresh barrage of rain against the window. “Oh, sweet Hecate,” I muttered under my breath. I was just getting used to taking the name of the goddess in vain. “I’ve got to call her. If she’s watching the Weather Channel, she’ll be certain we’ve drowned.”
Squaring my shoulders, I made my way to the restaurant’s front door. There was one more flash of lightning. Another crash of thunder. I caught my breath and ducked outside.
Before I could dash for the car, though, I felt it. A wave of cold, rippling off the building next to the diner. That wasn’t an ordinary January-storm-cold. It wasn’t a typical monsoon-in-the-mountains cold. It wasn’t even an Imbolc-divination-of-the-seasons cold.
It was a cold that started at the crown of my head and rippled down to stiffen the small hairs at the back of my neck. It rolled along my spine, jangling like a theremin played by a madman.
I’d felt that chill before.
For months, it had summoned me from the derelict cottage in the garden behind the Peabridge Library, where I worked. It had tingled through my body every time I walked by the abandoned building. It had raised goosebumps up and down my arms.
That cottage had become my home. And it had taken me one night to discover a trove of ancient books in the basement, a wealth of witchy paraphernalia that I now owned—the ultimate source of the magical chill that had compelled me.
There was magic afoot in Assjacket, West Virginia.
I was huddling beneath the diner’s awning, mostly dry, but spattered by the rain that still fell hard on the broken sidewalk. The second I stepped free from my shelter, I’d be drenched. But I had to do it. I had to check out the source of that arcane thrill.