by Zoe Arden
"Don't even say it. Of course I did. I'm your father. My daughter is turning twenty-one today. The least she deserves is a... well, open it and find out."
He was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Yellow curls fell across my eyes and I pushed them away. I quickly undid the ribbon my father had tied around the box and tore the paper open. Inside was a sterling silver necklace. I stared at the pendant. A solid silver witch's hat.
Oh my God.
Any time I'd expressed even the slightest interest in witches or magic since I was a kid, my father had always gotten angry. Growing up, I hadn't even been allowed to dress up like a witch for Halloween. It had taken three years of begging before he'd even allowed me to go trick-or-treating. And then he'd followed me and my friends from house to house, not letting me out of his sight for an instant. He'd even walked up to the doors with me. It was the last time I'd been invited trick-or-treating.
"It's beautiful," I told my father, still uncertain about its meaning. Maybe this was his way of telling me he considered me an adult now.
"It... it was your mother's." The words croaked out of him.
"This was Mom's?" I looked at the pendant again, more closely this time.
My father never talked about my mother. The most he'd ever told me about her was that she'd died in a plane crash when I was only a year old. I'd grown up terrified of flying. Maybe that was why I'd never left New York.
Despite wishing for some adventure in my life, I'd decided long ago that the city was big enough and busy enough that I didn't need to go anywhere. I could find plenty to do right here. Besides, I could never leave my dad. What would I have done anyway? Work as a waitress in some other diner in a less interesting city?
I hugged my father tightly.
"I love it. Thank you."
I took the necklace from the box and put it around my neck. My father fixed the clasp for me, and I looked in the mirror. The witch's hat shined brightly even in the dim lights of my bedroom.
"Why did..." I was dying to know why my mother had a witch's hat for a necklace. Was she into the supernatural? Fantasy? Was her favorite movie The Wizard of Oz? What did it mean?
My father sensed the question on my lips. "She just thought it was pretty," he told me and left it at that. I opened my mouth again, more questions rising in the back of my throat, but my father turned and went back down the hall.
At work, everyone wished me a happy birthday. Lance offered to take me out for a drink after my shift. "You're twenty-one. It's a rite of passage. I went through it two years ago on my birthday. Now it's your turn."
Lance smiled widely at me. His brown eyes worked to charm their way in. I was tempted to say yes, but I could feel my father's eyes on us from the kitchen. My dad didn't like Lance. Actually, my dad didn't like anybody. If I went out tonight, he'd only stay up worrying.
"Thanks," I said. "Maybe some other time."
The morning rush ended and the noon rush started. I kept checking the clock, wishing I could somehow make time spin a little faster. Around three, just an hour before my shift ended, two women came into the restaurant. They looked almost identical, with their bright blond hair twirled high in a bun. It was almost the same shade as mine.
They were both in their forties, though I could tell one of them was just barely so. She was dressed like she'd paid one too many visits to the local thrift shop. Bright pink jeans and a matching hat were accentuated with long loopy earrings, a bright yellow shirt, and a sparkly vest. The other woman, clearly her older sister, looked like a subdued gypsy. She wore dark grays and blacks with silver bangles and large hoop earrings. They looked around the restaurant, searching for someone. Their eyes stopped on me.
I moved to the right, thinking they were looking at the menu behind me. But their eyes followed me. They were staring so intently at me I began to blush. Maybe I had something on my face? I snuck into the back room and did a quick makeup check. Everything looked in order.
"Hey, Ava," Judy said, coming up beside me. She did a quick mirror check of her own, straightening her apron. "There are two women out there asking for you."
"For me?"
"Yep. Except they called you Ava Fortune instead of Stone. But they described you to a tee. Actually," Judy turned to me, giving me a quick once over, "they kinda look like you. Relatives, maybe?"
"I doubt that," I told her, making my way back out front. My father and mother had both been only children. Judy followed me and pointed out a booth. The two women who'd been staring at me sat there expectantly.
I got two glasses of water and made my way toward them.
"Good afternoon," I said, setting down the glasses. "Welcome to Stuffed." They were sitting side by side instead of across from each other the way people usually did.
The women grinned at me and shot each other a look. The younger one actually elbowed her sister.
"Hello, Ava," said the older woman.
"Um," I said, feeling like I was the punchline of some unknown joke. "Do I know you?"
"We've met before," she said. "Though it's been a while—"
"Quite a while," her younger sister interrupted.
"—since we've seen you."
I put my pen down and bit my bottom lip.
"We met you on the island," the older woman said. She sounded cautious. Like she was feeling me out.
"Manhattan?" I asked.
"Heavenly Haven."
"Oh," I said, laughing. Understanding clicked in my brain. "You're mixing me up with someone else. I've never been out of New York."
The sisters frowned and shot each other a worried look.
"Do you need another minute to look over the menu?" I asked. They were starting to creep me out. It was the way they kept looking at me. Like I was famous or something.
"I'll take pumpkin pancakes without the pumpkin, please," the younger woman said.
"The same for me, please," said her sister.
I stared at them. "So you want... pancakes?"
The women whispered to each other like they were conferring on some big secret.
"Yes, pancakes," the older one replied, nodding her head. "Plain. No pumpkin. No villeroot. And some hot tea, if you have it."
"No what?" I asked.
"Villeroot. My stomach just can't handle it this late in the day."
"Er, okay. No problem." I scratched it down on my notepad and turned toward the kitchen.
"There's the birthday girl!" Billy, one of the line cooks, shouted. "Hey, Eli. Tell your daughter she should be out partying, not working at this dump." There was a general murmur of agreement from the other two cooks, but my dad's lips tightened.
"Listen to this order," I told the guys. I thought even my dad might find this funny. "Pumpkin pancakes, hold the pumpkin." There was a round of laughter. "And no villeroot," I said, smiling. "The woman's stomach can't handle it this late in the day." There was another round of laughter.
"What the heck is villeroot?" Billy asked, wiping his forehead with a towel.
I shrugged. "No idea. I'm pretty sure it only exists in that lady's imagination."
I looked toward my dad to see if he was laughing, but he wasn't there.
"Where'd Eli go?" Billy asked.
He'd just been standing here. How did he sneak away? I hadn't even seen him leave the kitchen. I shrugged and grabbed two mugs for tea for the pumpkin ladies.
I pushed the kitchen door open and stopped in my tracks. My dad was at the pumpkin ladies' table. His face was scarlet, and his eyes had narrowed to black slits.
He stood in a heated discussion with the women. The pumpkin ladies turned their eyes to me, looking grim, then slowly rose from their booth. They left the restaurant without a word.
"What was that about?" I asked my dad, setting the mugs aside.
"What?" he asked.
"Those women. What were you talking about? Who were they?"
"No one," he snapped. "Crazy customers. Nothing new." He pushed past me and made his way back to th
e kitchen.
I wanted to follow him. I was dying to know who those women were. My father spoke to people as little as possible. To strangers? Almost never. The fact he'd actually left the kitchen... that he actually seemed to know them... floored me.
I cleaned off the table the women had been sitting at, running through everything that had happened in my head. I was sure I'd never seen them before, yet... there had been something vaguely familiar about them.
Under one of their water glasses lay a tip. I scooped the bill up, preparing to pocket the single in my apron. My mouth dropped open. It wasn't a single. I stared at the bill, unbelieving. A hundred dollars? All I'd done was bring them water.
I flipped the bill over, looking for signs that it was fake. Written on the back of the bill in black marker were the words, "Happy birthday, Ava."
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ReedFoster Press House
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ALSO BY ZOE ARDEN
Standalone Novella : Cake Spell Disaster
LINK: Standalone Novella : Cake Spell Disaster
<< Sweetland Witch Series >>
Book 1 : Witch Cake Murders
LINK: Book 1 - Witch Cake Murders
This book is copyright © 2017 by
Zoe Arden
and
ReedFoster Press House LLC
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or deceased, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
All rights reserved.
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Cover Designed by: Mia Kinsey
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