Chapter Thirteen
Glinda was already seated on a love seat in the Bewitching Boutique when I arrived. Godfrey Baleaux waved me inside after I ignored the “Closed” sign on the door and knocked on the glass.
“Darcy, dear!” he said, coming toward me to give me a big bear hug. “Let me look at you.”
The assessment wasn’t because he hadn’t seen me in a while. Or to gauge the status of my health. No. He was evaluating my outfit, judging whether it needed to be changed. Immediately. As a Cloakcrafter, he not only had the ability to swap out my clothes out for another outfit with the wave of a hand, but also felt as though it was his right to enforce his fashionable opinions. Proclaiming himself to be my fairy godfather, I’d lost count of all the times he’d altered my wardrobe.
“Look all you want,” I said, handing Glinda a coffee from the tray I carried. It also held a skinny caramel latte for Godfrey and a bagged pastry for Pepe and Mrs. P, who lived in the walls of the shop. I glanced around, looking for them. The small arched door notched into the baseboard was firmly closed.
Glinda saw my glance. “They’re actually at your place. Went to see Harper.” She held up the coffee. “Thanks for this.”
“Yes, do tell all about poor Harper,” Godfrey said as he circled me while scratching the white hairs of his neatly clipped beard.
He’d slimmed down a bit over the last year but seemed to be happily holding steady at his current weight, which was probably more than his doctor wanted to see but less than Santa Claus territory.
I shrugged out of my peacoat and said, “What have you heard about Harper?”
“What haven’t we heard?” Godfrey said, tsking as he eyed my utilitarian snow boots.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warned him. “They’re warm and waterproof. The snow is knee-deep out there in most places.”
Dismissing the boots’ practicality with a huff, he continued his inspection. I was glad I’d taken care to choose items he’d given to me in the past—skinny jeans and a black sweater so soft I wished it were a blanket.
“I heard Harper was near-death. Days to live,” Glinda said dramatically.
“I heard you carried her in your arms through the snow and wind to your house,” Godfrey said with a gleam in his eyes.
Glinda snapped her fingers. “I heard that one, too, but in the version I heard, you were carrying Harper while she was carrying her cat, which was howling pitifully.”
“This village,” I said on a sigh as I sat next to Glinda.
“And,” she said, her gaze meeting mine, “I heard Harper was pregnant.”
“Pregnant? As in a coochie-coochie-coo baby? Oh my!” Godfrey’s eyes widened. “Is that true, Darcy? Is any of it true?”
I took a deep breath—I should have been better prepared for the pregnancy question. I’d known the village would find out fairly quickly, but I hadn’t expected it to be this quickly. I faced Glinda. “Where did you hear Harper was pregnant?”
She sipped her coffee. “Mimi texted me last night.”
I should have figured that one out on my own. The two were close. Glinda had been a dear friend of Mimi’s mom, Melina, and was like an aunt to Mimi. Practically family. But if Mimi had said something to Glinda about it, I figured she had to have asked Harper first. Mimi wouldn’t have gone against Harper’s wishes.
“Then it’s true?” Godfrey asked, his hands over his heart. “Is that why Harper is ill?”
“She is pregnant. But…” In one drawn-out breath, I told them all about Harper’s illness, the precarious nature of the pregnancy, and to keep the news under wraps until further notice.
There was a tremor in Glinda’s hand as she set the coffee cup on her thigh. “I don’t suppose you know if the baby is a girl?” she asked quietly, almost under her breath.
“It’s too soon to know. Why?”
“Oh my,” Godfrey said, holding his fingertips to his lips as though wanting to bite his nails. He sat down, then stood up again. “I didn’t think of that. Oh dear.”
I didn’t know what to think of their odd reactions. I scooted to the edge of my seat. “Think of what? What am I missing?”
Godfrey waved a hand. “It is not for us to say. You must ask your mother.”
I immediately stiffened and felt my eyes go wide. Did I have any memory cleanse in my tote bag? I couldn’t remember. All I knew was that Glinda didn’t know about my mother. Not that she was alive (well, kind of) and certainly not that she was the Elder. I had wanted to tell her many times, but it wasn’t my place. Craft rules. Glinda was going to need a memory cleanse as soon as possible.
“Breathe,” Glinda said, patting me on the back. “You’re going to pass out if you hold your breath much longer. I know all about your mother.”
I looked at her. “You do?”
“For a couple of months now.”
“You didn’t say anything…” No one had said anything. It would have been nice if someone could have mentioned something. For the love, as Harper would say.
“It’s not an easy subject to bring up,” Glinda said. “Oh, hey, Darcy, I know your mom, who died when you were a little girl, is the matriarch of the Craft.”
Godfrey chuckled.
I shot him a dismayed look.
His chuckle turned into a cough as he focused on a piece of lint on his suit vest.
It suddenly occurred to me Godfrey knew Glinda was aware of the Elder’s identity. It further bolstered my suspicion that he was one of the Coven of Seven. There had been many times he had knowledge of what was going on in the witchy world before anyone else.
I held up a hand. “I need a second to wrap my head around all this.” I took a deep breath. If there was one thing I knew for certain: If Glinda knew about my mother, my mother had allowed her to know. And if she was okay with it, then so was I. A second later, I said, “Okay, so what’s this about Harper’s baby? What does it matter if the baby is a girl?”
Godfrey shook his head. “Talk to your mother. It’s all I can say.”
I hated knowing I’d been left out of the loop on something obviously quite important. “All right, I will.” I glanced at Glinda. “But right now, I’m here. I still don’t know why.”
The color was slowly returning to her face, and I tried my best to forget the way she’d appeared moments ago. The fear.
Over a baby.
I didn’t get it.
Forcing the thoughts out of my head, I waited for an explanation from Glinda about why she’d asked to meet with me.
A smile slowly spread across her face. “I need to use you, Darcy.”
“Use me?”
“As a cover.”
“For?”
She beamed. “Wedding planning.”
It took me a moment to understand. “You and Liam are getting married!”
She laughed. “Yes! We want to have a quickie wedding the day after Valentine’s Day. Next Saturday. We want it to be a surprise ceremony, though. No one knows but you, Godfrey, and Vince. Oh, and Will. He’ll be officiating.”
Will Chadwick, Liam’s brother. He’d officiated village weddings before. He had a theatrical flair that made it seem his officiating feel more like a stage show than a solemn event. No doubt it was going to be an entertaining evening.
“I’d like to keep the ceremony a secret until the night of our Begin These Wood-Birds party.”
She used air quotes around the name of the party.
“Begin These Wood-Birds party?” I asked.
Looking like a long-suffering partner, she said, “Liam’s idea.”
“Let me guess, something to do with Shakespeare?” His family was the one that ran the Shakespeare society.
“Good guess,” Glinda said with a smile.
“It’s from A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” Godfrey supplied. “‘Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past. Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?’” He supplied a flourished bow when he finished.
Archie would have b
een proud of his rendition. I figured the quote has something to do with birds pairing up so it was appropriate, I supposed, for a wedding.
“Obviously, the wedding is kind of a spur of the moment idea. So, we tried to figure out what kind of party we could throw as a diversion. Neither of us have birthdays soon, and there aren’t any grand celebrations on the calendar either. Valentine’s Day was it. Unless we wanted to wait a month until St. Patrick’s Day. And we don’t.”
“Is there a reason for the rush?” I asked, eyeing her up and down.
“What? Oh, no! No, no. Actually, we don’t want to have kids.” She glanced at me as though bracing to defend the decision.
While this was surprising news to me, she should have known I wouldn’t judge her decision. “Clarence is quite a handful on his own.”
Relief flooded her features, softening them. “That he is. And … I don’t want to be a mother like mine.”
“You wouldn’t be,” I said, suddenly feeling a depth of sadness for her.
“You don’t know that. I don’t know either. No one knows. I don’t want to risk it.” She added, “I can’t risk it.”
“How does your mother feel about the no-kids decision?” Godfrey asked with a pensive look in his eye.
“How does she feel?” She tapped her chin as if debating. “I’d say it straddles the line between rage and hysteria. I wouldn’t have told her anything, but at Christmas she cornered Liam and asked him about potential grandkids. He made the mistake of telling her the truth. Which is why she’s done everything in her power to break us up over the past two months.”
Even though I knew all this—Glinda had already told me what was happening—I still felt a ripple of shock at her words.
Glinda took a sip of her coffee. “And it’s only been escalating. She’s all-out declared war on Liam. She’s even asked Vince about hexes.”
“No,” Godfrey said.
“Impotency, baldness, genital warts. You name it.”
Godfrey flinched and crossed his legs.
Glinda went on. “So far Vince hasn’t acted on her behalf, and she hasn’t taken the impetus to dabble in dark magic herself. But I can see the writing on the wall. It’s only a matter of time before she does, because what Dorothy wants, Dorothy gets.”
“So you’re planning to cut her off at the pass by getting married,” I said.
“Exactly. We’d been talking about getting married this summer, but now we don’t want to wait. Maybe when we’re married she’ll get it through her thick skull that we aren’t breaking up, no matter what she says or does.”
“It’s a brilliant plan,” Godfrey said.
“Only if she doesn’t find out,” Glinda added. “My mother absolutely cannot know about this wedding or she will stop it from happening, one way or another.”
“My lips are sealed,” I said.
“Mine too.” Godfrey made a zipping motion over his mouth.
“Thanks. Anyway,” Glinda said with a deep sigh, “if there’s anything good to have come of her trying to break up Liam and me, it’s that Vince and I have bonded over her controlling nature. She hates his girlfriend, too.”
Godfrey raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Girlfriend?”
“Stef from the Sorcerer’s Stove,” I said.
“Cute,” he said approvingly.
“Why does Dorothy hate her?” I asked Glinda. “I mean, is there a reason? They haven’t dated long, so it can’t be about grandkids, can it?”
“Stef is mortal,” Glinda said simply. “And Dorothy is as elitist as witches come. She doesn’t want Vince getting attached. She’s not overly fond of mortals as a whole.”
Godfrey started laughing, great big bellows of laughter. “Poor, poor Sylar. The man had no idea what he was getting into, did he?”
Sylar Dewitt, Dorothy’s husband, was mortal.
Glinda smiled. “She’s had those divorce papers sitting in her lingerie drawer for nearly six months.”
“Why hasn’t she filed them?” I asked.
“Because then she might have to admit, even if it’s only to herself, that Ve pulled her strings, manipulating her to take Sylar off her hands. There’s nothing my mother despises more than looking foolish. Well, except maybe for your family. No offense.”
“None taken. She does realize Vince grew up thinking he was mortal? And that by putting down mortals, she’s essentially saying he wasn’t good enough before he learned the truth about his Craft?”
“If she realizes, she doesn’t care.”
It wasn’t a surprising statement. Dorothy cared little for anyone other than herself.
“Did I ever tell you how she once tried to burn down my house?” Godfrey asked.
“Yes,” Glinda and I said in unison.
Dorothy had a bit of pyromaniac in her. She’d been lighting fires, figuratively and literally, around the village for years. Somehow she’d always gotten away with it.
He chuckled. “Just making sure.” More seriously, he added, “Do you have a protection spell on your house, Glinda?”
It was a good question. If Dorothy found out Glinda was getting married at her home, I wouldn’t put it past her to burn the place down to prevent the wedding from happening.
“I do. Do you?” she asked him.
“Ever since the first time she tried to burn it down.”
He looked at me, and I in turn looked at Glinda. “I’m covered.”
The protection on my house had come in the form of a beautiful besom Glinda had gifted me at Nick’s and my housewarming party.
There were additional protections in place as well, courtesy of Andreus and my mother. My house was a veritable Fort Knox.
“Why not elope?” I asked. It seemed to me eloping would be a safer choice. For everyone.
Glinda said, “We considered it. But I want our friends and family there. I want the ceremony and the white dress and the cake and the flowers. Which is why I need your help, Darcy. It’s too risky for me to go about this on my own. My mother’s already suspicious that I’m hiding something from her,” Glinda said. “Mother’s intuition or something. So we’ll need to be careful. I mean, if you agree to help you have to know there are risks involved…”
She and Godfrey both looked at me expectantly.
Laughing, I said, “I’ll help. How can I resist? I’m guessing our first item of business is your dress since we’re here?”
Glinda said, “I know it’s short notice, Godfrey.”
“Pshaw. I can create wedding dresses in my sleep. What do you have in mind? Come, come, we should go back to the workroom.”
Her face lit again as she stood up. “Something ethereal. Long, flowy. Cap sleeves or sleeveless.”
“Veil?” he asked, leading the way.
“I like the idea, but I don’t know if I want the weight on my head all night,” she said, then turned to look at me. “What do you think?”
“I think—”
I was cut off by a knock at the door. Quinn Donegal offered up a hesitant wave when we all looked her way.
“Just a second, my dears. Let me take care of this,” Godfrey said as he stood quickly and strode to the door and pulled it open. “Quinn, this is a surprise.”
Glinda and I sat back down as Quinn came inside.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but I was walking by, and I saw you in here, and I know that Abby was supposed to be meeting with you today to pick up her wedding dress, and … I couldn’t stop myself from knocking. I’m sorry. I just hate the thought of leaving Abby’s dress here, as if it’s waiting for her to come back.” Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Ah,” he said, handing her a handkerchief. “Sit, sit. Would you like some coffee?”
Quinn dolefully glanced our way and said, “Actually, I don’t have much time. I’m on my way to a meeting. I just … What’s going to happen to the dress?”
Quinn appeared to have wilted overnight. Her shoulders slumped, her face was pale. It was as t
hough life was slowly draining out of her. I had called her this morning to set up a time later today to hand over the ledgers and made a mental note to bring some soup with me. She looked in desperate need of nourishment.
Godfrey said, “Nothing like this has ever happened before. The dress is bought and paid for, so it technically belongs to Abby’s estate.”
“I didn’t know Abby was getting married,” Glinda said.
“On Tuesday.” Godfrey wrung his hands. “It was a secret, but now that she’s gone, I suppose everyone will know soon enough. The wedding was to be on Tuesday, at the Marblehead city hall.”
Salem, I knew, didn’t offer civil ceremonies at its city hall, so it was no surprise Abby and Ben had looked elsewhere. I was starting to wonder if quickie weddings were the going trend. As a soon-to-be-bride, I understood the appeal. A lot.
Godfrey walked over to a white garment bag hanging on a hook by the workshop door. He unzipped the bag as he brought it over to where Quinn stood.
Inside was a simple, yet elegant champagne-colored silk cocktail-length sheath with a sweetheart neckline and thin pearl-studded belt. It was lovely, and I suddenly teared up thinking about how Abby was never going to be able to wear it.
Silence lingered before I said, “Maybe it can be donated to a good cause?”
“Or perhaps she can be buried in it?” Glinda added.
We all stared at her.
“What?” she asked. “Too morbid?”
“No, no,” Godfrey said. “It’s quite romantic if one thinks about it.”
“I don’t kn—” Quinn started to say.
She was interrupted by the door being thrown open.
Drolly, Godfrey said, “I should have locked the door.”
“What is going on in here?” Dorothy said loudly as she stomped over to us. “What is that?” She pointed at the wedding dress.
“Have you gone senile, old woman? It’s a wedding dress,” Godfrey said.
I thought he was pretty much asking for his house to be burned down by calling her old. There might not be a worse insult in her book.
Dorothy jabbed a finger at him, “Godfrey Baleaux, you did not just call me old. So help me.”
Wisely, Quinn took a step away from Dorothy. Out of arm’s reach.
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