by Tegan Maher
She swept closer to me, her translucent face pale. “Roll them around so I can see the charms.”
I did, and she frowned. “I’m not certain,but go in and get that picture of my grandmother. It’s on the mantle.”
I got up and did as she asked, Raeann trailing behind me.
“There,” Addy said, pointing to a picture of my grandmother holding her. “Take a picture with your phone and zoom in on her wrist.”
I did, and sure enough, there was a bracelet just like mine. “Yeah, but it’s black and white and grainy. There’s no way to know that this is the same bracelet.”
She chewed on her lip and looked at the bracelet again. Finally, she grinned. “Nope, I know for sure that it is. Right there. I’d forgotten all about it, but the three in a row. Amethyst, bloodstone, moonstone. Not only are they excellent for spellwork, but they’re also birthstones. February, March, and June. My birthday, Beth’s, and your mom’s.”
I examined it with wonder, rubbing the stones, and they grew warm under my hand. “So why did it come to me?”
Addy shrugged. “I don’t know, Noelle. But that was the grandmother I was talking about when I said one of us had psychic gifts.”
Raeann leaned forward and fingered the stones. “After you’ve found so many items and paired them with the folks they were meant for, something finally found you. Take it for the gift it is, and don’t worry about the why of it. Sometimes the only answer is that the universe means for it to be that way.”
I smiled, then sat back to finish my coffee in the company of family, past and present. My life was blessed, and right then, that was all that mattered.
Thank you!
I hope you enjoyed this newest installment in the Keyhole Lake series as much as I loved writing it,and thank you for giving me your valuable time! If you haven’t read my new Paranormal Artifacts series, I’ve included Chapter 1 of Haunted Pendant for you below.
Haunted Pendant
Chapter 1
“Knock it off!” I said, jabbing my fork at my best friend Eli’s hand. It was the fourth time he’d tried to filch a scallop from my plate.
“I can’t help it,” he said, snatching his hand back before I could impale it. “I’m stress eating.”
I scoffed. “What’s got your knickers in a twist now? Is your dry cleaning late? Are your Yoda socks dirty? Oh! No, I know. You forgot it was Tuesday and didn’t steal the crossword out of Mr. Anderson’s newspaper before he got it off the stoop.”
“Stop minimizing my struggles.” He scowled at me, his dark eyes narrowed. “And besides, it’s not any of those things, though I did miss the crossword this morning. I’m stressing about the dive.”
I paused, my fork halfway to my mouth. Unlike me, Eli tended to stress about pretty much everything, but never a dive. We’d been exploring Marauders Bay since we were kids, and we knew it inside out. The only truly dangerous part of it was Devil’s Reef, a treacherous stretch of coral and sand that formed a horseshoe around the bay. The jagged coral and deep sugar sand created a hull-ripping quagmire that had sunk more than one ship over the years.
That wasn’t what worried me, though. We knew every inch of the reef just as well as we knew the bay, and Eli was brash, outspoken, and had never met a convention he didn’t want to flout. It’s why we’d been best friends since kindergarten. He was also one of the most powerful warlocks I’d ever met. If he was stressing, then it would probably behoove me to stress, too.
“What do you mean, stressing? Like, you’re worried we’ll rip a sail, or you foresee our imminent, shark-induced deaths?” The shrimp and scallops I’d just eaten were swimming in my gut much harder than they ever had in the ocean.
He blew a breath out through his cheeks and ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know, Sage. It’s just a feeling, but it’s hard to pinpoint because the storm messed with my juju. I don’t sense physical danger. Just ... something else not good.”
“Just not good? Or flat-out bad?” I fought the urge to run my hands over my arms to flatten the hairs that were standing up on them. I’d never known his senses to be wrong, and as much as I was looking forward to our post-storm adventure, I was neither stupid nor suicidal. “Do we need to call off the dive?”
A category-one hurricane had blown through a few days before, and the water in the bay was finally clear enough to allow for some visibility underwater. We’d made some of our best finds right after storms, so the explorer in me was anxious to get out there.
He pressed his lips together and pushed them to the side, thinking. “If we do, we’ll miss the shifts caused by the storm, plus Larry’s going out of town tomorrow. I think instead of diving the reef, we should probably stick to the bay. Even if the boat sinks, we can swim back to shore.”
I had to hope he was kidding, though I couldn’t be sure. Larry was the only captain we ever went out with. He was reliable and capable, not that other captains weren’t. It was just that Larry’d been taking us out to look for treasure and explore the ocean since we were kids, and our Saturday dives were sort of a tradition. Still, it would suck to sink his boat just because we wanted to explore the bay post-storm. No trinket was worth that, and even as talented as we were, I wasn’t sure we could levitate an entire sailboat back to shore.
“Okay,” I said, then stared at him for a few seconds, watching his expression.
“What?” he snapped. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Did the feeling go away now that we changed our plans?”
He rolled his eyes and heaved a long-suffering sigh. “It doesn’t work that way, and you know it.”
I pushed the last remaining bit of linguini around on my plate, not even really seeing it.
“Young lady! That butter sauce is mana from the heavens. Ezra didn’t make it for you to play in it.” A pleasantly plump woman on the other side of middle age clucked at me as she filled my iced tea. “And since when do you leave so much as a noodle behind, anyway?”
I smiled at her, though my mind was still a little distracted. “Never, Maris. And don’t tell Ezra. He’ll think I’m sick and send me home with a gallon of chowder to help me recuperate.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Eli said, his generous lips curving up into a half-smile. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”
Ezra made the best seafood chowder that had ever passed my lips. Rich, creamy, and made with only the freshest ingredients. Larry, who was Maris’s brother, was a shrimper by trade, so Ezra had an inside track on the good stuff.
Maris flapped her hand at Eli. “You about eat us out of house and home here, you and your all-you-can-eat fried-clam addiction. I’m not sendin’ the rest of the day’s profits home with you, too.”
He hopped up and pulled her into a big hug, then planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “You know you love me, Ms. Maris. I’m your best customer.”
Her plump cheeks pinked, and she smacked him on the arm as she patted her gray hair. “Fresh! Now go on, you two. Surely you have somethin’ better to do than sit around a musty old fish house on such a beautiful day.”
Her description of the restaurant was way off base. The Cozy Clam was old, but the weathered wooden floorboards and plank tables worn smooth by the feet and elbows of thousands of happy customers gave the place a homey, welcoming feeling you just didn’t find in a brand-new building.
Used nautical pieces including fishing nets, deep-sea lures with chipped paint, old line weights, and even a wheel salvaged from a sunken pirate ship covered every square inch of wall, giving it an authentic feel that you’d never get in a chain seafood place. The smells of ocean air, fried seafood, garlic, and French fries had hovered in the air for so long that it had permeated the very walls. There was nothing about the place that wasn’t amazing, at least to somebody who’d grown up on the ocean’s edge.
I plucked the last hushpuppy from our shared cardboard boat and popped it in my mouth as I dug my wallet out of my backpack-style purse. After ha
nding Maris enough money to cover the tab and tip, I gave her a quick hug. “Thanks for another awesome lunch. We have to hustle, or we’ll be late meeting Larry.”
She rolled her merry green eyes and smiled as she tucked the cash into her apron. “Like that old coot ever knows what time it is, anyway. Fair winds, and good luck explorin’.”
When we pushed out the door, I took a deep breath of fresh air washed clean by the hurricane. The storm had only brushed the coast, so the only thing left in its wake was perfect weather. The humidity was low, which was rare in our little Florida town.
I glanced over at Eli as we rounded the corner to follow the boardwalk down to the docks. “Are you feeling better?”
He nodded and tossed his backpack over his shoulder. “I think so. I love storms, but I hate what they do to my magic. Everything is muddy. I think we’ll be fine, though. I’m not scared; I just feel like something’s coming. It might not even have anything to do with the dive.”
I waggled my eyebrows at him. “Something wicked this way blows?”
Laughing, he gave me a little push. “Go ahead—make fun of me. You know I’m never wrong.”
That much was true, but it didn’t mean I’d ever miss a chance to tease him.
“Speaking of something wicked,” he said, and I followed his gaze.
“Fabulous,” I mumbled when I saw two high-fashion, low-class brunettes heading our way. Faith and Hope Ward had plagued us since third grade when they’d moved to Marauders Bay with their father who, oddly enough, was an absolute joy. They were identical other than a mole above the right corner of Faith’s mouth. The twin witches were rich, snobby, and condescending, and never missed a chance to take a shot at one or both of us.
“Oh, look, Eli. It’s Bibbity and Bobbity,” I said when they were within hearing distance. “They must have been trolling the docks for a little Saturday-night spending cash.”
Eli snickered. “You’re probably right. I have Faith they’ll find it, but I Hope the poor guys didn’t catch anything.” One of his favorite ways to get under their skin was to twist their names around.
Faith smirked. “Yeah, because we’re short on cash. Daddy has more money than God, and you know it. What brings you two weirdos down here?”
Hope raked her gaze over us and shuddered. “They’re probably heading out on that ratty boat, seeing as how they’re both dressed like beach bums as usual. Nice shirt,” she said to Eli.
He glanced down at his Show me your booty tank top, then shook his head and waved his finger. “Oh, no, sweetie,” he said, making a circular gesture around the text with his forefinger. “This doesn’t mean you. Even if I were so inclined, I can guarantee my tastes wouldn’t run toward tall, dumb, and nasty.”
Faith’s dark eyes snapped to him. A spike of energy washed over me, and my armlet grew warm, giving me a heads up that something was coming. Knowing Eli’s magic was wonky, I stepped in front of him and threw up a shield before whatever curse she was throwing at him could stick.
“Now, now,” I said after I felt the sting of her magic hit my shield. ““That’s no way to play nice.”
“No,” Eli added, nudging me aside. “It certainly isn’t. And I recognized that hex. I’m rubber, you’re glue. Back ’atcha, witches.” He flicked a wrist, and an evil smile curled his lips. His magic must not have been too wonky, because a burst of energy raised the hair on the back of my neck two seconds before the scent of rotten garbage assailed my nostrils.
I laughed because the garbage spell was one of Eli’s specialties. “You were dumb enough to try to hit him with his own hex?” I asked them, only semi-incredulous. Nothing dumb or unoriginal they did ever entirely surprised me.
Faith’s face went red and she raised her hand again.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said, wagging a finger at her. “You know you’ll only make matters worse, and if you run to your father, we’ll tell him you started it.”
Hope glared at me. “So? He’ll believe us over you.”
I arched a brow at her because she knew that wasn’t true. Their father had been mayor for many years, and though he loved them, he wasn’t blind to them. Me, on the other hand, he loved. They’d been in hot water more than once for practicing magic where they might have been seen by non-magicals. According to my older sister, who was on the town’s Council of Magic, they were on their last chance. “Will he, though? You sure you don’t want to think this through a little? You know, before you end up a dumpster?”
It wouldn’t have been the first time one of us had ended up transfigured, or even the twentieth. It was sorta what we did.
Neither of them said anything, but Faith was dangerously close to popping a vessel if the crimson hue of her face was anything to go by. I summoned a magical energy coin and rolled it across my knuckles. “Time’s atickin’ ladies. We have places to be, so if you’re gonna throw down, let’s get this show on the road.”
Faith and Hope both had the bloodline to be talented, capable witches, but they didn’t have the dedication. Most of the time, any spells unrelated to clothes, hair, or makeup were clumsy and poorly executed, so they tended to rely on sneak attacks rather than face-to-face confrontation.
Hope took Faith by the arm while glaring daggers at us. “C’mon, Faith. We’ve wasted enough time on this trash.”
“Uh, excuse you,” Eli said, crossing his arms and staring down his nose at them. “I think you have that backwards. Which of us smell like something that fell off a garbage truck?”
Faith gave a high-pitched “hmph” but let Hope drag her away. We stood there until they turned the corner because we’d learned long ago never to turn our backs on them.
“I’m rubber you’re glue?” I asked, turning to Eli with a raised brow. “Really? What are you, eight?”
He lifted a shoulder and gave me a smug smile. “I can adapt my maturity level to match any circumstance.”
“So I see.”
“How’d you know she was hexing us?” he asked as we continued our stroll down the boardwalk. “Your armlet, or was it just an educated guess?”
“My armlet.” Earlier in the summer, I’d helped an ancient witch track down a grimoire that had belonged to her grandmother. As thanks and payment, she’d given me an armlet made of gold and silver. A golden crown was set over a sunburst, and the intricate band was sterling. Several different stones adorned it, placed in strategic places throughout the runes etched into the band.
Its symbolism was complex, but the long and short of it was that it was meant to help protect me as well as enhance my natural gift of being able to detect cursed objects and dark magic. Because I’ve had more than my fair share of close calls, I was willing to take any help I could get. Plus, it was pretty and unique. I wore it on my upper right arm and never took it off.
We continued on past the touristy shops, boutique restaurants, and beach bars until we’d reached the north end of the boardwalk that led to a marina where most of the local boats were moored. As always, the sound of the water slapping off the hulls of the boats and the cry of seagulls invigorated me.
By the time we made it to the Sea Urchin, Eli’s bad feeling had slipped from my mind, replaced by the excitement of seeing what treasures the storm had stirred up.
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Other Series by Tegan Maher
The Enchanted Coast Magical Mysteries (Destiny Maganti)
Cori Sloane, Witchy Werewolf
Haunted Lodge Mysteries (Toni Owens)
Celestial Academy: The Witch (Shelby Flynn)
Paranormal Artifacts Cozy Mysteries (Sage Parker)
Witches of Abaddon’s Gate (Mila Maganti)
Gulf Coast Reaper Chronicles (Wren)
About Tegan
I was born and raised in the South and even hung my motorcycle helmet in Colorado for a few months. I've always had a touch of wanderlust and have never feared just packing up and going on new adventures, whether in real life or via the pages of a great book.
When I was a little girl, I didn't want to grow up to be a writer—I wanted to raise unicorns and be a superhero. When those gigs fell through, I chose the next best thing: creating my own magical lands filled with adventure, magic, humor, and romance.
I live in Florida with my two dogs. When I'm not writing or reading, I'm racing motorcycles or binge-watching anything magical on Netflix.
I'm eternally grateful for all the people who help make my life what is today - friends, readers, family. No woman is an island.