It may have irritated the marching band, but it made me love her even more. She was brave and fierce in ways I always wanted to be. And I was glad to see that, at least on the surface, that wild soul of hers was still there.
The long skirt she was wearing hit mid-calf and was covered in cocks. No, not that kind. Roosters, in black and white with pops of red, in all different positions covered it. This was paired with black and white houndstooth sky-high shoes and a black and white plaid top. The kicker was the green army or utility jacket, though. It looked more than a little out of place with the flowing skirt, heels, and blousy top. The glasses that perched on her nose had bright red frames which matched the bright red lipstick she wore.
Carol was never one to shy away from loud patterns or bright colors. It was comforting to see that was still true too.
“Hello,” Beth crooned into the phone behind me. “Yes, one sec.” She covered the mouthpiece. “I have to take this. Carol, watch her. She just found out about the supernatural world. Be gentle.”
Carol’s eyes widened, nearly filling the space inside the red frames. “Ohhh, that’s juicy.” She plopped down in the chair across from me. I watched as she pulled out her knitting and picked up her needles, hooking the glittery purple yarn over her finger just so. “Tell me about it?” But when her gaze fell on me, her eyes widened. “Emma? Emma, is it really you?”
I forced a smile. “In the flesh.”
“And you finally know about the supernatural world?” She seemed even more excited.
“I thought—I thought Beth might have texted you about it?”
She sighed and waved her hand. “I hate phones. I was just heading here anyway. So, you said you know about the supernatural world now? How?”
I didn’t know where to begin. “Yeah. The cat talked to me,” I whispered. Dread filled my stomach at the idea of this being some kind of elaborate prank, or some inside joke between the two of them. Clearly Carol was comfortable with Beth if she just came in and knit.
“Oh, yeah, of course. That’s Beth’s specialty. It’s such a fun power and can really help out. She helped the police solve a couple of crimes after letting the household pets whisper in her ear, I’ll tell ya.” Carol nodded approvingly, briefly glancing at our friend with admiration.
“I had no idea any of this existed.”
She winked. “I know. High school would’ve been a lot more fun if we hadn’t had to be careful about saying or doing the wrong thing in front of our very human friend.”
I sit back in my chair. In high school, I sometimes felt left out in our friend group. I’d always thought it was a normal teen thing, but what if I was wrong? So many moments from our past came back to me, and it’s like they’ve taken on a whole new light.
“Homecoming dance when you guys didn’t go shopping for a dress with me?”
She shrugged. “We had our own dresses magicked.”
Suddenly, my gaze snapped from her face to her knitting needles. They clicked and they clacked, but once Carol had set up the needles and yarn she'd withdrawn her hands. In fact, her hands were folded in her lap and her gaze was on me.
“Your needles are knitting on their own.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears, like it had risen an octave without my permission.
“Indeed they are.” She paused and when I didn't immediately reply, she added, “I’ve been keeping an eye on your brother and girlfriend.”
I nodded. “I know. I appreciate it." She’d emailed me a few times if she’d noticed anything she thought I should look into.
“I see them as my kids, in a way. His girlfriend is in my fabric shop quite a lot.”
We had kept in touch, but only for the big stuff. I knew she had a fabric store, Yards and Yarns, where she sold everything to do with sewing, knitting, crocheting, anything textile based. There wasn't a lot I knew about the actual shop or how it came into being, though. So I asked, "How's the store doing?" After all, my parents had raised me to be polite. Apparently that still stuck with me, even through my friends outing themselves as having supernatural powers.
Or maybe I just needed something normal to cling to so my mind didn’t explode.
"Oh, it's good. People are always trying to knit up here or teach themselves how to sew. It keeps me busy." She'd dreamed of opening this store all throughout high school and I was so happy for her that she was living her dream. A tiny part of me was jealous. I'd done everything I thought I was supposed to and got stuck with a shitty now ex-husband and the loss of my business and home. Although maybe the business would be mine again since he was a toad. Hell, I didn't even know if him being a toad was permanent. What if he popped back up and suddenly claimed everything as his again and just had a penchant for eating flies?
I realized I'd fallen silent so I said, “I think she sees it as a safe place. It’s one of the few places she doesn’t mind going. Henry and Alice generally spend time together at his home or hers, or more frequently on the internet playing games together. Neither of them go out a lot.” As I spoke, my mind raced a mile a minute, thinking about all the things I’d learned in just the last five minutes. “Magic is real,” I whispered.
“Indeed.” Carol twiddled with the yarn, and it changed color, going from a sparkly purple to a peacock teal to a bright golden yellow until finally she settled on a lavender color. Once she was satisfied, she tapped the needles and they took over again. “Do you have questions?”
“Uh,” I stuttered, unsure what to ask first as I was still having trouble keeping my gaze from bouncing back and forth between the talking cat and the color changing yarn. Magic was real. I'd just seen two very real examples, which only became stronger when I added in everything else I'd been writing off as weird over the last few days. Finally I blurted, “Yes, actually. What does it mean that I’m Karma? Beth said it’s rare and unusual, but that I’m Karma and showed me that book of an old woman I saved from being hit by a car back home. Well, what was my home anyway.”
Carol’s eyebrows raised high on her forehead, well passed the edge of her glasses. “Wow. That’s pretty cool. Karma, huh? I thought that was a legend.” She sucked in a deep breath and adjusted the yarn again, switching the color back to the sparkly purple it had been originally. “Well, most magic works essentially the same. You can learn to control most of it, but chances are when someone needs some karma near you, your powers will work whether you want them to or not.”
"So say for instance a woman got a smoothie spilled down her top. I caused that even though I didn't mean to?"
Carol snorted and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "You did that, did you?"
"I think so?"
"She must have had a reason to deserve karma to smack her on the ass." When she paused, I nodded. "Then that was just your powers doing what they are going to do. Magic is nothing to be trifled with. Learn how to control your power and you'll be able to at least subdue the effects even if you can't halt them altogether."
My brain rolled the ideas around as though they were a grain of sand and I was an oyster who was trying to protect itself from the offending thought. It wasn't going to work though. Something in me had awoken now that I knew magic was real, and it wasn't going back to sleep any time soon. Besides, I had a feeling that this was just the beginning.
And that maybe magic was exactly what I needed in my life right now.
6
Emma
As I gaped at Carol as her knitting project grew longer, the thought of my shiny new powers always expressing themselves whether I wanted them to or not filling my mind, another blast-from-the-past voice interrupted us.
“Emma!" The call of my name had me jolting in my seat, scared that someone would know what we were just talking about, or see Carol's knitting needles going by themselves, or even one of the cats carrying on a conversation.
As soon as the voice registered though, all my fear disappeared. Deva, one of our group from before I left town, came out of one of the back room doors. And when she
didn’t look the least bit surprised about the needles knitting on their own, I released a slow breath. So Deva was magical or whatever, too.
Was everyone in this town magical?
"So good to have you home. To stay this time, I hope. Sorry I’m late.” She walked over to give the tabby cat a scratch under the chin. I hadn't even noticed him come back in. He and Marble were both curled up on different perches on the cat trees along the back wall.
“Lovely, Deva, thanks,” he said, rubbing against her hand.
“Late?” I asked, confused.
Deva nodded.
“For what?”
“To initiate you into our world,” she answered with a grin.
Oh boy.
Deva looked at the cat, then at me, then back at the cat. “I don’t know what you know yet, except that because he talked in front of you, you obviously know he can.”
I nodded mutely. Deva walked over and pulled one of the remaining arm chairs to be part of the cluster around Beth's desk before she plopped down on it beside me. “You all right?” she asked as she looked me over, her eyes lingering on my shoulder.
All I could seem to do was nod. I swallowed and sucked in a deep breath. “Yeah, apparently I’m Karma.”
Deva sat back and gave me an appraising look. “Very cool. I’ve heard of that.”
I looked between her and Carol and even glanced over at Beth, who was trying to wrap up her phone conversation. “This is just normal for you guys?”
Deva chuckled. “You poor thing.” She leaned out of her chair so she could put one arm around me. “Yes, we’ve known we were witches for…Well, ever. Sounds like you’ve turned into one. It happens occasionally.” She looked surprised for a second. “Hey, are you going home soon? I’ve got a big bag of food in my car for your brother and his girlfriend. You wanna take it with you?”
“Sure,” I said, then swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. Deva always had this way of tearing down my walls and making it hard to hide my emotions. And the fact that my old friends had obviously been helping a lot with my brother since I was gone made me feel like I wanted to cry and thank them, all at the same time.
“Things haven’t been easy for you since you left,” she said, her voice gentle as she watched me too closely.
I nodded, blinking back tears.
“I’m here for you. Always.” Her dark eyes seemed to stare right into my soul.
I stood from my chair and held out my arms, waiting. Deva knew what I was asking for without me having to explain it and she pushed up from her chair so I could pull her into a tight hug. I squeezed her until she grunted.
“Thank you,” I whispered, before turning and looking at Carol over my shoulder. “And thank you, too. For taking care of them.”
Once I released Deva, I sat back down and looked around the room, not sure how to process everything.
“Want to talk about the whole magic thing first? Or what you’ve been up to?” Deva asked.
Magic thing. This was real. I wasn’t human anymore. Which meant I could do things. But what? What were the limitations of magic? Did it even have any? So far I'd seen people reduced to toads, tires explode, people vanish, yarn knitting itself, and, of course, the talking cats. What if this was just the tip of the iceberg? Could people raise the dead? What about teleportation, was that real? All kinds of questions flooded my mind.
“Magic,” I mumbled, pressing a hand to my forehead. Was I feeling light-headed or was this magic place actually swaying under my feet?
Deva grabbed her purse. “Here,” she said and reached inside. “Eat this.” She produced a large chocolate bar, one of the good brands from overseas. “It’ll help.”
I nodded, because hell, why wouldn’t chocolate help at this point? I certainly thought it would help when my ex had filed for divorce and when I found out he was boning his secretary. The wrapper crinkled as I opened it, the paper and foil tearing to reveal the creamy milk chocolate hidden underneath. I took a bite and immediately felt calmer. Like it was going to be okay. Like everything was going to be okay. Not just the magic stuff, but my divorce, the business, Henry and Alice. Everything would work out.
“Come on, dove,” Deva said as she stood and pulled her purse over her shoulder before extending a hand to me. “Let me drive you home.”
“I’ll follow in her car,” Carol offered. “Beth, we’ll catch you up later!”
I took Deva's hand and she towed me from the chairs toward the door. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Beth was still on the phone. She waved, but I was too calm and happy to really process it. Why wouldn’t I be happy? I had magical powers. That was enough to make anyone happy. Even the chime above Beth's door sounded happy as we went out.
After I vaguely pointed out my vehicle to Carol, I handed her my keys. Why wouldn't I trust her to get my car home with me? If she wanted to drive then so be it. Deva tugged on my hand again and we walked arm in arm around to the back of the little strip mall where her car was parked. It was a sleek black sedan that seemed to glow under the lights on the back of the building.
Deva got me strapped into her passenger seat, then she ran around to the drivers side, sliding in and throwing the car into reverse before she'd even finished buckling her seatbelt. She looked at me and grinned before we took off. “My chocolate should be working really well by now.”
“Your chocolate?” I asked, feeling my brows furrowed in confusion. Was that something I'd ever noticed before? Being able to feel the muscles on my face moving with my expressions?
“Yeah, I wrapped it in one of those wrappers of the brand they sell at the airport. But I made it. My food makes people feel certain ways. I can do a lot with my food, good and bad.” Deva's voice kept me from focusing too much on the strange sensation in my face.
I nodded, understanding. I mean, why wouldn't she be able to use food to make people feel things if Carol could knit without touching the needles and Beth could talk to animals? Was it the chocolate that was making my face feel funny?
“You’ll remember all this tomorrow, but it’ll be an easier pill to swallow after a good dose of that chocolate. Have another bite.”
I did as she asked, even though I hadn't remembered the chocolate bar was still in my hands, and another wave of contentment washed over me. I licked the gooey bits from my fingers where I'd been holding it, enjoying the feel of the silky substance on my tongue.
“This is going to be great,” I muttered.
“That’s the spirit!” Deva laughed as though she knew a secret I didn't. She pulled her car up to a house that I assumed belonged to my brother's girlfriend. A woman came out the front door and stood on the porch, fiddling with the cuffs of her cardigan. “Come on, have you met her yet?”
I shook my head. Technically I had, but she’d been young then. I didn’t know her as an adult, or as my brother’s girlfriend.
I got out as Deva did the same, grabbing the bag of food from the backseat. As we walked up to the porch, I realized it wasn't just her fiddling with her clothing that let me know how painfully shy she was, but the way she couldn't hold my gaze. The way her eyes darted around, checking on everything as though she was worried something was out of place. Everything about her said that she was uncomfortable around people.
I wondered why.
Under the oatmeal-colored cardigan she wore a pale pink chambray shirt that was unbuttoned just at the collar and some jeans with a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers, the kind where the ears moved as she walked. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, the auburn locks straining for their freedom. From the looks of things, she had natural curls or at least waves in her hair that made it bunch up in sections even though she'd tried to pull it as tight as she could. Dark, doe eyes watched us from under a thick layer of lashes. She had a natural, no-makeup-required beauty that made most women probably want to scream. I was just glad that my brother had found someone who seemed just as quirky as he was.
Alice smiled and ducked her eyes. �
�I’m so happy to meet you,” she said in a soft voice after Deva introduced us. “Your brother has told me so much about you.”
She was just perfect, and that wasn’t the chocolate talking. Maybe a little off, considering she was mid-thirties and still wearing bunny slippers and having people watch out for her, but so was my brother. Together it seemed like they would be spot on.
There was no staying to chat, no inviting us in. It was a quick introduction, then Alice scurried back inside with her food and we got in the car and drove up the road to my place. Or maybe I should say Henry's place, since I hadn't lived there in so long. Our place. All I knew was that it wasn't my parent's house anymore.
Deva's voice broke through my inner ramblings as she said, “Alice is a witch, but her magic is a little off. Every time she tries a spell or potion it backfires, sometimes in hilarious ways, but also problematic ways. We keep an eye on her.”
"I missed this. People keeping an eye on each other. My old neighbors would call the cops if my grass got too long,” I said with a snort.
"If they call the cops here, at least it would be one of the cute, young officers that came out to see you." Deva chuckled.
Bring on the eye candy. After being married to Rick for years, I needed some. Despite myself, I thought of Daniel. It was stupid. He was just some guy I’d run into in a store and made a fool of myself in front of, but his bright green eyes seemed to float through my thoughts, and the memory of his smile made something inside of me ache. Like a yearning I couldn’t explain. And just the feel of that yearning made me think of Rick cheating on me all over again.
I didn’t want that jerk to still be hurting me, but somehow he was. Somehow even the thought of a handsome man’s smile made me think of pain instead of love and potential. Had my ex broken something inside me? And could it be fixed?
The chocolate was good, but that could only get me so far, unless Deva had some other chocolate to help with a broken heart.
Karma's Spell (Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow Book 1) Page 4