by Les Goodrich
Table of Contents
RW-title page
RW-front matter
Chapter 1 - Avalon Spellshop
Chapter 2 - Visitor Spell
Chapter 3 - Darkspell
Chapter 4 - Declined
Chapter 5 - Mirror Magick
Chapter 6 - Conjured Lutin
Chapter 7 - Ghosts and Clues
Chapter 8 - Magick and Meetings
Chapter 9 - Body-Bind
Chapter 10 - Betrayed
Chapter 11 - A Dark Visit
Chapter 12 - Girls Night Out
Chapter 13 - All Hallow's Eve
Chapter 14 - Clues and Connecting
Chapter 15 - Friends, Lovers, and Spies
Chapter 16 - The Boat
Chapter 17 - Southbound
Chapter 18 - Smugglers and Guides
Chapter 19 - Crooks and Conmen
Chapter 20 - Double Crosses
Chapter 21 - Honesty and Threats
Chapter 22 - The Sneaky Plan
Author's Note
The Garden Witches
The Voodoo Children-Book 2
Contents
RW-title page
RW-front matter
Chapter 1 - Avalon Spellshop
Chapter 2 - Visitor Spell
Chapter 3 - Darkspell
Chapter 4 - Declined
Chapter 5 - Mirror Magick
Chapter 6 - Conjured Lutin
Chapter 7 - Ghosts and Clues
Chapter 8 - Magick and Meetings
Chapter 9 - Body-Bind
Chapter 10 - Betrayed
Chapter 11 - A Dark Visit
Chapter 12 - Girls Night Out
Chapter 13 - All Hallow's Eve
Chapter 14 - Clues and Connecting
Chapter 15 - Friends, Lovers, and Spies
Chapter 16 - The Boat
Chapter 17 - Southbound
Chapter 18 - Smugglers and Guides
Chapter 19 - Crooks and Conmen
Chapter 20 - Double Crosses
Chapter 21 - Honesty and Threats
Chapter 22 - The Sneaky Plan
Author's Note
The Garden Witches
The Voodoo Children-Book 2
The Retail Witches
Retail Witches Series ~ Book 1
LES GOODRICH
The Retail Witches
Retail Witches Series ~ Book 1
The Voodoo Children
Retail Witches Series ~ Book 2
The Salem Spellbook
Retail Witches Series ~ Book 3
The Darkspell Alliance
Retail Witches Series ~ Book 4
The Hexpawn Betrayal
Retail Witches Series ~ Book 5
The Soulpuller’s Heir
Retail Witches Series ~ Book 6
The Crossroad of Thorns
Retail Witches Series ~ Book 7
***
Copyright © 2017 by Leslie Ernest Goodrich. All rights reserved. The contents of this book may not be copied or reproduced (except in instances of brief attributed quotations published for editorial review) without the prior written permission of the author: Goodrich, Leslie E. (07-01-2017).
This Urban Fantasy Series Novel is a work of fiction. Any and all characters and events herein are fictitious, created in the mind of the author, for entertainment purposes only. Any fictional character’s likeness to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any products, places, or historical figures within this narrative are portrayed in a fictitious manner for the purposes of entertainment and under the protection of Fair Use.
Published by
DV8NOW Publishing
Vero Beach, FL
dv8now.com
Get The Garden Witches novella FREE here:
http://lesgoodrich.com/free-book/
Learn more about the Retail Witches Series,
its world, and the author at LesGoodrich.com
Chapter 1
Avalon Spellshop
Most agreed Saint Augustine, Florida was the oldest city in the Unites States. All agreed that it was the most haunted. Dry fall breeze walked down from the north and carried with it rumors of woodsmoke. A gathered sunrise painted eastern walls orange and cast long shadows under twin stone lions who guarded the drawbridge in confident silence. A stone fort stood on the waterfront and the town it guarded held a history of pirates, ghosts and gangsters. Bells on sailing masts chimed in the distance and gently awakened the dappled, oak-shaded streets, and everywhere an unexpected alley, narrow passage, or courtyard stitched together the old buildings, homes, and inns that made up the coastal town. A black cat darted along under still-darkened shop windows then turned down a side street. Some urgent errand.
Ancient cemeteries, a dozen coffee shops, many grand restaurants, a handsome college, a trolley for the tourists, and even a ghost tour booth populated the brick streets between shops of jewelry, clothes, and artwork. A never-ending cadence of tourists flowed through town, the locals drifted among them and everyone, for the most part, agreed that the city was lovely and a general mood of happiness and gratitude caused smiles between strangers and laughter among friends.
Even the ghosts got along with most people and as long as no one pestered them too much, they generally kept to themselves. In Saint Augustine the ghosts had a rich and vibrant society of their own complete with horses, carriages, music, pets, and a somehow endless supply of beer and wine. Despite all their revelry they bothered few, but they did show off a bit more around Halloween. Members of the tourism board just loved it when they did and spread new sightings across as many tourism websites as they could.
Amid this pirate history, old stone architecture, tourism, ghost lore propaganda, and general retail clamor there was a tidy gift shop situated on Artillery Lane where it connected the all brick Charlotte Street to Aviles Street and the lane at that point was a quaint, cobble alley. The sign above the door to this nearly hidden shop was a silver oval plaque with ornate purple old-world calligraphy that read Avalon Spellshop: Crystals, Incense, & Magickal Supplies. The striking sign was pointless from the main street, since the little shop was tucked a few steps back down the narrow bricked way between an ice cream shop and the bakery across the alley. Avalon Spellshop was actually located in the same building as the ice cream shop. The building, which housed the little new age store, the ice cream shop, and an art gallery, had originally been a stately home. Avalon Spellshop occupied what was once the estate home’s kitchen.
The shop address was seventy-two and one-half, Artillery Lane, and if passersby did notice it, they did so either by the purple flag flying out above the door, or the steady stream of sandalwood incense that burned open to close and somehow always trailed toward the busier main street at the lane’s entrance. The incense smoke lured curious seekers with promises of mystery and welcomed back regular customers in a subtle way that only a familiar scent could.
Saturday morning found the shop’s door opened an hour before the other stores even stirred. The already burning incense smoked from its usual home in a potted areca palm under the motionless purple flag. The incense smoke spiraled and curled and snaked its silent way up the alley and out across the as-yet empty sidewalk. The sign in the storefront bay window still read Closed.
Inside Brit and Jordan were finishing the inventory count by entering numbers from a clipboard into the computer. Brit: studious, slightly shy, remarkable memory, boy-short blonde hair, glasses, no makeup ever, cute, college junior, figured it out with hard work and
study, good at ducking trouble and liked to be alone. Jordan: mid-twenties, vampy, aggressive, aware, sable hair with a few smoldering crimson streaks, smoky eyeshadow, nearest-to-black shade of satin red lipstick, wild eyes, black lace and denim, confident because things came easily to her, a been-there-done-that strut. These girls had been working together in the shop that morning since three a.m.
“We might as well open this place,” said Jordan over the laptop as Brit walked within reach of the sign from inside, clipboard under her arm.
“True,” agreed Brit and she spun the thin, wooden, black lacquered sign around on its silver tasseled cord. The sign’s hand-painted silver lettering sparkled and the Closed side swung to face her.
A sporty soccer mom passed outside just then and the motion of the sign flipping caught her eye as she walked her little dog. She paused, read the sign, smiled, looked down at the small, brown and black long-haired dog. The dog looked up, tilted his head, and then the two kept walking. While the back of the sign did read Closed the front said:
Open now, and usually by nine. We try to stay until six p.m. Most days someone is here during lunch and we are likely to be open on weekends. We are closed every equinox, solstice and the day after each full moon. Blessed Be!
Inside Jordan clicked save. She looked suspiciously at the laptop and clicked save again just to be sure, barely touching it, as if the machine might bite her, or fall apart if she did something wrong. Brit spoke without looking up from her clipboard.
“Rose quartz, polished, small, quantity eight.”
“Eight,” Jordan confirmed with a few clicks of the keyboard and Brit continued from her list.
“And epidote, polished, small, quantity eleven.”
“I already got the epidote,” Jordan assured.
“Polished small?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I thought so,” Jordan said and scrolled up a few lines on her spreadsheet.
Brit puffed a short half-laugh through her nose, smiled, but this time she did look up from her clipboard.
“What?” asked Jordan.
“What you said. That was funny,” Brit smiled. Bright eyes.
“What was?”
“I asked if you were sure you had counted the epidote.”
“Yes?”
“And you said you thought so.”
“And that’s funny?”
“It’s funny because epidote increases the vibration of one’s thoughts so that the physical reality can be transformed,” lectured Brit.
“The thought stone.”
“The thoughts-become-things stone. Funny huh?” Brit beamed and shook her head.
“Hysterical. You’ve been awake for too long,” Jordan added with a hint of superiority.
Brit straightened her posture and tilted her head a bit and said, “No longer than you.”
“Yeah but I’m nocturnal,” Jordan winked and Brit relaxed then spoke again.
“So did you get the epidote Night Girl?”
“Yes Daywalker.”
They looked up at each other and smiled.
“Well then that’s it,” Brit said. “That’s everything.”
“Are you sure?” Jordan asked.
“I think so,” Brit said lifting a page.
“You better know so. You better rub some damn epidote or whatever,” and they both cracked up. Brit flipped through the pages on her clipboard.
“Yes I’ve gone in order and the polished small stones were the last of it. That’s everything. Save it.”
“Oh I saved it. I saved it a thousand times. I’m so sick of counting this shit.”
“Should we call Carol and tell her we’re done?”
Jordan weighed that for a second. “No because there’s no problem. Give me the count sheets and I’ll print it from here and we’ll both sign off on the date and time and leave it for Carol in the file.” Jordan hit save again with a paused and uncertain peck of one finger as if she were touching something that may shock her. “Next time I’m working the clipboard,” she said.
Brit passed the hand-count pages to Jordan and said, “Now we can both go home and sleep all day if we want.”
“As soon as Tanner comes in,” Jordan moaned and rolled her eyes.
Brit asked Jordan what time it was and it was eight forty-five a.m. Tanner was scheduled to come in at nine to open the store and relieve the girls and they all knew Carol, the owner, would be in around ten but both Jordan and Brit hoped to be sleeping somewhere cold and dark by then.
***
Jordan Beaumont was twenty-four and lived alone in the carriage house of a fine red brick mansion at the corner of Water Avenue and Shenandoah Street. Jordan had an old, basically reliable, black Jeep but it sat most days under a carport roof on the north side of the main house garage while Jordan rode her bike due to the lack of parking in town. The owners of the house were two older ladies who rented the main house to families on summer vacation when they retreated to their home in Maine. The ladies would move back in on Labor Day and stay until spring. They loved Jordan. Jordan's carriage house was one big room above the garage with twelve-foot ceilings and sets of high glass doors on each side.
Inside was a tiny corner kitchen with a bistro table and chairs and a baker’s rack hung with copper pots, dented lids, wooden utensils, and dried herbs. The rest of the big, open, square, high-ceilinged room was filled with two low deep couches of stone colored suede and several low square tables filled with crystals, candles, ornate trays, and boxes of every description. Here and there, amid or under the boxes, rested a book or a stack of books. Some boxes were covered in shells, some in gems, and some in symbol-hammered brass badges, and all held secrets. Her bed was in the corner opposite the kitchen and was hidden behind a bamboo screen and dozens of dark sarongs hung from barely visible black cords that reached from the gathered fabrics up to the far ceiling.
Three black iron candle chandeliers hung down from the high ceiling and dripped with what looked to be ages of ivory wax stalactites. The candle chandeliers were hung from ship’s lines through block-and-tackle pulleys near the ceiling, so they could be lowered to light, then hoisted again. Every inch of every wall that formed the square space was a bookshelf and all were filled with books about witches, witchcraft, magic, paganism, and the occult. There was likely no larger collection on the general subject of witchcraft in all of Florida. Positioned between the shelves on each of the four walls were the two sets of ten-foot high windows that opened to swing in like giant crystal French doors. The windows on the street side looked to the east from above the garage doors and through them you could see the bay and the sunrises.
On the north and south sides, the windows faced the tops of palm trees, and between the two sets of doors on the north wall was a small brick fireplace. On the brick hearth was a stack of firewood to the left, a stand of fireplace tools to the right, and a two gallon copper cauldron on the bricks just under the tools. A birch twig broom leaned on the left edge of the hearth and its ash stave rested in the corner made by the wall and that end of the substantial, raw edged but sanded smooth, cypress mantel. On the fireplace mantel was a twelve-inch high bronze statue of the goddess Morrighan, a slightly shorter statue of the Norse god Odin, a black wine glass of water, a soapstone stick-incense burner, a red pillar candle, and a narrow sterling tray, which was the home of Jordan's beloved blackthorn wand.
The windows to the west overlooked a perfect balcony that was the entry for the carriage house up to which the outside staircase rose. Those western windows and the balcony faced the front porch of the main house situated beyond a grassy courtyard with a three-tiered circular fountain that trickled in the center. Jordan's cat, Luna, slept most of her days on the cool flagstone pavers under the fountain. Luna was calico with patches of orange, black, and spotted grey but no other white at all except for the edges and tops of her feet so that she looked like she had stepped in paint.
Jordan's balcony was a
maze of clay pots filled with blooms and herbs of every color and potency. On the south balcony end a black wrought iron spiral staircase led to the high roof. The flat rooftop was sunken behind a waist-high parapet wall and from the roof you could see the fort and the inlet across the river and the top arms of the Bridge of Lions when it opened and Jordan absolutely knew she had the coolest place in town.
Upon the smooth poured concrete rooftop Jordan had painted a perfect circle in black, the stripe of the circle six inches wide. On the circle’s edge at true north was a grey, granite stone the size of a hay bale. Thirty feet away on the south edge was a terra cotta fireplace. To the east hung a wind chime from a shepherd’s hook and to the west stood a birdbath filled with clean clear water. In the center of the circle, but shifted just to the north, was a round metal table Jordan had salvaged from a coffeehouse dumpster.
***
Recently twenty-one, Brittany Mason lived at Flagler College where she studied Education and English as a double major junior. Brit had a red Miata her parents had bought her as a high school graduation present, but it lived, much as Jordan's Jeep did, parked on campus and her bike had hundreds of miles on it. Her apartment was in the top of the old Flagler Hotel building and was said to be haunted. Many stories surrounded that building but the most recent, and the one that included Brit’s little place, concerned a student at the College in the late nineties. It seems that this young man had moved from Ohio to Florida to attend the school and was happily doing so while living in that very apartment. Even then, rumors were well spread about the particular little student housing room. Unlike other University campuses, Flagler College was originally built as a hotel in 1888 by the tycoon Henry Flagler. As such, the grounds were filled with grand structures, fountains, and courtyards but many of the students lived in sort of improvised apartments throughout unique spaces and coincidental rooms within the various buildings of the school. Brit’s apartment was one of those.