“Be careful, Gabe!” There was a crunch of tires on gravel, followed by a cloud of dust, then he was gone, off to confront the bears in the bakery. I ascended the stairs to the porch and met Gemma who was patiently awaiting my return. “I don’t know how far your spell took things with Gabe and me. Was it only for me to appear a little less first morning frumpy to Gabe or was it more than that…I don’t think I want to know. Either way, thank you, Gemma.” She looked at me and purred as if she was satisfied with a job well done. “Now to find out if Gertie is responsible for sending momma bear and her cubs into town.”
Back inside the mill, Gertie, Ezzy, Randy, and Barney were gathered in the kitchen. Gertie was telling her tale of the three bears gone wild. “…and I was so flustered when I zapped myself away to safety, I accidentally got all three bears caught up in my magic! Next thing I know, I’m standing next to a glass case filled with pastries and those three bears are on the other side of it. They went right to work, devouring the jelly donuts.”
“And now Gabe has to risk his life getting your bears out of the grocery store.” My words surprised everyone.
“Hi Kelly! I was just telling everyone about what happened.”
“Who’s Gabe?” Ezzy gave me her best and very well practiced narrow-eyed investigative look.
“Gabe is a man I met this morning. I was out on the patio, enjoying my coffee, appreciating the scenery, and he was walking along the path by the mill pond.”
Randy had the same look as Ezzy. “Gertie said he was a cop. Why are you hanging out with a cop? I don’t think that’s such a great idea in a little town like this, considering the nature of our business.”
“He’s not a cop! He’s a conservation warden for the Department of Natural Resources. Christ! Does that make you feel any better? So what the hell happened, Gertie?”
“I was overwhelmed with fright! By Joseph! The bear had me eyed up for her breakfast. I swear, I felt her breath steaming up me arse and so I ran, fast. So fast I left my guardian angel behind, holding my shadow. When I got over to you, I botched up my broom travel spell. You heard what I was telling the others about the bakery. I remembered the address Ezzy gave me and I flashed right over here. I’m certain those bears won’t bother anyone. There are enough donuts and pies to keep them busy for quite a while.”
“Let’s hope Gabe gets them out of there.”
“So…Kelly. Tell us about this Gabe. Gertie said he looked like a nice specimen. If it’s true, then we ought to arrange a threesome.”
“He’s the hottest guy and the sweetest guy I’ve ever met. And no. Just no, Ezzy. This isn’t anything physical, yet. This is…oh, I don’t even know how to say it. Magical.”
“Wow! I’ve heard you describe men in many ways, sis. Usually, your description starts out with the words ‘son of a’ then pick your favorite derogatory animal name. But magical? No. That was never used. So when do we get to meet this magical game warden?”
Ezzy crossed her legs, rocking one foot up and down. “Yeah, Kelly. I’m pretty sure you’ve violated any number of the laws of nature. I might have to have him stop by so we can discuss appropriate disciplinary action for you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“It was worth a try,” Ezzy said to Randy, then continued to file her nails. “Maybe he has some magic gay warden friends.”
“Game warden…Argh! I mean conservation warden. When you say game warden, it brings up images of Elmer Fudd. And he is anything but Elmer Fudd.”
“Enough already.” At some point during our conversation Barney left the room and had just returned. “Just got a call from our first client. She was supposed to meet us on Monday, but the only time she’s free is this afternoon. Her name is Morgan Shelby. We have one hour to get ready. And remember, we aren’t showing these clients any video. Gisele wants me to save it all up so it can be edited and put together for broadcast.”
Ezzy sauntered over to me, sweeping the hair from my neck. She looked in my eyes and her lips formed a closed, half smile. Then she laughed, but almost in a nefarious sort of way. “Ah, you think I’m a little envious perhaps? On the contrary. I’m curious. Curious how you—you that guards your heart so carefully—have been so swiftly smitten by this stranger. I’ve forgotten how that feels. Centuries of keeping my heart to myself and only enjoying the more…physical aspects of love have caused me to forget.” She touched my hair again. “But we know all about feeding those physical passions. Don’t we, Kelly?” Her fingers lightly brushed the side of my neck as a reminder. Her sly smile was gone, her voice becoming more serious, more sincere. “Go ahead and unlock your heart for this warden. Do it while you still can, Kelly.”
Ezzy spun around, demanding everyone’s attention. “Listen up! The witch is back, and I’m going to put a new twist on Karma, Inc. It’s time we stretch out those wands and act like the witches we are. And Barney, one more thing.”
“Name it, baby.”
“I want you to hide behind that thing.” She pointed to an antique four-panel Chinese room divider. “From now on, start recording video of our clients from the moment they walk in the door. If these events are going on reality TV, I want to capture everything.” Ezzy turned and walked out of the room.
“Geez. Between Gisele and Ezzy’s video demands, I’ll need to add my spare crystal ball to this.”
Deep in the old mill, the machinery’s eerie noises boomed. Barney held his head, covering the place where his ears would be, if he had ears. I wasn’t sure if he did. “That noise is driving me nuts. I really can’t take it anymore. It’s what you would imagine a giant sounding like as he beats his club down on a house. We should go down there and see if we can shut it down or something.”
“We’re not supposed to go in that part of the house. Besides, it’s locked up like Fort Knox.”
“We’ll see about that.” Barney said it like a lock was nothing but a personal challenge he would readily accept and easily overcome.
Chapter Twenty One
Morgan
“Good afternoon. Morgan, is that right?” I greeted our first Caldron Falls client. She was a beautiful young woman, no more than twenty-one years old, I guessed. She wore black polyester pants and a freshly stained, pink polo shirt. The shirt had a logo, two oversized interlocking D’s, with small lettering that read: Dutch’s Diner. She kept her long auburn hair in a ponytail, and she smelled like bacon. It was clear she had just finished a morning waitress shift.
“Yes, Morgan Shelby. I hope I’m not screwing up your appointments. I was supposed to have off on Monday, but they changed my schedule at work.” Her big brown eyes were filled with sadness, and her long eyelashes apologized for the tears they tried to hold back.
“Don’t even worry about it. Trust me, I’ve put my hours in as a waitress when I was in college. I know all about schedules that change by the hour. By the way, I love your name.” I did my best to set her at ease because she was definitely upset. I wondered why an apparently sweet young girl like Morgan would need our services.
Ezzy joined us in the living room. She studied the innocent looking girl, and I knew Ezzy wondered the same thing I did. Morgan just was not typical of the clients we were used to seeing. “Come on in and have a seat, Morgan. My name is Esmeralda. Tell me why a sweet young girl like you would need the dirty deeds of Karma, Inc.”
“I’m not even sure I understand what Karma, Inc. is all about. Do you guys set someone up for revenge?”
“In a way…but we don’t use the word revenge. We want you to tell us exactly who wronged you and why you think they’re deserving of a payback. A payback from Karma, Inc. is determined solely by fate, and Karma comes up with a fitting payback. So you can’t make anything up in order to deliver a harsher punishment. Karma will weigh the circumstances and act accordingly. Does that help?”
“Yeah. The punishment fits the crime. Like that?”
Ezzy took Morgan’s hand and gently massaged it. She turned the girl’s palm up, tracing the
little lines as if she were reading her palm. “Sure. It’s one way to look at it. But punishment is another negative word we avoid. We like to call it justice.” Ezzy’s index finger followed the line that arced from the corner of the thumb toward the wrist.
“Are you reading my palm? Is that part of this?”
“You see, Morgan, I am a witch. So is Kelly. I don’t need you to tell me much about yourself, I already know from your palm.”
Morgan seemed hesitant. “I don’t know much about palm readings, or psychics, or any of that stuff. To be honest, I don’t really believe in it.”
“Tell me if I’m wrong about what I say. I’ll dispense with the obvious things, such as your age of twenty-two, you’re an only child, your parents both died when you were very young, or the fact that you’re single…but only recently single. Your boyfriend died last fall.” Morgan tried to jerk her hand away, but Ezzy held on. The young waitress relented, allowing Ezzy to continue. Ezzy maintained a hint of snarkiness in her voice. “Let’s get down to the gritty stuff. You’re a waitress, of course, but you should be much more than that. You’ve been cheated out of your destiny. A destiny you have the right to demand back. You’re very intelligent and determined, but you’re so damned compassionate…to a fault. This future you seek is an inheritance. Your destiny wasn’t altered by the loss of your boyfriend, but I can see they are tied together. Hmm…you have a very interesting hand, Morgan. You’ve certainly made peace with his death. Unusual—” Morgan snatched her palm away, quickly placing both hands under the table.
“I’d rather not talk about it. You’re right, you know it. About my destiny.”
“So, that’s what brings you here. Tell us, who is this usurper? Did someone swoop in and steal your rightful inheritance with some flimsy manufactured claim?” Ezzy dismissively waved a hand in the air. “It’s an old story, repeated over and over through the centuries. And easily remedied in the courts. But you want more. You want some son of a bitch to pay. And you want him to feel it. Am I right? You just need to push the compassion off to the side. Feel the anger seething inside you.”
“Yes,” Morgan said quietly, with her head down. Suddenly, her head shot up, she stared with eyes that were no longer sad puppy eyes. These were the eyes of rage. First she looked at me, then at Ezzy. Through gritted teeth she growled, “Exactly. I want those fuckers to pay…in spades.”
Ezzy’s evil cackle bounced off the walls. “That’s what I wanted to hear. You have come to the right witch.” Ezzy turned around to face me. “I like this one. You think we can keep her?” She cackled more.
Ezzy was definitely back in form, at least she was acting more like the witch I first met. I picked up Esmeralda’s wand and handed it to her, in anticipation of the magic spell to freeze Morgan. Ezzy twirled the wand in a nearly sensual way. “Morgan, do you believe in magic?”
“Literally?”
“Is there any other definition?”
“After the palm reading you did, I believe in fortune telling, I guess. But abracadabra, hocus pocus stuff? No.”
“Careful, dear. You’re throwing around some very ancient and powerful words, with such carelessness.” Ezzy drew a burning figure eight in the air. It blazed in a pure blue flame.
Morgan was awestruck. “Holy…cow. Okay. Now I believe in magic.”
“Kelly, dip your wand in the flame and light the candles.”
“Uh…okay.” We had practiced this a few times, but after I set my curtains on fire a few months back, I had given up on the whole flame-throwing-magic-wand business. I figured a Bic lighter would work just as well. And I wouldn’t have to file one of those pain-in-the-ass insurance claims. Against my better judgment, I picked up my wand and touched the tip of it into Ezzy’s fiery display. The tip of my wand blazed like a sparkler on steroids. Little sparks hit the back of my hand as I pointed the wand toward the other side of the room. I closed one eye, steadying myself. My target was a large candle on a brass pedestal.
“Ignis impetum!” I shouted with conviction.
“What the fu—” Ezzy started to ask me something when she realized what magic words I used. They were the wrong ones, apparently.
Without warning, my wand bucked. Amidst a thunderous boom, a fireball the size of a Chihuahua flew from the tip. The heavy brass candle stand was knocked down as if it were nothing more than a blade of grass. I watched in awe as the blazing meteor smashed through the room divider, instantly turning it into a pile of smoldering rubbish.
“Barney!” I remembered he had been hiding behind the screen. I feared the worst, I’d burnt our little imp to a crisp.
Barney had apparently put his frog legs to good use when he heard me utter the command. The command, I realized, translated to “fire attack.” He jumped to the side a second before the blast occurred. Luckily, no harm came to our froggy, but the backside of his leather chaps smoked from being scorched. His arms were wrapped around his precious balls. “Blazin’ balls, Kelly! What the hell did I do to you?” He rolled the crystal balls around, looking at them carefully. “Well, we should pray to Vulcan that my balls aren’t ruined.”
Ezzy leaned back in her chair, turning halfway around toward the chaos happening behind us. She was completely calm about my accident. Her legs were crossed, and she waved one hand in the air for emphasis. “You see? This is why we can’t have nice things. And Barney? Your ass is on fire, dear.”
“What? My ass is on fire? My ass is on fire!” Barney peeled off his smoking chaps. Gertie rushed into the room, bearing a vase of freshly picked flowers. She screamed, then proceeded to throw the flowers, vase and all, at Barney, in a panicked attempt at amateur firefighting. A loud ‘thunk’ reverberated through the room when the heavy glass vase bounced off Barney’s little head. The water, however, drained out quite conveniently on the burnt chaps that had been tossed to the floor. Steam sizzled up from the charred remains.
“Fire’s out!” Randy laughed at the scene. He had followed Gertie into the room to investigate the noise and smoke.
Morgan was only slightly shaken. You could say she was more surprised than frightened. “What…what sort of witches are you anyway?”
“Apparently, not the very good kind,” I mumbled.
Ezzy tapped her wand across her well-manicured nails. “I heard the circus is looking for new talent.”
“I’m not sorry those manky chaps are gone. You know how Barney likes to make a holy show of himself…struttin’ round like Elvis in a sequined jumpsuit,” Gertie pointed out. “So, thank you, Kelly, for blasting those god-forsaken things straight to Hell.”
“Tell me about it. They were truly obscene, with his shiny, little, green ass cheeks hanging out of the back and his weird bulging junk out front. And what kind of freaky frog has external junk like that? None.” I cringed at the all too familiar and quite disgusting memories of Barney’s unique look.
“What the hell is that thing?” Morgan pointed at Barney.
Ezzy smiled at Morgan’s question. “That thing is named Barney. He’s an imp. Just a little advice, if he asks to show you what he can do with his tongue, tell him to keep it to himself.”
Randy had the windows open to air the place out. He rolled all of the smoking debris up in the rug and heaved the whole mess out the window and into the yard below. “Come on, Gertie. Let’s go outside and get rid of the evidence.” Gertie rounded up the dogs. With happy little wagging tails, they followed her and Randy outside.
Chapter Twenty Two
Bring on Karma
“Entertainment hour is over people. Let’s get this done.” Ezzy stood up and retrieved her green Karma magic suit from the couch, where she had dropped it off earlier. She stripped and pulled the skin tight suit on as she continued to talk. “Morgan, normally I would have temporarily frozen you to maintain the secrecy of our magic. But in my effort to provide a more entertaining experience, you’ve already seen too much. No point in freezing you now.” I picked up the mask I had been using and put it on.<
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“Yeah, you could say I’ve gotten quite a show so far.” Morgan blushed.
Ezzy carefully adjusted her hair and the antler headgear for a more comfortable fit. “No need to be shy. Come here and hold hands with me and Kelly. Barney, turn on the television and get ready. Morgan, tell me the name of the person we are going to be cursing today.”
“Curse? Really?” Morgan was alarmed, and she looked at me as if she wanted to know if Ezzy was kidding.
“Yes, you heard Esmeralda correctly. Curse.”
“Their names are Clyde and Sadie McAdams. Clyde and my dad owned Dutch’s Diner together many years ago. My dad bought him out shortly before…the accident. Apparently, there was some paperwork my dad never filed before he and my mom died. Even though there’s plenty of proof my dad paid Clyde, the paperwork went missing…mysteriously.”
“Ah. So that’s the inheritance you were cheated out of,” I commented.
“It gets much worse. My parents had a will with one of those statements in it. You know the kind nobody ever thinks will really be needed? It said that in the event they both died, Clyde and Sadie would be my guardians until I turned eighteen. It also stated I would inherit the restaurant, but Clyde and Sadie would manage the business until I turned eighteen. At that time, I would be free to do whatever I wanted with the diner. So, when I turned eighteen, I asked Clyde and Sadie about the will. They said it didn’t mean shit.”
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