by Mindy Klasky
It was about brownies.
About six batches of burned and hopeless brownies—and the realization that I needed to have something for Peabridge patrons to eat when the library doors opened at nine. Either that, or I had to admit my irresponsibility to Evelyn.
Maybe I had managed to set the Coven’s centerstone. I’d confronted the strongest witch on the Eastern Seaboard and told her I didn’t want to play in her sandbox. I’d decided to stake a claim to an unknown, unknowable magical future.
But there was no way in hell I could face the ripped and filthy brownie recipe that was glued to my kitchen counter with egg white and melted chocolate goo.
It was long past time that I came to Cake Walk to make my amends. I shifted a bouquet from one hand to the other. I’d harvested the flowers from the Peabridge gardens—they’d be succumbing to a freeze in the next few weeks anyway. The bright crimson and yellow and orange seemed to glow from within.
Through the years, Melissa and I had joked that we should bring each other flowers on a very regular basis, because no man was likely to do so. I thought ruefully about the floral tribute that Graeme had sent me after our first “date.” I had been so pleased. So totally and completely sucked in.
I’d been such an idiot.
Would Melissa laugh at me now? Would she throw the bouquet at my feet, tell me to take my crappy offering and go away? Would she say she didn’t want to be friends anymore, that she was tired of investing more in our friendship than I did? Tired of someone who had thrown her over for a guy—and a lousy, lying scoundrel of a guy at that.
My stomach executed a queasy backflip, and I thought about just taking the flowers home. I could always call Melissa later. We could limp through a conversation on the phone, grimacing separately at the awkward silences. In fact, I could send her e-mail and avoid talking to her altogether! That way, I wouldn’t interrupt her. I would be showing more respect for her. What did I think I was doing, anyway, showing up at the bakery first thing in the morning? That was her busiest time of day. If I took the flowers home, I was just being considerate. Very, very considerate.
I turned away and took a half-dozen steps before I realized I was being absurd. Melissa was my best friend—current spat be damned. Besides, she was my only hope, where emergency baked goods and the Peabridge were concerned. Before I could lose my nerve again, I marched into Cake Walk, tromped up to the counter and held out the flowers, as if they were the scepter to the throne of all England.
“‘The quality of mercy is not strain’d,’” I quoted, hoping to prompt her into generous forgiveness.
“‘It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,’” Melissa replied, as if we’d been conversing all morning. She didn’t even bother to cite Merchant of Venice as the source of my brilliant conversational gambit. It felt great to be back in the comfortable territory of Shakespeare. Stable. Familiar. Completely, utterly geeky, the way that best friends can be.
She accepted the flowers and smiled appreciatively. It took one twist of her wrist for her to locate the best view of the bouquet, the perfect angle to display the riot of color. “Thanks,” she said.
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I stomped out of here that day.”
“It was more than a bit crazy. Good for business, but bad for carrying on any sort of conversation.”
“I should have called.”
“So should I.”
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”
She smiled. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about you, too.” She lifted a heavy glass dome and placed a trio of Bunny Bites on a pottery plate. “Want to try my new tea? Apricot Darjeeling.”
“Do you mind? I mean, do you have time?”
“Oh, we’ll probably get interrupted.”
“Well, so long as it’s good for business,” I said, and she laughed.
So, that was easier than I’d thought it would be. But that’s what best friends were really all about, right? We could reveal our inner selves. Admit our shortcomings. Show up at the start of a workday with a handful of flowers and a few stalks of autumn berries, and all would be forgiven.
It took Melissa seconds to fill a pot of water, to add a handful of tea leaves. She took down a small tray and added my favorite pottery mug and a stainless steel tea strainer. I smiled as I took the tray from her, but I needed to catch a yawn against the back of my teeth.
“Tired?”
“I had a late night,” I said. My understatement almost cracked me up. Maybe I was punchier than I thought.
“You’d feel better if you started the day with a few sun salutations.”
“My back would never forgive me if I started the day with sun salutations.”
She shook her head. “Yoga is good for you. You’ll get better if you stick with it.” I made a face, but she persisted. “They’re having a special class at the studio this weekend. Hot yoga. They raise the temperature by ten degrees. It really increases the benefit of the workout. Come on…” she wheedled. “You know you want to go.”
“I know I do not want to do anything of the sort.”
“Rock, scissors, paper.”
“Melissa!”
But she had already folded her own fingers into a loose fist. Why did I let myself get roped into this sort of thing? I matched her hands with my own and counted to two before casting paper. She threw rock. “Paper covers rock!” I shouted. No sweaty yoga for me. Not this weekend.
Before Melissa could demand a new contest, or best three out of five, or five out of seven, or whatever it would take for her to be declared torture mistress of my weak and out-of-shape body, I pushed ahead with the main reason for my visit. “Hey,” I said, reaching casually for a Bunny Bite. “Gran and Clara had an idea.”
Melissa leaned back against the sink, gracious in her momentary defeat. “Let me guess. They have more secret relatives stashed in a closet somewhere. They can’t wait to introduce you to Great-Aunt Edna and her triplet of witchy daughters, and they think that Cake Walk would be the perfect meeting place?”
“Ha-ha. No. This idea concerns you a little more directly.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“No, it’s not bad. Really.” Enough. Time to forge ahead. What was the worst that would happen? Melissa would say no, and I’d be stuck taking a trip to the grocery store for gummy lumps of partially hydrogenated lard? I steeled myself and plunged into the entrepreneurial waters. “You know how things are crazy at the coffee counter at work? Well, Gran and Clara thought that you could help out there. We could cut back to serving just plain coffee, but we could sell Cake Walk pastries instead, to make up the difference. You know, lure patrons in with quality, rather than quantity of caffeine offerings. More profit for you. Less fuss for us.”
“And we could all bask in the smiles of happy Georgetown matrons, strolling the streets and eating baked goods from the Peabridge to the canal.” She completed my vision glibly, but I could see that the idea appealed to her.
I put on my best wheedling voice. “We could print up a sign, let people know that the pastries come from Cake Walk. We could even keep your business cards on the counter, so that people can contact you if they want to cater a party. It would be expanding your business, without expanding your business, if you know what I mean.”
“It would be a lot of extra work,” Melissa said, but her protest was halfhearted.
“Not for you! You would just make another tray or two of treats—send us a couple of samples from everything you’ve already made for the main shop.” I shrugged, to convey just how easy this all would be. “I bet it wouldn’t add half an hour to your day. If that.”
“‘Thou art a mocker of my labour.’”
I laughed, thinking back to brunch at Luna Grill, when I had thought the same quotation in response to Gran’s suggestion. “Orlando,” I said, rising to the Shakespearean challenge. “AsYou Like It.” I bounced a little on the balls of my feet. “Come on. I’m serious. Let’s try this.”
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Finally, Melissa nodded. “Okay. But let’s call it a three-month trial. If the sales aren’t worth it, or if it takes too much time…”
“Three months!” I toasted her with my tea mug, barely keeping milk-infused Apricot Darjeeling from sloshing onto my fingers.
“When were you thinking of starting?” she asked.
Oh. There was that little detail. I glanced at the cake plates filled with treats, the refrigerated glass cabinet already arrayed to seduce early-morning snackers. “Today?” I offered her my most winning smile.
“Jane!”
“I tried to do this on my own! Really! I was going to bake brownies, but they didn’t really, well, they didn’t quite turn out….”
She was laughing. My best friend was laughing at me. My best friend was leaning against the sink in her bakery, folding her arms across her chest, shaking her head and laughing at me. “Let me guess,” she said when she could catch her breath. “You ruined three batches.”
“Six,” I said. “It might have been more, but I ran out of ingredients.”
Before she could gloat, the door opened. Gran and Clara walked in.
“Oh!” Clara said, when I turned around to face them.
“Good morning, dear,” Gran said, as if we met for Cake Walk tea and crumpets every morning.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked.
Clara shuffled from one foot to the other, glancing from Melissa to me, not quite ready to answer. I took advantage of her silence to say, “See, Gran? I kept my promise.”
“Of course you did, dear. It never crossed my mind for a moment that you would go back on your word.”
I rolled my eyes.
Clara stepped forward and said, “Jane, your grandmother phoned this morning. She was eating her cornflakes when she looked at her calendar, and she saw that last night was Samhain.”
“Your calendar had an entry for Samhain?” I asked in disbelief. Mine didn’t go beyond the Federal holidays.
“Of course not, dear,” Gran said, shaking her head. “I wrote it there. Peacock-blue ink, you know. Because it was a special day for you. Er, night, I suppose.”
My eyes welled up. “Gran—”
Melissa looked at me, obviously lost. “Samhain?”
“Halloween,” I said, leaping back to the solid ground of bare facts. “Witches’ Sabbath. The night I was supposed to be inducted into the Washington Coven.”
“Oh!” Melissa said. “I didn’t realize—what happened?”
“Let’s just say, I’m not going to be attending any Coven meetings anytime soon.”
“Oh, dear,” Gran said, raising her hand to my cheek. “I’m so sorry. I think they were just being hard on you because they didn’t like your mother and me. They had no right to make things so difficult for you.”
She didn’t know the half of it. And I didn’t think I’d be telling her about Graeme and Haylee any time soon.
“No. It’s okay. Really. And it wasn’t about you. Not exactly.” I smiled at all of them. “I did set the centerstone. But then I realized that I didn’t want anything to do with the Coven. Not ever again. I was the one who chose to walk away.”
Melissa nodded, accepting my words at face value. I suspected it would take Gran and Clara a little longer to come around, because they knew how important Teresa had seemed to me. How important I’d thought she was to my happiness. To my life.
Pouring a mug of hot water for Clara’s tea and a cup of coffee for Gran, Melissa said, “I’m sure there’s a connection here somehow, but I have to admit that I’m missing it. Gran realized that last night was Samhain, and so both of you came down to Cake Walk this morning…”
“Well,” Clara said, selecting a tea bag from the astonishing array in Melissa’s teak box. “We realized that Jane wouldn’t have time to do any baking last night. We knew that she wouldn’t be able to launch her new project at the Peabridge.”
Gran straightened proudly. “So, we thought we’d come to Cake Walk to buy enough pastries to get the new program off on the right foot. I hope you don’t mind, Jane. We only thought to tide you over until you have time to make the baklava.”
“Baklava?” Melissa asked incredulously.
“Don’t ask,” I said. Before I could break the bad baklava news to Gran, the bakery door opened again.
“David!” Melissa exclaimed before I could turn around.
There he was. My warder. Looking none the worse for his long night’s service and short night’s sleep. “Good morning,” he said, making one general nod, as if he had fully expected to find all of us gathered in the shop.
“Let me guess,” Melissa said.
David said, “I knew that Jane needed something for the library, and I was certain she wouldn’t have anything ready this morning.”
“Now wait a minute!” I said. “Doesn’t anyone think that I can bake a tray of brownies?”
“No!” they all said, in perfect unison.
As if on cue, Neko walked through the door.
“Oh,” he said.
“Et tu, Brute?” I said, making Melissa smirk.
Neko looked over his shoulder, as if he expected someone else to be there, ready to receive my Shakespearean accusation of betrayal. Following his gaze to its logical extreme out the front window of the shop, I saw Jacques, huddling unhappily beneath an elm tree.
Melissa must have made the same extrapolation. Her jaw tightened for a heartbeat, and then she forced a smile. “Go ahead, Neko. Tell Jacques he can come inside.”
I held up my hand. “Really? You don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I know.” And then she busied herself pouring coffee for David and milk for Neko, and a steaming hot chocolate for the Frenchman who would never be her boyfriend. When all of us had our beverages firmly in hand, she began to fill two pasteboard boxes, selecting pastries that would keep well at the library, even if they sat on the counter for the better part of the day. Which they wouldn’t. I was certain.
I took advantage of the hubbub to pull David over to the corner. “Thanks,” I said, setting my tea mug on a table.
“All in a warder’s job description.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.” I reached inside my sweater and pulled out the silver chain that still bore his Hecate’s Torch. “I guess you’ll be wanting this back.”
“No,” he said. “Not really.” I looked at him quizzically, and he shrugged. “It’s a symbol of the Coven. It was given to me when I was selected to serve my first witch. Haylee.”
I wove the silver chain between my fingers. “You could have told me, you know.”
“No, I couldn’t. Or at least there was no point in doing so.” He shook his head. “Within the rules of the Coven, Haylee was absolutely within her rights, with regard to me. I disapproved of the way she used her powers. I thought that she was irresponsible, that she overstepped her bounds. But she was my witch. I was sworn to her. I didn’t have the right to question her. There’s no halfway point between a warder and a witch.”
“That’s idiotic.”
“That’s the Coven.”
I longed to ask another question, but I wasn’t sure how he would take it. Oh, hell. He’d stood by me through everything else. “And Graeme? Did he have a choice?”
David met my eyes, calmly. Dispassionately. “The same one I did. He had a choice, and he made it.”
Absurdly, tears started to clog my throat. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that I thought…when I was with Graeme, I let myself believe…I didn’t realize…”
“They were cruel,” David said. “Haylee felt threatened by you, so they were very, very cruel.”
“But what about me is so threatening?”
He smiled and shook his head. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“Your powers. The breadth of them. The depth. Most witches are attuned to a single type of magic.” He nodded toward Gran. “Crystals.” And toward C
lara. “Or runes. But you? You combine it all. You weave together crystals and runes and you bind them with spells. You toss in herb-lore like it’s nothing. You call upon elemental magic as easily as you recite lines from Shakespeare. Jane, you heard Teresa Alison Sidney last night. The strongest witch beneath the Coven Mother sets the centerstone. And you’re the strongest witch. By far.”
I stared at him, not willing to accept his evaluation.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me before? Tell me about my supposedly amazing powers?”
“What? And let you get lazy?”
I made a face. “Come on. I mean it. You should have let me know.”
“My job is to protect you. But I also want you to be the best witch you can be. The strongest. The work you put in these past couple of months honed your powers. It let you see magical connections, links that you never imagined existed.”
He was right, of course. Two months before, I would not have been able to summon the magic that set the centerstone, much less channel it in a specific direction, harness it to a particular purpose. David’s plan had worked.
Still…“If I’m so strong, how did Graeme and Haylee work spells on me?”
“You had no idea they were allied against you. You never suspected that they’d try to snare you in magic. With your defenses down—absent—you didn’t stand a chance. Any witch can be caught by surprise.”
“Even Teresa?”
“Yes. Even Teresa.” He started to say the rest of her name, but he caught himself. Old habits were hard to break.
“Am I stronger than she is?” I asked.
He made me meet his eyes after I asked the question. Made me admit, even silently, that I was comparing myself to the Coven Mother, measuring myself against her. I saw him consider lying, consider telling me something good, then something bad. In the end, though, he shrugged. “I don’t know.”
It was hard to admit ignorance. I had certainly learned that lesson in the past two months. I could only begin to tally up how much my ignorance had cost. If I had known my own strength, I would have had more confidence. I wouldn’t have been so desperate for Teresa’s approval. For Haylee’s friendship. For Graeme’s…for whatever I’d wanted from Graeme. (Sex? No, it had been more than that. Acceptance. Approval. Love.)