by Amy Lane
“Bartholomew?” Lachlan’s full lips curved into a small smile, like he was aware of where Bartholomew’s thoughts were heading and didn’t altogether disapprove.
“I’m sorry?”
“You were going to tell me what happened?”
“We cast a spell,” Bartholomew said stubbornly. “And… and we raised a cone of power, and it looked like it was going good, and then—” Edit, edit, edit. “—we were all knocked on our asses and the power whooshed up, and some of the others cleaned up, and I went to bake, and this morning there were… complications.”
Lachlan tilted his head the other way, like a dog appalled and fascinated by the bizarre customs of humans. “Explain complications,” Lachlan said, his patience going grim.
“We all overslept, for one thing,” Bartholomew muttered. “And I know my alarm was set for early. For another, when I say we all, everybody was camped out on our floor. Even me and Alex, and we have our own rooms. Nobody remembers falling asleep. I don’t even remember getting the final rack of bread out of the oven. We just… dropped, and everything was prepped. So we’re running around, freaking out, and nobody’s acting right—Alex squealed—”
“Alex?” Lachlan asked, and the surprise in his voice was incredibly validating.
“Right? And there were starlings, and they were flying upside down, and they attacked Alex and the van, and….” Bartholomew shook his head. “You don’t even want to know what else was there. Our entire neighborhood is affected, and squirrels marching, like, single file! Like ‘Heigh ho! Heigh ho! It’s off for nuts we go!’ And oh my God! I think I saw a snake in our apple tree!” Bartholomew’s voice was pitching and he was getting a little hysterical, and he had to rein it in.
Lachlan’s beautiful hazel eyes widened, and Bartholomew wanted to die.
“That’s intense,” he said, completely focused on Bartholomew.
Bartholomew gaped at him. “Intense?” Some of his panic subsided. Maybe because Lachlan seemed… well, to believe him.
“Well, I think you’re leaving a lot out, but yeah. No wonder you need protection spells and binding thread and candles and such. How will you guys fix things?”
Bartholomew didn’t want to think about it. He sort of knew—the logic was unmistakable, and as much as magic was, well, magic, all things had a rhyme and a rhythm.
But he couldn’t do it. Not now. For one thing, it meant activating the entire coven, and for another, it meant… oh God. Did he really have to?
“Bartholomew, what are you thinking?”
“That I need to talk to the others and that today is going to really suck,” he muttered.
“You’re not going to tell me?” And hurt. Lachlan sounded hurt.
Bartholomew bit his bottom lip and felt that familiar helplessness, the one that bound his tongue and tied his heart and had haunted him for his entire life, but especially since he’d met Lachlan Stephens. “You’re just so… so pretty,” he managed, knowing he was staring at Lachlan with his heart in his eyes and unable to stop himself.
Lachlan’s intense look went slack and a little soft, and Bartholomew felt like he could breathe again. Then Lachlan’s smile turned supernuclear, and Bartholomew felt like he could fly.
“Yeah?” Lachlan asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a place to start. Let’s go make some magic!”
And Lachlan seized his hand and pulled him back out into the thick of the vending floor.
“BLACK, brown, and white?” Ellen asked, her sharp black eyebrows pulling up into wings in surprise.
“Yes, please.” Bartholomew gave her what he hoped was his most winning smile. “I think that would be best.”
“And about twenty yards of each?” she asked, to make sure.
“I’ll pay for the whole skein,” he said, holding his smile in place with the superglue of desperation.
She blinked, then went to one of the baskets she kept in her booth, which was full of brightly spun yarn. This particular basket held small “horsetails” of different coordinating colors, often used in kits.
“This bag has eight colors of fingering-weight yarn, fifty yards apiece. It runs fifty dollars. Are you sure you don’t want to run across town to a local craft store?”
Bartholomew swallowed. Well, there was a reason you didn’t quit your day job. “Was it spun with good intentions?” he asked, thinking that this alone would be worth the extra cost.
And it was Ellen’s turn to pause. “Well, yes,” she said, her brows lowering in a gentler kind of surprise. “I love spinning—it’s meditation and productivity and a certain sort of cosmic metaphor, all tied into one motion. If I’m angry, spinning helps. If I’m grieving, spinning helps. And since I card and dye the yarn as well, there’s a really lovely continuity there. And people who knit appreciate that.” Her surprise cranked up a notch. “This really is well-intentioned yarn. Imagine that.”
Bartholomew was already digging for his wallet. “See? That’ll make the spellwork—I mean stitchwork better.”
Ellen’s eyes narrowed. “Spellwork?”
Augh! Bartholomew could never lie—why had he actually attempted it with this particular spell?
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is it being spun with good intentions?” she mimicked.
Bartholomew thought of the upside-down starlings. “Yes, ma’am.”
She looked from Bartholomew to Lachlan. “Well, then. That particular bundle is on sale for half price. I take cards.”
Bartholomew would have paid her double, just for being kind.
“Nicely done,” Lachlan said as they took the little sampler packet and made their way to the candle booth. “Ellen isn’t a pushover. I’m surprised she gave that up for cheap!”
“Maybe she can smell desperation and the bottom of my bank account,” Bartholomew muttered. The van they’d driven in—the one he and Dante and Jordan had outfitted for catering, complete with refrigeration units and jump seats—hadn’t come cheap. Neither had the modifications to his kitchen, things he was still paying off. There had been a reason he’d written May my business please succeed, that’s the thing I really need on his little piece of paper. It had seemed like such a practical wish, something he’d worked hard for, something he might have, maybe, earned.
Unlike Lachlan’s cheerful company and his—oh my God—warm, strong, rough hand tugging on Bartholomew’s own, which Bartholomew had no idea how to work for, and wasn’t sure why they’d been gifted to him now.
“Things tight?” Lachlan asked, dodging around a group of kids haggling over collector’s pins.
Bartholomew followed his lead and shrugged. “Invested a lot this year.” He remembered the way he’d ripped off his starched button-down the day before, and how he had to fight the temptation to chuck his work ID across the room and into another dimension. “I… I would really like to be able to make this business self-sustaining.”
Lachlan grunted. “I can see why, but have you ever thought, I don’t know, of running a bakery instead?”
“Do you know why small businesses go under?” Bartholomew asked earnestly. “Ack! Sorry!” Without meaning to, he’d almost photobombed two really hot guys in Starfighter cosplay, taking a picture with an adoring fangirl. Ugh! The convention floor was already crowded. “Overhead! Property taxes! Food permits! I’ve priced some of the properties in the area, and I just can’t make the numbers work.” He tried to keep his shoulders from slumping in dejection—as well as keep up with Lachlan. “I’m thinking about a bakery truck, like a food truck, because those seem to be doing so well. But I need to pay off the equipment we put into the house first, and the van.”
“I get it,” Lachlan said, slowing down as the unmistakable scent of bayberry and vanilla washed over them. “I mean, I’m lucky, my grandfather kept all his tools and I get to use his garage as a shop. But there are ways—business loans, friends….” He winked at Bartholomew, and Bartholomew’s chest went hot.
And his
mouth, as always, opened and shut on its own, with no sounds coming out.
Lachlan sighed. “What would it hurt?” he said gruffly. The vendor floor was filling up, and Lachlan had moved closer as they’d walked. Now he was close enough to let go of Bartholomew’s hand and touch his opposite hip while he murmured in Bartholomew’s ear. “Seriously, what would be the harm in asking for help?”
Bartholomew turned to look him in the eyes and calmly explain that help wasn’t something you asked for, help was something you gave to other people, but Lachlan was unexpectedly close.
Damn, those gold flecks in his eyes were pretty.
They were so close he could smell the cedar and lemon oil on Lachlan’s skin and feel the faint puffs of minty breath against his cheek.
Bartholomew stopped walking, and Lachlan did too. Lachlan’s lips canted up at the corners, and Bartholomew wanted so badly to trace that little smirk that he licked his own lips in sympathy.
“So?” Lachlan goaded.
“Asking for help means you didn’t do it right the first time,” Bartholomew parroted, hating hearing his father’s words coming out of his mouth. He’d managed to put a lot of that behind him in the last few years since college. Jordan, pulling him into the coven, had helped. They all did their parts. They all pitched in together.
But Bartholomew had been the one to offer to sell everybody else’s wares, and Bartholomew was the one in charge of the business itself, right down to working with Alex to file the taxes.
Bartholomew didn’t mind being in the background as long as he was self-sufficient, and as long as he was sure—absolutely sure—he pulled his own weight.
His father was still doubtful. Bartholomew’s every visit, he asked rather contemptuously if Bartholomew’s “little hobby” had paid off any bills yet, but Bartholomew hadn’t let that stop him.
All of that noise about “pulling your weight” and “doing something real” in the world, and it seemed like feeding people was as real as it got. So much more real than figuring out which lines of corrupt code he should leave in to see if tests on the software would detect it or not. To Bartholomew it was the world’s most obscure job.
God, he just wanted to feed people. Was that so damned bad?
But Lachlan wasn’t buying it—any more than Bartholomew should have.
“Tolly,” he said, his voice intimate in a way Bartholomew had never heard before. “You of all people should know better. Look at all your friends, gathering here to help you when obviously you guys had sort of a night. That doesn’t happen for quid pro quo. That happens because they lo—excuse me?”
He said that last part to an unknown person standing at Bartholomew’s back. Bartholomew turned irritably. God, Lachlan was pretty, and he was saying kind things, and things that were—possibly—really super important, and Bartholomew wanted to hear.
And he’d used the nickname “Tolly,” which Bartholomew had never heard before, but which he loved so much more than “Barty,” except when Alex and Jordan used it, because he knew for sure they were his friends.
But the person behind him didn’t know any of that.
It was a girl—young, maybe seventeen or so—and unbelievably beautiful, with dark almond-shaped eyes, a plump little mouth, tawny skin, and a vivid red Black Widow wig to go with her skintight Avengers suit.
“Your costume is gorgeous,” she mumbled. “So shiny….” She lifted her hand as if to pet Bartholomew’s hair, only to have her mother—who was good-naturedly dressed in green padding to be the Hulk—bat her hand away.
“Sabrina!” she said, half laughing. “Honey, what’s gotten into you! C’mon. We got you your sweets. Let’s go check out the art room so I can get some prints for my office!”
“But Mom!” Sabrina wailed, sounding younger and much more lost than she’d looked. “He’s so pretty!”
“Honey, did you or did you not just lecture your little brother on physical boundaries because he wanted a hug! Now let’s go!” She turned to Bartholomew and grimaced. “I’m so sorry. She’s usually more adult than I am!” she said as she dragged her reluctant daughter away.
“That was odd,” Bartholomew muttered, staring at the girl. Pretty? Shiny? What costume?
“I don’t see what’s so odd about it,” Lachlan grumbled. “I’ve been wanting to do that since we first met!”
Bartholomew stared at him, and then someone else bumped into him from behind, and—oh my God!—a hand feathered along his posterior as a voice sighed along his neck.
“Maybe we should get out of here,” he muttered, although he really wanted to go back to that “Since we first met” comment.
Another bump, another hand, and this time he turned around and glared.
And met the wide, besotted eyes of three other people—two girls and one college-aged, broad-muscled young man whose girlfriend was tugging on his bicep.
“But Paul, you said we could go to the film panel!”
“But look at him, Shawna. He’s glowing!”
Bartholomew squinted, puzzled, because the girl had said the same thing, and to his relief, Lachlan grabbed his hand and tugged at him, muttering, “God, can’t a guy catch a break?”
Bartholomew broke into a trot to keep up with him and, he admitted to himself, to keep contact with his hand.
It was warm. And rough. And strong. And well, nice. Sent shivers up and down his spine. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?
Oh Lord, Bartholomew hoped so.
They rounded a corner, and Lachlan practically threw Bartholomew in front of him, cornering him in the booth and blocking the view of the rest of the floor with his ever-so-wide shoulders.
“Sheila?” he said desperately.
“Lachlan!”
Sheila Farmer and her wife, Gretel, made their soaps and candles from the purest ingredients they could find. In fact, they’d been a steady source of income to Jordan, who provided them with his signature essential oil blends, and Lachlan, who kept them supplied with hand-carved and sanded candle holders. Their stand practically wafted comfort, and they were purists enough to keep little bowls of coffee beans by their stock so people could cleanse their scent palate before smelling the next candle or soap to see if it was to their liking.
Both women were pleasantly round and vital, in their fifties. Sheila had let her cropped blond hair go gray, and Gretel’s once-dark hair grew to her shoulder blades, but she mostly twisted it into a bun and held it back with a pencil. They dressed in complementary Renaissance outfits—and they seemed to have plenty to choose from. Today’s combo featured Sheila in a purple skirt with a green flowered vest and lilac shirt underneath, her generous bosom threatening to overflow at any moment. Gretel wore a teal-colored skirt with a purple flowered vest and a pale green flouncy shirt—and her breasts were a little more self-contained.
“Hey, Sheila,” Lachlan said nervously, checking over his shoulder. “You remember Bartholomew—”
“He’s that sweet boy who runs the baked goods booth,” Sheila said jovially. “How are you doing, sweetheart? You look a little frazzled, and the day has just begun!”
“Actually,” Bartholomew said, grateful—so grateful—for Lachlan’s heat at his back, “I’m looking for three candles. Black, white, and amber colored.”
Gretel cocked her head. “Witchcraft?” she asked. “Clarity, protection, purification, restoration?”
Bartholomew almost cried. “Yes!” he begged. “Sage, chamomile, lavender.”
Gretel nodded. “We have those in tea-sized. They’re in the back for our Wiccan customers. I never would have taken you for a practitioner, Bartholomew. Imagine that!”
“It’s really our cul-de-sac,” he said, so grateful for Gretel’s knowledge and acceptance that he wanted to weep. “There’s seven in our coven, you see, and we tried to cast a spell last night, and I think something went wrong….”
Lachlan grunted as someone bumped him from behind. “Jesus, people seem to be in a hurry today. The floor’s gett
ing really crowded really fast.”
“No, you can’t have a bite of my cinnamon vanilla loaf!” A strident voice sounded behind them. “It’s mine! And I’m in love! I can feel it! This next bite is everything I’ve ever wanted in a baked good. Now back off!”
Bartholomew swallowed, a lump in his throat forming with the suspicion in the back of his mind. “Really, really wrong,” he finished weakly.
“So you’re trying to reverse the spell?” Gretel asked. “Then here—here’s purple. It’s got your lavender in it, and it helps for refining intentions. It’s dark purple because I guess someone had dark intentions, so hopefully that will help.”
“We’re probably going to reverse the spell at home,” Bartholomew said. “This is for our booth, to protect people from whatever forces we set loose. It’s been sort of a… well, let’s just say something’s very wrong.”
“Upside-down starlings,” Lachlan said. “Squirrels in single file. Snakes in apple trees. I don’t know what any of this means, but it sounds like the background of a sci-fi/fantasy novel, and I can see why he’s rattled.”
Gretel’s eyes grew very wide. “Oh dear. Here, my boy. I’ve got a witch’s nine-pack here—light the purple, not the gold, and the black and the white in the corner of your booth, on the candleholders for safety. Let them burn for five minutes. Do you have your string?”
Bartholomew nodded.
“Good. Then recite your protection spell and blow out the candles so we don’t burn the place down, but keep the string—tape it to the floor if you have to. That’s some scary magic, sweetheart. And here!”
She went to a small shelf with pewter candlesticks and doodads on it and pulled two pentagrams, each swinging from a white ribbon. “One for you and one for your young man there—to keep you safe.”
Bartholomew opened his mouth to ask how much for one for each member of the coven, but Lachlan beat him to it.
“His friends are here too,” he said.
Gretel bit her lip. “Then send them my way. These are for you two.” She closed her eyes and then opened them and looked at Bartholomew with a sort of exquisite gentleness. “You’re our white-bound virgin, aren’t you?”