“Yes, they’re sexy,” Tom agreed, “but Poppy is practically my daughter and I don’t want to see her being sexy.”
“But you like me in my sexy heels,” my mother pressed. She raised her foot to show off a sparkly red high-heel. “See. Sexy.”
“How much did those shoes cost,” Tom asked.
My mother ignored him. “I bet Roger would like to see you in some sexy heels.”
“How much?” Tom persisted.
“We could go shopping for some shoes. I’ll even buy you a pair with my winnings. I’ll also buy you some lingerie with my winnings.”
“How much, Fiona?”
“If you’re going to spend money on me, I don’t think I want a pair of sequined heels and a lacy thong,” I argued. “Those aren’t comfortable at all.”
“You don’t wear them for long. You put them on, let Roger throw you on the bed, and your heels will be up in the air or resting on his shoulders and the thong will be long gone by then.”
“Ah, too much detail, Mom!” Never mind that I’d imagined that scenario with Roger at least a dozen times in the last two weeks; I still didn’t care to discuss that with my mother.
“How much did those heels cost,” Tom asked again.
“They didn’t cost seven hundred dollars, darling.”
“I’m not getting much peace of mind hearing that.”
I decided to save my mom. “I think I saw those shoes downtown. They were on sale for something like thirty dollars, for summer clearance.”
My mother gave me a look; she knew I was lying for her benefit.
“Well, that’s not too bad,” Tom said, relaxing.
My mother pulled me close, linking her elbow with mine as Tom drifted off to place a bet at a blackjack table.
“How much were they, really?” I asked. “And does Dorothy miss them?”
“Ninety dollars.”
“Huh. He spends more on jewelry every time you get angry with him. Why is he being more militant about shoes?”
“He went into my closet to hang up a couple things from the dry cleaners, and he saw my shoe collection has grown considerably over the last year.”
“Ah.” Now it was becoming clear.
Mom tucked a hundred-dollar bill in my palm.
“Thank you, but you don’t need to do that.”
“I know. But you never borrow money from me, and you saved me from one of Tom’s fits. He wouldn’t like to know I paid that much for the shoes.”
“Most men wouldn’t,” I agreed, slipping the money into my pocket. “They never truly understand the importance of shoes.”
An hour later we made our way to the entrance. Aunt Lindy was there, seated at a bench, waiting to go. There was no sign of Plenty.
“Did you lose her,” my mother asked.
“She lost herself,” Aunt Lindy said.
“Where and when did you see her last?” Tom asked.
“Over by the video poker where Poppy and I had been chatting.”
“I’ll go over there and see if she’s in the area,” I said. “Everyone hold tight.”
I made my way back to the video poker area, and there was Plenty, canoodling with Ted. He had hardly shown any interest in her an hour ago, so I found it odd that he was so into her now. She was leaning up against the counter and he was gazing intensely into her eyes and holding her hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.
“Hi, cousin. We’re ready to go.”
“Already? Can’t you see I’m busy here.”
“I’m sure Ted is still on the clock. You two can exchange numbers and meet up later,” I offered.
Ted gave me a look. Something in his eyes had shifted from when I’d seen him last. When I drew closer, I noticed his pupils were dilated.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “You look a little out of it.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” he said, returning his attentions to Plenty.
I placed my hand on her arm, starting to tug her away. “Come on, your mom is tired, and it’s getting late.”
She jerked her arm away from me. “But I’m having so much fun.”
Ted held a hand out to me, warding me away. “Yeah, she’s having fun. Leave her here. I can take her home.”
“Maybe I’ll stay around a bit then, too,” I said. “Can you get me a ginger ale?”
He reluctantly let go of Plenty’s hand and went to get a glass and some ice. I tried to nudge her away but she wouldn’t move. She merely sat back and began digging in her purse. She pulled out her new compact and clicked it open to assess her reflection. As she peered in the mirror a spark of concern flashed across her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Um. Nothing. Let’s go. Which way is the entrance,” she asked as she kept her face turned down.
I pointed, and she scurried off in that direction. Ted returned with my ginger ale, looking after her. “Where’s she going?” He made a move to leave his station.
“To the ladies’ room,” I lied. “She said to tell you she’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He relaxed, still holding the drink. “Okay. I guess I can wait.”
“I’m going to follow her. I’ll see you around.”
I waved and ran after my cousin.
A few minutes later I found her by the entrance with my aunt and Mom. She still had her eyes cast down and her hair hanging like a curtain to cover her face. When Aunt Lindy asked her what was wrong, Plenty shook her head and said she had a sudden headache. The valet arrived a minute later, and Tom flagged us over to his truck.
Once we were on the road headed back into town. Plenty kept craning her head to look at the side mirror. Finally, she moved over my lap and stuck her head between Tom and Mom.
“What are you trying to do,” Tom groused. “You can’t climb in front with us.”
“I’m not,” Plenty said. She flicked on the overhead light and quickly looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror.
“Turn that off!” Tom barked. “Can you make it without staring at yourself in the mirror for ten minutes while we head home? Dammit, girl. I hope you dream about a hall of mirrors. Otherwise you’ll probably have to wake up every five minutes to check out your reflection!”
I fought back a chuckle as I tugged Plenty back and switched the light off. I glanced at my cousin once she sat back down. She had a look of relief on her face. I wasn’t sure, but whatever she saw in the truck’s mirror seemed to soothe her nerves somewhat.
18
THE NEXT DAY Jordan worked in my store. He’d done a lot at Mom and Tom’s, but I also sensed he wanted a bit of time away from Plenty and possibly even my Aunt Lindy. I decided I’d give him a more in-depth tour of the office and the stock room. I was starting to tell him where I stored various items.
“I keep this season’s candles here,” I began, as I pointed to a cabinet along one wall. “As for the Christmas season’s …”
Jordan cut me off, and went to the appropriate shelf. “And here is where you keep the ingredients to make candles … and here is where you keep oils and incense.” He went to some shelves across the way and began pointing to boxes and containers. A few had labels, but a handful I’d neglected to mark. He raised a finger to each and told me what was inside.
“How did you know that?” I asked. “You haven’t been back here as far as I know.”
He shrugged. “I just know. I usually know where things belong or where they should go.”
“But, how do you know?”
“I can’t explain. It’s like I get a little itch at the base of my skull or in my fingers, and it somehow points me where things should be.”
“Do you feel like the items are somehow guiding you?” I asked.
“I guess that’s a way to put it. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
“No, not crazy. It’s interesting. Emily at the café seems to know what people want, particularly in terms of what food or drinks they want or need to order. You seem to have some kind of
parallel magic, for lack of a better word.”
“You really think it’s magic?” Jordan asked, his eyes wide.
“Well …”
While I inwardly debated how to reply – should I be upfront or should I skirt around the magical issue? – he turned to straighten some items on the shelves. When Jordan stood facing away from me, I saw my father’s ghost shimmer into view.
Dad had died when I was fifteen, but I still saw his apparition – and other specters – from time to time. I wasn’t exactly living in a world where I faced an onslaught of the departed, but I could spot ghosts here and there. Our town was the oldest in Michigan, with its history stretching to the seventeenth century – not to mention the native peoples who populated it long before that – and occasionally I’d see remnants from another time.
I hadn’t seen my father for a couple weeks, so I gave him a quick smile as Jordan continued sorting. When Jordan turned around, he froze and dropped the box of teas he had been holding. The tins clattered all over the floor, and his mouth gaped in surprise. “What is that?” he stammered.
“What is what?” I asked. Wait, could he see something?
“Um, nothing. Maybe I just have some eye strain is all.”
My father tilted his head at the boy, giving him a curious once over. “Is this a new hire?”
Jordan’s eyes grew wider when my father spoke about him. I was quiet for a moment, my gaze darting back and forth between the duo. Jordan’s mouth snapped open and shut a couple of times, like a fish gasping for air.
“Son, can you see me?” my father pressed.
I turned to look at the teen. His eyes remained locked on my father. Finally, I asked: “Do you see … anything?”
“Um, I’m not sure.”
“Jordan. If you haven’t already figured it out, there’s all kinds of odd things that seem to be going on around here. Around us, the abnormal seems to be more of the norm.”
“I guess Fiona wasn’t joking then,” he said.
“Come again?”
“Uh, Fiona was saying you were all witches and could see and do … things,” Jordan explained. “She said I fit right in with my ability to put things in their proper place. You know, what you were just asking me about?”
I was quiet for a moment. I didn’t know how much my mother had disclosed to our newest addition.
“What kinds of things did she say we could see? Or do, for that matter?” Normally I would change the topic or act like I’d seen nothing. Jordan’s gift, however, extended beyond simply being organized.
“I’m not exactly sure how to describe it.”
I figured, why not go for broke. “Dad, meet Jordan. He is our newest hire. Jordan, meet my dad.”
“Okay. Since you said your dad died when you were fifteen, I guess you’re telling me that I’m seeing a …”
“Ghost,” my father finished for him. He strode forward, extending a hand to Jordan. As he closed the distance, the gangly teen took a nervous step backwards.
“Yes. You most definitely can see me, young man. As Poppy said, I’m her father. Call me Joe.”
Jordan looked uncertain.
“It’s alright,” I said. “He won’t hurt you. It is my dad’s ghost. You don’t have to shake his hand, though. One, there’s no matter to grasp onto, so you won’t have much purchase, and two, it’ll be frickin’ cold.”
Jordan swallowed and gingerly extended a hand, and my father clasped his much larger hand around the teen’s. “Oh! That is ice cold! It’s like sticking my hand into a snowbank!”
My father chuckled at Jordan’s response. He always did like to surprise unsuspecting folks. “Us dead folk carry a bit of a chill with us.”
Jordan’s abilities fascinated me even more so now. My mother usually could sense ghosts, but rarely see them, unless she got a magical boost. “Jordan, you can really see my father then?”
He nodded. “At first he was just something sort of gleaming or flickering. Like when you see a mirage on the road on a hot day. But now I see a man with huge hands, horn-rimmed glasses and a loosened tie around his neck.”
“Oh yes, you can definitely see him,” I said. “Have you always been able to see ghosts?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“But have you seen odd things that you can’t explain? That flickering you mentioned, or maybe sensed something around when you couldn’t see anything or anyone?”
Jordan nodded. “I guess you could say that.” He turned to me. “So you can see … ghosts … too? Have you always been able to?”
“I’m not sure when it started, to be honest, or if it was always there, but I’ve long been able to see ghosts.”
“I suspect it was always there,” my father interjected.
“Why do you say that?”
“I took you to the cemetery a couple times when you were very small. You would talk about seeing people who no one else could see. It’d be men in top hats or women in long dresses with their hair piled high on their heads. At that point we had our suspicions. Then one day at a funeral, you darted off. When we found you, you’d had a handful of those little white flowers that look like bells – the ones that smell real strong. What are those?”
“Lily of the valley?” I offered.
“That’s it! It turned out the widow had often walked with her husband through the cemetery each spring, and he’d always pluck a few flowers to give to her, because they were her favorites. This was one last bouquet, he’d told you to tell her. After that we knew you had some unusual abilities.”
Well, I guess you do learn something new every day.
Jordan looked at my father with both discomfort and curiosity. “So, why are you here and not in, um, Heaven?”
“I didn’t believe in Heaven or Hell when I passed,” my father explained, “so I just lingered around.”
“Do you believe in it now?” Jordan asked.
“I’ve found that when you die, if you were a bad person, you do face punishment. If you were good, you kind of get to choose your own afterlife. In my case, I mostly wanted to stick around in this realm.”
“What do you do to pass time?”
“Anything I want, within reason. I can visit Poppy. I can go relax by the lake. I can catch a Detroit Tigers game.”
“Baseball?” Jordan wrinkled his nose in disgust.
“Boring, huh?” Dad laughed. “But I find plenty of things to amuse me.”
“That’s interesting,” Jordan said.
“Dad,” I butted in. “Why are you here? Is this a casual visit or is there something else that brings you here?”
“Can we talk in your office,” he asked.
I nodded and made my way to the next room. I told Jordan to keep an eye on the shop while I spoke with my father.
I sat and he hovered back and forth; from the look of it, he was doing some sort of spectral pacing.
“Unfortunately, Poppy, this visit isn’t casual. I’m here because I am hearing of some dark magic going on.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Dark magic?”
“Yes. You haven’t been doing anything, have you? I’m hearing whispers of something happening around you.”
“How dark are we talking?”
“It’s not any kind of open-the-Hellmouth magic, but it’s troubling. You haven’t been trying anything odd?”
I shook my head. “I’m doing no more magic than normal; probably less, in fact, since I’m distracted by Roger, Jordan, and company.”
“Hmmm. That Jordan kid doesn’t have any bad energy. Curious, but not bad. Roger’s got an interesting energy, too, but it’s not worrying. Roger’s sister, Ivy, she’s not been around as she’s exploring other realms. Who’s visiting?”
“I don’t think any of them would be a source of trouble,” I agreed. “He seems pretty innocent. Cousin Plenty and Aunt Lindy are the ones visiting.”
“Ah. Cousin ‘Plenty of trouble.’ I believe that’s how you often referred
to her. Has either of them been trying anything?”
I remembered Plenty’s persistent questions. “Well, Plenty was asking about glamouring, and she wanted to try some spells with me.”
“You mean those enchantments where you change appearances or the perception of appearances?”
“Yes.”
“Have you done any spells of that nature?”
“No,” I told him. “I don’t like to mess with magic that manipulative.”
“Well, whatever is going on, it’s worse than harmless dabbling.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m not sure. I’m just picking up some odd energy. It’s distorted somehow. Warped, like a funhouse mirror.”
“Distorted?”
“That’s the best way I can describe it,” my father said. “Something is off, and it’s not good. I’d advise staying alert, and being careful.”
“Well, ain’t that a peach,” I grumbled, as I watched him vanish from view.
19
A FEW HOURS later my mother made her way to my shop. She stood by the side door, smoking furiously as she her eyes darted between her house and my store.
Earlier, Jordan had an idea for a Halloween display, and I’d given him some petty cash to pick up a few items for it. When he returned he immediately began hanging up silvery netting and tendrils of cobwebs. Then he’d cut some stars and moons from matte black and shimmery opal paper. Within an hour he’d taken a sack of ordinary craft supplies, and shaped an impressive vision, transforming my little magic tourist shop into an eerie yet inviting destination.
Mom peered inside, watching him work. “He’s talented, without a doubt. He could put that silly Haunted Hideaway’s tour to shame.”
“Wait?” Jordan paused from his perch on the ladder. “There is a haunted house here?”
“It’s a Halloween-themed shop up the street,” I explained. “They sell Halloween costumes and decorations and have a little tour of terrors you can take.”
“It’s awful,” my mother drawled.
“It’s not something like you’d see in the big city, but it has its charms. I like the shop, personally. The tour is kind of fun, too.”
Plenty of Trouble Page 13