by Amy Boyles
My aunts exchanged a look. Licky took the reins. “Oh well, that would be because they don’t know them.”
I pressed the pestle into herbs I’d been given. At least, they smelled like herbs. Couldn’t been dried eyeballs for all I knew.
“Why don’t they know their dads?”
“Well,” Mint said, embarrassed. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“I have time.”
“Betty didn’t want us to date Morgan and Bean,” Licky said.
“Why not? She always seems to want us to be happy.”
“They were brothers, for one,” Mint said.
“Y’all are sisters,” I said.
“Betty said the more we separated in our love lives, the better off we’d be because of the whole chaos thing,” Licky explained.
“Oh, okay. I guess that makes sense.”
My aunts were quiet. Too quiet. I saw them give side-eyes to each other.
I stopped grinding. “But that’s not all, is it? There’s something more.”
Mint licked her lips. “Yes, there was something more. There was another reason why Betty didn’t want us to date Bean and Morgan.”
“Which is of course why we ran off and married them,” Licky said.
Oh wow. I hadn’t expected that.
“Okay. What was it? What’s the reason Betty didn’t want y’all to marry Bean and Morgan.”
“Well…” Mint started.
“It was very simple,” Licky said.
“They were different.”
Licky eyed her. “But not too different.”
“You’re right,” Mint said. “Just different enough to make a difference.”
Oh Lord. I could feel the chaos growing in the room. It was thick pressure. Like when you step outside and realize it’s going to rain. You don’t know when or how much, but you know at some point the sky is going to open and empty.
That’s what Mint’s and Licky’s burgeoning power felt like. I needed to help them rein it in.
“Your power is building.”
Mint laughed uneasily. “Sorry. Sometimes we don’t pay attention.”
“It’s all this talk about our husbands,” Licky said.
“Are y’all still married?” I said.
“Oh yes,” Licky said. “We love them.”
I was tired of playing Round Robin. “So what’s the big deal? Why didn’t Betty want you with them?”
Mint exhaled. “Because of what they are.”
“What are they?”
My aunts exchanged a charged look. Finally Licky licked her lips. “They were sort of like us. A lot of chaos would come into their lives at times when we least expected it.”
“I don’t understand. Were they witches?”
“They are,” Mint said. “But they’re half something else.”
Fascinating. Lots of halfsies in this town. I was technically only half witch. My father had been completely nonmagical.
I stopped grinding the herbs. “What else were they?”
Licky swallowed. “They were half genie.”
My jaw dropped. “You mean they can grant wishes?”
Mint nodded. “Yep. When they weren’t screwing them up.”
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “So does that mean? Cordelia and Amelia?”
They nodded in unison. Licky spoke. “It means your cousins are part genie.”
SEVENTEEN
“My cousins are part genie? Why haven’t they told me?”
I stared at the substance I’d ground to a pulp. Mint whisked it away and dropped it in hers. She started grinding. Licky also took an inappropriate interest in the contents of the bowl.
So basically my aunts were avoiding me. Alarm bells blared in my head.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Nothing,” Mint said.
“Just working this spell,” Licky said.
“Is that why neither of you answered my question?”
“Hmm? What question?” Mint said.
“They ain’t gonna answer,” Mattie said.
“I would concur,” Collinsworth stated. “Even though I may not have appropriate clothing, I can still tell when someone is being evasive.”
“Thanks, y’all.” I put on my best intimidating scowl and cleared my throat. “They don’t know, do they?”
Mint glanced up. “Who?”
“Cordelia and Amelia. They have no idea what they are.”
Guilty looks shot through the room.
My stomach bottomed out. How could my cousins not know what they were but I did? There was no justice in this world. I didn’t want to have this sort of knowledge. Be responsible for knowing that my cousins could grant wishes when they didn’t even know it themselves.
“I’m going to tell them,” I said.
“No!” my aunts screamed in unison.
I glared at them. “You both need to tell me the story. Right now.”
“While we work,” Licky said.
“Yes,” Mint said. “We have to finish this too.”
“I need tea,” I said.
Mint whipped up a glass of sweet tea for me. I hadn’t mastered the technique of making food and drink appear when I wanted.
There was still so much to learn.
Apparently so, since my aunts were dumping the secret of a lifetime on me.
I dropped some jelly beans into the tea and took a drink. “Talk.”
Mint opened a black bottle and dropped withered frog’s legs into the mortar. She crushed them as she spoke.
“All I know is when we first met Morgan and Bean, both Licky and I were hooked.”
“They were so Southern, from south Georgia, and their accents were smoother than velvet,” Licky added. “It was meant to be.”
“We loved them at first sight.”
“Both of them.” Licky dropped her contents beside Mattie, who scooped them up and let them drift into the bubbling cauldron.
“Betty didn’t like them,” Mint said.
“Of course not.” I sipped my tea. “She used to wait up for me with a shotgun strapped across her knees.”
Mint laughed. “You’re lucky. With us she wore a grenade jacket.”
I barked a laugh. “You’re kidding.”
Licky nudged her sister. “She is, but it wasn’t much better. Our mother swore a hex on any boy who dated us.”
“Did she do it?”
They exchanged another look.
“Well?” I said.
Licky grimaced. “We don’t know.”
“We never had any proof,” Mint said. She swatted the air. “But that’s not what mattered. What mattered was what happened next.”
“Which was?”
Licky smiled like it was the best memory on earth. “We eloped.”
“The four of us,” Mint said. “Went to Witch Vegas and married.”
“Why?”
Mint’s mouth pursed in anger. “Because our mother wouldn’t allow the relationship. She told us that if we insisted on dating those boys, that we’d be thrown out.”
“But we were in love,” Licky said. “So in love and so young. And they were good boys. They really were. Loved us so fiercely their hearts ached.”
“That’s what they said,” Mint said. “We believed them.”
Licky elbowed her. “Of course we believed them. It was the truth.”
Mint didn’t look convinced. “Anyway, got married and both of us ended up carrying children at the same time.”
“That’s when it started.” Mint dropped something in my mortar. I pestled it without peeking. No telling what it was—lizard brains, maybe.
It sure did crunch. “That’s when what started?”
“When their powers blossomed.” Mint paused. “See, Morgan and Bean knew they were half genie, but they didn’t know if their abilities would come in.”
“Sometimes they don’t,” Licky said. “Not with halfsies.”
“But when their genie powers flared, their w
ishing ability went haywire,” Mint explained.
“How so?”
Licky hitched a shoulder. “I’d say something like, I wish my bacon were crisper.”
“And instead of crisp bacon, the bacon on her plate would disappear and be replaced with raw bacon,” Mint said.
“Ew,” was all I managed.
“That’s just the beginning,” Licky said, sighing. She cupped her chin in her hands. The deep sorrow in her voice made my heart lurch. “One time Mint wished she’d get her pre-baby body back and she instantly gained fifty pounds.”
My eyes flared. “This is a horror story. This isn’t a love story.”
Mint laughed. “Yeah. Anyway, that’s when our chaos powers got worse.”
My hair almost stood on end. “Worse?”
Licky nodded. “Our powers were almost controllable before we married Bean and Morgan.”
“But once the genie gene kicked in,” Mint said, “our abilities flared.”
“The mixture of two chaos witches with two bumbling genies was not a good one.”
Mint knuckled a tear from her lashes. “So we did the only thing we could.”
Licky squeezed Mint’s shoulder. “We left. There wasn’t a choice.”
“How could we raise babies around them? What if something happened to Cordelia and Amelia?”
“It would’ve been an accident,” Licky clarified.
“Of course,” I said, completely understanding.
Mint rubbed her forehead. “But we did what we had to for the sake of the girls.”
“We haven’t seen our husbands in years,” Licky said.
Her face crumpled. Mint placed her arms around her sister. Overwhelming sadness flooded my body. The pain these two must’ve endured. They’d loved their husbands so much. It wasn’t like they’d decided to up and leave them because they were bad men.
They couldn’t control their abilities—none of the four were able to. They were all perfect for one other. But imagine the chaos that would rock Magnolia Cove if all four of them were in the same room?
A black hole would probably appear and suck the whole town into it.
I shivered.
“Have Bean and Morgan ever wanted to meet their daughters? You know, now that they’re grown?”
Mint nodded. “They’ve been pestering us. But I don’t know…”
“See,” Licky explained, “it’s complicated.”
I crossed my arms. “Because you never bothered to tell your daughters the truth and now you’re afraid to?”
Mint twisted her fingers. “They might disown us.”
“Cordelia would.” I wasn’t joking. I knew my cousin well enough to guess that she’d be ticked to high heaven about this secret.
Secrets. So many secrets in Magnolia Cove.
Some of them good, some of them bad. Were there any good secrets? Yes, the town itself was actually an awesome secret. But some of the others? I wasn’t so sure about them.
“So what am I supposed to do?” I raked my fingers down my face. “You’ve told me this. I wish I didn’t know it. Now I have to keep my mouth shut around them?”
They exchanged a coy glance.
“What?” I fumed.
“We need you,” Mint said.
Licky wrapped a hand around my arm. “To watch them.”
“If anything changes in our daughters, we want you to tell us.”
I swallowed a knot. “So I’m supposed to spy. Watch to make sure their genie gene doesn’t turn on. If it does, report back?”
Mint clapped. “You understand completely.”
“How wonderful of you to agree.” Licky smiled widely.
“I didn’t agree.”
“But you have to,” Mint said.
Licky grimaced. “We can’t tell Betty. First thing, she’d be spilling the beans to Cordelia and Amelia. They’d be so angry with us for keeping this from them.”
Betty would tell them. She’d tell Cordelia and Amelia for their own safety. I hated the position I’d been placed in. Betray my aunts or betray my cousins.
“Betty doesn’t know exactly what happened?” I said.
“No.” Licky pulled her red hair over one shoulder. “She knows we left Bean and Morgan, but we never told her about their powers.”
“She would’ve killed us,” Mint said. “She never thought it was smart to wed outside of witches. It was one thing for your mother to marry a regular person. She still didn’t like it, but she dealt with it. But a genie?”
“There had never been any in Magnolia Cove—not halfsies,” Licky explained. “The men kept it a secret. Witches wouldn’t have known what to do with them.”
“But it doesn’t matter,” Mint said. “The main thing we want to know is this—if either one of our girls start to develop the ability to grant wishes, will you let us know?”
How had I gotten roped into this again? And why did I think it was a good idea to pal up with my aunts?
Never again.
Amelia and Cordelia had welcomed me into their home like a sister. They’d been good to me, and I would repay them by spying and revealing to my aunts that their daughters had genie powers.
What if the powers never even flared? It was a possibility. If I told my cousins what I knew and their powers didn’t work, they’d probably think I was lying.
“Okay,” I said, sighing. “I’ll watch them.”
My aunts started clapping.
“On one condition,” I said sharply.
They paused, glanced at me.
“If their fathers want to meet them, you let it happen. My cousins deserve to know their dads. You’re not being fair to them.”
Licky and Mint exchanged facial expressions in a way that made me realize they were silently talking to one another. After about thirty seconds of eyebrows rising, lips twitching and noses wrinkling, they finally stopped.
“Okay,” Mint said, “we will work on allowing the girls to meet their fathers. But one thing you should know—”
“We worry the meet up will flare their powers,” Licky finished. “We’re not positive it will happen, but it’s a definite possibility.”
“Sometimes,” I said quietly, “you have to take a chance. You have to put everything on the line and dive in.”
Mint nodded. “We promise to try to get them together. But you have to do your part. You have to watch our daughters for any sign they have the power and report back.”
“Okay,” I said. “I will. Now. Where are we on this potion? We need to get this in the mouths of the residents.”
Mint looked at everything laid out in front of her. “We’re almost done. Pepper, dump the contents of your bowl in here.”
I did as she said. “Licky, I need your help.”
My aunts joined hands. Mint whispered words of healing while Licky chanted low.
A bubble of magic ignited in their palms. It flew around the room, bouncing from wall to wall.
Mint watched it and smiled. Finally she took the last of the ingredients and dumped them in the boiling cauldron.
Mattie scampered from her spot and jumped into my arms. I held her close as the power flew and bounced. Mint raised her hands and her voice. Licky joined her.
The ball darted into the cauldron. It hissed like a fire fighting to survive. A large bubble rose onto the surface and popped, fizzing slowly back down.
The contents settled. Mint kicked the fire out. She fisted her hands to her hips and smiled. “It’s all done.”
“Wow. That was fast. But how’re we going to serve all this to the residents? It’s liquid and I don’t see that many bottles?”
Licky smiled. “Easy. We’re going to turn it into brownies.”
With that, my aunts waved their hands over the cauldron. When they jerked them back, the open mouth of the black cast-iron vessel was filled with brown yummy-looking brownies.
I was impressed.
I stretched the kinks from my back. “Great. Let’s go deliver some brownies
to the townsfolk.”
EIGHTEEN
We handed out the brownies old-school style—by going door-to-door. I’m sure there could’ve been a faster, better way, but when it came right down to it, I wanted to make sure every person who was sick had a brownie. The best way to do that was to dole them out by hand.
Worked for me, anyway.
For what it was worth, Collinsworth and Mattie walked diligently alongside us. The rabbit kept track of which houses we’d already hit, and Mattie made commentary.
“I sure hope this works,” she said.
“Me too. It was the best shot we had considering Farinas stole all the others.”
“Correction, she had a warrant to confiscate them,” Collinsworth said.
“Same gosh darn thing.” There were twenty brownies left. “We can hit between five and ten more houses. Then we need to restock from Mint and Licky.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Mattie said.
We emptied our basket and headed back home. Mint and Licky said they would finish the rest. I was grateful. The last couple of days had worn me slap out.
To be honest, I’d been pretty worried about Betty. Amelia had been texting me updates, but I wanted to make sure for myself that she was doing better.
Turned out, I needn’t have worried. I opened the front door to find Betty standing at the hearth making beef stew. My stomach rumbled. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.
As soon as I dropped my purse to the floor, Betty wrapped me in a hug. “Good to see you, kid. I was afraid you’d run away.”
I pulled back. “Why would I do that? You don’t still have a fever, do you?” I pressed the backs of my fingers to her forehead.
“I don’t have any cotton-pickin’ fever. I was just worried, okay? Can’t a grandmother worry about her grandchild without being dragged over coals about it?”
“Sure thing. How’re you feeling?”
“Much better.”
I smiled. I mean really smiled. My heart swelled. My chest was so tight I think it squeezed tears from my eyes.
Betty fisted her hands to her hips. “Well, you ready for dinner?”
I knuckled the stupid tears away and laughed. “Yep. I’m ready for dinner.”
I’d spent most of my Friday working on the spell with Mint and Licky, who I hadn’t heard from in the past few hours. Cordelia and Amelia were both at home and came down for dinner. Cordelia looked better. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and there was color on her lips.