Writing Wrongs: Crow’s Feet Coven, Book One

by Gael, Christine

  Now that we were home, though, things were getting back to normal. I sighed as I heard Mee-maw puttering around in the kitchen once again.

  Much to the chagrin of her doctors, Mee-maw had checked herself out just a few days after surgery. They tried to insist that she stay at least one more for observation, but my grandmother was nothing if not hardheaded.

  “Nope. No way. Enough is enough,” she’d barked at the poor nurse who drew the short straw and delivered the news. “If it didn’t kill me by now, it’s not gonna kill me at all! And if you don’t stop sticking me with those needles, I swear…”

  That was about the time that I stepped in, hoping to prevent a full-fledged verbal assault.

  I was thrilled beyond all belief that Mee-maw was going to be okay, and I had to admit that it was a relief to have her home. But the fact that she was crashing around and preparing to bake her Thursday bread like nothing had happened made me a tad uneasy. I tried to offer my assistance, but my method of measuring flour didn’t quite live up to her expectations.

  I leaned as far back on the couch as I could, peering at Mee-maw as she bustled around. Even near-death couldn’t slow her down.

  For approximately the millionth time in the last three days, I felt a quick rush of relief that I’d gotten to her in time.

  If I’d slept in just a little bit longer…

  I pushed the thought from my head with a groan. Maybe I was looking at this whole thing all wrong. Sure, it was terrifying to write something on paper and then have it come to pass. But Mee-maw’s story had been proof.

  The things I wrote weren’t set in stone. If it hadn’t been for the typewriter and a drunken writing spree, I might have never known that she was in trouble. It seemed like what Connie had said was true. I wasn’t making these things happen. I was just writing about them. If that was the case, if I could actually use this power or destiny or whatever it was to help people, then I had to do it. I couldn’t just get these warnings and then ignore them. What kind of person would I be?

  Of course, that was a lot easier said than done. For starters, I still didn’t have any idea how the whole thing worked...how to make it start, or how to make it stop. But more importantly, what was the cost? If movies and books had taught me anything, it was that all magic always had a price.

  First things first, I had to lock it up so that I couldn’t use it in my sleep anymore. If I was going to write something, I had to be conscious and aware of it. Even if I entered that strange, hypnotic state, I had to stay awake afterward to at least read what I write. No more drunken binge-writing followed by hours of sleep. All future sessions had to be fueled by caffeine and baked goods to keep me alert and aware.

  I ignored my aching back, hauling myself off the couch and wandering into the kitchen. Mee-maw punched her bread with wicked glee, a broad grin on her face. She was in her element and having the time of her life, heart woes be cussed.

  “Are you sure you should be doing that, Mee-maw?”

  The dirty look she tossed me would curdle milk. “I’m perfectly fine. You mind your own business, now.” She punched the bread extra violently, just to really drive her point home. “Don’t you have a job? Or anything that you can do that doesn’t involve staring at me and waiting for me to drop dead?”

  Maybe she had a point. I’d been keeping a pretty close eye on her since the moment we got home, just in case. I could only imagine how annoyed she was at all the fussing over her. She was used to being the fusser, not the fussee. The point had been driven home the night before when she’d awoken with a start to find me standing over her bed, my hand above her nose to see if she was breathing. I’d barely managed to dodge the karate chop she’d leveled at me.

  Maybe it was time to back off some.

  I heaved a sigh. “Okay. I get the picture. I’ll leave you alone.”

  “Thank the Lord!” Mee-maw huffed her annoyance.

  “Quick question, though. Do you remember a woman back when you were young named Connie Bagshaw?”

  She squinted and then shook her head. “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell. Why?”

  “Just curious. She sold me the typewriter and you are about the same age. I just wondered if you knew her.”

  She went back to kneading and I milled around for a few moments longer, until she shot me an annoyed glance. “Anything else?”

  “I don’t think so...”

  “Okay, so why don’t you get out of the house for a while and blow the stink off you? I’ve got my phone in my apron and will call if I need you.”

  I mumbled a non-committal reply and beat a quick retreat from the kitchen, back to my room. I hated being that far from her, but if I didn’t get her some space, I’d be the one in the hospital.

  With Mee-maw sorted, it was time to tackle my next big problem. The shiny black typewriter taunted me from the table, looking so innocent and not at all magical. Before I could approach it, my phone dinged and I sighed, pulling it out to peer down at the notification.

  A pop-up from Gaia’s Gathering, urging me to make my first introductory post. It might be a bunch of hooey, but when Connie had ignored my last text, the Wiccan message boards had seemed like as good a place as any to start trying to find some information about the item that I was apparently destined to possess. Most of the posts and comments I’d read in the past couple days had revolved around full-moon rituals or raging debates over the best kind of candles to use. Not really relevant to my needs.

  I settled onto the couch, scrolling aimlessly through the new posts. There was a ton of good information there, and if I was in the market for a spell to bring good fortune or get rid of malevolent spirits, this would be the place to go. But so far, my membership had been a bit of a bust. The internet was strangely silent on sentient typewriters, go figure. It was definitely time to go for a more direct approach.

  I sat there for what felt like forever, looking between the typewriter and my phone. How to even start a post like this? At least it was all supposedly anonymous, so I didn’t have to worry too much about it coming back to haunt me, but I still felt like an absolute quack as I began to thumb out my situation.

  After several false starts and deleting the whole thing a time or two, I finally settled on my first message to the Wiccans of the world.

  Hello there! I am curious to learn more about magical items. Specifically, I’m wondering about items that might have the ability to give the owner some precognition. Not like a wand…more like everyday items. Has anyone heard of something like this? What would the item look like? And what kind of drawbacks might it have?

  Short and to the point, hopefully without giving away too much information about what was going on here. I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and pressed send.

  There, it was out in the world. Now there was nothing left to do but wait and see. Maybe I’d finally catch a break, and someone out there would know exactly what I was talking about and how to control it.

  I stared at my phone for the next half hour, willing it to send me another notification, until my butt fell asleep. Nope, sitting and waiting wasn’t going to cut it. I had to do something, or I’d lose my ever-loving mind.

  I swiped at my phone, shooting yet another text message to Connie. I was hoping that she would be feeling up to talking to me again.

  Hi, Connie! I hope you’re feeling better. Can we get together to talk some more? It would really help…

  To my surprise, her reply came back less than a minute later.

  I’m still a bit under the weather, but we can get coffee this evening, I suppose. Around five?

  Awesome that she wasn’t ghosting me again but, ugh. I had to wait a full 6 hours and 12 minutes before I could go back to picking Connie’s brain.

  The phone vibrated in my hand and I peered back down. My heart gave a stutter when I saw the name flashing on the screen.

  Patrick.

  “Hello?”

  Patrick’s smooth, warm voice immediately settled my frayed ner
ves. There was just something about him that set me at ease.

  “Hi, Cricket. How’re you?”

  I stared at the typewriter for a moment, biting back a million witty retorts that he wouldn’t understand anyway. “Oh, I’m good. Mee-maw is settling in, so we’re just relaxing.”

  “That’s great, glad to hear it. Say, I was wondering if you might like to meet me for lunch? I’ve got an hour today, and I’d love to see you.”

  Honestly, it sounded like a dream. Get out of the house and away from Mee-maw’s stubborn insistence on doing everything by herself? Spend an hour pretending I was a nice, normal, boring person? Sign me up.

  “Yeah, that would be great! Um, have you tried Tracy’s yet? It’s about a block down from the library.”

  “That sounds perfect. I’ll see you in half an hour?”

  I had a feeling Mee-maw would be thrilled to get me out of the house for a few hours. And if I was being honest, I was looking forward to spending some more quality time with the handsome and mysterious Patrick Byrne. With one last refresh of the Wiccan message board, I headed into the bathroom to get ready.

  Thirty minutes later, I was in a booth at the café, fiddling with my water glass. It was only about 30 seconds after noon, but I couldn’t stop worrying. Part of my nerves definitely came from the guilt over leaving Mee-maw alone at home. She’d been thrilled, of course, but I was starting to question my motives here. With everything else going on, was now really the right time to be out on a date with some random guy?

  Was this a date? I didn’t even know. Heck, it’d been so long since I’d been out on a real date anyway, I probably wouldn’t know one way or another.

  But hopefully Patrick would know and clue me in.

  The door to the diner swung open and I jerked my head up. A tousled head of dark hair stepped through the door, his brilliant green eyes meeting mine over the heads of the other patrons. His infectious grin spread and he raised a hand in greeting.

  There went that flip-flopping heart again. Man, this guy was something.

  He slid through the crowd, greeting the hostess and waitresses like he’d lived in Rocky Knoll his entire life. It was nice to see that he was acclimating well. Then again, he seemed like the kind of guy that was easy to like.

  I sure liked him.

  “Hey, you. It’s so good to see your face.” Patrick leaned down, hugging me tightly and brushing a gentle kiss against my cheek.

  It wasn’t like the kiss at the bar. Much more chaste and sweet, but it still made me feel all gooey and warm inside. Almost like I was a teenager again.

  Any doubts whether this was a date disappeared as I pulled away and met his electric gaze.

  “Hey, Patrick, thanks for calling. How have you been?”

  He grinned broadly, sliding into the booth across from me. “Oh, you know. Getting near the end of the work at the library. I’ve been staying busy. But the bigger question is, how are you? How is your Mee-maw?”

  That smile of his brought out my own. As Marilee would say, “Oh. My. Gah! How cute is he?”

  Very cute, Marilee. Very.

  I took a deep breath, shaking my head with a chuckle. “She’s as stubborn and ornery as ever. Her doctors wanted her to stay in the hospital longer, but she was having none of that. She’s thrilled to be home, and she’s already griping about how dusty I let the house get while she was gone. But Zoe and I are both taking care of her, and I think she’s going to be okay, thank God.”

  “Excellent,” Patrick laughed, glancing at the waitress and signaling her for coffee. He looked back at me, a look of concern passing over his face. “I hope you’re taking care of yourself, too, Cricket.”

  If his smile and oozing charisma hadn’t made me warm and fuzzy, his earnest concern sure got it done.

  I shrugged with a sheepish smile. “Trying.”

  He lofted a brow, pinning me with those laser beam eyes. “Which means you haven’t been, hmm?”

  “Guilty as charged…”

  He paused, smoothly thanked the waitress as she filled his cup, lifting it to his lips for a nice, long sip. Brave guy, taking it straight black.

  “I’ll have to see what I can do to help you in that regard, then. Is there anything at all I can do for you to help?”

  The warmth in his eyes made my heart squeeze, but I tamped it down quickly. If he had any idea what was going on in my life, he’d probably run screaming in the opposite direction. After making a call to the loony bin, of course.

  “That’s so sweet of you, but lunch and just getting out of the house is more than enough. I really appreciate it. You’re a good person.”

  “I try to be. I think we get back what we put out in the world. Actually,” he said, scooting forward on his seat, “on that note, can I ask you kind of a strange question?”

  My life had become chock-full of strange. As long as he didn’t ask about magic typewriters, I was good with it. “Yeah, absolutely. Anything.”

  He inhaled deeply, a thoughtful look on his face as he folded his hands in front of him on the table. “Do you believe in karma?”

  His question surprised me. Patrick didn’t seem to be the kind of guy to buy into all of the mystical weirdness in the universe. Then again, up until getting that typewriter, I hadn’t really been that kind of person, either.

  “Um, well, I guess I probably do. Yes,” I added with more certainty after considering it for another moment. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, yesterday, I saw something that was pretty wild. I was getting gas at the QuikMart and there was this young woman with two kids heading inside. They were all chattering away about getting snacks to take with them to the movies. They pass by a homeless man lurking near the entrance, definitely in need of some help. This mom stops and she considers for a moment. And she crouches down and tells her kids, “Would you guys mind if we go see the movie next week so we can use our money to help him?” Of course, her kids both looked disappointed, but they agreed instantly. And they all dug in their pockets and pulled out some money for him.”

  He paused for a moment, a distant look in his eyes as he recounted the heart-warming story.

  “As I top off my tank, I’m already planning on going in there and giving her money so she can take her kids to the movie. And wouldn’t you know it. I walk in there, and she has a lottery ticket in her hand, and she is just weeping. It was a scratcher her parents had given her for Christmas, and she was just now getting around to scratching it off. Get this…she won five hundred bucks.”

  Patrick laughed and shook his head.

  “I know, it sounds crazy, but it felt like… I don’t know, something greater at work. Does that sound crazy?”

  After everything I’d seen over the past two weeks, that didn’t even sound slightly abnormal. But knowing that Patrick believed in some kind of greater power in the universe set me even more at ease with him. Maybe, just maybe, I could tell him just a little of what had been going on with me?

  God, it would be a relief to share it with someone.

  I took a deep breath, sipping my own coffee. Lots of sugar and creamer for me, thank you very much. “No, I don’t think that sounds crazy at all… I, well, the past few days, I’ve had something similar going on,” I hedged, trying to think of how much to tell him.

  He perked up at my admission, eyes curious, but he didn’t interject. It was nice to be with a guy who knew how to sit and just listen.

  “I’ve been sort of… predicting some things. I just know that something is going to happen. Kind of déjà vu, you know. Like, uh, did you hear about Dolly the giraffe escaping?”

  Patrick grinned. “Oh yeah. That old girl caused quite a ruckus downtown.”

  I pitched my voice as low as I could, eyes darting to either side just to make sure no one was listening in on us. “I had a weird feeling something like that was going to happen. That an animal was going to escape the zoo.”

  His eyes widened in surprise as he stared at me, his voice dropping to
match mine. “Seriously? That’s amazing, Cricket…”

  I couldn’t quite comprehend that he actually believed me and wasn’t running for the hills. After that, the words just came pouring out. Nothing specific, of course. Telling him that I owned a cursed—no, lucky—typewriter might be pushing the bounds of our relationship a bit too far. But it was such a relief just to be able to talk to someone about it and have them believe me without thinking I needed to see a doctor.

  For his part, he just looked fascinated and floored by the whole thing as I told him that I’d woken from a dead sleep and had a sense that my grandmother was in peril. Before I knew it, I was glancing at the clock again, shocked to see it was already well past 1 o’clock. My stomach sank.

  It had been such a weight off to talk to someone, but I had to get back to Mee-maw and I was sure Patrick had to get back to his work.

  I sighed heavily, making a face as I drained the last dregs of my coffee. “I should probably let you go. I’m sorry. I kept you out way past your hour lunch.”

  He twisted in the booth to glance at the clock, chuckling warmly as he looked back at me. “Don’t worry about it. This was wonderful, and exactly what I needed to break up the day. Trudy might give me a look when I get back to the library, but it’s worth it.”

  There he went, making me feel all warm and fuzzy again.

  “Yeah, me, too. I mean, what I needed today. We should do it again sometime?” And soon.

  He grinned widely, sliding out of the booth and offering me his arm to walk me out. “Absolutely.”

  My cheek still tingled from Patrick’s sweet parting kiss as I slid behind the wheel of my car. Just a brush against the cheek, but it seemed to hold the potential for so much more.

  Yeah, I was falling for this guy, no doubt about it. Zoe would be beside herself if she saw me out here, flirting. I’d just have to add that to the list of things I had to get around to telling her at some point, I realized with a guilty start.