by Ellen Dugan
“That’s basically what this is.” Candice pointed at the offending page.
“No.” I shook my head. “I put it directly in the fridge to cool, and I didn’t use the raspberry liqueur that it called for.”
“Did you serve it tonight?”
“No, I didn’t.” I shut the cookbook and set it aside. “I did pour him a glass the other day...”
Candice rubbed her forehead. “Did anything weird happen?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well you can thank your lucky stars for that.”
“That raspberry lemonade is still in the fridge.” I jumped to my feet.
“Let me see it, before you dump it.” Candice stood and walked to the fridge. She pulled the pitcher out, sat the pitcher in the center of the table, and peeled back the plastic wrap. As before, she sniffed it cautiously. To my surprise she asked for a paper grocery bag, which I gave her, and then she motioned me to follow her outside.
We strolled out in the backyard. The waning moon was still rising as Candice stopped on the little brick path that led to my detached garage.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Watch,” she said and poured out the lemonade on the bricks.
The liquid seemed to defy gravity as it slowly poured out of the pitcher. It shimmered under the light of the moon, and finally after an impossible moment, the lemonade landed on the bricks.
The lemonade coalesced, and took on a life of its own as the puddle reformed into the shape of a waning crescent moon. “That can’t be good,” I said.
“Your family crest is a waxing crescent moon, isn’t it?” Candice asked.
“It is.”
“Well, it’s my opinion that the person who created this spell corrupted the magick, flipped it to a darker, but mirror image of what it was originally intended for.”
“What do I do now?” I asked, horrified.
“Tonight, I’m going to clean it up for you.” She stared at me hard. “Only this once, Autumn.”
“I understand,” I said, meeting her dark eyes.
Candice held her hand over the moon shaped puddle. “Magick be gone, spin round and about,” she began. “Widdershins you shall turn, taking all that is baneful out.”
The liquid began to spin in a counterclockwise motion, and Candice flipped her hand over, palm up and slowly bunched her fingers into a fist. “Disperse, be gone and fade away; this manipulative magick is no longer in play.” She tossed her hand high and the liquid leapt off the bricks. It dissipated into the air, and was gone.
“Whoa,” I said, thoroughly impressed.
“Where’s your garbage can?” Candice asked.
“Along the side of the garage.” I pointed to the big blue can.
“Be right back,” she said, scooping up the paper bag and glass pitcher, she marched towards the can.
Curious as to what she was about, I followed her.
Candice placed the glass pitcher into the paper bag. She folded up the top, and to my surprise, the blonde threw the bag into the bottom of the can hard enough that the glass pitcher shattered inside of the bag. “The spell is forever broken, this magick is sealed by the words I have spoken.” She let the hinged lid drop smartly, brushed off her hands and started back towards me.
“Though she is little, she is fierce!” I said, going for the Shakespeare quote.
Candice sketched a bow. “I could really go for a glass of wine.”
“I think that could be arranged,” I said. “So long as you promise to teach me how you did that.”
“You want lessons?” Candice asked. “As in formal Craft training?”
I glanced over my shoulder to the spot where she’d banished the lemonade potion. “I think some kitchen witchery lessons might be a damn good idea, all things considered.”
“I would be happy to work with you,” Candice said, looping her arm through mine. “I bet I can whip you into shape.”
“Whip?” I raised an eyebrow at her, not sure that she wasn’t going for the double entendre.
“It’s a baker’s term.” Candice winked. “Trust me.”
CHAPTER FIVE
After Candice left I discovered that the family cookbook was open to a page I hadn’t read yet. “I know I shut that book.” I approached it warily and saw the recipe it was open to was entitled: Applesauce Apologies. “No way,” I said in case my relative was floating around and listening. “Aunt Irene, this might be your way of saying that you’re sorry. But it’s not funny.” I picked up the book and slid it back inside a kitchen cabinet.
I went to bed and was awake all night thinking over what had happened. Luna slept at the foot of the bed, and I watched as the moon worked its way across the sky.
Getting all stirred up by those culinary spells, and by Duncan, had left me feeling achy, needy, and sexually frustrated. I’d held back on a lot over the years. Especially after being with Rene, and having to be so careful with my personal energies. Clearly a part of me was tired of being tucked away in a box and ignored.
Dozens of sexy scenarios played through my mind of what could have happened. The two of us going at it on the kitchen table...me sitting on the counter and him standing between my thighs. Or us lying on the plush gray rug in front of the fireplace hearth, wrapped around each other, as Duncan brushed the hair back from my face...
Good grief, I thought, and tried to yank my imagination back under control. But it bounced right back with a vengeance. The scene of the two of us together on the rug suddenly morphed into a vision of the future...
Jack-o’-lanterns flickered on the hearth, and an orange light shone through the bungalow’s front window. Duncan stared down into my eyes while he made love to me. I could feel the plush carpet on my back, and the warmth of his chest against mine. He caught my hands and stretched my arms up and over my head, holding me gently in place. “I love you,” he said, and then our kiss went on forever.
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “What the hell?” I wondered. But the more I thought about the vision, the more turned on I got. I’d never had a sex vision before, and I wasn’t sure how to react to what I’d seen. Jack-o’-lanterns on the hearth? It had to be Halloween. This approaching Halloween.
My mind raced back and forth questioning whether or not that had been a vision, or merely wishful thinking. Eventually I growled and tossed a decorative pillow across the room. It did make me feel mildly better at the thump it made when it bounced off the wall.
Somehow, I managed to talk myself out of calling Duncan to come over. I really wanted to think that I hadn’t slipped so far under the influence of Irene’s shady magick that I’d give into it by indulging in a late night booty call.
But damn it, I really wanted to.
Eventually, I’d fallen asleep for an hour and I’d dreamt not of more crazy and wild sex with Duncan, but instead of a parade of women all coming silently to the back door of the bungalow. One by one they’d lined up. Old and young, pretty and plain. Scratching on the glass of the windows, or tapping on the screen door. All of them with beseeching expressions on their faces. Each of the women holding out their hands, as if pleading for something.
I sat straight up in bed and shook my head clear of the dream. I sighed, still feeling as churned up as I had when I’d tried to sleep. The sun was up, the birds were singing and it was a pretty Saturday morning—and I had work to do. So, I rolled out of bed, put on my grubbiest clothes, and channeled all of that sexual frustration into yard work.
I mowed the grass, watered and weeded the flower beds, and cleaned the house from top to bottom. Which helped burn off the lingering effects of the passion spell, and it helped to settle me down somewhat. Afterwards, I scrubbed up in the shower, made sure I ate a good lunch, and felt more clear headed, more like myself.
Later that afternoon I headed over to the Jacobs’ home to meet up with Candice. It was a pretty day for a walk so I laced up my coral cross trainers, slipped on some khaki shorts and a creamy peasan
t style blouse, and took a leisurely walk. The Jacobs’ house was a ranch style home, one of several where the older Victorian era homes ended and the more modern ones began.
I grinned at the scarecrow holding court in their front flower bed, flanked by hay bales and several pumpkins. The neatly manicured lawn was a bright green, and tidy window boxes were arranged along the front of the house.
As I rang the doorbell I noticed a coordinating pot of ivy and pansies by the front door. These matched the window boxes and appeared freshly planted. I nodded in approval at the orange and blue flowers all mixed cheerfully together. A golden trio of unplanted mums rested in their pots in the shade, alongside a garden trowel and a bag of daffodil bulbs. A smear of potting mix trailed across the porch.
Mrs. Jacobs ushered me straight back to her large kitchen. It was clear where Candice had gotten her looks. Her mother was also petite, with the same chocolate brown eyes and platinum hair that was turning beautifully to silver.
“Candice will be home in a little bit,” she announced. “She got hung up at the new shop dealing with a plumbing issue.”
“Well, I appreciate you letting me interrupt your afternoon, Mrs. Jacobs,” I said.
“Nonsense,” she said, setting a plate of sugar cookies before me. “Those chrysanthemums aren’t going anywhere. And you can call me Carol.”
“Thanks, Carol.” I accepted a mug of tea from her.
Carol sat down across from me. “Candice told us about the cookbook you found, and the trouble it caused.”
I tugged self-consciously on my peasant style shirt. “Well, I have to admit, I never figured that an old cookbook would be a potentially dangerous item.”
“Considering the chaos the Blood Moon Grimoire caused a few years ago, I’m a little surprised you were so casual about having a book of unknown origin in your home to begin with.” Her tone was light, but the warning was stern nonetheless.
“Good point.” I sampled the cookie. “I suppose it was my curiosity that got the better of me. I know so little of Irene. Aunt Faye won’t speak of her, and there is very little in the family history written about her.”
“I knew your great aunt Irene,” Carol admitted.
“You did?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes, I did.”
I began to slide the labradorite pendant Duncan had given me back and forth on its chain. “Tell me.”
“When I was a teenager, my friends used to dare each other to go to her back porch and pay for spells. Or love potions.”
To her back door... The hair rose on the back of my neck. I recalled the dreams I’d had about the women all lined up at the back door of the bungalow. Holding out their hands as if begging...
I tried to keep my tone light. “Did you ever go to Irene’s?”
“Yes, I did,” Carol said. “Once.” She appeared to psych herself up. “I went with a friend whose mother wanted a charm to keep her neighbor’s mean tempered dog under control. The dog had bitten my friend’s little brother you see, and well, the dog’s owners had done nothing.”
“So your friend’s mother wanted something to control the mean dog?” I asked Carol. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
Carol set her mug on the table. “My friend paid for the charm, and that dog died the very next day.”
Despite myself, I shuddered. “It did?”
“Dropped dead.” Carol snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
“So, you’re saying that Irene Bishop was like a Witch for hire?” I asked wanting to be clear.
“Women from all over town paid Irene for magick. From easing the common cold to hexing their neighbors. For the right price it was understood that Irene could make your philandering husband stay home. She’d conjure up a love spell, or even a fertility potion if you were willing to pay for it...but there were rumors that she did much worse things.”
“Worse?” I tried to lighten the mood. “Did she raise an army of the shambling dead, or something?”
Carol stared at me hard. “It was whispered that one of Irene’s specialties was a potion that took care of a certain problem, if a girl was unlucky enough to find herself in an unfortunate situation.”
My stomach rolled over at the picture being painted of the woman. “Oh my goddess.” I sincerely hoped that wasn’t true. I tuned back in, right in time to hear...
“Even Silas Drake knew better than to cross Irene Bishop.”
“Whoa, wait.” I blinked at Carol. “What did you say?” Silas Drake, I hadn’t heard that name before. Probably an ancestor of Duncan’s, I supposed. I was on the verge of asking more questions when the front door opened and Sophia and Chloe Jacobs rushed in, all smiles and good cheer.
“Grandma!” the girls shouted, racing towards Carol.
Seeing a chance for a discreet exit, I took it. I texted Candice, told her I was headed home and that we could reschedule our culinary magick lessons for another time. I traveled along the neighborhood sidewalk, and before I knew it I found myself standing in front of the Drake mansion.
The old place had been renovated after the fire a few years ago, and the previous spring new landscaping had been put in. The mansion was starting to ease towards elegantly formal, instead of creepy and foreboding. But today it was the little Tudor style cottage next to it that caught my attention. It was currently available for lease, and I snickered to myself figuring it would be a long, long time before anyone in town would be brave enough to rent out the stone cottage—charming though it was—as it sat situated on the grounds of the Drake mansion.
Surrounded by old magnolia trees, it was a picturesque property. Unfortunately its neighbors made it a less than desirable spot. Almost as if my thoughts had conjured him up, Thomas Drake came marching around the side of the property flanked by two gardeners. He saw me, nodded in greeting, and kept going.
He seemed to be discussing the placement of tulip bulbs for the spring. I bit my lip, never having imagined catching such a bad-ass of a powerful sorcerer discussing the planting of the flowers in the garden. There were a few wheelbarrows full of yellow and golden brown mums to be planted, and there he was, bending down and personally selecting the mums he wanted added to the formal beds.
I supposed he was sprucing up the front gardens for the upcoming museum fundraiser, either that, or maybe he was mellowing.
I considered the stone cottage and its simple gardens as I walked along.“I’d plant pink tulips,” I said to myself. “So when the magnolias bloomed in April, there’d be all those shades of pink, and the yard would look like a faery tale.” I sighed as I imagined it, and a little girl raced past me on the brick sidewalk.
But she wasn’t really here.
Not in this time anyway. She hadn’t happened yet, I realized as the present faded away...
“Mama! Mama! I’m home!” she shouted happily. Her voice held the cadence of the deep South. The little girl wore a blue dress, white shoes and her hair was done in long brown pigtails. She bounded up the front steps of the cottage and into the waiting arms of a pretty brunette with pansy blue eyes.
“Love you, Sugar pie,” the mother said pressing kisses to her daughter’s hair. All around them the saucer magnolias bloomed in pretty soft pink and rose-colored tulips paraded along the front beds of the gardens, matching the tulips in the formal beds of the Drake’s estate.
With a snap, the vision was gone, and I found myself back in the present time. The bright sunshine of early October was beaming around me, and the trees were shifting to their gorgeous fall colors. I centered myself, and reconsidered the stone cottage.
It wouldn’t be empty for long. By spring there’d be a mother and child living there. I blew out a breath and started up the hill towards my home, wondering why I’d been shown the vision of the young woman and her little girl.
I let myself in the door to the bungalow and froze. My once spotless house now resembled a disaster zone. I stood stock still, staring at the mess that was all over my living room, floor and cou
ch. It took me a moment to identify what had been chewed up and spit out as toilet paper.
Lots and lots of toilet paper. My newest roommate raced by me, swatting a nearly empty cardboard tube.
“Luna!” I said, horrified.
The cat dove under the couch, and I walked with a feeling of dread to the open door to the new downstairs bathroom. Sure enough, the toilet paper roll had been stripped off, and a puddle of paper lay on the floor. Still more shreds of toilet paper had been drug out of the bathroom and across the hardwood floors of the living room.
Somehow the cat had managed to open the antique cabinet and help herself to more rolls of paper. The glass jar filled with cotton swabs had also been knocked over. Several of those had been chewed on, and even more had been batted around the bathroom floor.
“How can one little cat make such a mess?”
“Meow?”
I shifted, and saw the perpetrator standing in the doorway of the bathroom with a cotton swab in her mouth and toilet paper stuck to her back paw.
“Gimme that!” I snatched the cotton swab away from her and Luna dove headfirst into the pile of toilet paper on the floor. She skidded across the floor and ended up bumping against the shower door. “You are a very bad cat,” I said, trying to sound severe.
The cotton swab was all soggy from cat spit, and I immediately threw it in the garbage can. It took me a little while to get all of the toilet paper up off the floor. Both the shredded and the chewed up pieces. Luna trucked around behind me as if she were very pleased with herself. I let her keep the cardboard tubes, she really enjoyed batting those across the floor, and no sooner had the bathroom been put back to rights when I discovered the cat was sitting on the toilet seat with her head stuck in the bowl, drinking the water.
“Oh my god!” I snatched her down, shut the lid and decided I needed to figure out a way to put a latch on that glass-fronted cabinet to keep her out of any more mischief. I carted the bag of shredded and soggy paper products, and the cat, to the kitchen. I set Luna in front of her full bowl of clean water. “This is your water bowl,” I informed her.
