A Charming Ghost (Magical Cures Mystery Series)

by Tonya Kappes

  Darla must’ve known something was up because she let me keep him. He turned out to be my fairy-god cat, protecting me by giving me the charms, but somehow I always got dragged into crazy situations where people ended up dead.

  There was no time to worry about this now. I had a full day of work and potions to make. The Christmas bazaar was in a couple of days and I hadn’t even taken out the decorations from the attic of the shop, much less decorate the window display that the village council had requested already be done.

  There was just too much to do to worry about a little ole charm, I told myself to feel a little better.

  I took my hand from my charm bracelet and ran it across the framed photo from my wedding where Oscar and I were grinning ear-to-ear, Aunt Helena next to me, and Eloise next to Oscar. It was all the family we had. I had the perfect spot I wanted to hang it in the shop. Right on the wall next to the only other framed photo that was of my mom and dad. The only photo I had of them together.

  I grabbed the hammer from underneath the counter and a small tack. I centered the frame perfectly under my parents’ photo. Careful not to smash my fingers, I slowly nailed the tack and hung the wedding photo. It was exactly the right spot.

  “You-whoo! June!” The voice could be heard, but the person was not seen. “Excuse me. Excuse me.” A little louder, and a little louder, and then finally, “Excuse me!”

  The customers parted and Constance Karima waddled past them and up to the counter. Her beady green eyes focused on me. Her white hair set in tight curls around her head, her glasses pushed up on the bridge of her nose, and her blue house dress swooshed with each heavy step.

  “I am fed up to here!” Constance hand flew up to her neck in a karate chopping motion. “I’m not kidding.”

  “I can see that.” I bit my lips together trying not to smile. My teeth clenched, pinching my skin together in more pain that I wanted. But the wrath of Constance would be worse. “How can I help you?”

  “I told you a couple of months ago that my sister was nuts. One-hundred percent crazy and I know you got a little taste of it at your wedding.” Her right eyelid lowered, her left brow cocked. She searched my face for a reaction.

  “No.” Slowly I shook my head, denying anything that I did see. It was between me and Patience Karima, Constance’s twin sister. Exact twin.

  “I came to you before your wedding and asked for your help.” She jabbed the counter with her finger. “Now I am demanding your help! Demanding!”

  “Shhh.” I came from behind the counter when I noticed she had gotten some of the customers’ attention. “This is not to be discussed here. This is a matter of the spiritual world,” I leaned over and whispered into her ear. “You and I both know that rule number one in the by-laws state that no other spiritualist can read the other unless given permission.”

  “I’m giving you permission.” She drew her finger up to her chest. “I have a funeral taking place next week and you have to get down there today and fix her. She is talking to herself, giggling out of her mind, and playing with that stupid ostrich.” She huffed a sigh and crossed her arms over her chest. “If you don’t fix her crazy, I’ll never get this funeral together in a week.”

  The twins owned Two Sisters and a Funeral. It was the only funeral home in Whispering Falls and since we didn’t have a lot of people dying, the village council allowed other surrounding counties to use the funeral home as well. And I must admit that it probably didn’t look good if one of the funeral directors was acting a little coo-coo.

  “You know that you can’t do that,” I said, and she opened her mouth to protest, I put my hand up to stop her. “But,” her mouth snapped shut. “If it makes you feel any better, I will go see her and talk to her.”

  “Well,” she turned her chin to the side and then up in the air, “it might make me feel a little better.”

  I placed my hand on the side of her arm and gave her a little squeeze.

  “Good.” I nodded. “I’ll see if I can get Faith to come in after she does her deliveries and watch over the shop for a few minutes. I’m not guaranteeing anything.”

  Even though Constance accepted what I had told her I would do, I could tell by her snapping eyes that she wasn’t all that happy.

  I sucked in a deep breath. The smell of money floated around my head, up my nose, and past my shoulders over to an older man in the corner of the shop near the front windows.

  “If you’ll excuse me. I have a customer who needs my help.” I gave Constance one last pat before I walked around her and over to the gentleman.

  He stood about my height, five-foot-eight, had a thin build and wore a pair of brown khakis, brown loafers, a blue overcoat. His blond hair was short on the sides and spiked in the front with a little gel to look stylish.

  “Good morning.” I smiled and noticed he was looking at the stress-free lotions I had recently sold in the Head To Toe Works Store in a national deal.

  Ever since the product hit the shelves of the national chain, A Charming Cure’s front door had almost become one of those revolving doors in those fancy hotels.

  “That is Gentle June’s and a little dab will do you.” The product here in the store was much different than the one I had created for Head To Toe Works.

  My homeopathic spiritual gift was much better in person. Take this guy, he was looking at the stress-free lotions, which obviously means he was stressed. About what? Family? Job? Fire? Who knew? But I did. The lingering smell of money around him, which his body was emitting, told me how he was stressed about money. When someone was stressed about money, it only made the situation worse.

  Given the age that he looked, I was under the assumption his money issues were probably related to retirement or not having enough for retirement.

  My job was to put a little extra something in the bottle to not let him stress so much, prioritize his life or his situation and let the money begin to flow back into his world. I’d help him by adding a little extra to his bottle of stress-free lotion using my cauldron hidden behind the counter. That was how the magic in my shop worked.

  The Head To Toe Works bottles worked differently. I was obviously not able to go to everyone’s home who had purchased the product, so I had to put the magic in the bottle. When the customer touched the bottle, the bottle created the magic inside combining with the lotion. It’s very hard to understand, but that was how magic worked. At least in my world.

  “I feel a little weird coming in here.” The customer glanced around. “I mean, it’s all women,” he whispered.

  “So. Everyone gets stressed and most men wouldn’t recognize it.” I snapped my finger and pointed at him. “That is why you are going to have an advantage over all the men in your industry.”

  “I already do.” His shoulders shrugged when he laughed. “There are a lot of secrets in my industry.” His emphasis on industry caused my gut to knot and my pulse quicken. He smiled, softening his face. “I mean that in a good way.”

  “In that case.” I plucked the lotion from his hands. “I’ve got just what you need. I’ll be right back.”

  My mind reeled with what his job might be, but asking him would be plain nosy. I was the answer to his problem, otherwise he wouldn’t be in my shop and my intuition wouldn’t have gone off. I could help him, but it was up to him to carry out the application of the potion.

  The other customers in the store were content and occupied with all the different cures around the shop so I had time to start the guy’s special lotion for his money troubles.

  My eyes slid down to the floor where Mr. Prince Charming’s tail was sticking out from underneath the table skirt. I walked behind the counter and grabbed my bag off the stool before disappearing behind the partition where my cauldron was hidden from the world.

  Behind me was a couple of shelves. One held different ingredients; things like bat eye lashes, fish scales, Antimony tartrate, arsenic trioxide and flecks of human skin. And the other shelf held many different sizes, sha
pes, and colors of potion bottles.

  I flipped the cauldron switch and proceeded to run my finger down the shelf of ingredients. With the customer in mind and the smell of money, the perfect ingredients would appear.

  “Bushmaster snake.” The bag with bits of the snake glowed. Without question, I picked the cloth bag up and continued down the line. “Thujua occidentalis?” I questioned when the bottle of wart remover glowed. Down the line I went and reached the last ingredient. “Calendula officinalis?”

  I gulped and picked it up placing it next to the other two near the cauldron. None of these ingredients made sense to me. The Bushmaster snake was mostly used in a wide range of issues, so that wasn’t so shocking, but the thujua occidentalis and calendula officinalis were alarming.

  Thujua occidentalis was mainly used in warts and chronic conditions, and calendula officinalis was used in healing wounds. None of these were used with stressful money issues.

  I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. The smell of money was even more fragrant as the air filled my lungs. There was no way my intuition was off. There was more to this man than I knew, but he was here for one thing and according to my gift, he needed help with money.

  I shook off my doubt and grabbed the Bushmaster first. Carefully I pulled on the cloth bag’s drawstrings and pinched a piece of the snake off, throwing it into the cauldron.

  The cauldron glowed a deep green and immediately began to bubble. I used the ladle next to the cauldron to stir, staying in tune with my intuition. Next I added in the thujua occidentalis and watched the potion smoke and turn amber in color. The smell of cotton candy flew from the pot and caused me to jerk my head. The sugary treat made my mouth water even though I hadn’t had any cotton candy since Darla had taken me and Oscar to a traveling carnival in Locust Grove when we were children.

  “What on earth?” I gulped. Something was off.

  “June! Where are you?” I heard Faith Mortimer call from inside the shop.

  I peeked my head around the partition and saw Faith next to the door. She was filling the cauldron with the apple cider and strategically placing the order of June’s Gems on the three-tier plate.

  I glanced back at the cauldron and quickly stirred it. I ran my hands down my apron, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and went to greet Faith.

  “Here you go.” She smiled sweetly at one of the customers who came to get a sample of the cider. “Do you like Ding Dongs?” The customer nodded. “Then you have to have a June’s Gem.” She handed the customer one of the chocolaty treats named after me. “You will love it.”

  My go-to stress relief wasn’t my own concoction of ingredients; it was the delicious treat of the Ding Dong. When Faith and her sister, Raven, moved to Whispering Falls to open Wicked Good Bakery, Raven made her own take on the Ding Dong and named them after me, June’s Gem.

  I grabbed one and shoved it in my mouth.

  “Umm. Stressed?” Faith pulled back. Her long blond hair was pulled up in a high pony. Her onyx eyes watched me intently.

  “A little.” My eyes slid over to the gentleman. Something wasn’t right with him, but it wasn’t my job to fix all his problems, just the ones my intuition clued in on. “But I’m sure it will all be fine.” I smiled. “Thank you for bringing these by. Are you busy today?”

  “Oh gosh, extremely. Raven has me running two trips to Locust Grove’s Piggly Wiggly today.” She pointed out the window to the car with the big plastic cupcake on top. The pink and light green Wicked Good Bakery logo was printed across the side panels of the car.

  “If you get finished early, do you think you could come by here this afternoon and man the shop?” I asked.

  Faith was the only one in our village who I trusted working in A Charming Cure. She’d done it so many times before and I kept her on my payroll for these just-in-case times. Patience Karima was one of those just-in-case times.

  “I’d be happy too.” Her mouth twisted. “Because I have yet to hear anything for the paper.” She tapped her ears.

  Faith’s spiritual gift was Clairaudience. She was able to hear things beyond the natural sense of hearing. She clearly heard words from other spirits, guides or angels in some magical way. This made her perfect for the job as the Whispering Falls Gazette’s editor, our local paper. Only the paper wasn’t in paper form, it was through wind and only for spiritualists to hear.

  “I wondered why I hadn’t gotten the news today.” Most days the Gazette was delivered to me as I walked down for work in the morning. She and her sister lived above the bakery in their own apartment.

  “Yeah.” She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Isn’t that strange?” I asked and handed a cup of steamy apple cider to a customer who walked through the door. “Please enjoy.” I smiled and stepped to the side to let them pass.

  “Maybe a little strange, but it’s winter and Christmas, which really isn’t our big holiday, so maybe things are quiet.” She shrugged. “I better get going. I’ll be back this afternoon to help out.”

  “Thanks!” I waved her off and looked around the shop. Satisfied that everyone was okay, I walked back to the counter and disappeared behind the partition. The potion was moving in a wave-like way. I took the cork top off the thujua occidentalis, adding a couple of dashes to the cauldron and a couple sprinkles of the calendula officinalis. The potion swirled; the murky, viscous substance turned silver and smelled like money.

  Satisfied, I turned around and ran my finger down the bottle shelf until the brown, masculine bottle glowed tan. The bottles picked their owner and even though my intuition had a little hiccup, everything was coming together for the client.

  I flipped the cauldron off and held the brown bottle over the cauldron, letting the potion pour into the container. I cleaned up the bottle and quickly wrote the instructions on a piece of paper.

  When I came from behind the partition, the man was standing near the counter looking at my wedding photo.

  “Did you just recently get married?” he asked.

  “How can you tell?” I wondered.

  “Your hair looks the same.” He was very observant. “Is that your mother?”

  “Oh no.” I pointed to Aunt Helena. “That is my aunt and this is my husband, Sheriff Oscar Park, and his Aunt Eloise.”

  “Where are their husbands?” he asked.

  “Good grief.” I joked, “No man is going to marry them.” I rolled my eyes. “They are set in their ways if you know what I mean.”

  “Your husband is the sheriff?” He drew back. The lines in the corner of his eyes deepened. He had to be older than he looked. “Very cool.”

  “He is a good guy.” I held the bottle out to him. He didn’t take it immediately, he just stood in front of the photo and stared. I spoke, “These are the instructions. You just use a dab on your lips like lip balm. It’s amazing. You are going to love it.”

  “Lip balm, huh?” His eyes narrowed when he looked at me as if he were studying me.

  “Just as easy as that.” I handed him the bottle.

  “Thank you very much.” He handed me the cash. Our fingers touched, sending a shock of energy between us. A hazy warning breezed past me.

  He didn’t seem to notice and took the bottle. I stayed a couple of steps behind him on his way out. I pulled back the curtain in the display window and peeked around it.

  The man jogged down the steps, the snow not hindering him at all. There was a smile on his face and he nodded his head as other customers passed him on the way in.

  Abruptly he stopped when he nearly knocked over Petunia Shrubwood as she was heading toward her shop, Glorybee Pet Shop.

  She and he exchanged glances. Their eyes traded a string of confusion as if there was something between them. I watched as they brushed each other off and went on their separate ways.

  Chapter Four

  By the end of the morning, the bustling snow had given way to a lone flying flake here and there, leaving a lovely thin blanket of snow on the
sidewalks. The carriage lights had a thick layer on the steeple and the wreaths Arabella had made to hang on the each one had a dusting on the greenery. It was like I was back in Locust Grove, getting ready to celebrate the holidays.

  Everyone in Whispering Falls had been reluctant over the past couple of years to do the Holiday Bazaar, but the turnout was so great, so helping to boost the economy the village council had decided to do it again.

  I didn’t mind because I loved celebrating all things Christmas, and dragging the boxes labeled “Christmas decorations” down from the attic really did put a spring in my step.

  I dragged the box with the Christmas tree and decorations to the front of the shop where the window display would go and headed back to the counter. I pulled Madame Torres out of my bag and looked around the shop one more time to make sure there were no customers around.

  “Good afternoon.” I tapped on the glass ball.

  “I cannot believe you woke me up at the God awful hour of four in the morning.” Madame Torres was such an exaggerator. Her head appeared in the globe. Her eyelids heavy with purple eye shadow. Her lips lined with red, she spoke, “A girl of my age has to have her beauty sleep.”

  “And just how old are you?” I maneuvered into unchartered territory. I had no idea how old she was. In fact, I’d never asked.

  Mystic Lights was the first shop I had gone into when I first came to Whispering Falls. I had gone to see Isadora Solstice about opening a shop here after she’d found me in Locust Grove. When I walked into the light store, I had no idea I was a spiritualist and I was about to be informed of my heritage. Madame Torres glowed every time I had gotten near her. And to my knowledge, or so I was told, crystal balls and their owners are destined only for each other for life.

  Unfortunately, Madame Torres can be a little snarky at times and I loved to threaten her by telling her I’d take her to a flea market for someone to buy as a paperweight because she and I both knew she wouldn’t be able to show herself unless she belonged to me.