magic potion 03 - ghost of a potion

by blake, heather

  “And you know what day tomorrow is,” I reminded my mother.

  Halloween.

  Come midnight, my peaceful little witchy world would be on its way to hell in a handbasket.

  At the reminder, a chill swept down my spine one vertebra at a time, raising goose bumps in its wake.

  Halloween marked the day when some sort of between-world portal opened, and a few spirits started rising from their graves, followed by even more the next day—All Saints’ Day—but it was All Souls’ Day, November second, that made me want to hide under my bed like Roly and Poly did during a thunderstorm.

  Because this was my storm. A ghostly one.

  All Souls’ Day, a religious holy day spent praying for the dead, was when the majority of spirits who hadn’t yet been able to cross over for whatever reason rose from their graves and began wandering around looking for anyone to help them. Only a select few could even see the ghosts, and once eye contact was made, that was it. There was no getting rid of them until they saw the light . . . or until the portal closed again at midnight, November third.

  For empaths, however, there was an added element to this ghostly dilemma. We could see them, and we could also feel them . . . what killed them, specifically. Although I had a charmed locket that helped me block unwanted energy from others, it was absolutely powerless against spirits. My best defense was to avoid them altogether.

  Because of that, later today I’d close the shop for the night, and I wouldn’t be back until Wednesday morning, November third. During that time, my daddy and my best friend, Ainsley, would cover the shop in my absence.

  I planned to hole up at home, lock my doors and windows, pull the shades, put on noise-canceling headphones and hide until it was safe to come out.

  Mama let out a gusty breath. “Yes, I know. But that’s not until midnight. Plenty of time to make an appearance, talk up your daddy’s numerous qualifications, and get home before your carriage turns into a pumpkin.”

  I glanced out the front window in time to see a miniature zombie waddle past the front of the shop, quickly followed by a vampire, two ice princesses, and a tall witch with a long black cape flowing out behind her.

  In celebration of Halloween the town was hosting a big to-do all weekend. Today’s events included a treasure hunt, a jack-o’-lantern contest, and of course—because Hitching Post was the wedding capital of the South—numerous ghoulish weddings.

  The witch peeled off from the rest of the pack and opened the door to the shop, a basket holding a little black dog looped over one arm, a garment bag draped over the other.

  This time of year might be the only time of year my cousin, black magic witch Delia Bell Barrows, who wore that cape year-round, fit in with a crowd.

  Delia came to a dead stop at the box in the middle of the floor, and Poly’s gray paw poked through the cutout handle as though waving hello.

  Lifting a pale thin eyebrow, she glanced at me, amusement in her ice blue eyes.

  “Mama,” I said, “I’ve got to go. Someone just came in.” She didn’t need to know it was a social visit and not a customer.

  Delia set the basket on the floor, and her dog, Boo—a black Yorkie-mix—hopped out and immediately started sniffing the box. Poly stuck his arm farther out of the hole to tap Boo’s head. Bop, bop, bop.

  “But Carly! We’re not—”

  “I’ll see you tonight, Mama. At the party.”

  “Wait!” she exclaimed. “What did you say?”

  “I’ll be there. I’m Dylan’s plus one.”

  Her voice rose to a twangy falsetto. “Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”

  I’d been known on occasion to incite my mother just to see her get all fired up. It was that mischievous streak in me. “I’ve got to go, Mama.”

  “Fine. But, Carly?” she said, sugar sweet.

  “Yes?” I slumped over the counter, exhausted from this conversation.

  “Be sure to leave your pitchfork at home.”

  My pitchfork was my home-protection weapon of choice. It had gotten a lot of use over the past six months, what with a couple of murder cases I’d been wrapped up in. It was also what I’d used when I forked Patricia Davis Jackson in her aerobically toned tush. I’d been tempted to smuggle it into the party tonight just for old times’ sake. “But—”

  “Tonight has to be perfect,” Mama continued. “Our family must paint the picture of propriety.”

  That was going to take a very large canvas and a small miracle. My family was anything but proper. “I can’t make any promises.”

  “So help me, Carly Bell, if you raise a ruckus . . . There must be no scenes, no drama, no nothing, y’hear?”

  “I hear, I hear!”

  Delia smiled. Clearly, she heard, too. Lordy be, people over in Huntsville could probably hear.

  Before she could say anything else, I quickly said, “I’ll see you later, Mama!” and hung up.

  No scenes. No drama. No ruckus.

  Shoo. I couldn’t help but think my mama had just jinxed this party seven ways to Sunday.

  Maybe this shindig wasn’t going to be as deadly boring as I had thought.

  Which was just fine by me—I loved a front-row seat to drama.

  Just as long as it didn’t turn out plain ol’ deadly . . .

  Chapter Two

  “I still can’t believe you’re going to this party,” Delia said, carrying the garment bag over to me.

  Despite the fact that up until six months ago Delia had been my nemesis, she knew me well.

  “Word is the guest list tops two hundred and fifty,” she added, concern etching her gaze.

  I understood why she was worried. As an empath, someone who can feel other people’s physical ailments and emotions, I used my gift to diagnose my customers by reading their energy. I then used that information along with my witchy heritage to create the perfect potion to cure that client. But that was on a one-on-one basis in a comfortable, controlled environment here in the shop. It was a situation where I had the ability to turn on and off my abilities at will, which was something I’d worked years to achieve.

  Large gatherings, however, were another matter altogether and gave me nothing but anxiety. Just thinking about it made me reach for the engraved silver locket that hung from a long chain around my neck. It was a protection charm gifted to me by my Grammy Adelaide when I was born. It gave me the ability to block overwhelming energy in my immediate surroundings so I could lead a somewhat normal life without being consumed by the idiosyncrasies of those around me. Over the years it had become a bit of a security blanket as well; I often held it out of habit and for comfort.

  Unfortunately, my charmed locket wasn’t foolproof, and it was especially weak when I was in a crowd.

  Delia knew all this, because she was an empath, too, a characteristic passed on through the women in our family, straight from my great-great-grandmother Leila Bell, who’d been an empath and hoodoo practitioner who’d died tragically.

  “Dylan,” I said simply. “He wants nothing more than for Patricia and me to patch up our relationship.” I wasn’t sure that was possible, but for him I’d try. The things I did for love. “And my daddy might need my help keeping Mama under control.”

  “Impossible,” Delia said with a smirk. “On both counts.”

  She knew Patricia and my mama well, too.

  Delia and I had been estranged growing up, the result of a family fight over the legacy of this shop’s secrets: The charmed Leilara drops and the herbal recipes that made my potions magical.

  The Hartwell family’s magical secrets had always been passed down through the eldest child in the family. Currently that was my daddy, but because he wasn’t an empath, he had opted to turn his role in the family business over to me as soon as I was old enough.

  That decision had sent my aunt Neige into a fury, because she believed that if the role was to be turned over to anyone, it should be her. And if not her, then to Delia, who’d technically been
gestationally older than I had been on the day we were born, because Delia had been full term while I’d been born two months prematurely. Prematurely . . . six full minutes before my cousin.

  When denied her request by Grammy Adelaide, Neige rebelled by embracing the dark magic half of our heritage that came from our great-great-grandfather Abraham Leroux, a voodoo practitioner. She eventually opened a shop in Hitching Post that specialized in selling hexes, a store Delia now owned after her mama followed love to New Orleans.

  The rift between the siblings had divided the Hartwell family for thirty years until last May when Delia had extended an olive branch to me, and I’d grabbed on to it with both hands.

  Worry lines creased the corners of Delia’s eyes as she said, “You do know there’s a family cemetery on the Ezekiel property, right?”

  Another shiver went down my spine. “Don’t remind me.”

  Holding on to her own charmed locket, an identical to mine given to her by Grammy as well, she said, “You know, they’re not planning to hurt you. They just want your help.”

  They.

  The ghosts.

  We had opposing approaches on how to deal with the spirits. “You can help them,” I said. “I’m hunkering down. Battening the hatches. I have DVDs aplenty and enough peanut butter to survive the ghostpocalypse.”

  “I will help them,” she said brusquely. “I always do.”

  Despite our similar appearances (same age, both blond—though different shades, same nose, same jawline, same height, same nail-biting habit), underneath I’d always believed us to be fundamentally different. Delia had grown up embracing dark magic, while I embraced white magic. She was hexes, I was potions. She created pain, I healed it. Good versus evil.

  However, in the time that I’d grown to know her, I was coming to believe she was more like me than not. I eyed her. “Isn’t this a switch? There might be a healer in you yet.”

  Thin eyebrows snapped downward. “Don’t tell my mama.”

  Delia didn’t really have to worry. I hadn’t spoken to my aunt Neige in . . . ever. “My lips are sealed.”

  Tapping black-tipped fingernails on the counter, Delia said, “You should think about helping the ghosts again. They have so little time before being sent back to their graves for another year.”

  I had been in my late teens when I learned I had the ability to help the ghosts, and I did assist them. Right up until seven years ago when I discovered that not all ghosts were friendly. I’d come across one who had wanted only to wreak havoc while out of his grave and it nearly did me in. The toxic energy had been so overwhelming that I’d lost all sense of myself, and only an intervention from Grammy Adelaide had helped rid me of the spirit.

  It had taken nearly a month to feel somewhat normal again after that incident. “Been there, done that, never going back, you can keep the T-shirt, thankyouverymuch.”

  “It’s not like you to give up, Carly. You’re a fighter,” Delia added, her gaze intense as she studied me.

  That was true, but . . . “Courage isn’t always about fighting the battle. Sometimes it’s knowing when to surrender. I’ll leave the ghosts to you,” I said, watching Poly continue to abuse poor Boo in the name of fun and games. “But truly, you should consider hibernating with me. I’ll share my peanut butter.”

  After all, I didn’t want her meeting up with a bad ghost, either. Sure, the chances that she would were slim. Grammy Adelaide had said experiencing a spirit like that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and that I shouldn’t worry so much, but to me the risk of helping them wasn’t worth it.

  “You can’t let one bad experience taint the situation, Carly,” Delia pressed. “The need is greater than the fear. If you just give it another chance . . .”

  The fact that she was still trying to talk me into giving ghost counseling another go told me a lot about her character.

  Not only was she trying to help the ghosts, but she was trying to help me overcome a fear.

  There was definitely a healer in her.

  And that meant there might just be some hope to bring her over from the dark side . . .

  “Why are you smiling like that?” She eyed me suspiciously.

  I said, “No reason.”

  “You’re touched in the head—you know that?”

  “Oh, I’m aware.”

  “Fine,” she said on a long sigh. “I’ll let the ghost thing go . . . for now.”

  “Thank you. I have enough to worry about with this party tonight.” Eagerly, I rubbed my hands together. “Can I see the dress now?”

  Nodding, she said, “You have a petticoat, right?”

  “Aunt Eulalie’s letting me borrow one of hers.”

  “Why am I not surprised she owns more than one?”

  Laughing, I said, “The only reason I’m not getting her hoop skirt is because she’ll be using it tonight.”

  Of my mama’s three sisters—fraternal triplets known around town as the Odd Ducks—Eulalie Fowl was the most theatrical of them all. There was little she liked more than playing dress up, and knowing so, I’d scored her a date to tonight’s shindig with Mr. Wendell Butterbaugh, the caretaker of the Ezekiel mansion, who was one of my best customers. I’d been trying to matchmake her for months, but she was a difficult woman to please. Although he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, he had a good heart. I hoped it would be enough for my picky aunt.

  “Are Marjie and Hazel going tonight, too?” Delia asked.

  “Aunt Hazel said she’d rather eat the dirt straight out of her garden than attend a party thrown by the Harpies, and Aunt Marjie is out of town.”

  The corner of Delia’s mouth lifted. “That’s right. The cruise. Have you heard from her at all?”

  Somehow—and I still wasn’t sure how—my curmudgeonly aunt Marjie had been talked into going on a Caribbean cruise by her boyfriend, Johnny Braxton. I fully expected to get a call any day now that one of them had pushed the other overboard.

  To say they had an unusual relationship was putting it mildly.

  “No,” I said, “but I’ve been keeping an eye on news reports.”

  Delia laughed and I took a moment to enjoy the sound of it. She didn’t laugh often.

  “Well, they’re both missing out, because you’re going to look gorgeous in this dress.” With a flourish, she pulled the ball gown from the garment bag. Turned out she knew someone who created period costumes and was willing to lend me a gown that made me look like I’d stepped back in time to the Civil War era. Delia had picked up the dress for me earlier today.

  Blinking, I tried to take in all its beauty. Made of ivory silk moiré, it had delicate off-the-shoulder cap sleeves, a cinched waist, a gently pleated skirt, and the most beautiful gold floral appliqué along the hemline.

  “It’s too pretty to wear,” I said.

  Delia eyed it. “It could pass as a wedding gown, should you and Dylan get the urge to run off and elope again.”

  “Been there, done that,” I repeated, laughing.

  Smiling, she said, “Yeah, but think of how much it would upset Patricia.”

  There was that . . . but still. Dylan and I were in a good place in our relationship. We didn’t need to go ruining it by bringing up marriage. Again.

  “Speaking of which,” Delia said, pointing a finger at me. “If you get blood on the dress, you own it. And it costs a pretty penny.”

  “Blood?” My voice rose. “Who said anything about blood?”

  Apparently worried by my tone of voice, Roly popped her light gray head out of the box and looked at me. I smiled at her, and seemingly appeased, she ducked back down. Poly continued to bop poor Boo on the head.

  Running a finger along a cap sleeve, Delia said, “If you’re going to be there, and Patricia’s going to be there, a risk of bleeding is not out of the question.”

  Despite trying to keep her tone light, I heard an undercurrent of a warning in her voice. I said, “I call dibs on no bloodshed tonight, okay? Patricia and I are tr
ying to be civil.”

  Pulling her hand back from the dress, she frowned. “You can call dibs all you want, but there will be bloodshed tonight.”

  Suddenly a large knot of worry formed in my stomach. “You had a dream, didn’t you?” It came out as more an accusation than a question. Delia’s dreams were akin to a crystal ball of doom. They foretold of bad things to come.

  With a spark in her eyes, she bit a nail and said, “I might have seen something.”

  “Like?”

  In one long drawn-out breath, as though she was offering up the winning theory in a game of Clue, she said, “Patricia Davis Jackson with a bloody silver candlestick in her hand bending over a body.”

  “My body?” I asked, eyes wide. I mean, dang, I knew Patricia hated me, but whacking me with a candlestick was taking our feud a bit far.

  “Not yours,” Delia shook her head. “Not this time at least.”

  That didn’t make me feel better.

  “Then who?” I needed to tell Dylan about this. He knew Delia and took her warnings seriously, and as an investigator for the Darling County Sheriff’s office, he would want to step in before his mama did something that got her locked up.

  If I was being completely honest, I had to admit that as much as I didn’t like the woman, I didn’t want to see Patricia go to prison, either.

  Much.

  “I’m not sure,” Delia said. “It was dark, and Patricia’s big blue dress blocked a lot of the scene, but the person had brown hair, and there was blood pooling near the head. All I can tell you for certain is that it was nine thirty.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Tucking a strand of pale blond hair behind her ear, she said, “There was a grandfather clock next to Patricia. Can you believe she’d hit someone with a candlestick?”

  Yes, yes I could.

  “Maybe it was an act of self-defense,” Delia went on. “Or temporary insanity.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. There was a side to Patricia Davis Jackson few knew—a dark, dangerous side. I bit my thumbnail.