I’d met the witch once or twice over the course of the last year. The last time being when she came to me for spell ingredients and advice on which plants grew best in the area. By now, her witch’s garden should have a good start. That seemed like a good reason for a nice, friendly visit to me.
She opened the door and smiled when she saw me standing there. It was a pleasant change from the normal. Kind of made me feel guilty for not visiting sooner. But then, my family had been rather busy this past year.
Of course, her attention didn’t stay on me for long. Her eyes were immediately drawn to baby Pearl. As I’d known within reason that they would be.
“What an adorable baby girl!” Then she stepped back. “Please, won’t the two of you come in?”
I stepped across her threshold and immediately felt at peace with the world. I didn’t know what kind of cleansing spell she used, but I truly hoped she would be willing to share. Once I got to know her a bit better, of course. One didn't ask a witch to share spells with you until you got to know them. And them you.
With baby Pearl strapped onto my chest, I could feel rather than see her little head turning back and forth, taking everything in. She was a baby. She could get by with that. If I did it, it would be rude. Even though I really, really wanted to.
Patience’s house was just that special. At least her front room was. I was betting the rest of the home would be the same.
“I love your home. This couldn’t have been easy to do.”
She laughed. “It wasn’t.” Then she turned to look at the room with pride. Well-founded pride. The room would have been considered the very height of witchy fashion—about two hundred years ago. “But if you love this look, I’m afraid the rest of the house would be rather a disappointment to you.” She shrugged. “I meet clients here, and they seem to expect all this.”
It took her saying that for my eyes to light on the small round table in the corner. The table itself wasn’t anything special, but I was guessing that the slightly glowing crystal ball at its center was another matter altogether.
“You’re a seer?” I was prepared to be either highly impressed or highly let down. Seers were rare, indeed. But charlatans were not. I was hoping she wasn’t the latter.
Patience ducked her head for a moment. “At the Goddess’s will, yes. Not, unfortunately, all the times I would wish for it.” She paused. “And some of the times I would not.”
I got that. I had always been rather happy the seer gene had skipped my family. It wasn’t nearly as fun as everyone imagined it would be. In fact, it could be quite the opposite.
“For the times the sight fails me, I use Tarot cards. I have quite an extensive collection of decks.” She shrugged. “I pull the one I think is best suited to the individual client. They seem to like that. Not that any of my decks wouldn’t do the job just the same.”
Truth. The picture on the cards wasn’t what mattered at all. It was the meaning behind the image that mattered.
“Did you come for a reading?”
“No.” I wavered. I liked Patience and suddenly pretending to be there for any reason other than the one I was there for just seemed... wrong. And yes, a part of me wondered if that feeling didn’t have something to do with that cleansing spell. Or another one protecting the house. Either way, it worked. “I actually came to ask you if you knew Reverend Castle.”
She arched an eyebrow and laughed. “Oh yes. Quite well, actually.” She led me through a heavily beaded doorway and into a much more modernly furnished kitchen. She motioned to the table. “Have a seat. I’m guessing you’re on lunch. I have some freshly made tuna salad. Would you care to join me for a sandwich?”
“That sounds heavenly. Thank you.”
I watched as she pulled the salad out of the refrigerator and deftly made three sandwiches, then cut them all in half and put them on a plate. Pulling out a large bowl from a cabinet, she filled it with potato chips and then put both plate and bowl on the table.
“Help yourself.”
I did. The woman knew how to make a good tuna salad. And a person could ask for a recipe much easier than a spell. So I did. I got it too.
Afterward, as we sat and munched, she finally looked over at me. “What did you want to know about the good reverend? I didn’t kill him if that’s what you wanted to know. Had no reason to. Our business was in the past.”
I swallowed heavily and took a deep swig of the lemonade she’d poured me. “How far in the past?”
Patience smiled at me. “About twenty-five years or so, I’d say. That’s how old my daughter is, you know.” She winked at me.
I swallowed again. And again. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Unless you’re really slow to get things, yes. And I don’t think that’s the case, by the way. You strike me as an all-together kind of witch. It takes a lot to impress me. You and your family do. That says something.”
“Well, you’re kind of impressive yourself, you know.”
“Why, thank you. I try.” She took a swig of her lemonade. “Reverend Castle wasn’t a very faithful man to his wife, you know. I had no illusions of being his only affair.” She barked out a laugh. “And it sure as the dickens wasn’t no all-consuming passion thing on my part, either. Truth be told, I wanted a child. Not so much the husband part that people tend to think should go with that.”
“Does your daughter live in town too?”
She nodded and looked at me oddly. “She does. I moved back to Wind’s Crossing almost a year ago. Beatrix followed me here a few months later. I believe you know her. The two of you have something strong in common, you know. A certain sheriff?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Trixie the dispatcher is your daughter?”
“She is. And not all that happy that you’re taking the good sheriff off the singles market either. Beatrix had kind of hoped to be doing that herself.” She wrinkled her nose. “Truth be told, I’m glad that didn’t work out. No offense, but he’s far too old for her.”
“Agreed.” But then a lot of younger women went for older guys too. What was the term they used? Sugar daddies. The thought of my Orville being anyone’s sugar daddy was enough to make me smile. But that thought was for another time. Time to get things back on track. “You mentioned that Reverend Castle had other affairs. Any of them bear fruit too?”
Patience lifted a shoulder. “Who knows? A few of them were married women, as I recall. If they did have children by the man, who would know? I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t come forward about it, now would they?”
“Most likely not. Especially seeing as how the reverend was married as well.”
“Exactly. That man might have a few little darlings running around with his bloodline in their veins.”
Not exactly a comforting thought, that. All that meant was that our suspect pool had just gotten larger.
Why couldn’t anything be simple?
The rest of the lunch we just talked about other things, and yes, in the end, I got to see her witch’s garden. I could see the two of us becoming friends. It would be nice to have another friend close by. Especially if said friend was a true seer. One of those could come in handy for Team Destiny. Kind of made me wonder if the Goddess’s hand wasn’t in all of this. In a good way, this time.
When we were done, she walked me and baby Pearl around the outside of the house and to the front porch. She glanced down at baby Pearl for a moment and then back up at me.
“Would you be willing to accept a gift for the baby witch?”
I took a deep breath. No one but me and Sapphire knew who and what baby Pearl was. Not yet, anyway. Or at least, that’s what I had thought until now. And I couldn’t very well dispute that fact, now could I? That bordered on denying my Goddess. Something I would never do.
“I don’t see the harm in that.”
She smiled at us and told us to wait for just a minute. Patience walked into the house and was back out again within seconds. Holding a baby-s
ized broom.
A well-crafted miniature witch’s broom if ever I saw one. Not that I had ever seen one up until now. But it wasn’t hard to recognize it for what it was.
Baby Pearl’s reaction was immediate and ecstatic.
“I’ll take it that means she likes it.” Patience laughed. “The soul in that one is a strong one. I have a feeling you’re going to have your hands full when her magic starts coming on.”
I thanked her for the kind, and extremely fitting, gift and left. What was there to say? It wasn’t like I could admit that baby Pearl’s magic was already blossoming. That was unheard of.
But then again, as a seer, Patience might very well know more about baby Pearl than I was comfortable with.
I’d just have to trust the Goddess on that one.
Chapter 16
I’ll fully admit that my little visit with Patience Goodheart had me more than a little distracted. Not that it was any kind of excuse for what happened next. It simply was a point of fact.
When I got back to the shop, we only had a few minutes before time to open the shop back up. Kimberly was in the front getting ready for the onslaught of our afternoon customers, and baby Pearl and I were in the back.
I put baby Pearl in her little playpen with her broom. That last part was because of her complete insistence. She flat out wasn’t letting go of the darn thing without a total meltdown. So be it. What harm could it do?
Yeah. Wrong way to think on my part.
I turned my back for a split second to put down my purse and get ready to go help Kimberly, and when I turned back... baby Pearl was gone.
So was her broom.
Crapsnackles on steroids!
The curtain between the parts of the shop was still moving, and my heart fell. I raced through into the front shop just in time to see Kimberly turn to take in the sight of her baby flying on a tiny baby-sized broom and cackling wild enough to do any witch proud.
Needless to say, Kimberly went down like a ton of bricks. Luckily, she didn’t hit anything on the way down. A bit of a miracle, that, what with how crowded my shop is.
I ran over to check on her. Once I saw that she was okay and just unconscious, I quickly wrote out a handwritten sign that the shop was closed for the afternoon due to a family emergency. Every word of that was absolutely true.
The very next thing I did? I took away the broom. Yes, caterwauling soon started. So be it. It’s what I should have done to begin with. This wasn’t the way I had planned to break the news about baby Pearl to Kimberly.
I locked the broom away in the closet. Otherwise, it would have been a wasted effort on my part to even take it away. Baby Pearl might be a baby, but she was for sure no lightweight when it came to magic.
Not every witch could ride a broom. In fact, most witches thought it was an impossibility. Which is why Mom had been bound and determined to prove it could be done. And the one magical feat she was probably most proud of in her lifetime.
Apparently, that was going to hold true for this lifetime as well.
Kimberly groaned, and I rushed to her side. Baby Pearl was back in her playpen and hopefully, without her ride, she’d stay there.
“What happened?” Then as her memory came back, her eyes widened, and she crab-walked away from me. Right up until her back was against the counter. “Pearl!”
I swallowed. No way around it this time. “Kimberly, we need to talk.”
Her eyes darted around. “Where is my baby?”
“She’s in her playpen, and I took away the broom. She’s fine.”
Her wild eyes were back on me. “She’s not fine! She was riding a bloody broom!”
Well, yes, there was that.
I reached a hand down to her. “Come on, I think you’ll rest easier if we have this conversation in the back with baby Pearl in plain sight.”
It kind of worried me that she wouldn’t take my hand. Her next words worried me even more.
“Up until now, I have had no issues with you or the whole witchcraft thing, Opal. But this crosses the line. I’ll not have you casting spells on my children. I think we need to leave.”
What? No.
“I didn’t cast the spell, Kimberly. Baby Pearl did. She’s a witch.”
By now Kimberly was standing on her own. “That’s impossible. Magic is in the bloodlines. You’ve told me that yourself. And Pearl’s bloodline doesn’t have an ounce of magic in it.”
I almost had to trot to keep up with her as she moved to the back room. Her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly when she saw baby Pearl safe and sound. That didn’t stop her from grabbing her up and clutching her tight.
Too tight, from baby Pearl’s expression.
“Normally, that’s true, yes. In fact, up until the moment baby Pearl was born, I’d have said that’s just the way true magic worked. But in just this one case, the Goddess chose to make an exception.” I hesitated. “She chose you as baby Pearl’s mother, Kimberly. That’s an honor and a blessing in and of itself. You’re special.”
“I’m not special. And I’m leaving. I’m sorry, Opal. I really do love you... but this is too much.”
Other than by using magic or physical force, I couldn’t very well stop her. Not that I didn’t want to. But perhaps it was better to give the woman some space to come to grips with everything. But there was one other thing she needed to know first. No sense in beating around the bush about it now.
“If you have to leave, I understand. But I hope you’ll not make that a permanent thing. You’re special, Kimberly, that’s true. But baby Pearl? There is a reason the Goddess put my mother’s soul into that baby. I might not know what that reason is, but She does, and I trust my Goddess.”
Kimberly sputtered, but no words came out.
“You think it’s an entire coincidence that you named your baby Pearl? The Goddess had her hand in that, you know. Had to have. And she threw us all together for a good reason too. You’re going to need my help in raising that one, Kimberly. Maybe the help of my whole family. Most witches don’t have access to their magic right off the bat. That doesn’t seem to be the case with baby Pearl.” I was fairly pleading with her by now. “You need me.”
She just stared at me in disbelief. “You’re insane. And all these months, I thought you meant it when you said we were a family. Whatever warped plans you have for Pearl end here.”
And she walked out.
I had really messed things up this time. And I wasn’t at all sure I could make them right again.
I JUST WASN’T UP TO opening the shop back up. Not in the cards. In fact, I was so depressed that I changed out the sign to ‘Closed until further notice’. One less thing to worry about, anyway.
I spent the early afternoon catching up on paperwork and worrying. I’d have to go over the paperwork again once my brain stopped reeling, but I had to have something to do. When it was time to pick the kids up at school, I left.
When Nancy came out to the car, she was in a state. “Where’s Mason? I couldn’t find him, and his teacher said Kim took him out of class early. Is everything okay?”
I took a deep breath and waited until she was in the car before turning to meet her gaze. “Not really. Baby Pearl let the magical cat out of the bag today. Kimberly is not taking it well.” To put it mildly.
“Oh.” Nancy’s face fell, and she turned to look out the window. “Are they still at the farmhouse?”
“We’ll soon find out. I’ve been trying to give her some space.”
Nancy nodded, then we both spent the rest of the short trip in silence. What was there left to say?
When we pulled in the drive, they were still there. But only just. Kimberly was putting the last box in the trunk of her car when we arrived.
That wouldn’t do at all.
Nancy and I got out, and Nancy ran over to Kimberly and threw her arms around her. “Please don’t go, Kim. You need us... and we need you guys.”
A quick glimpse at Mason showed that he didn’t have a cl
ue what was going on. The good thing was, he didn’t seem to be too upset about it. That was something. I was beyond fond of that boy, too, for the record.
I walked up to her. “If your mind is set on leaving, at least take your van.”
She shook her head, not looking at me. “I won’t do that. The sheriff said it was mine, I know, but things are different now. I won’t have it said I took advantage of you in any way.”
I grunted. “Anyone says that, and I’ll deal with them.” Then I stepped a little closer and lowered my voice. “I’m guessing you’re heading to Gray’s trailer, and the roads are curvy and a bit tricky. The van is safer. Please take it. Whatever you might think of me right now, I love you all. And I want you safe. Always have and always will.”
Her eyes met mine for a split second, then she nodded. Taking a risk on her life was one thing. Taking a risk on the lives of her children was another altogether. “Fine. But you tell the sheriff I’ll be coming up with a way to pay him back.”
That didn’t sound good. That sounded like this was a more permanent move than what I’d hoped for. Hopefully, I’d be able to change her mind over time. The thought of baby Pearl being without a witch to guide her right now was more than slightly terrifying.
I knew what that child was capable of. Kimberly and Gray didn’t.
We transferred all the boxes and bags over to the van in silence. Well, except for the sounds of Nancy and Mason’s crying. Mason had been okay with it... up until he found out that Nancy wasn’t. Then the waterworks had started.
It was all I could to not to join them.
My phone rang just as the van was pulling out of the drive and onto the road. I glanced at it. I wasn’t really in the mood for conversation right now. But it was Amie. You always took calls from family. It was just too risky not to.
“Yes, Amie?”
“Hey, Opal. I went through those video files and even managed to dig up one that the sheriff’s deputy missed. Hit the jackpot on that one too. It shows two people in the area around the time of death. But I don’t know either of them. I blew up the footage and sent it to you by email. You should have it now.”
Witch of a Bride (Witch Reborn, #3) Page 10
