by Amy Boyles
“Is it?” she said without enthusiasm.
“Yeah, it’s like the whole place is covered in a layer of dirt. Very weird. Oops, looks like one side of a building just collapsed.”
It didn’t, but it would irk my mother that I was magicking up soul mates in a town she hated.
“You know, Charming…” I could hear the frantic lilt in her voice. “It doesn’t sound very safe there. Perhaps you should leave.”
“Nope, not leaving. Too much to do. It’s a very needy place. Besides, Jimmy is missing.”
“That’s terrible, but you don’t understand. You really shouldn’t be there.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mama, just because I’m actually in a magical town that you don’t approve of, doesn’t give you the right to start telling me where I should and shouldn’t be. I’m a grown woman, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been making my way in life by myself for a while now. I appreciate your concern—”
“I’m sending your great-aunt Rose.”
I stopped dead. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“I would. I can’t leave Nepal for a few more days, so I won’t be there to help you until then.”
“Help me? What are you talking about?” I clutched my phone. I wanted to throw it across the street but stopped myself. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need Aunt Rose’s help.”
“That’s enough. I won’t hear any arguing, young lady. It’s all settled. She should be there in a few hours. Good-bye.”
“Dang it!” I growled at the phone and fisted it toward the air. I stopped and looked around. Witches ambling down the street threw me puzzled looks.
Hoisting the phone toward them, I shrugged. “My mother.”
That seemed a good enough excuse. They returned to ignoring me.
Great. My mother was coming to Witch's Forge—and so was my aunt.
Awesome.
I slid into my car, cranked the engine and headed down Wind Avenue.
“Let’s hope something good happens soon,” I grumbled. “Because right now I feel like disappearing the same as Jimmy.”
The air area of town was exactly what I expected. Every wind witch I’d ever met in my life was, to be quite honest, either hippie-dippie or an airhead—no pun intended.
So when I pulled up to a row of cottages topped with wind sails blowing in the breeze, I wasn’t surprised.
The kudzu grew here, too, and the trees sagged. They were wilted as if they didn’t have enough nutrients. My brows pinched in concern as I inched down the street.
Swirls and ornate lacy carvings covered the homes. Brightly painted swooshes reminiscent of air symbols splashed the sides of cottages, and great colorful sails floated in the breeze, looking like flags dancing in the sky.
A circle of witches practiced yoga beside a fountain. I parked and got out.
The first witch I’d seen, a tall woman with frizzy hair and large, shiny jewelry that covered her earlobes, neck, and wrists, smiled kindly.
“Well hey there. We’re so glad to have you here in the wind section of Witch's Forge. Tell me, are you an air witch?”
I squirmed. “I’m Charming Calhoun, the matchmaker.”
She blinked at me blankly. “But are you an air witch?”
Ugh. I’d forgotten the prejudice of witches. Witches—all witches, liked to stay with their own kind. “No, I’m a water witch.”
Her smile tightened. She automatically didn’t like me because I wasn’t like her—wasn’t an air witch. Even hippy dippies had their issues.
“I’m looking for Belinda Ogle. Do you know where I can find her?”
“I’m Autumn. Come with me.”
I followed Autumn past the houses. “So you’re the one who the mayor has hired to save our little town.”
I rolled my eyes. “So I guess the cat’s out of the bag.”
She turned, a sly smile on her face. “There’s no saving this town by using a matchmaker. It’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”
Autumn walked quickly, and I scrambled to keep up. “Then what do you think the problem is?”
She stopped at a cherry-red door and knocked. “I believe the problem is that the magic is running dry. It’s as simple as that.”
I’d opened my mouth to question what she could mean when the door opened.
A small woman with wavy dark hair, cocoa-colored skin and large velvety brown eyes greeted us.
“This is Belinda,” Autumn said by way of introduction. “Belinda, meet Charming, the new matchmaker.”
Belinda took one look at me. Her gaze washed from my head to feet. She opened her mouth to say something and then shook her head and slammed the door.
My gaze darted to Autumn. “What am I missing?”
She laughed and knocked again. “Come on, Belinda. Come meet her.”
“I will not. She’s going to try to put me with that horrible Langdon again.”
I peeled open Jimmy’s file and scanned it. On paper, Langdon Huggins appeared to be the perfect soul mate to Belinda.
“Excuse me.” I gently brushed past Autumn and rapped on the door. “Miss Ogle, I know you don’t know me, but it’s my magical system that matched you with Mr. Huggins. It doesn’t make mistakes, so I’d like to discuss with you what exactly is wrong.”
Silence answered me. After a few seconds the knob turned and the door slowly opened.
Belinda stared at me. “It’s your system? Your magic that put us together?”
I smiled widely. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Then your magic is broken.”
Autumn stifled a laugh, and Belinda shut the door again.
I rubbed my temples. This day was already looking like the type that would give me an all-day headache.
I wouldn’t be discouraged. I had arrived to do a job, and along with finding Jimmy, I would make a match for Belinda. “Please,” I pleaded, knocking on the door. “I want to know what went wrong and if you’ve seen my employee, Jimmy. You met him.”
There was a long pause before Belinda opened the door again. She rested a hand on her hip and eyed me suspiciously. “Yeah, I saw Jimmy. What do you want to know?”
Belinda and I walked through the air section of town. “We capture the wind with the sails,” she explained, “and are able to harness it if we need to use our magic. Not that our spells go right. But it makes us feel better to have some magic, even if it is temperamental.”
“Impressive.” I eyed the brightly colored fabrics waving in the air. “Your area seems to be doing better than the main strip in town.”
“Our magic isn’t what it used to be. A lot of people have moved, but that still doesn’t help their magic.” She shrugged. “I guess a lot of folks stay because they figure the devil they know is better than the one they don’t.”
“Common refrain in life,” I murmured. “But you saw Jimmy?”
She nodded. “He told me that he was going to introduce me to the love of my life.”
“What did you say?”
“I laughed and said I knew just about everybody in this town—at least the other air wizards. None of them are my match. I know it.”
“But air witches stick with air witches,” I argued.
We stopped outside a restaurant. Suddenly the door flew open and a man stumbled out.
No, not quite stumbled. It appeared he was kicked from the place. Another man appeared, a grim expression on his face.
“Langdon, I told you to stay out.” He swore. “And I mean it!”
The man brushed his hands and disappeared back inside. Langdon, covered in dirt, rolled toward the restaurant. “But you have the best brews,” he whined.
“That”—Belinda pointed to the man on the ground—“is Langdon Huggins, the man who’s supposed to be my soul mate.”
I stared at him and then at Belinda. Frowning, I marched to Langdon and hovered over, inspecting him from head to foot.
He kicked at me. “Get away, lady. I need some space.” He lifted his
hand, and a slew of witch coins tumbled to the ground. “I’ve got all this money and nowhere to spend it.”
Langdon winked at me. “Unless I can spend it on you. A pretty thang like you probably wants a good time.”
He reached for my leg. I wasn’t about to let this guy think he could take advantage of me.
I placed my foot on his shoulder and ground down. With contempt in my voice said, “Don’t you even think about touching me or any other woman around here. Money can’t buy what you want. But you might try sobering up and getting some manners. Now hold still.”
I needed to know if Langdon was Belinda’s match. I focused on her and, while touching him, turned on the piece of me that held my magic. It was like flipping a switch and hearing a lightbulb buzz to life. As I stared at Langdon, I waited for an image to appear in my head.
That was the crux of my magic. Sometimes, very rarely, I could see matches with my third eye. These soul mates always, one hundred percent of the time, matched the questionnaire.
Except for now. Belinda’s image popped into my head, but so did another man’s face—and it wasn’t Langdon’s.
Langdon wasn’t her match.
The questionnaire, my mathematically calculated magical system of finding soul mates, had failed me.
It had absolutely failed me.
Either something was wrong with my system, which was impossible, or something was wrong with the way magic worked in Witch's Forge.
No shocker there, right?
I moved away from Langdon and back to Belinda.
She quirked a smug brow at me. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
I nodded dumbly. “Yes, you are. You’re right. He’s not your soul mate.”
“That’s what I told Jimmy,” she said, sounding exasperated. “He insisted, but I told him Langdon was never going to be my soul mate and that he needed to find someone else.”
“What did Jimmy say?”
“That he would talk to you.”
“Did he say anything else? Like where he would go to search?”
She shook her head. “He mentioned something about Earth Town. Those are the most country bumpkins of us witches. They eat meat and potatoes for every meal—that is, when they’re not hunting and killing their food.”
Air and earth were opposites to one another and therefore the worst possible match that could be expected between two witches.
“Why would Jimmy go there?” I murmured.
She shrugged. “No clue.”
I gave her a brief description of the man I had seen in my vision. “Do you know him?”
Belinda shook her head. “Nope,” she said a bit too curtly. “Not at all.”
I studied Belinda, trying to decide if she was lying. Figuring there was no way to pry more from her, I simply said, “Thank you. I’ll be in touch. There is a match for you—a soul mate—and you’re right, it isn’t Langdon. It’s someone else. I just have to find him.”
Belinda nodded. She opened her palm, and a broom that had been leaning against the side of a building rose and flew into her hand.
I gave her a questioning look. “The broom has its own magic,” she explained. “It can respond to being called.”
The broom was made of a knotted branch that curved at the handle. Twigs were tied to the bottom of it, making it look ancient.
She extended her arm toward me. “This is for you.”
I hiked a brow. “A broom?”
Belinda nodded. “It’s to sweep out all the cobwebs from your head. To re-examine your magic while you’re in Witch's Forge.”
“What magic? I barely have any magic at all.”
“Take it as you will,” she replied. “But it’s a gift from me to you—an air witch to a water witch.”
As much as I didn’t need a broom, I couldn’t refuse the gift. It would be rude.
So I thanked her and turned to walk away. The broom zipped from my hand, reared on me and gave me a good solid spank.
“What the…?”
Belinda’s laugh floated over to me. “That means it likes you.”
I rubbed the sore spot on my tush and glared at the broom. “Come and be good.”
The broom zipped into my hand and seemed to settle. I got into my car, stuffed it in the backseat and headed back down Wind Avenue, away from Air Town.
“Jimmy, what were you thinking? Why have you disappeared?”
I was heading somewhere that would hopefully help me find those answers—Earth Town.
SIX
But first I decided to stop back at the “house” for a change of clothing. I use the term “house” loosely because, after all, it did look like a county seat courthouse.
I’d just unlocked the door when a swoosh of magic billowed beside me.
I groaned. My mom had not been kidding when she said she would send Aunt Rose. Talking with my aunt was like being stuck in a Golden Girls episode.
“Charming,” she said in her most exasperated voice, “I thought you’d never arrive. I was about to melt in this heat.”
As much as I didn’t want to, I slowly pivoted my body to face Aunt Rose.
Her curly white hair was perfectly fixed, her dark sunglasses were perched on her head and her baby-pink dress suit was immaculately pressed. She looked spectacular for her sixty-plus years.
If only her mind was as perky.
“Aunt Rose!” I threw my arms around her. “I’m so happy to see you.”
If there was one thing about Southerners, it was that it was most polite to lie. You could be having your arm amputated, and if someone asked how you were doing, the best answer was, Fine. I’m doing just fine.
And you couldn’t forget to ask them how they were. Because otherwise would be rude.
Rose squeezed me. “I came as quickly as I could.”
The smell of White Shoulders drifted from her skin. My great-aunt loved her old lady perfume. It was one thing she took from the nonmagical world.
She straightened her arms and drank me in with her gaze. “You look well, dear, but I was so worried when your mother told me where you were. I thought for sure the curse on this place was going to rub off on you, make it so that you started losing your power, too.”
I smirked. “I’m only visiting. I’m not sure it works like that.” I nodded toward the house. “Would you like to come inside?”
She fanned herself. “Oh yes, it’s sweltering out here. I assumed that block of ice I stuck up my skirt would keep me cool, but it hasn’t worked yet.”
I swallowed the giggle threatening to overtake me. “Block of ice?”
Rose literally pulled a Rubik’s Cube–sized block of ice from her suit and dropped it into the bushes. “I’ll have to figure out what I did wrong with that spell,” she murmured.
I glanced around to make sure no one had seen my aunt’s embarrassing motion. Luckily no one gaped at us.
I led her in. Rose took one look at the staircase and blank walls on either side, fisted her hands to her hips and said in a commanding voice, “This won’t do at all, house. I need a bedroom, and I expect a kitchen downstairs as well—fully stocked.”
My jaw dropped as the house unfurled like a bow. A hallway unrolled like a tongue on either side of the staircase.
Beside me, a wall popped. A dark oak door with a crystal knob appeared. Two more doors sprang up on the other side, both appearing after a good pop and wall rumbling.
The house creaked and groaned as if it were stretching itself to the very edges of its capability. I swear wood splintered and concrete cracked, but when the house settled and the dust cleared, there was a parlor, kitchen with a dining room and an extra bedroom.
Rose brushed her hands. “Much better. I don’t know how the house expected you to live completely upstairs. Not with your old aunt here with you. Besides, in a few days your mother will arrive and a new room’ll be added on then as well.” She shouted up the stairs. “Do you hear me, house? You’ll have to make more room soon. Don’t be so stingy.”<
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She shook her head at me. “I swear these magical buildings think they own the place. Well if it wasn’t for witches and wizards, they wouldn’t exist. Much less be able to add rooms. Mind of their own. Of course, the house may have actually stolen a witch’s mind in order to be made.”
“What?”
She nodded. “That’s how they used to do it in the old days—make magical buildings. So barbaric.” Rose smiled widely. “But don’t worry, no one’s going to steal your mind, Charming.”
Relief flooded me. “Great.”
She considered it for a moment. “At least, I don’t think so. But you never know. It is possible, I suppose.”
I fanned myself. “Whew. Is it hot in here or what?”
“Yes, I need a change of clothes.”
My aunt spun around and changed into a linen blouse and pants. “That’s good, but I could use something to shade me from the sun.”
Rose pointed to her head, and a safari hat complete with mosquito netting capped her crown.
“Too much?” I asked.
“Oh, Charming,” she said, all doe-eyed, “you can never be too careful when it comes to your skin. Ever. It’s always good to take care of it.”
She smiled wide, inhaled deep and said, “Now. What’s going on here at Witch's Forge?”
“One of my employees is missing, and I just tried to match a witch with her soul mate”—I held out the folder in frustration—“but discovered that the man my magically mathematically perfect spell had matched her with was wrong. Wrong.”
Now that I thought about it, the entire situation was horrible. “It’s completely wrong. Which is impossible. That spell has never been wrong before. Why would it suddenly be wrong now?”
I fisted my hands in frustration. Here I was trying to prove to my mother I could save a town, but the entire foundation of my plan was crumbling.
Why would that spell, which was always right, suddenly be wrong in Witch's Forge? Outside magic wasn’t supposed to be affected in this town. But maybe it was.
“It’s because of the way magic works, or is broken here, I suppose,” Rose replied breezily.
