by Lucy True
Twisting in the chair, and hoping she wouldn’t end up nose-to-nose with her assistant, Burgundy glanced out into the circulation area of the library. All she could see around Lynn’s body were the bookshelves for the fiction section and one side of the front desk.
“What did he say?”
Lynn shrugged and took a step back, giving her room to move. “Only that he wanted to speak to you, nothing else.”
Burgundy sucked in a breath and turned back to the reader to remove the microfilm reel. “I’ll be right there. Please let Mr. Knight know, too.”
“What should I tell him?”
A tidal wave of regret surged through Burgundy as she rose from the chair and turned off the reader. Her first hit on her parents’ past in months and she had to cut her musings short for someone she’d rather not see. “Tell him exactly what you told me and that I’ve stepped out to speak with the guy. I’d appreciate the boss knowing why I’m not where I’m supposed to be.”
“Oh, right. Well, I’ll be sure to call down to him and let him know.” Lynn practically purred the statement. Her little crush on the library director remained a source of disgust for the rest of the staff, who thought Mr. Knight cold and distant, not to mention untouchable since he was their boss.
Burgundy didn’t begrudge anyone a little something-something, but with the guy in charge? She noped right out of that. Not that it mattered, since men held no appeal for her. But Mr. Knight was almost like the father she’d never had. If that father wasn’t exactly paternal, loving, or the least bit interested in her personal life.
She put the microfilm away, and smoothed down her blouse and pants before striding out to the circulation desk. Standing there was a youthful-looking man with pale blond hair and blue eyes. The navy blue military-style jacket he wore made his gaze more piercing as he trained it on Burgundy.
“Hey there, Rolfe. Sorry to say Liesl’s not here and we have very few gazebos in Rock Grove. How can I help you?” she asked.
He narrowed his eyes just enough for Burgundy to catch a spark of annoyance flashing in them. “My name isn’t Rolfe. It’s Reginald Weber.”
Swallowing a rebuke at him for missing the joke, Burgundy tapped the desk with the palms of her hands and said, “Well then, what can I do for you, Reggie?”
The sooner the guy left, the better. Burgundy’s limited experience with Finders was neither good nor bad, but this guy? The way his icy gaze fastened on her, unblinking, sent shivers skittering up and down her spine.
“This is a mandatory three-month check-in. After magickal incidents involving renegade witches or warlocks, policy dictates that we follow-up after ninety days to ensure law and order. The Witches Council wanted me to make sure everything’s been normal and that there haven’t been any more unauthorized warlocks sighted in the area.”
Burgundy drew back and slanted a glance at Lynn. It looked like they didn’t need to take this conversation outside, after all. “Unauthorized warlocks?” she asked.
“Yes. All warlocks must be registered with the Council, which allows us to keep tabs on their movements and ensure they’re obeying the laws. Unregistered means unauthorized, and those are the ones who cause all the trouble.”
Chuckling thinly and trying to ignore the hot acid rising in her belly, Burgundy said, “Well, I guess I’ve got a lot to learn about how all of this stuff works.”
“All of this stuff? You ought to know ‘this stuff,’ Miss Hart, since you’re due to declare a path on the first of May this year. That is your twenty-seventh birthday, I believe. Correct?”
With her peripheral vision, Burgundy saw Lynn rise from her chair, take some books off the return cart, and move out of view. She pushed down the rising, fervent hope that the cat shifter was heading downstairs to report the unwelcome visitor to Mr. Knight. The personal questions made Burgundy’s skin crawl. Maybe she’d throw up then and there. That’d probably send Reggie on his way.
“That’s right,” she affirmed. Why, oh why, did her mouth taste of bile already?
“Which path are you declaring?”
The dreaded inquiry knocked the wind out of her, so Burgundy reached deep into her mind – and her ass – for the answer her aunt had coached into her. The response she was supposed to give, as opposed to laughing until she cried. Because this path was, as far as she was concerned, a declaration that she was a failure as a witch, not to mention a cop-out to hide the truth.
“Domestic.”
“Interesting.” He leaned toward her, elbow propped against the desk.
“Not really, but thanks for playing.” Burgundy hoped he would go away if she shifted her focus to work, so she reached for the first thing her hand could find. But as her fingers closed around the scissors, the Finder leaned even closer and crooked his finger at her.
“Not to get personal, but you don’t seem like the type.”
Burgundy blinked down at him, then put on her most charming half-smile as she resisted the urge to wrap her fingers around the scissors Norman Bates style. “Oh, come now, Reggie. My abilities might not be limited to cavorting and singing in gazebos, but my magick isn’t good for much beyond that.”
“Again, I find it hard to believe that the daughter of one of our very best Finders is so limited in her abilities that she’d choose domestic witchery.”
If he was trying to play some kind of cop game with her, Burgundy had to admit to herself that it was working as she bristled at his words. “We can’t all live up to our parents,” she answered through gritted teeth. “Anyway, no unauthorized warlock sightings here. In fact, no outsiders until you decided to show up, Reggie. You can go back to the Council and let them know all’s well that ends well.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll see you there soon.” Reginald finally pushed away from the desk, gave her a two-finger salute, and turned to stride across the non-fiction section. The moment he pushed through the door, Burgundy blew out a breath and sank into her chair. She glanced at the scissors still clutched in her hand and let them clatter to the desk.
There most certainly was an unauthorized warlock in Rock Grove, and between the discovery of her parents’ photo in the newspaper and the visit from the Finder, she was trying to decide if today had been a win or a loss.
Chapter Four
“Hey. Come on in here.” Charlotte waved her into the diner and then locked the door behind her almost as soon as Burgundy stepped into the building. “I’m glad you stopped by.”
“Yeah, me too.” There was no way Burgundy could let Monday end without patching things up with her best friend. The diner was, of course, empty. Like the library, it closed at eight, after dinner. Burgundy didn’t normally stick around the library for the entire twelve-hour week-day, but she’d taken a long lunch after the Finder’s visit, and then hidden in the stacks, tidying the shelves. Facing books was far preferable to sitting at the desk in plain sight. It gave her something to take her mind off the unwelcome visit.
“What are you doing out here so late?” Charlotte asked. She moved back to the counter and finished wiping it down, while the two waitresses cleaned the tables in the restaurant area just beyond.
Burgundy settled on one of the seats at the counter and shrugged. A nauseating curl of dread settled in her stomach, heavy enough to push aside her thoughts of supper. Secrets still hung between her and Charlotte, an invisible wall she wished she could smash without bringing the wrath of outsiders down on them.
She forced lightness into her tone as she chirped, “I had a weird day, so who better to talk to about it than my best friend?”
“You too? I hope those don’t become a thing around here. Look, how about I put on a pot of fresh coffee and we commiserate over some warm chocolate cake?”
Clutching her hands to her chest, Burgundy feigned a swoon. “What’s this – speaking my language again?”
“Coffee and chocolate are universal, my dear. Give us a few minutes to finish and then I’ll hook you up.”
The word
s “hook you up” shouldn’t have sent a thrill through Burgundy, but they did, tightening every muscle head to toe... and then some. We’re just friends, just friends, just friends, she chanted to herself. Once they were alone in the diner, though, she felt anything but friendly. Especially with that warm chocolate cake and cups of coffee between them. This was what she needed, this sense of normalcy, that everything was as it should be, no matter who walked the streets beyond these four walls.
“Okay, you go first,” Charlotte told her.
“No, you. I feel like what I want to say is going to be pretty complicated.” And she needed to buy herself time to think. She put a forkful of chocolate cake in her mouth and stifled a moan as the balance of bitter cocoa and sugar melted on her tongue.
The medicine woman’s eyes narrowed and Burgundy wished, not for the first time, that Charlotte’s pathokinetic power worked on her. Over the years, Charlotte had bemoaned the fact that she couldn’t take away Burgundy’s sadness or fear when the going got tough. Oh, if only she knew.
“If it has anything to do with whatever’s been bugging you for the past few months, then I want to know. Please.” Sweet Charlotte, so caring. Her words sent another tingle through Burgundy.
She nodded, tightness dissipating as the first taste of coffee touched her tongue, mingling with the sweetness of the cake’s flavor. Following it with another bite of chocolate cake and another sip of coffee soothed away all her frustrations.
She curled her hands around the cup and said, “I don’t even know where to begin, so I’m going to start with last year and the whole Cupid illness thing. What do you remember about it?”
“Only bits and pieces. Everything went kind of blank after I got hit with one of the arrows, but coming out of it hurt like hell.” Charlotte’s skin paled, as if the very memory of the love withdrawal she’d suffered after the ordeal made her sick.
It wasn’t something Burgundy would wish on anyone. She’d done her share of offering what comfort she could to people during the painful withdrawal symptoms, which had included some pretty heart-wrenching stuff – nausea, heart palpitations, maybe even a hallucination or two. The shifter who’d stayed at her house meant she’d had a front row seat to the show. And because she was a wretched witch on her best days, there’d been nothing she could do for the people except watch them suffer.
Maybe being the thing she was born to be, embracing the magick she was actually meant to practice, could stop that kind of suffering in the future. She swallowed, ready to take the first step to doing that.
“The guy who caused all of the chaos – he was a warlock,” she continued.
“So I heard. Something... Black?”
“Cian Black, yeah. I helped the Finders take him into custody, but it wasn’t easy for me to do. You know, because my magick has never worked the way it should.”
Charlotte’s lips twisted in a grimace. “Oh yeah, that had to make it difficult. How did you do it?”
This was where things got complicated. Beyond complicated. She-might-die-if-she-said-a-word complicated. But after a friendship of over twenty-five years, how could Burgundy not tell Charlotte the truth?
“It took some work and I kind of had to cheat by using one of Aunt Iris’s potions. The thing is, though, he might not have been all bad.”
“Are you kidding? All warlocks are bad or go bad. At least, that’s all we’ve ever been told about them.”
Burgundy curled her fingers around Charlotte’s wrist and ignored the jolt of desire that shot through her at the contact. Now was not the time. Rather than respond to the nagging voice that wanted to know when would be the time, she focused on the matter at hand.
“Then I must be bad, too,” she whispered, throat dry, heart hammering harder than she’d thought possible.
Charlotte stared at her, eyes wide and lips parted. “Burg...”
“He’s my father,” Burgundy rushed on before she could let fear get the better of her. “He came for all kinds of weird reasons, but one of them was to check on me. To see how I’ve grown up. It’s like he was testing me and, well, since I had no idea what I am, I kind of failed.”
Burgundy hated the way her voice cracked and she lowered her gaze, so her friend wouldn’t see her pain.
“I could have gone with him and instead I ratted him out to the authorities, to the Council. Now he’s in custody and I have no hope of figuring out what I am, really, or what it means to be this thing that is most definitely not a witch. All this time, I thought I was disappointing Aunt Iris. I was certainly disappointing myself, not being able to perform basic witchcraft. Now I know why.”
A glance at Charlotte made Burgundy clamp her mouth shut. The medicine woman had gone ashen again, skin blanched as white as flour this time. Burgundy’s stomach lurched. This was it, the moment Charlotte ended their friendship, all because of something no one could control or change.
Then Charlotte sucked in a breath and said, “Well, before you say anymore, I should tell you my news is that some Finder named Reginald paid the diner a visit today.”
****
“THIS ISN’T NECESSARY,” Burgundy protested for what must have been the third or fourth time.
“Will you just shut up and let me handle this?” Charlotte sliced her a fierce glare, the full moon illuminating only half her face. Darkness obscured the rest, as well as her continuous hand gestures.
The woods where they used to play as children took on an eerie quality at night. Although the fort they’d built out of fallen tree branches was long gone, Charlotte maintained that the wards she’d set a long time ago had held. They just needed a little shamanic TLC.
Burgundy didn’t know exactly what Charlotte meant and she didn’t question her again. Instead, she stayed quiet and let the medicine woman complete her ritual before sitting across from her on the ground.
Even without a source of light, both women still knew the woods like the backs of their hands. “You can speak freely here,” Charlotte intoned in the voice she reserved for formal occasions. Her way of saying “sit up, take notice, and recognize, biatch,” without actually saying it.
Throughout their adolescence, this was where they went to talk. Maybe Aunt Iris would have been open to the conversations about when their boobs would grow (for Charlotte, sooner; for Burgundy, later) or who, on a scale of one to ten, was most this or least that, or the times they would squeal about hearing their favorite song on the radio. Maybe. And even after they’d outgrown that aspect of their young adulthood, the two of them still found solace in visiting this place.
Now that it was spring, Burgundy could almost imagine the crocuses and daffodils pushing up through the ground, blooms bursting through rich soil, ready to unfurl. The flowers usually encircled this space that they’d claimed as their own and now she wondered if that was because of whatever magick Charlotte had infused the area with so many years ago.
“Talk to me, woman. I’m not even going to get into the fact that you’ve been keeping this to yourself for three months, because you must have your reasons. So, lay it on me.” Charlotte crossed her legs, tucking her feet beneath herself and resting her hands on her knees.
That open invitation was nothing like what Burgundy’s aunt offered. As far as Iris was concerned, keeping their home a “safe space” meant not talking about it. So that was the very first thing that came out of her mouth.
“Now that I know and Aunt Iris knows that I know, she doesn’t trust me with anything. It’s driving me crazy, Char. She acts like if anyone else finds out, it’ll be the end of the world for me. And, trust me, I get it. I really do. Warlocks go bad more often than not. But she’s told me there are warlocks on the Council, so clearly some are able to gain their trust. I wish it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that we’re all power-hungry a-holes, but there you have it. No matter what, I can’t get my aunt to see past her biases and it’s killing me inside.”
Burgundy wondered what she must look like to Charlotte at that moment, blinki
ng back tears and fists clenched against her knees. Then her friend reached out to open her tightly-curled fingers, link both their hands, and said, “I can see why you’re so frustrated. That must be really difficult.”
“Yes.” Burgundy heard her own voice crack as warm tears tracked down her cheeks. Not only was she receiving non-judgmental understanding, but sympathy, as well. All she’d ever wanted in this situation. “Worse than that, she’s still pushing me to choose a path of witchcraft. She wants me to keep studying, to keep trying, as if somehow the right kind of magick is buried inside of me, under all that is warlock-ish and apparently ripe for temptation to the dark side.”
Finally saying the words, letting it all out, had her folding in on herself. Even though the tears flowed and her body shook with sobs, the release unwound every bit of tension within her. Charlotte didn’t demand she walk on eggshells. She never had, she never would, and Burgundy was able to gulp in deep breaths for the first time since her aunt’s return at the Winter Solstice. To be truly honest with herself and another person.
“Oh gosh,” she said on a harsh exhalation. “That feels so good.”
“I’ll bet it does. Trust me, I don’t begrudge you for keeping a secret like that and I hope you don’t think I’m mad. I’m not.” Charlotte leaned forward, enfolding Burgundy in her warm embrace. She smelled of chocolate and coffee, of bread and French fries, all at the same time.
Burgundy let out a moan and said the very first thing that came to mind. “I’m not sure if I should hug you or eat you.”
The double entendre hit her a moment later and she pulled away to see Charlotte staring at her, eyebrows lifted.
“That came out wrong. What I meant was...” Burgundy gritted her teeth, but she couldn’t stop grinning.
“Don’t even try to explain. You’ll just make things worse.” Somehow, Charlotte managed to maintain her composure, as always. In a way, Burgundy wished that wasn’t the case. Because how glorious would it be if Charlotte, instead of being her steady, supportive rock of a friend, decided to call her on those foot-in-mouth moments?
