Renovation Spell

by Amy Boyles

  I thought of Rufus, of how in the past, he’d tried to take my power from me. “There is evil in magic, too.”

  Malene considered this. “There can be. But if you only pluck the good spells from the air and offer those, you’ll be in control of what magic people have. You can keep the bad away from them.” She gripped my shoulders and stared down at me. “You have a responsibility—not only to yourself, but to the people of Peachwood.”

  I really hated it when people had good points. I sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

  She nodded. “That’s all you can do. Now, I just came by to drop off that pie. I’ve got to get home. Willard Gandy’s been up to something lately. Coming home in the middle of the day and shutting all his blinds.”

  She got a glint in her eyes that made me nervous. “Malene,” I said, drawing out the word, “tell me you’re not about to do something bad.”

  She shrugged. “Of course not. But if you happen to find yourself an X-ray vision potion, can you swing it by me? I need to know what’s going on with that man. I don’t trust him.”

  I hid a laugh behind my hand. Just then I got a look at the time on my watch. I bolted from the chair. “Oh no! I’m nearly late. I’ve got a meeting at my next renovation project.”

  Malene opened the door. Before disappearing outside, she said, “You think about what I said.”

  “I will.” I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, stopping. Lady sat on the rug, tail sweeping back and forth. Ugh. Normally she would come with me. But with her talking, could I risk Lady’s secret being discovered?

  Whatever. She was my dog and I didn’t like being without her, even with her new opinions.

  I patted my thigh. “Come on, girl. Let’s go talk over some plans.”

  With that, Lady launched herself at me. “I never thought you’d ask, Clem. And for the record, I think you’ve made the right decision about bringing me.”

  Let’s hope so.

  Chapter 3

  The house I was renovating happened to be a craftsman cottage built at the turn of the century. Not this century, the last one. It sat only a block away from downtown on a cherry tree-lined street.

  I helped Lady into my old pickup and headed over to the construction site. My partner in crime, Liam, couldn’t be there, but I planned to tell him everything that the owner and I discussed.

  “I hope there are some mice or rabbits inside the house somewhere,” Lady said.

  I arched a brow. “Why’s that?”

  “I’m getting hungry again.”

  “Oh, goodness. Listen, do me a favor and besides not talking, try not to get into any trouble.”

  She panted, gaze glued to the window. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises. I am a dog, after all. I work on instinct.”

  Remembering the fact that she ate a magical ball without knowing what it was, I said, “Yes, I know.”

  As soon as we pulled up, I spotted Harlow Owens, the new owner. Harlow’s long dark hair was pulled into a high ponytail. She held her own small dog, a Maltese, on one arm and waved at me with the other.

  I parked and helped Lady out onto the ground.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you brought Lady,” Harlow gushed. “Now Gina will have someone to play with.”

  She put her dog down, and each sniffed the other, tails wagging. I kept my fingers crossed that Lady would remember not to speak, and luckily she did. The fact that the other dog was there to play with helped, I was fairly certain.

  As the dogs rolled around on the grass, I turned to Harlow. She was stunning—curvaceous with glossy hair, and with bright eyes the color of walnut, men were lining up to date her, but she was more interested in renovating the house she had just purchased than in settling down.

  I gestured to the cottage. “Shall we go inside? I have lots of ideas to show you.”

  “You go ahead. The house is undergoing a cleansing spell.”

  Cleansing spell? This was the first I had heard of that. “Right now?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I asked my cousins to come over and do one. You know, just to make sure that everything is in line in the house.” Harlow shrugged. “You can never be too careful moving into a new place. I’d hate for there to be any bad juju existing from the previous owners.”

  Bad juju? Okay. I nodded and smiled. “Sure. I totally get it.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  Harlow’s voice was surprisingly cutting. In all the dealings we’d had, she’d been nice, kind. Now she was snapping at me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  She lifted her nose to the air. “You didn’t. It’s just that unless you’ve lived in a house with an issue, then you don’t understand what I’m trying to do.”

  Clearly Harlow had suffered some trauma in the past.

  Her eyes clouded, and her face twisted into a grimace. “Let me just say that I’ll feel much better once the house is cleansed. I don’t want any residual…anything hanging around.”

  “Me neither,” I murmured. “It wouldn’t make the renovation easy to do.”

  Her voice turned to stone. “You have no idea.”

  This was my cue to leave. I thumbed toward the house. “I’ll go inside so that when they’re done, we can get started.”

  “Thanks,” she said without looking at me.

  Whoa. Talk about doing a complete one-eighty. I swore when I drove up that she was in a good mood, but boy had that shifted, and fast.

  I also hadn’t taken Harlow for the superstitious sort. “Do you mind watching Lady?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t mind at all.”

  I hoisted my bag higher up on my shoulder and headed into the house, glad to be out of her company. What was going on? Harlow had been such a pleasure to deal with all this time. Had something happened to make her on edge about the house? I hoped not. From past experience, dealing with someone who was prickly about their home often made them prickly with me. It made my job harder, and I didn’t need to make my job any more difficult than it already was.

  So now I was walking into a cleansing of sorts. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know if these folks would be sweeping sage across the doorways or doing a full-blown seance.

  Personally the seance would have been much more interesting than the saging. Not that I needed any more drama in my day. Coming home to a talking dog was quite enough, thank you very much.

  Voices sounded from the kitchen. As I followed them, I studied the interior. The house was small and had been in need of fixing up for years.

  Parts of the walls were crumbling from old water damage, the windows had been painted shut to keep out the cold, and the wiring was so outdated it had to be brought up to code to keep the place safe. Yes, it was a job, but once the small cottage was renovated, it would be a beauty.

  “Hello,” I called out.

  “We’re back here,” a man’s voice replied.

  I wound my way to the kitchen and found two men and a woman standing in the center of the faded yellow linoleum floor. They all wore black and held dark purple candles.

  A robust man with inky hair oiled back from his forehead caught my gaze and smiled. “You must be Clementine.”

  “You can call me Clem.”

  He placed his candle on the counter and slid over to me, hands outstretched. Before I could speak, he gloved my hand with both of his.

  “Knight Owens,” he said, “Harlow’s cousin. So pleased to meet you.” He gestured to the other two people in the room. “This is my brother, Payne, and my sister, Lynn. We’re triplets.”

  “Wow,” I said, not bothering to temper my fascination. “I don’t think I’ve ever met triplets before.”

  Lynn, a bony woman with bleached-blonde hair that was also slicked back, making her look like a late-night television monster-movie hostess, glided forward. I couldn’t help but think of her as a blonde version of Morticia Adams.

  She took my hand that Knight so kindly offered he
r. “Well, now you have met triplets,” she said in a throaty voice. “We may be related, but we’re all quite different.”

  Payne sauntered over. He was built, handsome with spiky brown hair and a teasing look in his eyes that suggested he had a way with women and knew it, too.

  He took my hand from Lynn. “Don’t let my sister fool you. We’re as close as siblings can be. Isn’t that right?”

  Lynn glanced over at Knight and sniffed. “If some of us would share the wealth, we might be.”

  Great. I’d left a traumatized Harlow to meet up with a band of sibling rivals who also wanted to do a cleansing spell.

  Yay, me.

  I pulled my hand from Payne’s and tucked it behind my back before any of them had the idea to take it captive again. “I understand that you’re going to cleanse the space.”

  Lynn rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, we would be doing that, but the spell hasn’t arrived yet.”

  She tossed Knight a dark look, and he laughed nervously, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and sopping up sweat on his brow. “I told you that I’m not in charge of that. The spell hunter should be here sometime soon. I can’t control when he arrives.”

  Payne smoothed his hair and flashed me a devilish smile. “I say we enjoy this lull and take a few minutes to get to know Clementine, here.” He cleared his throat. “Tell us, what do you like to do in your free time? Do you enjoy music?”

  My stomach turned. I quite literally almost groaned aloud just to let this guy know his attention was a major turnoff, but instead I smiled. “I do, but I’m so busy with work I barely have time to get any in.”

  “We should change that.” His eyes turned wolfish. “How about this weekend?”

  My gaze cut to Knight. I needed anything, anyone to help me escape Payne’s attention. “Did you say something about a spell hunter?”

  There was only one of those in town, which meant that of course, it was Rufus.

  “Yes, I did.” Knight mopped up more sweat. “Like I was telling my dear, sweet sister, he had to find the spell first. That can take time.”

  Lynn scoffed. “I don’t have all day to wait for it. Some of us”—she glared at Knight—“have jobs that we go to.”

  She worked looking like Morticia Adams? I can’t imagine many places needing a Morticia look-alike, but you never knew, now did you?

  And also, ever since folks realized that Rufus could hunt spells, the town had slowly started becoming more and more magical. More witches and wizards were moving in, which was a good thing, I supposed. It was good for local businesses and the economy.

  “He’ll be here,” Knight argued. “He said he would be and he will.”

  Lynn scoffed. “Didn’t you tell him just to look for a basic cleansing spell?”

  “No, Harlow wanted a deep clean.”

  Lynn slapped her thigh. “Of course she does. Great. We’ll be lucky if he can swing that.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “A deep clean? What’s that?”

  Knight tucked his handkerchief back in his pocket. “A deep clean is just that, a very deep dive into the bones of the house, just to make sure there aren’t any little pests hiding in places that a basic clean might miss.”

  “They’re practically impossible to find,” Lynn explained. “At least, that’s what we’ve always been told.”

  “Given Harlow’s past with spirits, I thought it necessary.” Knight glanced out the window. “I want to make sure she’s safe.”

  “And what about the rest of us?” Lynn said. “You don’t want to make sure the rest of us are safe?”

  Payne said smoothly, “Course he does, sis. It was just an expression.”

  Lynn studied Payne before snapping her head in the opposite direction. “You always take up for him.”

  I had pretty much seen and heard about all I wanted to in this sibling rivalry, so I started to back toward the front door. “Listen, I’ll just wait outside with Harlow.”

  “Don’t go,” Payne called.

  I could come back tomorrow once the house was cleansed. No big deal. Maybe then Harlow would be in a better mood and we could get down to the details of my plan.

  But just as I was about to open the door, the handle turned and it swung open.

  Rufus Mayes stood before me. He was back in his usual outfit—leather pants and a dark shirt. His ebony hair hung in front of his eyes, and I swear his shoulders had doubled in size since I’d last seen him—which had just been this morning, by the way.

  My throat shrank as our gazes locked. My heart drummed against my chest, and my mouth dried to a desert.

  One side of Rufus’s mouth coiled into a devilish grin. “Clementine Cook, come to partake in the cleansing spell?”

  Before I could even think, I whispered, “I don’t mind if I do.”

  Chapter 4

  “Here is the thing,” Rufus explained. “To do a deep cleanse, you need two different spells.”

  “Well, John?” Lynn asked impatiently. “Did you find both of them?”

  Rufus (or John, as they knew him) pulled a leather bag from his shoulder and settled it on the kitchen counter. He unbuckled two straps and pulled out a gold mason jar.

  The jar had come from Urleen Crenshaw, one of Malene Fredericks’s friends, and quilting bee partner in crime. Urleen had also been a spell hunter back in the day, as the women had explained.

  Rufus smiled, but the warmth didn’t touch his eyes. He was as annoyed with Lynn as I had been. “In fact, I did find both spells.” He tapped the glass, and through the golden haze, two orbs of light bobbed.

  Knight rubbed his meaty hands. “Great,” he said with relief, “let’s get started. Release both spells and let’s get the cleansing over with.”

  Rufus shook his head. “You’ll have to wait, there. The spells work best at night.”

  Payne straightened his black belt buckle. Clearly he was not used to taking orders from handsome, if a bit gothic, men like Rufus. “What’s all this about doing it at night?”

  “Well”—Rufus slowly turned the jar three hundred and sixty degrees—“as experienced house cleansers, surely you know that most houses, if they have any activity, it will be more prominent when it’s dark. Something that might not appear during the day will come out then.”

  The triplets eyed each other skeptically. I swear a small smile twisted Rufus’s lips.

  After a brief pause, Knight said, “Of course we know that. We’ll return at eight o’clock sharp to do the cleansing. In the meantime, I would like my spells.”

  He reached for the jar, but Rufus slid it away. “And I would like my payment.”

  Knight fumbled in his pockets. “Of course, let me just see what I have. Oh, looks like I didn’t bring any cash with me. I’ll have to deliver it tonight.”

  Rufus eyes him steadily. “Fine by me. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the spells safe until then.”

  Knight turned to his siblings. “Well? Can I see you out?”

  Lynn strode past him. “I can see myself out.” A blink of an eye later, she was through the door.

  “Clementine?” Payne asked, gesturing that ladies should go first.

  I shook my head. “I have some business to discuss with John.”

  Total lie, but I was not about to wind up talking to Payne.

  His smile faltered. “See you tonight, will I?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “Your presence will be useful,” Rufus said quietly.

  He wasn’t looking at me, so I couldn’t tell if he actually wanted me there or not. What else did I have to do? Eat chocolate pie and watch a movie? Let Lady talk me to death?

  Oh heck no. “I’ll be here.”

  Payne brightened. “See you then.” He strode out of the house, closing the door behind him.

  A troubled look crossed Knight’s face. “Listen, Rufus, do you take checks?”

  “We agreed on cash,” he answered.

  Knight tugged his collar. “Oh, right. Well, that shou
ldn’t be a problem. I just remembered that I have my checkbook with me and in case you’d like your money now, I could just write one out to you. That way you wouldn’t have to wait.”

  “Cash,” Rufus repeated.

  “Of course.” Knight gave him a strained smile. “You did get the right spells, didn’t you?”

  “If I didn’t, you don’t have to pay me. But I know what I’m doing.”

  “You have amnesia, right?” Knight asked.

  Uh-oh. He was suggesting that because Rufus had amnesia that he didn’t know one spell from another. Was Knight trying to get out of paying? From all the hints that Lynn had let slip, it sounded like Knight had plenty of money.

  Rufus’s eyes became flint. “I do have amnesia, yes. But I know how to read spells, which is more than I can say for most people.”

  Meaning Knight.

  “After all,” Rufus continued, “if more people could see and read spells, then they wouldn’t need me, would they?”

  Knight’s face turned crimson. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t. You might be a spell hunter, but my siblings and I are experienced cleansers, though this is the first time we’re using spells to do it. Usually we just pray and use sage. But since the option of a stronger cleansing spell was available, we thought that we’d go your route. I hope, John, that what you’re offering works. If it doesn’t,” he said, spittle flying from his mouth, “then the whole town will hear about how you swindled me and my family.” He sashayed toward the door, opened it, turned around and added, “And I certainly won’t be paying then—not one dime!”

  With that, Knight stormed from the cottage and slammed the door, leaving Rufus and me alone.

  We exchanged a look before I burst into laughter. Rufus chuckled.

  “I’m sorry.” I wiped tears from my eyes. “You should have been here earlier. Lynn was about to tear his eyes out, and Payne wanted to take me to a concert.”

  Trouble filled Rufus’s eyes. “What’d you say? Not that it’s any of my business,” he added quickly.