She never looked me in the eyes, not even when I lived in her house, but when she turned and held my gaze, the pain reflected there took my breath away.
“Where’s Pru?”
“I don’t know.” There was the slightest quiver in her upper lip – the equivalent to an emotional outburst for the stoic Barbara Harris.
Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. And Prudence was involved. I should have known. I used to know. So why not now?
I’d feel it. As kids Pru and I knew when the other was hurt or in trouble. It didn’t matter that we weren’t twins or even related. We had a connection that went deeper than blood. Pru said it was my magic. I always said it was her heart. Whatever the reason, I would know.
“Why didn’t you lead with that?” My hands were clenched into fists but I managed to cram them into my jeans pocket to avoid decking her. “We could have avoided the usual dance of insults and I could be out looking for her.”
“’The police believe she’s a runaway. Given our family’s history, they....” Her hand instinctively went to her pearls again, counting each one like a devout Catholic would count their rosary. “We both know she’d never do that, if for no other reason than she’d never abandon you.”
I knew how much that little admission cost her.
“I didn’t run away. You tossed me out like garbage.” After bundling my tarot deck in a scrap of burgundy velvet, I slipped it inside a black cotton draw string bag. I collected the rest of my stuff and closed up shop indefinitely, heading for my truck with Barbara on my heels.
“Yes, well, we couldn’t exactly tell everyone that, now could we?” There she was, the side of Barbara reserved exclusively for me. “Then we’d have to explain what you truly are and nobody wants that.”
“I know. What would the bridge club say? Or Harold’s golf buddies? What a travesty really, but, you did your best, Barbara. You mustn’t blame yourself.”
I fished the keys out of my pocket, unlocked the driver’s side door, and tossed my stuff on the bench seat. “How do they know she wasn’t kidnapped or something? Running away is completely out of character for Prudence. She’s nothing like me.”
“There haven’t been any ransom requests and... she left a note.” Barbara reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of cream-colored card stock embossed with the family crest. The Harris’s never discussed their wealth but they flaunted it at every opportunity. “Something about dreams. It’s her handwriting but it doesn’t sound like her.”
“Can I see it?” I plucked the note from her hand without waiting for an answer.
Dreams are the key to what we refuse to see with our waking eye. I’ve gone to follow mine. Don’t bother looking. - Pru
“It’s her handwriting, yeah, but somebody forced her to write it. Dreams are the key to what we refuse to see....” I had no clue what any of it meant.
Pru always followed her dreams. She joked about how the best ideas came to her when she was asleep. She was whimsical but she also had a life plan by the time she was in fourth grade and never deviated from it. She wasn’t the type to just up and run. Especially without telling me. It just wasn’t in her nature.
“You think someone took her?” Barbara held out her hand expectantly, only dropping it back to her side when she realized I wasn’t giving back the letter. “Keep that, if it will help.”
“The ink here.” I pointed to a spot where the ink swelled on the paper. “And here. She likes those gel pens. They bleed. It’s like she hesitated while the point was still pressed against the paper. Maybe she was waiting for someone to tell her what to say.”
“Harold said I should have come to you first. I hired a private investigator, spent thousands to get no more information than you just provided for free.” Barbara reached into her designer bag and pulled out a matching envelope for the stationary.
A different kind of paper was stuffed inside.
“Seriously? You’re a real piece of work, you know that, Barbara? Pru is my sister. You can cram that envelope—.”
“How far do you expect to get in that run-down truck and the change in your pocket?” Barbara walked over and shoved the envelope against my chest. “Find her and bring her home, Ellie.”
As much as it pained me to admit it, she was right. Between my slice of humble pie and swallowing my pride, I almost choked to death. I tucked the money in the waistband of my jeans and read the note again, tracing a finger along the flowery signature. Prudence had beautiful penmanship, feminine lines and curls, whereas my handwriting could be compared to a primate who recently learned she had opposable thumbs. A pang of guilt twisted my gut when I realized I already thought of her in the past tense.
Prudence wasn’t dead. She was missing and I was going to find her.
Chapter Three
Barbara left the search to me and returned to the safety of her home in Brooke Heights, less than forty miles from Crescent Park but it might as well have been a world away. Its manicured lush green lawns and gated communities were a far cry from the city, bruised and battered from an economic exodus, I called home.
But Pru wasn’t holed up in some cookie cutter mansion out in the Heights. Barbara wouldn’t have lowered her standards and slummed it with a witch if she was. No, my sister was somewhere in the city. I just needed to find out where.
Tall order when you didn’t have any clues to go on.
The clock started right after the Tuesday supply run three weeks earlier. The police started from the last place the Harris’s had seen her, but that wasn’t the last place she’d been seen. I decided to see what the Harris family fortune could get me and greased a few palms. Pru had a few haunts between Crescent Park and the guest house on the Harris estate that she’d taken over when she started college.
Four Benjamins and three security tapes later, I got a hit—Gaea’s Garden, an herbalist and natural market on the Gaston city line. Prudence swore by their soy candles and essential oils. I wouldn’t know – bath bombs weren’t my thing. Truck stops and KOAs don’t have soaker tubs and even if they did, aromatherapy wasn’t on my list of necessities.
The young woman working behind the counter greeted me with a smile when I walked in. “Welcome to Gaea’s. Can I help you find anything?”
“Funny you should ask.” The security sensor beeped again as the door closed behind me. “I’m trying to find my sister.”
“That’s not really our area of expertise. I mean, we have divination candles and incense. They’re supposed to help with—.” One look at the stone-cold expression on my face cut her sales pitch short. “Sorry. I just started here and I have zero retail experience. Or customer service experience, to be honest. I’m not really sure how I got this job in the first place.”
“Maybe you could just look at a couple of pictures and tell me if you’ve seen her in here, okay?” I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and opened the gallery.
Pru was the first photo. She had mustard and relish on both sides of her mouth, her cheeks packed full of the hot dog she ate for lunch. Her arms were raised in triumph after challenging me to a race to see who could finish first.
I let her win.
The clerk came over to look at the picture. “She’s your sister? You guys don’t look anything alike.”
“We’re adopted.” Well, one of us was. “Have you seen her?”
“Yeah, sure. She was here the other day.” She tapped her pointer finger against her chin. “Tuesday. I remember because she was a big ticket and used a bunch of those Visa gift cards.”
“You remember what she bought?” Gift cards? Prudence had credit cards and a spending allowance.
“Um, yeah, it sounded Italian.” The girl’s bleach blonde ponytail swung wildly as she walked with purpose back behind the counter. “It was Bella something. I can look it up if you want.”
“Belladonna.” I hid my surprise over the revelation Pru wasn’t there purchasing bath bombs or incense.
The clerk snapped her finger
s. “That’s it. Belladonna.”
I grabbed a business card from the clear plastic holder on the counter and wrote my cell number on the back. “If you see her or think of anything else, call this number.”
She opened the register, lifted the cash drawer, and slid the card underneath for safe keeping. I thanked her for her time and left the shop with more questions than answers.
There were two reasons for purchasing belladonna – a sleeping draft or poisoning someone. She bought enough to tranquilize an elephant. Or poison half a dozen people.
What are you up to, Pru?
After that the trail went cold. She drove out of Gaston and, as far as I could tell, headed home. I’d hit a dead end. With no other leads, I drove back to Crescent Park. After stopping at the gas station on West Street to refuel, I pulled the truck into my usual spot. The truck wasn’t the only one with an empty tank. After chasing down any lead I could find, I was running on fumes so I splurged on a couple donuts and a large coffee.
My brain needed sugar and, well, the rest of me needed the caffeine.
Lost in my thoughts about Pru’s last visit to the park, I almost choked on my cruller when Jared rapped a knuckle on my window. I swallowed and said, “Please go away.”
“Things must be looking up. Coffee and donuts.” Jared leaned against the side of the truck.
“I said please.” I set my coffee on the dash and licked donut glaze off my fingertips.
“I noticed.” He gave me a half smile and I wasn’t sure who I hated more – Jared or my hormones. “Where’s your friend? The one with the pretty black braids?”
The seemingly innocuous question hit me like a shot of adrenaline to the heart. I was out of the truck and in his face before I even realized what I was doing. “What do you know about my sister?”
“Ellie.” Jared must have seen something feral in my eyes because his hands were raised as if he was being held at gun point. “You need to calm down or one of us is going to get hurt. And while I find you intriguing, if I have to choose, it’s not going to be me.”
“Calm down? My sister is missing and then you show up, with all your dark magic swirling around you, asking about her and you want me to calm down?” My heart raced faster than a jackrabbit, pumping blood and magic through my veins.
Too much magic.
No, no, no. Not again. Memories of the day I was unintentionally ousted out of the metaphorical broom closet resurfaced. It was a Thursday. That much I remember—kind of hard to forget when it’s your eighteenth birthday—but for the life of me I couldn’t remember the specific reason I’d drawn Barbara’s ire. Not that it mattered; she had dozens of reasons, none of them rational. No, what mattered was I lost control of my temper and that’s when my magic manifested itself.
Apparently, I was a late bloomer.
My hair stood on end as static energy charged the air. Tiny shards of glass rained down when the recessed lights in the ceiling exploded. Small flames burst from the outlets in the wall. Barbara screamed. I blacked out. My bags were packed when I woke up. After multiple trips to the library and countless Google searches, Pru and I figured out I was a witch. Stress was a trigger and something I tried hard to avoid.
Jared plus stress? That was a disaster waiting to happen.
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. And then counted again but I couldn’t dispel the energy. It hurt. A lot. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood to hold back the cries of pain but a small whimper escaped. Jared rested a hand on my shoulder, whispered something in a language I didn’t understand, and just like—haha—magic the pain went away. So did all the pent-up energy. My legs gave out and my knees hit the pavement, my teeth clacking together on impact. I wiped the sweat from my brow and pushed the unruly strands of hair out of my face.
“You should really take me up on my offer, Ellie. There’s more to being a witch than reading cards. You’re going to kill yourself if you don’t at least learn the basics.” Jared looked at me with renewed interest but left me sitting on the pavement. He stepped around the open driver’s door and grabbed my coffee and donuts off the dash. “Here, you need the sugar. Something with electrolytes would be better but I guess the coffee will have to do.”
“Thanks.” I managed a meek smile. “Listen, I appreciate what you just did, but I’m not into....” I waved my hand up and down. “This.”
“You just gestured to all of me.” He wore a confident smile, like he knew I would in fact be into some of him. “Oh, you mean my magic? Afraid to come to the dark side, Ellie?”
I washed down a mouthful of donut with cold coffee. “No.”
That was a lie. He knew it and I knew it. Truth be told, I was terrified.
“I tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. An offer you can’t refuse.” Jared leaned back against my truck, arms folded across his chest. “You quit shuffling cards in the park and come work for me. The pay sucks but the continuing education program is outstanding.”
“If you do say so yourself.” I polished off the last cruller and drained the coffee cup dry. A headache was blossoming behind my right eye, no doubt an allergic reaction to so much time spent with Jared. I needed a bottle of water and a couple of aspirin. “So, you get what you want and I get? What exactly?”
“I’ll help you find your sister.”
And there it was. The one carrot Jared could dangle in front of my face that I was sure to follow.
“Deal.” I held out my hand, ready to shake on it.
“I’m going to need something more than a handshake.” Jared reached out and caressed my chestnut tresses.
The slight wobble in my knees had nothing to do with the way he ran his fingers through my hair. It was residual magic. Yeah, that’s it, residual magic.
“Ouch. That hurt, Jared. What the hell.” Pulled from my moment of weakness swooning over Jared Adams, I rubbed the sore spot on my scalp where he’d yanked out a lock of hair.
“Now we have a deal.” He knotted the strands of hair and slipped them into his pocket. “Rest up, James. You’re going to need it. My shop, tonight. Nine o’clock. Don’t be late.”
CAULDRON CRAFTS SAT on the corner of Carrick and Rogers. I sat in my truck in a parking space out front. Jared knew I was there. My pick-up backfired when I shifted to park, announcing my presence to everyone within a three-block radius.
“You can do this, Ellie. You have to do this.” It was the fourth pep talk I’d given myself but my hands still gripped the steering wheel.
I knew what I had to do. I just had a hard time doing it. Magic – when I managed to get it to work – felt amazing. Almost too amazing. From what I’d heard, black magic felt even more so. It’s how witches get hooked and their gift corrupted. I barely had a gift. It would be a shame to corrupt what little magic I had.
Jared watched me from behind the storefront window as he pulled the chain dangling from the neon OPEN sign. The bright blue light blinked out but not before a smirk settled across his lips as he, no doubt, took pleasure in my personal battle to get out of the truck. He pulled something from the small pocket on his button-down shirt. I watched him twirl it around his finger twice before I realized what it was – and the real reason for the smile on his face.
I reached across the seat, grabbed my backpack and hopped out of the truck before Jared could force me to do it. With a few strands of my hair, I’d be a marionette on a string. There were limitations, of course; you couldn’t force someone to commit murder or to give themselves to you – unless they wanted to. There are lines people won’t cross even under a compulsion spell. When forced, the brain revolts and the end result is messy.
But forcing me to get out of my truck and into his shop? Easy.
Jared held open the door as I rushed inside. “Afraid someone will see you?”
“No.” I lied.
He wasn’t convinced. Neither was I. Black magic was bad for business and business in Crescent Park was slow enough as it was. People came ar
ound to dabble in their fortunes or for some herbs to make their arthritis better, not real magic. Hanging out with Jared was a sure-fire way to lose what little clientele I had.
It was also the only way I could find Pru.
I’d made a deal with the devil. I always kept my word and managed to walk away clean. But this time I wasn’t so sure.
Chapter Four
Cauldron Crafts was nothing like I had expected. Bookshelves lined the walls and four large retail displays filled the center of the store. Herbs, bone shards, and other ingredients for all your spelling needs hung from pegs in individually wrapped plastic packages, each labeled and stocked according to their desired purpose. It was neat, organized, and clean enough to eat off the floors. If his wares weren’t of the magical variety, his shop could have passed for any other store in Gaston City.
“Ellie James.” Jared leaned against the glass display case which doubled as a counter top. He smiled like the cat that ate the canary, like he knew something I didn’t. Goddess help him if it was about my sister. “You know, I was starting to doubt my powers of persuasion. I didn’t think I’d ever see you walk into my store.”
“I hate to burst your bubble there but your powers of persuasion let you down. I’m here because of Prudence.” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned a hip against the display case opposite him. Feigning confidence we both knew I didn’t have, I asked the question burning a hole in my gut since I pulled up. “Now that I’m here, how exactly do you propose to help me find her?”
He clapped his hands together. “I love the enthusiasm, James. I really do. Step into my office.” He pushed open the hip-high swinging door on the end of the counter which separated staff from patron.
The cautionary tale of the spider and fly came to mind as I followed him through a narrow doorway hidden behind a sun-bleached velvet curtain into the back of the store. My pulse quickened and my palms began to sweat as my imagination ran wild with possibilities of what awaited me behind the curtain – a blood coven intent on bringing me into the fold, an altar for a sacrifice with me as the lamb, or a portal to hell. Countless hours of my youth spent watching B-horror movies told me I was making a fatal mistake following Jared away from prying eyes.
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