“I got carried away. I heard ‘mango chutney’ and lost my teensy mind. I promise to stay in the dark hovel you call a purse—even if the British guy contacts me again.”
“Forget the British guy and help me decide. Red Anne Klein skirt and matching jacket, or the less formal Blue Fly jeans and Gucci silk shirt in teal.”
“You’re not interviewing with Karl Lagerfeld. You’re interviewing to sling sundries. Gum, potato chips, People magazine, maybe the occasional script for Viagra.”
“It’s an organic pharmacy right in that kitschy little knoll in town where all the food trucks and tattoo shops are. I’m not sure they make all-natural Viagra, but you sure sound disappointed we might have a roof over our heads.”
“I’m disappointed you probably won’t be wearing all those cute vintage clothes you’re always buying at the thrift store if you work in a pharmacy.”
“I haven’t gotten the job yet, and if I do, I guess I’ll just be the cutest cashier ever.”
I decided on the Ann Klein. It never hurt to bring a touch of understated class, especially when the class had only cost me a total of twelve dollars.
As I laid out my wet clothes to dry on the tub and went about the business of putting on my best interview facade, I tried not to think about Belfry’s broken communication with the British guy. There were times as a witch when I’d toiled over the souls who needed closure, sometimes to my detriment.
But I couldn’t waste energy fretting over what I couldn’t fix. And if British Guy was hoping I could help him now, he was sorely misinformed.
Maybe the next time Belfry had an otherworldly connection, I’d ask him to put everyone in the afterlife on notice that Stevie Louise Cartwright was out of order.
Grabbing my purse from the hook on the back of the bathroom door, I smoothed my hands over my skirt and squared my shoulders.
“You ready, Belfry?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Ready, set, job!”
As I grabbed my raincoat and tucked Belfry into my purse, I sent up a silent prayer to the universe that my unemployed days were numbered.
Chapter 2
I sagged against the brick façade of the pharmacy and blew out a breath of defeat as I watched the pouring rain splash into a puddle-filled pothole in the middle of the road. “Okay, so that didn’t go quite as I’d hoped.”
Belfry scoffed from the inside of my box-shaped purse. “It didn’t go at all.”
“Jeez Louise. She was like a drill sergeant.” I referred to the manager of the pharmacy, who, in all her yellow-smocked militancy, had shot my application and me down like a skeet shooter.
“Uh-huh. I can’t remember the last time I saw such a sourpuss. She’ll need to set up camp in the laxative aisle if she keeps that up.”
“I feel a little like the fates are conspiring against me, Belfry. This is the ninth job I’ve been turned down for. I didn’t think the humiliation could be topped after yesterday’s rejection. I mean, if you can’t get a job at Weezie’s Weenie Hut, what’s left?”
“That’s not the fates, Stevie. It’s your resume. You have no resume. Humans in the real world have resumes. It looks bad that you’re thirty-two and have no job history. We need to create a human you. A reinvention of sorts.”
Now that really burned my britches. I did so have a job history, and I said as much when I managed to offend the manager of the pharmacy with my outraged disbelief.
Jeez. This was miserable. “I do have a job history, Belfry. I have ten years as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. Shouldn’t that count for something?”
“Well, it might if, in the human world, people were looking for an emergency operator whose specialty was talking psychopathic warlocks off the ledge of a spell.”
Yeah. Good times. I managed a snicker. “I was really good at that.” Then I frowned, annoyed by the memory. My job was the very reason I was in this stinkpot of toxic waste.
“You know what I say to this, Stevie? I say bollocks!”
Somebody’d clearly been influenced by the UK this morning. “Does the British guy say that, too?”
“No. Or I don’t know. I mean, he didn’t when we had that hacked-up communication out there on the cliff. I just imagine that’s the word he’d use for this mess we’re in. If it weren’t for your old job, you’d still be a witch. So again, I say bollocks and bull teats!”
“Bulls don’t have teats. They’re male.”
“Whatever. Why won’t you just listen to me and help me figure out a way to get your powers back? To prove you did nothing wrong? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about getting a crummy minimum-wage job. We could do it. You and me. Just like Rizzoli and Isles. We’ll find a way.”
Ah my Belfry, always my little champion. “Because who knows how long that could take, and in the meantime we have nowhere to live. Besides, what’s there to figure out? A council member stole my powers. Does it get any more definitive than that?”
Why was I allowing myself to be sucked into this conversation? No one wanted to relive the horror of that night less than me.
Belfry growled from inside my purse, rustling the napkin I’d tucked him into to keep him warm. “If I ever get my hands on that dirty bird council mothereffer, I’m gonna rip a hole in him!”
“With your big scary teeth?”
“Oh, shush. I can be scary.”
“No doubt. So scary the word ‘terrifying’ should be a hyphen on your name.”
“You’re avoiding.”
I nodded. You bet your bippy I was avoiding. “Yep.”
“So now that you’ve been usurped by a pimply sixteen-year-old who probably still plays with his X-Men dolls—for a job even someone like me, with no opposable thumbs, could perform—what are you gonna do?”
“Steal his X-Men dolls and burn them in effigy?”
Belfry did his impression of maniacal laughter. “Ooo, I like this plan, Dr. Evil. Tell me more.”
I was still in job-history shock. When a teenaged high school student has more work history than you do at thirty-two, a reevaluation’s in order. It wasn’t like I could tell the manager of the pharmacy I had more people skills than the cruise director on the Love Boat as a 9-1-1 operator for the paranormal.
I’d stopped my fair share of spells gone awry, earthquakes, one tsunami, two almost-shifts in the equator, countless wand lashings, a broom landing on the moon, not to mention hundreds of witch vs. warlock domestic disputes—just to name a few. Believe me, when a wand and a binding spell are involved, it’s a hundred times worse than your average human 9-1-1 call.
But none of that counts anymore and if I let the pot with all my emotions about my current situation sit on the burner too long, it was sure to boil over. So I’d taken to compartmentalizing my anger and only letting it out when I couldn’t feed off the energy of Belfry’s rage.
He only encourages me to ball my fist and raise it to the sky in anguish. For now, that isn’t helping us. Once I manage to figure out this new half of my life, I fully intend to let ’er rip.
Until then…
Pushing off the side of the building, I huffed a determined breath. “I say we go grab some lunch off the dollar menu at that food cart with the guy who makes tacos out of recycled something or other and rethink our plan of attack.”
I began to walk along the cracked sidewalk, staying dry by ducking under the awnings of the various locally owned businesses that had cropped up since I’d been gone.
I wouldn’t admit it to Belfry, but I’d missed the scent of the Puget Sound, the tang of water in the air, the colorful sails of the boats in the harbor, and the mountains peeking at me when the skies were clear. I loved Seattle. I never would have left to begin with if not for the job offer in Paris.
The squawk of seagulls darting through the parking lot across the street was like music to my ears. A parking lot for a fresh-fish market that hadn’t been there when I’d left Seattle. Still, Ebenezer Falls was as charming and quaint as ever.
; Multicolored awnings decked out each storefront, and though it was February now, the spring would bring with it spots of dappled sun and tulips by the dozen, anchoring each store’s door in bright clay pots the size of barrels.
Bicyclers would stream through town in an array of festive Lycra, the streetlamp posts would sport hanging pots brimming with purple petunias and daisies, and the curbs would be lined with wrought iron tables for diners who were willing to brave the chance of rain with their alfredo.
Despite my circumstances, it was good to inhale cool, tangy air again.
As I made my way down Main Street, blinking lights from a flashing pink and green neon sign caught the corner of my eye, making me slow my roll and look upward at the twinkling bulbs, racing around the perimeter of the sign.
I stopped dead in my tracks, my galoshes splashing into a small puddle as I looked again.
Shut the front door.
Belfry rustled around in my purse, pulling himself up until his little yellow ears poked out of the rim. “What’s the holdup, Boss? I’m starving,” Bel asked, until he, too, read the sign on the store.
Our reflections in the big picture window mirrored one another’s for a moment and then he went silent along with me.
Before he exploded. “I told you the British guy was on the up and up! Told you, told you, tolllld you!”
I reread the flashing sign. Madam Zoltar’s Psychic Readings. Medium To The Heavens. Séances—Palm Readings—Tarot Cards.
Okay, so when British guy relayed the name Zoltar to Belfry, maybe he had heard him correctly. Then again, maybe it was just a bizarre coincidence.
Still, there was an odd tingle in my belly, like the days of old when I still had an emotion to offer other than despair and defeat.
But I wasn’t so convinced yet. “Bel, c’mon. Listen, it’s not that I don’t believe you heard a guy ringing you up from the afterlife. You’re a familiar to a defunct witch. You still have your powers. It makes sense that you’d be some sort of weird channel to my old life and maybe even some residual ghostly chatter, but what does a British guy have to do with a psychic? Especially a psychic who named herself after the one in the movie Big? All human psychics are full of Twinkies. You know it, I know it.”
“No way are you not going in there, Stevie! No bleepin’ way. I know what British Dude said, and the name Zoltar was crystal clear. Not a chance in seven hells I’m not investigating this. If you won’t take me inside, I will climb right out of this musty old purse of yours and find a way in myself. Plus, I’ll strike up conversations with every single person who passes by. Once they’re over the shock of a talking bat, we’ll talk about the weather, the price of pork bellies, we’ll swap recipes and Facebook pages—”
“Okay fine!” I shouted, and then gave a surreptitious look around to be sure no one heard me yelling at my purse. “You settle down in there, Saucy Pants. Nowhere in this friendship of ours are you in charge. Got it? I’m only going in because you seem so certain this ghost is trying to tell you something rather than just testing out his afterlife voice.”
“Then after you,” he said with a grandiose tone.
I grabbed the handle of the glass door, hoping against hope I wasn’t making the biggest mistake I’d made yet.
The smell of incense wafted to my nose immediately, almost overwhelmingly, with the scents of vanilla and a hint of sage. The odor was swiftly followed by a dozen or so obnoxious chimes attached to the door, ringing out our entry.
Belfry squeaked a cough. “Egads, is she trying to hide the scent of a corpse?”
I lifted my purse and stuck my face in my familiar’s. “You pipe down,” I whisper-yelled from a tight jaw. “We cannot afford another problem. Now, we’re here, and I’m playing along, but I won’t play so nice if we end up in the psych ward for an evaluation because I’m talking to my purse.”
With a quick glance, I assessed the interior of the small store, littered with all sorts of freestanding metal shelves holding various-colored candles, each representing a meaning when you lit them.
And statues of Mary. Lots and lots of statues of Mary. One rack held healing crystals, most of which were bunk and wouldn’t heal a blackhead, but I reminded myself not to judge. Everyone had to make a living, and maybe this Madam Zoltar would be the first human I’d ever encountered who really could talk to the dead.
Who was I to say, being a former witch who really could make a caldron bubble? I had no right to talk.
I wandered past a spinny rack with postcards, and tarot cards, too, a wall of wind chimes and dream catchers, and a back room with a gauzy purple piece of fabric separating it from the rest of the store. The store itself was lit almost solely with LED candles that ran on batteries and one dim light bulb beneath a red lampshade with beads hanging like fringe around the edges.
As I looked around, Madam Zoltar’s appeared devoid of human life.
But another scent, one that rose above the incense, drifted to my nose. I knew I recognized it. I just couldn’t place it. Woodsy and expensive, the cologne or perfume—I couldn’t decide—lingered for a moment and then it was gone.
“Madam Zoltar?” I called out, hoping against hope she wasn’t home so I could end this wild goose chase of Belfry’s feeling confident I’d at least tried to humor him. I noted the employee bathroom and rapped on the door with my knuckles. “Madam Zoltar, are you in there?”
Nothing but silence greeted my ears.
I tapped the side of my purse with my nail. “See? Nobody’s home. Now can we go get lunch?”
“Not on your life, sister. Put me on the counter by the cash register and let me fly, baby.”
I set my purse on the glass covering the counter and shook my head. “You’re absolutely not getting out of my purse. So whatever you have to do, do it from in there.”
“Shh! I think I’m getting something.”
I fought a roll of my eyes and waited, crossing my arms over my chest.
Belfry gasped, a tiny rasp of air, but a gasp of surprise nonetheless. “I can hear him! Pick me up and face me north, Stevie. Do it now!”
“Belfry—”
“Now!”
His tone was so urgent, I decided there was no reason to upset him if there was no one to witness his shenanigans. I scooped him into my palm and held him facing north when he suddenly stiffened.
“Do you hear him?”
Was that some kind of joke? “No, I don’t hear him. I can’t hear anyone from that plane anymore and you know it, Bel. Stop being cruel.”
“Sorrysorrysorry. It was just instinct to ask. Forget that. He’s here, Stevie. He’s here!”
“Yay.” I wanted to be excited for Belfry, because his excitement was infectious. Yet, I couldn’t help but instead feel a pang of jealousy, and I didn’t like admitting it.
Belfry burst out in a fit of giggles, making me feel incredibly left out.
“Hey, I wanna hear the joke, too.”
“Oh, so now you wanna play, Mopey Gus?”
I shook my head, knocking off my raincoat hood. “No. I don’t want to play. I want to eat lunch. Finish up with British Guy and let’s get out of here before Madame Zoltar comes back from her lunch break and we get caught.”
“I was laughing at his name.”
My ears perked. “Which is?”
“Winterbottom.” And then Belfry laughed again, his munchkin-like chuckle spurring my own laughter.
A giggle escaped my lips. “Winterbottom? Was he a butler?”
“Mate? Give me one second. My mean friend is making fun of your name.”
I seesawed my hand, giving him a little shake. “Traitor,” I muttered under my breath.
“Shhhhhh! I’m trying to hear what the fudge he’s saying and he keeps fading in and out.”
I let my eyes fall to the floor, a cold slab of concrete painted gray. “Sorry.”
“Argh! Hold your palm up, Stevie, and your right leg. The signal’s weakening.”
“I will not.”
I reluctantly held up my right leg, noting my galoshes had seen better days.
“Say that again?” Belfry requested, his tiny body rigid with the effort to hear British Guy. “Oh boy.”
Belfry’s tone sounded ominous. “What’s happening?”
“Just one more sec…” he trailed off as he strained forward, his wings at full mast.
My right leg began to wobble and cramp. “Can’t hold on much longer, Belfry!” I gritted out.
“Just a little longer, Stevie!”
The moment Belfry begged for reprieve was the moment I tipped backward, the burning in my calf finally getting the better of me. As I toppled, I tried to hold my hand up to keep Belfry from harm.
Which was when I completely lost it and crashed into the spinny rack, knocking it over and falling against the sharply pronged wire postcard holders. “Ow!”
Postcards exploded in every direction as I rolled away from the prongs poking into my skin, but in the process somehow managed to catch the unstable metal shelf full of candles.
There was a small rumble like distant thunder before everything just collapsed in a screech of metal. One candle after the other dropped in a domino effect, some knocking me in the head, others splitting into chunky fragments.
I howled a word I can’t use in polite company as the candle meant to bring your true love back to you whacked me on the noggin. Stumbling blindly from the sharp sting, I attempted to scramble upward, only to stand on a cylinder-shaped candle and, like some demented log roller, lose my footing once more.
“Stevie! Lookout!” Belfry shouted from somewhere above me.
The problem being, he shouted too late.
Head over heels, I plowed face first toward the rack housing crystals near the back room with a yelp of dismay. I managed to cover myself only in time to keep my face from smacking the edge of the shelving unit.
Witch Slapped (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 1) Page 2
