by Tegan Maher
She was past them in a couple of seconds but was almost to the nearest buffet before she turned back to glance at them, then at us. She shrugged, then turned her focus to the food. When she got back, she crinkled her nose.
"Do I have a booger or something?" she asked as she scooped up a bite of fried rice. The scrapes of chairs being pushed back drew our attention before either of us could answer; the family was leaving with full plates still on the table. They threw a wad of cash on the table, gathered their belongings and kids, and left.
I drew my brows together. "Wow, that was weird."
"Right? All I did was walk past 'em." Shel said.
Emma shrugged. "Oh well. The way they were plowin' through the sashimi, I'm kinda glad they left. There wasn't any the last time I was up there, but the dude said he was makin' more." She shoved away from the table. "I'll be back."
I finished my plate and leaned back in my chair, trying to decide if I wanted to make another trip. I shouldn't, but I really wanted to. My little sister knew me well.
"Go ahead," she said, nudging me with her elbow. "You know you want to."
"Fine, you convinced me," I laughed, standing.
After eating enough for six people, we finally waddled back to the truck. "I'm ready for a nap," Emma said. So was I. I'd gotten up at six and the full belly pushed me over the edge. All I could think about was my bed.
I noticed as we approached the truck that the door of the table had slid open, so I pulled some duct tape from behind the seat and taped it shut while the girls adjusted the door a little.
As we were checking to make sure everything else was still secure, a family of three came out of the restaurant. They were driving an old beater parked beside us, and the kid—a coltish girl who was probably twelve or so—stopped beside me.
"Wow, cool door!"
I smiled. "I know. All doors used to be heavy and have knobs like that. They didn't always make them out of cheap metal like they do now."
She pointed to the ground near the back of the truck. "Is that yours?"
I looked down and sure enough, one of Shelby's charm bracelets was shining against the asphalt. She bent down and picked it up, then handed held it out toward the girls, holding it up and looking at the charms as she did.
Her mom came over to us and examined the bracelet, too. "Those are some unusual charms."
I didn't think it was a good idea to explain that several of the little figurines were literally charms, so I just hummed my agreement. Charms were a love Shelby and Aunt Addy had shared, so when Addy passed, Shelby claimed hers as her own.
"Thanks," Shelby said as the girl draped it over her hand.
Her mom huffed out a breath and tried to be nonchalant about adjusting the waistband of her jeans. "C'mon Kirsten. We need to get home. I'm ready for a nap."
I smiled. "I feel the same exact way. I ate enough to feed a small country."
Her lips tipped up into a half-smile. "Lord love a duck, I love these things; I just wish we could get Kirsten to eat. We come up here once every couple months or so as a treat on payday, but she just picks. Her best friend was a little chunky last year—just baby fat, she'da grown out of it—and the mean girls fat-shamed her all year. Kirstin ended up getting in a fight over it, and now neither of them will hardly eat."
I shook my head, remembering how mean kids could be. I was just a little older than she was when I lost my mom, and Olivia—my enemy to this day—and her buddies got their digs in whenever they could. "That sucks. Kids can be cruel."
She frowned. "Yeah they sure can. Well, we better get going. Nice talkin' to you."
"You, too." I leaned around her. "Thanks again, Kirsten!"
"You're welcome." she muttered, distracted, as she walked to the car and climbed into the backseat.
CHAPTER FOUR
We tossed ideas for the door project back and forth for a few minutes, then started talking about finding a shop and thinking of a name. I didn't think I needed a shop yet, but the girls were convinced I should at least start looking. Raeann had been nagging me about it too.
"What about the shop beside the Clip N Curl?" Shelby asked.
I snorted. "Yeah, because I want to be straight in that line of fire every day of my life."
The Clip N Curl was the town's beauty parlor and community meeting place for the exchange of neighborly information. That's the nice way of saying it's the hub of Keyhole Lake's gossip mill. They weren't vicious, but they were creative; being that close to fire was bound to get me burned one way or another.
"You won't be there every day. You said you were doing appointments-only or just opening a couple of days a week, at least in the beginning. It's a good location and you have to admit you don't have to worry about anybody bothering the place. Coralee's there all day every day except Sundays and Mondays, and ain't nobody gonna bother the place as long as she's there," Shelby said.
"Plus you'll be right up the street from Brew. You can get coffee and BS with Raeann whenever you want." Great. Now Emma was on team Make Noelle Crazy. "Besides, Coralee and the girls love you. They won't give you any hassle."
"And you need to think of a name, too," Emma said. "I can make you some really cool business cards. I've already been thinking of designs for you."
I laughed. "Slow down. I'm just getting started. I have the pieces for my very first project in the back. I may be a total flop."
Shelby snorted. "You're not gonna flop. You're always kick butt no matter what you do."
"Well," I said, clearing my throat. "I've been thinking of names and I think I've got it. What do y'all think of Reimagined?"
Neither of them said anything for a few seconds, and I was afraid they were making fun of it back and forth telepathically. It would have been a snap for me to open my mind up and eavesdrop, but I had a strict privacy rule. Besides, this was new for me, and I was still a little unsure. If they thought I was nuts, I didn't want to know.
We'd been driving along an empty strip of road for a good ten miles chatting, but as seems to be the norm with us, the minute we saw a gas-station sign, we all had to pee. I pulled in and the only other car there was parked at the pump; it was the beat-up sedan Kirsten and her parents were driving. I smiled; this was my chance to get her a strawberry milk or something as a thank-you if her folks said it was okay.
I was glad to see the restroom sign inside over a doorway rather than outside pointing around the side of the building. Those sucked—I could never focus because I was too busy watching for spiders and rats, or making sure the cuffs of my pants weren't floating in the ick-water that seemed common to every around-the-side gas station bathroom I'd ever been in.
Shelby was in front of me when we walked through the door and she stopped so fast I plowed right into her. I righted myself and peered around her to see what the problem was.
It took me a second to process what I was seeing and when I did, it made no sense. Kirsten—the girl whose mom said was so weight-conscious that she barely ate—was sitting in the middle of the aisle stuffing moon pies and potato chips in her mouth as fast as she could get them open. Her mom was crying and trying to pull her up from the floor, but she had her foot hooked underneath the ice-cream cooler. Her dad didn't have a clue what to do.
The clerk, an older lady who looked like she ate lemons for dinner and limes for dessert, was standing with her hands on her hips, repeating in her nails-on-a-chalkboard voice that they were going to pay for all of it.
"If they can't, I will," I snapped, scowling at her and pointing to the front of the store. "Zip it and get back up there. You're not doin’ any good standing there runnin' your mouth."
If looks could kill, I'd have been a dead woman, but she snapped her mouth shut and stalked back up the aisle. One problem down. I turned toward Kirsten and knelt down. "Sweetie, are you okay?"
She paused for a minute to look up at me, her face covered in icing and crumbs. "I'm just so hungry all the time! I'm sick of never eating just so they won't
make fun of me!" She stuffed another cake in her mouth.
That both broke my heart and pissed me off, then confused me. I glanced at her mom, who'd given up once the store clerk had gone away. "Did something happen?"
She shook her head, still crying. "No. We were driving down the road and when she saw the sign, she begged us to pull in. We did, and she came straight to this aisle, and has been doing this for a good five minutes."
I looked at the pile of wrappers. Kirsten leaned back against the shelves and continued to chew, though the frenzy appeared to be over. She groaned. "That was so good," she said, swallowing, then running her tongue over her teeth to get the last of the frosting.
She closed her eyes for a second, apparently savoring the last remnants. When she opened them again, she scrunched her brows together and looked at her mom and Dad, then at me, Shelby, and Emma. "What?"
Then she looked at the wrappers in the floor and licked her lips, apparently noticing the lingering flavors on her tongue. Her eyes got huge and she bit her lip. "Did I ... was that all me? I'm gonna be sick."
She shoved to her feet, but Shelby caught her before she could rush past us to the bathroom. I felt magic swirl through the air as she took her by the arms and looked in her eyes. "Listen to me. You're gonna quit worryin' about what those girls at school say and just be yourself. As a matter of fact, the next time one of 'em says a word, you're gonna slap—" I elbowed her before she could finish that thought. She glared at me, but changed directions. "Your hand on the table and tell her to go fly a kite," she finished.
The girl's pupils pulsed, and she nodded before turning to help her mom pick up the wrappers.
I wasn't pleased with the fact that Shelby had used her power of persuasion, but there wasn't much I could do about it, and she hadn't done any harm. I could hardly fault her for charming a tortured young girl into "being herself."
Kirsten cringed at the number of wrappers. "I'm sorry, Mama. Do we have enough money?"
Her mama tried to put on a confident face. "Of course we do, sugar. Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. Just go in and get cleaned up and I'll take care of it."
I held up my hand. "Actually, it's my treat. I owe Kirsten one for finding the bracelet, anyway. Y'all just have a safe trip home."
I went to the register and handed Ms. Sourpuss my credit card. "Put their stuff, gas included, on there." She scowled and I narrowed my eyes and let a bit of my own persuasion leak into my voice. In for a penny, I reckoned. "And when they leave, you'll give 'em a real, honest-to-god smile and tell them to have a nice day. And mean it."
By the time I came out of the ladies' room, Kirsten and her family were gone and the mess was cleaned up. The cashier cast me a look that would have turned me to stone if all it took was intent, but I ignored her as I thought about Kirsten's behavior.
The girls had beaten me back to the truck and were sharing a bag of Twizzlers when I climbed in.
"You gotta be kidding me," I said, scrunching my nose. "You just ate enough for a week a half-hour ago and now you're eating again?"
Shelby shrugged. "Growing girls."
I snorted. "Yeah. Give it a few years and growing isn't such a great concept anymore."
One of her charms caught the sunlight, bringing my thoughts back to what had just happened.
"Is there any chance one your charms made her do that?"
"I thought about that. There are a couple of confidence boosters, and at least three that guard against negative energy." She shrugged. "I guess maybe if she touched both of them together it could have busted her give-a-damn for a little while. Since it wore off, that's probably the easiest explanation."
That made more sense than anything I could think of.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was dark by the time we made it home, and the relief I felt rolling up our winding driveway was about enough to make me cry. As the headlights shone briefly of one white fencepost to the next, it was like they were counting down the feet to my bed. Shelby and Emma were both sleeping, so I hadn't even had any company since about ten minutes after we pulled out of the gas station.
When we pulled up in front of the house, I was glad to see the barn lights on; Hunter and Cody, my boyfriend and Shelby's respectively, had already brought the horses in and fed. Awesome—one less thing to do.
I backed the truck up to the barn and shut it off, then shook the girls awake. "We're home, brats. Thanks for the company!" Emma yawned, and Shelby blinked her eyes and smacked her lips.
"Wow, I'm so sorry, Noe. I didn't mean to fall asleep," Shelby said.
I waved her off. "Don't worry about it, sugar. It was a long day and you had a full belly. Believe me, if possible, I'd have been right back there with you."
The guys were sitting on the porch and came to greet us.
"Hey, you," Hunter said, pulling me in for a quick peck. "How'd the pickin' go?"
I groaned and gave him a rundown of the day.
"You should have seen the first house," Emma said.
Shelby shuddered. "It was nasty. In the end though, the door and end table were free and if the finished piece comes out half as awesome as I'm picturing it, it'll make it worth our time."
"Then let's get it unloaded. Are you girls hungry?" Cody asked.
"Nah, we ate at the Peking Sun on our way outta Eagle Gap," Emma said.
"Nice," Hunter teased. "You all stuffed your faces with sushi while Cody and I slaved away here at the farm, surviving on whatever was in the fridge."
"Pht. Yeah, right," Addy, my living-impaired aunt, said as she popped in beside me, then peered into the truck bed. "It took y'all fifteen minutes to feed. The rest of the time you watched football while you ate chicken wings and nachos."
She floated over and looked in the back of the truck. "Find anything good?"
I released the tie straps and pulled them from around the door and dresser, then Hunter and Cody carried them from the back of the truck to a birthing stall that I'd converted into a temporary workspace.
Since the top of the table had been pushed against the front of the bed, it was still pretty dusty, so I brushed it off, then stood back with the rest of them.
"Okaaayy," Addy drawled staring at our goods with her lips shoved to the side. "You bought a door and an end table."
I released a long-suffering sigh. They just didn't have the artistic vision the girls and I did.
Emma moved over and pushed the table against the door like it had been the first time we'd seen it, then explained our idea.
"Oh, Cody said, looking at Hunter and rolling his eyes. "Of course. It's crystal-clear now," he snarked.
Hunter, being older and having more experience protecting his own hide, threw Cody right under the bus. "I sorta see where you're going with it, honey,"—he had no clue—"and I'm sure it's gonna be beautiful when you're finished."
Shelby laughed and pushed Cody. "See? Listen to your bro-in-arms there. He just guaranteed himself a good-night kiss if he doesn't screw it up between now and then." She turned to Addy. They said the house freaked them out, but you would have loved it. It was built a lot like ours, but was more on the fancy side than the farmy side."
She pushed a strand of hair back from her face and the light from the barn caught her ring. Addy swept closer to it. "Now that brings back some memories! Where'd ya find that at?"
Emma and I held out our hands, thumbs up, so Addy could see ours, too. "They were in the drawer in the end table." I told her the story, and her eyes sparkled with that faraway look she got when she thought of our Uncle Calvin.
"Cal gave me my spoon ring as a promise, the big dope. We'd spent the day at the lake and he'd found it in the sand. We were both a little sunburned and we'd snitched a bottle of my daddy's blackberry wine from the cellar." She smiled and sighed. "He got down on one knee and asked me if I'd consider sayin' yes if he ever worked up the nerve propose to me."
That brought tears to my eyes; my Uncle Cal had been one of the kindest, goo
fiest men I'd ever met. He'd led a three-year-old Shelby around on a pony for hours and answered my endless questions about everything to do with the farm. He'd been sitting on the porch with a shotgun when Benny Smythe picked me up for senior prom, and he'd taken me fishin' when I'd get lonely for my folks or had some other, lesser disaster making me unhappy.
He'd died several years ago, and unlike Addy, who'd shown up a couple weeks post-funeral, we hadn't seen hide nor hair of him. Nobody knew exactly how the ghost thing worked since death was as individual as birth, but we reckoned some get the chance and some don’t. Addy, Belle, Angus, and our other town ghosts just say they woke up dead and felt like they had the choice to hang around or cross over.
Maybe it's not an option for everyone, or maybe most folks just choose to go. I think it's the first.
At any rate, thinking about him was still bittersweet for all of us, but I wouldn't trade those memories for anything in the world. I was grateful that at least Addy'd been given the option. Otherwise, I’d be truly lost.
CHAPTER SIX
Even though I stayed up late baking, I rolled out of bed at five to help Rae open Brew4U. The kitschy little shop was taking off, and the faster word spread, the more pastries she needed. She'd opened the shop several months before, and though we figured it would do well, neither of us expected the near-instant influx of business. She'd scraped by and poured nearly every cent of profit into paying back her business loan and was almost free and clear.
Though I'm handy with most spells, except herbs and potions—that was Rae's thing—I'm a kitchen witch at heart. When I'm baking, the rest of the world disappears and there's nothing left but peace and magic. Just as Rae's coffee was so successful because she poured her magic into the blends, my pastries were a hit because of the happiness and magic kneaded or mixed into everything I made.
Don't get me wrong though. We weren't drugging unsuspecting customers; Rae had a menu much like any other specialty shop that offered drinks such as Lively Lattes, Calming Cappuccinos (decaf, obviously), and a wide variety of other blends she would add, based upon what was ordered. And of course she offered the standard varieties, too.
