Charmed

by Barbara Bretton

  ***

  Lilith was as good as her word.

  Less than ten minutes later she was back in Sticks & Strings, a wide smile wreathing her lovely face.

  "I knew it the second I saw you," she said to Liv, who was knitting furiously on her Aran, "but I had to be sure."

  Liv put down her needles. The look of hope and fear in her huge blue eyes almost broke my heart.

  "You're not magick," Lilith said gently, placing her small pale hand on Liv's shoulder, "but your family history is intertwined with the history of Sugar Maple and other towns like it."

  Liv looked confused. "But how does that explain--"

  "I'll tell you," Lilith said as we all gathered around. Since acquiring magick I'd come to realize how little I knew about Sugar Maple's rich history of sanctuary and freedom. I wondered what Lilith had come up with that could possibly link a quiet knitter from New Hampshire with our ancestors but the look of barely restrained excitement on the librarian's face promised something memorable.

  "We've been here since the beginning of time," Lilith began, "magicks who live side-by-side with our human counterparts." The human mind has always had difficulty processing what it couldn't see or hear or touch and our shared history has been bloodied by conflict and strife. "But not every human saw us as a threat and those special souls--we called them the Others--reached out to us in friendship." The Others, many of them of Norwegian descent, became liaisons between the magicks and the humans, emissaries who moved freely between the clans, keeping the lines of communication open and vibrant.

  Lilith paused to sip from a cup of tea. "At some point the magicks bestowed certain gifts on a rare few of the Others as a way to bring the two clans closer together. Their senses were enhanced and they were suddenly able to tap into the other dimensions and see the world around them as they had never seen it before."

  Unfortunately this golden age of understanding didn't last long.

  As human civilization progressed, the link to the old ways of their ancestors drifted into collective memory. The Others and their descendants gradually became shamans and spiritual leaders, fortune tellers and outcasts who were frequently vilified and martyred as devil worshipers, spellcasters, and witches by those who couldn't remember what had come before.

  "And that brings us to Salem," Lilith said, "and to Aerynn who led us out of the darkness to the freedom we still enjoy here in Sugar Maple." She had been helped by Others along the way, full-blood humans whose compassion had trumped their fear of the unknown. "Your ancestor Sigrid Jenssen was one of those who stepped up at great risk to herself."

  The silence in the knit shop was deep and long and we watched as all the puzzle pieces of Liv's life finally fell into place.

  She asked questions and Lilith tried to answer with as much detail as she could provide. We ate pizza, we drank coffee (okay, everyone else drank coffee while I guzzled decaf tea), we talked about how hard it was to navigate the world of humans when you carried magick within you.

  "So where do I go with all of this information? What am I supposed to do with my life now that I know I really don't belong anywhere?" Liv asked.

  My heart went out to her. I knew how it felt to be part of both worlds but belong in neither one.

  But Lilith had one more surprise up her sleeve.

  ***

  "Would you explain it to me again?" Liv asked as we waited. At this rate her beautifully intricate Aran sweater would be finished before she left Sugar Maple.

  "An emissary is on his way here to escort you to your new home."

  She fixed me with those luminous blue eyes. "A new home which isn't on this planet."

  "It's on this planet," Janice said with a wink. "Just not in this dimension."

  Liv groaned. "This is giving me a headache."

  "You'll be in this world but not of it," Lilith explained once more.,

  "Think of it as a multi-media life experience," Lynette offered.

  "You know Star Trek?" I asked Liv. She nodded. "We're going to beam you aboard."

  "Ouch," Liv said. "Is it going to hurt?"

  "It's like turbulence," I said carefully. "Lots and lots of turbulence."

  "I hate turbulence," Liv said.

  "You don't have to do it," I reminded her. "You can say goodbye and get on with your life. We won't try to stop you."

  Okay, so we would wipe out her memory of this experience but why upset her. She had enough to think about as it was.

  "No," she said firmly, "I'm going. If I have family somewhere, I want to meet them."

  "Family is only a possibility," Lilith reminded her. "The Jenssens may not be represented there any longer."

  "But there will be people like me," Liv asked. "even if we're not related by blood?"

  "Absolutely," Lilith said. "All of them looking to understand the gifts the ancestors bestowed upon them."

  "Any knitters?" I asked and everyone laughed, breaking the tension that had been building in the room.

  I'm not sure how long we had been waiting. Probably only a few minutes but each second seemed to pass with agonizing slowness.

  "How long does it take to pop dimensions?" Janice asked, checking the clock on the wall behind the counter. "I have an early day tomorrow. The Griggs family is coming in for a waxing and I need all the sleep I can get."

  We all knew that was a rhetorical question. Inter-dimensional time is a thing unto itself.

  I leaned closer to Lilith. "Who exactly are they sending for Liv?" I whispered in her ear.

  "I haven't a clue," she whispered back. "I guess whoever is closest on the Spirit Trail will get the call."

  "The Inn is packed with spirits in town for a convention. Renate said they're running her ragged. Why don't they grab one of them to be Liv's babysitter?"

  The unflappable Lilith just smiled. "Patience, grasshopper," she said with a chuckle. "We'll find out soon enough."

  I tried to put myself in Liv's position but my imagination wouldn't take me there. She looked remarkably calm for a human who was about to leave the corporeal world for a place none of us sitting there in Sticks & Strings could describe. Clearly adventurers came in all guises. Sometimes they were even short, blond knitters with a penchant for Aran sweaters.

  "This is weird," Lynette said after a while. "Is it just me or do you smell the ocean too?"

  Bettina sniffed the air. "I smell fish."

  Janice shot her a look. "That kind of goes with the ocean smell, don't you think?"

  For me it wasn't the briny dampness that suddenly surrounded us but the overwhelming sense that we weren't alone.. I sensed a presence in the room, a powerfully male presence, and it was growing stronger with every second.

  "Heads up, ladies," I murmured. "We're about to have company.

  .

  Chapter Six

  "For a ghost he sure knows how to make an entrance," Janice whispered as we watched Liv's traveling companion materialize.

  I stifled a giggle as a powerful male figure took shape in front of us. "It's like a strip show in reverse."

  Janice pretended to rummage in the back pocket of her jeans. "I have a few singles. Maybe he'll--"

  "Hold that thought," I whispered. "I think it's about to get interesting."

  I've encountered more than my share of spirits in my life. Tall ones, short ones. Loud ones, quiet ones. Life-of-the-party ghosts and ghosts who vanished into the woodwork the same way they had disappeared in life.

  But I'd never seen anything like this ghost.

  "Wow!" the usually unflappable Lilith breathed.

  "What she said," Bettina echoed.

  Liv was sitting very still on the edge of the sofa. I'm not sure she was breathing at all.

  Actually I'm not sure any of us was breathing. Don't get me wrong. Luke is the love of my life and he's most definitely a hunk but this ghost was something straight off the cover of a romance novel.

  Tall. (Really tall.) Narrow waist. Thick curly black hair and ocean blue eyes. NFL
-approved shoulders. Great butt. (Not that I noticed.) He had the look of the sea about him and there was little doubt the heavy Aran sweater he was wearing had once upon a time protected him from the elements.

  Too bad he'd been dead one hundred and fifty years.

  "I'd be Flynn," he said as soon as he'd finished materializing, "here to take the Jenssen lass back with me."

  We watched, spellbound, as Liv rose to her feet and glided toward him trailing her knitting behind her.

  "O'Connor," she said, beaming a joyous smile as she ran her hand along the very familiar cable pattern, the diamonds filled with moss stitch, that ran up the center of his sweater. "Some go, some stay behind, but the chain remains unbroken.

  The bittersweet story of a people who left the land of their ancestors to make a new life in a new world.

  The same pattern she had been working on all day, almost as if her future depended on it.

  Liv looked up and Flynn looked down and we all watched, wide-eyed, as their eyes met and--well, you can guess the rest. I almost thought I heard a choir of angels singing somewhere in the distance. As it was, I could feel the heat between them from across the room.

  "The portal will be closing," the magnificent Flynn said, aiming a smile in our direction, "so we'll be saying goodbye."

  "I'll be back for another workshop," Liv said as Flynn took her hand. "Maybe you can teach me to cable without a needle one day."

  I nodded, too choked with emotion to speak. It isn't often that you get to see the start of something wonderful.

  I wasn't the only one fighting back a raging case of sentiment. Tears streamed down Janice's face while Lynette and Lilith both were sniffing audibly.

  But I don't think Liv noticed anything but Flynn as hand-in-hand they took a step toward her future and vanished.

  "We'll never see her again," Janice predicted, blowing her nose on a paper napkin. "You give great workshop, Chloe, but I think he's got you beat."

  "You don't hear me arguing," I said with a small shake of my head.

  "I hope she'll be happy," Lynette said in a dreamy tone of voice.

  "She's meeting her destiny," Lilith reminded us. "That's the most important thing of all."

  We looked at her and burst out laughing.

  "Okay," Lilith said, grinning back at us. "Who am I kidding? That boy could put the Fae to shame."

  And then it hit me. In all the excitement surrounding Liv's lineage and helping her face her brave new future, I had forgotten the words that had set this whole thing in motion.

  This baby brings danger.

  A shudder ran through me and instinctively I cradled my still-flat belly.

  In less than six months, I would find out exactly what those words meant

  .

  ###

  Want to know what happens next? Spells & Stitches, the next installment of the Sugar Maple Chronicles, will be in bookstores and e-bookstores on December 6, 2011.

  The town of Sugar Maple, Vermont has been restored to its rightful place in the universe, and knitting store owner Chloe Hobbs couldn't be happier. But with the arrival of the town's newest resident, things are about to get a lot more magical.

  Sometimes it feels like I've gone from being the girl with nothing to the girl who has everything. I've got a man I'm crazy about, the biggest stash in the knitting universe, and now a beautiful little addition to the Hobbs-MacKenzie family.

  Baby Laria is six pounds, eleven ounces of perfect, and Luke and I are over the moon with happiness. But when Laria suddenly develops a mysterious illness that not even magic can cure, a quick trip to the hospital reveals that our six-week-old infant takes after her mom in the sorcery department. Even though she's just an infant, Laria might be the most powerful of us all. But as her innocent outbreaks take a turn for the ominous, I'm starting to wonder if our baby sorceress might have more magic than even I can handle.

  "I absolutely adored Spells & Stitches" --Lily, Romance Junkies

  4.5 stars

  Author's Note

  Readers are everything.

  Seeing your name in print is terrific. Good reviews put a smile on an author's face. Royalties help keep the wolf from the door. But the absolute best thing about being a writer is being read.

  Knowing that your words are making someone you're not even related to happy. Knowing that your story is helping to make a bad day better for a stranger who needed to escape for a few hours. Knowing that the imaginary friends you've spent the last few months with are out there in the world becoming just as real to a reader you'll never meet but know and love just the same.

  See what I mean?

  Readers are everything.

  So this one is for the wonderful readers (and knitters) who have taken time over the last few years to let me know how much they enjoy Chloe, Luke, Penelope, and the rest of the Sugar Maple gang.

  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  And if you're new to the series, welcome. I hope you'll check out the other titles in the Sugar Maple Chronicles.

  Happy reading!

  PS: For information on the Red Scarf Project, visit Foster Care 2 Success.

  The Sugar Maple Chronicles

  CASTING SPELLS

  USA Today bestselling author Barbara Bretton has always enchanted readers. But this time, she really casts a spell in a new series of magic and murder weaving its way into the lives of New England's most unusual town--and most unique knitting store . . .

  Sugar Maple looks like any bucolic Vermont town, but when the tourists go home it's a different story–inhabited as it is with warlocks, sprites, vampires, witches, and an ancient secret. And I know all about secrets. I'm Chloe Hobbs, owner of Sticks & String, a popular knit shop where your yarn never tangles, you always get gauge . . . and the knitter sitting next to you comes out only after dark.

  I'm also the sorcerer's daughter--a single sorcerer's daughter with Sugar Maple's future in her hands which means the whole town is casting spells meant to help me find Mr. Right. Who'd have guessed I'd find him in Luke MacKenzie, a cop investigating Sugar Maple's very first murder? Bad news is he's 100% human which could spell disaster for a normal future with a paranormal woman like me--in love, in danger, and in way over my head.

  Click here to read Chapter One.

  LACED WITH MAGIC

  From "a master storyteller" (Booklist (starred review) comes more magic, knitting, and love in the delightful follow-up to Casting Spells.

  Knit shop owner and sorcerer's daughter Chloe Hobbs felt the Fates finally got it right when she met Luke MacKenzie. And no one could have convinced her otherwise—including the trolls, selkies, or spirits who also call Sugar Maple, Vermont, home. But then out of nowhere Luke's ex-wife suddenly shows up, claiming to see the spirit of their daughter, Steffie—a daughter Chloe knows nothing about.

  Steffie's spirit is being held hostage by a certain Fae leader. And if Chloe weaves a spell to free her spirit, her nemesis will also be free—free to destroy her yarn shop and all of Sugar Maple. But if she doesn't, Steffie won't be the only one spending eternity in hell. Chloe'll be joining her, cursed with a broken heart.

  Click here to read Chapter One.

  SPUN BY SORCERY

  Readers love to visit USA Today bestselling author Barbara Bretton's Sugar Maple. There's just one problem-it's fallen off the map!

  Chloe is always losing things-but an entire town? Just when she was about to settle down in Sugar Maple with her soul-mate Luke MacKenzie, her Fae enemy Isadora strikes, and her new hometown is gone. Even the Book of Spells, her lifeline to magick, can't help her now. Just in the nick of time, her friend Janice roars up in Chloe's ancient Buick with Penny the cat and her yarn stash in tow. If she is going to save her home she has to go back to Salem, where family secrets and centuries- old feuds pull her into the fight of her life.

  Click here to read Chapter One.

  SPELLS & STITCHES

  In the latest novel from the USA Today bestselling author, raisi
ng a baby is hard, but raising one with magical powers is even harder...

  Sugar Maple, Vermont, knitting store owner Chloe Hobbs couldn't be happier about her pregnancy. But with the arrival of the town's newest resident, things are about to get a lot more magical.

  Baby Laria is six pounds, eleven ounces of perfect, and Chloe and Luke are over the moon. But when they learn that Laria takes after her mom in the sorcery department, it becomes clear that their baby might have more power than even a pro like Chloe can handle...

  Click here to read Chapter One.

  CHARMED - a Sugar Maple e-book short story

  Can you keep a secret?

  Growing up in Sugar Maple, Vermont, knit shop owner and sorceress-in-training Chloe Hobbs learned to keep a secret before she learned to tie her shoes. When your town is home to werewolves, vampires, trolls, sprites, and everything else the real world claims doesn't exist, you learn quickly how to hide in plain sight.

  And now she's keeping the happiest secret of her life: she and 100% human chief of police Luke MacKenzie are going to have a baby.

  But when a quiet young knitter at an afternoon workshop blurts out a warning about Chloe's unborn baby girl, Chloe and her magickal friends quickly discover just how hard it is to keep the biggest secret of all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BARBARA BRETTON is the USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of more than 50 books. She currently has over ten million copies in print around the world. Her works have been translated into twelve languages in over twenty countries and she has received starred reviews from both PUBLISHERS WEEKLY and BOOKLIST.

  Barbara has been featured in articles in The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Romantic Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Herald News, Home News, Somerset Gazette,,among others, and has been interviewed by Independent Network News Television, appeared on the Susan Stamberg Show on NPR, and been featured in an interview with Charles Osgood of WCBS, among others.