Haunted Desires

Chapter 1

Hazel

If you want to become a witch, the first thing you must do is learn your soul’s own history.

That means tracing your family tree and finding out what kind of woman your mother was, and your grandmother, and her grandmother. That means researching as much as you can about your father’s grandmother, and her grandmother, and every other woman you can discover until you lose the trail.

At least that’s what the last book I read told me.

Why? Because magic comes from the marrow of our bones, and witches pass those sparks of magic waiting to be ignited down to their daughters, and it changes along the way, adapting, surviving and waiting…

especially if one of those women tried to fight her true nature and forget about magic and spirits entirely.

I think every girl goes through a Salem witch trials phase.

I went through mine in middle school, which is when I started to look into any possible witchy history my family had and I found a lot more than I expected.

The delight is still as nerve wracking as it is thrilling.

That small moment in time before denial settled in.

It didn’t seem real to me then—I was too young to understand the true power of spells and intentions and history—so once that phase burned out, I left it behind.

I lived my life and finished school and went off to college.

A business degree seemed practical. A minor in botany and herbalism is less so, but I was drawn to it.

That was where history found me again.

Cedar Lane kept popping up in all my research projects. Even my hobbies somehow found a way to be related. It was like the world was pushing me back to the path my ancestors had forged for me. Maybe even to bring me back to where I started—a full circle kind of thing.

So when I heard through a friend that Merideth, an older woman with thin rimmed spectacles and wrinkles around her eyes that show her age, wanted someone to take over her little shop on Main Street, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.

Cedar Lane was calling me home. Complete with a witchy shop of candles, crystals, books and a backroom of curiosities.

And of course a little corner with tea and coffee and pastries from the corner bakery.

After all Merideth always had time for tea and tea leaf readings.

Now Bewitched Boutique is all mine. Plants crowd the windowsill.

Rosemary, mint thyme and basil along with a beautiful pothos that climbs the bookshelf.

With a little bell that dings every so often, lifting my eyes from my family heritage to the rainy outdoors of Main Street.

The narrow storefront is like a second home to me, and I’ve tried to make it into a second home for anyone who wanders in.

I keep an electric kettle on hand for people who like tea and a pot of coffee on hand complete with all the syrups.

Although I can’t offer a reading, I am not attuned in those ways.

I keep Merideth’s bell chimes by the door for protection.

And I do my best to keep anything a local witch might need in stock, too.

I’m constantly accepting deliveries of dried herbs and crystals and tarot cards.

Lavender and sage are popular. Not as popular as black salt though, a necessity for protection.

Oddly enough rose bath bombs for aphrodite baths and yellow candles to light for success can hardly stay on the shelves.

It’s interesting what I pick up on the person across the registry while I ring in their order.

I always keep their secrets though. Especially those who come in with desperation and have questions.

I’ve learned much in the years of my studies.

Some people in town think my shop is a joke. Some people think I’m running it out of kindness, or because I owed Merideth something. Some people think I want to make a profit off the occult history in the area.

As I close up shop for the day, I know the truth is different.

I run this shop—my shop—because it connects me to something deeper inside that I can’t place. It lets me feel the changes in Cedar Lane as the seasons pass and stand in the places my great-grandmothers walked before me.

Most of all, it lets me live close to the library. And with that thought, the clock turns 8 at night.

Locking the door, I readjust my bag on my shoulder, pull my hood up over my head, and make my way toward the library. My heart skips a beat as I go. My breath fogging in front of my face from the chilly fall night air.

It’s three blocks down and two blocks back from Main Street, and it’s one of the oldest buildings in town.

My boots click on the pavement as I go. The roads are vacant this time of night.

The soft patter of the light rain accompanies the clicking.

The library started life as the town hall over a hundred and sixty years ago, then became the courthouse, and finally became the library when they built a new courthouse on the other side of town.

The sun starts to set as I turn onto the sidewalk leading to the library.

There are two lights out front on either side of the large old door, and they click on as I get closer, lighting the limestone steps.

The former courthouse and town hall is made of more limestone with a peaked roof in the middle and a peak on either side.

A shiver runs through me as I hurry up the steps.

I love an old, imposing building, and it’s even more imposing when the nights are longer.

For a second or two, I imagine coming here for a trial or a tense town meeting. I can almost hear the voices murmuring inside and the arguments starting to boil over.

But then I pull open the heavy wooden door, and it’s only the quiet library. It’s the last hour of the day. It closes at nine so it’s typically quiet this hour.

With only a few patrons or no one but the librarian… Finley.

With his dark eyes cast down reading the book in his hands, he stands behind the circulation desk in the middle of what used to be the main hall of the courthouse. It’s the main room of the library now, and most of the space is taken with packed shelves.

I inhale the scent of old polished floors and old books and even older stone, and the librarian glances over at me.

It doesn’t sound like anyone else is here, but I offer a wave to him instead of a verbal greeting just in case and use the moment as an excuse to look at him. To admire him even.

The librarian, Finley, is tall and dark-haired and as quiet as the library itself.

There’s an air of mystery and power that clings to him.

There are secrets in his dark eyes, and I’ve wanted to know what they are since I moved back here after college.

He’s fit and broad shouldered and I often wondered how his chest would feel. How his full lips would taste on mine.

And I’ve tried—God, I’m embarrassed to admit this—I’ve tried to flirt with this man more times than I can count.

I’ve asked him questions about the notebooks he’s always writing in.

I’ve asked him his opinion about the historical books I spend most of my time poring over.

I know he’s enjoyed similar books on herbalism.

I’ve tried and tried to get him to let me in, and he doesn’t seem to pick up on the fact that I’m…interested.

Very interested.

Tall, secretive men with dark hair are my type, and I haven’t met many men who frequent the same sections of the library as I do and who have an air around them like…

Like it’s magic. I’m drawn to him in ways I cannot explain. He feels like shadowy, illicit magic. Like he knows more than his own secrets. Like he might know secrets about the library and the town, and possibly even myself.

A burst of laughter echoes out of one of the side rooms, interrupting my thoughts. The library isn’t empty after all. I sweep my hood off my hair and make a beeline for the very back, which is where the oldest books are kept. The ones you have to have permission to open.

I put my bag and coat at my usual table at the end of the row, then take out the little notebook I’ve been carrying with me for years and page through it, my heart pounding. I barely see the notes I’ve written on the most recent pages. I’m far too busy with wondering what it is that he’s reading.

This is getting me nowhere. I close the notebook, close my eyes, and breathe.

I can smell his cologne.

It’s faint, as if Finley walked through this aisle a minute or two ago, and yet it’s totally distinct from the woodsy smell of the shelves and the old-paper scent of the books.

Oh, God, I cannot be smelling his cologne right now.

But it’s good. It’s subtle and historical, like the library, but there’s an element to it that I can’t name. It reminds me a little of my shop, but what?

I inhale again, but still can’t name it.

Okay. That’s enough. I can handle being in the library with Finley, and I can handle what I came here to do, which is research on all the town’s most infamous families.

The most powerful magic comes from working together, and not all of that magic has to do with spell-casting or glimpsing the future. Sometimes, it has to do with the bonds we form from being in a community together. Helping one another in times of need or just times of togetherness.

That’s what covens are for. Companionship and togetherness are their own form of rituals.

I came across a small box of letters shortly after I moved back that hinted at the existence of a coven in a town over in the late 1700s.

After I got settled in, I started to explore its existence more deeply and found strong ties between many of the families in that town.

The wealthier families left more records, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only ones.

There are mentions of the other members if you know where to look.

For example, most families—wealthy or not—kept some kind of record of their business dealings, and you can find all sorts of clues in those ledgers.

A bundle of garden plants sold here, a silver spoon sold there.

A deal made between two families, one supplying glass and one supplying silver to make a perfectly circular mirror.

Sometimes, if you’re very lucky, someone will have made a note about a deal being made at a weekly meeting and listed the names of the women in attendance.

I open my notebook again. I have a rough sketch of the town as it used to be in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds —scans of the real documents are on my computer—and a list of names I want to research on the opposite page. I read them over one more time, then get to work.

The laughter in the rest of the library fades away. I barely notice Finley’s voice as he speaks to someone at the circulation desk. Although, I do notice. I take down one old volume after another, bring them to the table, and go through them page by page.

At some point, the front door of the library closes with a loud bang, and a new silence settles over the stacks. A whisper of cold air brushes the back of my neck, but I don’t pay attention. It must be a draft from the front door.

I’m almost finished with another volume when I inhale more cologne.

Finley is on the other side of the narrow aisle, reshelving some books. He scans each shelf slowly, carefully, his eyes landing on every spine as he goes past.

He’s still there when I get to the last page in the volume and close it as quietly as I can.

And then…

I have to go over there.

Because he’s standing at the shelf where this book goes.

Finley glances at me as I approach, his dark eyes flickering up and down my body. Heat floods my body and there’s a little flip in the pit of my stomach. He gives me a terse, professional nod.

I nod back at him, ignoring the blush rising in my cheeks.

The gap where my book belongs is right in front of him.

I swallow thickly, suddenly unable to function normally. “Excuse me,” I murmur, and step closer. It’s a thick book, so it’s heavy, and I need both hands to lift it back to its place.

He’s so close.

There are only inches between the books in his hands and my back. Only inches between the heat of his body and mine. He’s holding his breath.

I lift the book, and then his hand is over mine, helping me push it onto the shelf.

“Thank you,” I say, and take a quick step to the side. We’re still so close in the aisle. “I was also looking for…”

My face is so hot that it’s hard to see the call numbers on the spines of the books. I have to pull out my notebook to double-check it, and—

It’s on the shelf right in front of Finley. A little farther down than the book I just put back.

“I was looking for—” I point. “It’s that red one, if you could—”

He grabs the book off the shelf and passes it to me. Our fingers brush together on the old leather, and I feel the heat of that touch all up my arm. A quiet gasp comes from somewhere nearby, like an echo. Did I do that? Or was it someone else?

Thump, thump, thump, my heart pounds.

Finley hasn’t broken contact. I don’t pull my hand away. He just stops and waits, and I stop, too, finally managing to look up into his dark eyes.

They’re very dark. The red in his cheeks is pretty dark, too. I’m almost transfixed by it. Like he’s the one who’s been calling to me. He’s the one I should’ve been researching. He’s the one I should be studying.

I am studying him. I can’t tear my eyes away. I start to go up on tiptoe, drawn in by the electric tension between us, and he takes a short breath, tipping his head down—

The front door of the library opens, letting in another gust of wind. “Finley?” a voice calls. “Oh, I’m freezing to death. Finley, where are you? I’m here about that hold I placed. It’s here, isn’t it?”

Clearing his throat and straightening his shoulders, Finley pulls away, turning toward the footsteps coming toward the back of the library.

But before he goes, “There are other volumes in the back,” he says quickly and quietly. “They’re only available by appointment.”

“Oh?” I say breathlessly. “When could—”

“Tomorrow night, once the library’s closed.”

“Yes,” I agree without taking a breath. Thump, thump, thump, my heart races.

He gives me one more nod, and then he’s gone. Leaving me in more suspense than I’ve been in since I first came back home to that shop.