Chapter 12 #3
“You can absolutely do this,” she says, grinning. “If me and Em can run businesses, anyone can. It sounds like you know what you need to do, and it’s just time to get it done.”
“And then there’s the whole avoid the evil ghosts haunting the bookstore and oh, by the way, I’m a witch—"
She holds up a hand, cutting off my desperate rambling. “Okay. Let’s file evil spirits under store functionality. Have they given you any sense of what they want?”
“No. There was one in my apartment, house, whatever—last night. It woke me up. It felt…” I shiver, goosebumps sending hair all over my arms upright at the memory. The malevolent, heavy presence, oily fear. “It felt like it wanted to hurt me.”
She clucks her tongue, her gaze faraway as she braces her elbows against the table. “That’s not great.”
“The cat told me to salt the doorways, and that did something. I didn’t expect it to glow—”
“It glowed?” Tara asks the question carefully, and there’s a note of either awe or disbelief in her voice—which, though, I’m not sure.
“Yeah.”
“My witch has a lot of power.” Prudence’s green eyes glow with pleasure.
“Oh, thank—”
“Not that she knows what to do with it,” the cat interrupts me. “But any normal spells you use for protection will be even stronger with her at the helm.”
“Do you know why the bookstore has a ghost infestation?” Tara addresses the cat, which is just as weird to see as it sounds.
Prudence ignores her.
“Right,” I say cheerfully. “Helpful per usual.”
“There are rules about this kind of thing,” Prudence finally says. “I can’t answer everything. I don’t know why. I don’t know how I know what I know. Magic is like that sometimes.”
“Fuck me,” Tara says, rolling her eyes, and I laugh at her annoyance. “Typical witch shit. Okay,” she addresses me. “The cat knows something, and I assume she’s useful?”
“My friend Ivy said she was like… an antenna or a battery or both, I don’t really get it.”
“Yeah, that makes two of us. Hmm.” She pauses, refilling my coffee mug with more steaming liquid.
“Is this really the state of the magical world?” Prudence asks no one in particular. She raises up on her hind legs and I tense, preparing for her to launch herself at me.
Instead, she makes a kekekekek sound at a small spider dangling from the old-fashioned chandelier.
“Is the spider magical too?” I ask her.
A low, rumbling growl is the only answer I get.
“I assume that’s a no,” Tara says. “Alright. I have to open the store. I have a book with some basic protection spells that should get you fixed up enough for today so you can start work.”
“It seems too easy.” I narrow my eyes at her. “I don’t need human sacrifice or something, right?”
“Dude,” Tara skewers me with a look of disgust. “I hope you’re joking.”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Sorry. I was.”
Mostly.
“Magic, spellwork, witchcraft, whatever you want to call it—it’s about intent.
Use the spell that calls to you in the book and execute it with pure intentions.
You want to release the tormented… ghosts from whatever is keeping them trapped here.
” Her brow furrows as she thinks through her words.
“Think of it like the natural order of things, right? Nothing can last on this earth forever. They are being pulled to the next stage—”
“What is the next stage?” I interrupt, fascinated.
“I have no idea,” she says, shrugging and then taking another thoughtful bite. “But I do know they want to move on to whatever it is. Sometimes something is trapping them here, or they have unfinished business, or some kind of intention that’s… less than wholesome.”
“Ominous,” I mutter.
“It’s definitely the last option,” Prudence says, her whiskers still twitching, eyes laser-focused on the arachnid overhead.
“Great,” I say, then square my shoulders.
“Listen. I may not know what I’m doing when it comes to running a business, but I’m going to figure it out.
I may not know what I’m doing when it comes to, ah, banishing spirits, but I am going to figure that out too.
This bookstore is the flipping chance of a lifetime, and I’m not gonna let anyone take it from me. ” I pause. “Ghosts or, uh, taxes.”
Tara claps her hands, beaming at me. “That’s the spirit. But honestly, taxes are a pain. Do you have a CPA?”
“I do,” I assure her. “The whole inheritance thing set me up with a slew of assistants. It’s bizarre, right?”
The thought clicks in my head, and Tara’s eyes and mine widen at the same time.
“I need to figure out who owned the bookstore last.”
“There’s probably a connection there,” Tara says at almost the exact same moment.
“Okay. Add it to the damned to-do list.”
“It better not be damned,” Prudence adds helpfully, then kekekekeks some more. “You have enough damned things hanging around without a list that’s possessed.”
That’s my last straw. Officially. The witch’s camel back is broken, or something.
Laughter bursts out of me, slightly manic and definitely too loud. The sheer absurdity of all of this slams into me like a freight train, and I can’t quite catch my breath, cackling, well, like the witch I apparently am.
The thought makes me laugh harder, and Tara watches me with a mix of apprehension and humor as she puts another kolache on my plate and tops off my coffee.
“Whew,” I finally manage, wiping the corners of my eyes with the back of my hand. “Okay. Sorry.”
“Nah, don’t apologize,” Tara says. “Laughter is the best medicine, right?”
“Laughter and working Wi-Fi,” I nod sagely. “I needed that.” I stuff the apple cinnamon kolache in my mouth because now that the humor has passed, I’m afraid I might just start weeping from the sheer amount of adrenaline and whiplash in the last few days.
Nearly choking on the kolache definitely gives me a tasty and dangerous distraction.
While I struggle to chew, Tara rummages through the boxes of merchandise and books stacked on open shelving.
“Aha,” she says, “here. These two. They’re simple, nothing fancy, but they should help.”
“And I just… use whichever, er, spell appeals to me?”
“Don’t overthink it.” A smile softens the directive. “Intent is what matters. Think of the spell as a way just to focus your intent. Give me your phone.” She makes a grabby gesture and I comply, fishing my phone out of my pocket and handing it over.
“Are you adding me to a witchy WhatsApp?” That would be cool.
“No, I’m putting my number in so you can text me. I’m going to check on you, okay? You’re not alone. We’re in this together.”
She hands my phone back a second later, and though I could literally crumple to the floor from the weight of everything on my figurative plate, it makes me feel better.
“This means a lot to me,” I tell her. “I feel totally in over my head.”
“You’re not alone,” she says, pushing my full coffee cup to me. “You’ve got me to help, I’ll introduce you to Em, and it sounds like Aiden has already made you his pet project.”
I frown. “Pet project?” My stomach does an uncomfortable flip.
I feed it more coffee. If my stomach is going to be uncomfortable, I might as well be supremely caffeinated, too.
Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan.
Leaning forward, I pour myself more coffee. Get thee inside my belly, caffeine.
“I don’t mean it in a bad way. It’s just… unusual. For Aiden, I mean. Either he’s turning over a new leaf, or…”
She lets that or hang in the air for a long time.
“Oh, he wants to fuck her,” the cat says. “Like she’s in heat.”
“Absolutely not, Prudence,” I tell her, using my very best bitchy librarian voice, tested on teenagers and disorderly members of the general public for years now. “She’s just being rude,” I tell Tara.
Prudence sniffs, tearing her attention away from the spider long enough to glare at me. “Suit yourself. Ignore the obvious.”
“Even if he did want to, ahem, do that, there’s no evidence of it, nor has he done anything but be kind. So there.” It sounds as stupid to my ears as it likely does to Prudence’s. “Whatever. Aiden’s carnal intentions notwithstanding, I have work to do.”
“We both do. And you know what?” Tara slides a sly look towards the black cat.
“Let’s have dinner and drinks at The Salt Circle tonight.
Ward’s been wanting to try their new fall beers—that’s my husband,” she pauses, grinning, her eyes lit up at the mention of her man.
“And I’ll get Em to come down, too. It will be fun. ”
“I’m not sure I have time—”
“We’ll be there,” Prudence tells her.
I stare at the cat, who is apparently also my new social coordinator.
“What? You need a coven, and I’d rather get dinner out than eat that kibble shit you bought.”
Cheese and crackers. This cat.
I clear my throat and make myself smile up at Tara, standing slowly and draining my too-hot coffee. Again.
“Well, I suppose I’ll see you there. Just let me know when and if it’s okay if I bring a cat.”
“How dare you—” Prudence starts, then she vaults off the chair, darting for where the spider must have touched down on the floor.
I swear I hear something about crunchy snacks under her breath, but I quickly decide not to think too hard about that.
“Good. Do the protection spells. It’s going to be alright, you’ll see.”
For some reason, maybe the coffee and kolache fortification, or maybe the warm, genuine way she smiles at me—I believe her.
Maybe it will all be alright.
Evil spirits and wholesale book orders will just have to deal with my newfound positive attitude.