Second Time’s a Charm

Chapter One

If you happened to peek into Dirty Hoes Flower Co.

’s window, you wouldn’t be drawn to our dancing lilies waving in their pots or the aesthetic wall of glass vases.

The fresh, clean scents wouldn’t lure you in.

And you definitely wouldn’t feel calm or at peace, despite the lavender.

Instead, you’d be focused on the two women in the back, stacked on top of one another, screaming, swatting, and swearing—profoundly.

Why? I wish I had a better answer.

Maggie’s shoulders wobbled under my weight as she held my legs and I tried to reach the top shelf of our hardware room—a room we never went in because we didn’t know how to fix shit anyway.

It was more of a neglected closet than anything.

Dark wood shelves lined the small space filled with pot liners, planting gloves, clippers, and cleaning supplies.

The cracked, beige tiles creaked under us.

With no light or windows, I couldn’t see but continued reaching into the abyss.

“Stand still,” I groaned, stretching my arm over a dust-covered shelf looking for a damned pitchfork. A pitchfork to help catch the creature in the greenhouse. Because we were obviously experienced enough to do so.

“Reece,” she grumbled, “hurry up or my back is going to hurt worse than when Henry—”

“Nope,” I called down. “That’s enough. I don’t”—I grunted—

“need to know what Henry did to your back.”

“Fine,” Maggie whimpered, “but hurry up.”

“If you’d quit moving.”

“I can’t quit moving.” Maggie kept mumbling beneath me as my fingers began to lose feeling from holding on to the lip of the shelf. Looking for a better grip, something far worse caught my eye.

Not the pitchfork.

It was a spider crawling in a direct beeline for my head.

“Oh, fuck!” I yanked back, and with me, Maggie lost any sense of balance she’d held on to.

Heart in my chest, I snapped my jaw shut and swallowed.

If I didn’t, I’d puke. Only the flames of hell created such things, and we’d already had a morning.

I curled my toes in my boots, stressed and clinging to the soles.

Vaguely aware of Maggie screaming, I swatted, thrashed, and slapped until I no longer saw the beast.

“What in the world?” She gradually regained her balance, no longer swaying me.

Between post-panicking breaths, I managed to get out the word “Spider.”

She tightened her grip on my legs. “Where did it go?” The nervous rasp in her throat increased.

Truthfully, I didn’t know where it fell. But I’d have rather not told Maggie that. My hand brushed a wooden handle, and I almost cried out with joy.

“Found it.” A loud clatter to the floor told her as much. Glancing down as I dropped the pitchfork, making sure my friend stood clear of the danger zone, I saw that atop her brown curls sat the too-many-legged creepy crawler. Cursed carnations. “Maggie, get me down.”

Hysterically, I grabbed for something to hold on to, anything. “Get me down. Get me down. Get me down.” This is the end, I thought as I fought for my Gods-damned life.

“Reece!” Maggie screeched. “Oh my Gods, what’s wrong now?”

I leapt from her shoulders, wrapping my hand around the top of the door frame, and prayed to any God listening to keep me alive for ten more minutes. Ten more minutes and everything would be back to normal.

My life flashed before my eyes, and dust blew up from the ground where I crashed, but the world finally slowed. Glaring up at a very confused Maggie, I took in her round, brown eyes and knew they’d soon glow red with hatred. “There’s a spider in your hair.”

One inaudible scream later, she zoomed out of the room, smacking away at her curls.

With the pitchfork next to me, I took several deep breaths and tried to relax, knowing this should’ve been the easy part. Behind me, footsteps stormed from one end of the shop to the other. The yelling faded and Maggie’s fit ended with two slightly less angry eyes hovering above me.

“Got the bastard.” The look of victory painted her features.

Dark, feathered lashes encircled her eyes, naturally rosy cheeks flushed against her brown skin.

Maggie had always been the epitome of sunshine and everything else good in this world.

The longer she stared at me from her stance, the harder I tried to hold back the muffled laugh blowing up my cheeks until I couldn’t any longer.

“Come on, now.” She reached out a hand. “We’ve got a rodent to catch and ten minutes until the store opens on our busiest day of the year. Best get our shit together.”

I took her hand, smiled, and pulled until I stood eye to eye with her. “Our shit is never together.”

That much remained true as we stood outside with our backs against the glass wall of our greenhouse.

Most flower shop owners lock their greenhouses, but sometimes… the owners have really bad days and accidentally end up on the store floor with a bottle of wine, leading them to forget. And when they forget, the enchantment hiding the greenhouse from creatures fades. And when that happens…

“Do you think it’s in there?” Maggie aggressively whispered, gripping the empty trash can and lid she held to capture the creature.

“I don’t know, why don’t you look?” Sweat poured from my body. Stress sweat. The worst sweat.

Maggie pinched her nose. “Didn’t you grow up at a magical sanctuary for animals?”

“Yes,” I argued in a hushed voice, “and there is a reason why I’m here.”

Right? There must be a reason. A reason I left my home, my father, and his magical sanctuary behind me. A reason I ran a flower shop with my best friend instead. A reason I never looked back. Maybe not a “good” reason but…

The shattering of a pot yanked my attention off of my past. Time ticked. I gripped the pitchfork and locked eyes with Maggie, signaling with two wiggling fingers the plan: I’d enter, throw the pitchfork, and when the creature ran out, she’d capture it in the trash can.

Somehow, she understood.

Being the only child of a mostly absent father and deceased mother, I became used to doing things myself—whether it was getting groceries, fixing broken bookshelves, running errands, or cooking dinner.

And I felt glad for it, because currently Maggie resembled a stray puppy frozen with fear.

I wasn’t the parent friend, but more accurately the “Fuck it; I’ll do it myself” friend.

With a last blow of breath, I turned over my shoulder and crossed the threshold.

Scents of lavender and roses filled my nose.

Two middle aisles separated the room and limited my field of vision.

Walls were edged with troughs of greenery, succulents, and overhanging vines.

On our middle shelves, our few magical plants grew.

We kept three in our inventory: dancing lilies, luck-me-nots, and snapping dragons.

The lilies wave in the sunlight, wiggling and dancing, which is why we put them in the window of the shop.

Luck-me-nots are more for fun; you pick a petal then ask it a yes-or-no question.

If the petal grows back, it’s a yes. If not, it’s a no.

Snapping dragons are nearly identical to snapdragons, but they make snapping noises with golden sparks when touched.

Most magical plants and flowers are too high maintenance for demand. Ones used for cures are kept by medics. Ones used for cooking are kept at taverns or sold at markets. We’d had singing irises, but they had a problem of singing whenever they wanted—until I took clippers to their stems one night.

Edging down the right, I checked each new inch of visibility. The little bastard hid somewhere. Raxxens are hellish creatures—large rats with six legs instead of four and a nasty set of razored teeth. Their appetite led them to our plants; hence, the enchantment.

One more corner remained to be checked, and my bones were trembling like a damned scared-shitless deer stuck on the path of a speeding carriage. I hate this job. Maggie owes me so much for this, she’d better—

I turned the corner and there it stood, nibbling on leaves. Gray wired hair rose along its spine as its stomp-able little head snapped toward me. Hellfire eyes poured into mine and I didn’t take another moment to look at its six legs. I launched the pitchfork to frighten it, turned, and hauled ass.

In those few seconds, time slowed. Ceramic fractured behind me, but I didn’t look. I locked my sight on Maggie and ran as if it’d latched on to my ankles.

Vaguely, I heard Maggie chanting I’m-scared-for-my-own-life phrases and run-for-your-life phrases. And when my feet reached the door, I hurdled over her trash can as if I’d been a horse in another life, putting every muscle in my body to work because I’d be damned if that thing touched me.

I landed in the cold, cobblestone alley directly beside the trash can, only to turn back around at my friend’s hollering. Already, the alley’s smell of rotten garbage slammed my senses—the bowels of our beloved town.

“Oh my Gods, oh my Gods, what do I do? What the fuck do I do?” Maggie slammed the lid shut and parted her mouth as if torn between bawling her eyes out and puking all over the place.

Rushing to her, I pressed down on the top. “Go, go, go!” I nodded to the wooden fence bordering the woods. We waddled over, carefully holding the trash can between our shaking arms and legs. Sweat formed along Maggie’s hairline; her wide eyes focused on the lid.

I didn’t blame her; stress sweat soaked my clothes and even the butterflies in my stomach were having panic attacks. My hands grew clammy during our stagger, and I half wanted to launch the entire damned thing. But we didn’t; we made it to the fence.

“Okay, lift it carefully,” my voice trembled.

“Okay… okay… okay,” Maggie repeated.

Unfortunately, as with the shelf inside, we came up several inches short. The raxxen shifted, and a chill shocked my spine.

“Throw it! Throw it over!”

I yelled.

Maggie yelled.

We bent down, jumped, and chucked our trash can into the woods.

I ran.