CHAPTER 2 #2
“Thanks for trying, Abigail, but Grans is right. I wasn’t fully here.
I need to practice being more in the moment.
If I’m at work, I’m worrying about Mia’s Morsels.
If I’m home, I’m worried about work.” Mia turned her phone completely off.
“Maybe that will help.” She picked up her pen and checked to see where she’d stopped paying attention. “Tell me again about the third shelf?”
“It’s where your aromatics will be stored.
There’s a precise order to the bottles, which allows you to focus on the spell and not reading bottles and containers.
I know it might seem old-fashioned, but we have our rituals to ensure that we are successful with our potions.
No use remaking the wheel when it’s already been discovered.
” Abigail listed off the contents of the bottles one by one.
“Next summer I’ll teach you how to dry and store your herbs. ”
Grans raised an eyebrow.
“With Mary Alice’s permission, of course.” Abigail hurriedly added as she glanced at her watch. “Oh, I need to run downstairs. We’re Zooming with Christina’s mother about the receptions.”
“Tell Mother Adams I said hi.” Mia grinned.
That would probably set off the matriarch of the Adams family, and Mia didn’t even have to be there.
Knowing how to push a person’s buttons was an exact science.
One that she used with her ex-fiancé’s family often.
Well, except Christina. Mia had claimed her as found family as soon as the engagement had been called off.
“I thought you had untied the knots between you and the Adams family,” Grans asked as Abigail hurried out of the room.
“Except when it comes to Christina, I have. I don’t like the way Christina’s mother pushes her around. I thought when Isaac married Jessica, she’d be Mother Adams’s new project. But this wedding to Levi has the woman wound up like a spring, waiting to explode.”
Mia opened a door and found her storeroom already set up, with cleaning supplies even. Grans had outdone herself. “I’ve been practicing the calming spell and focusing on Mother Adams as much as possible. It seems to be making her more anxious. Am I doing it wrong?”
“Probably not. But some people can’t be fixed.
Roxanne Adams is one of those people. I did the same spell on her for years when you started getting serious about Isaac.
Nothing helped.” Grans stepped over to where a desk and chair sat, surrounded on two sides by wall-to-ceiling bookshelves.
“I’ve also set you up an office in here.
You can add a computer, but I liked keeping track of my spells and progress in a handwritten journal, as did my ancestors.
I bought you a new journal to use. The ones from the past, well, they’re all here, on the shelves.
Years of history of kitchen witches, all the way back through the Salem trials.
The few written materials they had from before were destroyed so no one would find them. It was a dark time.”
Mia walked over and ran a finger over the spines of the journals. Sparks of random magic followed her touch. “They’re beautiful. The entire lab is perfect. Are you sure you want to turn this over to me? Won’t you be sad?”
Grans looked at her, confused. “Oh, I’m not giving up my power. We never adopted that tradition. I’ll be a kitchen witch until I die. Then my power and whatever spells we haven’t already transferred into your grimoire will transfer to you. The transfer ceremony is power from the Goddess to you.”
Mia thought about what her grandmother had told her. “Maybe that’s what happened in Levi and Trent’s ceremony. The Goddess added power—she didn’t take it from one witch and give it to the other.”
Grans went over and pulled a book off the other side of the bookshelves.
“I wonder if we can prove that in some way? As it is, if the coven finds out Trent has power, they will attempt to strip him of it. And the process isn’t pretty.
If we can prove that this is the Goddess’s blessing, the coven can’t work against it. ”
“Isn’t Cerby that proof?” Mia went over to look at the books on the other shelves. These were published editions and included all the fairy tales she’d been reading to help her acclimate to her new magical role. “The Goddess gave him to Trent.”
“You’re right! I think you might have solved your boyfriend’s problem.
I need to find a previous case, though. One that the National Council will accept as a model.
We might be able to fix this as soon as Mr. Howard shows up in Magic Springs.
” Grans sank into the chair with a groan.
“And with that, I think we’re done for the day.
Go help Abigail. I can feel her angst all the way up here.
Mother Adams has claimed another victim. I’ll work here.”
Mia hurried downstairs, leaving Muffy and Mr. Darcy in the potions lab with Grans. She’d come back to move them all back into the apartment for lunch. She might have to bring Grans’s meal down to the lab, though. When her grandmother started researching, she didn’t stop until she’d found an answer.
She hit the last stair and was turning toward the reception area when she realized that Grans hadn’t told her about Trent’s ability to read her mind.
And her newly found ability to send him messages.
“Another day,” she said, looking back toward the stairs.
She hoped her grandmother had enough days to tell Mia all the things she needed to know.
She hated learning from experience unless she was cooking a new recipe.
She sent good wishes up to the Goddess for Grans’s good health. Then she listened to see if she could find Abigail and the others. Cerby walked out of the kitchen and ran toward her. The others had been found. She picked the little Maltese up, giving him cuddles as she turned toward the kitchen.
Before she could take two steps toward the kitchen, someone knocked on the door. She glanced at Cerby. “It’s Grand Central Station around here today.”
He barked in agreement.
Mia hoped it wasn’t a neighbor letting her know a purple dragon was flying around her backyard.
She thought Buddy was in stealth mode, but Christina had seen him.
On the other hand, Christina, by being part of Mia’s world for so long, wasn’t exactly human anymore.
Or maybe she wasn’t only human. She had accessed a bit of her natural ability to her extraordinary powers.
A fact that Mia thought might have made her so good at cooking and had brought her to the top of her college class as well.
Christina hadn’t used magic consciously. It had been more in her self-confidence and attitude. She’d been outstanding because she believed she could. And the magic of her friends had supported her.
When she opened the door, a short man dressed in a green suit greeted her.
“Good morning, Miss Malone. I was wondering if I could have a word with Trent Majors. I understand he’s here with his mother and brother.” He bowed, taking off his matching green bowler hat. “If it’s not too much of a bother.”
This time he met her gaze, and she realized it wasn’t a human neighbor standing on her doorstep. Mr. Alfred Howard had arrived early.