Chapter Thirteen
Ria
Ria slurped the last of her drink and popped the little boba pearls between her teeth one by one. Tossing her empty cup into a nearby trash bin, she returned to her friends.
A strange yet pleasant feeling washed over her when she thought of these women—these witches—as friends, but there was no other word for it.
When she’d gotten the text from Lissa, they were the first ones she reached out to.
If she ever got an SOS call from any of them, she knew she would help in whatever way she could—no questions asked.
And wasn’t that the simplest definition of friendship?
Caring enough about someone to be there for them if they needed help?
She’d had acquaintances back in Portland, people she worked with mostly who would invite her to happy hour, but she never felt a genuine connection with any of them, not like she did with these women.
“I’m glad you guys suggested this,” Ria said, sidling up next to Bootsy. “I almost never come down to the main drag. Especially not in the summer.”
“Yeah, it’s usually clogged with tourists,” Jess replied, tossing back the last of her own salted caramel milk tea.
“You have to time it just right. Four in the afternoon on a Monday is your best bet. The weekend tourists have all left to go back to Portland, and the extended tourists are heading back to their hotels after a long day at the beach. Us locals have a very narrow window of time to enjoy the strip.”
“It’s worth it for Lynn’s boba, though,” Kelly chimed in, taking a sip from the strawberry drink she was nursing far slower than anyone else.
Hailey nodded beside her. “Yeah it is. And it’s always interesting to pop into the artsy stores to look around.”
“That was fun,” Ria agreed. “The glass shop was pretty cool.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t get anything,” Bootsy said, tossing her drink in the trash and looping an arm through Ria’s. “You were analyzing some of those pieces for a while.”
“I was hoping to get a new sculpture to replace the one my ex stole, but none of them spoke to me.” Ria shrugged. “Maybe I’ll check back another time, but I didn’t get the best vibes from that place.”
The group strolled along in silence a bit longer, everyone focused on perusing the shop windows they passed. As they approached the end of the commercial area, Jess held out an arm to stop them.
“You guys wanna head over to the park?” she asked, gesturing down the side street.
Ria glanced down the road they were on, craning her neck to look past the string of commercial offices. “I haven’t been down this far in years. There’s nothing else to see?”
Bootsy tugged Ria off the main drag and down the side street. “Nothing but some business offices. We passed all the good stuff. Besides, we all know you want to talk about something. Might as well find a quiet place to chat.”
Ria took in the faces of the other women. Nobody seemed surprised by Bootsy’s statement.
“You all know I wanted to talk?” she asked, the familiar blush of heat dancing along her cheeks. So much for her subtle plan to bring it up casually.
“Of course,” Jess said, flipping around to walk backward so she could see everyone. “You’ve never once invited us to hang out. We all saw it for what it was. You’re struggling with something.”
Ria opened her mouth to protest, then snapped it shut and gave them all a chagrined look. She hadn’t realized how transparent she was.
“Okay, so maybe I did want to talk to you guys,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not having fun.”
“It’s cool. We’ll take it,” Bootsy said. “You’re one of us now, babe. You can fight it, but we’ll reel you in sooner or later.”
“One of us. One of us,” Hailey chanted and within seconds everyone had joined in.
Ria hid her face in mock embarrassment but couldn’t stop laughing.
Turning their words over in her head, she didn’t fight the huge grin that spread from pink cheek to pink cheek.
A month ago, her circumstances had been so different, but now…
She was okay with it—with these women claiming her as one of them.
Their little witchy pack meandered down the side street that dumped them out at a grassy field.
Finding a spot under a weeping willow tree, they all plopped down.
Bootsy laid back to stare up at the sky; Jess leaned against the trunk; Kelly and Hailey sat cross-legged, close enough their knees brushed together; and Willow, whom Ria kept forgetting was with them because she rarely spoke, remained standing to play with the hanging branches of her namesake tree.
Ria thought she heard the eccentric witch mumbling a few words to the leaves, but she couldn’t be sure.
“So, you gonna tell us what’s going on?” Bootsy asked, propping a hand under her head to peer up at Ria.
Tucking her feet underneath her butt to keep her new yellow gingham shorts out of the dirt, Ria hesitated before answering.
She’d been fine ignoring the first few texts from Lissa asking how she was doing, but when she got the one this morning, she knew she needed advice.
Pulling out her phone, she reread the message for the fiftieth time, as if it might change into something Ria was better equipped to handle.
LISSA: You don’t have to hide. Let’s start over. How about we have dinner together? At the very least you can help me get back on track with the spell.
When it first came in, her fingers had itched to text back “YES!” but her brain thankfully had shown up to save her at the last second. So she’d left the message on read, choosing instead to text the coven message thread asking for some girl time.
Falling back on her old calming mechanism, she ran through her list of favorite herbs for a second.
Barberry, Basil, Belladonna…
“So, I think I screwed up,” Ria finally managed to get out when enough of her anxiety had ebbed that she felt ready to confess. “Like, big time.”
“It’s okay,” Jess said, drawing a symbol in the dirt at her feet. “We’ve all been there more than once. What happened?”
“So you ladies remember that client with the destiny love spell, yeah?” she asked, trying to keep the nervousness from her voice. She’d just gotten to know these women, and the last thing she wanted was to be rejected for breaking some sacred witchy rule about not tampering with love.
They all nodded in response to her question, except Willow who was lost in her own world, brushing the thin branches lightly across her face.
Ria stared down at her hands. “Well, I think I might have actually done a ritual instead of a handcasting.” She looked up and quickly added, “By accident,” when more than one eyebrow crept up. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a love ritual until afterward.”
“Ooh,” Jess sucked in her breath. “You did a ritual love spell? Not good.”
“Yikes,” Hailey added, giving Ria a sympathetic look.
“That’s rough,” Kelly chimed in.
“Meh,” Bootsy said, closing her eyes and lying back again. “Could be worse.”
Ria glanced from the collection of worried faces to Bootsy’s unconcerned one. “In what way could it be worse?” she asked.
Bootsy shrugged, keeping her eyes closed. “It’s not like you turned their eyes into slugs or unleashed some nameless demon that’s hunting and killing people. Just undo the ritual and you’ll be—”
“There’s no reversal for the love ritual,” Jess interjected.
Bootsy’s eyes popped open. “For real?” She scratched the back of her neck. “Huh. I guess I never needed a love ritual.” She turned back to Ria. “Yeah, you’re screwed then.”
“Thanks,” Ria muttered. “So that’s it? There’s nothing I can do?”
“Well, the High Matron might be able to help,” Kelly said thoughtfully. “If anyone would know how to break the unbreakable, it would be her.”
“Yeah, but who knows when she’ll be back to attending meetings,” Hailey pointed out. “And I’m not going to be the one to bother her while she’s busy figuring out her future.”
“Really, it just has to run its course,” Jess said, picking up a small stick to resume her drawing. “You pretty much have two options. First is to avoid her. She’ll be heartbroken but eventually move on.” Jess drew a heart in the dirt with a sad face inside it.
“I guess that makes sense,” Ria agreed. She definitely had experience with avoiding confrontation. Seacliff was a small town, but it was still big enough she could avoid someone if she tried hard enough. “How long do you think that would take?”
Jess scrunched up her face in thought for a moment. “Honestly, it depends on the strength of your magic. Might be a few days, might be a few years. If your mom’s constant bragging about how powerful you are is accurate, probably going to be the latter.”
“Okay, let’s assume I don’t want her to suffer at all, let alone for years,” Ria said, mentally making a note to yell at her mom later. “What’s option two?”
Jess drew another heart, this one with an angry face inside. “Make her fall out of love with you. Go out with her and just be horrible. Insult her a bunch. That should speed up the process.”
Ria thought about Lissa, about her smile and her witty humor.
The way she played with her tongue piercing when she was nervous, and how she was the most adventurous person Ria had ever known.
Not to mention that kiss… An inappropriate and poorly timed surge of heat took root in her lower abdomen at the memory.
“I don’t think I can be mean to her,” Ria replied, shifting uncomfortably under the rather insistent pulsing between her thighs.
“You like her, don’t you?” Kelly asked softly, a sad yet understanding smile on her face.
Ria chewed on her lip for a second, then nodded. Unlike most people, she was much better at lying to herself than others. “Yeah,” she admitted. “Maybe the ritual affected me too?”
“Not possible,” Jess said, smudging the two hearts in the dirt with her sandal. “You can do a ritual for someone else accidentally, but you would know if you cast magic on yourself. If you didn’t expressly include yourself in the will portion, then it wouldn’t affect you.”
“She’s right,” Bootsy insisted, plucking a piece of grass to chew on. “Face it, Ri. You got the feels for this woman.
“Great,” Ria mumbled, her shoulders slumping in defeat.
She thought it was hard enough helping Lissa find love with someone else, but that was starting to feel like a cakewalk compared to being the recipient of affection she wasn’t allowed to return.
“So what do I do? I can’t go out with someone who’s under a spell. That would be ten kinds of all wrong.”
“Love is more transient than a whispering wind,” Willow sang out in a melodic voice without looking away from her tree bonding.
Five heads swiveled to stare at her for a second, then turned back when it was clear no more pearls of bizarre wisdom would be coming.
“I’m going to assume that’s one vote for letting it run its course,” Hailey said. “I guess it is your only option if you can’t turn her off from you.”
“Actually, that’s not entirely true,” Bootsy interjected, finally sitting up. “Even if there’s no full reversal, you might be able to dampen the ritual. Fade her feelings a bit so it passes quicker.”
“You’re right,” Jess exclaimed, smacking herself on the forehead. “I almost forgot about that spell. And I call myself a ritual expert.” She tapped the little stick on her chin, her blue beads clacking together gently. “Oh, but I don’t know if Ria is going to want to go that far.”
“You make a good point,” Bootsy agreed. “The conditions should be perfect tonight, but she’s never done it before.”
“I think she can handle it,” Kelly said.
“Me too,” Hailey added, earning her a quick smile from Kelly.
“Hey,” Ria interrupted, waving a hand in their faces. “She is right here, and she would like to know what you’re talking about.”
Everybody turned to Jess, who straightened like an obscure scholar whose time had finally come. “A ritual can only be lessened by another ritual,” she stated. “Specifically, the Ritual of Reduction.”
The thought of fixing broken magic with more magic wasn’t exactly what Ria wanted to hear, but she had fewer options than Bootsy had full coverage blouses. “Okay,” she said reluctantly. “So I guess I’ll do another ritual. What does it involve?”
The girls all glanced amongst themselves, their lips tugging upwards into tiny smiles.
“You know I really hate when you guys do that,” Ria said. “What does the ritual entail?”
Silence, until Willow’s ethereal voice rang out, “Her decorated earthly shell must fall prey to Poseidon’s grasp under the most blessed of signs.”
“Uh-huh,” Ria replied. “And in English that means?”
Bootsy gave her a wicked grin. “It means you’re about to pop your naked moonlight cherry.”