Chapter 15
I suddenly wish I’d brought my pepper spray along—the pink can Billy Wayne bought for my birthday after I was surprised by a skunk in my garage one night and just about had a panic attack.
“Unexpected good or unexpected bad?” I ask.
Maggie chuckles in amusement. “Unexpected good. It’s just Shelby McGowan. Tina’s daughter, Diana’s granddaughter. Sweet girl, but she’s never been here before, so that’s the unexpected part. Come on in, Shelby.”
“Yeah, she can’t hear you because you’re a cockatoo,” I whisper before putting on my “totally normal girl who doesn’t converse with cockatoos” smile and opening the door.
The woman standing there is about my age and looks just like her mom, short and curvy with wavy blond hair. She’s wearing black leggings, brown UGG booties, and an oversized pink sweatshirt with a couple of chocolate stains.
“Hi! You must be Rhea. I’m Shelby. Our grandmas were best friends. And our mamas, too. I hope this isn’t weird. Is it weird? I’m so sorry.”
The words tumble out of Shelby like a leaking pipe, and I smile and say, “It’s not weird at all. It’s real nice of you to stop by. Do you want to come in?”
“Yes, please! I always wanted to see inside this place, but your grandmother—God rest her soul, I am so sorry—kept it locked up tighter than a chicken’s butt. Or a parrot’s butt? I don’t know what kind of bird you’ve got, but she’s real cute. She’d match my bathroom perfectly. It’s all flamingos.”
I realize she’s never going to stop talking, so I open the door wide for her, glad that things are pretty tidy, thanks to Maggie’s ability to control her cloaca, unlike Doris, who when free to roam seemed to have a bull’s-eye for family heirlooms and cute shoes.
Shelby steps inside and sets a white bakery box down on the counter, looking around with wide eyes.
“Dang, girl. It’s pretty in here! Get some new plants in those hangers, maybe a gold-framed mirror over there, some furry pillows, and it’ll be a glow-up.
You’re so lucky! The apartment over my shop is so cramped.
I’m a baker, by the way. Not sure what you like, so I brought a little bit of everything.
Mom said you’d been to the bank, so I figured it would be safe to stop by.
We never get new folks in town—well, except retirees, which is great for business, but not much fun, you know?
Oh, and Nick said you were super sweet, and he’s such a good judge of character. ”
“Does everyone in this town know each other?” I ask.
She nods solemnly. “Lord, yes. Everyone on the square, especially. All the businesses. Because so many of us live on the second floor over our shops, we’re all neighbors.”
“Did I mention she’s a flibbertigibbet?” Maggie says.
I wish the telepathy worked both ways so I could let her know that it’s actually comforting to have someone talk my ear off without a single word of admonishment.
Honestly, Shelby reminds me of Cait and Jemma—as in, she talks as much as both of them combined.
I hover over the white box. “Okay if I open it? I never could resist goodies.”
She dimples and nods. “Please! The best part of baking is watching people eat. Not in a weird way. It’s just satisfying.”
“I always thought the best part of baking was eating what you’d baked while it was still hot enough to burn your fingers.
” I untie the light blue ribbon and open the box, and let me just say I’m very grateful our families are friends.
There’s an éclair, a donut, a vanilla cupcake, a plain croissant, a chocolate croissant, a bear claw, and one of those giant monster cookies that could feed a family for a week, studded with chocolate chips and M her eyes are wet and pink now.
“Nope. Not a chance. My granny was real young at heart and busy as a bee, and I keep thinking I hear her right behind me when I’m alone in the bakery, but then I remember, and…
” She waves a hand as if dispelling an annoying cloud of smoke and sits on one of the kitchen stools and puts her elbows on the counter.
“Well, dust to dust, right? I’m not gonna cry about it today.
Again. What’s done is done. She lived a good life, but we’re here now.
So you’ve got to tell me everything and take my mind off it.
Where’s your mama been all these years? What’s your life like? And what’s your knack?”
I just met her, and she’s asking for not just a story but a whole book. Except—
“Did you just ask about my…?” I trail off. I don’t want to choke on this bear claw.
She gestures to the baked goods. “Your knack. Mine’s baking. Obviously. My grandma had endless energy, and mom’s real good with paperwork. And I’m assuming you have the magic, or we wouldn’t be talking about it. I’d be all—” She grabs her throat and makes frantic choking noises.
“So melodramatic,” my grandmother adds in my head. “Now how about some of that bear claw?”
I toss down one teeny-tiny crumb to shut her up and look to Shelby. “But you and I are allowed to talk about this stuff? I only found out about it yesterday, so I don’t know all the rules yet.”
“We both have magic, so it’s physically possible.
Talking about it is considered tacky among the old folks, but I’ve never understood why.
‘Magic stays in the family’ is how my granny put it.
” She rolls her eyes. “But I’m an only child and I don’t know any other witches my age, and our families might as well be family, so as long as you’re not offended, neither am I. ”
“I tried asking Nick and Nathan, and I totally choked.”
“As talented as Nathan is in the kitchen, they are both sadly lacking magic. Anyway,” Shelby goes on, “what can you do? Or do you know yet?” She leans forward, blue eyes alight, and I am overcome with the strangest mixture of shyness and pride.
“I’m just figuring it out,” I admit. “But I think it’s…books?”
Shelby cocks her head. “Your magic is books? Like, writing them? Or making them appear? That would be real helpful with the library closed.”
I feel ridiculous talking about it. “So I have this little dictionary, and if I ask it a question, it kinda tells me the answer.” I glance at Maggie, hoping she’ll interrupt and give me a better way to explain it, because as it is, this does not sound properly magical.
“Is she your familiar?” Shelby asks, focusing on the cockatoo, who’s too busy pecking around for more pastry that will not magically appear because bird obesity is actually very dangerous.
“Just say yes,” Maggie breaks in, sounding cagey.
“Yep. My old boss back in Alabama inherited her when his mom died, but she hates him, so now she’s mine.”
Shelby reaches a hand toward the bird. “May I?”
I nod, biting back a grin, and Shelby scoops up my grandmother like she’s a chicken. Maggie squawks and flaps a bit before Shelby firmly snuggles her under her arm. This is not a way I would ever deal with a parrot, but Maggie seems too stunned to fight it.
“She’s a little sweetie, isn’t she?” Shelby pets the soft gray feathers of Maggie’s back. “What’s she saying?”
Which tells me that regular familiars can talk, a fact that my grandmother neglected to pass along. I could’ve had Doris—my Doris!—but talking? And instead, I’m stuck with—
“You can’t just go picking people up and swinging them around, even if they are birds!” Maggie splutters. “Shelby McGowan, you put me right back down!”
“She says that’s nice and cozy,” I say.
Shelby looks down, smiling. “Wow, sounds like she’s a talker! My cat, Peekaboo, is pretty grouchy. I can barely get three words out of her, and most of them are no. But, you know”—she shrugs—“cats.”
I am now entirely full of questions about familiars, and also full of bear claw, but I don’t want to seem horribly ignorant, and I can just interrogate Maggie later anyway.
When Shelby asks if I want to go to lunch, I agree, even though I’m nowhere near hungry.
Honestly, it would just be nice to have a friend.
My sisters and I were close, and when they moved out of my folks’ house and into the city, I got lonely.
It’s hard to meet people when you’re in your twenties if you don’t go to church or work in an office with more than one person.
Every time I took an art class hoping to meet quirky young women like me, I found mostly older ladies in established friend groups and couples trying to spice up their Thursday nights with glassblowing.
And my one attempt at online dating resulted in a way-too-obvious catfishing attempt.
Thus my best friend was pretty much Doris, and now even she is, to some degree, gone.
“Let’s just get you in the cage,” I say, reaching for Maggie, but she screeches and flaps out of Shelby’s arms and away from me, landing on the floor and running behind the couch.
“No! Just take me with you. Put me in that ugly portable thing. I’ll be quiet. But I just really, really don’t want to be locked in and left alone. It’s against the Geneva convention!”
I can understand that, I suppose—the part about being locked in, not the part about the Geneva convention, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t apply to birds.
“Oh, you want to come along? Let’s just get you in the backpack.
” I put it on the floor with the door unzipped, and she eagerly runs over and jumps in, settling on the perch.
Shelby talks the whole time as we head down the stairs and out into the alley.
“So we’ve got five choices for lunch down here—four if you don’t like food poisoning.
By which I mean you never want to go with the raw oyster bar.
So that leaves us with Lindy’s for sandwiches, Marla’s for Southern food, or MacGillicuddy’s for bar food.
There’s also My Pie for pizza, but the lunch crew is always hungover and super slow. ”
I’m too full for dumplings, and I’m not ready for the absolute chaos of Lindy’s or the absolute annoyance of hungover staff, and I definitely don’t want to barf oysters, so I say, “I haven’t been to MacGillicuddy’s before.”
“Yay! They have the best fries.”
As we walk along the sidewalk, Shelby fills me in on each storefront and the owners and workers within.
It’s kind of funny—I’ve lived in my own hometown all my life, in the exact same house, and I don’t know anything about any of the businesses there.
Cumberville doesn’t have a cute downtown or a Chamber of Commerce, so while I may see the same cashiers at the store and run into folks I went to school with, there’s just no real sense of community.
“Lindy comes to our weekly Craft Night,” Shelby says as we pass by the sandwich shop, which is as mobbed as it was—just yesterday?
It seems like it was eons ago. “So does Nathan from the inn and Edie from the soap shop and Keelie from MacGillicuddy’s, and Riley—he’s Mr. Gooch’s assistant, not sure if you met him? ”
“Nope. Just Mr. Gooch.”
“He’s such a character. That eye patch, right? And then some other folks come and go, but that’s our core group.” She eyes me hungrily. “Are you crafty?”
“Not as crafty as my sister Cait, but I know enough to make a really wonky scarf.”
“Perfect! Excellent. We meet at MacGillicuddy’s next Saturday night. There’s a room upstairs for private events, and if nobody’s using it, it’s ours as long as we all spend at least ten bucks each.”
We’re in front of the toy store now, which has one of those Back in 15 Minutes signs up, and I pause to look in the front window. Even as an adult, I wish I could go inside. There’s just something magical about toy stores.
“Mr. and Mrs. Cove,” Shelby says disapprovingly. “Meanest people in town. They seem to hate children. Can’t imagine why they opened a—”
She’s interrupted by a ringing bell. Her eyes go wide, and her hand clamps down on my wrist.
“Oh, crap,” she says. “We have to get off the street.”
I look up and down the charming scene, trying to figure out what’s going on. “Is there a tornado or something? The sky seems really blue.”
She knocks on the door of the toy store, frantic, like we’re in a horror movie.
“Come on, Mr. Cove,” she murmurs. “I know you’re just in back eating a sack lunch.” She looks at me. “Nora would let us in, but they fired her. Their own daughter, can you believe that? Mr. Cove!”
When no one appears, she grabs my arm again and pulls me toward the corner, her eyes darting everywhere.
“Are we about to get murdered?” I ask.
She nods. “Maybe. We’ve got to get somewhere safe. Now.”
“Shelby. Stop. What the hell is going on?”
She looks at me like I’m an idiot child. “The turkeys are coming.”