Chapter 36
It’s Sunday, so Hunter isn’t working. The bookstore is absolutely silent, everything exactly where and as it should be. The office door is open, and I almost walk inside, but…
I don’t want that door to slam closed again, not while I’m in there alone and not expecting anyone to stop by until tomorrow morning.
“Not today, poltergeist,” I say, gazing into the enticingly empty room.
In response, all the drawers pop out of the desk and land on the floor as if daring me to come inside and fix it.
“Not today,” I repeat. “But nice try.”
This pretty much clinches it for me: I have to get rid of the ghost, or at least calm it back down.
I wouldn’t mind a nice Mrs. Mac floating around or a friendly see-through dog curled up by the door, but this ghost threw a chair at me, and only one of us has anything left to lose.
I know Hunter is helping his grandmother on the farm today, so I guess I’ll just hang out in my apartment with Maggie and wait until I can talk with him tomorrow. With him around, I’ll be braver.
My grandmother and I curl up to watch Drop Dead Gorgeous, which is one of her favorites.
It’s calm and companionable, and we laugh at all the same things.
She hops around and I scritch her head, and when it’s over, she tells me all the silly things Tina said and did, and it’s the best time we’ve ever spent together, mainly because we haven’t crossed each other’s boundaries or talked about anything serious.
Sharing a salad with her at dinner reminds me so much of my old life with Doris, but Maggie seems like she’s relaxed, like she’s actually being herself around me.
“I still don’t get it,” I say as we munch on raspberries. I eat mine one by one with a fork, but she tears into them with her beak, smearing her face with gory red. She looks like a parrot serial killer, but I don’t tell her that.
She looks up. “Get what?”
“Why did you make plans with Diana to become a cat? Did you just want a few more years? I could see Lindy planning her life in a cat body, but not you.”
Maggie chews, red juice dripping. “I got some bad medical news a few months ago. Something terminal. I…I wasn’t ready to go.
So I figured I could cast my spell and get a few more years out of life.
Diana had a little money, and we wanted to travel.
It’s a lot cheaper, when you’re a cat. Wouldn’t you want to hang around with your best friend just a little longer? ”
I look at the parrot who used to be my best friend, Doris. “Yeah, I guess I get that. And it’s pretty normal, fearing death.”
“To be honest, I didn’t even know if the spell would work.
But, well, if you’re dead, it’s not like you know any different.
Getting to come back and meet you is…” She looks at me, her red eyes dilating.
“Honey, it’s better than anything I could’ve hoped for.
I loved Diana like a sister, but it hurt knowing I might have grandkids out there and I’d never get to meet ’em.
And here you are, just as strong and smart and beautiful a child as anybody could hope for. A little pushy and nosy, but—”
“No, don’t say anything else. I preferred the first part, when it was complimentary.”
“But you’re just perfect, is what I was going to say. I can’t wait to meet your sisters, even if they can’t know who I am. When are they coming to visit?”
I take a deep breath. “I told them to come up for the grand opening on Halloween. If they showed up now, they’d want to rearrange everything, and I need to do this myself. For me. Exactly the way I want things done.”
Maggie bobs her head. “It’s empowering, owning a business.
I remember what it felt like when I opened the video store.
Everybody thought I was crazy. But back in the eighties, that shop was the place to be on a Saturday night.
Kids would cruise by with the windows down and music playing, waiting for a parking space.
I would decorate for Halloween and have a movie character costume contest. At Easter, I would hide little egg tickets in the movie cases, and the winner got free candy.
” She sighs. “It was hard, watching my store die. And not just because I got slow—but because movies changed. People used to love the feeling of coming to a movie rental place. It was part of every date or party. Netflix and chill, my fanny.”
“I know it’s hard to watch things you love change,” I say carefully.
“But maybe that’s just part of the natural life cycle.
I’m keeping some movies, but I think…I think the store could go back to being a destination, you know?
People will come here for dates. Kids will come to study.
Maybe we can do a book-character costume contest. Or use your Easter egg tickets in the books. ”
Maggie’s crest goes up. “Oh, honey. I’d like that.”
“Witchiness doesn’t have to be the only legacy, Meemaw. I’m going to give Arcadia Falls a new destination, a new place to gather, just like you did.”
“But you’ll still have the peanuts, right?”
That makes me chuckle. “Yes. Or else I think Barb would put out a hit on me.”
“The peanuts are a real moneymaker,” she agrees.
Before I settle in for bed and long after Maggie has fallen asleep, I read the spell Farrah gave me and gather all the ingredients from the apothecary cabinet.
I’m glad Maggie is back, and we’re getting along well, but I still don’t exactly trust her.
We haven’t mentioned it again, but she doesn’t want me to find that grimoire, which makes me want to find it all the more.
The next day, I greet Hunter with a kiss on the cheek and a cup of coffee made the way he likes it.
“I could get used to this,” he rumbles. He drinks it standing up, too full of energy to settle down at all. I wish I had a better segue into what I want to discuss, but I’m sick of cohabitating with a poltergeist who doesn’t even pay rent.
“While you’ve been working on the shelves, has that poltergeist bothered you at all?” I ask innocently.
His brows draw down, and he uncrosses his feet like he might have to fight. “No. Why? Has it been bothering you? Is it riled up again?”
I almost feel guilty burdening him with my problems, but isn’t that what a partnership is? Two people who solve their problems together?
“It had a little fit yesterday. It tossed all the drawers out of the desk. I’d like to do something about it.” Before he can interrupt, I barrel on. “I have this spell—”
“No!” he barks.
It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard his voice, and I jump.
He closes his eyes, pulling himself together. “Rhea, I told you about my mom. Spells can be dangerous. If any part of it is wrong, if an ingredient is missing, things can get deadly.”
“It’s the whole spell,” I say. “From someone who’s used it a bunch.”
He carefully puts down the coffee mug and sits beside me at the table. “How can you know that for sure? Where did the spell come from?”
“Farrah gave it to me. She was friends with my mom. I think I trust her.”
“You think?”
I look down, feeling silly. “Why would she lie to me? She didn’t go to Joyce’s farm that day. Her grimoire is fine. You can ask your grandmother. Wait.” I sit up. “Maybe your grandmother can help. If we call her and Tina and Shelby, people who’ve been doing spells all along, who know the magic—”
“They’ll never trust you. Not after Maggie.”
“The McGowans still have their grimoires. They can do spells. They weren’t there, either.”
His head is in his hands. “God, I didn’t know that. I thought it hit everybody. But they’ve just had their spells, all this time? No wonder they didn’t hate Maggie like my folks did.”
“Please, Hunter. I need this ghost gone. It’s terrorizing me, and I can’t open a business with it—I don’t know—throwing dictionaries at people, as much as they might need it.
Just talk to your grandmother. Let’s at least meet and discuss it.
I get why it’s not smart for me, a brand-new witch who knows nothing, to do big spells, but if we bring together several people who know better—”
“This is a bad idea,” Maggie warns in my head. “He’s right. They’ll never trust you.”
“I trust these people,” I say firmly, for both of them to hear.
“I trust that they want the best for me, and that they want the best for Arcadia Falls.” I don’t tell Hunter that part of my reasoning behind the ghost banishment is that I need to be totally safe while I search for the grimoire. I can’t. Maggie is listening.
And that’s how it comes to pass that at noon, I’m opening the bookstore door for Farrah, Joyce, Tina, and Shelby, who called them all together.
I already owe Shelby so much that I don’t know how I’ll ever repay it.
I lead everyone to the office, with Hunter trailing along behind and Maggie sitting on my shoulder, muttering negativity directly into my brain.
Hunter is wary, but he’s willing to listen.
I wanted to call it a parley, but we both agreed that sounded too much like a pirate party.
“We first encountered the poltergeist in the storage room.” I point to the door but have no interest in touching it.
“There was a big pile of chairs against that door, and it threw a mop bucket at us. But now it seems focused on the office. It’s locked me in there, banged on the floor, tore up the desk, moved the chair.
Even tried to lure me in with money. It was almost…
talking to me one day, knock once for yes and twice for no.
But I can’t open a business with something like that around. ”
“Have you tried the spell?” Farrah asks me.
“Not yet. To be perfectly honest with you, I’m a little scared. I know that bad things can happen if a spell goes wrong.”
Joyce’s eyes flick around the circle. “How do we know this isn’t a trick?”
“Because I’m not behind it,” Maggie says in my head.