Chapter 2
The younger Mr. Halcott came to visit today.
During his latest voyage at sea, a bloody fishhook embedded in his thigh while he was trying to cast out.
It was at the beginning of the trip, and by the time the vessel returned to harbor, a putrefaction had set in.
I treated him as best as I could with yarrow poultice and sent him home with elderflower tea made with water from the Wren Spring.
But I fear for his future. I did not say it, but at best, he will lose his leg. At worst, I cannot even voice.
Present Day
Mercy tried to calm her racing heart.
What had just happened?
“Mercy?” Dr. Pellegrini peered at her zoom screen, clearly trying to make sure she was okay.
“You ever meet someone and instantly know they are going to change your life?”
“As your therapist, I’d like to caution you not to jump into anything.”
“You’re right.” Dr. P. was right. She’d just gotten out of a relationship.
Except, she had taken one look at the stranger, and her whole body had said, Home.
“What are you holding?”
Mercy blinked, looking at the book in her hand. “It’s… the diary of my namesake.”
Mercy Finch’s diary had been presumed lost. All that remained of her thoughts and feelings were forty-two letters encased in glass in the Driftwood Pointe Historical Society and Archive.
Until now.
Maybe that feeling of home was due to this journal, not the guy. That was a better explanation than thinking she wanted to jump into something with him.
This book was a gift.
Her whole body quivered with the need to pore over the pages. She’d always felt an affinity for the original Mercy Finch. Wise woman, misunderstood, who treated the townsfolk until she’d been cast out and hanged as a witch in 1693.
“I can’t wait to read this!”
“Maybe you could put it off until we finish our session,” Dr. P. said drily.
Oh. Mercy blinked. “Ah, sure.”
But she had so many questions. Where had the book come from? She knew every volume in the public section of the store, and every volume in the private, secret room in the back. She had never seen Mercy’s diary.
The book had flown off the shelf and almost hit her, and him, in the head.
The bell over the door jingled again. “Darn it. Tuesdays are usually super slow.”
Her therapist sighed.
“I need to go see if it’s another customer, or him.” She couldn’t keep that thrill out of her voice. She didn’t want him to leave before she talked to him again.
“Perhaps we should just pick up next week?”
“Great idea.” Mercy shoved herself to stand. “Thanks, Dr. P.”
She disconnected the zoom and shot out of her office toward the front of the store.
She was torn between wanting to see him again and wanting to read the diary, which she still clutched in her hands.
Her best friend, Tasha, who ran the Tidal Inn across the street and frequently stopped by for a bitch session when she had time, was at the front of the store.
“Hey, girlfriend! Wait until I tell you about my latest guest.” Tasha waved her hand in front of her face. “Hawt!”
Was he still here?
“Shh.” Mercy hissed, glancing around furtively.
“Son of a biscuit.” Tasha wasn’t known for her subtlety. Her bestie was about ten feet tall, with an angular body. She could have been a model with her dark skin, high cheekbones, and her cap of short, black curls.
She was a Jersey girl through and through. Uptight New England hadn’t softened her edges one bit, except for her cussing. She kept it PG because of running the Tidal Inn across the street.
“Is he here?” Tash whispered so loudly they could probably hear her over the music at the Hex & Hearth.
“Hello, Ms. Williams.”
They both shrieked.
“Oh, my goddess.” Mercy almost dropped the diary. “You sure are quiet on your feet.”
His lips tilted up in a crooked smile.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Bridges.” Tasha pretended she hadn’t just been talking about him. “I see you found the best bookstore in New England.”
“Were you able to find what you were looking for?” Mercy grimaced.
His hands were empty. So probably not.
“Actually, I wanted to ask your opinion.” He picked up two books sitting on the coffee table near the comfy leather chairs. “Which do you think is best to start with?”
“As much as I’d like to sell you a book, you might be better off going to the Driftwood Pointe Historical Society and Archive. Eleanor Vane could help you with the history of the building your client is interested in.”
There were a few town histories in the private Reading Room of the Finch & Fable, but he would need special talents to access that room. Not just anyone could get in there.
He smiled again. “I’ll take both.”
He didn’t need those books, and yet he chose to buy them. As a reason to stay in the store longer?
“You’re looking for the history of a house?” Tasha moved closer. Mercy studied them. Objectively, they would make a beautiful couple. Tash with her dark skin and gorgeous face, Mr. Bridges with his windblown hair and California casual vibe.
She hadn’t looked at him closely when they’d nearly collided between the stacks. But now she could see he was, as Tash put it, hawt.
A bit over six feet, with a sculpted jaw and a strong nose, his wavy hair was a mix of chestnut, caramel, and blond strands.
He wore jeans, a long-sleeved sage henley that followed the contours of his muscular chest, and leather Adidas shoes in a coordinating wheat.
The shirt accented his hair and hazel eyes.
He wore an old-fashioned watch, brown alligator strap with a large round face around a thick veiny wrist.
He screamed ‘old money’ from his carefully manicured fingernails to his casually windswept hair, exuding confidence. But something beneath the surface projection made her cautious.
“I have a client who is interested in buying and restoring a house in town.”
“What house?”
He named the address on Church street.
The Briggs house?
“The Briggs house?” Tasha’s voice rose.
He jerked as if he’d been jolted. “That’s what it says on the plaque.”
People in this town had long memories. “That family isn’t real popular around here.”
“Why is that?” He looked quizzical. But Mercy sensed he already knew the answer.
Her witch intuition tripped. He wasn’t looking nearly as attractive.
Suddenly the Wheel of Fortune card she’d pulled from her Herbcrafter’s tarot deck this morning made more sense.
Change is coming, find the larger pattern in the chaos.
Zane needed to get out of here.
Neither of these books had the information he was looking for. The pretense of searching for information about the Briggs house was as good a place to start. But what he really needed was information on how to reverse a curse.
He’d spent a decent amount of time looking through the section on occult and witchcraft, but he didn’t know where to start. The truth was that he needed to get into the old Briggs house and see if there was truly a hex bag hidden somewhere in their old homestead.
That lore had been passed down from generation to generation. The secret to reversing the curse upon their family was to destroy the hex bag and break the cycle haunting them for the past three hundred and thirty-three years.
His to-do list consisted of two items. Find the hex bag. Lift the curse.
There was nothing on that list about acting on the attraction he felt for one charming bohemian bookstore owner. Especially since he’d found business cards on the roll top desk while he’d been snooping around the store when she’d been in the back.
The card featured a logo with birds, books and flowering vines, and the words Mercy Finch Costa, Proprietress, Finch & Fable Reading Room.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that she was named after the original Mercy. Before he arrived in Driftwood Pointe, he had assumed that the name of the bookstore was just a nod to the town’s history.
He’d been wrong.
The flare of attraction that blindsided him when they’d nearly bumped heads needed to be stamped out immediately.
For a moment, he had wanted to forget his mission.
To ask a pretty woman out for a coffee and see where it led.
But then reality set in.
He was here to make amends and reverse a curse that he didn’t even believe in. To put his sister’s mind at ease and alleviate her fears during a troubled pregnancy.
It would be the height of stupidity to start a thing with the descendant of the woman his family had killed.