Chapter 1
Saffy chased me through the living room.
“No, you silly thing. You can’t have this yet.” It was all a game to her.
It was anything but a game to me. Gram was coming, and I had to be ready.
I stopped at the mantel over the fireplace that I’d turned into a bookshelf shortly after moving here, knowing I wouldn’t use it for a fire. The dark wood mantel and my various knickknacks were coated in a fine layer of dust.
Saffy slid to a stop against my legs before turning to scramble up the chair next to the fireplace.
There were mere seconds left to dust before she’d strike.
I swished the feather duster I had in my hand over and around all the trinkets I’d collected over the years. Pretty shells I’d found on the beach near where I went to culinary school, a stone with a hole through it that I’d found on a family vacation to Florida when I was a kid, an empty tin of saffron, the hairbrush Ashley had let me keep after freeing her grandmother’s spirit from it. All that and more were up there, and I didn’t want my pudgy calico to send everything flying by jumping up here.
It was the feather duster she wanted. She was nearly as crazy about it as she was about catnip.
Saffy stood on her hind legs and braced herself against the mantel with one paw as she batted my hand and the duster with the other.
“Let me finish. She’ll be here soon. I’m running out of time.”
Saffy did not let me finish.
With one good swipe, she grabbed on to the feather portion of the duster with her claws and yanked it right out of my hand.
The duster popped up into the air, and Saffy lunged after it as I reached for it.
She won.
Saffy knocked it to the ground and landed on top of it before grabbing the feather end with her mouth. She ran off with it.
Now I was chasing her. “I still need that!”
She didn’t listen and instead scrambled up her cat tree and onto her favorite perch. She dove her face into the feathered end, then flopped to her side to kick at the stick end with her hind paws.
This was why I didn’t dust often.
“All right, you win this time, Saf.” She always did.
Drats. It really was a game.
At least I had gotten the mantel done. Mostly.
Saffy’s head popped up, and a few moments later, I heard it. The rumble of Gram’s car engine as it entered the neighborhood. It was an older model something or other, but that’s not why it was loud. It had been that way for as long as I could remember. She’d done something to it to make it that way. When I was a kid, Gram’s neighbor had a deaf dog, and he liked to lounge in her driveway. Gram claimed the louder noise gave her engine a stronger vibration that the dog could feel and know to move out of the way before Gram got to her driveway. The dog was long gone, but Gram said the noise now benefited all the animals along the roads she drove. It also gave me a last-minute opportunity to make sure I’d not missed anything in getting ready for her.
“Oh, the tea!” I scooted into the kitchen, then turned on the burner below the already full teapot.
As the noise from Gram’s car engine grew louder with her approach, I grabbed out two teacups and saucers, then placed them on the countertop. I’d let Gram choose what tea she wanted to drink.
Finally, when I thought it could get no louder, Gram’s car went silent. She’d made it to my driveway. Less than a minute later, the car door slammed shut, and I scurried to the living room to open the front door for Gram and, no doubt, her many bags. I’d never seen the woman travel lightly. Years ago, when she helped me move into my apartment while I was still in culinary school, at least a quarter of what we’d packed up was dedicated to Gram’s bags. Sometimes not all the bags would come out of the car, but she liked to be prepared. That was Gram, though. I didn’t question it then, and I didn’t question it now as I pushed the storm door open and stepped out onto the porch to let her in.
“There’s one more bag in the trunk if you wouldn’t mind grabbing that for me,” Gram said as she shuffled past me.
“Hey, Gram. Mind the step up,” I warned her.
When I saw that she was safely clear of the small step and in the house, I let go of the screen door and headed for the classic convertible, its top down in this gorgeous but hot summer weather. The trunk was still open, and I reached to pull out the medium-sized suitcase. Under the impression it was going to be lighter, I nearly lost my balance as my hand slipped off the handle while trying to lift it. It was a twohanded job, for sure.
With one hand on the top handle and the other on the side handle, I heaved the bag up and out of the trunk. It smacked my right hip with each step as I walked back into the house. I’d carried bags of flour and sugar for the bakery that were heavier than this, but the suitcase was awkward.
I plopped it down in the middle of my living room floor. “You know you’re only here for two nights, right? Why do you need all this?”
“One can never be too prepared, especially when we have a cleansing to do, wards to reestablish, and who knows what else. The energy in here is all out of whack. No wonder ghosts are popping up in here at will.”
“What do you have in here, bricks?”
Gram laughed. “No, but you’re close. Books. And a set of crystals for you.”
Of course. I should have guessed. Books and rocks. So very Gram.
I eyed my staircase. “It’s going to be a little heavy carrying this to your room.”
She waved me off as she approached Saffy. “It will be perfectly fine down here.” She leaned forward to scratch Saffy behind the ears, her bracelets clinking together with the movement. “And how are you, sassy cat?”
Saffy popped her head up from the feather duster she’d gone back to picking apart after she’d identified the noise from Gram’s car. I’d need to replace it before dusting again. It was a goner. Part of a feather was stuck to her tongue, and she twitched her head as she repeatedly stuck her tongue out and back in to work the feather off. I could hear the tonguesmacking noise from five feet away.
Gram giggled. “Feather got your tongue? Maybe that’s been the problem all these years as to why you never say anything.”
“She’s a cat, Gram.”
“Well, that could be it too. I know Sterling isn’t always in the mood. Oh, that reminds me. I should let him know I’ve made it safely.” She straightened, then turned back toward me with her arms wide open. “But first, come here.”
We each took a few steps toward one another and wrapped each other up in a big hug. As great as Libby’s hugs were, they had nothing on Gram’s. Gram was warm, and her patchouli perfume reminded me of childhood.
I breathed in the scent. “It’s so good to see you again. Thank you for coming.”
“I’m sorry it took this long. And your mom is sorry that she couldn’t make it, but she’s still dealing with the insurance company and has an emergency board meeting tonight because of the damage.”
“It’s all right. She couldn’t have predicted the storm the other night would cause one of the library’s trees to go crashing into the building.”
Gram nodded. “She looks forward to coming to visit soon, but if I’d realized how much the energies in here had shifted, I’d have come sooner. I’m sure she would have too. I can call and have her come after the board meeting if—”
“No, it’s okay. That’s a lot of driving if she’s just going to have to turn right back around for another meeting tomorrow morning. I’m just glad you’re here.”
Gram gave me a final big squeeze before we ended our hug. We stepped back a foot but remained holding on to one another by our forearms.
I took in my grandmother. Her long silver hair was braided, the tail coming over her right shoulder. I was used to it being loose and a bit unkempt, but this kept her hair more manageable on long car rides with the top down. She called it her “driving look.” Her mauve silk blouse was accented by several long necklaces and pendants. Some bearing crystals and gems, others metal charms, and one, a small glass vial, had who knows what in it. Some sand for sure, and maybe a few sprinklings of herbs, but the rest was a mystery to me. She wore ankle-length leggings, also part of her driving look, and finished her outfit with sneakers. Preferring to go barefoot when she could, she’d never fussed over footwear, choosing comfort over style, usually in the form of sandals. No doubt she’d be changing once she had a moment to settle in.
“You were especially busy these last couple of months, so don’t worry about it. You’re here now. How are you and all your friends doing?” I asked. At that moment, the kettle on the stove whistled. “Come. You can tell me all about it over tea.”
Gram smiled. “That is exactly what this old lady needs.”
“Gram, you’ll never be old,” I replied as I passed her and headed into the kitchen
Laughing, she followed me into the room, and I pulled out my supply of loose-leaf teas. “I’m running low on a few”—I pushed the box toward her—“so if you don’t see something you want, we can go to Leafs and Grounds later to restock. Gary has a great assortment, even more than he did the last time you were here.”
She searched through the box of teas. “I have a few for you from Susan’s shop, too, in one of my bags. I know how much you liked hers.”
I turned off the burner but left the kettle on it. “What’s going to happen to her shop?”
Gram pulled out a bag of black tea with hints of grapefruit. One of my summer favorites. “Well, her sister’s taken it over for now, but we’ll see what happens. It will most likely stay a tea shop since it does well, but it won’t be the same without her, that’s for sure.”
Miss Susan had died a few months ago, sending Gram’s circle of friends—her coven—into a tizzy. I’d found out about Miss Susan’s death from her ghost when she’d come to visit me in my living room to pass along a message about my skills being cursed blessings. She hadn’t said she’d been murdered, although that’s what had happened.
Gram proved to be instrumental in catching who’d done it, even receiving a special commendation from the mayor, but it would have saved her a lot of time had Miss Susan told me who’d killed her.
I handed Gram an infuser basket and a spoon, and she scooped out a hefty teaspoon of leaves before putting it into the infuser. We swapped places at the counter so I could choose my tea, and she settled the infuser basket on top of her cup before pouring the near-boiling water over it until she had enough for tea. I did the same, then followed her to the kitchen table where she’d sat down.
“Things have calmed down now since the commendation ceremony,” Gram began. “The coven has really come together, and one of the girls who Susan was mentoring in the ways has taken over her garden, and as I said, her sister is running the store now. She’s got good business sense, but her skills are not the same as Susan’s.”
I thought back to wandering in Miss Susan’s expansive garden as a kid. The flowers were bright and colorful, and the smells intoxicating. Yet somehow, it never got disturbed by bugs or other critters who would typically raid a garden like that. “I’d be sad to see that garden go. I’m glad someone will be tending it. But what about her house? Once that sells—”
“She donated it to the coven. Well, to some trustees who are in the coven, myself included. I don’t know what we’re going to do with it, but both it and the garden will stay in our hands.”
“Oh, wow. She thought of everything.”
“Well, she wasn’t expecting to be killed, but when you get to a certain age and you have no younger family members to pass things down to, you need to come up with a plan before something happens.”
I nodded. I’d be twenty-eight in a couple months. Not old by any stretch of the imagination, but right now, it was just me. Maybe it was time to create a contingency plan for the bakery just in case. The events with Bruce Malloy last month still weighed heavily on me. What if he had done more than go after my bakery to try to sink the business? What if he had come after me?
I shook the thought away. Things had worked out between the merrows and the selkies. The real killer had been caught. Even Bruce was being kinder now that his own secret had come to light. I caught sight of him every once in a while around town with Greta and Celia. He and I would never be friends, not by a longshot, but maybe someday we could be cordial if we ran into one another. For now, I avoided him as best I could, even forgoing a marshmallow rice treat when I saw he was at Leafs and Grounds.
“What are we doing today?” Gram asked, drawing me from my thoughts.
“I wanted to stop by the bakery today to show you all of the updates, and I invited some friends over for a potluck dinner tonight. It’s Monday. I always have people over for dinner, even if it’s just Matt.” I blew across my teacup to cool it down. It was still too hot for me. “But I thought we were going to reestablish the wards around the house today.”
“Ah, well, not all of that can happen today.” Gram took a small sip from her cup before taking a larger second one. “We need to charge up all the crystals tonight during the full moon.”
“Oh, okay. I hadn’t thought of that. So how about, once you get settled, we head out to the cider mill and have lunch up there?”
“I like that idea. Maybe I can even find something to make for your potluck.”
I sipped my tea, blinking at her. Was she serious? Gram did not cook. Not well anyway.
Gram cracked a smile. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. You didn’t get your kitchen witchery from me, that’s for sure, but I’m positive I can contribute something to your get-together tonight.” She winked.
What was I getting myself into?
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