Spell Bound, page 8
Honey smiled at me and gave a little shrug. “I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much, you know? It’s been a long time since Emma, and I wasn’t sure I was even ready, but every week like clockwork, Marco comes into the store with my orders. He’s so sweet and lovely, and compliments me so much, that after a while I started thinking, Maybe he’s not just being nice, and then after a while longer I started to think, Maybe this guy actually likes me, and then finally when I was starting to think I was a bit crazy and was this close”—she held her thumb and pointer finger a millimeter apart—“to doing a reading to see what he was thinking, he asked me out. So now we’re going out.”
I could tell, through all this, that her enthusiasm was growing and she was trying to play it cool. I’d been there. Heck, I’d be there again in about twenty minutes when I walked down the block to Peach’s and tried to pretend it didn’t make me crazy that Rich hadn’t asked me out for real yet.
As Honey had implied, it took a long time after a serious relationship to be ready for something and someone else. There were trust issues built into big breakups—both in trusting others and trusting yourself. My ex-husband, Blaine, had cheated on me, which made me a bit more wary of trusting others.
Still, at a certain point you needed to open up again and let yourself be free to experience happiness, right?
I thought briefly of buying a little rose quartz to carry around with me, but it seemed like a terrible idea to use magic in any way when it came to getting Rich’s attention. If he wasn’t interested, he wasn’t interested, and maybe it was time for me to accept that seven months was long enough to wait and start looking elsewhere.
Or I should just stop looking and hope that love found me again when the universe was good and ready for it to be my turn.
Instead of thinking of my own romantic life, or lack thereof, I decided to live vicariously through Honey. “Well, I’m super excited for you, and I expect a full rundown on every minute of the date as soon as it’s over.”
She laughed. “Can you wait until the next day? I promise a good bottle of wine and a complete minute-by-minute rehash. He’s taking me out to this new West African place in Barneswood. I mentioned once, in passing, how much I missed my grandma’s cooking, because she grew up in in Ghana and no one here makes food like that. And I guess he found out this place was opening and decided it was a sign we were supposed to go.” Her smile was enormous now. “I don’t mind telling you I’m possibly more excited for jollof rice than I am for the date. Is that terrible?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Why do you think I made my not- date meeting with Rich at Peach’s? If we’re not going to smooch, at least I know I can get a decent burger out of the deal, right?”
Honey smiled. “Smart woman. Okay, now tell me why you’re really here, because as much as I love seeing you, I know you’re not just rolling in here unannounced, and on a limited timeline, because you wanted to say hello.” She gave me a wink, letting me know she wasn’t mad for seeing right through my plan.
What was lovely about my friendship with Honey was that she knew perfectly well she was my only friend in town—heck, in the world—who was also a witch. She never got annoyed with me when I needed her guidance with magic or had questions about my gift. I didn’t want her to feel that was the only role she played in my life, though. She’d been one of the first people to welcome me into town with open arms and an offer of friendship, and our weekly get-togethers were more often hours of gabbing and sharing frozen appetizers than they were about learning any kind of magic.
Honey hadn’t just been my first adult friend in Raven Creek; she’d been one of the first friends I’d made on my own since my divorce. I really had been starting from scratch when I moved here, and I was eternally grateful to those who had made me feel welcome so quickly.
There were a few folks in town who had seemed more interested in driving me right back to Seattle, but that was less about me and more about them being terrible people, I was learning.
I supposed every town needed to have a bad apple or two; otherwise, things might get a bit too idyllic.
“Okay, okay, busted.” I clasped my hands together to mime begging. “But you’re the best, smartest, most gifted, most wonderful witch in the world.”
“Don’t forget most charming, most beautiful, most powerful.”
“Check, check, and double check.”
“Consider me buttered up. What’s up?”
I quickly gave her the rundown on what had happened at the auction the day before, from the murder to Bob’s discovering the body to my concern that Detective Martin might think I was in some way involved.
“Did she tell you she thought you might be involved?” Honey asked.
“She wouldn’t be a very good detective if she was like, Hey, Phoebe, you’re a suspect in my investigation,” I pointed out. Though I had certainly left our conversation feeling rattled and oddly guilty.
“No, but they can insinuate it in other ways, right? Like she might have said, Don’t leave town or I’ll be in touch—just something to make sure you knew she was keeping an eye on you.”
“I mean, she did imply I shouldn’t take any sudden vacations, but I’m telling myself that’s normal when you’re the one who finds a dead body.” I tried to mentally replay Detective Martin’s conversation with me, but nothing about what she’d said had been especially pointed. I had called her during my shift to ask if I could get fingerprinted in Raven Creek, but she had said she would prefer me coming to the station in Barneswood. But she also hadn’t seemed in an enormous hurry, telling me it could wait until Friday if I needed more time, which had to be a good sign.
It was hard to say. She was a smart woman and a good cop, though, so I had a hard time believing she would show her hand if she thought I was up to no good. Keep your friends close and your murder suspects even closer, right?
“I don’t know. I just can’t imagine not being on the list of suspects. I did find the body, and I was one of the last people to see her alive. Probably.”
“Probably?”
“I don’t really know how many people she spoke to that day. She was making the rounds, really making sure everyone got to see whatever lots they were interested in. I have no way of knowing how many people she talked to before or after me. I was outside in my car with Bob for quite a bit.”
“I can’t believe you took your cat to an auction.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I protested.
“Still, it’s pretty hilarious.”
“It was terrible. When I saw him walk by those open doors, I thought for sure I was having a nightmare.”
I paused.
The open doors.
As I remembered Bob passing through the big entry hall, the only reason I’d been able to see him at all was because someone had left the sliding doors partially ajar. And it was then I remembered the youngish couple at the back of the room and how one of them had ducked out in the middle of the auction. But my memory was muddled from there. I hadn’t paid enough attention to them at the time to remember much about them except that they’d been in their thirties and that I’d found it weird that they were lurking at the back of the room rather than sitting down like the rest of us.
“Do you think you could help me sharpen my memory?” I asked.
“Like, revisit part of that day?” Honey tilted her head to the side and contemplated this request. “I mean, there’s no saying it will be perfect, because our memory is imperfect. I can’t actually take you back in time, but yeah, we could revisit a memory.”
“Seriously?”
She beamed at me. “After all this time, Phoebe, isn’t it obvious that there isn’t much I can’t do?”
Chapter Eleven
Honey pulled up two stools on the customer side of the counter and made her rounds through the shop, collecting various bits and bobs. While I was pretty sure she could have just closed her eyes and zapped me back into the memory, she seemed hyperfocused on performing a ritual along with it, so I wasn’t going to interrupt her.
She muttered out loud as she worked. “Sage, to help with memory loss. Rosemary for concentration. Peppermint, to stimulate memory. Valerian root for memory and focus.” Then she headed to the crystals, whispering, “Fluorite for clarity. Quartz to help amplify the other ingredients.” She wasn’t grabbing giant chunks of crystal but rather picking up a half dozen or so from the display of tumbled tiny pieces, ones that kids might gravitate toward and beg their parents for.
At last, she stopped in front of a rainbow-colored display of candles, hemming and hawing, her finger hovering between purple and yellow, then back, and back once more as she finally got a yellow one.
Bringing her haul over to the counter, she indicated I should take a seat on one of the stools as she put all her goodies on the glass countertop between us. She didn’t sit down immediately but went to retrieve a small glass jar and a long candle lighter before hopping up on her own stool.
“Now, this isn’t the kind of thing where I snap my fingers and suddenly you remember everything, okay? I’m sure Eudora could have brewed up a sensational, if slightly Thanksgiving-flavored, tea that would have worked wonders, but we’re going to do things the old-fashioned way today. So you’re not going to remember anything now, but tonight I want you to go home and put this under your pillow. By tomorrow, everything that wasn’t clear should be a lot easier to remember. Got it?”
I nodded solemnly, though I was a little disappointed we weren’t going to have a resolution immediately.
She took the stopper off the little jar, then methodically started to work through the herbs. She crushed everything up one dry ingredient at a time with her black mortar and pestle, then sprinkled the ingredients in perfect layers into the jar. Once she was done with the herbs, she added the tiny fragments of crystals, explaining what they were as she went. The fluorite was pretty purple-and-green chips that shimmered in the light, and the clear quartz, well, it looked like little shards of breakaway glass.
When everything was all neatly packed into the jar, she lit the yellow candle, holding it upright as the wick burned down and the wax slowly began to drip.
“Hold this with me,” she instructed. “And as the wax drips, I want you to think of the moments you’re trying to remember. Emphasize what has been lost and what you’re hoping to regain. Then repeat after me: What was lost, now is found. Memories gone again come round. Take these moments gone from mind, and make them once again be mine.”
We recited the words together, over and over again, until the candle had completely melted down and the yellow wax had dripped down over the bottle’s stopper, where it quickly hardened into place. When the candle was down to only a little nub, Honey held it out for me, and I blew out the flame.
She then handed me the adorable little jar, now sealed in wax, and said, “There you have it—a memory aid in a bottle. Under your pillow and have some sweet and fruitful dreams.”
I took the bottle from her, surprised at how quickly the wax had cooled and hardened, then rifled through my purse for my wallet, but Honey was already waving her hand at me to stop.
“Put that away. This is a friend helping a friend. If you want to call it even after this, you can buy the next bottle of wine for girls’ night, okay?”
“Are you sure?” I didn’t want to take advantage of her kindness and expertise.
“If I didn’t help you solve a murder, what kind of friend would I be?” She smirked at me. “Besides, the ingredients cost almost nothing. It’s the intention that matters most, and that’s all you.”
“And you,” I protested.
“Sure, but I’m not the one here who’s on a suspect list, am I? I’d say you’re more motivated to get this solved than I am.”
My fitness tracker buzzed on my wrist, and for once I was glad it did, as the hourly reminder to hit my step goal was also a reminder that it was ten minutes before six and if I wanted to be on time to meet Rich, I needed to get going.
I gave Honey a fierce hug. “Thank you. Seriously. I’d be totally lost without you. And take notes on the date, because I want to hear absolutely everything about it next week, okay?”
“Deal. Now get out of here. And sleep well,” she added with a knowing smile.
Chapter Twelve
Rich, ever punctual, was already standing outside Peach’s when I left Honey’s shop a few minutes later. He didn’t look annoyed or impatient. If anything, his smile broadened when he saw me approaching.
I’d left my bike at Honey’s, deciding this would be a good test for the durability of the protection spell and hoping it would be fine where it was. I probably didn’t have much to worry about.
It didn’t escape my notice that Rich did a complete head-to-toe look at me and my outfit, nor that the tops of his ears reddened as he did. Okay, so perhaps there was still some potential here after all, because he was definitely checking me out.
“I hope you weren’t waiting long; I wanted to stop and chat with Honey for a little bit.”
“No problem, I just got here.” He ushered me in the direction of the diner’s front door, one hand gently placed on the small of my back. It felt as if we were going into a much fancier restaurant, with my heels and him still wearing his nicely tailored trousers and suit jacket from whatever business he’d been attending to before this.
Come to think of it, he was very nicely dressed for someone who spent most of his time in a car staking out spouses who were potential cheaters.
“Sit wherever you want,” came the usual cheerful voice of Lyla from behind the counter as she served up a big slice of pecan pie while simultaneously refilling someone’s coffee. The woman had a gift.
Without asking, Rich led me over to the table where we’d first had dinner together, though I still wasn’t sure if we were counting that as our first date or not. Probably not. At the time, I’d thought he might be a murderer, which was not the greatest way to kick off a budding romance, and it was also the evening I’d realized I might have special powers.
Overall, an insightful evening, but not exactly a date.
I settled into the booth, and he took off his suit jacket before sitting down across from me, folding it in half and putting it on the seat beside him. I watched him closely as he undid the buttons on his sleeves and rolled the cuffs up, exposing his toned forearms.
He smirked when he caught me watching him. “I’ll never get used to the full suit-and-tie routine. I like having a little room to breathe, you know?”
“That’s a shame, because you look good in a suit.” I had not just said that out loud, had I? Oh, the horror.
Rich laughed. “Thank you. I should have told you earlier, but you look great tonight.” He looked at me again, a long assessment, as if he wanted to make sure he wasn’t lying, then smiled and nodded. “Really good.”
I turned the same shade of red as the vinyl seats of the booth. I felt like I was fourteen again, trying to navigate flirting for the first time in my life and failing horribly.
Lyla, the diner’s only full-time waitress, appeared at the table as if she’d popped out of midair. Her long hair was tied back in a sleek, black braid. “Evening. How are you guys doing tonight?” she asked with a genuine smile.
“Can’t complain,” Rich said, though he barely even glanced over at her, just kept his eyes on me the whole time. “You ready to order?”
I nodded, wondering if that was his way of telling me he wanted to speed this up so he could get out of here, or if he was just being polite.
“Yeah, I’m good. I’ll have the smash burger, loaded, with a side of curly fries, and a strawberry shake.”
Lyla looked at Rich. “Usual for you?”
“Yes, thanks.” He handed her both of our menus.
Peach’s was the kind of place where you went all in or you didn’t go at all. While I was sure their salads were lovely, I could make a decent salad at home. Peach’s was a greasy-butter-burgers, giant- order-of-fries, and milkshakes-mandatory kind of joint. You ate until you felt like dying and then ate a little more.
Part of me wondered sometimes if there was something supernatural in their food, because how else could it taste so good and not make you a good five pounds fatter?
I wasn’t about to question it, though. It just meant that when I needed a guilty-pleasure meal, usually on a girls’ night with Honey, I never felt bad about a Peach’s burger platter.
With ordering out of the way, Rich leaned back in his seat, spreading his arms wide across the back of the booth, and then tilted his head to one side, trying to read me.
I didn’t consider myself to be an inscrutable person. If anything, I was pretty sure my emotions were always painted directly onto my forehead like a tattoo that said angry, annoyed, hungry, or happy, depending on the day.
“Is this really a professional get-together, Phoebe?” he asked, a smirk lifting the corner of his mouth.
Did he want it to be something else? Was he trying to get me to admit to something? Argh. Why did it feel like he was trying to trick me into giving something away? He knew I liked him, and I was pretty sure he liked me, and we were in our midthirties, for crying out loud. We didn’t need to be coy about this.
And yet I said, “What else would it be?”
Dummy.
He nodded and glanced out the window briefly. It was still bright outside, a true sign that summer was on its way. The trees were now all fully green, and a few of the storefronts had put planter boxes outside with cheery-looking flowers in them.
“Thought maybe you were just too shy to ask me out,” he said finally.
“Maybe you’re too shy to ask me out,” I blurted, because evidently I was twelve years old and the best I could do was No, you are. Maybe I wasn’t ready to date after all. At the moment I wasn’t sure I was capable of being out in public with another adult. It was all I could do to keep from lowering my face into my hands and groaning out loud at how stupid I must have sounded.
