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  It wasn’t like him to be so quiet, though, and I lost grip on my self-pity in concern.

  “You OK, Jake?” I asked.

  He frowned. “I don’t like guns,” he said. “They freak me out.”

  “Well yeah, they can kill people,” Cadence chided, then shyly pulled her voluminous curls over her heart-shaped face with a long-fingered hand.

  I scooted to the edge of my chair and stood on shaky legs. “Well, they didn’t today.”

  “Did you hex him?” Bet asked. All the kids in the tight-knit clan knew about my witchery. They were among a handful of folks in town who understood that I am what most people only supposed or thought was a sales gimmick.

  I scoffed. “Yeah, but it turned out a little stronger than I meant it to.” I pointed a finger at my chest and added, “Chaos witch, remember?”

  “Isn’t your store... you know... what’s the word?”

  “Warded?” I asked. “The first time by my mother, before I was born, when the town called this house Blackwell Manor. She was a lot stronger than I am. Her coven and I have kept the wards up steadily since then.”

  “I thought your mother was a kitchen witch,” Jake asked.

  “She was. You should see the kitchen in this place.” I jerked a thumb toward the swinging doors that led to a chef’s kitchen in the back. “It wasn’t me who put it there. But to answer your question, any witch can protect themselves, their families, and their homes—they don’t have to be any specific type.”

  “You don’t cook,” Cadence observed.

  I laughed despite myself—a quick snort that caught me off guard. “No, but I can brew a helluva cup of coffee.”

  It was true. Hanna made all the pastries the coffeehouse offered in her kitchen. She was a kitchen witch like my mother, as well as a red witch who blended powerful love spells in her cooking cauldron. Though I hardly used the massive kitchen, it was one of my favorite rooms to spend time in my house. It was as if my mother’s spirit permeated the fibers of the walls, the dark wood cupboards, the old combination oven and stove, and the herbs on the windowsill imbuing every facet with safety and warmth. The herbs survived thanks to some of my mother’s old coven friends who checked on me on occasion and Hanna, witch extraordinaire.

  Hanna was a rarity as well. Witches who harbored two gifts were almost as rare as chaos witches. Our friend Conall was an orange witch—blessed with the gift of prophecy like my grandmother. He could read tarot and use a pendulum to see the future.

  One of my great-ancestors, Aislinn, an orange witch like Conall, predicted that I would be born and offered a foreshadowing of what my future would bring. Her poem sounded more like a spell than a prophecy, and I sometimes wondered if I wasn’t foretold so much as cursed. This well-respected maternal ancestor wrote the words on a page of parchment handed down as a warning for five generations.

  Farewell to care, farewell to order

  Farewell to friends who seek safe quarter,

  Unto our family comes a gray

  And all our peace shall dash away.

  Protect you well all you have wrought

  Or all your efforts come to naught.

  My family, please mind my behest

  Or life will know naught but unrest.

  My mother was aware of the prediction, but like great-great-grandmother Dubheasa, (a red witch), great-grandmother Finola, (a white witch), and grandmother Siobhán (a rose witch), she chose to be a mother despite the prophesy. The coven told me over the years that I was loved and wanted, if not expected. (My mother referred to me as her “surprise.”) Although my mother had nothing against the idea of terminating a pregnancy, it wasn’t a choice she wanted for herself.

  The coven told me a lot about my mother, as well as the great-great-great-great-grandmother who saw my coming birth. I sometimes wonder if that distant relative saw more than the havoc I would wield in the path of my life. Guess who is the one person on earth whose future my friend Conall can’t predict? Did you guess me? Ding ding ding!

  There is only one thing worse than knowing you’re a chaos witch: not knowing what chaos you will cause. There’s no way to prevent it.

  Chapter 3

  The handful of folks who came by in the evenings after the high school crowd scattered weren’t there for the coffee. Most folks wandered in under the premise of buying a drink or a pastry that Hanna had made in her kitchen. They lingered near the shelves, idly eyeing the displays of candles and oils. They often paused to read the sign posted next to the curtain that covered the walk-in closet Conall had transformed into a private space to do his predictive readings three nights a week. They’d leave with a rock, a necklace, a candle—an object benign to the untrained eye—or with a whimsical gift from the singular store within 50 miles that stocked items for metaphysical needs.

  Many women came by for Conall’s readings, but I suspected that some returned for more than a glance at their future—more for a glimpse at Conall. Tall, dark-haired, with heavy-lidded eyes and a fit physique, Conall was a chick magnet, but one of the many qualities I loved about him was his obliviousness to his charm and good looks. He didn’t date much, but not from lack of opportunity.

  Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, someone would wander in and ask for an athame, altar cloth, or a particular oil. I recognized a fellow witch when they called items by name. To a layperson, an athame was a dagger, dirk, or short sword. To a non-practitioner, an altar cloth was a blanket or a tapestry–sometimes a table cover. I always tried to help a fellow practitioner, but I had to bite my tongue occasionally. Nobody asks for belladonna with a noble motive. There’s a reason I don’t keep it on my shelves where people can see it. A person has to have a purpose to ask for that ingredient. It’s not called deadly nightshade for nothing.

  Even in Alabama, there is a need for the town witch. Folks might say they don’t believe, but they do. If they didn’t believe, why were so few able to meet my gaze?

  Maybe it was the chaos that followed in my wake, but my guess is the word “witch” still held sway in these parts. People clung to fear for the cunning folk, and Gryphon wasn’t a metropolis. In the past few years, what had once been a thriving town had shrunk to a small village, thanks to a supercenter opening in a town less than 15 miles away and two of Gryphon’s major factories moving their production overseas.

  The small group of friends who made my shop a second home would find their way to their favorite table soon after school let out. They’d buy a coffee, often one or two at a time, and always the drip coffee, never the more expensive cappuccinos or espressos. They’d talk about school and friends at first, chatting with a profusion of energy pent-up from having to sit at desks all day in school. As the evening wore on, they’d run more on coffee than anything, and the deeper conversations would come out.

  Sometimes, Jake would bring in his guitar on Fridays after school, and I’d let him play a little. His playlist included several of my favorites—Nirvana, AC/DC, Metallica. He’d do “unplugged” versions of the tunes to keep it low, but every once in a while, I’d let him crank it up if business was slow and the customers were into it. Jake provided the guitar, Lorina with her curly hair parted in the middle, one side black the other fire engine red, provided the drums and captivating vocals that would have made sirens jealous.

  I knew more about their lives than their parents ever would. I knew who had tried what drugs, who drank, who had already lost their virginity. I knew about their sexual orientation (or, in Betony’s case, their lack of one).

  I also knew my practice fascinated every one of them.

  Outside my small combination house/shop realm, I was prone to bedlam. Inside my small, protected domain, I harnessed the craft I was born with safely, and most of the time, with frightening accuracy.

  It wasn’t what happened inside my haven that frightened me, but what people did with what I provided them sometimes which caused more problems than it solved. I performed protection and cleansing spells over everything that came into the shop and said a silent blessing over every item that left it. However, anyone who used products bought in my shop to perform a harmful spell had a head start before they cast a circle or lit their first candle.

  My brow furrowed as a thought crossed my mind.

  “What’s the matter, Murph?” Cadence asked.

  “That guy,” I pointed at the door where the police had escorted the would-be robber out, “He shouldn’t have been able to come in here.”

  “Why not?” Jake asked.

  “It’s warded,” Betony explained animatedly, yet with a friendly smile. “By her mom and by her coven. We just covered this.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. I picked up a silver protection amulet and set it back down. “He shouldn’t have been able to cross the threshold.” Gently, I ran my fingers over the sigil on the amulet. “Theoretically, it shouldn’t have even crossed his mind once he crossed the property line.”

  “How do you think he managed to come in?” Lorina asked as she leaned forward and put her slender elbows on the table. Her two-toned hair spilled over her forearms and nearly brushed the plate of pumpkin bread in front of her.

  I shook my head. “The only thing I can think of is that maybe he had spells of his own.”

  “Stronger than your coven’s?” Bet’s eyebrows rose.

  Although I considered myself a solitary practitioner most of the time, I was technically a member of the Lughaidh coven, the family of witches from which my mother descended, and the clan to which Hanna and Conall belonged. When I needed advice or occasional witchy help, they always came through. They extended invitations to join them at their meetings or for holidays. I often spent Yule or Mabon with them—it would be rude not to, and besides, they were the closest thing to family I had. The high
priestess, LaDonna, came by often during full moons to help me renew the protection on my home, and every member of the coven used my shop to buy the ritual items they needed. They often stopped for tea and checked in with me, chatting for as long as they needed to ensure that my energy was positive and the home and shop were doing well.

  My mother had been an exceptional practitioner, but some of these women—like LaDonna—wielded breathtaking power. I usually sensed them before they stepped out of their cars, and when they walked into my shop, I could see the waves of energy emitting like heat.

  That someone—or a group of someones—may have power more potent than that wielded by the combined forces of the Lughaidh coven alarmed me. I covered my expression the best I could and pressed a smile onto my face.

  “I’ll talk to LaDonna,” I assured them. “She’ll know what to do.”

  “Maybe you should read your cards,” Cadence suggested.

  They loved watching me lay out a tarot spread, an art where I excelled within my shop—better than Conall, who had an excellent side hustle after his daily construction job from the closet-sized room off the coffee house where he did his readings. To his credit, Conall did better with pendulums and runes and pretty much any other method he used to divine the future.

  The idea both drew and frightened me. I didn’t read my spread often. I hated knowing what was coming. But if elements were working against me, I needed to prepare myself.

  I nodded and headed back to the cupboard of personal items I kept inside the shop: a weathered, wooden green corner cabinet with brass rings held in place by gargoyle heads. The smell of my craft tools hit me as I pulled it open—fragrances of magnolia, ylang-ylang, myrrh, and cedarwood, of dried herbs, graveyard dirt, and beeswax candles.

  I found the white silk tarot bag in the front right corner, where I always stored it. I took a bottle of purification spray and the cards back into the shop. Grasping the spray in one hand, I turned inward to the place where my power resided as I misted one of the tables out in the mostly deserted coffee shop. Betony came behind me with a towel and dried the surface reverently.

  “...Neither hope nor fear may gather here, but make the gods’ intentions clear ...”

  I withdrew a black satin cloth from inside the bag that held my tarot and covered the table, muttering an incantation as I did.

  “With this cloth, protection I place, to guard this table as a sacred space. May the work I do here stay with me. And as I will, so mote it be.”

  I started with a traditional Celtic Cross spread—the first two cards crossed in the center. Card three I placed below at a southerly position, and then four, five, and six at points west, north, and east. I added cards seven through ten to the right of this cross, starting at a southeast position, diagonal from cards three and six, and straight upwards for eight through ten.

  “What’s it mean, Murph?” Lorina asked. She’d been trailing my steps, watching from over my shoulder at a respectful distance, allowing me to focus my intention on the deck as I pulled the cards.

  “A lot of not good, right?” Bet asked. I loved her, but her certainty was ill-placed. The cards were just that: cards. Most of what gave each symbol meaning was interpreted by the reader—in this case, me. Betony’s belief that she had the power to read my spread showed a lack of maturity in her understanding of the craft. No witch should presume to understand the meaning behind what another witch has wielded. Few had that accord. Hanna and I came close. Conall and I also did exceptionally well.

  My mother and I had made it an art.

  I shrugged in response to Betony’s reaction. While the meaning of some cards came to me quickly, others struck me as odd—which was abnormal. The cards never withheld secrets from me. “Yes, some of it. The first card in the center bottom suggests me.” The nine of swords card showed life in the present—an insecure, hooded figure gnawing on its hand. Indicative of worry, anxiety. Well, yeah.

  “Stressed,” Betony interjected.

  I nodded. “Yes. The second could only be the gunman.” The Fool seemed to be the symbol of my immediate challenge.

  Card three: distant past. The High Priestess of the major arcana. Knowledge, a woman wise beyond her years. “Here,” I pointed to the card, “is probably my mother.” It described her perfectly. Even LaDonna, the high priestess, respected my mother’s skills in the craft.

  “Does that mean she has something to do with what is going on now?” Lorina asked, her voice a tentative balance between intrigue at ghost interfering and a touch of fear. She grabbed the ear of a wooden chair and pivoted it around so she could sit on it backwards with her arms along the top rail. Lorina had an uncanny knack for movements that would be masculine if anyone else did them. On her, they seemed suave and somehow charming.

  “I can’t imagine how, but I suppose it might be possible. And here,” I pointed to the page of swords in the upright position, the page strolling down a lit path. Signaling someone perceptive, instinctive. “This shows an insightful person in my life.”

  “Who do you think that is?” Cadence asked. “Conall?” Whenever the kids think of someone who ostensibly knew things, their mind always went to Conall, and with good reason. The man had excellent prognostication skills.

  Shaking my head, I had to admit I was clueless.

  “You always know,” Bet said. “That’s not good.”

  This time she was right. For the cards to not reveal an answer, the universe had to be in a strange place. I placed my fingertips on the card and willed a face to come to mind. The card remained as empty as a switched-off television. “Nothing is coming to me.”

  “Could that mean you haven’t met the person yet?” Jake asked.

  “I hope so,” I replied, hesitation apparent in my voice. “Anyway, this one,” I pointed to the top card, “Shows my hopeful outcome.” Ace of cups, upright. The artist had rendered it as a lovely woman clutching a jeweled cup to her chest. Abundance. Fullness. Beauty.

  “That’s, like, everyone’s hopeful outcome,” Lorina joked, but the sadness behind her eyes betrayed her. Lorina’s family had all but discarded her, to hear her say it. The card must represent her hopeful outcome, too.

  I moved on and pointed to card number six, showing my immediate future—an upright page of pentacles. A horned creature balanced a pentacle in one hand and peered at a book with another. An inventive, eager, creative pupil. “This is Bet,” I said with a smile.

  “How do you know?” Betony asked.

  “Eager student,” I replied with a shrug. “And you are, I’m guessing, a student in my immediate future. You’re full of questions, but I don’t mind. Here,” I pointed to position seven, “Tells me what’s making events happen in my life at the moment, what’s affecting my circumstances.”

  “That’s the Magician,” Cadence remarked. Well, duh. I wasn’t going to read into that one. Me.

  The eighth position specified external influences, portents, warnings. Seven of swords—the universe was cautioning me about a deceptive person. Who would try to lie or deceive me? I shook my head and willed the fog clouding my vision to scatter, but it did nothing to clear my sight.

  Ninth place, ten of cups, upright, showed hopes and fears. A wounded soldier hugged as he returned home. Family devotion. Love. Why would a card with positive implications be my hopes and fears? It was all so confusing.

  The final one would show the product of the reading as a whole. The Wheel of Fortune, inverted. Did that mean what was coming was unexpected? Or unfortunate? Or both?

  Well, shit.

  Chapter 4

  Since it was Friday, the shop closed an hour later than usual. And, as usual, my little band of adopted teens stayed to watch as Jake played his set. Tonight’s list was more melancholy than usual, closer to Clapton unplugged, and I wondered if the events of the early afternoon had affected his music choices. Lorina seemed frustrated with his mellow music choices, which furthered my suspicion that things weren’t well at home. Lorina was the yin to Jake’s yang. Where Jake was reserved, Lorina was raucous. Where Jake was inexperienced, Lorina was worldly. Jake appeared sturdy, large-statured, indestructible, Lorina whip-thin. However, put the two of them together, and they made incredible music.