Paloma tapped several keys on her register. “A discount, since I didn’t have the agrimony,” she said. “Now how about a cup of tea before you get going?”
We chatted in the back room, the light aroma of green tea hidden beneath the scent of hot ceramic. I smiled at the mismatched crockery stacked high in Paloma’s pale blue, doorless cabinets and her eclectic selection of orphaned dining room furniture. For the first time all day, I could almost relax. Almost—if only the hissing in my head would stop blotting out my thoughts.
Paloma wanted to hear more about the ritual, but every time I opened my mouth, I told her about something else instead. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her about my curse—yes, a curse. The incessant hissing was too dreadful to think of as anything else.
After we caught up, she saw me to the door and made me promise to call if I needed anything.
“Anything at all,” she pressed, closing the door behind me.
I wasn’t halfway down the walk before I told myself I’d misread the concern in her voice.
Chapter 2
INKY SHADOWS from the oak tree in my front yard cloaked the soothingly dark windows of my colonial-style house from the eyes of prying neighbors. I went inside. The bedroom at the end of the hall had been Grandfather Dunne’s before he passed away, willing my mom the house along with his scrolled walnut furniture. Now this family home was mine, without a family to share it with.
This place, however, was not a reflection of me. I certainly wouldn’t have put sea-foam green carpeting in all the bedrooms. Here, I was merely a placeholder, occupying free space, keeping the house in the same tidy condition my ancestors before me had left it in…except for the closets and drawers. Those were mine for the taking. I had a lovely habit of cramming my disorderliness out of sight.
My down comforter called me to sleep, and my small carriage shelf-clock urged the same, but there was something I needed to do first.
I set the supplies from Paloma’s shop on the dresser and tucked the book she’d given me in a drawer, unsure when I’d have time to tackle such an immense read. I retrieved my Book of Shadows and an altar candle from beneath some clutter in the next drawer down and unfastened the hatch on the casement windows to swing them out like shutters.
A stone-topped altar sat flush against my windowsill, and I kneeled down to place a white candle on the altar pentacle’s spirit point. This wasn’t what Mrs. Franklin and her cronies liked to think of my Wiccan practices. Judging by the way they acted, one would think I performed naked rituals in front of the local elementary school or spent my evenings sacrificing animals. Goats, perhaps.
But that wasn’t true. I practiced indoors, fully-clothed, using only an open window to connect with nature. Not a single animal sacrifice, either. I hadn’t even been able to evict the raccoon family that spent last winter in my attic.
After reading through the ritual, I adorned the remaining pentacle points with four wooden dishes filled with the herbs from Paloma’s shop, then chanted the Wiccan Rede:
“Be true in love, this you must do, unless your love is false to you. With these words, the Rede fulfill: An it harm none, do what ye will.”
Then I lit the altar candle. The flame cast a pale flickering glow over the pentacle. Outside, moonlight filtered through the trees, throwing patchwork shadows on the rain-soaked grass below.
I sprinkled chalk dust on the sea-foam green carpet to create my physical circle, then called forth the Guardians to watch over my rites and cast my circle in the spiritual realm as well.
Tonight would be the perfect night—a waxing moon, the fresh fall of rain.
Come what may.
I lifted the sage from the pentacle and blew across the dish’s surface to conjure wisdom. The sage flittered like snowflakes to the ground outside. Tipping the next dish outside my first floor window, I listened as cloudy fluid dribbled into the bushes, sure to evaporate in the early autumn warmth, garnering truth.
Where was that balance Paloma had promised? So far, the white noise in my mind had only amplified. A cool breeze drifted in, and I lifted my hair away from my neck and shoulders to help me relax.
I crushed marigold petals between my fingertips until they stained my skin, releasing an almost chemical scent, and envisioned a fire burning away all negative energy. I leaned out my window and tossed the marigold to the sky. The petals swirled and rained from above, scattering into my hair, back onto the altar, and across my front lawn.