5 A Charming Magic (6 page)

“Oh! A Whispering Falls wedding.” Chandra Shango stood next to me with a spark in her eyes as she watched Gerald and Petunia free floating in the street, not a care in the world. “I had a feeling with the Gazette headlines that there was going to be a wedding. I love weddings.”

I gulped and looked over at Chandra. She had on a red cloak with yellow stars all over it making the blue jewel in the middle of her turban stand out. Her long dangling gold earrings made the outfit.

“Are you okay, dear?” Chandra patted my arm. I was known for fainting in times of a crisis and this was a crisis. At least in my world.

“Isn’t this lovely?” Arabella yelled over to us. My eyes held hers too long. She smiled. Blankly I stared.

“June?” Chandra waved her hands in front of me. Slowly I turned my face toward hers. I tried to focus on her bright red fingernails as they waved in front of my face. “I don’t think you are okay.” She got closer.

Then the darkness set in.

Chapter Six

“She can’t ever let anyone have a happy moment. She takes center stage every single time by doing her little fainting spell.” The angry voice rang in my ears as I came to. “See. Everyone is texting everyone asking if
June Heal
is okay. Not a bit concerned about me,
the bride
.”

I didn’t have to open my eyes to know it was Petunia Shrubwood talking. Of course she was angry with me for fainting during the biggest moment of her life which was supposed to be the biggest moment of my life. Her engagement, not mine.

“Oh dear.” The nervous quiet voice came from Mary Lynn.

What was she doing there?
I took advantage of my fainting spell and kept my eyes closed. Even though I did pass out, I still hadn’t processed the idea that Faith’s premonition had been about Petunia and Gerald.

“Now everyone is going to ask her about her fainting spell and not about my engagement. This day will forever be tainted with a June Heal fainting spell, just like all the other times.” Petunia was angry. I had seen her angry and it was not a good sight. “I can just see it now. We will be around the Gathering Rock for the meeting and she will hog all the attention. It’s not enough that she’s young and beautiful too.”

“Calm down,” Isadora Solstice said in a reasoning voice.

“I don’t blame you for being upset.”

Arabella?
I lifted my eyelid just enough to see Arabella Paxton standing at my feet picking her nails. Mr. Prince Charming jumped on my chest, nearly causing me to blow my cover. He kneaded my stomach with his front paws, purring the whole time.

“She does seem to be a little needy. At least it looked that way when she got her panties in a wad when her friend…um…” She tapped her temple like she couldn’t remember Oscar’s name, but I knew better. “Os…,” she hesitated.

“Oscar,” Mary Lynn finished her sentence.

It took every ounce of my spiritual soul not to jump up and rip out Arabella’s spiritual soul.

“Now, now.” Isadora, Izzy for short, put her palm on my forehead. “He did love her or he wouldn’t have denounced his spiritual heritage to save her life.”

I could always count on Izzy to be on my side. After all, she was the reason I moved to Whispering Falls. She knew I was a spiritualist before
I
knew I was a spiritualist. She came to visit me in Locust Grove and suggested I move A Dose of Darla to Whispering Falls. It was the best decision I had ever made.

“She can’t help that she faints.” Izzy knew my fainting spells were caused by something other than low blood sugar or something medical. She knew there had to be an underlying intuition vision. Only I didn’t know what that vision was. I just knew that the engagement between Petunia and Gerald was plagued. Plagued by
what
was the question and one I was going to have to figure out.

“Did he?” Arabella drummed her fingers together. “I mean, he isn’t a spiritualist?”

She knew darn well he was no longer a spiritualist.

Cough, cough, cough.
I faked with my eyes still closed. Mr. Prince Charming wasn’t buying my act. He knew me too well. He swiped my cheek with the pad of his paw. 

“Stop,” I whispered and blew a stream of air out of my mouth to make him move. He didn’t budge.
Damn cat.

This was one of those moments I wished Oscar hadn’t made the deal with the Elders and he still had his memory. He’d be right there by my side and let little Miss Fresh Flowers know she was
way
out of line.

“Stop talking. She’s coming to,” Izzy warned. The swoosh of her A-line skirt filled the air as she bent down and got closer to my ear. “June dear.”

“What happened?” I pretended to not remember the whole entire conversation or engagement.
If only.
I really didn’t want to remember. I wanted to remember the feeling I had when I truly thought the vision was going to be me. Me and Oscar. How stupid was I?

Oscar and I hadn’t even gotten back together since he lost his memory, though he did know about my spiritual gift and how Eloise was his aunt.

“I can tell you what happened.” An angry Petunia stepped into my vision. To take it like a man, I propped myself up on my elbows ready for the blow. I had ruined the happiest moment of her life. I deserved what I had coming to me. “You, June Heal, have ruined my proposal!”

“I…” I sat up but Izzy put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

“Petunia, you stop that.” Izzy gave her a stern warning.

“Stop what? The truth?” Arabella asked. She obviously didn’t know the protocol around here and I was all too eager to teach her by escorting her right out of town.

Petunia planted her fists on each side of her swirly hips and nodded her head agreeing with Arabella. Petunia’s floor length black skirt hung like a pair of drapes over her hips and it didn’t help her shape with the scoop neck shirt tucked into the waist band. “She asked what happened and I’m going to tell her.” She shook her fist at me before she pointed to Arabella. “Well, she’s going to tell her.”

“You can’t stand to see someone in love now that you have lost Oscar and you don’t want her to be happy.” There was an evil twinkle in Arabella’s gorgeous eyes. She made evil look beautiful.

“Me?” I jumped up, knocking Izzy almost to the ground. “I changed the by-laws for you and Gerald.” I ignored Arabella and spoke straight to Petunia.

“For me?” She cackled out loud. She poked my chest with her finger. “You liar! That was for you and Oscar. He was the sheriff and you are the owner of A Charming Cure which meant you couldn’t be together.”

Damn. She was half right. When I first moved to Whispering Falls, Rule Number Three stated that you couldn’t have more than one shop in the family. I had no idea why that rule was in place, but it was stupid. Especially since I wanted Oscar and the rules prevented me from it. I had also known that Gerald and Petunia were secretly dating, which I told no one, and when I became Village President, I knew it was going to be the first rule I was going to amend. Now that it was on the table, we would take a final vote at the next meeting.

“That is not true.” Okay, half true. “I want you and Gerald to be together. You two love each other. Besides, it’s a silly rule.”

“Yes we do love each other and you of all people should be happy for us.” She stomped her foot. Her messy up-do tilted to the right. A small chipmunk held on for dear life before it scurried back into the mop-top of hair piled high on her head. “And God knows we have waited a long time to get married.”

She was right on that too. Each of them had to be in their late fifties and neither of them had been married.

“You took the Presidency away from me and now my engagement.” For a minute I thought she was going to hit me. “What else do you want? My pet shop? My bees? My life?”

Arabella nodded right alongside of Petunia, giving Petunia the courage she needed to slam me.

Oh no. I was in big trouble. She was never going to let me live down the whole Village President situation. It wasn’t like I had campaigned to be in charge. It wasn’t like I moved to Whispering Falls and craved to be the leader. I wanted to open my homeopathic cure shop and live happily ever after with Oscar by my side. So far, it’s been far from happily ever after.

Petunia had always wanted to be in charge when Izzy stepped down and that was how it might work in a normal election. Whispering Falls was far from normal and so was the way a new president took office. I was appointed and didn’t have a real choice in the matter.

“I’m beyond happy for you. Thrilled in fact. I want to give you a bridal shower.”
Bridal shower?
Where that had come from I had no idea, but by the look on her face, it was brilliant. I continued to feed on her expressions. “With cake, tea, presents for the happy couple, and lots of decorations.”

“What?” Arabella’s mouth dropped. By the look on her face, she knew I had just played a trump card.

I had never even thrown a birthday party or any type of party. I didn’t even know where to begin to throw a bridal shower. I would make a stop to Ever After. I was sure there were manuals on bridal showers.

“Do you mean it?” Petunia’s face softened and so did her shoulders. Her brown eyes held a tear in the corner. She blinked. The tear rolled down her cheek and dripped onto the floor. I nodded. “You are happy for me.”

“I am.” My insides ached as I confirmed how happy I was that she had gotten engaged and I wasn’t. The thought of going through bridal shower manuals made me sick to my stomach. But I put on a happy smile. It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy for them. I would be really, really happy for them if I was engaged too, but I wasn’t. Not yet. It could happen. But my intuition didn’t alert me that something great was going to happen. It alerted me that something bad, something very bad was going to happen.

“I’ll supply all the flowers for your shower.” Arabella curled up on her toes and jabbed her finger in the air. Her voice escalated, “And I’ll do the wedding too.”

“That settles it.” Petunia clasped her hands to her mouth. I noticed she didn’t have a ring on her left hand yet, reminding me of the dove and ring charm Mr. Prince Charming had given me.

What did that charm mean? Faith’s words rang in my head from this morning’s headlines,
you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
Faith’s second part of her prediction popped into my head. What did that mean? More importantly, what did that mean in terms of a celebration?

Yes. I would keep the bride and the flower girl close to my side and make sure nothing went wrong. Especially with the flower girl.

“Then we must get planning.” She curled her hand around my elbow and the other hand around Arabella’s. She drew us close to her. I looked over at Izzy.

Izzy pushed her long blond wavy hair from around her face. She winked one of her big hazel eyes at me. She understood the position I was in and how carefully I had to play my cards.

As the Village President before me, I had seen Izzy get into some very compromising positions. With complete care and caution, I had seen her get out of those positions unscathed, happy and keeping Whispering Falls running without a hitch.

“Yes.” I patted Petunia’s hand, ignoring Mr. Prince Charming’s figure eights and Arabella’s stares. “Let’s get started. But first,” I pulled the charm bracelet out of my pocket and the new charm from Mr. Prince Charming, “can we stop by Bella’s Baubles? I need to drop off my bracelet.”
 

Chapter Seven

“I wondered when you were going to get down here,” Bella Van Lou was hunched over the glass jewelry case with an eye loupe tucked into a squinted eye. Her long blond hair cascaded over her shoulder landing in a pool of strands on top of the glass. Her cheeks balled up when she smiled, exposing the gap between her two front teeth. She stood straight, all five-foot-two of her. “We must get that charm on your bracelet.”

“You’re telling me.” I rolled my eyes and shut the door behind me. Normally Bella’s Baubles was packed, and today I was thankful it wasn’t. Everyone loved to come in and look at the unique gemstones she sold there plus the advice she gave every customer who walked in. She was the town astrologer. She knew exactly what piece of jewelry was perfect for anyone who stepped foot in her shop. I needed her advice today.

She stood up and took the loupe out of her eye. It was attached to a long gold chain; the glass magnifier was incased in a frame of a swan—the glass being the body. “I can only imagine how you felt about the big proposal news.”

“It’s fine.” I didn’t know why I even tried to cover up the fact that I was hurt. Bella knew everything about me. She knew everything about Oscar. Not that she read our stars, but I had told her. She was the first person I had confided in when I moved to Whispering Falls.

“June.” The mothering, reasoning voice of Bella was about to give me a pity lecture. “I saw you faint. At that moment I knew you were upset. Even when I heard the headlines I knew you were going to think it was you who was celebrating. Your time will come.”

I held in the outward cry and sobs I would later do in my pillow. I bit my lip to forget the heart pain and focused on the pain in my mouth of my teeth gnawing down.

“Your time is not now.” She picked up a beautiful ruby and rubbed it with the cleaning cloth. “So, do you want me to explain the charm?”

“The charm.” I had forgotten to take it out of my pocket. I pulled it out and laid the charm and my bracelet on the glass case. “Yes. This made me think the headline was about me.”

As much as I wanted to drop it, I just couldn’t let it go.

“It’s only natural since Oscar has embraced your spiritual heritage.” Bella put the ruby gently on the cloth and moved around the counter.

“He has a lot more questions, but the last time we talked,” I took a deep breath, “he asked more questions. He laughed when he realized I had sabotaged his date with Annie and he didn’t care.” I smiled like a teenager. “He even said that he knew there was something special between us. He said it was in his bones.”