Celtic Magic

Celtic Magic

By
Amber LaShell

Copyright 2011 Amber LaShell

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter 1

“Congratulations sweetie, I am so proud of
you.” Abby’s father said as he hugged her.

The day was finally here, her graduation
day. She was ready for school to be finished as it was all she had
been focused on for so many years.

“Thanks Dad.” She replied to him, the smile
so big on her face, her cheeks were starting to hurt. Her father
looked around, seemingly waiting for someone to come up to them,
but Abby knew nobody would tell her congratulations or even good
bye. She had never made any friends at this college, as everyone
else was older and more outgoing than her. I guess that was what
she got for taking dual college classes while she was still in high
school.

Everyone else in her class was at least two
years older than her, and never having accepted any invitations for
parties, felt like the odd man out next to all of them. The only
friend that she had made was a foreign exchange student, and she
was already on her way back to Sweden. She grabbed her father’s
hand and pulled him toward the car, and after a few tugs, he
finally followed her, looking disappointed.

He always wanted her to be more social and
make friends, but she was just too shy to talk to anyone, much less
giggle and gossip, like most girls her age. She never wanted to be
friends with people her age, or even a few years older anyway, she
always felt awkward and out of place around them.

Once they made it back into the car, her
father asked her the question that she had been trying to work out
for months now.

“So, Abby, what are you going to do now? Get
a job? Go to graduate school?” her finally asked.

She looked over at him and saw the hopeful
look in his ice blue eyes, she knew he wanted her to try and get
her Master’s degree, but she was completely done with school, and
didn’t plan on ever going back again.

She sighed, “I’m not sure dad, but I do know
I’m not going to go to graduate school.”

He shrugged his shoulders, “Well, what about
a job? Have you thought about where you might want to work?”

Abby shook her head, “No, all I have been
focused on for two years was to graduate, I never really gave much
thought to what comes after that.”

He looked over at her for a few long seconds
before saying, “Well, there is something we need to discuss, but it
can wait until we get home, I promised you a graduation dinner, so
where do you want to go?”

Abby giggled as he asked this, knowing that
he knew where she would want to go, “Dad, you know what my favorite
place is, why do you even ask?”

He laughed, “Okay, Chili’s it is.”

Abby smiled at him, he always knew her
better than anyone else.

***

Later that night while Abby was sitting in
her room reading a book, her father walked into her room and sat
down on her bed, she looked up at him and noticed that he had a
stack of papers with him.

She sat up on the bed, “What’s up Dad?” she
asked while placing a bookmark into her page and closing her
book.

He had a weird serious look on his face and
her heart starting pounding as she started to picture the worst
things in her head.

“Abby, we really need to talk about your
future plans. There is something your mother wanted me to do after
you graduated college, but I just thought I would maybe have a few
more years before I had to tell you about it.”

Abby sat up just a little straighter, he
rarely ever talked about her mom, and she was curious about what
was written on that stack of papers.

“I have a contract that she made up for you
before she died, and she had very specific instructions on what she
wanted you to do after college.” He hurriedly blurted out.

Abby didn’t say a word, scared that if she
spoke he would change his mind and stop telling her about all of
this.

“Well, your mother had a very good friend
who owns a new age shop downtown and she wants you to work for her
for a couple of years before you decide what your career is going
to be.”

She nearly burst out with laughter at this
statement, “A new age shop? Is that one of those places that sells
magic candles and things like that?” she asked him, holding back
her laughter.

He sighed, “I know it sounds crazy, but yes,
she has a shop called Celtic Magic that sells everything you can
think of that is magical or mystical. It is really a very nice
place, and there are some really interesting things in there.”

She blew out a breath long and slow, making
her blonde bangs fly up off of her forehead.

“Okay, what else does that contract thing
say?” She asked him.

He turned his head to the side, as if
contemplating what she said, “So you are interested?” he asked
her.

She shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t have
anything else planned, and it’s a guaranteed job. But, downtown?
Downtown Dallas?” she asked.

He nodded, “Yes, but it’s really more uptown
now, it is off of Lemmon, near Cedar Springs.”

She was quiet for a moment as she calculated
the drive to the shop. They lived in Duncanville, which was a good
thirty-five minutes from that area.

“
Well, that is kind of a
long drive to make every day isn’t it?” she finally
asked.

He nodded, “It would be from here, but if
you take the job, your mother has set aside enough money for you to
rent an apartment downtown, in the same building as Jasmine, that
is the woman who owns the shop. The apartment is on Cedar Springs,
right down the road, and I went and looked at the one she has in
mind for you the other day, and let me tell you Abby, it is a
really nice apartment.”

Abby’s mouth hung open in shock; she never
expected to hear that her mother had left her anything, much less
enough money to rent a place downtown for two years. This was an
offer that was just too good to pass up, considering it was better
than living with her father and trying to save money that she
didn’t even have.

She looked up at her father and nodded,
“Okay, I’ll do it.”

He smiled at her, “great, you are making
your mother very happy, now let’s go over this contract.”

Chapter 2

It surprisingly only took a couple of days
for Abby to pack everything that she wanted to take with her to her
new apartment. It was completely furnished, so all she really
needed were her clothes and other personal items she wanted
nearby.

As she walked up to the apartment complex
she was surprised at how tall it was, it looked to be at least
twenty stories high. When she walked into the office, she was in
awe at how grand the place was, everything was trimmed in gold,
making it seem like it was a palace.

She wasn’t allowed to know how much the rent
was, according to the contract her mother had put together, but she
could guess that it wasn’t cheap, looking at this place. After
getting the key from the landlord, she went to the elevator and hit
the button for floor eleven, delighted that she would be living so
high up, they way she had always wanted to.

When the elevator doors opened, she looked
at the small lobby with only three doors available. She looked back
down at the card the office had given her and saw that is said
apartment 1101. She looked to the left and noticed that her
apartment was the first one there, so she stepped over and with her
new key, unlocked the door to her first apartment.

As she walked around the apartment, she
noticed that while it was a basic one bedroom, it was actually
larger than she had expected. The kitchen was set in the corner,
which was setup really nicely with a breakfast bar that already had
two stools sitting in front of it, and a nice large silver
fridge.

She turned and looked at the living room
that had a small fireplace with a stack of chopped wood sitting
next to it, and a black and red couch and love seat that was
hopefully more comfortable than it looked.

She noticed a sliding glass door next to the
couch and she walked over and opened it and was pleasantly
surprised to see that there was a nice balcony with two chairs and
a small table.

She leaned over the rail and looked down at
the busy downtown streets below her; she was so high the people
walking on the sidewalk looked rather small.

She giggled to herself as she walked back
into the apartment and slid the door closed. She turned and walked
down the narrow hallway that was decorated with empty picture
frames that actually looked really modern and hip, until she came
to a door on her left.

She leaned in and turned on the light,
revealing a good sized bathroom that was decorated in black and
red, to match the living room she guessed. There was a big
claw-foot bathtub that looked great for bubble baths. The sheer
size of the bathroom and the fact that it had a claw-foot tub
surprised her more than anything; she always thought apartments had
tiny little tubs in them.

She turned the light back off and turned to
the door to the right of the hallway and opened it to a very large
bedroom, about double the size of her bedroom at her father’s
house.

She rolled her eyes as she saw it was also
decorated in black and red, thinking that someone must really like
those colors, to make the entire apartment match that way. Just as
she was admiring the large walk-in closet, her cell phone beeped
and she pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the screen. It
was time to go and meet Jasmine down at her shop, which she had
seen on the drive in and it was practically across the street.

She decided to walk over since it was
useless trying to go two blocks in this traffic in her car. She
locked the door to the apartment and pushed the button for the
first floor in the elevator, ready to go and see what kind of place
she was actually going to be working at for the next two years.

***

She stood outside the shop looking into the
window, seeing things that she hadn’t even heard of before, much
less knew what to do with them, and was feeling a bit nervous. She
didn’t know why she was so nervous, it was just a new age shop
where she would work for a while, but she had this strange feeling
that as soon as she walked in those doors, her life would change
forever.

She shook her head, calling herself an idiot
as she pushed open the heavy wooden door into Celtic Magic. The
bell rang over her head as she walked in she noticed a very tall
woman standing behind the counter with her back turned toward
her.

“
Be right with you.” She
said in a wonderfully deep voice that had a bit of a sing song
quality about it.

Abby didn’t know what to say so she just
walked up to the counter and waited for her to finish was she was
doing. As the woman turned around, she nearly gasped when she saw
how strikingly beautiful she was. She was at least five foot nine,
with long hair so black, it looked almost blue and she had big
amber colored eyes that were mesmerizing against the stark contrast
of her dark hair.

Her facial features were completely perfect
and she looked as though she belonged on the cover of a fashion
magazine, rather than behind the counter at a new age shop.

“Um, hello, I’m Abby Kane. I’m your new
employee.” She shyly stammered.

The woman smiled showing her perfect white
teeth, “I should have known. You look just like your mother.” She
said in her sing song voice that Abby could now detect had an Irish
accent.

“I am so happy that you took your mother’s
offer to work for me, and it has come at such a great time,
business has really picked up lately and I need the help. Oh, by
the way, I’m Jasmine.” She said, holding her hand out to Abby.

Abby took her hand and shook it, noticing
how white her skin was, almost like her old porcelain dolls.

“It’s nice to meet you, my Dad told me all
about you.” Abby finally said.

Jasmine nodded, “Yes, he called me the other
day to tell me you had agreed to your mother’s contract and that
you would be coming soon. I am happy to have you, but honestly
didn’t expect to be seeing you for at least another two years, but
that’s okay, like I said, I really need the help anyway. You won’t
actually be starting here until Monday, as it’s already after lunch
time, and I’m not open on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Hopefully
with the help here, I will eventually be able to have you run the
shop by yourself on Fridays, but don’t worry dear, it will not be
until you are ready. Today I will just show you around the shop,
give you the employee guide, and then let you get settled in your
apartment. Did you have time to go and give it a look?”