Love Charms (47 page)

2: Dei
Lucrii

I couldn't breathe. Seriously. Dad had
flipped his gourd. Post-traumatic stress, maybe. He had, after all, walked in
and seen Mom after the explosion.

"Have you seen someone about
this?" I meant a shrink.

"I'm not really allowed to speak to
any of the coven," he said.

Coven? What was he talking about?

Visions of white coats danced in my head.
How would I handle the house while he was in the ward? Maybe there was a pill
they could give him. I heard electric shock therapy was back in vogue these
days.

"Jet? Are you following? We will
have to spend the next few days figuring out how to turn you into a
witch."

"Pull over, Dad. You are in no shape
to be driving." The snow was falling harder. Hallow snuggled back in but
kept one beady eye on my father. I ran my hand along his furry back. Thank
goodness someone was on my side here.

"I'm perfectly fine. The thing is,
we're in a bit of a jam. Your mother didn't tell me she'd mortgaged us up to
our eyeballs to finance this potion she was working on. Fairy mushrooms don't
come cheap."

"Funny." I forced a bitter
laugh. "I get it. You're trying to make me laugh. Lighten the mood."
I punched his shoulder. "Dad, I'm good. I'll work for a while, do some
catch-up on the ol' calculus."

But Dad prattled on. "I tried
analyzing her compounds to see if I could reformulate based on the ingredients.
But unfortunately, the last bit of it has nothing to do with hairs of virgins.
It's a spell."

"Dad! Stop it! You're scaring
me."

He calmly engaged the turn signal and
exited the freeway. A small Presbyterian church sat just beyond the ramp, and
he pulled into the deserted parking lot. "Jet. I'm not daft, or senile, or
joking. I didn't know either until way too late."

My breathing sped up, which made the ferret
smell all the more difficult to manage. I moved Hallow to a pillow in the back
and opened my door.

I was a scientist. Or trying to be. But
still. So was Mom! So was Dad! Both perfectly rational people. They couldn't
buy into this. He'd read too much Harry Potter. Or, in his case, watched too
many episodes of Bewitched. Though Elizabeth Montgomery HAD sort of favored
Mom...

"Jet?"

I got out of the car and paced in small
circles. Things started tumbling into place, my life flashing before my eyes.
Mom, always having dinner ready no matter how late she got home. The cookies,
freshly baked and sitting on the table, even though there had been nothing in
the oven when I came in moments earlier.

The unlabeled medicines when I was sick.
The bizarre menagerie of pets in the converted garage, a room filled with
colored bottles and strange knickknacks. My knees wobbled, and I sat in the
dusting of snow, shivering.

Dad came around the car and knelt next to
me. "I know it's a shock."

The cold felt good, something real and
tangible, as otherwise the whole world was shifting around me. I finally
managed to squeak out, "Am I a witch too, then?"

He put his arms around me to quell the
shivers. "I don't know a lot about this world. I was never included. I can
only glean certain things from what your mother told me."

"So you think I could be?"

"Right now I'm desperate for you to
be. We have to try."

The wind bit into the wetness around my
eyes. "What happened to her? No one ever told me anything."

"No one really knew exactly what
happened." Dad shuffled his feet, trying to find a comfortable position.
"I just came home, and she was..." His cheeks had gone all cherry.

I knew the scene had been grim. The
closed casket meant I didn't even get to see her one last time. "What is
this stuff about the mortgage?"

"I heard from a man a month
ago." Dad pressed his lips together. "It's a big amount your mother
borrowed, and that was after she'd already taken a second mortgage on the
house. He said he'd be by between Christmas and New Year's to test the potion
and would be happy to pay any expenses."

"Did you tell him Mom was..."

"He said it was not his
problem."

Lovely bloke. "What is the potion
supposed to do?"

Dad stood up then, staring at the freeway
and the line of cars moving along it, all bright and colorful against the bleak
sky. The people in them were moving blithely into the holiday. I wanted to be
one of those people.

And yet. A witch. What an extraordinary
legacy. I couldn't doubt it, could I? My own father, the calm indomitable bastion
of logic, was telling me all about it as if it were plain fact.

I realized he hadn't answered. "Dad?
Do you know what the potion is supposed to do?"

He barked a short laugh, a rueful sound
in the quiet. "The most ridiculous thing. An insult, really."

My butt was turning to ice on the
freezing ground, so I stood up. "What is it?"

"She called it Passion Potion."

"Like Love Potion #9?"

"Something like that. This man
wanted to market it to failing marriages."

"How can you market something
magical to regular people?"

He shivered in his jacket and brushed
snow from his hair. "It's done all the time. Specialty stores. Under the
counter. But something wasn't right. She referred to him as Dei Lucrii."

"What the heck is that?"

"I looked it up. It's an ancient Roman
god of profit."

"So the Donald Trump of
witches?"

"Maybe," Dad said. "But he
didn't seem to care what it cost to make."

Well, that was no way to make a profit.
"So you think he wanted it for himself?"

"Powerful thing, making
people...well, you know." The red on his cheeks spread to his entire face,
into his gray roots.

"That would be something."
Anyone you were interested in becoming a sure thing. Messed up. But alluring.
"I'll do it."

His pale eyes brightened. "Really?
You're up for trying?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"I'm not sure how to go about it.
Your grandma Gem is long gone, and Grandpa."

"Were they witches?"

"Your mother referred to most
everyone as an enchanter. Grandma Gem was some sort of grande dame enchanter.
Your grandfather was human, like me."

The cold suddenly gripped me hard, and I
shuddered so violently that I lost my balance.

"Sweetpea, let's get back in the
car. Long ride still."

My teeth started chattering. I wasn't
sure it was entirely from the weather. My life had just been upended. "Too
bad I don't know any teleportation spells."

Dad helped me into my seat and chuckled.
"The reality of magic doesn't match the stories whatsoever."

3: Home
Sweet Cauldron

Dad sure got that right.

Mom's lair, or whatever it would have
been called, was a disaster. Cobwebs, dirt, dusty bottles, and the lingering
smell of chemical burn.

"So it wasn't her chemistry lab
after all." I brushed a layer of grime off a leather book.

"No, no. Though it wasn't always
this dirty." Dad held Hallow in the crook of his arm, his eyes pained.
"I don't come in here often."

I'd visited the renovated garage a few
times after the funeral. The room had always been a bit disorganized, but not
like this. I reached up to sweep away an intricate spiderweb attached to a
lamp.

Dad caught my hand. "Let it be. That
spider cost four thousand dollars, according to this." He pointed to the
leather-bound book. "She kept careful notes."

I peered more closely at the dark center
of the web. A tiny spider rested on a gleaming thread, bright green, its black
eyes watching me.

"Whoa-kay. I won't touch
anything."

"I've been afraid to sweep or clean.
I don't know what some of her scribblings refer to." He gestured to a pile
of luminous orange crystal bits by the book. "For all I know that's
kryptonite."

I sat down in the chair. Mom had been
right here when she died. I'd never let myself take her place before, but now
it seemed the right thing, as though something of her might still be buried in
the black leather and would seep into me, like Obi Wan Kenobi passing on his
skills after death.

I opened the cracked cover to the
oversized tome, similar to the old unabridged dictionary that rested on its own
wooden stand in my elementary school library.

"Book of Shadows," I read. The
names and dates of a half-dozen women filled the page. The last one was
"Tessandra Vanguard." Mom. I ran the tip of my fingers across her
name, then jerked my hand away. The paper felt sticky.

"Yuck." I touched my thumb to
my first finger. They clamped together as though I had glued them.

Dad set Hallow on the desk. "What is
it? Another spider? There's loads down here. Reproducing, as it were. Might be
a side business if the babies are worth as much as the original."

It required a bit of effort to pull my
fingers apart. The stickiness felt as though it was spreading. I looked down at
my mother's name. It hadn't changed.

"I got something sticky on me."
I looked around for a rag or a towel, but the dusty desk was devoid of anything
useful for cleaning. I spun in the chair and headed for the sink at the back
wall.

The water chugged and spat for a few
seconds before streaming out normally. I scrubbed my hands with the
antibacterial soap, but the stickiness only increased. I shut off the water.
"Dad, I think something's happening."

He took my hand in his. "It feels
normal to me. What makes you think it's sticky?"

I pushed my fingers together again. The
skin pulled as I forced them apart.

He touched them again, but he didn't
stick. "How completely odd."

"Do you think it's a spell?"

"A sticky-fingers spell would be
delightful for a book that should never be stolen."

"But I'm not sticking to anything
but myself." I touched my shirt. Nothing. The dusty filing cabinet. All
normal.

Now my fingers wanted to curl into my
palm. I fought the urge, but I couldn't withstand the intense need to make a
fist. I tried prying one set of fingers apart with my other hand, but now they
were locked together as though I held two powerful magnets.

"Dad, what do I do?" Panic
coursed through me.

"Sit here and let's just ride it
out. Sometimes your mother had odd things happen. They often wore off." He
led me back to the chair.

Now my arms were trying to move together.
My wrists pressed against each other like sex-starved coeds, but my shirt
seemed to stop its progression. Thank God it was winter. Imagine this happening
in a bikini.

I sat down, staring at my tight hands. I
had zero control. But now they were going over my head, dragging me up, back to
standing. "Dad?"

He held on to me as though fearing I
might take flight. Heck, it could happen, the way things were going.

My hands had a force of their own now and
pulled me across the room to a table in the corner piled high with dusty
papers. Dad awkwardly clasped my waist as we walked together. When I got close
enough, my arms knocked through the papers, sending dust and loose pages
flying.

"What's it doing?" I cried. The
stack continued to hit the floor until something gleamed.

Mom's headband. Instantly my hands were
released.

I shook my wrists. But when I took a step
backward, my hands began to gravitate toward each other again. "What do
you want me to do?" I asked them.

My palms were vibrating, and the metal
headband began to shudder and shift. I tried to step away again, but my arms
pulled me forward. The silver circlet lifted from the table and stuck to my
fingers.

The pull released, and the headband began
to fall. I clawed the air and caught it before it hit the ground.

"I never knew where that went."
Dad tried to reach for it, but when his hand got close, a spark flew out. He
jerked back. "I think it's clearly meant for you."

"What do I do with it?"

"I'm guessing you put it on."

I'd never worn a headband in my life,
scarred in childhood by images of Hillary Clinton. I'd tried to convince my
mother to give up the look, but she'd just smiled and said it kept her hair out
of the chemicals.

My head tingled as I moved the metal
higher. The band was an incomplete circle made of two silvery wires, wide in
the center and coming together in a point on either end. It looked, actually,
like it might poke me bloody.

When it touched my scalp, I sensed the
metal shifting, opening wide, and popping into place like a Tupperware lid.

"Is it some sort of crown?" I
asked.

"I have no idea."

"Did Mom wear it all the time?"
I imagined being doomed to such an embarrassing head accessory for life.

"No, but she did most of the time.
She didn't usually sleep in it, unless..." He trailed off.

I whirled around. "Unless
what?"

"She sensed danger."

Great. Embarrassing AND an evil-magnet.
What had I gotten myself into? And had it gotten Mom? My belly began to quake.
I suddenly doubted I was up for the task.

"How does it fit?" Dad asked.

"Perfect, actually." And it
did. No pressure, no pain, no sense of anything other than maybe —
comfort? I felt better wearing it. Like it belonged. Like it protected me.

"Do you think wearing it makes me a
witch?" I moved to the glass case to inspect my new look. Uggh. Awful.

Hallow scurried across the desk and bent
his little white body between two stacks of books to hop onto the case. He
peered down at me with his red eyes. "Only if you tap your heels together
three times," he said.

I think I screamed.