Third Time's a Charm (Halloween LaVeau) (7 page)

After Annabelle and Jon left, Nicolas stepped back inside to the parlor. I looked into the kitchen to see if the women
had noticed him returning. My fingers were crossed that I could keep them away from him. I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable, but it looked like there would be little way to avoid it as long as the women were hanging around.

“Are they still here?” he whispered as he looked around the room.

I motioned toward the kitchen. “Yes, they’re in the kitchen, probably doing another spell that they’re not supposed to.”

He sat down beside me.
“That bad, huh?” He squeezed my hand.

“They’re kind of sweet in a weird way,” I said.

“What kind of spell have they cast?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I’m not sure you want to know.”

“Try me,” he said, folding his arms in front of his chest.

“Well, Rebecca thinks you’re easy on the eyes, so she created a bunch of guys
who looked like you.”

His eyes widened. “Where are they?”

“Oh, I made them send the men back,” I said, pointing toward the kitchen.

“That’s a relief,” he said, peeking over toward the kitchen.

“Yeah, except then they cast a spell so that they were dressed just like me.”

He laughed. “That is kind of sweet.”

I nodded. “I know, right? But I’m still suspicious of them. I mean, I have to be on guard, you know?”

“So what else is going on?”
He flashed a sexy smile.

“Well, Annabelle was just here with Jon. You know, that reminds me. He was talking to some guy outside. Annabelle said the man was here when they pulled up,” I said.

Nicolas quirked a brow, but continued to listen.

“Then when I went outside, the guy didn’t speak to me. He just got in his car and drove off. Isn’t that really weird?”

“What did Jon say about it?” Nicolas asked.

“He said that he had told the guy to meet him here, but he never said who the man was or what they were talking about,” I said.

“I’ll ask him,” Nicolas said, then leaned over and placed his lips on mine.

My heart sped up as I pressed my body closer to his. I was totally lost in the moment when a strange noise sounded from outside. We pulled away from the kiss and looked around.

“Do you think that was the coven?” he asked.

I stood and then walked across the room, peeking in on the women in the kitchen. They were busy making sandwiches and didn’t even notice that I was looking at them. When I reached Nicolas again, the same sound came across the air.

“There it is again,” I whispered.

“It sounded like it came from outside on the porch,” he said.

I nodded and then we headed for the front door.

Nicolas and I stepped out onto the front porch and looked around. The air was still and I didn’t see anyone or anything. I prayed that another ghost wasn’t out there just waiting for a chance to ask me to reanimate them. I’d had enough of that with all the ghosts that had been hiding in the woods around
LaVeau Manor. Luckily, I hadn’t seen any for some time.

“It must have been a bird or something,” I said, looking out across the lawn.

Just then I looked down and noticed a piece of paper on the bottom step. I walked down a couple steps, then reached down and grabbed the paper.

“What did you find?” Nicolas asked, stepping up beside me.

“I’m not sure.” I unfolded the paper and stared at the symbol on it. The design was familiar and all of a sudden it hit me where I’d seen it. I showed Nicolas the paper. “It’s the symbol I saw sewn on the coven members’ skirts.”

He studied it for a moment,
then handed it back to me. “They must have dropped it.”

I released a heavy sigh and ran my hand through my hair. “I guess, but something makes me feel uneasy about this. I’ll ask the women if they lost it. Maybe they can tell me what it means.”

The women had disappeared from the kitchen and they weren’t upstairs either. This was definitely disconcerting for me. I wanted them to move on to the other dimension, but I also wanted to ask them more questions; I was torn.

Nevertheless, I’d have to wait to see if they returned soon. There was
so much that I needed to accomplish, but obviously the most pressing matter was to find out if what Giovanni had said about the book was true. The reanimated coven members had been of little help, so what made me think the new coven members would be any better? But with little else to help me, I had to ask.

Annabelle and I were headed to my mother’s shop. I wasn’t sure how my mother would react to the coven members
whom I’d conjured up. One of these days my botched spells would be just too much for her to handle.

We pulled up to her shop located in the historic section of town. Enchantment Pointe was a charming little place that was set next to the river. The dark water flowed steadily along the
edges of Enchantment Pointe, increasing the energy in the already magically charged town. The historic section housed many little boutiques. A lot of them were run by other witches. There was a café, antiques shop and salon nearby.

As we stepped into Bewitching Bath and Potions Shop, the bell above the door jangled announcing our arrival. I looked around for my mother. My mother had always been obsessed with beauty products and she had a natural talent for making them too.
She made all the products right there in her shop.

The space was done all in white with glass jars lining the walls on each side. A large distressed white table was in the middle of the room with more beauty items. A large bouquet of white flowers was displayed in the middle of the table.
To my right were the fragrances, oils, powders and herbs and the soaps, shower gels, lotions, shampoos and conditioners were on the left. My mother hated for things to be out of order in the shop, so everything always had to be in its designated spot.

“Hello, are you here?” I called out.

My mother peeked out from behind the curtain that concealed the back storeroom. At five foot one with blonde hair, my mother and I looked a lot alike. People sometimes confused us for sisters. My mother wore the store’s signature polka-dotted apron over her white sweater and black and blue jeans. 

At least
she had both eyebrows today. I’d forever scarred her by singeing one of them off in a minor cupcake-related spell gone wrong. She used a pencil to draw her eyebrows on, but that process wasn’t without its problems. Usually after a stressful or particularly hot day, she’d end up with a missing eyebrow because she’d accidentally wiped it off. So my witchcraft had caused her some distress over the years, bless her heart. She saved money on wax treatments and tweezers though.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. What’s wrong?” my mother asked as she hurried from behind the curtain.

I looked at Annabelle. “How the heck does she do that?”

Annabelle shrugged her shoulders.
“Hi, Annette!”

The greeting didn’t distract my mother from her mission. She had a strange knack for knowing when something was wrong.

“See, I knew there was something wrong. At least you didn’t try to deny it this time,” my mother said with the wave of her finger.

“How do you know something’s wrong?” I asked.

My mother quirked her carefully drawn-on eyebrow; she’d gotten pretty good at drawing on her eyebrows after this many years. “I can sense the distress around you. You cast a spell, didn’t you? What went wrong? Oh, it’s really bad this time, isn’t it? Not that the other times haven’t been bad, because they have been really bad. So bad that I wouldn’t think it possible that you could do any magic that sucked any worse.”

I scowled. “Are you finished?”

“Let me sit down for this,” she said, holding her chest.

My mother didn’t need to remind me that my witchcraft was lacking. I released a deep breath and braced myself to tell her about the coven members.

“Okay, you’re right. There is something that I need to tell you. Something did happen last night. Well, a lot of somethings. First, a man showed up. His name is Giovanni St. Clair and he said that he’s the true owner of the Book of Mystics,” I said.

“What does that mean?” Her face turned white.

“It means that he believes he is the leader of the Underworld,” I said.

“How is that possible? You have the book. I’d say that is pretty cut and dry.” She wiped her forehead and came dangerously close to eliminating the right eyebrow.

I pointed at my mother’s forehead to remind her to be careful, then said, “He said some nonsense about the true owner being able to add a spell. He said his mother added a spell to the book and Nicolas’ mother never added a spell.”

“And obviously you’ve never added a spell,” my mother said, grabbing her wand and waving it over the potion she’d been concocting.

Annabelle chuckled and I scowled at both of them.

“Sorry. I couldn’t help myself,” Annabelle said.

I waved my hand. “Whatever. You all know I’ve performed bad magic in the past, but you can’t say that I haven’t improved.”

My mother nodded. “That’s true. So what are you going to do? What can I do to help?”

I shrugged. “I guess I need to find out if what he says is true. But it’s looking more and more likely. How else can I explain the fact that there really is a spell in the book that his mother added?”

My mother’s eyes widened. “So there really is a spell in the book? How do you know?”

Now for the hardest part; I’d have to tell her about the coven. “Well, I don’t know that his mother added it, but…”

She must have read my expression because she said, “Oh, no
, there’s more to this story, isn’t there?”

I nodded, not wanting to look into her big blue eyes.

She sat up straighter in her seat. “Go ahead and tell me. Make it quick, like ripping off a bandage. Maybe it will be less painful that way.”

Okay, I knew this wasn’t a great situation, but my mother was being overly dramatic. Then again, she was always overly dramatic.

“Well, when I heard about the spell, of course I wanted to look and see if there really was a spell and see if the book would tell me anything about this man’s claim. So the pages flipped and there was a spell.” I tried to sound calm in the hopes that my mother would follow my lead.

“So you performed the spell,” she said around a sigh.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, what choice did I have?”

She rolled her eyes. Annabelle moved around the room picking up bottles of spices, but she didn’t get involved in the conversation. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t want to be a part of the conversation either.

I lowered my voice and said, “When I cast the spell I reanimated spirits.”

“Spirits?” she asked loudly. “There was more than one?”

I might as well get it over with and tell her the whole thing. No sense in dragging it out. After all, she said she wanted me to make it quick like ripping off a bandage.

“I brought back an entire coven from the 1700s,” I blurted out.

My mother swayed. I’d never seen my mother change to that color, nor had I ever seen her come that close to passing out. Usually she was just being dramatic, but this time I think she really was on the brink of falling off that stool and landing face-first onto the floor. I rushed over and steadied her. Annabelle placed the jar she’d held in her hands down on the counter and rushed to my mother’s side.

“I’m sorry,
Mom.” I fanned her.

She didn’t speak for a long time and I thought I might have to call an ambulance.

Finally, she managed to sputter out, “Which coven? Where are they from and where are they now?”

“They are from Enchantment Pointe,” I said with a little glee in my voice as if this would make her feel better.

Her eyes widened. “Enchantment Pointe?”

“Yes, Enchantment Pointe. Of course they’re from the year 178
5, but they’re here now.” I chuckled nervously.

By the glare she sent my way I knew that she failed to see the humor.

“Anyway, they did confirm to me that the book had a spell added to it, so that’s something, right?” I asked.

Her lip quivered at one edge as if she was trying her best to flash a teensy grin. “Yes, that’s something all right.”

“Are you feeling okay now?” I asked.

She nodded. “I’ll be all right. What are you going to do now?”

“I was thinking maybe I should ask the modern coven if they have any information about the history on this coven,” I said.

“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Of course you will have to admit that you mixed up a spell again.” Worry darkened her expression.

“Can you give them a call?” I asked.

She wiped her hands on her apron. “I’ll give them a call now.”

As she stood to grab the phone, my mother looked down at the items that Annabelle had placed on the counter. She looked up at Annabelle. “What made you pick these items?”