5 A Charming Magic (5 page)

“Hrmph.”
I sighed.

“Are you okay?” The lady asked and walked closer to me. “You seem to be sniffing a lot. Do you have a cold?”

“I...,”
ahem
, cleared my throat.

“It seems you have some lovely homeopathic remedies for a cold. Have you tried any of them?” She picked up the cold remedy bath salt with a pinch of Fly Aminta, which was good for opening the swollen airways due to the inflammation of the common cold.

“Allergies.” I waved my hand in the air. “Of course I have tried all of my cures.”

“Oh, you must be the owner of this lovely establishment.” She grinned. Her eyes soften into a warm glow. She instantly made me miss Darla.

I glanced over at the picture hanging on the wall. The framed photo of me standing between my parents was my only photo of us. It was a gentle reminder of their love for me and it helped me get through the day.

“I am,” I confirmed with pride. Darla would be so proud of me taking over A Dose of Darla and relocating to our hometown of Whispering Falls where I have tapped into my spiritual gift that I had gotten from my father’s side of the family. Darla was not a spiritualist—far from it. She would catch something on fire and laugh, chalking it up to trial and error. “Are you looking for something specific?”

“Yes.” She tapped her long fingers together before she adjusted the cowl-neck sweater, draping it a little more in the front. She smoothed the edges over her black leggings. Her slender legs ended in a pair of black flats. “I need something for a baby.”

“Oh. I love babies.” Images of a cute little bouncing baby boy who had big blue eyes like his dad, Oscar of course, and the black hair to match. Obviously the baby would have black hair since Oscar and I have black hair.

“Yes, well.” The woman wasn’t every entertained with my joy. “Do you have a little Luna Moth Wing?”

“Luna…” Okay, now she had my attention. How did she know about spiritualist ingredients?

“It’s an old wives tale I Googled. It said some homeopathic stores sold such an ingredient.” She perused the bottles on the special treatment shelf. That was the shelf that had a basic potion in each bottle and where I added the little touch of…magic.

“There is no such thing as Luna Moth Wing.” Nervously I giggled and filed her comment in the back of my head.

Lately there had been so many customers coming into the shop with their own concoctions that it made me nervous. They said they were getting these on the Internet from a site of someone who said they were a homeopathic curist. The only real curists were in villages such as Whispering Falls and the public had no idea we truly existed.

“Oh really?” When she laughed, her cheeks balled up causing her eyes to dance. “My daughter told me that just because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“You have a very smart daughter. I’m sure Dr. Google doesn’t really exist.” Oh, crap. I had to get on the Internet and see exactly what was going on. We, spiritualists, didn’t really need the Internet. I, for one, had Madame Torres and the other spiritualists. But it wasn’t a bad idea to look into. And I could use Oscar’s computer before the proposal tonight. “So your daughter is the one who needs the potion?”

That had to be it. No wonder I wasn’t able to read the woman’s intuition. The potion wasn’t for her.

“Between me and you…,” the woman looked around to make sure no one was listening, but it was only me and her. “She is so upset about not getting pregnant that I think the stress is causing the issues.” She put her finger in the corner of her eye and sniffled. “I’ve always wanted to be a grandmother.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” I grabbed a tissue from off the counter and handed it to her. “The stress part.” This was the point I knew I needed to help her and her daughter. This woman deserved to be a grandmother and I was going to help them. “Give me one second and I’ll fix you something special to give to your daughter.”

The woman slowly looked down at the floor and held her hands to her heart in gratitude.

I quickly got to work. I headed behind the partition on the other side of the counter. Tapping down the empty bottles on the shelf behind me, I waited until one lit up.

The special bottles had a tendency to know exactly what potion needed to go in it. A faint glow would tell me what bottle would be the best place to hold my future.

The purple heart-shaped bottle glowed with delight. I couldn’t have been more pleased. I loved the delicate pink flowers etched in the center of the beautiful heart.

Carefully I held the bottle over top of the cauldron that held the beginning of Oscar’s special potion and simply said, “Find your home.” Like magic, the potion transferred from the cauldron into the bottle. I kissed the bottle lid before I screwed it on…tight. It never hurt to give something a little extra dose of love for good measure.

“I’ll work on you later.” I set it aside for when I had some down time. During the day it was hard for me to work on anything personal, due to the fact I was always creating for others. “Now.” I dusted my hands off. “I’ve got to create a baby potion.”

With the swipe of a cauldron cleaning cloth, the cauldron was ready to go. My customer would be a granny in no time.

“Are you crazy?” Madame Torres whispered from her glass ball.

“Shh,” I warned her and put my finger up to my mouth. I bent down so she could hear me. “Are
you
crazy?” I asked sarcastically. “What if a customer hears you?”

“What if the Elders hear that you have used an ingredient on the ‘do not use’ list?”

“Do not use?” There was a list? A “do not use” list? I shuddered to think of what else could be on the list. There was nothing in my shop that I hadn’t used before. If there was some sort of “do not use” ingredient, surely I would have known it by now. “If it was ‘do not use,’ KJ would have told me.”

I had no idea how I got appointed to be the new Village President, but revisiting the by-laws was the first order of business at the next meeting.

I glanced at the calendar when I reached over to get some Snowberries to start the potion. “Meeting” was printed big on today’s date. Dang! The big engagement was going to have to wait.

Someone tell me why I had agreed to be the Village President?
I groaned and grabbed a handful of Snowberries and threw them in the cauldron. I watched them swirl around and around until the small round berry turned into a yellow stream before it exploded into a frothy sapphire tonic.

Since I didn’t know the woman’s daughter, I wasn’t able to read items she loved to eat, which was part of the intuition thing I had going on. I could disguise any potion with a food smell or taste to make sure they took the cure created for them.

Snowberries were the sweetest berry around. “Normal” people wouldn’t have access to the Snowberries since it was only available to the spiritual community. Those little secrets were how we had kept the economy up in Whispering Falls while the rest of the surrounding cities struggled. Regardless, everyone loved Snowberries because the sweet taste took on the flavor of the recipient’s current craving.

“When are you going to be seeing your daughter?” I made idle chitchat to pass the time.

“Not for a couple of weeks,” the woman responded.

The ding, ding of the bell was followed up by a voice.

“Delivery!” the voice shouted into the shop.

I peeked my head around the partition. There was a boy with a baseball cap on standing in the doorway of the shop with a bouquet of fresh-cut wildflowers in his arms.

“Whoa!” His mouth and hands dropped down at the same time. He held the flowers by the stems. “What kind of place is this?”

I turned the cauldron on low and brushed my hands off as I hurried over to get the flowers.

“Welcome to A Charming Cure. This is a homeopathic cure shop. Are those for me?” I squealed. The customer moseyed up next to the counter and looked at the flowers.

“Those are beautiful.” She smiled.

“Are you June Heal?” the delivery boy asked.

“I am,” I nodded. The only thing better than getting flowers from Oscar, was a kiss from Oscar.

“Then they are for you.” He handed the flowers to me.

Instantly I held them to my nose and inhaled. Late Purple Aster, White Avens, Arrowleaf, White Baneberry, Shrub Yellowroot, French Mulberry, Tickseed Sunflower, and many types of greenery I couldn’t name were all bundled in a burlap tie. It was the most beautiful assortment I had ever seen.

“Where is the card?” I wanted to know who they were from.

“No card.” He shrugged.

“What?” I laughed, thinking he was joking. He didn’t crack a smile. “You are joking right?”

“Nope. No card. Coolio place though.” He cocked his lips to the side and nodded looking around the shop.

“Thanks.” I wasn’t sure if coolio was a word but it must be for the younger kids today. Not that I was old. Twenty-eight still seemed young to me. But I wasn’t around many young people, so coolio it was.

“I’ve got to get back to work.” I held the flowers close to me. The customer smiled and went back to looking around while I went back to the cauldron and the delivery boy left.

The flowers lingered on my mind and the vision of Oscar and Arabella standing next to his car popped into my head.

“That’s what he was doing,” I whispered and reached over to touch them.

Sneaky devil. He had been giving Arabella a flower order for me. It had to be. He was doing a great job for prepping me for tonight, even though I was going to have to rearrange my plans since I had completely forgotten about the village meeting.

Suddenly my head started to swirl, like it always did when my potion intuition was about to kick in. It wasn’t a smell but a vision. A vision of a piece of greenery with small pink berries growing on the stem.

Had I tapped into the customer’s sense of what needed to go into her daughter’s special cure for her baby-making problem?

“Hmm.” I grabbed a vase from underneath the counter to stick the flowers in so they would live until I was able to properly display them and it jumped out at me like an angry frog.

In the bundle of wildflowers was one stem of the greenery I had a vision of. Without thinking, I plucked a couple off and threw it in the cauldron.

Mixing the greenery in with the Snowberries, the potion surged into a whirlpool of pumpkin color with a hint of amber. It was beautiful to watch as I mixed more and more ingredients.

“And for the final touch.” I grinned and turned around to get a pinch of Bleeding Crown Root and a tad bit of Luna Moth Wing. With the last toss, I said, “Let’s get it on.”

Okay, so I didn’t have a good cure chant for baby-making, but a little Marvin Gaye seemed to work for a lot of people and the cure because it rolled into a steaming pulsating elixir that looked good enough to lick the sides of the cauldron.

“I’m almost done,” I called out to the woman.

“Take your time because this is our last hope.” There was a little bit of relief in her voice, but not much. “You are our last hope.”

It wasn’t like I was a doctor and I certainly wasn’t God, but it was great that I could put some hope into people’s lives.

Before I even touched a bottle to see which one was for the cure, a bottle was already glowing when I turned around.

I smiled. I had known the crystal hourglass bottle with the gold molding around the base with the delicate gold flowers etched in the glass was going to hold a special potion. What was more special than a baby?

“Perfect,” the word left my lips in a whisper.

“Are you sure you want to do this cure?” Madame Torres appeared. Her lashes were heavy with black mascara, black liner rimmed her lids.

“Shh!” I put my finger up to my lip and held the bottle over the cauldron. Little sparks flew up in the air, sending a little fireworks show right below my fingertips. I leaned back so my eyes wouldn’t get caught in the beautiful display of colors shooting out of the cauldron.

“Is everything okay back there?” the woman called out.

“Perfect!” I called back to her and watched the mixture get sucked up into the bottle before the cauldron shut off. “Perfect. “ I held the beautiful crystal bottle up to get a good look at my creation.

Proudly I walked around the partition and sat the bottle on the counter.

“All done?” the woman asked.

“All done.” I pushed the bottle to the edge of the counter for her to get a look at before quickly pulling them away. The bottle had heated up and burnt the tip of my pinkie finger. “And the bottle is just so lovely. I’m sure your daughter will love it.” I drew my hand to my eyes and noticed the small burn.

I quickly jotted down the directions and added up the cost, ignoring my pinkie pain. Sometimes reactions were unexplainable even if everything did go well.

With the exchange of money and wishes of good luck, the customer was happily on her way out the door when a loud scream pelted through the open door followed up by someone screaming “yes” over and over.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Petunia Shrubwood jumped up and down. Her floppy up-do hairstyle bounced up and down, sending birds flying out as fast as she bounced. My neck was getting a work out by moving up and down watching her bounce around. She was obviously having some sort of spell because she would never hurt the animals that nested in that hairstyle she had, nor would she hurt Gerald who was crouched down in front of her looking like he was scared to death.

Gerald Regiula was a saint because I didn’t know a man who would put up with a woman who was as obsessed with animals as Petunia was.

“Yes! I will marry you!” She stopped bouncing. My heart stopped.

I could see a faint smile growing underneath his top hat before he flipped it off and jumped up grabbing her into his arms and flying her around like they were playing maypole.

Everyone was there. Raven and Faith stood under the Wicked Good awning, Ophelia and Colton held hands on the front porch of Ever After Books, Isadora Solstice stood on the steps of Mystic Lights. I scanned down the street and could see Bella Van Lou smiling from the front of Bella’s Baubles. I waited to see the ring he gave her, but he seemed to forget that little detail.