A Charming Wish (4 page)

“
Now, June Heal,” She took
a step back and placed her hands on her hips, “you know that the
number one rule in Whispering Falls is that you can’t…”

“
Yeah, I know.” And I did
know better. “You can’t read another spiritualist. But Mr. Prince
Charming can let you in on a little known secret that I can’t
know?”

“
He is different.” She
reminded me. “He’s a Fairy god-cat and he is keeping you safe. You
just need to do as I say and let’s get this on your
bracelet.”

Looking around Whispering Falls, the
streets were starting to fill with up with customers who were
milling around, going from shop to shop. There was no time for me
to get her to put it on now; I planned to go see Faith.

I unclasped the bracelet and dropped
it into her open palm.

“
I’ll be by after work to
get it.”

“
Sounds good.” She
gestured for the pendent that I had tucked in the palm of my hand.
“See you soon.”

“
Wait.” I quickly pulled
my hand to my chest. “Do you know the name of the Native American
who supplies me with smudging grass?”

“
Oh, Kenny.” She smiled,
exposing the gap between her teeth. “Such a soft spoken man, but he
does bring me the best turquoise stones you have every laid your
spiritual eyes on.”

“
Kenny?” I tried not to
chuckle, but I did. He definitely didn’t look like a ‘Kenny’. He
looked like he could be Pocahontas’s brother.

“
What?” Bella asked. She
held her hand high above her head. “He’s about yay tall with dark
handsome features?”

“
Yep, that’s him.” I
nodded. “Do you know how to reach him?”

“
No. He has a way of
knowing exactly what we need and when we need it.” Bella shrugged.
“He blows in with the wind and…”

“
Yeah, yeah, I know,” I
waved my hands around, and then held my palm out for her to take
the pendent, “out with the breeze.”

“
What do you need him
for?” She questioned.

“
I need a few supplies.” I
lied. But there was no way I was going to tell anyone about Belur.
He was a type of spiritualist that everyone wanted. If anyone found
out he was in my shop they would beat down the door trying to get
him. After all, who wouldn’t want their wishes to be
granted?

“
He’ll be back.” She took
the pendent and rushed back down the street toward Bella’s Baubles.
She hollered over her shoulder, “I’ll bring it back later
today.”

I crossed the street, nodding and
smiling as I passed the people on the street, keeping Wicked Good
Bakery in my sights. The bakery was owned by Faith’s sister and
baker extraordinaire, Raven Mortimer. They shared the apartment
over the bakery.

The aroma of fresh baked cookies
floated through the air. I smiled, knowing Raven probably sent the
inviting homemade goodie’s smell throughout Whispering Falls. No
one could ever resist one of Wicked Good’s tasty treats, not even
me.

I couldn’t help but smile when I saw a
little car parked in front of the shop with a big plastic cupcake
on top and Wicked Good’s logo plastered all over the
sides.

“
Good morning! I love the
new car.” I hollered to Raven. She was busy sticking all sorts of
heavenly treats in a box for a waiting customer.

“
Good morning. We have so
many deliveries outside of Whispering Falls that I had to get
something. Plus it’s free promotion for the shop.” She smiled,
sending a sparkle from her white teeth to her onyx eyes. Her long
black hair was piled high in a loose bun atop her head. “I’ll be
with you in a sec.” She held a finger up.

Glancing around the charming
confectionary, I couldn’t help but think how far our relationship
had come. Just a little over a year ago, Faith, Raven and I met
while attending Hidden Hall A Spiritualist University. I had just
found out that I was, in fact, a spiritualist and as every village
has rules, Whispering Falls was no different.

They were classmates in my intuition
class. Even though we got off on the wrong foot, in the end, we
became friends, and that was when they moved to my magical little
town.

Besides Raven’s amazing pastry
talents, her spiritual gift as an Aleuromancy was what had
customers coming back. Messages and answers came to her in the form
of her baking. The dough forms itself into shapes unbeknownst to
her while little messages for incoming customers stick in the back
of her head. Those customers always pick out the perfect pastry for
them. Sometimes she could read like a medium, only the spirit
wasn’t standing there as most mediums say they are.

Faith was a Clairaudient spiritualist.
She hears things beyond the naked ear. She can hear spirits,
guides, and angels, or simply see into the future in some sort of
mystical way.

Unfortunately, her passion was the
written word. She was the editor of Hidden Hall’s newspaper, but
her spiritual gift wasn’t cut out for that type of work. So when
she decided she wanted to open the only talking spiritual paper
known to any spiritualist community, we were a little
skeptical.

And you could see why; most of the
things she reported weren’t very accurate, sending a lot of
villagers into a panic.

“
You be sure to go visit
your grandmother.” Raven handed the boxed up goodies to her
customer. She must’ve known something was going on with the
customer’s grandmother from the bakery goods or she wouldn’t have
said that.

She crossed the black and white
checkered floor, wiping her hands down her pink Wicked Good apron,
embracing me with a big welcome.

“
I’ve been thinking about
you.” She pushed me an arm’s length away to get a look at me. She
bit her lip, a sure sign she had something going on in the
spiritual world for me to hear.

“
You have?” I questioned,
remembering the number one spiritual rule. “I’m guessing you aren’t
going to come out with it are you?”

“
Can’t. But if you ask…”
she baited me.

“
Actually I’m here to see
Faith.” I absolutely wanted to hear what she was chomping at the
bit to tell me.

“
First let me give you
these.” She swept back behind the counter, grabbing a box of what I
knew was going to be a few freshly baked June’s Gems, her version
of my favorite Ding Dong treat. “And while I was baking
them…”

“
June, how are you? Are
you getting your morning paper okay?” Faith emerged from the back
of the bakery. Her onyx eyes twinkled with anticipation.

Their eyes were the only hereditary
trait the two sisters had between them. Faith had long blonde hair
to Raven’s black, as well as being a Good-Sider Spiritualist while
Raven was a Dark-Sider.

“
How
rude
, sister.” Raven scolded Faith just as
the big sister always did. “I was telling her something before you
interrupted.”

“
Geesh, I’m sorry,” Faith
said, but she didn’t mean it. She continued, “Was it clear? The
newspaper? I’ve been working on all the acoustics around these
hills surrounding Whispering Falls.”

“
I can hear it loud and
clear.” I wrung my hands together. I didn’t want to hurt her
feelings. “That’s the problem. You are very clear on what you are
seeing or hearing, putting people in a panic, not to mention
getting the Karima sisters hopes up in getting a body for a
funeral.”

“
I’m just reporting as I
hear it, see it, feel it.” She twitched her mouth back and forth.
There was a little hurt look on her face. “That is what a good
reporter with any reputable newspaper does.”

“
I know, but sometimes
it’s not right.” I spoke with caution. “Remember the
fireflies.”

She leaned against the counter when I
reminded her of the time the fireflies in the community, which were
the souls of teenagers, were going to put on a spectacular Fourth
of July light show with their glowing tails. It just so happened
that there was also a paid advertisement about bug spray. She mixed
the two up, and all the spiritualists, including me, ran out to buy
a case of bug spray. Petunia was one big ball of mad when she
reminded everyone that we couldn’t do bug spray because of the
teenagers.

The village was up in arms, and poor
Izzy, the Village president, had to settle everyone down. It took
days.

“
One little incident.”
Faith held her long thin finger in the air. I glared at her. “Okay,
four at the most.”

“
Do you think you could
put the paper out a day later? You know, let the information that
is coming to you simmer for a little bit? Give yourself some time
to digest it and not just spit it out?”

That was one thing she should’ve
learned at Hidden Hall…how to deliver the message in a suitable,
not so stinging way.

“
I agree with June.” Raven
pulled down one of the four oven doors. Grabbing a mitt, she pulled
out a pan of blueberry scones.

“
I don’t know who you
think you are, June Heal,” Faith completely ignored what Raven was
telling her and focusing her attention on me and anger shone on her
face, “but if you think that some little herbalist is going to tell
me how to run
my
business in Whispering Falls, you have another thing coming
to you!”

“
Maybe you can work on the
delivery without scaring people. That’s what gives our type of
people a bad rap.” Raven didn’t waste time to take the mitts off
her hands before she went over to comfort her sister. “But I have
to say that June is spot-on this time.”

Faith’s onyx eyes bore into me. “You
will regret trying to tell me how to be a clairaudient”

The beeping of a horn coming from the
street caught our attention. The Karima sisters were slowly driving
down Main Street in their hearse. Patience leaned out the window
with a big ole smile on her face, causing the balls of her cheeks
to make her eyes squinty.

“
Got us one!” She shouted
and pointed to the gurney in the back. The gurney had a white sheet
draped over it with something that clearly looked like the outline
of a body underneath.

Slowly I nodded to let her know that I
saw it.

“
Weird!” Faith commented
and darted to the back of the shop. Her thunderous footsteps hit
the steps as she went back up to the apartment, followed by a door
slam.

“
They are two sick old
women.” Raven leaned her head to the side to watch the spectacle
drive off to the Two Sisters and a Funeral Home before turning back
to me. “Anyway, Faith was right this time. Something is brewing and
that’s what I need to talk to you about.”

Her hand shook as she lifted the box
of June’s Gems in my direction.

“
I think I’d better sit
down for this.” I took the box and a seat at the café table nearest
to the window.

Glancing down the road toward the
funeral home, I took a June’s Gem out of the box and stuffed it in
my mouth as I watched the Karima sisters get out of the hearse and
do a little dance around to the back before pulling out their
client.

Chapter Five

Chills ran up and down my spine as
Raven confirmed my intuition that something was gravely wrong. And
I couldn’t dismiss the fact that Faith had all but threatened
me.

Faith stormed back down to the shop,
flailing her arms as she rushed through the doorway.

“
I admit I’m not spot-on,
but there is definitely something not right in the air surrounding
Whispering Falls. The spirits are chanting.” Faith closed her eyes,
swaying back and forth as if being soothed by some sounds. “It’s a
low murmur. Almost sad.”

“
Can you make out what the
chant is about?” Most the time when we use chants in our spirit
world, it’s about something important. “Brewing good?
Bad?”

There had to be some sort of
information that she was getting that could translate into
something useful. After all, I did receive a genie bottle that I
didn’t dare tell anyone about. Well, maybe Oscar, but no one else.
Then there were the Karima sisters, hauling some dead body in here.
The body obviously had to be from out of town, because if someone
had died in Whispering Falls, the word would’ve spread like
wildfire.

“
Something about
feathers.” Her onyx eyes popped open, her mouth dropped into an O
and then she slammed it shut. “But
you
don’t have to believe
me.”

“
What feathers?” I begged
to know, thinking about the ostrich feathers.

“
You. . .um . . .need to
find something to replace your Ding Dongs.” She fixed her eyes on
me, there was hatred resting in them.

With my elbows planted on the table, I
repeated, “Feathers, Ding Dongs?”

“
Yes, something with
feathers is surrounding you.” Raven said in a hushed whisper as new
customers began to file in. “Darla came in the form of the June’s
Gems. She said there was grave danger around your shop.”

Darla was always coming up in my
June’s Gems. She never approved of Ding Dongs when I was little,
which Oscar and I hid them from her, and she never would approve of
my addiction to them now. Which reminded me, I had been running low
on my stash and I needed to run off to Locus Grove to grab some
from the local Piggly Wiggly.