Heirloom Magic: Every Witch Way (2 page)

Mr. Bell picked up
the first set of keys and slid them across the table towards her. “To my only
granddaughter, Harper Elizabeth Jones, I leave my family home located at 5122
Bramble Wood Crescent,” he read, and Harper sat up a little straighter in her
seat.

“What!” she squeaked
out, unable to help herself. Mr. Bell nodded, but did not stop to let her
adjust to the news.

“I leave my 1955
Chevrolet 3100, Betsy. The memory of us driving around on hot summer days in
that truck has made me smile many times over the years.” Harper let out a
ragged sob, and Mr. Bell paused long enough to pass her a tissue and to slide
over another set of keys—presumably to her grandmother’s most prized possession—a
truck she’d lovingly dubbed Betsy. It was an old-fashioned name, but Betsy was
definitely an old-fashioned girl.

“I leave you my
ring, which I hope Mr. Bell has already provided to you,” Mr. Bell paused and
nodded, and Harper stared down at the cloudy stone on her finger and cried
harder. “I also leave you my business.” Harper stopped sobbing and looked up at
Mr. Bell in surprise. As far as she knew, her gran didn’t have a business. “You
are a smart, level-headed girl and you deserve to have something more in your
life than to work for those corporate robots in Chicago,” Mr. Bell read out her
grandmother’s words, and despite her pain, Harper chuckled. That sounded just
like Gran!

Mr. Bell slid over
the last set of keys. There were at least ten keys of varying sizes strung on a
round loop with a keychain depicting a bat flying against the backdrop of a
round yellow moon. Harper picked the set up and stared at it with curiosity.
Some of the keys looked like normal house keys, others were smaller, probably
for locked cupboards of some sort, and the last one was a peculiar black
skeleton key that looked ancient.

“Your new business
is going to require a steep learning curve, Harps,” Mr. Bell read, and Harper
smiled at her gran’s words coming out of the large lawyer—it was a little bit
eerie. Harps was what her gran had called her for as long as Harper could
remember.

“What is it?”
Harper interrupted, unable to stand the suspense a moment longer. Her mind was
reeling with curiosity about what kind of business her grandmother had left
her.

“It is an apothecary
shop located at 4700 Maple Crest Lane,” Mr. Bell informed her, reading the
address off the paper, and Harper blinked in surprise.

“Apothecary shop?”
she repeated, not sure she’d heard him correctly, but what other word could she
have possibly misunderstood that sounded like the word apothecary? Why on earth
did her gran own one? “I…don’t know what to say,” she told him honestly, and
Mr. Bell nodded sagely.

“It is a lot to
take in.” He paused and studied her as though examining if she was fit to
continue. “I will need your signature on some paperwork,” he said, passing her
a pen and a stack of papers that had sticky notes where she needed to sign. “Your
gran took care of everything already, all the taxes and such have been paid. As
soon as you sign on the dotted line, you will own everything free and clear,” he
said, nudging the pen into her slack fingers.

Harper picked up
the pen and her hands started to shake as she began to sign each page, her mind
reeling a mile a minute.

When she was
finished, Mr. Bell took the papers and filed them away in his desk. “I will
make sure you are sent copies within a day or two,” he promised her as he stood
up and stretched his tall frame. Harper followed his lead and stood as well,
her legs wobbling on her first attempt.

“I have a couple
more things for you, but they are… private, so I think it’s best if you take
them home with you and examine them there,” Mr. Bell advised as he handed over
a heavy fabric bag.

“What is this, her
rock collection?” Harper joked, feeling strung out, and Mr. Bell chuckled
slightly…probably out of pity.

“I can give you a
ride home and you can go through the rest of the stuff there,” he said,
watching quietly as Harper stuffed her many sets of keys into the bag, trying
to balance the strap on her shoulder.

“Home?” Harper
asked in confusion, her home was thousands of miles away in Chicago.

“Your new home,”
Mr. Bell amended as he walked her to the door.

Oh, right
, Harper thought, not sure she was up for
spending the night in her gran’s house.

“Unless you’re
checked into a room already at one of the Bed and Breakfasts?” Mr. Bell guessed
when she didn’t immediately jump at the idea.

Harper shook her
head. She had gotten in on a late flight and hadn’t had time yet to do much
more than land, change into her black dress in a bathroom stall at the airport,
and head straight for the funeral home. It was kind of strange how quickly her gran’s
funeral was being held, but apparently Gran had everything planned out exactly
how she’d wanted it and everything had been paid in advance.

“Thank you,” she
mumbled numbly. Part of her just wanted to be alone, but it would be a long
walk hauling this bag with her.

It was a short
drive, and neither of them said very much. Mr. Bell seemed to sense that she
wanted to be alone with her thoughts and thankfully didn’t feel the need to
fill the space with idle chit chat.

“Here we are,” Mr.
Bell said quietly as he parked his blue sedan with the leather interior outside
the white Victorian style house. Harper stared up at it, suddenly terrified to
go inside. It would make everything too real. “Are you alright, Miss?” Mr. Bell
asked her, obviously sensing her hesitation.

“I’m fine,” Harper
replied, not wanting him to see how upset she was.

“Good, I will be
in touch in a few days to see how you’re settling in,” Mr. Bell promised as
Harper pulled the door open and stepped out onto the curb. Harper froze. She
hadn’t thought that far ahead, but she did have a life back in Chicago—a job at
one of the top software design firms in the city. She even had a two-year lease
on an over-priced apartment and a man at work who was maybe going to ask her
out one of these days… She couldn’t just pick up her entire life and move to
Alabama!

Harper stared at
Mr. Bell blankly for a moment before she slowly nodded her head. There was no
way she was going to get into all of this right now. “Have a good night,” she
murmured instead as she shut the door and Mr. Bell drove away, leaving Harper
standing on the sidewalk, looking up at the old house she had loved so much as
a little girl.

Pain at her gran’s
passing engulfed her. A few stray tears slid down her cheeks, and for a moment
she thought about turning around and leaving. She could get a room at one of
the Bed and Breakfasts and go back to Chicago in the morning. Harper took a
step back towards the road and then stopped. The house loomed before her like
an old friend she hadn’t seen in a while. Harper took a step forward, and then
another, she didn’t know why, but there was something that seemed to draw her
towards it.

The same old board
on the front porch creaked as Harper climbed the steps, admiring the porch
swing that she had always loved so much as a child. It was startling to realize
that it was her swing now, the entire house was. Harper tried the door knob
before digging in the bag and found it open—the charm of small town living,
nobody locked their doors around here—not even the deceased, apparently.

The house looked
exactly as it always had—nothing had changed. Harper walked into the spacious
foyer with the closet where she stopped and took off her coat. She bypassed the
twisty staircase and went around the side to the kitchen, flinging her bag up
onto the granite counter top. It landed with a heavy thud.

Everything was
immaculate. Harper opened the cupboard to retrieve herself a glass and started
to run herself some water—until she remembered all the weirdos she’d met today.
She turned off the faucet and poked around the fridge instead. It was filled
with lots of containers with strange names. Harper frowned when she read one particularly
nasty-looking container labelled frog eyes. “I really hope that’s a code for
something else,” she muttered to herself as she grabbed a bottle of water and
made sure it didn’t say anything other than ‘Bottled Fresh from the Spring.’

Harper guzzled
down the water, panting when she reached the bottom of the bottle. It felt like
she’d cried out at least a gallon of tears today, and she was feeling
dehydrated and out of sorts. A tiredness engulfed her, and she decided to
forget everything tonight and sleep on it.

She stopped and
made sure to lock both the front and back doors on her way upstairs—this might
be a sleepy small town, but she was from Chicago—and in Chicago you don’t mess
around, or you get mugged.

Harper crept past
her grandmother’s closed bedroom door; she had never been allowed in there when
she was a child. It still felt taboo, but Harper comforted herself that it was
probably okay for her to go in there now since her gran had left her the house.
She wasn’t ready for that yet anyway, not by a long shot. Harper found her way
to the small guest room at the end of the hall. It was the room she’d always
stayed in when she came for a visit. The room was comforting in its familiarity,
and Harper sank down onto the small single bed, without bothering to remove her
dress, and fell asleep.

It didn’t feel
like very much time had passed at all when Harper was awakened in the middle of
the night by a noise.

She sat up in the
pitch black room, straining her ears to figure out what exactly had woke her
up. Her heart began to pound when she heard it again. It was a pretty ominous
sound as far as middle-of-the-night noises go.

A steady pounding,
thunk, thunk, thunk
, reverberated from somewhere down below, and it was
definitely coming from inside the house.

“That better not
be you, Gran,” Harper muttered as she threw back the blanket and stood up
trembling. The weight of knowing there was nobody here to go check it out, except
herself, settled firmly around her shoulders. She hadn’t survived all these
years in Chicago just to get murdered in this little Podunk town her first
night back!

Chapter Two
 

Harper dug through the hallway closet as quietly as she could. She knew
her gran had been a pack rat and kept all her childhood stuff, and one summer
she’d been a proud member of the ‘Bantam Bama Batters.’ Finally, her shaking
fingers landed on the pink baseball bat with the Barbie stickers that nine-year-old
Harper had loved. It wasn’t the most lethal looking thing, but it was all she
had. So help her, she would break someone’s skull open if they tried any funny
business!

The noise came
again, making Harper jump. The stairs creaked loudly under her feet and she
quickly jumped down to the next step, praying it would be quieter. This was
becoming the start to every bad slasher movie she’d ever seen! Harper reached
the bottom of the stairs without further incident and rushed forward to check
the front door; it was still locked. She moved silently through the dark house
and tried the back door and then all the windows. Nothing had been disturbed or
left open. The sound came again, a scraping noise and then a heavy thump.
Harper was finally able to pinpoint the source…

…the basement.
Wonderful.
Harper stared at the heavy oak door that led downstairs and listened to the
thumping again. There was another noise now, a scuffling of sorts, like
something digging in dry earth. Harper pulled her phone out of her bra and
stared at it, not sure if she should call the sheriff. She bit her lip and
agonized for a long moment before deciding not. One summer she and Gran had
been awakened by a similar noise, and Gran had gone to investigate and reported
that it’d been a possum that had gotten into the basement and had been knocking
things over.

Harper would feel
like an utter fool if she called the sheriff and made a huge kerfuffle over a
possum. Besides, wouldn’t a burglar take more care to be quiet? None of the
doors or windows had been disturbed… She bit her lip in uncertainty before deciding
that it must be a possum. She stared at the door before chickening out. If she
had to confront a possum, there was no way she was going to do it in the middle
of the night.

Harper dragged out
a chair from the kitchen, just in case, and wedged it underneath the basement
door knob. Then she sat on the couch to stare at it like she expected the
possum to squeeze its way underneath the door and maul her.

Harper woke up
with something stiff and hard poking her in the back. “Not right now…” she mumbled
sleepily before her eyes flew open and she glanced around blearily. She was in
Alabama, in her gran’s house, and she was sprawled out on the couch in some
sort of pretzel-like position. So what in the hell was poking her in the back?
Harper dug around behind her and pulled the offending baseball bat out of her
back, where it had somehow gotten wedged between the couch and her spine. The
bat reminded her about her midnight prowler and she spun in a panic, letting
out a little sigh of relief when she saw that the chair was still firmly in
place. She was surprised she’d been able to get any sleep with all that racket.
Last time she’d glanced at a clock it had been a little after four in the
morning.

Harper stood up
and her head started to pound. Her mouth was dry like she’d spent the night
drinking. “Ugh,” she moaned, clutching her head as she stood up, intent on
having a shower. The ringing of the doorbell interrupted her path, and she
skirted around to the front door instead.

Looking through
the peephole, she could see her parents standing on the front step, and she let
out a groan.

“Honey?” her mom
called through the door. “We heard that—open up.”

Harper grimaced
and unlocked the door, plastering a smile on her face.

“Morning,” she
said as her Mom barged inside to wrap her in a big hug.

“Goodness, Honey,
you look terrible!” her mother said, planting her hands on her hips. Her dad
followed his wife inside, far more subdued, and pressed a kiss to Harper’s
cheek.

“Don’t listen to
her, you always look beautiful,” he told her with a tired smile, making a smile
tug at Harper’s own lips in response.

“We came to drop
off your suitcase—you left it in the back of the rental,” Mom told her, getting
right to the point. Harper winced. Crap, she had run out of the funeral so fast
that she hadn’t even told her parents where she was going—or that she’d
inherited all Gran’s material possessions.

“About that…”
Harper began. “I have something to tell you guys,” she motioned them into the
living room and sat them down on the couch. Her mom eyed the chair pushed
against the basement door with a critical eye, but thankfully didn’t ask.
Harper stared at her parents, not quite sure how to tell them.

“It’s okay, Honey.
We already know your grandmother left you the house,” Dad interjected, and
Harper let out a big sigh of relief.

“And the truck and
the…er, store,” her mother added, never one to be left out. Deacon Jones
chuckled as he fondly remembered his mother and her eccentric ways. His wife
had been shocked to find out her mother-in-law had been running the strange
little store for the last ten years, without telling a soul, but it really was
just like his mother to do the most unexpected and crazy things, like becoming
a budding entrepreneur at the ripe age of 78. It had made growing up
interesting, that’s for sure.

“So you guys
aren’t mad at me?” Harper couldn’t help asking, her fingers worriedly working
the faded couch cushion in her lap. Both of her parents laughed.

“Goodness, no,
Harper. Don’t be silly. We’re happy for you,” her father exclaimed, and even
her mother nodded.

“Your gran took
care to provide for us too—much more than we needed or expected.” Patty Jones
stopped to dab at her eyes for a moment. “Your father and I are thinking about
finally going on that cruise,” she admitted, and Harper was glad that there
were no bad feelings created by the will.

“Gran doted on
you. You were her only grandchild—I would have been surprised if she hadn’t
left it all to you,” her dad admitted, and the three of them hugged each other
like some sort of family you might see on a TV sitcom.

“We have to get
going,” her mother reminded them all, pulling away from the hug first. “We have
an early flight…unless you need us to stick around for a few extra days?” She
stopped and looked hopefully over at her only child, and Harper quickly shook
her head.

“Thank you for the
offer, Mama, but I’ll be alright here.” Her mom let out a very put-upon sigh
and stood up to brush the imaginary wrinkles out of her skirt.

“Have you thought
about what you’re going to do with it all?” her dad asked as he stood and
hugged her goodbye, and Harper could only shake her head.

“Not a clue,” she admitted,
and both of her parents nodded sympathetically.

“It’s a big change,”
her mother told her. “Though, if you stayed in Alabama, you’d be closer to your
father and me,” she wheedled, and Harper honestly wasn’t sure what side of the
tally that little gem fell on...

“Oh, Deacon, the
time!” her mother pointed out, and her Dad nodded sagely, having learned many
years ago that nothing good ever came from arguing with his wife.

Harper bid her
parents goodbye before pouncing on her suitcase. She hadn’t packed a lot of
clothes, but anything was better than the dress she’d worn to the funeral and
then slept in.

A hot shower and a
change of clothes did Harper a world of good. Her stomach was rumbling loudly,
and she was digging through the kitchen cabinets, trying to find some cereal,
when the doorbell rang again. Harper checked her watch and frowned. Her parents
should definitely be at the airport by now.

Harper was
surprised when she pushed the door open to find the woman who’d almost snapped
her spine like a twig yesterday at the funeral. The woman was standing on the
front step, pacing back and forth. “Hello,” she said hesitantly, giving Harper
a sheepish smile. She was holding some sort of elaborately baked pie in her
hand, with a crust that looked like leaves carved into the dough. The pie
smelled delicious, but when she started to pass it to Harper, Harper
automatically stepped back. The woman winced.

“I’m so sorry
about yesterday!” the woman blurted out, stepping forward to follow Harper back
into the house. Harper stopped, realizing this woman would only keep following
her.

“Thank you,”
Harper said, eyeing the pie with curiosity, and the woman smiled.

“This pie is for
you. I hope you like peach! My name is Susan, by the way. Your grandmother was
a great lady.” Susan smiled hopefully up at her, and Harper suddenly felt like
a jerk.

“Thank you, would
you like to come in?” she asked, motioning for the kitchen. “I’m just getting
acquainted with everything, but I’m sure I could find some coffee.”

Susan beamed as
she shook her head. “No, no, that’s alright. I don’t want to intrude. I just
wanted to stop by to apologize, and drop off the pie.” She looked like she was
going to hug Harper again, but then thought better of it and stuck out her hand
instead. Her grip was still a lot stronger than most people, but it wasn’t
nearly as bad as the hug.

“Thanks for
stopping in. Your pie looks delicious,” Harper called after Susan’s retreating
back. She could see Susan’s teenage son leaning casually against the fence in
the front yard and she gave him a little wave, which he returned.

Harper closed the
door and took the pie into the kitchen, debating if she should keep looking for
cereal or have pie for breakfast. The pie was nearly too beautiful to eat.

She was scooping
up a big forkful of the golden, gooey ripe peaches coated in sugary syrup when
the doorbell rang again, making her jump. Who in the heck could that be?

Harper found an
overwhelming group of people standing on her front step.

“Hello, dear.
Sorry to intrude,” the tall women in the center, who seemed to be the ring
leader, said, and Harper gave a hesitant smile.

“No bother.” she
assured them, even though they were kind of interrupting her breakfast. Pie was
the most important meal of the day after all.

“A bunch of us
were planning on heading over, so we decided to all come together so we’d
trouble you less,” the woman explained in her twangy southern drawl, and Harper
nodded like that made perfect sense, even though she still had no idea why they
were here.

“We wanted to give
our condolences again and drop a few things off,” the woman said, like she
could read Harper’s mind.

“That is so
generous of you,” Harper said, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. None of
her neighbors back in Chicago would have done something like this. Harper
didn’t even know any of her neighbors and vice versa—not that she knew any of
these people either—but they sure seemed to know her.

Harper held out
her hand, and the woman set the still-warm casserole dish in her palm. “Thank
you,” she said again. Another woman came up and piled another casserole dish on
top of the first. “Thank you,” Harper told her, beginning to feel like a broken
record. A man came forward next and did the same, and Harper began to feel some
strain on her arms. “T...thank you,” she managed to get out.

“Hold up,” said
the woman who’d given her the first casserole. “This won’t do! The poor girl
can’t carry all of our casseroles herself,” she explained to the group like
they were a bunch of children.

Harper let out a
little sigh of relief. She’d just been worrying about the same thing.

“Go on, pick up
your casseroles,” the woman snapped her fingers and the other two darted up to
retrieve them once more. “Alright,” the woman approved. “Now, where is your
kitchen darlin’?” she asked, like she had no idea, but then she pushed past
Harper and made her own way to the kitchen. Her following shuffled quickly past
Harper and trailed after their ring leader into the kitchen, leaving Harper
blinking in surprise at the front door.

Harper shut the
door and followed the crowd into Gran’s kitchen, her kitchen now, she reminded
herself. Her countertop was completely covered in casserole dishes, pie plates,
and fresh baskets of buns. There was even a fully cooked ham and a chocolate
cake. Harper’s mouth watered as she looked at it all.

“I see Susie Mills
was here already,” the woman said, arching her eyebrows as she motioned towards
the pie.

“Susan?” Harper
asked, nodding, she hadn’t gotten a last name. “She was here about ten minutes
ago.”

The tall woman
with the short pixie cut, white-blond hair, and icy blue eyes snapped her
fingers with a laugh. “Darn, I thought we would be the first,” she gave a small
laugh that didn’t actually make it sound like she was joking. Harper shook her
head helplessly, not sure how to respond to the twenty or so people milling
around the kitchen.

“Okay people,” the
mystery woman snapped her fingers again and every eye in the room returned to
her, all conversations stilling. “We are clearly overwhelming this poor girl,
we should make our goodbyes,” she told them. Like a pack of lemmings, everyone
in the room shuffled back out, nodding to Harper and murmuring their goodbyes.
The woman with the white-blond hair stood with her arms crossed in satisfaction,
watching everyone leave.