Hex on the Beach (The Magic & Mixology Mystery Series Book 1) (6 page)

“That’s why I said don’t touch nothin’. You’ve got the best store on The Isle for this stuff. People come from… from as far as the
regular
world to get your goods.”

I strolled around the outskirts of the room, trying to take in everything at once. Glass vials filled with tropical blues, greens, and reds took up one shelf, while vases of all shapes and sizes lined another wall, filled to bursting with highlighter pinks, lavender purples, and sunburst yellows so bright I had to squint to see them.

A bucket, also made of glass, contained some sort of mixture that changed color before my eyes, sort of like the lava lamp I’d bought during my teenage years. And that was just the beginning of it all. Cups, bowls, pitchers, shots—all sorts of glass fixtures held gallon upon gallon of liquids in every pastel color and shade of the rainbow.

“What is all this for?” I asked, turning to look at Gus. “All these jars and liquids and everything.”

“Stupid question. Try another.”

I ignored the old man and continued my stroll along the outskirts of the storeroom. I passed a doorway and quietly twisted the handle to peek inside. It led to the tiki bar.

Closing the door tightly, I continued on to another wall of glass containers. These were thick and sturdy, more like heavy-duty storage bins than fragile vases. They looked like cookie jars filled with all sorts of dried flowers: Rose petals, lilacs, and oregano to name a few.

“So where do we start?” I turned to face Gus, clasping my hands in front of my body.

He blinked. “The beginning.”

“Which is?” I looked around for a place to sit. “Where’s a good place to set up for training?”

Gus
thunked
over to the door leading to the tiki bar. He pulled it open and gestured toward a stool.

“We have lessons at the bar?” I asked, heading outside. “I could get used to this.”

“Sit down.”

My feet sank into the sand as I hopped onto a stool. As my toes warmed from the fine grains, I realized that my feet were bare. And that I had on a pale-yellow sundress. I didn’t remember changing, which meant someone else might have helped. Talk about a scary thought
.

Gus watched as I studied my own appearance. “They used magic. Don’t worry, nobody peeked
at your knickers. The closet upstairs will be outfitted with clothes to your size and taste. It populates automatically, so if you don’t like it, you can change. Simple Styling Spell.”

“A whole new wardrobe?” My smile grew. “I really
can
get used to this. New clothes, classes at the bar…”

“
Work.
” Gus stood on the other side of the counter. He reached below it, huffing and puffing as he pulled up a book as thick as ten encyclopedias and plunked it on the bar. Judging by the loud
thud
it made, the thing weighed a ton.

“May I?” Without waiting for a response, I slid the book toward me. It was covered with dust and smelled like a musty old library. I sneezed as I ran a hand along the top of the book.

“Don’t ruin it,” Gus said, wiping the cover with his sleeve. “It’s priceless. And it’s
mine
.”

The book itself had a cover made of hefty parchment at least half an inch thick. Gold lettering on the front spelled:
The Magic of Mixology.
I turned to the first page and found an inscription. It read:

To the current Mixologist—

                            Do good.

That was it. No signature. Nothing else.

“Who wrote this?” I asked, gesturing to the handwritten note.

“The first Mixologist.” Gus grunted, snapping the book shut. “It’s a master list of recipes. Chances you’ll need this book much are slim, since you’ll inherently understand the combinations. Me, however, I use it all the time. It was gifted to me.”

I raised my eyebrow at Gus, then looked back at the inscription. “If this is
yours,
that makes you a Mixologist. Why do you need me then?”

“I’m not
a
Mixologist,” Gus said. “Don’t you ever say that. You’re
The
Mixologist. There’s one.”

“But the inscription…”

“Fine, maybe the book doesn’t
belong
to me technically,” he relented. “It was entrusted into my care, and I take that seriously. As for Mixology
,
that is a power which must run in a person’s blood. Me? I’m an assistant. I gathered materials, tested potions, managed the bookkeeping and chores for the previous Mixologist. You’ll get to pick your own assistant.”

“Can I choose you?” I asked.

Gus looked as if he’d never considered the idea, blinking and turning red. “I, uh… never mind that now.” Gus shook his head. “I’ll help you ’til you get on your feet, then no doubt you’ll want to choose someone else.”

I couldn’t tell if Gus was disappointed or relieved at the thought. His tone dropped in pitch, and he averted his eyes to the large book between us.

Patting the cover, he eventually met my gaze again. “Like I said, it’s in your veins, so you won’t need this book. More for me to keep track of everything for you. Only when you get to the powerful stuff will you need the last few chapters of the manuscript, but that’s years away.”

“So if Mixology runs through bloodlines, does that mean the last Mixologist was my mother?” I asked, glancing around at the bar with a newfound perspective.
Did my mother belong to The Isle? If yes, then why did she leave, and how did my father play into the equation?

“It’s complicated.” Gus pursed his lips. “The last true Mixologist was your grandfather. He passed away two years ago from old age, peacefully. After that, we had crews searching for the next Mixologist. There were rumors you existed, rumors your mother had taken you to live with the humans, but we didn’t know.”

“Why didn’t you know? It’s not like I kept my name a secret.”

“The curse.” He must’ve seen a question in my eyes, but he raised a hand to stop me before I could open my mouth. “I can’t talk about it more than that. It ain’t my place.”

“So you went without a Mixologist for the last two years?” I asked.

Gus tilted his head. “Sorta. We had a fill-in, and we called him by the title even though he wasn’t the real deal. He didn’t have it in his blood. He was talented, but no matter how skilled he became, he wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to you. The deal was that as soon as you took over, he’d become your assistant.”

I cleared my throat. “When will I meet him? I hope he’s not upset that I’m here. I can be the assistant for now, maybe take over in a few years once he’s trained me—”

“It don’t matter,” Gus said. “That’s not gonna happen.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“He’s dead.”

“Dead?” My jaw dropped. “Oh my goodness. What happened?”

Gus shook his head and looked down at his fingernails. “Murdered.”

“What if I don’t have talent?” I asked over breakfast.

Gus had refused to go into any more detail about the previous Mixologist’s untimely demise, insisting that we get to work. After over an hour of memorizing the names of herbs, plants, and flowers that could be found on The Isle but not in the Twin Cities, I’d needed a break. It was all new to me. And it was very confusing.

For example, Wart Leaf, unlike its name, did not cure warts or curse warts, while a petunia petal had different qualities when used fresh versus dried. If ground into a fine powder, the stuff became deadly. I wondered if the poor Mixologist before me had substituted a Bingle Berry for a Schwarp Buckler on accident, killing himself with deadly fumes. It would certainly be easy enough to do.

“You have talent, dear,” Mimsey said, sliding three plates of eggs, bacon, and toast onto the bar. Despite her threats, she
hadn’t
burned Gus’s toast. “We vetted you before we made the announcement. You have the gift.”

“I’m never going to remember all of these herbs,” I grumbled. “Never in a million years.”

“You’d be surprised.” Mimsey smiled. “Now let’s finish up. You can have another lesson until lunchtime. Over the lunch break, I’ll have the girls give you a tour around The Isle. Then you’ll come back for an afternoon lesson.”

I sighed. “My brain might explode.”

“It seems like a lot now, dear. But it gets easier.” Mimsey squeezed my hand. “The first week is the hardest. Once you get the hang of it, I’ve heard that being the Mixologist is quite enjoyable.”

Gus rolled his eyes.

“Oh, stop it, ya old fart.” Mimsey took a bite of toast. “You’d better start enjoying life before you’re too old to smack people around with that cane of yours.”

Gus shoveled another heaping bite of eggs into his mouth. “Let’s git back to class.”

“She just started eating, Gus.” Mimsey gestured to my nearly untouched plate.

“Oh, it’s all right.” I took a few quick bites of toast. “My stomach is still unsettled from all that traveling yesterday, anyway.”

Gus looked appeased, but when my stomach roared loudly, Mimsey narrowed her eyes at me. “Eat, Lily. Gus can wait five minutes.”

I picked up a piece of toast, heaped a spoonful of eggs on top, and set a strip of bacon over the eggs. Wrapping the bread into a taco, I raised it in a salute toward Mimsey. “I’ll take this to go. Really, it’s delicious. You shouldn’t have.”

“Apparently not,” Mimsey said. “Since I’ll be eating alone.”

Gus clomped back into the store while I gave her an apologetic
expression.

She waved at me as she sat back on the stool and properly cut her bacon with a fork and knife. “I’ll be fine, dear. I like to watch the water in the mornings, anyway.”

I rushed back into the store. For some reason, I felt the need to impress Gus. The man was rude, bitter, and crass, but I didn’t want to let him down.

“This is a precious flower,” Gus said, taking up residence at a long table that ran down the center of the room. It appeared to be a measuring, cutting, mixing sort of workshop for raw ingredients. A
Mixologist’s Supplies
book lay before him, and Gus tapped the cover. “Pay attention. It’s rare, and we only harvest them once per year on The Isle. We have three left at the moment.”

“What is it?” I stepped to the other side of the table, unable to see a flower anywhere.

“We press them for safekeeping.” Gus opened the old, weathered book with reverence. “It’s called the fleur-de-lis.”

The words were written in a language I had never seen before, but it wasn’t the words that impressed me. It was the gorgeous bloom, flattened to perfection between the pages. “What did you call it?”

“Fleur-de-lis. It’s known for innocence and purity.” Gus lovingly stroked the flower’s surface. The edges of the bloom glowed a dull white, almost as if it had a halo. “We use it for truth serums, among other things.”

Gus’s tender touch of the petals filled me with curiosity, and the way he handled the flower with love and care surprised me. I imagined this soft side was one he didn’t display for many people. I caught myself staring and quickly looked away. Luckily, he didn’t notice me staring; he remained so engrossed in the sheen of the petals that he didn’t hear me the first three times I said his name.

“Gus,” I said gently for the fourth time. “We have this flower in our world.”

He looked up as if surprised I was still around. “I know.”

“You know what we call it?” I gave a small, tight smile.

Gus held my gaze as he cleared his throat. “You call it a
lily
. Calla lily.”

I bit my lip, uncomfortable with his searching stare. He watched me almost as he had the lily on the table—with interest, as if I were a rare, unique being. I was
anything
but rare—I was so
un-
rare, I bordered on boring.

Feeling a blush redden my cheeks, I turned my attention to the flower. “Will we be working with the fleur-de-lis today?”

“Are you batty?” Gruff Gus returned in a split second. “You’re a newbie. I’m not trusting my most precious flower in your hands.”

I sighed, almost relieved to have the mean ol’ man back.

“You’ll be lucky if I let you touch a Stink Bulb,” he said, his gravelly words at odds with the gentle way he closed the lily inside the
Mixologist’s Supplies
and placed the book high on a shelf. The top level of each shelf brimmed full of books. Other rare flowers were pressed between their pages, if I had to guess. “Sit down.”

Gus pulled a chair up to the table and plopped
The Magic of Mixology
in front of me, the golden letters glinting up at me.

“Let’s review,” he said. “Start over.”

“Why don’t we learn new things?” I tried my best not to be impatient, but if my job was as important and crucial as everyone thought, then I wanted to get straight to the interesting stuff. Plus, I was itching to stop memorizing names—I’d fall asleep before we reached page fifty in the book.

Gus thought otherwise. Raising his cane, he smacked it a hairsbreadth away from my pinkie finger, shaking the table. “Let’s review it…
twice
.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath.

“Do you have anything else to say?” A smirk twisted the corners of Gus’s lips, and I could tell he was just
dying
to smack the table and issue me a
third
review.

I shook my head silently.

“
Huh
,” he grunted. “Maybe you’re not as slow as I thought.”

Hiding a small smile, I ducked my head and turned to page one. “
Alohis Morgasetti
, a small, round seed with the hallucinatory properties…”