Page 2 of Guarded By the Gargoyle

Yanking the necklace off my neck, I grabbed for the keys as they slid off the chain. I only had time to try one of them and if I guessed wrong, I was dead!

But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Even though it ended so disastrously, the day I learned about my third gift started normally enough.

How could I know it would end with me opening a portal to Hell…and then finding my way into Hidden Hollow?

1

WILLOW

My alarm went off at six—the same time it does every morning. But even before I opened my eyes, I heard a “Mmmmrow?”and a paw patted my cheek.

“All right, Miss Sassy,” I muttered, batting at my cat. “I hear you—I hear you.”

I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but I knew the bundle of calico fur sitting on my chest wouldn’t let me. Besides, it was time to get up and open the shop. There are always a few practitioners who want to get in early and grab some supplies before the start of business hours.

Yawning, I rolled out of bed and went to get a quick shower. Twisting my long, wavy black hair up on top of my head to keep it from getting damp, I swiped the steam off the mirror and glanced at my face. I have what they used to call a “roseleaf complexion”—which really just means I’m too pale and my skin bruises easily. The skin I got from my Mom. My thin nose and full lips came from my Dad.

My pale green eyes, that have no other color in them, I got from my Great Grandmother—at least that’s what Pop-pop always said. He claimed that his mother was a great beauty—so gorgeous that the artists begged to paint her and put her pictureon cigar boxes. Which was a big deal back in the day—like being an Instagram model, I guess.

My eyes weird some people out though, because they almost seem to glow in the dark. “Cat eyes” my ex, Carlo used to call them.

He always hated cats.

I tried to push Carlo out of my mind as I stepped into the shower. He was a chapter in my life best left closed. The day he had signed the divorce papers, over two years ago, had been one of the best days of my life. I had been set free of a horrible, abusive marriage and I wasn’t about to take my freedom for granted.

Especially since I was fairly sure my Pop-pop had paid for my freedom with his life.

That might be hard to understand unless you know that my Grandfather had Romany blood in him—he always claimed that he was descended from a Gypsy Queen. And when I told him you can’t say “Gypsy” anymore, because it’s considered a slur, he would always wave me off.

“Please! It hasalwaysbeen an ugly name for our kind, Willow my love!” he told me. “But I will not let them make me ashamed! I have the blood of the Gypsy Queen in my veins and The Power that comes with it.” Then he winked at me. “Someday, you will have The Power too.”

I would always wave him off. I might have his blood in my veins, but I didn’t have any of the powers that my Grandfather did. Maybe because my blood was too diluted. Pop-pop was only half Gypsy—or Traveler, which is the nice way to say it—himself. Which made my Dad only a quarter Traveler and so I was barely an eighth.

Pop-pop’s other half was Italian—I could always tell when he got upset or excited because his accent got thicker. He couldswear a blue streak in Italian too, which never failed to impress me when I was younger.

As for magical powers, Pop-pop reallydidhave some, though it was hard to tell how much was genuine and how much was sleight-of-hand and skillful deception. He knew about a million card tricks and he was always making coins appear from behind my ear.

He did Spirit sessions and Tarot readings too—he had a special set of cards that were passed down to him from his Mother—she of the cigar box beauty fame. Despite their age they hadn’t faded a bit and the intricate patterns in golden ink stamped on their backs remained as fresh as the day they had been made.

The cards were special—almost as special as the keys that Pop-pop had begged me to keep with me always. I stored them in a shoe box in the small safe under the front counter of the shop and only took them out occasionally to look at them and remember my Grandfather.

I sighed as I got out of the shower and dried off. Thinking of Pop-pop still made me feel sad and guilty. I was sure he had given his life for me, though I wasn’t quite sure how he had achieved it. But he had only been sixty-five when he died—and a reallyyoungsixty five at that. I was sure he might have lived longer if things hadn’t gotten so bad with Carlo…

There my mind went, straying back to my no-good ex again. Why was I thinking of him so much this morning? He was out of my life for good and I no longer had to worry about him hitting or hurting me—or making rude, belittling comments about my weight, either.

Yes, I admit it—I’m curvy. I have full breasts and big hips and “thunder thighs”—at least according to my ex. But guess what? That’s just too damn bad. After the season in hell that was my marriage, I had decided not to try to conform to anyone else’sstandard of beauty. I used to starve myself, hoping I could please my husband. Now if I wanted that extra donut, I was damn well going to eat it.

After all, it wasn’t like I was ever going to get married—or even date—again. My time with Carlo had made me extremely wary of every other man on the planet. All except my Grandfather, of course—Pop-pop had never raised a hand to me, even in my rebellious teenage years. He was never anything but loving and kind and patient and understanding and…

And I was crying. Sniffing, I swiped at my eyes as I pulled on some clothes. My closet was still kind of chaotic because, while I had boxed up all Pop-pop’s clothes, I still hadn’t been able to make myself donate them. So the small walk-in was crammed with cardboard boxes as well as my own colorful wardrobe.

Back when I was married, I dressed mainly in black. Not because I liked the color, but because it was slenderizing and made my juicy behind look a little less massive. But now I didn’t care about hiding my curves—in fact, I liked to flaunt them.

I found a red silky blouse with flowing sleeves and paired it with a long, deep blue skirt covered in red flowers. I wrapped a scarf around my head, letting my long wavy black hair hang down behind it and added a string of gold beads as well as the thick silver necklace with the keys Pop-pop had left me.

A pair of soft red flats finished the outfit which—while it wouldn’t work if I was employed at a bank—did just fine for running the Magic Supply Shop my Grandfather had left me. I looked like a Traveler Princess which was good—customers like to see someone mysterious behind the counter. Or so Pop-pop always claimed—especially the tourists who came in to ogle at our eclectic mixture of magical artifacts and New Orleans souvenirs. So I did my best to dress the part.

I went to the small kitchenette and fed Miss Sassy, who had been meowing almost non-stop since I stepped out of theshower. I put her morning can of soft cat food on a dish beside the automatic feeder and the automatic watering tank I had bought her at great expense. She routinely ignored the dry food that the feeder dispensed, though she would drink from the little reservoir below the tank as long as I changed the water daily.

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