Page 13 of Wicching Hour

Working together, we moved some pieces in, a lot of pieces out, and set up the gallery for opening. It was real. Last night hadn’t been a fluke. My art gallery was open for business. Glancing around, my heart swelled at the ones here, helping me make my dream come true.

The youngest, Frank and Faith, were a beautiful combination of their parents, with light brown skin, green eyes, and ready smiles. Frank kept his hair short, like his father’s. Faith wore hers in thick braids that fell to her shoulders, but both were currently dressed like waiters, wearing black pants and white shirts.

I pointed between the two. “Did you guys create your own uniform?”

“That was her,” Frank said.

“I wanted it to be obvious that we worked here,” Faith explained, putting the vases down on the display table. “I had Mom order us matching shirts in a bunch of different colors, but always black pants and black shoes.”

“We look like waiters,” he complained. “And she’s been looking at name tags online.”

“Just for ideas,” she explained to me. “I figured you could make us something much cooler than anything we could find for sale.”

“Would you want that?” I asked. “You don’t have to dress alike or wear names tags if you don’t want to.”

The two shared a look and then Frank said, “Faith is right. If it’s obvious that we work here, then people won’t be giving us a suspicious side-eye.”

At what was no doubt my expression of outrage, he held up his hands. “They were okay last night. There were only a couple of people watching us a little too closely, double-checking their receipts.” He shrugged and then gestured to his sister. “If we have to go to the mall, we always end up with security following us.”

Faith grinned at her brother. “Until Frank creates a distraction that pulls the guards away and gives us some breathing room.” She shrugged in almost the same way her brother did. “That’s why we prefer shopping online. Anyway, I was looking at different name tags that give hometowns or interests or whatever, but we think just names.”

Seething that these two already had to have strategies to avoid bigots made me want to go out and punch everyone. I kept it under wraps, though. I didn’t want them to feel like they had to watch what they told me.

“Speaking as someone who has had to deal with creeps my whole life, I say no names. Don’t give them any personal information. You guys are here to sell my artwork, to clean and arrange. You’re not here to become besties with the customers. They don’t have any right to your personal information, okay? Polite doesn’t mean you make yourselves vulnerable to people with ill intent.”

They both nodded, their expressions more mature than their years.

“I’ll make you badges with the name of the gallery, but not your names. And if anyone—and I do mean anyone—ever makes you uncomfortable, you let me know.” I wiggled my fingers at them. “There’s a reason the whole family is scared of me.”

They both grinned, though the look in Frank’s eyes turned speculative, like he was looking forward to seeing exactly what I could do.

“And don’t forget me,” Carter said, walking in from my studio. Carter, like his brother Detective Osso, was a bear shifter. “Just because I have ear buds in doesn’t mean I can’t hear you. Call me and I’m there. I got no problem throwing assholes out.”

“I’m here too,” Hester called. “I may not have Carter’s strength or Arwyn’s very powerful magic, but I have perfected a painfully disappointed and disapproving look.”

The kids laughed.

“It may not seem like much,” she continued, “but it has shamed many a creep into quietly moving on.”

“A superpower, indeed,” I agreed.

Hester handed Carter a cup of coffee and he went to his spot by the front door.

I surveyed the work Frank and Faith had done and felt my unease settling. “This looks perfect. I worried the police stuff was going to make me late and I wouldn’t be happy with how the gallery looked when I opened. This,” I said, gesturing around, “is exactly right.”

“Like you said,” Frank began, “it’s a gallery, and I wanted every piece to look special, not like it was mass-produced and we had boxes of it in back. We knew you needed to fill everything for the opening. It was crushed in here.”

Faith nodded. “It was.”

“A regular day shouldn’t be like that,” Frank continued. “Right?”

I shook my head. “Let’s hope not. My goal is for us to work a couple of nice, easy days a week and call it good.”

“I heard that,” Carter muttered approvingly before taking a sip of his coffee.

Faith, who I could already see was the worrier, said, “But can you afford to pay us if you don’t sell your art?”

Pointing around the gallery, I said, “Do you see all the pieces with the green stickers on them?”

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