Page 1 of The Trouble With Spells
Chapter One
Callum
Flipping the tarot cards, I blinked owlishly at them through the lenses of my glasses, pushing the black frames up my nose. Something I seemed to do about thirty-five times a day. It would be easier if I could just wear my contact lenses, but I had yet to find a pair that was comfortable for more than a couple of hours. So, nerdy glasses for the win.
Glancing down at the cards spread across my bed, I scrunched up my nose, examining them closely.
The Lovers.
Death.
The Fool Card.
And always a fan favorite – theDevil.
Hex, my black cat, mewed at me, swiping one silky paw at a card. Surprisingly, not the Devil card. Nope, Hex never got upset by that one. The Lovers card had him flipping it over with a small huff and snap of his poofy tail.
Yes, I was aware it was a total cliché for a witch to own a black cat. But I thought black cats were beautiful creatures, and the adoption percentage for them was low. When I had seen Hex’s little kitten face as I’d been scrolling the local shelters page three years ago, my heart had instantly fallen in love. I’d even decided to keep the name the shelter had given him.
I mean a witch with a black cat named Hex? You couldn’t go wrong. Plus, it was great for business.
Caressing his silky black fur, I turned The Lovers card back over, reading my cards. People often got freaked out when I would do a reading for them when they saw the names of the cards. But they didn’t necessarily mean anything bad. Take the death card. It represented change, not your literal death. Even if I saw someone’s death in their cards–which almost never happened–I wasn’t stupid enough to tell them.
The Fools card told of a new beginning. And while the Devil card could represent revenge, violence, and vehemence, it also could represent something that was predestined and not at all evil.
If I was reading these cards for a paying client, I would tell them that a love interest was going to enter their life,bringing change and a new beginning. That it was destiny and fate, and all that mumbo jumbo woo woo. The nonsense people liked to hear for their sixty bucks. And that usually guaranteed they left a tip and a five star rating on our website.
Since these weremycards I was reading, I just snorted loudly in the silence of my bedroom. Hex blinked his slanted green eyes at me, and I blinked my slightly-upturned-at-the-corners green eyes back at him. ‘Cat’s eyes’ were how most people described the shape of my eyes. They were much more mesmerizing on my sister, where people had been known to use the words gorgeous and piercing when describing them.
On me, they were just weirdly shaped eyes hidden behind thick glasses. Nothing special to see.
Scooping the cards off my bed, I stacked them neatly on my dresser.
“Well,” I caught Hex’s gaze in the mirror’s reflection, “that was a bunch of bullshit. Love indeed.”
“Callum!”
Daphne’s loud, unladylike bellow made both Hex and me jump. My bedroom door banged open with enough force to send it slamming into the wall and bouncing back, and had Hex scurrying to hide underneath the bed.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” I scowled fiercely at my sister, who was standing in the doorway, hands on her curvy hips, looking like I had eaten her last chocolate.
Scrunching her nose, Daphne demanded, “Why do you sound like a catholic schoolboy? Carry my suitcase down the stairs.”
Pushing my glasses back up my nose, I huffed, “Rude. Who taught you manners? And what happened to you being an ‘independent woman who didn’t need no man’? Direct quote from you, by the way. Bad grammar and all.”
Daphne waved her hand at me, the sleeves of her blue peasant blouse billowing. “Callum, what’s the point of having a strapping older brother if I can’t make use of you for carrying heavy objects? Know your place. And men are overrated.”
Turning, I glanced behind me, looking for this strapping older brother she spoke of. All I saw was Hex slinking out from the safety of under the bed. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed loudly. “There’s so much wrong with what you just said, I don’t even know where to start.”
Gangly, skinny, awkward. That was how I had been thought of in high school, and not much had changed in the ten years since graduation. No one had ever used the word ‘strapping’ in the same sentence as me. And, I was her younger brother. A fact she no doubt forgot because with each one of her birthdays, she kept subtracting years instead of adding. Apparently, she had subtracted enough to completely change our birth order.
Running fingers through her loose, dark curls, Daphne’s identical green cat eyes sparkled with mischief and she grinned widely. “I know.”
“Let’s start with the fact that you are two years older than me,” I reminded her, brushing past her and grabbing the handle of her suitcase. “Holy Earth Goddess, what the fuck is in here? A dead body?”
Because honestly, with the women in my family, one could never be sure. It was always best to ask.
“Don’t be silly,” she breezed past me down the stairs. “It’s just shoes, books, and some crystals.”
