Page 9 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
Angela laughed and waved a hand. “I know what you meant. You’re not the only one who thinks Florence needs more than just the three of us in her life.”
Evie tilted her chin down, narrowed her eyes.
Angela wiggled her eyebrows.
With a quick glance at her daughter, Evie said, “Clara, why don’t you go get your things together? I need to drop off candles around town—you can play at the bookstore while I do.”
Clara looked from Evie to Angela. Evie’s daughter loved to help with the deliveries. The two of them had spent the day before dipping green tapers to help promote prosperity.
“Can’t I come with you,thengo to the bookstore?” Clara asked.
“Don’t you want to keep Aunt Florence company?” Evie knew the sorts of conversations she was in for today, and she’d rather not expose Clara to them if she didn’t have to.
“She does get weird when you’re around.” Clara pressed her lips together then nodded. “Okay. But can I keep these cards?”
Evie considered the question. The shop had pulled the deck from the house, and Florence had never explicitly said she couldn’t use it. Who was she to get in the way of that sort of magic?
“Don’t tell your aunt.”
“I’ll go get my things!” With a bounce, Clara bounded across the porch and through the front door.
“Now,” Evie said when she was sure Clara was out of earshot, “tell me what happened with Owen.”
Evie couldn’t take her mind off the thought of her sister finally having a love life—having anything at all other than her judgment of andworry over Evie—as she made the drive into town. Clara might not have dipped her pink candle with love in mind, but Evie found herself hoping the color would still do its work. Maybe after Evie’s theories were proved to be correct, her sister would finally open her heart again, and they could be the family they hadn’t been these past thirteen years.
She pulled her car into one of the few open spots on Main Street. There were still four days until the festival, but the town was already bustling despite the morning’s storm. The pumpkin patch had opened for the season last weekend, and with most of the schools in the state on fall break, families looking for a little autumn fun flocked to Burdock Creek.
Evie stepped out of the car, basket of candles in hand, and squared her shoulders before she started for the antique store at the end of the strip of shops. It had been on its last legs thirteen years ago, but after Evie offered the owners a green candle, things had suddenly turned around. The launch of the festival a year later had brought even more customers through their doors, and ever since, business had never been better. Every shop on Main Street had a similar story. While Evie’s goodwill had burned away some of the wariness her family’s history had instilled in the town, echoes of fear lingered. She heard them now in the way the shop’s owner, Stephanie Cooke greeted her.
“Welcome to—” Stephanie cut herself short as her eyes landed on Evie. The brightness in her voice dimmed. “Oh, Evie. What brings you in today? Any news about the festival?”
Evie forced herself to smile and keep a certain sweetness in her words as she said, “Do you mean have I canceled the ghost tour, the honey harvest, and the candle dipping?”
Stephanie avoided meeting Evie’s eyes as she laughed, her discomfort clear, and turned her focus instead to the display of teacups she’d been rearranging when Evie had walked through the door. “With the curse, it might be safer for everyone.”
Evie had already had a version of this conversation with almost every business owner in town after they’d decided to host this year’s events in the park instead of at Honeysuckle House. The craft fair, thepumpkin carving contest, the face painting. Angela chaired the festival committee, but that hadn’t stopped them from going around her with their own plans. While no one had explicitly asked Evie to avoid the downtown festivities this year, they also hadn’t invited her to relocate her own.
“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that this year,” Evie said. It was the line she’d used every time, and while she didn’t go into her reasons, she still felt the need to say it. “But, no, that’s not why I’m here today.” She grabbed a candle from the basket and held it up for Stephanie to see. “I figured we could all use a little extra luck this week.”
“You’re too good to us,” Stephanie said as she accepted the candle. “Please be careful. You and Clara are such lights in this town, especially after your mother …” She trailed off, then shook her head. “I don’t want to see either of you get hurt.”
“Don’t worry,” Evie said with a forced levity. “I’ll be burning plenty of candles to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Chapter Five
Clara, Now
Clara Caldwell loved three things most in the world: Honeysuckle House, her magic, and her family. But every time she stepped inside Ink & Pages, that list grew.
She loved the smell of her aunt’s fresh-cut lemons soaking up negative energy and the way the books sat on (and sometimes fell off) the shelves and the energy of the crystals and the magic in the plants and all the tarot decks, and she especially loved hiding in the reading nook the shop created just for her whenever she came to visit.
All of that, of course, came back to her aunt.
And Clara very much loved her aunt.
That was why even though she also very much loved helping her mom deliver candles, she agreed to spend the day in the shop. Because maybe—just maybe—she could help her aunt with whatever it was that was making her so lonely.
Clara burst through the door of Ink & Pages with a backpack full of supplies. She had the candle she dipped fresh the night before all pink and blue and set with intentions to help her aunt and help the house because while she didn’t exactly speak the same language as the house, she knew whatever was happening—whatever her mom was doing her best to ignore—was tied to her aunt coming home.
