Page 8 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
Angela narrowed her eyes, and Evie sighed.
“It locked a few guests out of their rooms, tumbled a couple out of their beds.” She paused. “One of them was pregnant.” Then, quickly, “Don’t tell Florence.”
“Florence is why I’m here.” Angela reached into her bag and pulled out a tarot deck.
“Don’t tell me you talked her into a reading,” Evie said.
“It wasn’t me,” Angela said. “The bookshop managed to pull these cards out of the house during my lesson with Owen.” She handed them over.
Evie had wanted to shuffle her sister’s cards more than once these past thirteen years, but she left them untouched on a high shelf in the upstairs library, where Clara couldn’t get to them.
“Did she pull any?” Evie asked.
“Owen did,” Angela said. “Before she recognized the deck. The four of wands.”
Evie arched her eyebrows. “Yet she sent you to our childhood home, instead of doing what the cards told her. Let me guess, she interpreted it as a sign sheshouldn’tcome home.”
“It’s not only that,” Angela flipped the top card, and Evie frowned at the sight of Honeysuckle House burning. “He also pulled the tower. It was for his own reading, but …”
“But?” Evie asked.
“Our tourmaline cracked,” Angela said. “All of it.”
Evie’s eyes widened a fraction. “While that’s concerning, it was in the shop, not here at my house.”
“The house where Owen happens to be working,” Angela said.
Evie opened her mouth to reply, but Angela cut her off.
“I know you and Florence see things differently, but you can’t ignore this.” Angela reached for Evie, then hesitated, eyes searching. “What if she’s right?”
“I thought you were on my side,” Evie said.
“So did I,” Angela said. “But with the cards and now the house, I’m worried about the festival.”
“We’ve spent the last thirteen years bringing this town back to life,” Evie said. “The festival is at the heart of that. We can’t cancel it.”
The whole point of the festival was reclaiming what had happened to her family—she and Angela had come up with the idea together. When Evie told the house her plans for the bed and breakfast after she’d inherited it thirteen years ago, she’d asked for its help in renovating, and photos of the witches who came before her had appeared on the walls. These were the ghosts who haunted her home, or so she told the tourists. But the festival put hope at the end of all that darkness. After a raucous tour of the house, they sent each guest home with a candle and the promise there would be no more deaths at Honeysuckle House.
“What if you move it to the twelfth?” Angela suggested.
“It’s too late,” Evie said. “The rooms are booked.”
“If this rain keeps up, we might not have a choice,” Angela said.
But they both knew the house would help them find a workaround.
All at once Clara was beside them. She reached for the deck in Evie’s hands, and to Evie’s surprise, she let her daughter take it. Clara shuffled the cards. When she was finished, she lifted the top one, revealing the same thing Florence had seen—the four of wands. She looked up at her mother. “The house wants her to come back.”
“We all want her to come back.” Evie bent down and pulled the rest of Clara’s hair free from her braids then started replaiting them. “She gets lonely in that shop.”
“She’s lonely?” Clara asked. “What about us?”
“She loves us, honeybee, but unless we go to her, most days she only has the books and Angela to keep her company.”
“I make great company,” Angela said.
“That was never in question,” Evie said with a little heat in her cheeks. “I meant …”
