Page 3 of Summer Solstice

I almost called her back, but we’d already missed the first bell by this point, and Finn was only getting later by the second. And considering it was only the second day of ninth grade, we really should have been doing better.

Still, the guilt was churning in my stomach as I backed out of the driveway, almost hoping to catch sight of Lacey angrily stalking down the road so I could at least give a partial apology. But I didn’t see any sign of her, and I had to push the feeling down and focus on all the other things I had to get done.

I’d just drop by after work and explain that I was rushed and stressed and hopefully she’d understand. Hopefully I hadn’t just made an enemy of the new neighbor...

Chapter Two

If I pressed the phone any harder to my face, I was going to have a permanent indent in my cheek, but I couldn’t seem to make myself let up.

“I’m sorry,howlong did you say it would take to get a shipment in?” I crossed my fingers, hoping I’d get the answer I was looking for, all the while trying to soothe the roiling anxiety in my belly.Please let me have misheard the voice on the other end of the line. Please let them have said days, not weeks.

There was a snap of gum popping and then some obnoxiously loud chewing. “Yeah, uh huh. It’ll be about fifteen weeks before we can get anything out to you.”

Yep, just what I was afraid of. My stomach soured. “Fifteen weeks! What if I made a smaller order, could you get it out to me faster?”

“Sorry, ma’am.” The tone was a lot more bored than apologetic. “But Rhapsody scents and oils prizes itself on the quality of its merchandise, and we have a backlog of orders. There’s nothing I can do.”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice steady. “Okay, thank you anyway.”

After I hung up, I just held my phone to my forehead for a long moment and tried not to cry.

My potions were magic, the recipes passed down through my family from my grandmother to my mother to me. But I couldn’t make them out of nothing. I needed scented oils, candles, wax, bottles to put the concoctions into. And I had to be careful about what I used. The oils especially: I didn’t want to use supplies I wasn’t sure about or wasn’t familiar with. My normal supplier, the one I’d been working with for years, had had a problem with their distilling process and had shut down production until they could fix the problem.

It was a good thing that they were taking the situation so seriously, but it left me scrambling to try and get some supplies until Rhapsody could get back up and running. On top of needing to replenish my own store, and the festival coming up, I was scraping the barrel of what I had left in stock, and things were going to be getting pretty dire very soon.

Finding a new source that was up to my standards and also willing to actually send me what I needed (if they even had the stock on hand) was proving to be more difficult than I’d thought. I dropped my hands to the dark wood of my shop counter, and the wood trembled, glass vials ticking together faintly. Just another sign of my increased abilities—and not the sort of reminder I needed at the moment.

Ever since I’d taken up Wanda’s offer to join her coven, Circle Scapegrace, I’d been having a few issues. Nothing to do with the coven itself, of course. I got along with everyone. Wanda was my BFF, Betanya and Olga were nice and usually willing to offer some advice as the older members of the group. Imani was extremely friendly and fun to be around and Maverick, well, Maverick was Maverick. I couldn’t say we were close or even friends, but I also didn’t think we were enemies. We just... were. I was still a little wary of him. Not because he was a Blood Warlock, although that was what made most people wary of him (if they were in the know), but because he was, well, kind of a jerk a lot of the time.

Though ever since he’d started hanging around and befriending our own resident Chief of Police and Faerie Princess in hiding, Taliyah Morgan, he’d mellowed out a lot, so maybe calling him a jerk wasn’t entirely fair.

No, the trouble was that the joining ceremony we’d all performed had been a little more ‘literal’ than I’d anticipated. I mean, covens formed bonds in order to bolster their magic and to grant protection to one another through their joined power. I’d thought my joining was symbolic, a nice gesture from a friend who wanted me included because, other than my potions, I didn’t have magic (truly, I was more human than not). Except when you throw a bunch of witches together, including two who had been blooded by vampires, both Wanda and Maverick, their changing powers could do all sorts of things.

As a result, my magic was growing, changing, and a little worryingly unstable.

With all the stress I was under, I was lucky I’d just rattled a few bottles.

Deep breaths helped, so I stood behind my ancient cash register with my eyes closed and focused on breathing in deeply for a count of three and exhaling just as deeply for a count of three.

It helped that my shop was one of my favorite places. Finn and I had come to Haven Hollow to start up a new life in a farmhouse that I’d bought unseen, hoping for something better than what we’d known in Los Angeles. I’d had big dreams in place, and honestly, I’d surpassed most of them. I’d made fantastic friends, and really found my place in the Hollow.

The shop was one of the best parts. All heavy wood and glass shelves and cabinets, it reminded me of an old-time apothecary shop. But instead of jars of pills and leeches, there were delicate glass vials in a rainbow of colors, carefully stoppered, with little white cards explaining exactly what each potion did. Anointed candles dotted the shelves, with fairy lights strung up behind the displays to make the colored glass look like it was glowing.

I was proud of what I’d built in Haven Hollow, and the fact that my skills were able to support Finn and me—well, that was what made something so silly as a supply chain problem so upsetting.

The bright peal of Finn’s laughter dragged me out of my funk. The answering chuckle, much deeper than my son’s, caused my heart to give a little double thump.

Finn and Andre had showed up after school let out for the day so that Andre could give Finn his next lesson. Andre had also brought Ouire, the leather-bound tome that acted more like a golden retriever than a book, and Finn had been ecstatic to see his friends again.

It was a real struggle not to hover around the door to the back room. I trusted Andre, I did. Probably more than I should have, since we hadn’t really had a chance to spend all that much time together, between his job as a traveling stage magician and his other work as a true Magician. Even after he bought one of the houses up the road, in order to be closer to Finn (whom he’d sort of taken under his proverbial wing), I’d been holding back, not wanting to rush things.

But the idea of Finn learning magic and being a Magician still made me nervous. Maybe it wasn’t fair, considering that I was a Gypsy who made potions and was also a member of a coven, but I was an adult, and any risks I took were on me. Finn was fourteen, still a child, my child.

Even before his powers as a magician had become evident, he’d been targeted by a poltergeist, kidnapped by faeries, and stalked by a crazy vampire. Once his own magic started bubbling up, he’d drawn the attention of a Magicless, a Magician who’d lost her hope and turned dark, and one who’d targeted and tormented Finn for weeks, without my knowing it. All the while, she’d been attempting to break my son—to turn him into something like her. Thank God she’d failed. But, even so, the memories still haunted me.

Finn’s abilities and tricks might have given him some protection against things like that, but they also put a bigger target on his back. Honestly, the only thing that helped me hold myself together was the vision I’d had, for lack of a better word.

Almost a year ago, on Christmas Eve, I’d had a dream. It hadn’t felt like a dream though, it had felt real. I’d been able to touch and taste things, and the dreamworld I’d experienced hadn’t faded at the edges like it should have. In the dream, it was five years in the future, and it gave me a glimpse of what my life would be like if I’d married Marty. And that projected life hadn’t been bad, exactly. But it also hadn’t been what I wanted in a relationship. I’d wanted and still wanted more.

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