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Although I’d never imagined myself as a teacher of the magical arts, I knew I needed to provide some guidance without sounding too pedantic. “This isn’t like Harry Potter,” I told her, making sure my tone was gentle, calm. “It’s not about learning specific spells and repeating them without any thought as to what the words actually mean. This kind of magic is all about intention. We both already know you have the gift, so it’s just a matter of channeling it in the direction you choose.”
Her expression turned skeptical. “But what about all those people who claim they have spell books and stuff to work their magic?”
Personally — although there were a few gems to be found here and there — I thought that most supposed practitioners of magic on social media were doing it for clicks and views, and not because they had any true talent. In those cases, reciting flashy spells made it seem as if they were accomplishing more than they actually were. Most of the time, I considered them harmless —even annoying specimens like Instagram star and sometime witch Lilith Black, who’d definitely bitten off a lot more than she could chew when she came to Globe to celebrate the solstice and had ended up murdered by one of her assistants — but when someone with an actual gift, like Chloe, tried to emulate them, the results were never good.
“Some people find they work better that way,” I replied, doing my best to be diplomatic. “But if both our magic came from the same source — and there’s no reason to think it didn’t — then it just stands to reason that you’d have more success following my method, right?”
Chloe mulled that possibility for a moment. “I suppose so,” she said, and even produced a half-hearted smile. “Maybe I’ve been making this harder than it needs to be.”
“Exactly,” I said, knowing I should leave things there and see what happened. “So, take a moment to think about when you’ve felt the safest, when you knew everything was going to be fine and absolutely nothing bad was going to happen. Then take that feeling and hold it in your mind as you send that same energy to protect this house and everything — and everyone — in it.”
She inclined her head toward me, acknowledging those instructions, and then she closed her eyes, face blank with concentration. I held myself still again, knowing that even a small movement might be enough to interrupt her thought processes.
Of course, the baby chose that moment to kick, but I wouldn’t let myself react. After all, I’d been putting up with the internal drumbeat for the past five months or so.
Chloe’s lips moved, although I couldn’t tell exactly what she was saying. Not that it mattered. What mattered was she believed those words were the necessary ones to conjure a blanket of protection that would keep her safe for as long as she stayed in this house.
And even though it was her spell and I had no real hand in it other than giving her some words of advice, I could somehow feel the atmosphere in the room shift, become even calmer, warm in a way that had everything to do with spirit and nothing at all to do with the actual temperature the thermostat was set at.
Then her eyes opened, and her mouth curved in a smile. “It worked.”
The word ended on the slightest of upward inflections, as though she was mostly sure she’d gotten the charm of protection right but still needed outside confirmation.
“Yes, it did,” I said, smiling as well.
However, she didn’t seem quite as at ease as I’d expected, considering how effective the cleansing had turned out to be. Her brows pulled together as she looked around the living room, and she said, “I’ve been thinking and thinking. You know, about who could have done it.”
She stopped there, expression still troubled, and I sent her an inquiring look. “You thought of someone?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But when I told you that Jack didn’t have any enemies, I might have been wrong. I mean, it all happened before Jack and I even started dating, so….”
“What happened?” I asked.
Chloe fiddled with a fold of her skirt. “I guess during his freshman year at Cal State Northridge, Jack got caught up in some kind of cheating scandal. He didn’t do it,” she added hastily. “And the school totally exonerated him. But the other kid got kicked out. I heard he ended up having to go to a private college on the East Coast, someplace where his parents could kind of buy his way in.”
I wanted to think this was a promising development, but I couldn’t be sure. Would someone really hold a grudge that long over an incident that, while embarrassing and inconvenient, might not have turned out to be terribly detrimental in the long run?
Maybe so. For all I knew, the boy who’d been forced to move across the country to escape his shame had discovered his bad reputation had followed him, and that even after several years had passed, he might find it hard to find a job once he graduated.
This was all pure speculation, though.
“Do you remember the other kid’s name?” Because even though I guessed this was probably a long shot, it still bore some looking into.
Chloe’s small white teeth caught at her lip. “Um…Bryce something.”
Well, that wasn’t very helpful. “Could you narrow it down a little?”
Despite the tension in her face, she couldn’t seem to help flashing a smile. “It was kind of an unusual last name. Bryce…Bryce….” The words trailed off, and then her grin broadened. “Bryce Arsenault.”
That name sounded like something out of a historical romance novel. But I had to admit it was a lot more unusual than “John Smith,” so I had to hope it wouldn’t be too hard to track Bryce down, wherever he’d ended up.
“Perfect,” I told my little sister. “I’ll have Calvin look into it. And now, we can go to work.”
There were no worries about the two of us being at the store, since I did much the same kind of cleansing in my shop every few months or so, just to be safe. True, those precautions couldn’t protect me from all mischief — like the rock Kurt Vonn had thrown through my window a few months earlier in an attempt to distract me from discovering who’d killed Trent Reynolds during the holiday brewing competition — but even in that case, the vandalism had occurred in the dead of night while I was miles away at home and safely away from the shattering glass.
And although I’d had a couple of items shoplifted over the years I’d been operating Once in a Blue Moon, I knew that sort of petty crime would have occurred much more often if I hadn’t done my best to make the store a safe space.
I settled myself on the stool behind the counter while Chloe went around and tidied up the few books and crystals that needed to be put back in their proper places. She seemed cheerful enough, and I was glad for that. It couldn’t be good to have a murder charge hanging over her head, but at the same time, she’d taken a proactive step toward protecting herself back at the Airbnb, and she had her meeting with Alec Scurlock this afternoon to look forward to.
