AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hi, doll. Oh, you are cute.” The woman who must be Belinda Brite blinked long lashes tipped with little gems at me. Her hair was Barbie pink. “No wonder that vampire is head over heels for you. Plus, your aura is just so unique. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“My aura?”
I was a little overwhelmed on several levels. Belinda was a lot. A lot of pink, a lot of pixie, a lot of glitter. A lot of lilac scented perfume. Yet underneath the glitz, there was a raw power within Belinda that had me shuddering. This was not a woman I wanted to cross.
“You can read auras too, baby doll,” Belinda said. “I can see it in you. You’re just so magically constipated that you’ve un-learned how to do it properly. You’ll remember from childhood instances where you could read auras, no matter how much you might have tried to block it out, because it’s such an innate part of who you are.”
Belinda walked ahead of me, and I scrambled to catch up. As I moved, my head was on a swivel as I took in Le Jardín. Blossoms in colors I’d never seen before. Herbs I couldn’t name sprouted from weathered terracotta pots. Ancient garden benches scattered through the neatly spaced rows, not one piece of grass out of place.
A steady stream of gardeners dressed in white robes moved quietly, reverently, through the rows of Le Jardín, keeping a watchful eye on every plant, every flower, every little root. Every step of the guests. I had to imagine security here was next level tight.
I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to get a job here. A long time ago, I’d dreamed of working at Le Jardín, but I’d quickly let the thought pass because a career as a caretaker of delicate magical plants required magic—a lot of it. Which ruled me out.
“Do you remember reading auras as a child?” Belinda plopped herself with a flourish under an awning of climbing pink roses that smelled like champagne. “I’m sure it’s there, I can see it on you as clear as day.”
I felt dizzy, almost intoxicated, as I sat on the bench across from Belinda. I leaned away from a vining plant that acted as if it wanted to wrap me in a boa constrictor’s hug.
“Don’t do that,” Belinda chided the plant, sending a jolt of magic at the reaching vine. To me, she explained, “The Snake’s Kiss just isn’t used to you.”
“Snake’s Kiss?” I asked.
“It’ll squeeze the stuffings right out of you,” Belinda said nonchalantly. “Then it’ll finish you off by fastening its little pricks into your skin and injecting you with a deadly poison. Very painful way to die. Found naturally only in a remote part of Turks and Caicos.”
“Oh. Um. Okay.” I shifted further away from the plant.
“Don’t worry, he’ll come around. Ever consider working for Le Jardín?” Belinda asked, as if she’d read my mind. “You’ve got a lot of earth magic in you, too.”
“Are you part psychic?”
“No, I can read auras,” Belinda chided. “And I know you can too, which is what we’re going to work on today. Think hard, Trixie Gardens.”
I didn’t have to think hard. I remembered. I’d been remembering more and more, ever since I’d talked about it with Dom.
“I never knew that was what it was called,” I said softly. “When I was young, my mom figured it out. She, well, she used it against me.”
Belinda nodded. “You’ve got a complicated relationship with your mother. God rest her soul.”
“How do you know so much about me?” I asked annoyed.
“Auras can tell you a lot about a person,” Belinda said matter of factly. “If you don’t want me to tell you about Trixie Gardens, then you tell me about Trixie Gardens.”
I heaved a sigh. “My mom would make me read the auras of people in coffee shops. I could tell who was rich, who was nervous, who was magical—the list goes on. I’d tell her, and then later, I learned that she would use that information against them.”
“I see.”
“I closed myself off to reading auras when I realized my mother was using the information to hurt people. I just blocked it out, and it was like I completely forgot how to do it.”
“I imagine your magical constipation upset your mother?”
I picked at a nonexistent spot on the bench. “It made her terribly angry.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but that was your mother’s problem, not yours,” Belinda said gently. “I’d like to move forward. I have a trip to Egypt that I need to get back to. According to Dominic Kent, I’m the laxative you need to get your magic flowing, so let’s begin with our lesson. Enough about your mother. Let’s focus on you.”
“Um. Okay.”
“Tell me about my heritage.”
I took a deep breath, feeling like I was on the verge of giving up on this stupid meeting, when I caught a whiff of it. A tinge. A little color flickering about Belinda’s person, and it ignited something in me that I hadn’t felt in years.
