9781618851307WitchsBrewShayNC (4 page)

“Nuh-uh.
No way.” She shook her head, mulling over the matter as she recapped the tube
and tossed it back on the dresser. The way her day had started, no telling what
would happen if she put on lipstick. “Probably sprout warts on my lips.”

The unexpected jingle of the phone startled her. She
jumped, clutching her heart. Ah, the sound of something normal. Nothing odd
about a phone ringing…she hoped. Saylym zipped across the room and grabbed it
off the nightstand. “Sanctuary’s House of Insanity.”

“Hi,
Angelmine, you sound stressed.”

Her
mum’s voice came through the receiver so clearly, Saylym swore she was right
next door, instead of thousands of miles away in England.
Angelmine
. She
blinked back tears. Her mum always called her that.

“Hi,
Mum.”

“I wanted to check on you, see if you’re ready to give up
this nonsense about independence and return home? I miss you.”

Saylym ignored the question. No way was she admitting she
was a failure and stuck in Sanctuary. Neither was she getting into another
argument about returning to England. She’d made a decision to leave and she’d
stick with it, even if she felt like Dorothy in the Land of Oz.

“Mum, by chance, is there a family history of witches?”

For a moment, utter silence filled the phone line, then
she heard her mum’s sharp gasp.

“Uh–not that I can say, dear,” she replied. A choked laugh
escaped her. “Of course, your father might have been a
waken
.”

Saylym moaned. “Awaken?”

“Not awaken, but a
waken
. A male witch.”

“Mum! I’m serious. Weird things are—”

“Yes. Yes.” She cut her off. “I only slept with him the
one time,” her mum supplied quickly cutting her off. “We weren’t exactly
discussing our family history. Well–er.” A short breath. “Gotta dash, darling. Chop-chop
and all that. Uh…my date’s here.”

“Your
date?
Mum, you don’t date. I need to
explain—”

“Have
to go, dear. I’ll call you again, soon. Love you. Bye!”

“Wait,
Mum. I need—” Saylym stared blankly at the receiver in her hand. Talking into a
dead phone was useless. She set it back on the cradle. “Bye, Mum. Thanks for
sharing more information than I wanted.” She rolled her eyes.
“Waken?
Right.”

Clearly, her mum was hiding something, but she doubted it
had anything to do with male witches. Shrugging, she glanced at her watch then
gave a heavy sigh. As the new owner of a business, she was going to be late
opening this morning if she didn’t hurry.

So what if the shop was a gimmicky magic supply store? A
business should be run professionally. That was her personal motto. She still
couldn’t believe her luck at actually acquiring the shop. But the owner, Dottie
Wesman, had been ready to retire. She’d offered the business to Saylym her
second day in Sanctuary at a price too good to refuse.

Saylym squared her shoulders and stuck out her chin. Her
mum would say she had
that
glint in her eyes again, but no damn
wriggling brush was going to defeat her. She drew a sharp, steadying breath.
“Courage, my girl, you have to have courage.”

Just because she had no idea who her father was didn’t
mean she didn’t come from good, hardy, English stock and in the future, she was
going to ignore the little oddities plaguing her life, pretend she didn’t see
things no sane person should be seeing.

She paused to straighten a wrinkle off the comforter. She
might not be normal, but she was tough. Brave. She could do it.

But
how would she do it?

Then the answer presented itself. It was easy. Whenever
something strange happened, she’d hum. She’d tune it out by humming a ditty or
two. Maybe she was hormonal or bi-polar or something equally boring, but she
wasn’t about to let these silly hallucinations bother her any more.

“I’d
appreciate it if you’d keep the snoring down to a muted level tonight.”

Saylym squeaked and jumped at the sound of the deep,
masculine voice. She whirled, her gaze making a quick search of the bedroom.
“What? Wh
-
who said that?”

There
was no one in the room but her. No one she saw, anyway.

“I
did.
Here!”
A sharp whistle pierced
the air.

Saylym turned toward the bed and widened her eyes. “Oh-my-God!”

Smack in the center of the massive pinewood headboard, a
single red eyeball glared back at her. A set of thick lips lay below a flat
ugly nose.

“Eewww.”

A
snort escaped the thick lips.

Saylym fell back a step and slapped a hand over eyes. “I
don’t see you. I don’t hear you. No-No-
No!
You’re not there. Hummmmm.”

“Yes, I am. Uncover your eyes, witch. Stop that awful
humming and pay attention.”

Parting her fingers, Saylym peeped at the eyeball through
them. “Go away. You’re not real. Stay out of my imagination. Hummmmm.”

“I’m real, sister. Now, listen up. It’s hard for a bed to
get a decent night of sleep with those disgusting sounds you make
.
Keep it down.”

“I
do
not
snore.” Saylym dropped her hand from her eyes and glared at the
bed.

“Well,
that’s true,” the bed replied, sounding appalled. “You
roar.
You start
making that noise tonight, and I’m rolling your ass out of bed. Got it?”

She nodded, grabbed her purse off the over-stuffed chair
in the corner, and backed out of the room. Whirling, Saylym ran to the front
door as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. She slammed the door
behind her and leaned back against it, sucking in deep, calming breaths of
fresh air.

Maybe she’d find a motel room for the night, anything, but
that demon bed. “The bed did not accuse me of snoring,” she chanted between
ragged breaths, “because I don’t snore. The bed did not call me a witch,
because I’m not a witch.” Her hand trembled as she pressed it against her
thundering heart. “Breathe in. Breathe out. You’re losing your bloody mind!”
In. Out.
Breathe.
Hummmmm.

She had to calm down. And she had to get far away from
this insane house, before she went completely bonkers. Maybe she’d call her mum
tonight and inquire about insanity running in the family. Saylym bit her lip to
keep from crying. Her hands shook so badly, she could barely push the key in
and lock the door.

“No one steals in Sanctuary, dearie. The locks are just
window dressing. Besides, there’s no way a lock can stop a witch from entering
your home. It takes magic or symbolic witch marks carved into the roof timbers
to prevent that from happening.”

The words reached her from the hag next door.

“Right.” Saylym drew a sharp breath.
Magic or symbolic
witch marks?
“Jeez, give me a break.” She withdrew the key from the lock,
plastered a cheerful smile on her face and turned to wave at her eccentric
neighbor. She wasn’t the only one losing her mind here. A month of living
beside Eldora Waters and her insanity must be rubbing off. “You never know,”
Saylym replied, puffing a lock of tangled hair back from her face. “Stranger
things have happened. Here. In Sanctuary.”

The old lady had to be approaching the century mark but
she was on her knees weeding the flower beds. Her face looked like a crinkled
road map as she concentrated on pulling a stubborn weed with strong roots.
Saylym slid her gaze over Eldora. Today, as always, she wore eye-startling
bright colors. A vivid sunset-orange silk gown dusted the ground and today the
pointy hat on top of her scraggly hair was sunburst yellow. A silver band with
dark blue stars circled the crown of the hat and a black leather belt with a
wide silver buckle hugged her skinny waist. Her frizzy, white hair poked up at
odd angles above her ears like bits of straw.

A slight breeze would most likely fell her. The woman
stopped pulling weeds and slowly rose to her feet.

Saylym winced when she heard Eldora’s knees creak.

“Twenty
thousand,” the old lady cackled.

“I
beg your pardon?”

“I’m
approaching twenty thousand.”

She sounded so damn gleeful about it Saylym thought Eldora
just might kick her heels up in the air.

“Tomorrow’s
my birthday,” she announced. “I broke tradition and changed it from All
Hallows’ Eve. Any witch can have a birthday on that day, but there isn’t a
single other witch whose birthday is May second.”

“Congratulations and–uh-hap-happy birthday. And I’ll be
twenty thousand tomorrow too,” Saylym mumbled beneath her breath.

“Oh, no, dear, you’ll be three-hundred-fifteen come All
Hallows’ Eve. You’ll reach your majority. Twenty-one years of age in
illumrof
years.”

Three-hundred-fifteen? What the hell were
illumrof
years
?
And why was she even worried about what a crazy old lady said?

“I like twenty-one better,” Saylym said.
“Three-hundred-fifteen tends to scare away my dates. How do you know when my
birthday is, anyway?”

“Don’t
you know? I’m a witch,” she hooted. “All witches are born on All Hallows’ Eve,
except me, and I changed my birthday.”

“Yes, I know.” Damn it, she knew she shouldn’t have
encouraged the old lady. Eldora was as dotty as the grizzled cab driver. Now
that she thought about it, the hag’s eyes were the same brilliant blue. Maybe
they were somehow related.

Saylym shook her head. Man, she was getting bad, imagining
her poor neighbor resembled the cab driver she’d had the misfortune to meet.
Nothing could hide the mischievous sparkle in the old woman’s bright blue eyes.
Still, there was something fragile about her. Something faded, something rather
endearing, when she wasn’t rambling about witches and
illumrofs
.
Whatever the hell that strange sounding word meant.

“Another glorious day,” the crone screeched, glancing up
at the clear green/yellow, and orange sky. “Not a red cloud in sight. A lovely
such as you should have a handsome
waken
wooing her.”

Saylym smiled. “Well, Miss Eldora, I haven’t seen any
handsome er–
wakens–
that annoying word again, since coming to Sanctuary.
And since arriving in Sanctuary, all she’d heard was
waken
this and
waken
that.”
She rubbed her jaw as it suddenly dawned on her she hadn’t met
any
males,
waken
or otherwise since moving to
Sanctuary. She’d been so busy setting up the shop and settling into the
cottage, she hadn’t really paid attention to the lack of men.

The shop carried mostly gimmicks and souvenirs, but
amazingly, the lines had been long to get inside since the day she opened–lines
of females. No males. Strange.

Eldora nodded, placed a finger alongside her bulbous nose
and cackled again. “Come Beltane, that’s beginning today, dearie, the streets
will be crawling with handsome young males by the witching hour. That’s
midnight tonight, dearie. They come here from Droth–that’s on the other side of
Annu Mountain, you know.” She bobbed her head as though agreeing with Saylym,
though she’d made no reply to the old woman’s ramblings. “Sanctuary belongs to
the Wiccans, you know. But at Beltane–” Eldora gave a long sigh. “The wiser
waken
comes to Sanctuary early in the morning. He won’t wait until all the beautiful
witches have been selected by others. Oh, no.” She snickered. “You’ll be
claimed immediately, my dear. No worries, there.”

“Claimed?” Saylym’s jaw dropped. “It sounds positively
medieval.”

“Quite, I’m sure.” Eldora rolled her eyes. “But the
wakens,
they’re so horny when they
arrive, all they’re thinking about is getting between a pretty witch’s thighs.”

Saylym barely stifled a gasp at the old woman’s lewd
remark. She didn’t want to be claimed, certainly not by a horny madman who
believed he was a male witch and wanted to quench his hunger between her
thighs.

“Oh,
yes. Some handsome
waken
will want you the moment he sees you. You can
just bet he’ll mark you.”

Oh joy. That was definitely reassuring. A bubble of
laughter escaped Saylym before she could prevent it. She couldn’t help but be
amused at the way the aged woman rambled on, explaining things to her, as
though
she
was senile. Beltane? Claimed? Marked? Ridiculous. It sounded
as if the crone believed they lived in Pagan Druid times or something.

She made a mental note to stay inside the shop that day,
even if it meant returning to her home and facing the demon bed after she
closed. No
waken
was sneaking into
Sanctuary this morning and claiming her. She smothered a laugh. Jeez, she was
buying into Eldora’s tale of witches and
wakens.

 
“The young males
come for the Maypole Festival, you know,” Eldora picked up where she’d left
off. “There will be bonfires on the mountain tonight. Then the
wakens
will come down and start selecting mates.” She popped her knuckles and laughed.
“That is, if they can charm a pretty witch into it. Nothing like Beltane to get
the juices flowing, you know. Hot, handsome
wakens
in search of hotter
nookie.”

Saylym choked. Good grief, a knuckle-popping granny
thinking about male witches
looking
for sex. She had to get away from here, now, before she exploded with
hysterical laughter.

Eldora cackled sharply, nodding. “Your Prince Charming is
coming for you soon.”

“Uh-huh.” Saylym rolled her eyes. “Well, have a nice day,
Miss Eldora. I’m off to the shop. Let’s hope I have lots of customers today.”

“Not
today, dear. Today is for other happenings.”

Pausing to study the woman, Saylym pursed her lips. One of
them was for sure senile, because for just a moment, the old woman sounded
exactly like her mum. Yep, she was losing it. First, she thought the crone
resembled the cab driver, now she thought she sounded like her mum.