A Charming Potion (4 page)

As if instinctual, I stroked the back of Oscar’s
head, taking in the prickly softness of his short hair.

He pulled away just enough for us to come into
focus. Our eyes met. There was something deep in his soul that I couldn’t
pinpoint, at least that’s what my intuition said. It made me nervous. Maybe it
was leftover intuition from Mr. Prince Charming.

“I. . .” I pulled away, not liking the unsure
feeling. “I’m sorry to have jumped you like that. It’s just that I’m so excited
about Hallow. . .”

Reclaiming my lips, he crushed his up against mine.
My heart jolted and my pulse pounded deep to my toes. I’ve dreamed of being
wrapped into his big strong arms, but never thought it would feel this good.

There was no doubt about the spark between us.

He ran his hands down my arms and rested them in my
hands. He pulled away and pulled me into my house, using his foot to shut the
door behind him.

“I had to come over when I got out of Sorcery
class.” He grabbed me like a rag doll and pulled me to him. His scent engulfed
me. I didn’t know who
this
Oscar was, but I
was
liking him.

“Are you okay?” I nuzzled my head deeper into his
chest, taking comfort there.

“I had to tell you that I watched and listened to
you at the smudging ceremony and it touched me.” He let go and began to pace
back and forth between the kitchen and open family room. He gestured for me to
take a seat on my orange sofa. “I was listening to you talk about growth,
embracing change, and the renewal for life.” His voice trailed off.

He was so handsome standing there. He took my breath
away.

Breathe, breathe
. I reminded
myself in fear I was going to pass out.

He knelt in front of me. His nearness was
overwhelming. My pulse quickened at the speculation of what he was going to
say.

Breathe, breathe.

“You are right. We are in need of a renewal.” He
took his hands and placed them on each side of my face. “June Heal, I love you
so much. I had to come over and tell you. I couldn’t wait any longer.”

He held out a small box that read: Belle’s Baubles.

“Go on. Open it.” His smile lifted his eyes,
deepening his tiny crow’s feet.

“I love it!” The tiny heart charm with three ruby
stones glistened. “It’s perfect.”

“There’s a ruby for you, me, and Mr. Prince
Charming.” He pointed to each one, and then looked around. “Where is he
anyway?”

“He has been acting so weird. He darted out the door
when you got here.” I put Mr. Prince Charming out of my mind and grabbed my
charm bracelet off the coffee table in front of us. “It’s going to look great
on here.”

It did make me wonder what Mr. Prince Charming was
going to think. No one other than him has ever given me a charm for my
bracelet. Years ago, when I was ten years old, Oscar gave me his mom’s old
charm bracelet when he saw that Mr. Prince Charming started bringing me the
charms, but since then it’s only been Mr. Prince Charming bringing me charms.

As part of his fairy god cat duties, he was supposed
to protect me.

I rubbed the heart between my fingers and felt the
sharp edges of the gems, hoping Mr. Prince Charming hadn’t known about this
before, and that this was why he had been acting so weird.

“Belle said to bring it in with your bracelet
tomorrow. . .er. . today, and she will put it on for you.” He beamed and
glanced between the heart and me.

Shocked by my eager response to grab him and kiss
him, I did it anyway.

Six

“Mr. Prince Charming?” I yelled out the front door
as I tapped the swollen fatigue that settled in pockets under my eyes. “Here
kitty, kitty.”

Who was I fooling? Mr. Prince Charming had been
acting strange all night. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was due to the fact
that I had been spending more time with Oscar or something else.

I put my fingers up to my lips, remembering the
amazing time we had last night. It was the best start to a Halloween day I had
ever had, and it was only going to get better with the excitement of the
Halloween festiveness of the village.

Seeing neither hide nor hair of Mr. Prince Charming,
I got ready and headed down to A Magical Cure with my charm bracelet and Madame
Torres in my bag.

“Hold on!” Madame Torres turned a bright yellow,
then appeared in the ball. Her flaming red hair curled around the ball, framing
her rosy red checks and bright orange lips. “Have you forgotten that you have
made a potion that is a no-no in the magical world?”

I brought her up to eye level and stared in. “A
no-no by whose account?”

Granted, I didn’t know all the rules, but I knew
most of the important ones, and yes, I did know, but I could plead stupid.
After all, I’ve only known about my spiritual gifts a few short months. They’ve
had a lifetime to learn the in’s and out’s. Surely, they’d give me the same
courtesy.

“You aren’t that dumb.” Madame Torres’s eyes zoomed
in and focused on me. “I’m telling you, I don’t have a good feeling about
today.”

“Tell me what you think is going to happen,” I
demanded to know.

“I can’t pinpoint it. It’s just not good. And your
cat knows it.”

Without another word, I dropped her back into my
bag.

If Mr. Prince Charming knew it, then he should’ve
given me a charm to protect me. That was what he had always done, so why stop
now?

Oh, well.
I sighed. There
was no use in thinking about it now.  Adeline would be here any minute to get
her June’s Gems and I’ll gladly hand them over.

The town was already abuzz with visitors taking in
the Halloween scenes.

“Good morning, Karima sisters.” I waved, and noticed
they were letting people try out the coffin’s they had decorated the front yard
with.

“Nope, not even near death.” I overheard Constance
whisper to Patience as she helped someone out of the coffin. Patience wrote
something down on a notepad. Constance glared at me. “Not such a great
Halloween for us!”

“No, not us!” Patience echoed and continued to
write.

“It’ll pick up.” I politely smiled. They knew as
well as I did that I didn’t make potions to make people live longer. I only
made people think about what they were putting in their bodies during time of
stress.

“Hello,” I chirped to Raven as I walked past Wicked
Good Bakery.

“Good Halloween morning,” she said, over the screams
of the children in costumes that had surrounded her. Her eyes roved around my
body as if she was looking for something.

The plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies with a
Hershey Kiss on top looked exactly like the witches hat Raven was wearing.

“June, did you give out those June’s Gems yet?” She
questioned.

I shook my head.

“Don’t!” She yelled over the screaming toddlers.
“I’ll explain later! Use Ding Dongs.”

Without a word, I stomped on down the street. Was it
already all over town that I had injected a love potion? Who would’ve known?

“Happy Halloween!” Belle smiled from outside of
Belle’s Baubles. “How was your night?” The glint in her eye was bright as she
watched with anticipation for me to spill the beans, when she knew exactly what
type of bean needed to be spilled.

“Hmmm. . .” I pulled the little heart charm out of
my bag, “Are you talking about this?” I dug deeper in my bag and pulled out the
bracelet. “And this?”

I held my palm out with the charm Oscar had given
me, and the bracelet dangled from the fingertips of my other hand.

I couldn’t help but smile at the turtle charm that
meant protection, the Celtic knot symbolized insight, a dog charm that helped
keep evil spirits away and the owl that helped me gain wisdom. And soon, the
heart. The heart that symbolized the bond between Oscar, me, and Mr. Prince
Charming.

“Yes!” She squealed, and adjusted her shirt. No
turban. Bella’s round cheeks balled up through her grin, exposing the small gap
between her two front teeth. Her long blonde hair framed her face, and cascaded
down her small frame. There was no way she was any taller than five foot two.
“I was thrilled to hear about his love for you, even though the two of you were
already written in the stars.”

She twirled her hands in the air as if she was
creating some sort of invisible love spell, and then she held her hands out. I
placed both of the items in her hands.

“I’ll have them ready tonight.” Her dark eyes cast
down to her hands. “Are you happy?”

Sheepishly, I smiled. It wasn’t long ago that you
weren’t allowed to date another spiritualist if they had a shop or were a part
of the community. I had a shop and he was the only police officer in town. This
could’ve been a major conflict, according to the rules.

Luckily for us, the rules had recently been changed.
A lot of rules had been changed. When I first moved to Whispering Fall,
Fairiwicks and Dark-Siders weren’t allowed to own shops, only Good-Siders; and
now, Whispering Falls was leading the way in Spiritualist Communities by
opening up to everyone.

“It does feel good.” I looked deep in my soul to see
if my intuition was telling me anything. Everything felt good with Oscar, but
something was ‘off’ with Mr. Prince Charming. Chalking it up to my new
relationship was easy, but still didn’t fit into my gut feeling of his
off-behavior. Oh well, he’d come around.

I jumped out of the way of a few children running
down the sidewalk dressed in their best ghoulish costumes.

“Happy Halloween,” they chanted.

“Happy Halloween!” I yelled back, reminding me that
I had to get to work. I was expecting Adeline to pick up her June’s Gems any
moment. “Bye, Belle.”

“Happy Halloween, June.” The twinkle that once
resided in her eyes had dulled, leaving me with a bad taste of intuition in my
mouth.

I nodded, putting the feeling away and continued my
way to A Charming Cure. Everything did feel right to a point, but something was
just off. Nothing I could explain.

“Happy Halloween, June.” Isadora Solstice waved her
gloved fingers in the air. Her A-Line skirt had little witch hats printed all
over it, and her pointy black hat with the orange fuzzy trim added to the look
she was going for. . .a good disguise to her real persona, a Crystal Ball
Spiritualist.

“Nice outfit.” I taped my shoes together as I
continued to walk up the street.

Mystic Lights looked a tad bit scary to me. An
orange glow projected through the store windows where Izzy had replaced all the
clear bulbs in her lighting shop to orange bulbs.

“We should talk about the Karima sisters later,”
Izzy chirped from the top step of the shop.

I nodded and continued. Izzy was the head of the
village council, and I was sure the Karima sisters had complained about their
theory that I had a hand in keeping people alive longer.

Rolling my eyes, and when I was almost to the shop,
I waved over at Petunia at Golly Bee Pet Shop. She was handing out animal
treats to all the visitors who had brought their animals.

“Mr. Prince Charming has been acting awfully strange
today.” She pointed into the store. There was my crazy fairy god cat hanging
out near the hedgehog’s hole by the living tree. “He hasn’t moved for the past
hour.” She shrugged.

“I’ll be over when I get a break.” The last thing I
needed was a diva fairy god cat. Madame Torres already gave me a hard time; I
didn’t need it from him too.

As I dug deep into my bag for the keys to the gate
for A Charming Cure, the Drowsy Daisies and Moonflowers hanging from the window
baskets from underneath A Cleansing Spirit Spa stopped me dead in my tracks.

Darla, my mother, would’ve loved all the Halloween
decorations, me being a homeopathic spiritualist, and my relationship with
Oscar. I wrapped my arms around my midsection. The pit in my heart felt like a
heavy rock.

I would do anything to see my mom one more time, or
even get a validation from her that this was the path I for which I was chosen.

“What’s wrong with you on this fine Halloween
morning?” Chandra Shango waddled out of A Cleansing Spirit Spa. When she
stopped just outside the door, she shifted her weight to one side and her
turban to the other.

“Oh, nothing.” I gave a half-smile. Without me
saying a word, I was sure Chandra knew exactly what I was going through. She
knew Darla when my parents lived here. I was only a baby, but still, she knew
her.

“Hey, kiddo, this is your first Halloween.” She
dangled her hands in front of my face. Her nails were painted orange with black
pumpkin faces on them. “I’ll give you a freebie.” She raised her eyebrows.

“Umm. . .maybe later.” I jammed the key into the
gate hole. There was no way I was going to fall for that old spiritualist
trick. She wanted to read my palm. Sneaky psychic!