Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 24983 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24983 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
“Hey, Mags,” I greeted. “How was the muggle date?”
She sighed. “That joke is so old it crawled into a coffin and died.”
I laughed and leaned my hip against the counter, crossing one leg over the other. “Only because you have no sense of humor,” I teased. In reality, I was making light of the situation in case the night had gone badly. Like all the other times she had tried dating. “So?”
Maggie was quiet for a moment, and her sadness bled through the phone, forming a lump in my stomach. “He stayed through dinner,” she answered softly. “I thought I might actually make it to dessert for once. I tried to fool myself into believing he was just engrossed in his meal and not trying to avoid looking at me. But I should have known better.”
I wanted to kill the asshole. One handshake was all it would take…but me going to jail wouldn’t do anyone any good.
“He didn’t deserve you,” I declared. It was true, but I knew it wouldn’t do much to heal my sister’s bruised heart. “He obviously couldn’t see the good thing right in front of him.”
“And how would he have seen something good?” she scoffed. “The only thing sitting in front of him was a green witch who everyone blamed for all the havoc that Lindsay caused until the house dropped on her—also blamed on me. He tried to do it when I wasn’t looking, but I saw him checking out my shoes. The Wicked Witch of the West.”
I didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t wrong, and my only advice was for her to stop letting the matchmaking company set her up on dates. To stop trying to find love. But I was afraid it would leach out the rest of her goodness and leave nothing but a cold space for the dark magic to fill.
“I hope you whacked him with your broom.”
Maggie was silent for a moment, then I heard a little giggle. “No, but I offered him a ride home on it. Then I spilled water on myself just to see him squirm when he thought I was about to melt.”
Laughter rumbled in my chest, and I smiled. “Did you make a little steam?”
“Yup.” The P popped, and she chuckled. “You should have seen him. His skin turned almost as green as mine.”
“Maybe next time I should come along,” I suggested in a cheeky tone. “Give the next guy another shock.”
Maggie snickered. “Seriously, bro, you need to find some new material.”
“Hey, I’m fucking hilarious.”
“I’m glad you think so. Since no one else does.”
I gasped dramatically and pushed away from the counter to wander into the front room. “I’m hurt, Margaret Hamilton Adler. Hurt, I tell you.”
“You’ll get over it. Well, I’m going to revel in the disaster that is my love life while I finish inventory at the shop. Love you, Silas.”
“Love you, too, Mags,” I replied as I stretched out on the couch.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Do you remember Phineas Crane?”
“My best friend’s dad?” Growing up, Eli Crane and I had been inseparable until they moved to Sleepy Hollow. We’d kept in touch for a while, but I’d shut myself off from most everyone except my sister after the incident in town.
“Yeah. It was the weirdest thing. He came into Something Wicked earlier today.” Maggie’s shop was an eclectic mix of books, antiques, and occult items.
“Was he still a jackass?” Phineas had been a lousy husband and an even worse father.
“Considering how he looked at me when I asked about Eli, I’m going to say yes. And he refused to talk about his son. It was really strange. He seemed almost…scared. Before he left, though, he told me I should forget about Eli unless I wanted to lose my head.”
“What?”
“Weird, right?”
We speculated on what he could have possibly meant for a few minutes more, then she sighed and mumbled something about inventory again, so we said goodbye and hung up.
It was still relatively early, but fall had swooped in fast, so the sun was nearly below the horizon. I sat out on my deck for a spell and watched it sink until the moonless night was pitch black.
When I wandered back inside, I shut off the lights in the house before grabbing my laptop from my office. Then I settled on the couch to do some work and watch a football game.
My motion detection alarm pinged, and I muted the television before picking up my phone to check the cameras. I lived deep in the woods, so I was sure it was an animal wandering onto my property. Probably a bear. It had to be something big since the sensor didn’t pick up small movements. If it did, the damn thing would never stop pinging with all the birds, squirrels, and other woodland creatures roaming about, not to mention the swaying of trees.