Page 17 of Love Potion No. 69

“Tell us everything,” Mom says, a huge smile on her face. Then she ducks her head to get a better look at me. “Wait. What’s wrong?”

Her concern, combined with the mere force of being the center of these three women’s attention, is enough to make me burst into tears.

“Now you’redefinitelytelling us everything,” Mom says, nodding at the front door to lock it and guiding me to sit down on the stool set up at the old-timey soda fountain bar.

Willow and Magnolia flank me, and Mom bustles back around to make us some tea. In minutes, we’re all sipping from Mom’s “Make It All Better” blend, which I swear has some illegal ingredients in it, but Mom and Aspen swear it doesn’t. Regardless, there’s no denying the near-immediate calming effect the tea has on me, and I take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out.

“It’s Quinton Henry, isn’t it?” Mom says. “I told you?—”

“Ooh, itisQuinton Henry,” Willow says. “I thought for sure Magnolia and I scared him away with the weather.”

“Don’t bring me into this,” Magnolia says.

“I wouldn’t have known about him other than you telling me!” Willow protests.

“Girls, we’ve talked about this. Weather isn’t something to be trifled with,” Mom says.

“What did you do?” I look at Willow. “Was that stormyours?”

Willow at least has the sense to look sheepish. “I didn’t think it would work! Other than readings, when has anything I’ve triedeverworked?”

Mom pats her hand soothingly. “There, there, Willow.”

Magnolia rolls her eyes. “This is why I stick to good old-fashioned science.”

I bury my face in my hands. “Oh my god,allof you. Please stop.” When silence finally descends, I continue. “Yes, it’s Quinton. He showed up right as I was making the potion and we—we fell in love and all I can think is that it’s the potion. Because it has to be. And never mind that his family wants the flower for their own perfume.” I pull my hands away and look at them. “What do I do?”

They’re silent. Then Mom speaks. “Falling in love at first sight is a gift, Clementine. The potion didn’t do that.”

“But—”

She holds her hand up. “I have an antidote to the potion. You both take it, and if the love really is only because of the potion, then it’ll be done. As for his family’s desire for the flower, just give him another bottle of the essence.”

I gape at her. “What? But you said not to do that!”

“I said you’d know what to do. I assumed, wrongly it appears, that you’d know I meant to give them another full bottle. They’ll be able to figure out how to reproduce a scent close enough to it, and they’ll be fine.”

My cheeks heat as shame floods my gut. “Oh.”

She chuckles. “The flower is important to us, obviously, but girls, we’re not some crazed women whose entire existence revolves around the flower. And the Henry family isn’t made up of villains who want to rob us of something so important.”

“Can we go back to the part where Clementine said she was in love?” Magnolia asks, whipping her head to me. “Is ittrue?”

I shrug. “That’s what the antidote has to determine.”

“Then I’ll pull the tea together,” Mom says, turning to busy herself behind the bar with dried herbs and flowers and who knows what else.

All I can do is watch, helpless. Will this all be gone in a matter of hours? Or is it possible that maybe, just maybe, there’s something real with Quinton? And what does it say about me that for once, I’d like science to be wrong, to fall to its knees in the face of illogical love?

Quinton

I’M FINISHING A burger and fries in my hotel room when the text comes through.

Clementine

Can you come to the shop?

The next text is a pin to Rowan’s Apothecary & Books. Before I can answer, a third message appears.

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