Page 52 of Whiskey Shivers

We started downstairs with the room next to the guest room but up front, just off the living room. It was sizable, certainly bigger than the guest room, but it was likewise gorgeous. The walls were painted a deep, rich, forest or hunter green accented in gold. There was a big, heavy, old antique apothecary desk that had scrollwork sides and back that were paned with frosted glass. The top of the desk a bunch of odds and ends – herbs and flowers in jars full of liquid that leeched their colors into the fluid, some forming crusts and crystals within.

Alina glowed with pride and swept out a hand, saying, “Welcome to the beating heart of Swamp Witch Watercolors,” she said. “I started playing with extracting my own essences and things from various items to make handmade watercolors a while ago.” She picked up a big brown bottle of an oily, viscous liquid and pulled the cord on a banker’s light, sitting back center of the desk. It illuminated a white glass plate taking up a good portion of the middle of the desk, and there was a glass flat-bottomed upside-down mushroom thing sitting on one corner of that.

“I extract the colors and break everything down to a powder then add this binder and mull it until it’s rich and smooth,” she said, setting down the bottle. “Then I scrape everything into these little pots with their magnets on the bottom and bam, you can drop them into anything, really. An old makeup palate, a mint tin, and you have a watercolor palate that’s customizable.”

“That’s really cool,” I said. “How did you get into all that?”

She smiled. “I paint.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Mm-hm.”

“Can I see?” She smiled, and it turned her whole face beautiful, like an elfin princess or something out of a fairytale. She turned to the closet door in the room and went to it. Inside were shelves and racks, and she took some of her paintings out.

They were beautiful land and cityscapes, and I absolutely loved them.

“These are phenomenal,” I told her.

“You like them?” she asked.

“Absolutely!”

We chatted about it some more when there was an audible click from out in the rest of the house.

“Water’s ready,” she said, sliding some of the thick watercolor paper sheets back into their places.

“Ah.” I followed her out of her modern witchy office and the art on the walls let me know just how pagan she was. I felt even more at ease than I had before. It was another thing we had in common it seemed.

“So,” she said. “What’s your poison?”

I went to peruse the teas, as she made her cup. The aroma wafting to me made me straighten and ask, “What did you pick, because that smells divine!”

She wrinkled her nose with this impish smile and slid the jar in my direction, the label on it readingBourbon Street Vanilla Rooibos.

“You’re here all weekend and then some. You can try it all,” she said, and I grinned.

“Fair point, but I’ll start with this one!”

She laughed and made a second cup, and we retired to the living room for a while to chat books and crafts and things.

It felt good to make a friend.

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

Hex…

“You gonna be straight, having Fable around for a bit?” I asked when we got into the swamp a bit.

La Croix grunted. “I don’t like that I can’t go in with you,” he said, and I sighed.

“I know it, brother, but we knew we were destined to keep us separated when we took the roles we did within the club. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but we can’t have the pres and the VP in shackles side by side. Just ain’t how it works,” I said.

“I know it,” he said. “Still don’t have to like it.”

“I don’t like it either. Been a fair few minutes since I had any kind of brush with the law to take my freedom, and I can’t say as I’m lookin’ forward to it.”

He just grunted, and we were silent the rest of the ride to the boat launch at his daddy’s place. I got out of the boat and stretched, tying the line, while he rid himself of the cord to the kill switch from around his wrist.

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