Page 21 of Strike It Witch

The day I’d told her I was leaving home, she’d been lounging on the porch swing, brown eyes closed, long black hair flowing out behind her. Bronzed legs peeked out from beneath the dirt-coated hem of a gauzy skirt, bare feet hooked around the swing’s chain. One delicate arm dangled, fingers pushed against the boards to keep the swing moving. A glass of iced herbal tea sweated on the porch floor. The radio station played a chill song from her high school days—something from the Eagles. “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” maybe.

“You look sad, mija.”

“I am.”

“Come and sit by me. Let the magic in the soil unburden you,” she’d said, in that drowsy, over-the-top, hippie tone she sometimes used.

“I can’t. I have to leave, Mom.”

“Leave? Why?”

“I’m a Lennox. It’s time.”

Lennox witches weren’t meant to stay in one place. We were nomads, bringing magic to the people who needed us. At one time in her life, she’d been a travel witch, too. In fact, I’d taken over her practice when I turned seventeen because she’d devoted herself to the trailer park.

I’d stuck around for nine years. It had taken a life-altering incident with the father of one of my clients to finally convince me to walk away from the practice and Smokethorn, California. Mom had disapproved, but I hadn’t cared what she thought by then, hadn’t needed her advice, hadn’t wanted her help.

That had been ten years ago, and here I was, a thirty-five-year-old woman, wishing she’d show up and tell me what to do one last time.

I hit the brakes on the bad memories and floored the gas pedal on the Mini.

No more dredging up old regrets. Today was not a day for distraction. I was meeting with a nameless client who’d wired me half of a five-figure payday for a small amount of demon-grown belladonna, and I needed to bring my A-game to the meeting.

The front entrance of Ronan’s Pub looked more like a side entrance, with a steel security door that led to a small entryway and a glass door that opened into the bar. The entryway was spelled to repel humans, and since witches were similar to humans, I felt a tug of power when I reached for the door. It wasn’t strong enough to send me away, just a nudge to make me aware it was there.

An old-fashioned jukebox sat silent in the corner. The radio behind the counter was tuned to my favorite station, and “Sail On” by the Commodores filtered through the room. Heavy wood tables and chairs were scattered about, but the only two patrons in the place sat at the polished mahogany bar. There were pool tables in the back, a dartboard, and a flat screen TV that was currently off.

The lights were low, but not so dark you couldn’t see, and the background noise was quiet enough to actually hear yourself think, which was nice. The air conditioner clicked on and off periodically. Probably the fan to keep air circulating, since it was winter and a pleasant seventy degrees.

“Betty Lennox,” Gladys Jiménez called out. “Come on in and grab a stool. I’ll get you fixed up.”

“Good to see you, Gladys. I’ll take a bottled water for now.”

Gladys was one of Ida’s poker pals. In her late seventies, she wore her black hair in a heavily sprayed, wash-and-set style. She’d poured a triple-D chest into a size small white T-shirt withRonan’sin green over the left breast and wore black jeans and embroidered black cowboy boots. Her makeup was thick fake lashes, penciled-in brows, and dark red lipstick. She was Elvis’s favorite version of Priscilla with sixty years of baggage.

My clothing and makeup hung out in the darkest corners of the color spectrum, but I had nothing on Gladys. It was my dream to be as cool as she was someday.

“You coming to the Galentine’s hot tub party tonight?” she asked. “I’m bringing snacks.”

“I plan to. Someone has to keep an eye on Ida. She’s responsible for the wine.”

“Did she get it from those two witches at the tower outside Sundance again?”

I groaned. “Let’s hope not. The last time she brought that stuff I woke up in my garden room with Trini Orosco’s catsweatshirt tied around my head and two different shoes on my feet, neither of them mine.”

Gladys chuckled. “Ida’s eightieth birthday party, right? Goddess, that was a helluva night. I woke up in her bathtub. Couldn’t move my head to the right for a week.”

I didn’t recognize the patrons at the other end of the bar but gave them a nod, which they returned. Morning drinkers were generally a mix of nightshift workers and insomniacs—people who rarely caused trouble.

A bar before noon on a weekday was as peaceful as a library.

“I didn’t realize you were working here,” I said.

“Just weekday mornings. Godsdamn social security cuts by those rich bastards in D.C. got me slinging drinks again. Rent goes up, income goes down. You know how it is.” She set a bottle of water on a paper coaster in front of me.

One of the patrons held up a beer bottle in solidarity.

I opened my water, took a drink. “I thought you were living in pack-subsidized housing.”

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