Page 26 of Justice & Liberty

Now was not the time to question my mother’s perfectly good recipes, though. Spells? I mean, I was supposed to light a candle and say a chant in the middle of a...a spell circle. That made it a spell rather than just a recipe, didn’t it?

The cats helped me gather what I needed, and I grabbed the huge glass jar from the front of the shop, measuring out and adding the ingredients to the empty container.

When everything had been added, including a sprinkle of “consecrated moon water,” whatever the heck that was, I took the jar and sat with it in the circle. There were lit candles at the points of the star, and the chant was simple enough, not like, Latin or Gaelic or anything I didn’t already know how to pronounce. Almost a little limerick about offering friends a good night’s sleep.

“Remember to infuse it with your intention,” Hex told me, sounding wise beyond anyone’s years, let alone a cat’s possible lifetime. “Spells don’t do anything if you don’t mean them.”

I thought back to Mona Brighton, and how I very muchwanted the sweet old lady—and everyone else who drank the tea—to have a good night’s sleep, while I read the chant—three times, just as Mom said to in the book.

For a moment, it felt as though all the air in the room was rushing inward, toward the tea, the candle flames leaning toward the jar, but then...nothing. The room was just as it had been, and nothing of note had changed.

I looked up at Hex and Bee, who were sitting just outside the edge of the circle, looking at the tea. “Is that...it?”

Hex looked up at me and gave the kitty approximation of a shrug. “I think so. It’s just tea, it’s not like it’s a powerful spell.”

“We should try some,” Bee suggested, and Hex sighed at her.

“So you want to take a nap right now? Who am I kidding? You always want to take a nap.”

“Oh. Good point.” Tentatively, Bee stepped in close, sniffing the jar of tea. “Smells magical to me. I think it’s good.”

Somehow, I suspected she didn’t know much more about it than I did.

On the other hand, Bee could talk. At least, she could talk to me. “So this is...normal? You two talking?”

“Sure,” Hex agreed. “Maggie always talked to me. And now you have the magic, so now you can.”

The magic.

I wondered if maybe Maggie hadn’t told me about magic because there was a limit. Maybe only one person could be magical at once. That seemed odd, but it was possible. I still agreed with September, and if I ever had or adopted a kid, I’d tell them as soon as I could.

“And we can do spells,” Bee said, sounding considerably more excited about it than her sister. But then, Hex was a good twenty or more years old, and Bee was barely half that,so it sort of made sense she had more energy. “We could curse Lucy Beasley so that her nose hair grows three feet long overnight and she has to cut it every day.”

I had to cover up a laugh at that, because I wasn’t going to do it, but the image was...well, damn it, it was funny.

And that woman had talked shit about my mom, so screw her.

“Okay, well let’s get this one back on the shelf and see about the willow bark tea, all right?” I grabbed the jar in both hands and headed out to the front of the shop to put it away. I worried a little about trying out untested magic on strangers, so maybe...maybe I would take some of it home and try it myself before I opened the shop up. Same for the willow bark, not that I was in pain. Maybe if I put in a day’s work and cleaned the whole store, I’d be achy enough for it to help at the end of the day.

Even as tidy as Mom had left everything, a good dusting wouldn’t go awry, and maybe an air purifier in one corner. So after making the other tea, which went much the same as the first, with just a little more weird random wind whipping about, I grabbed the ladder and the duster and went to work, reacquainting myself with the shop’s inventory as I worked.

This wasn’t so bad. I could do this.

And my cat could talk. And Mom’s cat too.

Hopefully, I was not in the middle of a nervous breakdown, making up magic and talking cats as I went.

I was,in fact, exhausted and achy when I went home, so I took samples of both teas with me. The willow bark steeped just like I remembered, and had the same slightly bitter and astringent flavor from my childhood, which I actually ratherliked. I sipped at it while leaning into the fridge, unimpressed with what little I had in there.

Takeout leftovers, all of it, and not much of any one thing.

Suddenly, my eyes focused on the bagels, and nothing had ever sounded as delicious as a cinnamon swirl bagel with cream cheese. I heated one up in the toaster and smeared it with more cream cheese than any person could possibly need, then licked the extra off my fingers.

There was no jam in the fridge, which was a disappointment. But there had to be jam somewhere. Where had Mom kept the extra? The basement. I stumbled down the basement stairs, the room dark even though I’d flipped on the light before heading down, and found...the shelves I remembered, filled with all Mom’s canned fruits and vegetables. The washer and dryer. Some empty shelves. A desk and chair. One of the two lights in the ceiling fixture burned out, which was why it was so dark.

I turned to take in the rest of the basement, and realized...I’d spent my whole childhood thinking Mom was storing extra stuff for the shop in the basement, but that wasn’t it at all. It was more witch stuff. Funny, because Sabrina and I had always played at apothecary there as kids.

Or as witches.

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