Page 7 of Just in Time
Seemed like no matter how much product I dumped into it, it never seemed to get anyless.
Brody liked to joke that it was the source of my powers, but honestly, I had no idea where I’d gotten this hair from. Momma’s hair was completely manageable. And Daddy was bald, so…
It was another complete mystery to add to the list. My hair. My powers. My bond with a shifter.
I arrived at Green Queen’s Reagent Emporium about five minutes before the meeting started.
Everyone greeted me jovially and Momma made her customary joke about me being a time witch and still being almost late everywhere.
It used to annoy me as a teen, but now, it was just another battle I chose not to fight. Momma had this way about her. A need to make herself the most powerful person in the room. And fighting her on it was more trouble than it was worth.
I took my spot in the circle, feeling Geri Wheeler, the older witch who was now seated to my right, run her fingers through my hair and tuck it behind my ear. “Your hair looks lovely today, Lily,” she whispered, smiling over at me through the curtain of curls that framed her own face.
I liked Geri. She was a friend of my Momma’s, not to mention a green witch like her, but she always seemed a bit more understanding than Momma ever was.
Geri’s son was the one Momma had been half-heartedly trying to set me up with that afternoon.
He was a hedge witch and as far as I knew, didn’t really commune with other witches. Of course, I also thought he lived in Richmond until that afternoon. Since I was wrong about one thing, it made sense that I was wrong about the other. It just hammered home the fact that Pete and I weren’t really compatible.
But apparently, he was looking for a change, because he was here. In our circle. Looking like someone pissed in his Cheerios, his coffee, his soup and his beer. He scowled over at me for a moment before realization must have dawned. “Lily,” he said softly, holding out his hand towards me.
“Heya, Pete,” I said, smiling and shaking his hand a little. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“I could say the same… you didn’t ever leave, did you?” he asked, a smile playing on his lips.
I looked around comically before leveling my gaze back at him. “Doesn’t look like it, no.”
He huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “You’d-a done so awesome in Richmond, Lily. Time witches are a novelty.”
“I’m good here,” I replied, holding out my hand to him, the other to his mother so we could greet the night.
Our circle was non-constricting, non-conforming, and just this side of lazy witchcraft.
In other words, I adored it.
Mother kept floating the idea of making us into a full-fledged coven, but it never gained traction. Most of the witches in the area were content to have meetings on the New Moon and nothing else. They were moms and wives. Some were even dads and husbands. Business owners. Librarians. Part-time bartenders, like me. We had lives outside of the Craft, and this suited our needs very well.
Also, us not being a coven kept the pressure off me to figure out how in the hell I was supposed to use my powers. My gods-given, time-altering powers. I knew I had them for a reason. Just like Brody and I found each other for a reason.
But the reason hadn’t been made apparent to me yet.
I was patient, though. It could take its sweet time for all I cared. Momma, however, would probably have multiple aneurisms if I didn’t figure it out soon.
The rest of the meeting went pretty much as well as could be expected. My mother asked me to hang around afterwards to talk with her, but I didn’t really feel like it. It was one in the morning and I wanted to get home to Brody.
But I still found myself hanging back while she served wheatgrass shots to the remaining witches, all the while copying down a whole grain cookie recipe from one of the other ladies there.
I sighed heavily, bouncing on my feet to keep myself awake as I glanced at my watch.
“Got somewhere to be, Lil?” the other witch asked me. Her face was kind and she didn’t deserve my bad mood, but she got it anyway.
“Home,” I said curtly.
“Well, head on back there, then,” she said, reaching out to squeeze my arm. “I’m sure you’re tired, you look like you came here straight from work…”
“Just a second longer, Lily,” my mother said, her hand resting on my other arm. “Besides, if it gets to be too late, you can just spend the night with me.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I need to get home.”
