The Right Kind of Magic by Jamie Bennett

Author:Jamie Bennett [Bennett, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

I was pretty sure she’d said something about free washing a witch. “What?”

Selah pointed to the new banner hung on the wall above the Plants and Botanicals section and pronounced the Gaelic words again. “Athbhliain faoi mhaise dhuit,” she told me. “Happy New Year!”

“Oh, thanks.” I looked at the banner and thought about trying to say it back but then settled with, “And to you.”

She filled me in on what she’d been up to on her vacation to New Mexico over Christmas where she’d stayed in a yurt. It sounded as if it had been exciting but also kind of cold. She’d gone with several friends and she told me all about them, the cool cities where they lived and what they did for jobs and interesting things about their families.

“That sounds so fun,” I commented. “I don’t have any friends like that. Carver doesn’t either, except for Jessie. It sounds like you know those women so well.”

“I do,” Selah told me. “I’ve known most of them since we were in grade school and we’ve kept up all this time. One thing that always surprises me when I see them now is how old they look.” She laughed. “I was glad I had my lovely conditioner with me in the yurt so that my hair didn’t look quite so…”

Witchy, that was what it was, but I only nodded and didn’t fill in the obvious adjective. I was glad that she’d liked the little holiday gift and it did seem to tamp down some of the wildness in her grey mane. Next, I tried to return her gift to me, the envelope full of money. But she refused, absolutely refused, to take it back.

“Use that!” she scolded. “Spend it! I thought you already might have had some fun with it.”

I definitely would be able to spend this money, but probably not on anything fun. I decided that I would take it only as a loan that I could pay back slowly so that she didn’t notice. I nodded and said thank you again.

“Did Carver like his present? It was so beautiful,” she commented, and watched me closely as she waited for my answer.

“He did like it,” I said, careful not to show anything on my face or betray any emotion in my words. “He put it on his desk.” I knew where the picture had gone because I’d had to venture into the garage to get Jessie for a walk. I’d also spotted that he’d replaced the glass in the frame but I hadn’t commented on it to him at the time. Instead, I’d patted my leg and whistled for the cow-dog and not spoken to Carver at all, even though he’d watched me as I came and went and I’d thought he might say something himself. We’d hardly been communicating despite the fact that I still occupied his house—but actually, he was hardly ever there, and he wasn’t taking Jessie with him when he went wherever he was going. It wasn’t to Tank’s house, because (to my shame) I’d been checking.

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