Barbara Bretton - [Sugar Maple 01] by Casting Spells (v5.0) (html)

Author:Casting Spells (v5.0) (html) [Spells, Casting]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-13T11:22:04.516000+00:00

CHLOE

Luke had been outside for a good ten minutes when I finally got tired of trying to eavesdrop and went into the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. The same weird feelings I had experienced last night were back with a vengeance. A visit to WebMD had reassured me that I wasn’t approaching an extremely early menopause, but something was definitely wreaking havoc with my equilibrium. I felt dizzy and unsteady on my feet.

Then again, it was hard to breathe and kiss at the same time. I was probably still oxygen deprived.

I still wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened. I mean, my arms had been piled high with an outgoing shipment of kettle-dyed DK weight Blue-faced Leicester, and anyone who knew me knew that nothing short of nuclear Armageddon would make me sacrifice one fuzzy, fibery gram of the stuff for anything as fleeting and insubstantial as a kiss.

But when Luke MacKenzie walked into the shop this morning and looked at me with those bottle green eyes, I might as well have been carrying a load of acrylic for all I cared. The yarn went flying as I flew into his arms.

If Luke had been selkie or vampire or something normal like that, I would have suspected there was a spell at work creating the fireworks between us, the impossible-to-resist magnetism, but nobody in Sugar Maple, not even Isadora, would do anything to encourage a mortal to hang around any longer than necessary.

I poured a mug of coffee. I arranged some stale donuts on a platter. Today’s edition of the Sugar Maple Gazette arrived, and I flipped it open to the obituary page, which was an obituary page in name only. The space had been sold to Griggs Hardware to advertise their Christmas extravaganza sale.

How long a lead time did they have at the paper? Six hours. Ten? Anything could have happened since press time.

I dialed Pam at Sugar Maple Assisted Living.

“I know this sounds crazy, Pam, but has anyone ... left us in the last day or two?”

“Nobody’s left us since Sorcha, and you know how long ago that was. They fade in, they fade out, but when all is said and done, everyone’s still here.”

Assuming they even existed, there had to be a statute of limitations on banshee wails. If you heard a banshee on the first Thursday in January and your Great-Uncle Harry died on the last Friday in March, did the banshee really deserve props or was it just coincidence at work? I came down on the side of coincidence.

Just thinking about the whole mess made my head hurt.

But then again, so did breathing.

No more Barolo. No more brandy.

Ever.

I opened a can of Fancy Feast for Penny. I searched three of the storage closets for the Book of Spells and came up empty each time.

Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer and I went back up front to spy on him.

But there was one small problem: he wasn’t there.

I opened the door and stepped outside.

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