Page 39 of Clearly Charmed

She huffed out a petulant ‘fine,’ and Flora scrambled out of my bedroom with her tail wagging quicker than a flag flapping in a summer storm.

‘Let’s go, girl,’ Aster called.

Once they were gone, I hurried down the hallway to my bedroom, stripped out of my clothes and jumped into the shower. As the water relaxed the tension in my shoulders, I planned what I would tell my sisters. There was no way in hell I could explain what I’d seen Clo do that night by the fire, but I could tell them about our family history. Even make a joke about how Ambrosia wasn’t afraid to ‘burn it all down’.

Literally.

My thoughts returned to the archives. How I’d hidden the journal from Bryce. It didn’t prove anything. It was gossip. Rumor. But still, I could see all the ways he could spin it. His story today about the secretary proved when he got a hold of the smallest detail, had any kind of intuition, he was willing to go to great lengths to find the truth.

I’d done my best today, not letting him see me spiral. More than once he’d leaned in closer to me at the table. That soft cedar scent of his lingering between us as he made notes about one-off pieces from personal blogs about the town’s supposed magical lore. I quickly reminded him those angles were used to draw in tourists, making my point by referring to the local business names. There were even a few mentions about how we hosted an annual trick-or-treating event on the weekend before Halloween. The way our Veggie Fest at the end of summer drew people to town from as far away as Switzerland and Brazil.

When my skin started to go pruney, I left the shower, dried off, and put on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. Before I opened my bedroom door, I pulled in a full breath, preparing for the interrogation squad, AKA my sisters.

A fire crackled in the hearth, warding off the early evening chill. Flora was already snoozing next to Aster on the couch. Lia sat beside her scrolling through her phone. My sisters were my twin hearts. The two people I was sure I’d never be able to live without. I mothered them. Scolded them. Cried when they hurt. Laughed with joy when they soared. The years I’d been away from them in Fort Collins had been almost unbearable. I tried now not to let worry color my face.

‘You’re out of beer,’ Lia barked.

‘Hello, sunshine. Good to see you too.’

I ignored the way she glowered and pulled down a bottle of red wine from a kitchen cabinet, grabbed three glasses and joined them on the couch.

Once I had the screw-top cap off, I poured each of us a generous glass.

We sat in silence, the snap and pop of the dry wood filling the air.

Shockingly, Lia was the first one to speak. ‘Stop stalling and tell us how bad it is.’

I kicked my feet out onto the live-edge coffee table I’d bought from a carpenter in Ouray.

‘It’s going to be fine. The archives don’t really say much.’

Lia pressed her lips thin like she didn’t believe me. Out of all of us, she was the least trusting. That may have had something to do with the fact that Belladonna lost her during a camping trip she insisted they take when Lia was eight. Thank goodness even back then, Lia was in tune with the woods. She was able to follow her old footprints all the way out to the main road leading into town. When the sheriff brought her back to Clo’s, I was sure our grandmother’s head was going to explode.

Belladonna didn’t show up for hours. When she did, she claimed she knew where Lia was the whole time. That she was testing her outdoor survival skills. In that moment, I was sure my head might pop too.

After that incident, Lia refused to acknowledge Belladonna on any of her visits. To this day, she couldn’t look at our mother without a hint of disgust.

‘How far did you go back?’ Aster asked.

‘To the town’s incorporation.’

‘And…’ Lia prodded.

‘One of the earliest residents was a man named Jeremiah. He had a fiancée, Ambrosia. Clo’s great-great-grandmother.’

Aster’s eyes lit up. ‘The one in the picture from the house? What was she like?’

I took a big drink before pushing out my rehearsed story. ‘From the little written about her, she seemed determined. Smart. That photo of her and her mother, in front of their apothecary was probably from the late 1800s.’

‘Interesting,’ Lia said, like her interest was piqued. ‘Any weird incidents or stories?’

‘Not anything that alluded to magic outright.’

I wasn’t lying. I was protecting them.

‘I suppose if there had been, they would’ve burned her at the closest stake,’ Lia muttered.

‘Hanged,’ Aster said quietly into her glass.