“Sorry. Yes, it’s right here.” I pulled a small glass jar out of my purse and presented it to her.
She snatched it from my hand, whisking it away to the cauldron bubbling over the crackling fire in the center of their patio garden.
“It’s all I could get…” I said, making a beeline to the wrought-iron patio set by the gazebo. “Hunter stirs a lot lately… and I don’t understand why it has to be so fresh.”
“Potency, dear.” Clover carefully tore fresh wormwood into tiny pieces and sprinkled them into the pot.
“Nobody wants stale semen in their anti-obsession spells,” Ruby said, matter-of-fact, leaning over the cauldron with a brow cocked and slow, deliberate smile spreading across her face.
“Of course not,” I agreed with a wary glance in Katie’s direction.
“You’re going to want to relax before we start, Maggie,” she offered, pulling out a chair for me to sit. “Why don’t you pull some cards?”
She slid a purple velvet pouch across the table to me—tarot cards—and rushed inside.
“What’s with her?” I asked, not looking up as I removed the gold-edged cards from the pouch.
“Just the usual, darling… a little vervain should unscramble that brain of hers.” Clover smiled, calm as ever.
I smiled at her and shuffled the deck just like I did every week. Maybe that was the problem. We were doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. I doubt a different chant—different herbs, even—would break this godforsaken curse. What I needed was a fuckin’ miracle.
I sighed and doled out the cards, one at a time, laying them face down on the table in a row of three.
“Is it frog’s teeth yet, Clove?” Ruby folded her arms as she stared into the bubbling pot.
“Oh, don’t be a Sally Buggins. We’ve only just begun.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.
Clover brought a large wooden spoon to her nose and inhaled. “SallyBuggins was a member of the Solstice Committee, years ago, and she had quite the knack for petulant impatience.” She gestured toward the pot. “More Devil’s Dung.”
“Good grief, Clove,” Ruby chortled, “the poor man’s not a demon. Asafoetida’s overkill.”
“Just securing all bases, but if you don’t want to ensure his spirit’s safety, we can do it the hard way.”
“This isn’t the hard way?” I turned the center card face up—the hanged man, reversed.
Dammit.
“Of course not, dear.” Clover selected a lock of my hair from the nape of my neck, leaned over my shoulder for the scissors, and tapped them on the card before cutting. “That’s the hard way.” The quick snip of the blades next to my ear sent an electric jolt down my spine.
“You know, I’m not going to have any hair left if we keep this up.”
“If you’d listen to your cards?—”
“Ruby?” Clover placed her hands on my shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze. “Keep stirring.”
Ruby’s eyebrows knit together as she gripped the spoon tighter, whipping the cauldron’s contents in a huff.
I shrank and flipped another card. Knight of Swords. Reversed. Its meaning bled into my vision: emotional overwhelm, burnout, recklessness. Recklessness. The word hung in the cold air. Ugh!
“No—” I whined. “Every time. Every damn time. This Knight of Swords shows up. No matter what we change… it’s still there. I’m not about to be a pawn.”
“It’s not the card, dear.” Clover patted me on the shoulder, dropped my hair into her basket and joined Ruby at the cauldron.
Ruby stepped back like she already knew what Clover was going to say, contorted her face, and mimicked every word from Clover's mouth.
“It's how you respond to it."
