Page 3 of Herbs & Hex-breaking

Circe adjusted one of the many silver pendants she wore around her neck. “Well, he was disabused of that notion pretty quick. I ended up dancing with some other guy after a few hours.”

“How’d he take that?” I wanted to know.

“Mark pouted,” she said. “The guy I danced with wanted my number.”

“And did he get it?”

Circe leisurely sipped her coffee before answering. “Nope.”

I sighed. “You heartbreaker, you.”

That made Circe chuckle. “I wasn’t trying to break any hearts. I was bored and decided to have some fun as opposed to sitting on my ass for the entire night.” She yawned and stretched. “Well, I better go take myself next door and get things rolling. Less than two weeks until Halloween!”

“Sales do usually go up around the sabbat,” I agreed.

“Exactly.” She nodded in agreement. “I think I’m going to put the black taper candles on sale today...”

“A Witch can never have too many black candles,” I said, tongue in cheek. “It’s like a Witches’ Union rule.”

Circe threw back her head and laughed. “If I told the customers that, I’d sell out by lunch. As it is, I bet half of my sales today will be to baby Witches or wannabes.”

“Snarky, snarky,” I said.

Circe pointed a manicured finger at me. “Hey, I wasn’t being snide. I’m serious. I get a lot of sales from neophytes in October.”

I nodded. “I bet Lorna does too.”

On cue, from the opposite side of my sales floor, a second connecting door opened.

“What does Lorna do too?” a silver-haired woman asked.

“Hey Lorna.” Circe waved at her. “We were just talking about how our sales jump in the last weeks before Halloween.”

Lorna Southern, my other retail neighbor and friend, walked in. That day she wore a gauzy black shirt tucked into soft gray dress pants and stylish dark rimmed glasses that accented her pale gray eyes. Her beautiful striped brown and silver hair was pulled up into a long straight ponytail, and layered bangs framed her pretty face. Lorna was only thirty-six, but her hair color was all natural. A family trait, she’d once told me. Apparently, all of the women in her family line had silver hair by the time they were thirty.

“New Moon Books typically enjoys solid sales numbers from mid September through the end of the year,” Lorna said. Then she smiled. “But goddess bless those newbies and Witchlings. They clean me out of all my metaphysical and magickal titles every fall.”

Circe gestured between herself and me. “Kate and I were going to leave the connecting doors open today… try to encourage the customers to wander and to shop a little more. Wanna join us?”

Lorna rested a hip against my counter. “I would. Cross promotion is always a win-win.”

“I’ll steer any items from either one of your stores directly back to your own registers,” I promised.

“Ditto,” Circe said.

Lorna nodded. “Dex is working the front counter for me today, I’ll be sure to let him know.”

“Cool,” Circe said. “When Taylor gets in, I’ll tell her too.”

“I’ve been thinking of offering Taylor more hours,” I said. “Or even hiring another person. Because I could certainly use more help, especially with the holidays approaching.”

Taylor was a part-time employee that floated between my shop and my cousin’s. She knew both of our stores’ stock and was invaluable on the weekends and during the busier times of the year.

“I bet she goes for it,” Circe said. “She hates working at the bistro. She’d love working here, with us, full time.”

“The bistro?” Lorna frowned. “I wasn’t aware Taylor was working two jobs.”

“Neither was I,” I admitted. “I’ll speak to her today.”