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The arch of her eyebrows spoke volumes, but I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she was barking up the wrong tree.

For close to forty years, my lack of magical ability had sat at the heart of every interaction I’d had with my mother or my aunts, never mentioned outright, but also never not mentioned. Even when we weren’t talking about magic, the collective disappointment about my lack of abilities and how little effort I put into tapping into those abilities somehow always came up. Usually followed by loaded side-eye glances and heavy sighs.

If I had even a mere whiff of the sight, as Peggy called it, my mother and her sisters would have pounced on it and forced me to explore every facet of it so they’d know what we were dealing with and how it could benefit them or the coven.

“How does the sight work?” I asked. It wasn’t one of the many forms of magic I’d been exposed to as a child, and I couldn’t help wondering if it was simply part of the rich local lore. The real estate agent had briefly mentioned that the shop’s door handle was iron to keep fairies out, and I’d heard someone joke that if I wanted the restorations to go faster, I should leave out a little milk to bribe the brownies into helping while I slept.

Peggy shrugged. “Depends on who has it.”

“How so?”

“Och, weel, there are many types of sight and many degrees of it. Some hear and see things others dinna. Some, like ma granny, ken things a wee bit earlier than others. Some see what is and ken things they shouldn’t, aye? And some see what might come to be.”

Her words tickled something in the back of my head, but before I could grasp it, her last sentence struck home.

“Might come to be? What they see doesn’t always happen?” I asked.

“Nae can ever tell for sure, aye? Free will and all that.”

“How convenient,” I said, rolling my eyes just the tiniest bit. “If what they see comes to be, they get the credit, and if it doesn’t, it’s not their fault.” I laughed. “Come to think of it, I’ve known a few people who would embrace that in a heartbeat.”

Peggy laughed, low and warm. “Aye, I suppose it is. But would ye rather have certainty or potential?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. She had a point.

“Speaking of potential, have ye decided what yer wee shop will be?” Peggy asked, looking around the room.

I hesitated. I had yet to say the words out loud. And while I felt good about the decision to take the leap, telling another person made it very real. Which honestly didn’t sound nearly as bad as not going through with the plan now that I’d come to grips with how much I wanted it.

Wiping my slightly damp palms on my jeans, I flashed her a timorous smile. “A tea and biscuit shop. I’ll be selling my hand-painted biscuits.”

Peggy clasped her hands in front of her chest. “Och! That’d be lovely, that. We’ve missed having a nice tea shop around here. D’ye know much about tea, then?” she asked, her eyebrow arched questioningly.

My stomach roiled. This was the plan’s biggest weak spot. Despite Mac and Edna’s assurances that tea was nearly impossible to mess up, the thought of opening a shop with zero knowledge about what I intended to sell was intimidating. Maybe I was being too hasty after all.

The lady doth protest too much, my grandmother drawled around a ridiculously long cigarette holder that she held to her mouth with one arm while she rested on the other, her body lying across the end of the counter like a jazz singer on a grand piano.

The whole effect was diminished by the discolored pink quilted housecoat she wore over a slinky sequined purple dress. I was familiar with the housecoat, which she’d worn every morning down to breakfast. The purple dress was new to me, and the slit all the way up her leg was one detail too many to swallow.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten slowly in my head, breathing as deeply as possible without alarming Peggy. Picturing tea in a store that had once sold tea was one thing. Hallucinating my grandmother spouting obscurities while draped over a counter like an aged jazz singer of old wearing a borderline-obscene ball gown was another entirely.

The gas leak concept was growing legs.

When I opened my eyes, my grandmother winked and blew a smoke ring in my direction.

It took every ounce of what little self-restraint I possessed to not bat it away as it got close to me.

What? I replied. What does “the lady doth protest too much” even mean? If my brain was coming apart at the seams, I might as well get some advice from the woman whose insights had always nudged me in the right direction, even if I hadn’t appreciated it enough at the time.

My grandmother sighed and blew another smoke ring at me. Who are you trying to fool, child? The tea’s just a pretext and we both know it. The cookies are what matter. You’ve wanted this since you were three apples high, hiding under that island with your brother.

You knew about that? I gaped at the specter of my grandmother. She rolled her eyes in response and took a deep drag of her cigarette. Those will kill you dead, you know. Even as I thought the knee-jerk comment, I realized how absurd it sounded.

Too late for that, sweetheart. Now, are you going to stop playing coy and accept this gift the Universe dropped in your lap? She scrunched up her nose as she looked around the shop. It might not look like much yet, but she’s not a big fan of having her offerings rejected. If I were you, I’d maybe stop looking this gift horse in the mouth. If you know what I mean.

I did, but only barely.

Turning my attention to Peggy, who was peering at me with a strange look on her face, I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath, coughing slightly as a faint burn of cigarette smoke hit the back of my throat.