AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That also sounded like a wonderful solution, since about the best I could manage when it came to graphic design was cobbling together a very basic flyer in Microsoft Word using supplied images. I supposed I could have asked Hazel to help out, although honestly, I didn’t know how much graphic design experience she even had. Painting in oils wasn’t exactly the same thing as designing a ticket or a brochure.
“Will do,” I said. “Thanks for the reference.”
One of Josie’s patented hand waves. “Oh, I just want to make sure this whole affair runs as smoothly as possible. After all, this will be the first taste of Globe for most of these people.” She paused there, brow furrowing for a second or two as she appeared to think things over. “I suppose I should let all the restaurant owners know that there’s going to be a large crowd of people coming in from out of town next week, and to be ready.”
“Isn’t that the sort of thing Miriam Jacobsen should be doing?”
A flicker of dislike moved over Josie’s features, come and gone so quickly, I wondered if I’d imagined it. Then again, I could see why the two women wouldn’t want to have much to do with each other. It would be like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. “Oh, she’s busy with other things. I don’t mind getting the word out.” She reached across the counter and patted me on the arm. “You just have Dave print up the tickets, and make whatever kind of announcement you need to. We can take care of the rest.”
Having delivered those reassuring words, she turned and went sailing out the door. It closed behind her with a little jangle of the bells I had hanging from it, and I smiled to myself.
I should have known Josie would step in and take over. Not everything, of course; I knew she had no desire to learn anything about the actual ritual I’d be performing, and in fact would try to keep her distance from certain aspects of my practice in general, but for the boots on the ground stuff, she wanted to be in control.
Which was fine by me. Everyone had their particular areas of expertise, and planning wasn’t one of mine. Otherwise, I probably would have gone into an entirely different field of work.
I flipped to a new page in my notebook, figuring I should jot down some basic instructions for the tickets to the solstice festival. Date and place and time, obviously…and probably directions on the reverse side, since Shady Oaks Ranch wasn’t exactly the easiest place in the world to find, especially if you’d never been in this part of the world before. Maybe I could have Dave the printer find some kind of simple line art with a sun and moon, something to show the reason for the festival.
The bells on the shop door jingled again, and I looked up, thinking that maybe Josie had thought of something she’d forgotten and had returned to tell me about her latest insights, or possibly Chuck had decided to stop by and really ask me out to dinner, rather than hinting his way around the topic.
Or it could be a customer, of course.
However, as soon as I looked at the woman who’d entered the shop and paused to glance around, I knew exactly who my new visitor was.
Lilith Black, Instagram witch.
In person, her hair seemed even more Crayola-bright, or maybe that was because of the pallor of her skin and the fact that she was dressed in black from head to toe. The same amulets and crystals she wore in her profile photo hung around her neck, and a slender silver ring gleamed in her patrician nose.
Entering the shop immediately behind her were a man and a woman. I guessed the man was probably around my age or a little older, in his middle thirties at the most. He looked like the kind of goth guy who’d be hanging around with someone named Lilith Black — he also wore all black, and silver hung from multiple piercings in his ears, while elaborate tats showed beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his black dress shirt. His hair was black, too, ragged and shoulder-length, like Severus Snape had been his hairstyle inspiration.
The woman who accompanied them appeared to be a lot younger, probably in her early twenties. She had brown hair pulled back into a tight ponytail and wore a prim little black dress with a white collar, black tights, and black Mary Jane–style shoes. If Professor Snape had been the guy’s style inspiration, it looked like their companion wanted to be Wednesday Addams when she grew up.
The trio advanced toward the counter where I stood, with Lilith Black in the lead. As she drew closer, I realized she was probably a few years older than I; faint lines around her eyes and etched from her nose to her mouth were revealed up close that would have been blurred by the filters she used on Instagram. Still, no one could deny the elegant angles of her face, the sort of bone structure that would hold up through the years.
She paused directly in front of me, her companions stopping almost a precise foot behind her. I wondered if they practiced that maneuver in private.
“Hello,” I said, figuring I might as well act the part of the cheery shopkeeper, even though I knew exactly who my visitors were. Or rather, I knew who Lilith Black was — the other two were obviously her assistants…or lackeys. “Welcome to Once in a Blue Moon. Can I help you find something?”
“I am Lilith Black,” she said, in the same sort of tone I would’ve expected someone to announce they were the Queen of England. It was also the kind of tone that seemed to imply she expected me to have heard of her.
Well, with more than two million followers, she was probably well known in most witchy circles. Still, I wasn’t sure how to respond. Saying I was a big fan seemed kind of disingenuous, considering I hadn’t even known who she was until a few days earlier.
But because pretending total ignorance also didn’t seem like a good idea, I decided to attempt a neutral middle ground. “Oh, hi,” I responded, knowing the words sounded limp at best. “I saw on Instagram that you were planning to come to Globe. Welcome to town — I’m Selena Marx.”
Her cool gray eyes surveyed me for a moment, as if to say,I know who you are.Instead, she remarked, “You’re the witch Lucien Dumond left all his money to, aren’t you?”
Talk about cutting to the chase. Was that why she’d come to Globe, to ask me for money?
Even as the thought flitted through my mind, I dismissed it as completely ridiculous. I didn’t have the faintest idea how Instagram witches and YouTubers made their money, but even I knew that someone who had her numbers of followers probably wasn’t hurting for cash.
I didn’t bother to ask how she knew about my unexpected inheritance. Although I’d kept tight-lipped about the whole thing — on the advice of my lawyers — I knew that the surviving members of GLANG had probably spread the story around enough that anyone within certain circles in the occult community must have heard about what had happened.
“He left me some,” I hedged, which wasn’t a complete lie. A very small percentage of Lucien’s fortune had gone to his parents and his brother Eugene. Of course, now that Eugene was a permanent resident of the maximum-security prison in Florence, Arizona — or at least permanent for the next twenty-five to thirty years — he couldn’t exactly spend any of that money. I wondered what had happened to it. “And I’ve donated a lot to local charities.”
“How kind of you,” Lilith said, in a tone that seemed to indicate she thought my actions were anything but. Before I could respond, she went on, “I just thought I’d drop in and let you know I was in town — as a professional courtesy.”
“Well, thanks,” I replied, since I didn’t know quite what else to day. Her entire attitude told me that she didn’t think me much of a threat…not that I would have even been inclined to look at the situation in such a way. Witches generally were cooperative, not competitive, and so I was a little mystified by her subtly veiled hostility.
A pause as she took another glance around the shop. For just a second, I caught glints of yellow spiking in her aura, telling me she was a little envious of the place, had probably hoped that it would be a dump so she could feel superior to me in yet another way.
