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“You’ll change your mind.” Iris slapped her palms on her legs. “Now come, let me show you around the garden.” She turned to Shelby. “Why don’t you and Grayson get settled in your old room?”
“Oh, we’re not staying the night, Grams,” Shelby said. “We all came up in one car.”
“Tansy and Eamon can stay too,” Alex said. “There’s room for them in the guest house.”
“Do I need to get you to your classes?” I asked Tansy. She hadn’t mentioned her classes all weekend. “Tomorrow’s a Monday.” Though I hadn’t quite figured out how to protect her at her school. Maybe I could pretend to be a student.
Tansy scowled. “I’m not going. I didn’t get to choose which classes to attend. I have a bachelor’s in business already, and I don’t want to waste any more of my life doing things for someone else. I’ve wasted twenty-three years as it is.” She played with the hem of her shirt. “Besides, I skipped a lot of classes picking up odd jobs around the campus. And instead of reading my textbooks, I was looking up information about magic and monsters. I’m not sure I’ll pass.”
Iris clapped her hands together once. “Then it’s decided. You’ll stay for the night. You don’t need that stinking degree.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “She’s a horrible influence. I’ll go clean out the guest house. No one’s used it in years.”
“I say she’s a wonderful influence,” Tansy claimed.
The two were already walking out the back door, arm in arm, with Nugget sitting on Tansy’s head. I hurried after them into the jungle that was a green witch’s backyard.
“I spent my whole life in the city, and the closest thing I had to a garden was that poor bean they had us grow in paper towels in grade school,” Tansy said as she took stock of the lush mass of green around her. “Mother didn’t even let me keep herbs on the window sill. According to her, they attracted pests.”
“Clearly, whatever magic her chosen body had, it wasn’t plant magic,” Iris said with a shake of her head.
When I first saw the green witch in her home, her hair had appeared a plain brown, but here, in the sunlight, there was an almost iridescent green sheen to it. Iris had stopped practicing her magic for years because her daughter had none, and she’d blamed that difference for driving her daughter away. When she found out that Shelby had magic—the talent had simply skipped a generation—she’d started practicing again. I suspected that as she practiced more and more, her hair would turn greener and greener, especially now that The Wall was no longer around to hide such affectations.
“Vervain, sage, tansy, and rue.” Iris gestured to the plants on the patio table. “You can take cuttings, but I just dug those out from my raised beds.”
Tansy frowned at the golden clusters that were her namesake. “No wonder some people call it a weed.”
The yellow flowers weren’t exactly stunning. They were plain, nothing memorable. The complete opposite of Tansy herself.
“They are strong growers and very hard to kill.”
“Thank you. I’ve never had plants before. I hope I can keep them alive.”
“I’ll help you,” I said. “I already have a spot cleared out on the patio for them. These can all handle full sun.”
Both women turned to me as if they hadn’t realized I’d followed them out.
Chapter 13
Tansy
Iwassoimmersedin Iris’s wonderfully green world that I hadn’t noticed Eamon trailing behind us. Surrounded by the otherworldly lushness, he almost looked straight out of a fairytale. The green of the leaves contrasted against his now reddish skin.
He’d let his disguise down when we got here. His skin wasn’t bright red like cartoon demons; instead it was more of a red-hued tan. It made the green of his eyes pop. Pointy horns jutted from his head, and a swirl of dusky smoke surrounded him. The horns gave him a sexy, rebellious look. Even though I knew he was trouble, I couldn’t help but be drawn to him.
Eamon never failed to amaze me. The fact that he cooked had taken me by surprise. And now he was schooling me on gardening. I knew the houseplants were his, but he was a lot more knowledgeable than I gave him credit for.
Then there was the way he’d gone to Griselda about the reflections. Most men would never ask for help. Though, I wasn’t sure I’d ever trust a mirror again, or any reflection for that matter. I doubted I’d be able to sleep in a room with a mirror, or even an uncovered window, alone again.
I wondered if I could convince Eamon to stay with me again tonight. This time, it wouldn’t just be to protect me from evil spirits, though the incident at the coffee shop had shaken me up.
“A cook,andhe knows about plants.“ Iris clutched at her heart. “My, my. You better keep this one under wraps. Men like that are hard to come by. I should know. I married Alex as soon as I could.”
Oops. Iris thought—
“Oh no, Eamon isn’t—”
“Right. Eamon’s not a man. Demons are even rarer.”
