The Hidden Grimoire by Karla Brandenburg (pride and prejudice read TXT) 📕

Another lunatic.

“I’m sorry. The shop changed hands. We don’t carry the same inventory. We don’t stock the perfume your sister bought.” I started for the shop. The woman followed.

Her expression turned to desperation. “Can you tell me who makes it? Where else I might find it?”

“No, I’m sorry. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

She grabbed my arm. I yanked out of her grasp.

Her voice cracked. “But you know Jason.”

“We’re not what you’d call friendly, if that’s what you’re asking,” I replied.

“Then why were you babysitting?”

“As a favor to his wife.”

The woman stepped away. “Oh.”

I raised my eyebrows, silently asking if she was done. She stopped and lowered her gaze. I took the opportunity to walk away.

Inside the shop, I slipped off my coat and unpacked our sandwiches. Cassandra went to the backroom to get us each a can of soda when Narcy’s sister pushed through the door.

“You said you and Jason weren’t friends,” she said.

I folded my arms, waiting for her to continue.

“But you’re a friend of his wife. You know they aren’t happy together, right?”

Grasping for straws? Regardless of my feelings about my cousin, I wasn’t going to feed Sharon’s delusion. “I don’t meddle in other people’s affairs,” I told her. “And by affairs, particularly extramarital. If I were you, I’d set my sights on someone who isn’t married.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re friends with his wife.”

“I don’t know either one of them very well, but I know enough to discourage you from trying to break up a family. From what I’ve seen, Jason loves his wife.” I hoped that was true, despite the ‘Daddy mad’ comments from Georgia.

The woman lifted her chin. “We’ll see about that.” She walked out.

Maybe they were having an affair. Was this the woman Georgia said she didn’t like?

“Wasn’t that the woman asking about perfume?” Cassandra asked.

“It was.”

“Why do I get a bad feeling about her?”

“Because you’re a good judge of character. She’s looking for advice on how to seduce a married man.”

Cassandra sputtered out a laugh. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was. She’s the sister of the woman who strung Kyle along.”

“Please tell me she isn’t as loony as her sister was. She isn’t going to try to burn down the shop, is she?”

I stared out the window while I opened my can of Coke. “She didn’t threaten me, the way her sister did, but she’s definitely not operating with a full deck. She didn’t seem to know her sister had died.”

Kyle popped into the store and I filled him in on my visitor. “Now we know why Deputy Becker couldn’t locate anything on her,” he said.

“I’d like to think I’ve discouraged her and she’ll give up on Jason, but from what she said, she’s had her sights set on him for a while.”

“Where does Jason work?” Kyle asked, taking out his notepad.

“All I know is he works for an insurance company. I don’t know which one. By the way, Nora’s driving down this afternoon.” I turned to Cassandra. “You okay if I take off early today?”

“Of course. I owe you,” she said.

“Odd that Nora would come in the middle of the week,” Kyle said.

“I had a couple of questions for her,” I said. “Family stuff.”

Kyle’s radio squawked with a message. He tilted it toward his face, and responded. “Gotta go. I’ll check in when I get home.”

“You’re not worried he’s going to cheat on you again?” Cassandra said when Kyle left.

The picture of Narcy kissing Kyle in the park was permanently embedded in my mind. I’d never forget, but I also knew there were extenuating circumstances in the form of the perfume I’d sold her. That, and the witchcraft she practiced. “A perfect storm. I trust him.” I managed a smile for Cassandra. “And just because we’re together again doesn’t mean I’m going to forget my single friends.”

“No. You’re not that kind of person.” She gave me a side-hug before she took a bite of her sandwich.

If only Jason shared Cassandra’s opinion of me. After Georgia’s appearance in the workshop, I vowed to work harder to earn his trust, before his daughter stumbled into trouble the way I had when I’d discovered my gift.

Chapter 17

Nora was waiting at the dining table when I walked into my house.

“I made us coffee,” she said as Ash jumped into her lap to say hello.

I settled in across from her. “Have you encountered anything like what Georgia’s done before? I didn’t appear to you in dreams when I was little, did I?”

“No, which is why I thought it best I come down so we could work through this together. Georgia is displaying remarkably strong gifts. You said you witnessed the telekinesis at the shop, and now the astral projection. Jason might not want his daughter to have, as he put it, a genetic malfunction, but sooner or later he’s going to have to acknowledge her gifts. Do you want me to talk to him?”

“I’m hoping his wife will reason with him,” I said. “She wants her children to know their family—all their family—warts and all. Since she’s reached out to me, I think I’ll work that angle.”

I poured myself a cup of coffee. Ash jumped to the floor and disappeared into the kitchen for a bite of food.

“It’s too easy to use the power when you don’t understand it,” I said. “Like I did.”

“Yes, better to teach her early, before she hurts someone or something.” Nora lowered her voice. “Have you consulted the grimoire?”

“I leafed through it last night out of curiosity.” I glanced toward the kitchen. “Do you think there’s something in it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. In the generations of wiccan before us, surely one of them came across a child prodigy.” She studied me, her eyes taking on the mysterious glow that always unnerved me. “What did you find?”

I scowled. “I thought it would be better to be forearmed after what happened last time. I found a spell for protection, and one