Mark of the Witch (Boston Witches) (2 page)

The instructions told her to let it simmer for at least an hour before bottling, so she grabbed her grimoire and headed out to the living room.

She set the book down on the big chest by the door and glanced at the clock. “Oh my gosh, is it 1:30 already?” she exclaimed.
I really need to get moving if I’m going to make it to the shop on time
. She ran back into the kitchen, grabbing a potholder from the drawer next to the stove. She pushed the big cauldron off the flame in the big fireplace and shoved it to the side.
This should keep until tonight
, she thought as she hurried on her way.

She ran into her room and went straight to the closet, pulling her shirt over her head as she went. She grabbed her clothes, ran to the bathroom, turned on the faucet and splashed some water on her face. Looking at her reflection while she was getting dressed, she took in her long red waves that fell almost to her waist. Deciding she didn’t have time to do anything major to try and tame it, she quickly tied it back into a ponytail. Adding a bit of mascara to her emerald green eyes, and a little lip gloss, she was ready to go. She grabbed her cell phone and purse off of her dresser and raced around looking for her keys. She looked in all the usual places: the hook in the kitchen, the counter next to the phone; and finally she found them on the floor next to the door. She could practically hear her mother’s voice nagging about hanging up her keys as she picked them up and raced out to her car.

It only took about ten minutes to drive to work. She pulled her red Mini Cooper around back and parked in her spot, grabbing her purse and the little black bag in the back seat as she dashed in the back door.

“Em, I’m here, sorry I’m so late,” she called as she stashed her purse in her office and turned on her computer.

Emily Davis had been her best friend for as long as Jilly could remember. She was a tall leggy blonde with piercing blue eyes and a sassy personality to match, and she was also a witch. Maybe that was what drew them together all those years ago. Jilly had opened the salon two years ago with the help of Emily; after doing hair since they were nineteen, it seemed like the next logical step.

“How has business been today?” Jilly called while she waited for the computer to boot up.

“Pretty good. Shelly’s been slammed all day, Natalie and Chrissy have been pretty steady, and this is my first time off the floor since we opened at 8:30,” Emily said as she walked into the office.

Jilly looked up at her when she walked in. She was wearing a black apron with “Shear Magic”, the name of our hair salon, emblazoned on the front, and a pair of black Capris with cute black sandals. She sat down in the chair in front of the desk and huffed out a breath.

Jilly laughed and said, “That bad, huh?”

“Oh, you have no idea,” she said as she leaned back in the chair. “My feet are already killing me. Do my ankles look swollen to you?” she asked while she propped her feet up on the desk. Emily was just about six months pregnant with her first child, and she was definitely starting to feel the effects of pregnancy.

“They do look a little swollen, sweetie. What do you have on the books for the rest of the day?” Jilly asked while rummaging through the desk drawer, looking for her appointment book. Finally she found it under a billion catalogs.

“I’m pretty booked until about four and then I have nothing,” Emily said.

“Well, if you want to get out of here early you totally can. I doubt we’ll be that busy. Do you think you can stop by my house and check on the potion I have in the cauldron on your way home? I’m sure it will be fine until I get home; I’m only here for a few hours today. But you know how finicky protection charms can be, and it’s for Finola Graham. She’s probably one of my pickiest clients,” Jilly said with a laugh.

“Sure. Do you have any special instructions, or is it a standard charm?” Emily asked.

“It’s pretty standard. I added in a few drops of mermaid tears, so it may be a bit kickier than usual. My grimoire is on that chest in the living room. The recipe is on page 114; its right after that spell we used to banish that ghost from Leslie Wharton’s house.”

“Ok, I’ll bottle it up for you if it looks like it’s getting too volatile to be in the cauldron until you get home,” Emily replied.

The bell at the front of the salon chimed and they heard Tanya, the receptionist, greet Emily’s next client. “Well, I guess I better get back to it,” she said as she heaved herself out of the chair and headed back out to the floor.

*

Caroline sat at her desk in her uptown apartment, going through her husband’s emails. He had been stupid enough to use her computer, and even stupider to leave an email from his mistress on the desktop. She found dozens and dozens of emails from her to him, all of them filled with the same lovey dovey crap you’d expect to see in a dating couple.
How long has this been going on?
she wondered to herself as she pushed her chair back from the desk. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She calmly walked into their bedroom and collapsed on the bed.

Her husband Jack found her curled up in a ball on their bed when he came home a few hours later. “Caroline? Caroline, what’s wrong, are you hurt?” he screamed as he rushed to her side. He reached out and touched her cheek, and she recoiled immediately.

“Don’t touch me!” she spat out.

He took a step back; the venom in her voice surprised him. “What’s going on?” he asked as he sat on the bed next to her. She looked at him, her eyes puffy and red from hours of crying.

“I know about Carrie,” she said numbly.

All of the color drained from his face. “What do you mean? Who’s Carrie?” he asked in a voice that did not sound like his own.

Caroline leapt from the bed and ran out to the computer. Jack heard the sound of the printer humming as it worked. She returned a moment later and threw a stack of papers at him. They were all emails to him from Carrie.

“How long has this been going on?” she shouted. He said nothing, just stared down at the paper in his hands. “How long?” she screamed.

“Over a year” he whispered.

“A year? You’ve been cheating on me for a year?” she screamed hysterically. She wanted to wake up; this had to be a dream. She paced in front of the bed. “Do you love her?”

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes. “I don’t know if I do. It never was supposed to be this way. She was just a friend; something happened along the way. I’m so sorry, Car, I love you so much. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.”

She glared at him. “You’re a bastard, Jack. You’ve been cheating on me for a year, and you have the audacity to tell me you love me. You can go straight to hell for all I care. You need to leave now; I can’t look at you right now.”

He started to protest, but she just walked out of the room. She could hear him on his phone in the other room, the tears evident in his voice. She didn’t know who he was talking to; she assumed it was Carrie, but she didn’t have any emotion left in her to care. She waited until she heard the front door close before she came out of the kitchen.

She thought about her options. She could stay here in this apartment with Jack. Her throat felt like it was suddenly way too tight; the walls of the apartment seemed to close in on her. She went and splashed water on her face and grabbed a few suitcases from the closet. She threw clothes into the three suitcases she had set out and scribbled out a note telling Jack she was leaving. She knew she couldn’t look at his face again for a while. She told him she’d call him when she was ready, and to leave her alone.

She called downstairs for the doorman to help her with her suitcases and left the apartment in a hurry. Once she was in the car, she didn’t know where to go. She had plenty of friends in the city that she could stay with, but she didn’t want to risk seeing Jack again until she was ready. Before she realized it, she was on the freeway, headed to Boston. Caroline was going home.

*

Jilly turned back to her computer and pulled up the order forms for the salon, and then grabbed the stylist’s orders for color and products for their stations off of the mountain that was her inbox. As she was mindlessly ordering what she needed for the next month, she was also mentally going over what she needed to pick up from Bewitched, the little occult store around the corner. She had a few spells and one more charm she needed to make by next week and one of the spells would take about four days to prepare for.

Jillian Proctor was descended from one of the most powerful witches that lived in Salem in the late 1600s. Her mother had told her that all the women in their family were witches; some just chose to ignore their powers instead of embracing them. Jilly’s sister Caroline was one such witch: she refused to accept her powers, and she would walk out of the room any time their mother said anything pertaining to the occult. Their mother was heartbroken when it came time for her to start them on their training and Caroline refused to even listen.

So it had just been Jilly’s training since Caroline refused to take part. Those had always been Jilly’s favorite times with her mother, when it was just the two of them. That was when her mother showed her the family grimoire. It was a book that held all of the spells and charms the witches in their family had known for centuries. Any time one of them would create a new spell or charm, a new page would appear in the book. Jilly always wondered how that happened. Her mother had always said that the grimoire was a part of us, so it just knew. She missed her mom so much sometimes; she felt the familiar ache in her chest, wondering what her life would have been like had her mother lived.

Jilly shook her head to clear her mind of the memories and got back to the task at hand.

Fifteen minutes later, Jilly emerged from her office, tools in hand, and went to set up her station in preparation for her first client. Just as she was finishing up, she heard the bell chime and Tanya’s warm greeting. She gave herself a quick once-over in the mirror while she finished tying the strings of her apron and went to greet her first client.

The next few hours flew by. As Jilly was on her way to greet her next client, Emily popped over to tell Jilly she was heading over to her house. Jilly touched her arm and told her to wait for her at the house because she had something to discuss with her.

Emily raised an eyebrow and said, “Anything I should be concerned about?”

Jilly put on an overly bright smile and said, “No, of course not; I just need to go over something with you about one of our clients.”

Emily knew that “client” did not mean someone from the salon and nodded her head on her way out.

Jilly’s last client was new to her; he was a referral from one of her older clients. The new client was William Morgan. He had just moved back to town recently, and his Aunt Adelle told him to come see her. He was tall, dark and definitely handsome, with curly black hair that was just a little bit unruly, deep green eyes that a girl could just lose herself in for all of eternity, and a lopsided grin that could melt even the coldest of hearts. As Jilly walked him back to her chair, she felt her nerves jumping a bit under her skin. Once he was draped in a cape, she asked “Ok, so what am I doing for you today?” Her eyebrows raised with the question.

“Well, as you can see, it’s been a little while since my last cut, so just clean me up and make me look human again,” he said with a grin.

“Oh, I don’t think it’s all that bad,” Jilly said with a twinkle in her eye, “but we’ll get you taken care of in no time.”

She picked up her scissors and comb and worked her way methodically through the haircut. She was very aware of the closeness of his body. She felt like tiny zaps of electricity were jumping from his body to her own. She wondered if he felt it too, or if she was just being a crazy girl who got flustered when a handsome man smiled at her. Once she was finished, she handed him a mirror so he could check her work.

With a smile he said, “Jilly, you are amazing, I feel like I can join the human race again.” She smiled at him as she took off his cape.

“Well, it looks like we’re all done here. Let me walk you up front and Tanya will take care of you.”

They walked up front. Jilly thanked him for coming in, and was about to walk back to clean up when he suddenly grabbed her hand. She felt like she had been struck by lightning. By the look on his face, she could tell he felt it too. He was visibly shaken and he dropped her hand as he asked, “When can I see you again?” He was staring at her wrist as she rubbed it absently.

“Well, usually it’s between four and six weeks for men’s haircuts, but if you want to come in sooner, Tanya will set up an appointment for you.” Jilly said quickly as she hurried back to her station to clean up for the day.

She could hear Tanya giving him his total and asking if he would like to set up another appointment in six weeks. He said, “No, I’ll call when I need to come in again.” And he rushed out of the salon.

Jilly tried to put him out of her mind as she cleaned her station; she looked at her watch and saw that it was about 5:10P.M.

“Tanya, I’m leaving; I’m going to be off the next few days so if anyone calls, just tell them I’ll be back on Friday,” Jilly called out from her office as she was gathering her things to go.

Once she was in her car, she let out a big sigh and sat for a minute.
What was that all about
, she thought as she started the car.

She drove home on autopilot, and was in her driveway before she knew it. She raced up the stone steps that led to her front door and quickly went inside, eager to talk to Emily about what had happened and about what they needed to do the next few days.

Emily, who was sleeping on the couch, woke up when Jilly came through the door. “Sorry,” she said groggily, “I must have dozed off while I was waiting. I checked your charm; it was doing fine; it’s still bubbling quite a bit, so you’ll need to wait at least an hour before you can bottle it anyway.”

“Ok, thanks for checking it for me,” Jilly said in a dazed sort of way that made Emily look at her with narrowed eyes.