“Untrue. I believe you spray-painted the building of one of the local political parties in protest one year.”
“Yeah, that was aprotest, not vandalism. I have the courage of my convictions.”
“That you do.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m doing the electrical for the stage.”
“Oh. Did Daisy hire you?”
He shook his head. “No. Zach Woods.”
“Is he here?”
Sam shot her a long-suffering stare. “No. Sorry. You can’t thirst on him. I’ve never actually met him. But he shot me a text about doing some of the electrical on the set and also getting everything set up for the lighting. I’m putting in a whole new system. It’s going to be for all the shows.”
“That’s cool.”
“Yeah. It’s nice. Usually, the big jobs go to ... well. You already know my beef.”
“I know. With Daisy’s husband. That’s funny that Zach isn’t supporting Jonathan, though, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Sam said. “He’s a tool.”
“But Zach is in business with him.”
“Yeah, true, but honestly, I’d believe it if he didn’t show his true colors to Zach either. Guys like that are pretty good at gauging who would call them out on their bullshit. They hide it. But once you catch a glimpse of it, you can’t unsee it.”
“Yeah.” She frowned and ignored the strange feeling sitting in her stomach.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Ah. I’m good. I have this mural.”
“What exactly is the mural of?”
“Trees and berries and shit,” she said.
“Nora,” he mock-scolded. “There are kids in there. Watch your language.”
“Okay, but seriously, a whole scene. The mountains will stretch along here.” She gestured across the upper part of the building. “And trees in the foreground will be growing up and out of the space. There will be big blossoms framing it around the front and bottom. The Logtown rose, fritillaria, and then blackberry bushes, obviously, because those are everywhere.”
He gripped the bottom of the ladder, leaning into it. She felt a warmth in the familiarity and safety of him. And something else altogether. “They picked the best. It’s going to be amazing.”
“Thank you,” she said.
He let go of the ladder and turned away from her, and she was left wondering if anyone else had ever expressed that level of confidence in her.
When she finished her session for the day, she packed up all her art supplies and headed back toward her house, where she was meeting the Discarded Witches Club. She’d changed the group text a couple of days earlier to that name, which Soraya did not find funny. But she hadn’t changed it back either.
They were going to bundle herbs at Nora’s tonight, part of Aggie’s eminent flexibility with them. Daisy had the grimoire to help them, and every bundle would be assigned a spell card. Soraya and Daisy would do most of the bundling, while Nora designed some spell cards, drew them by hand, then scanned them in and printed them on nice paper.
When she pulled up to the house, Soraya and Daisy were already there with containers of Chinese takeout.
“Blessed be.” She aimed that directly at Soraya.
“Jesus loves you,” she said.
