Ria hid her face in mock embarrassment but couldn’t stop laughing.Turning their words over in her head, she didn’t fight the huge grin that spread from pink cheek to pink cheek.A month ago, her circumstances had been so different, but now… She was okay with it—with these women claiming her as one of them.
Their little witchy pack meandered down the side street that dumped them out at a grassy field.Finding a spot under a weeping willow tree, they all plopped down.Bootsy laid back to stare up at the sky; Jess leaned against the trunk; Kelly and Hailey sat cross-legged, close enough their knees brushed together; and Willow, whom Ria kept forgetting was with them because she rarely spoke, remained standing to play with the hanging branches of her namesake tree.Ria thought she heard the eccentric witch mumbling a few words to the leaves, but she couldn’t be sure.
“So, you gonna tell us what’s going on?”Bootsy asked, propping a hand under her head to peer up at Ria.
Tucking her feet underneath her butt to keep her new yellow gingham shorts out of the dirt, Ria hesitated before answering.She’d been fine ignoring the first few texts from Lissa asking how she was doing, but when she got the one this morning, she knew she needed advice.Pulling out her phone, she reread the message for the fiftieth time, as if it might change into something Ria was better equipped to handle.
LISSA:You don’t have to hide.Let’s start over.How about we have dinner together?At the very least you can help me get back on track with the spell.
When it first came in, her fingers had itched to text back “YES!”but her brain thankfully had shown up to save her at the last second.So she’d left the message on read, choosing instead to text the coven message thread asking for some girl time.
Falling back on her old calming mechanism, she ran through her list of favorite herbs for a second.
Barberry, Basil, Belladonna…
“So, I think I screwed up,” Ria finally managed to get out when enough of her anxiety had ebbed that she felt ready to confess.“Like, big time.”
“It’s okay,” Jess said, drawing a symbol in the dirt at her feet.“We’ve all been there more than once.What happened?”
“So you ladies remember that client with the destiny love spell, yeah?”she asked, trying to keep the nervousness from her voice.She’d just gotten to know these women, and the last thing she wanted was to be rejected for breaking some sacred witchy rule about not tampering with love.
They all nodded in response to her question, except Willow who was lost in her own world, brushing the thin branches lightly across her face.
Ria stared down at her hands.“Well, I think I might have actually done a ritual instead of a handcasting.”She looked up and quickly added, “By accident,” when more than one eyebrow crept up.“I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a love ritual until afterward.”
“Ooh,” Jess sucked in her breath.“You did a ritual love spell?Not good.”
“Yikes,” Hailey added, giving Ria a sympathetic look.
“That’s rough,” Kelly chimed in.
“Meh,” Bootsy said, closing her eyes and lying back again.“Could be worse.”
Ria glanced from the collection of worried faces to Bootsy’s unconcerned one.“In what way could it be worse?”she asked.
Bootsy shrugged, keeping her eyes closed.“It’s not like you turned their eyes into slugs or unleashed some nameless demon that’s hunting and killing people.Just undo the ritual and you’ll be—”
“There’s no reversal for the love ritual,” Jess interjected.
Bootsy’s eyes popped open.“For real?”She scratched the back of her neck.“Huh.I guess I never needed a love ritual.”She turned back to Ria.“Yeah, you’re screwed then.”
“Thanks,” Ria muttered.“So that’s it?There’s nothing I can do?”
“Well, the High Matron might be able to help,” Kelly said thoughtfully.“If anyone would know how to break the unbreakable, it would be her.”
“Yeah, but who knows when she’ll be back to attending meetings,” Hailey pointed out.“And I’m not going to be the one to bother her while she’s busy figuring out her future.”
“Really, it just has to run its course,” Jess said, picking up a small stick to resume her drawing.“You pretty much have two options.First is to avoid her.She’ll be heartbroken but eventually move on.”Jess drew a heart in the dirt with a sad face inside it.
“I guess that makes sense,” Ria agreed.She definitely had experience with avoiding confrontation.Seacliff was a small town, but it was still big enough she could avoid someone if she tried hard enough.“How long do you think that would take?”
Jess scrunched up her face in thought for a moment.“Honestly, it depends on the strength of your magic.Might be a few days, might be a few years.If your mom’s constant bragging about how powerful you are is accurate, probably going to be the latter.”
“Okay, let’s assume I don’t want her to suffer at all, let alone for years,” Ria said, mentally making a note to yell at her mom later.“What’s option two?”
Jess drew another heart, this one with an angry face inside.“Make her fall out of love with you.Go out with her and just be horrible.Insult her a bunch.That should speed up the process.”
Ria thought about Lissa, about her smile and her witty humor.The way she played with her tongue piercing when she was nervous, and how she was the most adventurous person Ria had ever known.Not to mention that kiss… An inappropriate and poorly timed surge of heat took root in her lower abdomen at the memory.
