Dragging herself up, Lissa checked her watch.She should really be getting back to the studio.“So, any other bright ideas?Or are you just here for comic relief?”
“Mostly for the jokes,” Daria admitted, “but this time I might actually have an idea that works for both of your predicaments.”
That perked Lissa up.“Gimme!”she begged, grabbing for Daria like the answer might be trapped in her bestie’s beautifully manicured hands.“I’ll take anything.”
Daria grinned.“So…how do you feel about fish?”
Chapter Nineteen
Ria
“No,no,no!”Riacried, slamming down yet another of her mother’s spellbooks.The pile of discarded tomes was growing larger, and sooner or later Ria would need to start reshelving them.Her mom was likely still at the morning ritual, but Ria had passed on meeting up with the other witches in favor of some alone time to dig through her mom’s library in peace.She’d never hear the end of it if her mom found out how badly she’d screwed up.
As she grabbed another spellbook, a soft little chitter sounded through the quiet room.Searching for the noise, Ria spotted Nibbles running along the top of a bookcase.He dropped down onto the couch, then claimed a spot atop the mountain of spellbooks beside her.Standing on his hind legs with his little paws raised and waving in the air, he looked like a ghost squirrel about to cast a spell.
“You’d probably do a better job than me,” Ria muttered, holding out her arm so he could dash up to her shoulder.
Nibbles leaned over like he was examining the writing in the spellbook Ria had open.“If you know anything I don’t, by all means, please share.I’m desperate to reverse this spell.”
Rubbing her cheek with his face, Nibbles curled up on her shoulder, still peering down at the books in front of Ria.
Sighing, Ria began flipping through the pages of the new tome.How to cleanse your aura?Unhelpful.How to rid your home of vengeful spirits?Unhelpful.How to speak with cephalopods?Intriguing, but ultimately unhelpful.
She read a bit more and was about to move on to the next book when Nibbles suddenly leapt off her shoulder, landing in the center of the page she’d dismissed.He spun around in circles, chittering loudly.
“Are you okay, buddy?”Ria held out a hand to let him climb back up, but the squirrel just hunkered down on the page and stared up at her, his whiskers twitching wildly.
“Okay, let’s see what you got.At this point I’d take advice from a lampshade.”
Nibbles blinked at her twice then ran off, dashing back up to the top of the bookcase to glare down at her.
“I’m sorry, Nibs.I didn’t mean that as an insult.Look, I’m checking out the spell.”Ria held up the book as evidence, then started scanning the page.The words laid out a ritual for lessening a loved one’s grief, so she paused partway through.“I don’t think Lissa is in mourning, buddy, and hopefully she never will be.I’m not sure how this will help.”
Nibbles stared her down, and Ria threw her hands up.“Okay, okay, I’m reading.”Her eyes drifted over the page, barely registering the list of ingredients and ritual steps, until she got down to the bottom and saw the asterisk.
*Emotion altering rituals cannot be reversed.Emotions must be allowed to run their course.Only with the combined efforts of a High Matron and full coven can an emotion ritual be undone.
Hold the phone, Ria thought, rereading the footnote three more times.Maybe she needed to rethink her hatred of asterisks because this one might actually be useful.
“You’re a genius,” she gushed to Nibbles, trying not to think too much about how her squirrel companion could have possibly known about the spell.
Climbing to her feet, she ran into the kitchen to grab a few almonds from the cabinet and placed a little pile on the coffee table.“Forgive me?”she asked Nibbles, nudging the almonds in his direction.
The squirrel stared at her for another second, then let out a happy string of squeaks and dove off the bookcase to attack the pile of nuts with vigor.
Laughing, Ria collapsed into her mom’s comfy recliner, a heavy weight finally sliding off her body.“This has to work, right?”she asked her fuzzy friend.“I mean, that note wasn’t on the love spell, but grief is an emotion just as strong as love.Sometimes stronger.”
Curling her legs up under her, Ria started working through the beginnings of a plan.“Now all I need to do is figure out how to get ahold of the missing High Matron and find a way to get her and the others on board without my mom finding out.”
“Without your mother finding out what?”
Ria froze in the chair at the sound of her mom’s voice, the initial sprinklings of her burgeoning plan fading into nothing.
Well, crap.Think fast, Ria.
Rotating in her chair, she looked over to where her mom had apparently snuck in the back door and currently hovered in the archway between the living room and kitchen.
“Oh, nothing,” Ria dismissed, fighting against her pounding heart to appear casual on the outside.“It’s a secret.”
