“What's your name?”
“I am Horace, the founding member, and the organizer of this weekend’s festival,” Horace said.
“And what is this festival for, exactly?”
“Why, to celebrate the earth, the sky, the ocean…all the natural beauty of this place. And this weekend is the full moon which also coincides with the equinox. We’ll be celebrating the Mabon festival, to prepare us for the darker time of the year,” Horace said, sweeping his hand around in a grand gesture.
I swear his eyes seemed to light up when he talked about the “darker time of the year.” And what was he doing wearing a ritual cloak outside of an actual ritual? Even I knew that’s frowned upon.
“In Tequila Key? Granted, we've got a stunning coastline, but we are a fairly cluttered little town, if you hadn't noticed.”
“You've some lovely natural spaces outside of town for us to set up in. There’s a private campground that we’ve rented out. You're welcome to come. In fact, I insist,” Horace said gravely.
“I'll get back to you on that one, Horace. I'm sorry, but I have a telephone appointment at eleven. I'll be sure to letyou know about my availability this weekend. Cheers,” I said, smiling brightly and reached for my phone.
Horace held my gaze for a moment, his eyes so light a grey that they were almost white, before nodding once and padding silently from my room in his leather booties.
And leaving me with an unsettled feeling as I picked up my phone to call my client.
Chapter Two
“That was alittle intense,”Luna observed later that afternoon as the last of her clientele wandered from the shop, their hands full of goods. I’d just finished my last appointment and had stepped into her side of the shop to size up the damage.
“Sales look to be good,” I said, noting that Luna’s crystal tables had been picked over, as well as her handmade soaps and elixirs. Her normally impeccable shelves were disturbed, and I swear I saw a muscle in her cheek twitch as she assessed the disarray in her coolly elegant shop.
“Yes, quite good,” Luna murmured as she moved to a shelf, pulling forward bottles of frankincense oil and straightening them so that their pretty white and gold labels faced forward. Sighing, I walked over to the worn barn-beam farm table with crystals scattered across the top. Knowing Luna, we’d never get out of here and to our after-work cocktail until order was restored to her displays.
“You’ll need to restock your crystals,” I said as I triedmy best to rearrange some of the larger pieces of quartz that were left on the table. Luna waved a hand from across the room.
“I’ve a new shipment in tomorrow. I’ll be fine.”
“So what do you think of this, um, Pagan festival?” I asked, tucking my hair behind my ear and doing my best to smooth my face into as nonjudgmental an expression as possible. Luna snorted, an unladylike sound coming from her delicate features.
“I know you don’t particularly like Pagans but I’m kind of interested in going,” Luna said.
“It’s not that I don’t like Pagans,” I began, moving to straighten her hand-packaged soaps. “It’s that I don’t like groups that profess themselves to be radicals. At all. Radicals and fanaticism often go hand-in-hand. Which usually ends up badly, for everyone involved. That goes for any religion, not just Paganism,” I said.
Luna shrugged and turned to me with a smile. “We’re still going, right?”
“Oh yeah, we’re going.”
“You aren’t just saying that to try and skip out on your magick lesson tonight, are you? It’s a full moon this weekend, and you promised we would work on your circle casting.”
So here’s the thing. I’m a psychic. I read tarot cards, get glimpses of the future, can see spirits, read minds, and sometimes – it seems I can do magick.
Just over a month ago, when Luna had been accused of murder, I’d found myself in a sticky situation involving handcuffs and a hot man.
Notthatkind of sticky situation.
My best friend Trace and I had been kidnapped when we had stumbled too close to discovering who was framing Luna for murder. Seems Luna’d had a premonition of danger, and she had insisted I learn a magick spell – and lo and behold – it had worked to free us.
Now Luna was intrigued. Convinced I had some magickal abilities –she’d been after me ever since to work on some spells with her. I’d avoided it for the most part as I’d been too busy bemoaning the fact that the current manslice in my life wasn’t back in town yet, but I couldn’t put off the manifestation magickal thingy she wanted me to do tonight any longer. After all, it would be another month before the next full moon and lord knows I didn’t want to listen to Luna poking at me about it for that long.
“Of course. Can’t wait,” I said, lying through my teeth.
Luna snorted again and pointed a manicured finger at me from across the room. “You’ll love it. Magick can be almost intoxicating, you know.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. Like I needed anything else that could intoxicate me. Between R-rated dreams about my somewhat boyfriend, Cash, and my love of a perfect margarita, I figured I was good on the more intoxicating aspects of my life.
