Remy floats into view. He grins and flicks water at me. I retaliate with a well-aimed splash. Within thirty seconds the entire pool is at war.
The Cauldron is on the main street of Cypress Grove, wedged between a crystal shop and a place that sells what appears to be exclusively flamingo-themed merchandise. The sign above the door is an actual iron cauldron with a flame painted inside it, and on Tuesday nights a local band called the Swamp Rats plays blues and zydeco until the town's noise ordinance kicks in at midnight.
“I already adore this place,” I declare before we're even through the door.
It's low-ceilinged and warm, with exposed brick and mismatched stools and a bar that runs the length of the room. The band is already playing, the accordion joyful and slightly chaotic, and the small dance floor is packed with people ranging from college-aged to elderly, all of them moving with the abandon of people who have been coming here long enough not to care how they look.
Natalia finds us a corner table. I lean my scooter against the wall — the walking cast is better for even surfaces but The Cauldron's floor is scuffed wood with a slight slope, and I've learned my limits — and Remy immediately disappears toward the bar.
He returns with a tray of drinks nobody ordered, and yet everyone cheers. They're house-made cocktails called the Swamp Witch, green and slightly alarming.
“What’s a Swamp Witch?” I ask.
“It tastes like a margarita,” Max chimes in, his hand on the small of my back.
“Then why not call it a margarita?”
“I like this woman’s logic,” Max says to everyone.
“The name is part of the experience.” Remy shrugs and downs a neon green shot.
The band shifts into something slow. Damien stands without a word and holds out his hand to Kate. She takes it without hesitating and they move to the edge of the dance floor, and I watch my best friend press her cheek against her husband's chest and close her eyes.
Three months, I think. She can do three months. But it's not going to be easy.
The accordion swells. Someone at the back of the room whoops.
The Cauldron smells like spilled beer and old wood and something faintly herbal I can't quite identify — something that reminds me, distantly, of Kate's tea blend, of the springs at night. The floor hums with the band and with something older underneath it.
I lean toward Natalia during a break between songs. “What is that smell? The herbal base note underneath everything else.”
She doesn't even pause. “Probably Wren’s concoction. She makes the cleaning products for half the businesses downtown. Her family's been making them for decades.” She tilts her head. “Her grandmother was in my grandmother’s coven. Most of the women here are in covens.”
“Most of them?” I look around the room — the bar, the regulars, the couples on the dance floor.
“Cypress Grove has more practicing herbalists per capita than anywhere in Florida,” Natalia says, with the casual pride of someone who grew up thinking this was perfectly normal. “You’ve heard it’s the Psychic Capitol of the World, right?”
“I had, but thought it was a tourist slogan.”
“Nope. We’re the real deal.” She pauses. “Don’t move. I’m going to get us some lemon water.”
Once she leaves, I glance back at the table and see that Max is watching me.
When we lock eyes, he raises his glass and grins. I blow him a kiss. He pretends to catch it, and presses his hand to his heart.
I don't know what's happening to me in this town.
But I think I'd like to find out.
