Gypsy Magic - J.R. Rain Page 0,18

check to see if you wanted to get together maybe early next week so we could talk shelves and brochures for the shop and banishment potions?

Sure. I texted back.

Awesome! Maybe we could chat about it over dinner at Half-Moon?

Was he asking me out? On a date? I wasn’t sure, but also didn’t want to assume. Maybe he was just being a kind neighbor. Yeah, I’d go with that. It was easier to swallow. That sounds great, but I’ll have Finn.

He’s invited too.

Okay, sounds good, I responded.

Cool. Goodnight.

Night.

I clicked off the phone and placed it back on my side table as I tried to drift off again, but didn’t manage to close my eyes until the pastel shades of early morning filtered in through the window.

Chapter Six

A Few Days Later

“In this house, you’d think the spiders would eat the butterflies,” I mumbled to myself, straining onto the very points of my toes to reach the last visible cobweb in the room. I gripped the ladder with one hand and dusted with the other.

Most of the moving boxes were unpacked, and I’d managed to clean the store and most of the house.

“What?” Finn asked, head bobbing up from the floor.

He’d been pretending to polish the baseboards for half an hour now. From my vantage point on the ladder, I could see he was actually fifty-six percent through a Kindle book. I didn’t call him on it. At least the book was on his school reading list. We’d agreed he’d start school again in a few more days, after we were settled. I’d been sending him to bed by eight-thirty every night so he could get into a routine again.

“Nothing. Why don’t you get to bed, okay? I’ve got this.”

Finn sat up, reaching his hands over his head and stretching. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes casually, trying too hard not to appear tired. There was worry in his eyes. We’d tried to get him to go to bed in his room all week, but each night he ended up coming into mine.

“You have your stars nightlight and your sound machine,” I said. “And you’ve got Piggy. Plus, you know I cleansed and protected the house with three different potions, Finn. This house is safe.”

“I know… I just can’t help it that I still have nightmares.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. “Just try to make it through the night, okay? I’ll be up to tuck you in in just a few minutes.”

“Okay,” he answered, but then paused as he eyed the ladder. “Are you sure you should be up on that thing?” He swept his gaze up the twelve foot podium ladder, face twisting up in worry. It barely put me level with the front entryway. This house seemed to have been built for a giant. Everything on the bottom floor was set comically high on the wall. Our home in Los Angeles had forced five-foot-ten Jeremy to stoop to avoid the ceiling fan. That’s how ridiculously low the ceilings were.

“I’m fine,” I answered.

“Seriously mom, if you fall off and break your neck, what am I gonna do?”

“Call 9-1-1?”

“I’m being serious, Mom.”

“And I’m forty-three, not eighty-three, Finn. I’ll be fine.”

“Mom…”

“I’ll turn in when I’m done in the living room and if I fall, you can say I told you so the whole way to the hospital, okay?”

“That’s not funny,” Finn grumbled, but got to his feet. I strained my ears for the tell-tale moan of the stairs as he started up them. It was fortunate the lights had all been working, or we’d have been living in the hotel for months until I could get an electrician inside this dusty old house. I was not navigating those stairs in the dark.

I yawned—one of those full-mouth, cave style yawns. I was exhausted. My hands wandered self-consciously over my body, smearing a little of the Pine Sol multi-surface cleaner over my oversized cotton t-shirt. Stained with speckles of paint and ground in dirt, I wasn’t worried about keeping it pretty. My belly bulged a little over the equally stained yoga pants, reminding me I should start showing some interest in running again.

I was aging like my mom. The lines on my face were subtle, the grays few and easy enough to conceal. My eyes though... I noticed recently that I looked perpetually tired. And the year-round chapped lips were bothering me. Hmm, there was another idea for a potion. Magic lip balms would constantly be in demand if I could master a solution.

“You