Gypsy Magic - J.R. Rain Page 0,25
her concern.
“If you break any of these bottles I will find a way to exorcise you,” I continued.
“You keep saying that,” she grumbled as she floated around me. “But I think you’re full of horse feathers.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you and me… we could help each other out.”
“Help each other out?” I eyed her narrowly.
She nodded and gave me a well-rehearsed smile. “Sure. We could be all friendly-like, see?”
“No, I don’t see.”
She shrugged. “Well, you’re worried about the little guy, right?”
I could only figure she was referring to Finn. I flicked a glance toward the high, coffered ceiling, as though I could peer through it to Finn’s room above. I still had almost five hours until I had to pick him up from school.
When I was through pouring this batch of Gypsy Magic into the perfume bottle, I’d be good to go. Gypsy Magic was one of my go-tos: a potion I liked to have on hand because it was popular. Well, popular for people who liked to do their own spells and divination work. Gypsy Magic was a divination oil—it helped strengthen spellwork if the user anointed his or her third eye with the oil. I always used it before whipping up my own potions.
As far as my store was concerned, there were two types of potions I would sell—those I made ahead of time and those that were made to order. My most requested potions didn’t have to be specific to the person requesting them. These types of potions included prescriptions for things like success, generating money, attracting romantic partners, and promoting good health. Then there were the more specific potions—things that required objects belonging to the person in question (like a strand of hair, or a piece of jewelry). If someone had a particular health ailment, they needed a tailored cure. Or, if someone had a cheating husband, she’d need a particular potion to dissuade him from his wanderings.
“Of course I worry about him,” I answered as I finished filling the vial with Gypsy Magic and moved to the next one. “I’m his mom. That’s what we do.”
“Right,” Darla answered with a quick nod. “So what if I became your eyes and ears here, at the house?”
“My eyes and ears how?”
“Well, if I told you what object I’d attached myself to in this house…”
“Then I could get rid of you.”
She nodded, but then screwed up her mouth as though that wasn’t the answer she was looking for. “Or you could break off a bit of my object and hide it in a locket. Maybe that big, gaudy one your mother got you last Christmas.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because I’m attached to the… item,” she answered, being careful not to give out any details as to what said ‘item’ was without first getting me to agree with whatever harebrained idea she was working on.
“So?”
“So if you’re wearing the item, that means I’d be able to come to you in a flash and that way you’d know your onions.”
“Know my onions?” I repeated, facing her quizzically. Sometimes her 1920s vocab was irritating.
She breathed out a sigh of exasperation. “You’d know what was going on here at the house, in case you were… out.” She paused as I searched for a way to refute her idea, but then thought better of refuting it. She might actually be onto something…
“Hmmm.”
“Think of me as a ghostly babysitter.”
I considered it for another few seconds before I focused on the downside. And it was a fairly big downside. Keeping a bit of Darla’s talisman around my neck meant she could flash to my side whenever she felt like it. That was a great way to get a reputation as the town nutso. Furthermore, there had to be something in it for Darla. She wasn’t the type of person—er spirit—who did things without selfish reasons. She probably just wanted to stowaway on the good ship Poppy and explore the world.
No, I’d install a home security system… at some point. When all the other necessary home repairs were done. Which was a day I didn’t imagine seeing for a very long time. A very long time.
What were the odds that something awful would happen in the meantime?
In my experience? Pretty high.
“I could keep an eye on the place,” Darla continued, feigning ennui, but not quite managing it. “Keep an eye on the kid when you’re out.”
“If I were out, the ‘kid’ would be out with me.”
She shrugged. “I could make sure no ghosties came callin’.