It’s almost as if she put a hex on me. Anyway, I think I’ll bring in a fresh pot of coffee. All they talk about is beguiling this beguiling that.” She takes off in a sprint.
“Beguiling?” I squint over at Carlotta. “Where have I heard that before?”
“I don’t know, Lot, but I think Suze belongs to a bona fide coven. I can’t say I’m all that surprised. Hey? I bet these witches would be willing to part with a little of their hard conjured-up cash. I think I’ll get some of my kinky candles out of my trunk. Try not to kill anyone while I’m gone.”
She zips off just as a spray of stars appears in her place, and soon I’m staring right at the ghost of Greer Giles.
Greer has long dark hair, the face of a supermodel, and she’s still wearing the white ruched gown she had on the night she lost her life.
Before I can say hello, Kringle appears on her shoulder and she gives him a pat.
“Lottie Lemon, this one is a keeper,” she says. “He and Thirteen get along so well.”
Kringle’s nose twitches. “And Lea has yet to chop off my tail.”
“I’m pretty sure it’d grow back if she did.” I know this as a fact. Lea makes it a point to chop off as many ghostly body parts as she can. Her true aspirations lie in chopping off body parts of the living, and I’m half-afraid she’s getting closer to meeting her goal.
Kringle stands on his hind legs and gasps. “Here she comes.” He starts zipping around the room and little Lea gives him chase, swinging that machete in her hand as if it were her job, and I’m afraid it sort of is.
Greer leans in. “I was wondering when you were going to show up to one of these.” She shudders and a sprinkling of miniature stars falls right out of her hair. “It’s just such an odd thing to hold these kinds of meetings out in the open. You’d think they’d want to hide something like this. Sort of the way you do.”
“Hide what sort of thing?”
“You know”—she wiggles her fingers my way—“that whole beguiler thing.”
I suck in a never-ending breath.
“Beguiler!” I suddenly remember with crystal clarity why that word felt so familiar. “Oh my word, Greer, you don’t think these are real beguilers, do you?” Back in October, my grandma Nell came back to tell me about the creepy Hearst curse and why the woman who set the curse on that family gave it to them. It turns out, she was also transmundane and her powers fell under the category of a beguiler, a person who has the ability to charm—as in the ability to charm a whirlwind to come forth, objects to move at will, people to bend to your will, earthquakes, fires, and I’m sure an entire slew of things I’m not that familiar with.
“Lottie, I thought you knew?” Greer begins to float over to the refreshment table and Kringle leaps from her shoulder to mine. “Sit back and enjoy the show,” she says. “They always put on a good one.”
Wait a minute...
“Oh, Kringle.” I bring my fingers to my lips. “I think Noah’s mother might really be a nefarious being.”
The lights flicker on and off as the women all gather around the table. I don’t miss a beat as I head that way and Serena Digby’s eyes widen as she looks at me with a twinge of malice.
“Well, well, ladies”—Serena nods my way—“it looks as if we have a guest in our midst. Lottie Lemon, will you be joining us this afternoon?”
Suze ticks her head toward the door while giving me the stink eye.
“Yes,” I say in defiance to her rudeness. “I think I will be joining you.”
Kringle whips my shoulder with his tail. “Why do I get the feeling some of these women don’t really care for you?”
I give a quick nod, letting him know he’s not wrong.
Suze sighs my way. “Carlotta here is with child. She won’t stay long. I’m sure she needs a nap or a cookie.”
Suze knows I hate it when people call me by my formal moniker. Just as much as I know that she hates it when people call her by hers.
“I sure am with child, Suzanna.” I take a moment to soak in the abject horror on her face. Her name is no big deal. It’s cute. I have no idea why she would have a hang-up about that. Mine is sort