A Ghoulish Midlife (Witching After Forty #1) - Lia Davis Page 0,16

Sammie is my third child, but it wasn’t any easier to send him off to school this year. It might’ve been a little harder. I miss that little guy during the day.”

I totally understood about sending a child off to school for the first time. Wallie was in college, and I’d still cried when I had to leave him at his dorms. I’d cried ugly fat tears all the way home.

However, Sammie wasn’t Olivia’s first child. She had two others, Jess—short for Jessica—and Devan, from her first marriage that were in college. I didn’t mention that she was a pro at this mother thing, even though it was on the tip of my tongue. A part of me wanted to tease her in a friendly way. What was that about?

I didn’t understand the urge to be playful with her. We weren’t friends. Plus, I was at work. It was just so hard to be nice considering I didn’t trust Olivia’s bubbly, happy-to-see-me personality at all. I was halfway convinced Olivia had married Sam out of spite. Or to piss me off.

That was how it had been when we were in school.

Olivia leaned against the counter and watched me for a long moment. Her gaze searched my neck and the surrounding area as if she thought she could see my witch mark. The most common area for the mark was on the neck or above the collar bone where it was easy to see or expose to other witches. Only those with magic in their blood could see the mark. Olivia had no magic. She was as human as they came.

It didn’t matter whether or not she had the Sight. My mark was not on my neck. It was on the inside of my right forearm.

“Sooo,” Olivia said, drawing out the small word as she gave up her search for my witch mark. I lifted a brow, waiting for her to continue. “Sammie’s teacher, you remember her. Carrie Treehill, she was a couple of grades behind us?”

I nodded as if I had any recollection of this person. I didn’t because I was terrible with names. And faces, sometimes. “Sure.”

“Well, she just left her husband, and everyone is saying he cheated on her. The jerk.” Olivia pursed her lips, then widened her eyes and leaned in close. “I was thinking,” she whispered. “If it’s true, can we curse him? Because I really like Carrie.”

We? Did she have a mouse in her pocket? I crossed my arms and glared at her. Olivia knew I was a witch. Well, she believed I was a witch like everyone else. No one but Sam and my family knew I was so much more. “First, cursing people brings you all kinds of bad mojo. Two, there is no we.”

She deflated a bit. “Maybe curse is too strong of a word. We could do something, a spell maybe, that would make him feel sorry for being a cheating butt face.” Olivia tapped her fingers on the glass countertop.

There she went with the we again. I didn’t come back into town to cast spells on people. “That answer is no. I’m not that kind of a witch.”

It was true. I wasn’t. Not really. If I wanted to, and I really didn’t, I could raise the dead, create undead creatures, and other dark magic that gave witches a bad name in the first place. Necromancers were good like that.

My magic was stronger than the average necromancer. Plus, I also had witch magic. I was a magical hybrid, one of a kind. It was a secret I planned to take to my grave.

She gave me big eyes and a pouty lip. “Maybe just a little something? Like give him ED for a month?”

I snorted then covered my mouth. The last thing I needed to do was encourage Olivia. “That is still doing harm.”

Cheating wasn’t a big enough offense for me to risk Karma paying me a visit. I wasn’t about to say that out loud because Olivia would take it and run. No doubt she’d dig up more reasons to make the cheater pay.

A customer came in, nodded at us, and moved down one of the aisles of books. Olivia shrugged. “It was worth a shot. I guess I can wait for Karma to catch up with him.”

Had she read my mind? “And she will. Eventually.”

Olivia’s eyes widened. “Do you know Karma? Maybe you can call her?”

I tried so hard not to laugh and failed. “No, I don’t know Karma. She