Chapter 15

“Well, well, well,”Flora mused from the round kitchen table as I let myself into the witch-hat house. Sawyer darted in after me, paying his respects to the birthday girl before going to greet Ame. “If it isn’t the cider witch on time and with a fabulous-lookingcake.”

Daphne cleared her throat softly and held out her hand. Flora slapped a fiver into her palm but didn’t look unhappy that she’d lost the bet.

I slid the cake into the refrigerator to keep cool before taking off my scarf and jacket. “I’ll admit, I’ve never made a Better Than Sex cake before, so I hope this one turned out okay.”

“If we scream with delight, then you know you did a good job,” Flora said with a wink.

“Some of us will be a little more dignified than that,” Daphne told me.

The garden gnome rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, I forgot old biddies like you prefer more demure expressions of toe-curling pleasure like, ‘Mmm, that was lovely, dear.’”

Daphne merely adjusted her floral shawl and stuck her nose into the air. “I’ll have you know, Flora dear, that I can scream like a banshee with the best of them. But I’m not one to give out false praise, so I rarely do.”

As Flora prepared for a spicy retort, I slapped a hand over her mouth so I could say, “Happy Birthday, Shari.”

Smiling, the quiet crafter straightened from tying a satin bow around Sawyer’s neck—emerald green for him, butter yellow for Ame—and retrieved her wicker basket of crafts from the floor beside her chair. Then she handed out custom-made party hats for all of us. Hers was in the Victorian style—a black top hat adorned with a gauzy scarf, a pewter broach, and peacock feathers; Daphne’s a flapper-inspired beaded headdress of turquoise and gold and pearl; Flora’s a crocheted bean sprout that looked like it was growing out of her brown curls; mine another crocheted masterpiece resembling a floral wreath of apple blossoms.

“Now that we’re all fancy, let’s eat,” Flora cried.

It was definitely one of the most subdued birthday parties I’d ever gone to—Hawthorne birthdays usually involved a maypole, a three-tiered cake, athletic and magical competitions, punch, and either fire-roasted whole pig or venison—but it was cozy and relaxing, letting us enjoy each other’s company.

We watched episodes of Shari’s latest obsession, Stargate: Atlantis, as we enjoyed Chinese takeout from Tussock’s Happy Garden; Ame and Sawyer got shot glasses of milk while we had pineapple-Midori cocktails; we played a few rounds of Jenga and Kittens In A Blender, during which Shari suggested both Ame and Sawyer should go take a nap on the couch in the other room; then the night inevitably turned to singing “Happy Birthday,” opening presents—there was only one, a wooden yarn holder Charlie had sent her from Maine—and enjoying the cake I’d made.

Apparently the other Crafting Circle ladies had already given Shari their gifts: Flora had spent the morning tidying up the yard and burying a plethora of bulbs to grow tulips, daffodils, and lilies in the spring, and Daphne had taken Shari thrift shopping, increasing her wardrobe by an additional five or six sweater dresses.

At present, Shari tried her best to keep the voluminous sleeves of her new autumn-orange outfit from sliding into her dessert as she slumped deeper in her seat with every spoonful of gooey cake, eyelids fluttering; Daphne’s cheeks pinked as she covered her mouth with a gasped, “Oh my”; and Flora yipped and hollered like she was at one of her prairie rodeos.

“That’s, um”—I swallowed thickly—“really good cake.”

“Good thing you didn’t serve that at the First of Fall Festival,” Flora said. “All the men of Redbud would’ve been leaving their wives for a slice of this!”

Daphne swatted at her. “It’s Better Than Sex cake, not Homewrecker cake.”

“I want this cake on my birthday from now on,” Shari said, licking her spoon clean.

As the stupor of the cake wore off, the night turned to crafting. After the fiasco of not having anything in my pockets during my stint in the crystal barrier a few weeks ago, I pulled a crochet hook and a small ball of yarn from my purse and started fiddling with a simple chain stitch that had no ultimate design.

When it was clear Shari was engrossed in the next Stargate: Atlantis episode as she worked on her latest project, and Daphne was focused on sorting a bulk package of beads according to size and color into a compartment box, I leaned over to whisper at Flora.

“I’m having a problem with a difficult piece of magic,” I admitted. “Would you be willing to help?”

The garden gnome gave me the side-eye as she sipped some of her cocktail. “That depends.”

I knew what she wasn’t asking was how much trouble she could potentially face. She was the only one outside of Sawyer who knew most of my secrets, of why I was here in Redbud in the first place. The garden gnome had a life here, responsibilities, and while we were friends, she liked to know what kind of consequences to expect. No blind-siding, or she’d be madder than a wet hen in a July thunderstorm.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with that,” I assured her, referencing the cursed family spell book. “Well, not directly. It’s a spell I’ll eventually use on it, but the spell is being finicky.”

She took another swallow of pineapple-Midori and leaned in closer. “I’m listening…”

“I’m creating a new spell—”

“Well there’s your problem.” Flora slapped the table for emphasis. “Not to tell a witch her business, but that’s why you lot have spell books that are passed down through the generations. Spells are crafted by the wise and powerful, and you’re, what? Twenty-something? You don’t have the expertise to be meddling in any of that.”

What was I supposed to do? Wait a few more thousand turns around the sun to gain the experience necessary, all the while evading those searching for the grimoire? With the hearth constantly deploying counterspells, my time was running out.

“I’ve gotten three out of the five spells to play nice, thank you very much,” I said irritably.

Flora’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “You’re trying to weave five independent spells together into one? How have you not blown up that farmhouse yet?”

“There’s a reason why I’m missing half the whiskers on my face,” Sawyer butted in. “This wasn’t a fashion choice.”

“Shh! Keep your voices down, the both of you!”

No sooner did I say those words did Shari click off the television and swivel around in her seat to face me.

Flora and I both blushed.

“You’re having difficulty weaving those five spells together because you don’t know what end product you’re aiming for,” she said bluntly.

“I-I… What?” Shari had been so despondent since first setting eyes on the heart tree, twitchy, barely making eye contact or forming sentences longer that four words, and here she now sat across the table from me with a focused intensity. It was… unsettling.

“You’ve got long hair,” she continued, eyeing my brown ponytail. “You ever try to braid it? And during the braiding, did the ends braid themselves, but in the opposite direction, so if you let go, the entire thing unravels? That’s what you’re doing. Focusing on the act of braiding rather than the braid itself.

“Your spells are like these granny squares I’ve been making.” She gestured to the wicker basket of swatches all in blacks, grays, and reds. “Complete in themselves, independent, seemingly random. But they’re not. When they’re all stitched together in the final blanket I’ve envisioned, each piece will make sense. But I knew the blanket before I knew these squares.”

Her speech complete, Shari swiveled back around to turn the episode back on, disappearing into herself once more.

There was a pause when all the rest of us seated at the kitchen table glanced at each other, waiting for Shari to continue, but the quiet crafter was silent again, the yarn whispering through her fingers as she continued another granny square. Ame hopped into her lap and tucked her front paws under her chest, purring.

“Intent is nine-tenths of magic, you know,” Flora reminded me, breaking the anticipatory silence.

“So, dear,” Daphne said, setting aside her bag of beads, “what is the end product you envision? An incantation, an enchanted stone, perhaps a rune?”

I hadn’t thought of that. My focus had been just getting them to mesh together and work.

When I didn’t answer, still pondering, she prompted, “And five spells? Is it possible you need more hands? What I mean to say is, if I’m doing an elaborate dream catcher, I need help. A clamp to hold the wicker, pins to tack each strand in place while I work on the others. Perhaps you need the equivalent of a magical loom.”

Flora snorted, but not with derision. “That doesn’t exist. That’s the kind of artifact that, if created, everyone would hunt down to use for their own gain. It would be the equivalent of the Holy Grail to supes and Fair Folk alike.”

But my mind was churning away. Daphne had been right about the loom. It’s what Sawyer and I had been doing all along, though we hadn’t put those exact words to it. Maybe I did need more hands. And they didn’t have to be magical, necessarily. I’d gotten exceedingly good at layering spells lately—I could imbue each component with my magic, except for the incantations, and others could simply do as I directed.

Five spells. Four Crafting Ladies and one quasi-familiar. One spell for each of us.

“Ladies,” I shouted as I bolted out of my chair, making everyone at the table jump. “We will be the loom! It’s time for a group crafting project.”