1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Callum

Flipping the tarot cards, I blinked owlishly at them through the lenses of my glasses, pushing the black frames up my nose. Something I seemed to do about thirty-five times a day. It would be easier if I could just wear my contact lenses, but I had yet to find a pair that was comfortable for more than a couple of hours. So, nerdy glasses for the win.

Glancing down at the cards spread across my bed, I scrunched up my nose, examining them closely.

The Lovers.

Death.

The Fool Card.

And always a fan favorite – the Devil.

Hex, my black cat, mewed at me, swiping one silky paw at a card. Surprisingly, not the Devil card. Nope, Hex never got upset by that one. The Lovers card had him flipping it over with a small huff and snap of his poofy tail.

Yes, I was aware it was a total cliché for a witch to own a black cat. But I thought black cats were beautiful creatures, and the adoption percentage for them was low. When I had seen Hex's little kitten face as I'd been scrolling the local shelters page three years ago, my heart had instantly fallen in love. I'd even decided to keep the name the shelter had given him.

I mean a witch with a black cat named Hex? You couldn't go wrong. Plus, it was great for business.

Caressing his silky black fur, I turned The Lovers card back over, reading my cards. People often got freaked out when I would do a reading for them when they saw the names of the cards. But they didn't necessarily mean anything bad. Take the death card. It represented change, not your literal death. Even if I saw someone's death in their cards–which almost never happened–I wasn't stupid enough to tell them.

The Fools card told of a new beginning. And while the Devil card could represent revenge, violence, and vehemence, it also could represent something that was predestined and not at all evil.

If I was reading these cards for a paying client, I would tell them that a love interest was going to enter their life, bringing change and a new beginning. That it was destiny and fate, and all that mumbo jumbo woo woo. The nonsense people liked to hear for their sixty bucks. And that usually guaranteed they left a tip and a five star rating on our website.

Since these were my cards I was reading, I just snorted loudly in the silence of my bedroom. Hex blinked his slanted green eyes at me, and I blinked my slightly-upturned-at-the-corners green eyes back at him. ‘Cat's eyes' were how most people described the shape of my eyes. They were much more mesmerizing on my sister, where people had been known to use the words gorgeous and piercing when describing them.

On me, they were just weirdly shaped eyes hidden behind thick glasses. Nothing special to see.

Scooping the cards off my bed, I stacked them neatly on my dresser.

"Well," I caught Hex's gaze in the mirror's reflection, "that was a bunch of bullshit. Love indeed."

"Callum!"

Daphne's loud, unladylike bellow made both Hex and me jump. My bedroom door banged open with enough force to send it slamming into the wall and bouncing back, and had Hex scurrying to hide underneath the bed.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" I scowled fiercely at my sister, who was standing in the doorway, hands on her curvy hips, looking like I had eaten her last chocolate .

Scrunching her nose, Daphne demanded, "Why do you sound like a catholic schoolboy? Carry my suitcase down the stairs."

Pushing my glasses back up my nose, I huffed, "Rude. Who taught you manners? And what happened to you being an ‘independent woman who didn't need no man'? Direct quote from you, by the way. Bad grammar and all."

Daphne waved her hand at me, the sleeves of her blue peasant blouse billowing. "Callum, what's the point of having a strapping older brother if I can't make use of you for carrying heavy objects? Know your place. And men are overrated."

Turning, I glanced behind me, looking for this strapping older brother she spoke of. All I saw was Hex slinking out from the safety of under the bed. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed loudly. "There's so much wrong with what you just said, I don't even know where to start."

Gangly, skinny, awkward. That was how I had been thought of in high school, and not much had changed in the ten years since graduation. No one had ever used the word ‘strapping' in the same sentence as me. And, I was her younger brother. A fact she no doubt forgot because with each one of her birthdays, she kept subtracting years instead of adding. Apparently, she had subtracted enough to completely change our birth order .

Running fingers through her loose, dark curls, Daphne's identical green cat eyes sparkled with mischief and she grinned widely. "I know."

"Let's start with the fact that you are two years older than me," I reminded her, brushing past her and grabbing the handle of her suitcase. "Holy Earth Goddess, what the fuck is in here? A dead body?"

Because honestly, with the women in my family, one could never be sure. It was always best to ask.

"Don't be silly," she breezed past me down the stairs. "It's just shoes, books, and some crystals."

Thumping the suitcase behind me on each step, because it was ridiculously heavy, I inquired, "How many pairs of shoes do you need in the middle of the woods?"

"Callum!" She huffed, exasperated. "I can't explain shoe logic to you. I've tried and you are just a hopeless lost cause. And I refuse to acknowledge that you are younger than me. If you are going to be the first male born into the family, in like…" she appeared to be trying to work out the math, then gave up with a wave of her hand, "ever, you could have the decency to at least be the older brother."

Depositing her bag outside next to our mom's minivan, I wheezed noisily. I still wasn't convinced there wasn't an actual dead body in it, but it was probably just my lack of upper body strength that had me huffing and puffing like I'd just tried to run a 5k marathon .

"You're making my eyes twitch," I told her, not completely lying, as I took a minute before trying to heft her bag into the back of the vehicle. "Both of them. At the same time."

Before Daphne could retort with something sure to be sarcastic, our mom and grandmother came around from the side of the house, each carrying their own bags.

"Callum," my mom, Sarah, said in the tone she used when she was going to say something that might possibly hurt my feelings, "no spells while we're away, okay? You know what happened last time."

My gran, Abigail, snorted loudly. "Last time? Try every time the boy tries to work a spell."

"I'm twenty-eight," I reminded them, crossing my arms over my chest petulantly, and fighting the urge to pout. "Not a boy."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Gran hefted her bag into the van before I could take it from her.

"Gran, I was going to get that for you."

Just because I gave my sister crap about carrying her bag, I had been raised with some manners. And since our dad had passed, I was technically the man of the house. My eighty-year-old grandmother didn't need to be lugging around suitcases and tossing them around like they weighed next to nothing. At least I knew there wasn't a dead body in Gran's bag, by the way she had tossed it in. Though honestly, her bag probably did weigh next to nothing, since she was a sensible packer, unlike my sister.

"You're a boy to me. Always will be," she patted my cheek affectionately, and I couldn't stay pissy with Gran.

"Seriously, Callum," Mom's matching eyes were soft as she searched mine. "We're going to be gone for two weeks, off the grid. No cell phones, so you won't be able to reach us if something goes…" she paused, searching for just the right word to describe my spell casting, "off-kilter. So, no spells. Please."

"Yes, yes, I got it," Mumbling, I shut the door for her once she was settled in the passenger seat. Because no one would dare take Abigail Spencer's keys from her. Truthfully, people were better off with Gran behind the wheel than Mom, even with Gran's failing eyesight. "No spells."

"It's just, with us gone…"

"What your mom is trying to say is there won't be anyone here to supervise. Or to undo what you've done. And we all know what happened last time you were left home alone, spell casting." Gran smiled at me, while Mom nodded her dark hair, with only a few strands of gray sprinkled through the rich inky blackness of it.

Rolling my eyes, I defended what had truly been an unfortunate event. "Turning Sean into a frog was a complete accident."

"We know, sweetie." Mom nodded, smiling indulgently .

"Was it, though?" Daphne asked, clearly questioning my motives.

Narrowing my eyes, I shot a glare in her direction, only to be met with her wide grinning face from the backseat.

"He was kind of a dick, is all I'm saying." She shrugged nonchalantly. "No one blamed you for wanting to turn him into a better version of himself."

"I didn't mean to turn him into anything," I hissed between clenched teeth.

It wasn't my fault that my magic was, as Mom liked to remind us all, ‘a bit wonky'. My intuition was spot on–when it didn't pertain to my love life–and I could read a person's aura better than most witches out there. When it came to reading tarot cards, I was the best in my family. Gran often said I had the second sight, which was a special gift all by itself.

But spell casting?

That was where my powers failed me.

All. The. Time.

In spectacular fashion.

"I was trying to conjure breakfast in bed for us," I mumbled, digging the toe of my tennis shoe into the gravel of the driveway. The mid-October breeze ruffled my dark hair, and I pushed it out of my eyes.

"Gag," Daphne made a retching noise. "Why, even? He did not deserve breakfast in bed. I bet he wasn't even that good of a fu–…kisser," she amended when Mom spun her head and glared at her.

Rolling my eyes, I scratched the side of my nose with my middle finger, because Mom frowned at us flipping each other off. Daphne was right though; Sean hadn't been good enough in bed to warrant breakfast. But I had been trying to be romantic, hoping the bad sex was just a one-off, nervous, bad night. My turning him into a frog, and subsequently having to get Mom to change him back–Daphne had refused, stating he was better as a frog–had pretty much sealed the deal of me never seeing him again to find out.

"All we're saying," Gran turned the key, starting the van, "is we won't be available to help. We need you to look after the shop, and make sure nothing dire happens while we are away."

"No magic," I nodded my dark curls, pushing my glasses up. "I got it. The shop will be fine. Go. Enjoy. Run naked and wild beneath the moon with the covens."

Gran chortled loudly. "Sure you don't want to come? We could use more warlock energy."

"There's not enough eye bleach in the world. Love you. Be good." I waved my finger at her, raising a brow, because Gran had a wicked gleam of mischief in her eyes.

"Gran, you know naked boobies and vaginas make Callum go screaming the other way like a little schoolgirl. "

"Daphne, stop tormenting your brother," Mom chastised, while Gran cackled merrily, and I wondered how this was my life. "No one is running around naked, Callum. And Mara will have all our cell phones, but if something…does happen–and I'm not saying it will!–I left the landline number of the lodge on the fridge."

"Speak for yourself," Gran chortled. "I plan to be naked as much as possible!"

Watching as they drove down the street, I shoved my hands into my pockets. I planned to pour another cup of coffee and enjoy the blessed silence of the house, before flipping the sign to The Witch's Brew, our family-owned occult shop, to Open .

If I happened to wave my hand over my tepid cup of coffee later that morning, and it happened to burst into flames and shatter all over the counter, no one besides Hex and me needed to know about it.