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Over the next couple of days, I was able to read my customers’ moods as they walked into the store, see auras around everyone, to the point where I almost stopped noticing them. No one stood out as the “reckless woman” Hannah had warned me about.
On Wednesday, LeAnne strolled into the shop. She wore her glasses today.
“Shouldn’t you be home resting?” I asked, meeting her at the door.
“Follow-up with the doctor,” she said. “I stopped in to see what you’re doing this weekend. Jason has a work thing and I’d love the company. Will you come over?”
I stepped back to assess her—an orange aura, indicating she had a zest for life. A go-getter. A thrill-seeker. I hadn’t seen that side of her. I checked her eyes, tawny brown behind the glare of her glasses. “What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“Dinner Friday night?”
“I’m sorry, I have plans on Friday. Will Jason be gone all weekend? How about Saturday?”
“Saturday would be great,” she said.
“I can’t wait to see the new baby, and I miss Georgia.” A tug of anxiety pulled at me. I hadn’t seen Georgia since the baby was born. Could she forget me so easily? “The kids are both okay?”
“Georgia’s like a little mother to Remy. She adores her baby brother.”
The muscle in my eyelid ticked with another jolt of unease. The last time I’d seen Georgia, she’d been comforting the baby while LeAnne called for Jason to take care of him. The negative trait of an orange aura was recklessness and a tendency to be self-centered. Was I projecting what I hoped to see on LeAnne? She’d given birth a few days before. Judging by her slow gait, she was still healing from her ordeal. Georgia was obviously well-cared for, loved. I had no reason to suspect LeAnne wouldn’t care for her son—Remy—as well.
“If you want to take the afternoon on Saturday, I can cover the store,” Cassandra offered. “Not like we’re in the middle of tourist season here.”
“Oh, that would be great,” LeAnne said. “Can you?”
“Let’s shoot for two o’clock,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
I stared out the window as she left and wrote off my hesitations as concern over Jason’s attitude toward me. The last thing I needed was another visit from him threatening me with a restraining order, but LeAnne had invited me. Raising my chin, I nodded after her. LeAnne and I could be friends—family. Jason would have to deal with it.
I hadn’t seen anything “off” about LeAnne—no glow to her eyes. The accusations Sharon had flung at her didn’t add up. If LeAnne had gifts like I did, she could guide Georgia without my help. Which led me back to trying to identify the reckless woman. Sharon was Narcy’s sister. Guilt by association? Her story had been pretty convincing when we’d met at the pub.
“You going to tell Kyle?” Cassandra asked, standing closer than I expected her to be.
“Yeah.”
“I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a family like that,” she said. “You’d think growing up together you would have learned to work through your differences.”
“To be fair, Jason left for college a year or two after I arrived. For the short time we lived under the same roof, he was at the age where you make yourself scarce at home—high school.”
“Which makes it even crazier he has such an axe to grind with you.”
No kidding. Outside the window, LeAnne eased into her car. “Some people like sharp axes, I suppose.”
Cassandra patted me on the shoulder. “At least you found your way to family who loves you.”
“To be sure.” I shot her a smile. “Who knows? With his wife’s help, I might win over my cousin, too.”
“I have no doubt.”
When Friday rolled around, Kyle picked me up early from work for the drive to Brown’s Landing and my meeting with Hannah. We’d decided to stay the night at the conference center rather than drive home, and made sarcastic jokes all the way about staying in a castle, a princess and a knight in shining armor.
After we checked in, I introduced Kyle to Hannah, and once he was assured I was safe under her protection, he retreated to our room to wait. Hannah led me to her private office once more, down the stone steps and into the dimly lit cellar room.
“Nothing?” she asked.
I settled into an armchair. “Nothing. LeAnne stopped in the shop the other day. No telltale glow in her eyes, nothing out of the ordinary in her aura.” Unless the orange meant she was reckless, but I hadn’t seen her do anything to make me believe that might be true.
“And the white light. That’s still there when you call on it?”
I pinched my fingers together, then widened them, the way she’d shown me. The sense of well-being settled over me. “Still there, except the last time I went to Georgia, the white light seemed agitated, sort of like storm clouds, and Georgia didn’t seem to know I was there.”
“You said she wasn’t sleeping though, right? That she was tending to her brother?”
“Right.”
Hannah went to the bookcase and fingered her way across the spines until she pulled a book from the shelf. “And the unmasking spell? You’re still seeing things more clearly?”
“Along with everyone’s auras, without trying.”
“The spell only lasts a week. You’ll have to recast it on Monday if nothing turns up before then.” She carried the book and sat opposite me. “I have to tell you, ever since Nora called me in on your problem, I can’t shake the sense there’s something off.”
“No crystal ball we can consult?” I joked.
“We can’t see the future,” she said. “Some things have to play out on their own.”
Right. She’d said that before. “Well, then, the only reckless woman left to consider is Sharon, and she’s moved away. Maybe we have to wait for whatever is meant to happen.”
“Without a doubt, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared the next time you run into a situation like you encountered with the last witch. I’m concerned you might be facing a stronger adversary than we suspected, especially considering the spell the grimoire keeps showing you.”
I shivered and crossed my arms.
“When’s the last time you saw your aunt?” Hannah asked.
“Nora? A couple of days ago?”
“No. Your other aunt.”
I blinked, not sure I understood. “Aunt Theresa? Three years ago. Surely you don’t think she has anything to do with this. She’d be a happy woman never to have anything more to do with me.”
As Hannah opened her book and flipped through the pages, a phone rang. In the dimly-lit chamber, Hannah walked toward the table at the end of the bookcase and answered the call. She raised her eyebrows and glanced at me. Her eyes reflected the flickering candlelight. “We’ll be right there.”
“If you have work you need to do,” I said, rising from my seat, “Kyle and I are staying over. We can finish this later, or tomorrow morning.”
“That was Kyle on the phone,” she said. “Sharon is here.”