Helena
“Wow…,” Billie said, walking through the same rooms I had just taken in minutes before.
“Is that a good wow, or a bad wow? You’ve seen the house before you bought it, right?”
“Only the outside.”
“Both?” She looked at the third chandelier of the tour and reached up to tap a dangling crystal. “It’s…a lot. It is a pretty fun canvas for some fresher antiques, though. Mixed with a few modern pieces…I can see it.”
“You usually furnish the houses you sell?” That was not in my plan. I never did this. Staging, yes. Actually furnishing the house, no.
“Yeah, I sell houses to busy wizards who just want a stylish place without think about it. My houses are real popular down here.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to have a big budget if I have to repair stuff.” She eyed a cracked wall.
“The house isn’t in terrible shape, actually, the more I look at it. The floors are really even. Of course, there are crumbly bits all over the place. But what can you do? We just have to make it look charming and find the right buyers. And in some ways, our job just got easier. If this is a magical hot spot, then whoever buys it actually gains power from the magical realm if they can secure it.”
“Ohhh man.” Billie’s face was getting more red like she was having a wee little panic attack. “But that means I have a responsibility to put it in the hands of the right realm.”
“Yeah…the magical world has definitely gotten complicated lately.” As Ethereal witches, we would be expected to keep this place in the hands of fellow Ethereals. But if we were planning to make trouble for the Ethereal council, that made things awkward real fast. “What do you think the right realm is?”
“I’m still an Ethereal witch,” she said. “For now. But it doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t expect to stay that way.”
“What do you think about shopping this house to the faeries of Wyrd instead?”
“Faeries…living here?”
“From what my brother has told me about faeries, they might enjoy this house more than most people would. So, less work and money for you, and they’re desperate to gain territory.”
“Hmm. I do like that part of it.” She glanced at me with a little sigh. “You know, I know we have all changed since high school. I’m still not sure I can trust you, but it seems like I have to, and you seem like you might actually be okay.”
“I deserved to be snapped at,” I said. “I’ve felt terrible about how I was in high school. I was just too scared to be my own person until I got out of the house. I hate to be the rich girl who’s like, my parents were sooo totally harsh! But they really could make your life hell.”
“And you have three older sisters or something, right?”
“I have five sisters. Four older.”
“Damn, girl! I always wanted a sister, but that’s too many for sure. Well, maybe this was meant to be so we can purge those high school demons.”
We were passing by an original telephone nook, where the Greenwoods would have installed their first telephone. It had a folding door with two glass panels etched with art nouveau flowers for privacy and was under the staircase.
“So we sell it to some faeries. And you can get us some faery buyers?”
“I’m sure I can. I’ll call my brother. I won’t say a peep about the rest of all this, of course.”
“And the faeries will be okay with living in Louisiana? Aren’t they sort of…Irish or something?”
“They’re a mixed bag, I think.” Harris had told me some interesting stories about faeries so far. High fae were aloof and traditional, but the low fae could adapt to life in the human world, at least in limited amounts. Of course they couldn’t handle too much technology either. “The only thing is…I mean…they’ll need a human to mate with.” Small magical hot spots needed a mating between a human and a magical being—or two or three—to secure them. A witch would do because we were still from the human world. But they absolutely couldn’t bring their own faery bride or groom.
“And how are we supposed to find them that?”
“You don’t know anyone who’s looking for love with a faery man or two?”
“No!” Billie crossed her arms. “I—I don’t know if this is a good idea after all.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll ask my brother if he knows anyone.”
She let out her breath. “Okay. This is already sounding like trouble but if it makes a profit, I’ll take it.”
“So what are you thinking you’ll do with the place?” I asked, as we strolled into what I thought would be the kitchen, because it was the only room I hadn’t seen yet.
It was just an apothecary room common to magical houses. Dried herbs were hanging from the ceiling in forgotten, dusty bundles.
“No kitchen?” Billie said.
“Oh, shit. One of those out-buildings must be the kitchen.” I had never worked on a house with a detached kitchen. But I could understand how, without any air conditioning in the house, even Deveraux might not have wanted to move the kitchen inside. Particularly if he always had a cook all his life.
“Maybe faeries won’t care?” she said hopefully.
“Their human wife definitely will, even if she’s a witch.”
This was a huge bummer for the budget. No way around that. I was glad it wasn’t my budget to worry about. We would have to get all the correct electric and gas lines installed and put in a mini-split air conditioner.
“I can’t install a whole new kitchen!” Billie said.
“At least there was a bathroom,” I said. “The last house I did needed a whole new downstairs bathroom.”
“Yeah, a hideous 1970s bathroom,” Billie said, which was true. The bathroom was done in a “harvest gold” color scheme, a color that just looks skanky almost fifty years later.
“Still, you have plumbing. Knowing that the house has no kitchen, it could have also had an outhouse.”
“Yikes. Well, I guess we can convert the back parlor into a kitchen, I’ll just have to do it as cheaply as possible and that’s that.” She looked at my face and said firmly, “That’s all I can do. Sorry. My budget for this house is fifty grand.”
If I was being honest, I had more than one reason for selling Billie on faery buyers. Sure, I genuinely thought some faeries would snap this place up, but I also figured she didn’t know anything about faeries. No one did. The faeries had been deeply reclusive for centuries and only recently had they rejoined the other realms in fighting for territory. So if I sold her on the idea, maybe I could gain some say on how to shape the renovations.
I guess I had a teeny-tiny bit of my conniving ancestors in my bloodline. I swear, I only intended to use it for good.
“Well, I still have the cash I planned to use on this house,” I said. “What if we really go in on this together? I throw in another hundred grand and we really make this house stunning. We both recoup our profits first and then split the rest four ways between you, me, and Jake and Jasper, who I promise you really do work their asses off.”
“Wow. You really want in deep on this.”
“I love this house! I just get so excited! I want to be invested in it! And you know you need the help. And now that we know it’s a magical hot spot, I think we can ask eight hundred thousand for this house if we really make it shine.”
Billie looked around and I could tell she was tempted. It was a risk, for sure. I didn’t know if the faeries would actually buy the house or understand the value. They would also likely pay in gold, jewels, or magical items because it wasn’t like Wyrd had a bank that handled inter-world currency exchanges.
Jake and Jasper were probably going to be annoyed at me and tell me I acted impulsively again, but that was another perk. If we ladies teamed up, Jake couldn’t start mansplaining the kitchen renovation. (I had to ignore the fact that my eventual buyer for Lockwood House had agreed with his ideas.)
“Do we have time?”Billie said.
“I think so…” I was trying to do mental calculations in my head. We would need some help. Maybe we could bring Billie’s crew in just for a short time and keep them well-protected from monsters.
Then her expression darkened a little. “I guess it doesn’t really matter in the end. I bought it for the treasure. That’s why I paid so much.”
That look made me worry a little about what she thought was going to happen. There was a certain air of doomsday about her all of a sudden. “Still, you might as well make some money too!” I tried to stay upbeat. I did want to make money.
“All right, I’m game. I sure would love to get eight hundred grand for this house, that’s for sure. Even split four ways, that would be my best flip ever.”
“Mine too. But let’s not tell Jake and Jasper that,” I said. I had a feeling the Sullivan Brothers had enjoyed a big profit flip or two. And just as I was thinking that, I heard a van door slide open outside.