Dizzy Spells
Authors: Morgana Best
Tags: #horror, #mystery, #occult, #paranormal, #supernatural, #witches, #cozy mystery, #paranormal mystery, #clean read, #culinary cozy
Dizzy Spells
(The Kitchen Witch, Book 2)
Copyright © 2015 by Morgana Best
All Rights Reserved
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords License Notes
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respecting the author’s hard work.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The personal
names have been invented by the author, and any likeness to the
name of any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book may contain references to specific
commercial products, process or service by trade name, trademark,
manufacturer, or otherwise, specific brand-name products and/or
trade names of products, which are trademarks or registered
trademarks and/or trade names, and these are property of their
respective owners. Morgana Best or her associates, have no
association with any specific commercial products, process, or
service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise,
specific brand-name products and / or trade names of products.
By this act
And words of rhyme
Trouble not
These books of mine
With these words I now thee render
Candle burn and bad return
3 times stronger to its sender.
(Ancient Celtic)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Thyme held two bags over her head. “You had
better get in there, Amelia. Those sales won’t last forever.”
“I’m good, thanks.” I smiled at my friend,
who also happened to be my employee, as we left the store window
and started down the busy sidewalk. The day was absolutely perfect
for window-shopping, with a light breeze carrying along the scent
of old English roses and gardenias from the local florist. All in
all, it was a nice, pleasant shopping day.
“You need to get something to commemorate
the occasion,” Thyme insisted. “Your carrot cake was almost edible
today. You’ll be baking cakes before you know it.”
I shook my head. “What do you mean? It was
as hard as a rock. Even the knife couldn’t go through it. When I
dropped it on the floor, it made a crack in the concrete.”
Thyme beamed. “But you didn’t set anything
on fire!”
The trouble was, she was genuinely pleased
about that. I’m not a good cook. In fact, it’s a wonder that the
government hadn’t hired me to make me produce bio-hazardous waste
with my baking. After all, I had sent my ex-boyfriend to the
hospital with my nachos, and had been evicted from my apartment for
the constant fires caused by my attempts at baking.
Yet by some strange twist of fate, I had
been left a home and a cake shop by an aunt I had never met. I was
expected to take my toxic waste and somehow make it edible enough
to sell to customers. Real customers. It didn’t help that a man had
died during a cake tasting just after I arrived. I did have the
consolation of knowing it wasn’t the cakes that did him in, but I
knew it would be a long day before cakes I myself had baked would
be on display, unless it was in a museum of horrors. And
ironically, being the owner of a cake shop was not the strangest
thing that had happened to me since I arrived in Bayberry
Creek.
“Hey, has that always been there?” I pointed
to a sign I hadn’t noticed before. The swirling, smoky lettering,
along with golden stars painted in the center, displayed the words,
‘Madam Dianne’s Shop of Mystery’.
“Oh, come on!” Thyme let out a frustrated
whine and wrinkled her nose at the sign. “They leave this spot
vacant for almost a decade, and they fill it with one of these
jokers? They could have put in a health food shop. At least the
herbs and special salts would have been useful.”
I gazed into the window. “Is it that bad?” I
at once jumped back when I came eye to eye with a skull. It took me
a minute to notice the stump of a wick sticking out of its creepy
painted face. There were stuffed crows along with several black
roses scattered all over the display. I could also see books,
crystals, glass displays full of jewelry, and various tarot
cards.
“Very bad.” Thyme sighed and shook her head.
“These people are harmless, but some people take a touch of
intuition and go way out there with it. They give our kind a bad
reputation. As if Hollywood wasn’t already doing a good enough job
at that!”
“So this person isn’t, well…?” My voice
trailed away. I was still trying to come to grips with the fact
that magic existed, and with the fact that I was supposed to be
practically overflowing with ‘raw natural talent’ as Thyme put it
at least once a week.
“The real deal?” Thyme asked, as she glanced
around to see if anyone was in hearing range. “If she is, she
doesn’t know it. Take another look at her shop and tell me what you
feel, compared to Ruprecht’s shop.”
I looked inside the shop again, bringing
Glinda’s
, Ruprecht’s books and antique store, to mind. It
was like night and day, come to think of it. Where his shop was
cluttered in a pleasant, lived-in way, this one screamed
over-the-top and commercial with an artificial edge to it. Bright
plush furniture and heavy velvet tablecloths with tacky stars,
moons, and tassels were arranged everywhere. It was nothing like
Ruprecht’s homely, cozy shop at all.
“A mess,” I said, earning a nod of
acknowledgment.
“Excuse any clutter you see,” a throaty,
raspy voice crooned.
I jumped and turned from the window. A woman
was trying to lounge alluringly on the trashcan right by the
doorway. Her jet black curls screamed Halloween prop wig, and she
was wearing layers upon layers of skirts to mimic a gypsy look,
complete with a corset straining in its bindings around her ample
belly. Her giant hoop earrings constantly bounced on her shoulders
as she moved. I stared at the fire-engine-red lipstick and bright
blue eye makeup. There seemed to be more eye makeup than actual
eyes.
“We have traversed a great distance from our
ancestral home to offer the guidance your spirit seeks,” the woman
said dramatically as she waved her hand before her.
“Thanks, but our spirits have GPS. No
directions necessary,” Thyme said with a giggle.
“Perhaps,” the woman said thoughtfully, “you
might be able to fool yourself. But the great Madam Dianne, she
knows. The spirits whisper to me of your troubles.”
I felt my stomach clench as I instinctively
tucked my purse under my arm. The woman looked nice enough. She was
certainly eccentric, but nothing about her screamed that she was
any sort of threat. Yet there was something about her theatrics
that felt like slime had dripped down over me and soaked into my
clothes. It was nothing like when I had met Ruprecht, Thyme, and
the others.
“So how long have you been in town?” Thyme
said in a pleasant voice as she crossed her arms in front of her.
“I didn’t know anyone had moved in.”
“I’ve only been here a short time,” the
woman said, seeming taken aback by the question. She did not seem
prepared to give a dramatic answer this time. “Come in; come in.
Madam Dianne shall tell you what the fates have in store for
you!”
Thyme waved off the invitation. “Thanks, but
I don’t like spoilers. They keep life interesting. My friend and I
have someplace to be anyway.”
“Come now,” Madam Dianne scolded in a
gentle, encouraging tone, as if she were trying to reassure a young
child. “There is no reason to fear the spirits. They are but
messengers from worlds beyond. You need not fear the opinions of
others over receiving a glimpse of your destiny, do you? You have a
spirit right by your shoulder. Grandparents perhaps? They send you
their love and blessings.”
I tried to keep a straight face. Thyme was
the opposite of fearful. She didn’t concern herself with town
opinion unless it had to do with the cakes.
I stiffened nervously as the woman trained
her eyes on me. “The spirits also tell Madam Dianne that you should
make peace with your mother. You need not work so hard for her
approval. She’ll come to understand that your life is your own,
eventually. Your spouse, though, you should keep an eye on. He
keeps a dark secret from you.”
“I’m not married,” I blurted out, furrowing
my brow at the randomness of the prediction. “And my mom passed
away years ago.”
The woman’s eyes widened slightly. She gave
a strained smile as she collected herself. “Ah, yes, yes. This I
see. You and your partner do spend so much time together. A ring
must be very close in your future. Sometimes the flow of time can
be difficult to interpret.”
“I’m sure,” I said skeptically, suddenly
over my initial nervousness. I was beginning to understand why
Thyme was so unhappy to see the shop. If I had met this woman
before Thyme’s quiet little circle, I would have spent weeks trying
to get past the idea that they were trying to scam me. Accepting
magic had been difficult enough when they were acting normal, and
that was even with my own house trapping unwelcome houseguests and
spitting them out on the front yard.
The woman apparently mistook my thoughtful
expression for curiosity, because she promptly trained her
attention on me. “Come!” She waved her hand at the door with a
flourish. “This street is far too loud and distracting. There are
too many auras to get a clear reading. We’ll consult the cards to
find out the nature of this secret you must find. Madam Dianne will
do it free, just for today. I’m also offering a discount on amber
necklaces. They drive away negative karma.”
“No, thanks.” I gave the woman a polite nod
and turned to leave. I just wanted to get some lunch and unwind
from the morning rush. I didn’t feel like listening to a woman in
clown paint and a bargain bin gypsy costume fabricate my future
with some imaginary lover. I let out a gasp as an icy cold hand
clamped down on my wrist.
“You must hear what I have to say.” The
woman stared at me with wide eyes. There was something in the tone
that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “There is
great trouble coming your way!”
Thyme carefully removed the woman’s hand
from my arm. The woman didn’t have a chance to speak, as Thyme was
already pulling me down the street.
“Gracious, she should have made it a drama
club,” Thyme said with irritation as we started for a nearby café.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I assured her as I glanced over
my shoulder. The woman was still watching us from the doorway like
a spook from a bad horror movie. “That was an experience.”
“Dead grandparents, difficult
mother-daughter relationships, and men who hide something from
their partners—talk about pandering to clichés. If she was going to
do a cold read, she should have read up on how to do it first.”
“A cold read?” I was new to magic and the
paranormal.
“It’s a trick used by stage artists,” Thyme
explained. “There are actually psychic people, as you know, but
there are also fakes. Fakes use cold reads to make it look like
they are reading you. The good ones make a general statement and
watch your body language. In fact, it’s all about body language and
calculated guesses.”
I looked at her blankly, and Thyme laughed,
“Okay. How are you today?”