A
CAT YOWLED.
Not mine. Tigger was back at The Cookbook Nook. However, I couldn’t stand for an animal to be in pain. I leaped out of my chair and scanned the garden of the Crystal Cove Inn. I looked from booth to booth. At five-eight, I could peer over most of the crowd. The Cookbook Nook was one of many vendors selling its wares at the Winsome Witches Faire on a gently breezy Sunday, all to benefit the Witches’ cause—literacy. I dropped to all fours. I must have looked pretty silly in a black sheath with my rear end in the air and my sandals ready to fall off my waterski-sized feet, but I didn’t care. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
“Hi, Jenna.” Katie, my friend and the head chef at the Nook Café, taller than me and larger all over, arrived with tiers of delectable homemade candies to give away to afternoon customers. “What are you looking for?”
“A cat yowled. Do you see it?”
“No, but don’t worry. I’ll bet it was a mouser. They’re tough. Someone stepped on its tail, that’s all.”
Then why did a shiver run down my spine?
“C’mon.” Katie nudged my knee with her toe. “Lose the frown. Cats are resilient. Remember that litter of six we found when we were kids?”
I wanted to bring them all home, but Katie reminded me that my mother was allergic. We put the kittens in a box and went house to house to find them new families.
“You’re right,” I conceded. Not hearing another screech, I scrambled to my feet and brushed off my hands.
Katie hitched her chin and chuckled; her wildly curly hair shook. “Fix your witch hat. It’s lopsided.”
I righted the hat, a little gold number I’d crafted together with felt, ribbon, and wire. Though I wasn’t much of a cook yet, I was an artist. Oil paints and clay were my preferred mediums, but I wasn’t bad with a pair of scissors and hot glue.
“Better.” Katie shoved the tray of goodies my way. “Try one. I’ve brought Iron Chef–inspired maple mascarpone brittle.”
I downed a crunchy piece and hummed my appreciation. “Wow.”
Katie set the tray on the table beside the various Halloween-themed cookbooks, kitchen utensils, and colorful salt and pepper shakers I’d brought from the shop. Each year at Halloween, the Winsome Witches—they weren’t really witches—held an annual fund-raising luncheon, which was scheduled a few days from now. The group asked that all attendees open their designer handbags and
give
,
give
,
give
. Prior to the luncheon, the community of Crystal Cove got into the spirit. Each shop in town participated in the annual
Spookiest Window Display
contest, which reminded me; I needed to get cracking on that. One more thing to add to my to-do list. Swell. In addition to the luncheon and faire, The Cookbook Nook was planning a couple of family events, including a candy-making class led by Katie, a potion-making class led by an herbalist, and a magic show to entertain the kiddies.
Glass shattered.
I gasped. My heart started to chug. “What now? Is it the cat?”
“Nope.” Katie pointed toward the candlemaker’s booth where a woman was trying to sweep up the remains of an antique mirror. “Poor thing.” Katie
tsk
ed. “Like that will do any good. No matter what, she’s got seven years of bad luck.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Of course, I do. Superstitions aren’t just conjured out of thin air. Centuries of folklore create them. Do you remember back in eighth grade how we used to dash past the cemetery holding our breaths?”
Did I ever. We thought ghosts would follow us home. I shuddered again. Why was I so jumpy? I shook off the bad vibes and squared my shoulders. “Superstitions, like wives’ tales, are exactly that, fabricated to instill fear.”
Katie lasered me with a cynical look. “Hold on a sec. Aren’t you the one that used to wear only white to take tests in your senior year?”
I grinned. “That was just savvy wardrobe sense.”
“How do you feel when a black cat crosses your path?”
“Lucky.”
“Liar,” Katie teased.
“Let’s shelve this discussion.” I eyed our display table, which Katie had slightly rearranged to make room for the goodies tray. She could plate food better than anyone, but her display styling left something to be desired. Gingerly, I regrouped the cookbooks and drew the pumpkin-shaped salt and pepper shakers to the front. Voilà. Customers started to flock to us.
“Ooh, how cute,” was a common phrase and, “Wow, I had no idea there were so many cookbook choices.”
Neither did I until I opted to leave my advertising job in San Francisco and move home to Crystal Cove to help my aunt open a culinary bookshop and café. Best choice of my life. Especially now, after discovering the truth about my deceased husband and his dismal business—
life
—decisions. I needed family, and I needed friends. To remain in San Francisco, alone with my memories, wouldn’t have been, well,
fun
. I wanted to move upward and onward.
Too-ra-loo
, as my aunt would say.
“I love this time of year,” Katie said.
“Because we can dress up?”
Katie rarely dressed simply, preferring checkers and stripes. For the faire, however, she had donned a black dress. She also wore a silver
Wizard of Oz
necklace. You know the one I mean, with the witch riding the broom.
“No, silly,” Katie said. “Because making sweets is one of my favorite things to do. Chocolate witches. Cinnamon-candied apples. Caramel popcorn balls. Yum.” Katie moved a salt shaker and ogled me, daring me to reposition it. I controlled the impulse. Hard to do. “How about you?” she went on. “Do you like Halloween?”
“Of course.” I treasured fond memories. My mother had loved to make costumes. She would choose a theme. My sister, brother, and I were her guinea pigs. One year we were, indeed, that—the three little pigs. I was the bricklayer. Another year, we were characters right out of
The Chronicles of Narnia
. I demanded to be Lucy Pevensie, Queen of Narnia. My brother was Aslan, the sage lion. My sister was Jadis, the White Witch, which was, I must admit, appropriate. Whitney could be an ice queen.
“What’s your favorite costume ever?” Katie asked.
I didn’t have to think long. “Glinda, the good witch of the north.”
“I remember that one. It was so cool.” Katie and I had been lifelong friends, with a few years off during college for bad behavior—mine, for not keeping in touch. We reconnected a few months ago when I hired her for the position of chef at the Nook. “You had a crown and wore a bubble from the top of your head to your waist.”
I’d looked a bit like a see-through beach ball. Fortunately, my mother possessed enough foresight to cut air holes into the bubble so I could breathe. My crown, which was coveted by my peers, glistened with
jewels
—stones my mother had gathered on a local hiking trip.
“Don’t you love this inn, by the way?” Katie said.
“I do. It’s got good vibes.”
“Aha. So, you
do
believe in woo-woo stuff.”
I cut her a wry look. “No, I don’t.”
“Do, too.”
“Don’t.”
Crystal Cove was established back in the 1800s. The Crystal Cove Inn, one of the original establishments in town, was a charming bed-and-breakfast made of stone and wood. The grounds reminded me of an estate right out of a Jane Austen novel. Like all of Crystal Cove, which ran along the coast and rose into the hills behind, the inn was painted white and sported a red-tiled roof. The hillside behind the inn boasted forests of Douglas fir, oak, and maple trees. The inn’s gardens were filled with azaleas and hydrangeas, though none were in bloom in October. Nestled beneath the plants were masses of blue asters, autumn crocus, and assorted wildflowers.
Katie gestured to the crowd. “Don’t you adore all the witches’ costumes? Everyone looks so festive.”
Each participant, whether at the luncheon or the faire, was asked to wear a decorative witch hat.
A pair of women in matching silver witch hats stopped by our booth to purchase a specialty cookbook we had stocked for Halloween:
The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory—More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Wizards and Muggles
. Who could resist dining on pumpkin pasties and treacle tart?
The larger woman said, “My nephew is going to love this. He’s so into Harry Potter.”
“Isn’t he twenty-five?” her friend asked.
“He wasn’t a reader until Harry came on the scene. He bought each book the day it came out. You never outgrow your first love of books.”
How true, I thought. I had devoured the
Potter
books. Spoiler alert, but Ron and Hermione getting married . . . who’d have guessed?
I slipped one of the shop’s bookmarks and a list of our upcoming special events inside the book, offered the ladies a candy from Katie’s assortment, and bid them Happy Halloween. The women moved on, giggling like schoolgirls.
An hour later, after I served our three hundredth visitor, I needed a break. Also, I wanted to check in on my aunt, who was giving tarot readings at the far end of the garden. I asked Katie if she would mind tending the booth. She was delighted. The assistant chef that she recently hired was working out great, she confided. She didn’t have to return to the café for at least a half hour.
“You’re sure?” I said.
“Absolutely. I can go it alone.” She grabbed one of the salt shakers and spritzed salt over her left shoulder.
“Why did you do that?”
“For luck. Other than the broken mirror, no other bad things have happened, but”—she winked—“one can never be too careful.”
• • •
I FOUND AUNT
Vera sitting at a table set beneath the shade of an elderberry tree giving tarot card and palm readings. She didn’t have ESP, but she loved providing people with possibilities. Though she typically wore a caftan and a turban, my aunt had gotten into the spirit of the event by donning a purple witch costume and purple hat adorned with antique lace and silk flowers. Of course, she was also wearing her phoenix amulet. She never went anywhere without it. Her table looked fabulously exotic, covered with a rich purple cloth, on top of which sat a crystal ball surrounded by an array of polished glass stones and tarot cards.
With her face fixed in concentration, Aunt Vera addressed a woman whose hand she was holding. “He’s going to love you forever,” she said.
“Really?” Bingo Bedelia was one of my aunt’s longtime friends. She got her quirky name in what my aunt described as a lengthy but funny story; her real name was Barbara. “You swear?”
“On the cover of one of your dusty old bibles.”
Bingo was the owner of Aunt Teek’s, a popular antique and collectibles shop near the center of town. She was also the second-in-command for the Winsome Witches’ event. With her ruby red hair pulled off her face and her black witch hat pitched back off her forehead, I couldn’t help but notice Bingo’s very prominent, knobby chin—what many called a lantern jaw.
Bingo frowned. “Don’t lie to me.”
“You know I wouldn’t.”
Bingo, like my aunt, had never married. Neither was a spinster, just unlucky in love. I didn’t know if Bingo had been jilted as a younger woman or whether she had lost the love of her life. My aunt had suffered a double whammy.
“Look here. Your love line is strong.” Aunt Vera drew her finger along Bingo’s palm. “I assure you, he knows you are a treasure.”
Bingo spied me and flushed the color of her hair. “Hello, Jenna. Are you listening in?”
“Trying to catch some tips,” I quipped.
“Whatever you do, cherish your man.”
I had, but he died. There was a handsome guy in town I was interested in, a former chef who switched careers and now owned a sporting goods store. We’d only known each other a short time, but I sizzled with desire whenever I was around him.
“There are so few good ones,” Bingo added. “Mine”—recently, Bingo had become engaged to a darling pastor everyone in town called Reverend—“is such a sweetie pie. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
A plump forty-something woman sneaked up behind Bingo and grabbed her shoulders. “You’d die.”
Bingo shrieked.
The woman, Pearl Thornton, cackled; her black witch hat made her hair appear as white as snow. “Did I scare you, Barbara Bedelia?” Pearl was a therapist in town—mine, as well as others’. I was meeting with her to learn coping skills. Being a widow, at any age, isn’t easy.
“You know you did. And you’ll call me Bingo, if you know what’s good for you.” Bingo pulled free of my aunt and shook a finger at Pearl.
“Or what?” Pearl teased.
Bingo popped her finger as if pulling a trigger. “Bang, bang, bang.”
Pearl laughed heartily. So did Bingo. She wasn’t angry. How could she be? She and Pearl were dear friends. Pearl was the Head Priestess of the Winsome Witches.
“Do you need me for a prep meeting?” Bingo asked.
“No, relax. Enjoy.” Right after Pearl’s husband died, she founded the Winsome Witches and wrangled her friends to participate. I don’t think anyone had foreseen what a huge success the annual event would be.
“Are all of you ready for the”—Pearl rested the tip of her finger to her mouth—“
haunted
walk tomorrow?” She teetered a bit. “It’s going to be
spoo-oo-ooky
.” The event planners had scheduled an evening tour to visit Crystal Cove’s historic sites. “If you don’t watch out, someone might”—she wiggled her fingers in Bingo’s face—“scare you.”
