The Jeep slowed to a crawl as I turned onto Main Street. I drove down the blocks of picturesque street, the bank of maple trees in the middle separating both directions of traffic. The trees were changing color and the leaves that had already lost their battle with Autumn were now decorating the curb on either side.
The city of Haven Hollow rested in the slope between two steep hills, under an almost constant layer of heavy gray clouds. The sun rarely broke through those clouds, giving the town an almost gloomy air. I suspected that suited the residents of Haven Hollow just fine. The brochures on the town that Ophelia had included in her gift basket revealed a history of hauntings, strange happenings, and, worryingly, an urban legend about a witch who’d lived in the Tayir House, on the outskirts of town, almost a century ago.
I sincerely hoped that urban legend wasn’t true.
It was entirely possible that a witch could still be alive and kicking after a century. And even if the Tayir Witch had died under mysterious circumstances, as the literature claimed, a witch having lived in Haven Hollow could still wreak havoc on my life here. As a rule, witches didn’t let go of their territories. If a witch had lived in the Tayir House, that meant the witch’s coven still owned the land.
But, I’d checked to make sure no witches owned land in Haven Hollow. I’d done my homework.
So what are you worried about? I asked myself.
I’m not worried! Besides, this is my town now! I reminded myself. And no witch is going to force me out!
Hmph, what about a witch and the entire coven standing behind her?
It’s not like I don’t have magic, I argued back. As Gypsies go, I’m powerful.
True, but you don’t have witch magic. And there’s a difference. And you also don’t have the benefit of thirty or so bffs backing you up.
Right... I have McFly.
And that wasn’t much of a consolation.
Regardless, you did your research and there were no witches staking claim to Haven Hollow, so stop freaking out and focus on positive things, instead!
So that’s exactly what I did. I focused on the adorable downtown area of Haven Hollow and tried to force thoughts of witches to the back of my mind.
Main Street wasn’t so much a street as a long cul-de-sac bordered on each side by shops. The architecture reminded me of New England. A lot of brick and colonial buildings. The brick on the nearest shop had faded to a rusty brown and a white, yellow, and orange awning stretched over a pair of double doors and a wide shop window. A wheelbarrow parked outside the shop was filled almost to the brim with taffies and candy corns. The sign rising from the middle of the wheelbarrow claimed one could get two pounds of candy corn free with a fifty-dollar purchase.
That was a lot of money. But it was also a lot of candy corns.
The decal on the shop window depicted a candied apple with a grinning skull face peering out through the dripping caramel. Just beneath it, in huge, gold letters read; SWEETER HAUNTS. It was the candy shop Marty had mentioned. Had he created their logo? If so, I was definitely going to have to hire him to do mine. It was very well done.
Just a few paces away from the candy store was a two-story, Colonial-style shop. A mannequin smiled blankly at passersby, oblivious to the fact she was wearing a hoop skirt and nothing else. No fancy decals for this shop, just a large bronze placard next to the door that read; ODDBALLS AND END TABLES.
There were more shops further down the street. A small craft store, a visitor’s center with a gift shop and, at the very end of the street, where the large cul-de-sac snaked the road in on itself, was Stomper’s Creamery. It looked like it may have once been a two-horse modular stable, but had since been converted into an ice cream stand. I could make out the shape of the owner hanging most of his torso out the window so he could hand a dish of soft serve ice cream to a mother and a banana split to her child. The girl’s red hair had been pulled into lopsided braids, so she reminded me of Pippi Longstocking.
In the middle of the lane were two unoccupied shops. The one on the left was a three-story affair that towered over everything else on the street. It even had a steeple. The siding was black; the windows tinted so you couldn’t easily see inside. It looked like the grim cousin of the thrift shop down the road.
The empty shop on the right side of the lane was mine.
Mine.
It felt good to think the word.
I’d fallen in love with the space when I’d seen it on Hallowed Realty’s website of listings. It was a one story, brown brick square that wasn’t very large. But, I didn’t need large. The frosted glass block windows dominated the majority of the shop front, with a small, hand-carved mahogany door, squeezed like an afterthought, between them. A green awning sheltered the doorway, and the small set of stairs that led from the sloping sidewalk into the store. A solid stripe of lacquered wood stretched like a banner across the front—a placard for the name of the shop. Soon bronze cast metal letters would spell out “Poppy’s Potions”, breathing life into the place.
I smiled.
Yes, it had definitely been a good idea to cut through town, I thought, as I rounded the cul-de-sac and made my way back home. Just the pick-me-up I needed.
Watch out, Haven Hollow.
Here I come.
Chapter Eight
I’d just met Marty at the shop, to give him access so he could install a few shelves. I would have stayed to help, but I still had to make a whole inventory of ready-made potions, so I’d have something to put on the shelves. My plan was to open ‘Poppy’s Potions’ in the next couple of days and now it was getting down to the wire. Not to mention, I owed Marty a few banishment potions for his help with the store. So, I’d have to add those to the long list I still had to whip up.
Once Marty was finished with the shelves and Finn was home from school, we’d planned to have dinner at the Half-Moon Bar and Grill in order to discuss the marketing materials I still needed for the store. Marty had texted to say he already had some ideas for my logo… I could only hope those ideas had nothing to do with dust bunnies or variations of Ghostbuster logos.
Regardless, I’d made it a point to put Finn’s Gameboy in my purse so I wouldn’t forget it later—I was more than sure he’d be bored stiff with our proposed dinner conversation.
“Ooh, pretty,” Darla cooed, trailing a finger down the contours of a turquoise Egyptian perfume bottle.
I’d bought it at a garage sale years back for that exact reason—it did look pretty. Collecting bottles, vials, and crystal was a hobby of mine. Finn had begun to dread the inevitable thrift store and garage sale scavenger hunts and the endless trips to antique stores. Or so he said. But, every time I asked him if he’d rather stay home, he opted to join me. Of course, that could have been owing to the poltergeist…
My head snapped up from the batch of Gypsy Magic I’d been mixing, and I snapped my hand out without thought, batting Darla’s transparent one away. All I managed to do was send an icy chill racing up my arm as I came into contact with her spirit form. Darla’s hand blurred into invisibility, like fog being rubbed forcefully off a window.
She drew her hand back, rubbing her wrist as it reappeared, staring at me reproachfully.
“Gee-whiz! What was that for?”
“Be careful,” I chided. “I was just about to fill that one!”