Chapter 1
“Why do you insist on being in the way, sugar?”
Ivy sat on the far end of the kitchen counter. Mama was cooking. While Mama was renowned as a terrible cook, tonight she was frying chicken. She always said no True Southern Woman could claim her rights to the title if she couldn’t make fried chicken.
“I’m ten feet away from you, Mama.”
Davinia Light frowned. “I may need an emergency ramekin or some such. Go sit at the table like a civilized person. You’re making me nervous.”
“Oh, Mama, you’re doing fine.” Ivy looked at the pitcher of sweet tea on the dining room table. It needed a stir. Mama and Aunt Abitha could stir a pitcher just by gesturing. Ivy wasn’t quite in their league yet. She needed practice. Breathing deeply, she focused on the spoon. It was a wooden spoon, and her abilities centered on foliage. That gave her an advantage, right?
Blanche, Ivy’s cousin, looked up from her laptop. She eyed Ivy, then the pitcher. Casually, she moved her computer a few feet to the left.
Ivy felt the smooth handle of the spoon in her mind. She considered the angle, the turn, and turned up the power. Ice rattled in the glass container. The spoon shook. It then moved an inch, two, three. Then, a tiny bud sprouted from the tip of the handle with a little pop!
She sat back, exhausted. “Dang it all.”
“When’s supper?” Aunt Abitha strolled into the dining room. “Card reading is hungry work.”
Ivy noted a client in the library when she rolled up. Abitha moved with a little bounce, so the reading must have gone well.
“Won’t be long now, said the cat when they cut off his tail.” Mama had worked herself into a regular lather.
“Want some help, Sissy?” Abitha laid her tarot deck on the table.
Mama growled. “Is a five pound robin fat?”
As Auntie Abitha walked over to the stove, she waved an off-hand gesture over the pitcher. The spoon acted like a cattail in a whirlpool. Ivy sighed.
“Well, it smells good, and it looks delicious,” Abitha said,
“Like to make your tongue slap your brains out,” Mama said.
Abitha took a boiling pot to the sink and drained the water. “Even if you are as slow as cream rising on buttermilk.”
Feet clumped down the stairs. Abitha’s husband, Uncle Roby, strode into the kitchen. “Ahoy, the galley, when’s grub?”
Roby manned the lighthouse across from the St. Augustine Inlet. It was not as famous as the big St. Augustine Lighthouse down on Salt Run, but nearly as important. The meeting of the Tolomato and Matanzas rivers stirred up shifting shallows boats needed to avoid. The Light family had operated the Spanish-style watchtower since the sixteen hundreds.
He kissed his daughter on the head. “Whatcha working on, Daughter?”
“Hey, Daddy,” Blanche didn’t look up from the screen. “Just working on my dissertation.”
Roby scratched his head and sat down at the table. “Aren’t you studying on pottery?”
“Ceramics,” she both agreed and corrected. “I’m hoping to get my PhD at the end of next semester. But I have to get my thesis approved by the department head first.”
Academia was a foreign port to Uncle Roby. “Pottery doctor. You still gonna work at First Trust?”
“Until I can get a good studio set up and go into business. I think it would dovetail nicely with Ivy’s shop.” Blanche closed the laptop.
Ivy owned August Botanica, which sold tropical plants for both in- and outdoors, as well as herbs, and, if you knew how to ask, potions for just about any ailment. Maybe her physical magic was still pretty low-powered, her potions kicked ass.
“I can see that. Be nice if you offered an assortment of decorative pots and vases,” Roby said. “Cousins, working together. I like it.”
“Vah-zes,” Blanche said. “You can get vay-ses at the dollar store.”
“Pardon my rough upbringing.” Roby put on airs. “Vah-zes. Heavens, my manners.”
The sound of sizzling fat and conversation diminished and the air grew thick and heavy. Finally, Ivy thought. A meeting of the minds with her twin brother, Harmon.
Hey, Sissy.
What the heck have you been up to, Bro-Chacho? I haven’t heard from you for days.
Suez Canal was kind of a bitch. My agent got me through no problem, but the pilots I had to hire were douche bags. Harmon was singlehanding around the world, recording it all for his successful YouTube channel.
Ivy could sense tension in his thoughts. She walked out of the kitchen through the sliding doors for privacy. This was silly, since no one could overhear the psychic communication. Everything okay? Miss Fields still seaworthy?
Boat’s shipshape, but I’m sailing the Red Sea. In a couple days, I’ll be off the coast of Somalia.
Pirates, Ivy thought. You worried?
I’ve partnered up with some other yachters who watch my channel. Safety in numbers. But we’ll have to go lights-out at night and no communication. We checked in with some patrol boats. It’ll be fine. But I smelled Mama’s fried chicken through your nose. Are you gonna be okay?
That was just like Harmon, trying to put her at ease. I’ll be fine. But you be careful. Do you want me to ask Aunt Abitha for more fair wind?
No, I’ll just take the regular weather, thanks. Auntie Abitha, Mama, and Harmon were weather wizards, with Abitha having some control over the fickle winds.
Why is that? Did she overdo it?
Harmon chuckled in her head. No, I had enough wind to run through the canal by sail. Unfortunately, my so-called pilot wasn’t used to sailboats. I paid him two hundred dollars and a carton of cigarettes just so he could upchuck over the side on the whole passage.
Sakes!
Don’t worry. I got it on tape. Listen, I’m getting a message from my little convoy. I’ll be in touch.
You’d better be, and regularly. Because I do worry.
At once, the air pressure reduced. Ivy was alone on the patio. She looked up at the square-sided light. The sunset made it a brooding gray shape. What time was it on the Red Sea?
“Sit down to supper, Ivy,” Mama said. The rest were already seated and digging in. “How’s my boy fairing?”
Ivy grabbed a plate. “He’s fine. He says thanks for the wind, Auntie.”
Abitha colored a little and waved her hands in an obscure gesture. “Oh, I do what I can. Let me do a reading for him.”
As powerful a witch as Abitha was, her tarot readings were on the lame side. While her psychic reading side-hustled was humored by the family, no one put much stock in it. She shuffled the fat deck like a Las Vegas dealer.
“Oh, not at the table, Mama, you’ll get them all greasy,” Blanche said.
Abitha shuffled away. “Nonsense. Cards need to be used so they get more accurate. Here we go.”
She laid down a card; the king of cups.
“Oh, that could be Harmon,” Mama said, pointing with a leg bone.
The next card was the six of swords. “Smooth sailing ahead,” Abitha smiled.
The three of wands came next. Ivy got an uneasy feeling looking at it. It showed a man surrounded by three wands sticking out of the ground. He was looking down on a boat in the water.
“Huh,” Abitha said. She dealt a two of coins.