A Charming Wish

A

Charming Wish

Magical Cures Mystery
Series

Book Three

Also by Tonya
Kappes

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A Charming Crime

A Charming Cure

A Charming Potion

A Charming Wish

Grandberry Falls
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A Superstitious Christmas

Never Tell Your Dreams

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A New Tradition

The Dare Me Date

Non-Fiction

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This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, without the permission in writing from
the author or publisher.

Edition: September 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Tonya
Kappes

All rights reserved

Cover Artist: Laura
Morrigan

www.lauramorrigan.com

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition,
License Notes

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personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given
away to other people. If you would like to share this book with
another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
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the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgments

Thank you really doesn’t cut it when I
think about the village it takes to publish a book. Tobi Helton has
been a big supporter of my novels and came up with the perfect
title for this third novel, A CHARMING WISH. Kellie Mounce is an
amazing reader who won “name the genie contest,” and Belur is a
GREAT name! Mary Godschalk and Melissa Street are not only amazing
beta readers, but I’m super proud to call them my
friends.

Hugs and love to my guys (Eddy, Jack,
Brady, and Austin). You guys are so understanding when it comes to
deadlines and limited mom time. Especially since we moved during
this novel. My life is nothing without you guys!

Chapter One

“
Hear ye, hear ye,” Faith
Mortimer’s voice echoed throughout the valley, down Main Street and
straight into A Charming Cure as she announced the day’s headlines
from the
Whispering Falls
Gazette
. “Be on the lookout for a storm
brewing. Have you ever noticed the dark purple skies during storms?
This message is brought to you by Wicked Good Bakery. Be sure to
stop in and get your Peppermint Scone. Be sure to stop in Glorybee.
Petunia Shrubwood has reported to our very own Police Chief, Oscar
Park, that there has been a huge increase of stray animals. They
are not animals from souls; they are the real live furry creatures.
Be sure to keep healthy by taking your daily vitamin potions from A
Charming Cure. Tell June you heard about this ad and get ten
percent off. Whispering Falls Gazette is running a special. Get
four weeks free with a six month paid subscription. See Faith
Mortimer for details.”

Immediately, I grabbed The Magical
Cures Book and tuned out the rest of the morning paper headlines. I
had a few minutes before I had to open my homeopathic cure shop, A
Charming Cure, to make a quick protection potion. By the sound of
Faith’s report, something big was about to happen and I definitely
wanted to be prepared.

Not that I thought I needed
protection, but you can never be too careful. Faith could’ve been
talking about anyone.

Following my finger down the index in
the front of my book, I honed in on my intuition to see which
protection spell spoke to me. Like always, the print on the right
potion became bold, standing out from the rest.

“
Ah, ha!” I quickly turned
to the spell. “A level twenty-eight spell.”

Level twenty-eight was a stage I had
just started to work within and wasn’t having a whole lot of luck
in doing so. But I hadn’t given up yet. As we say in the
spiritualist world, “practice makes perfect.”

I read the
ingredients.
Four cups of spring water,
one tablespoon of powdered iron, one teaspoon of Vervain, two
tablespoons of sea salt, two tablespoons each of frankincense &
myrrh, and a pinch of ground ostrich feather from a live
ostrich.

The feather might prove to be a bit
challenging. Walking behind the counter, I ran my finger along the
shelf of ingredients to see if I happened to have any ostrich
feathers in stock.

“
Of course not,” I sighed,
but eyed the sleeping white cat nestled on my stool, “Mr. Prince
Charming,” I sang. His fur would have to substitute. I plucked a
tuft from his tail.

Meow!
Mr. Prince Charming darted under one of the round display
tables. The tip of his white tail was the only part of him that
could be seen beneath the long red draped tablecloth. His tail
slowly dragged on the floor.

“
Chicken!” I blew a puff
of air toward my bangs to get them out of my eyes. “Besides, you
are my Fairy god-cat, not a scaredy cat.”

I stood back and threw a pinch of
Vervain into the bubbling cauldron. Shielding my face with my
hands, I snuck a peek through the slits of my fingers. My potions
had a habit of blowing things up.

The emerald toned tonic frothed,
turning an onyx color and letting off a black pepper smell,
circling around my fingers and up my nose.

“
So far so good!”
Cough, cough
. I fanned
my hands in front of my face. My charm bracelet jingled and jangled
in the air. “A little smoky, sure, but nothing
tragic
.”

Mr. Prince Charming yanked his tail
completely under the table, making me a little uneasy. I looked
down and grasped my turtle charm, then gently touched the Celtic
knot, dog charm, and the small owl. If something was about to
happen, Mr. Prince Charming would’ve dropped a charm at my feet or
on the counter to keep me out of harm’s way. I was just being
paranoid after all of those other…incidents.

Mr. Prince Charming had shown up on my
tenth birthday with the turtle charm on his collar, and it wasn’t
until a little over a year ago that I was told he had been my Fairy
god-cat all this time.

Fairy
god-cat…hrrumph!
I glared at the table.
More like a scaredy cat.

Most little girls dreamed
of having a Fairy Godmother like Cinderella. Well let me tell you,
that was not how it happened in real life. I got a
cat
.

I let go of my bracelet, pushed a
strand of my black bobbed hair behind my ear and rolled up my
sleeves to finish this potion. Grabbing a handful of salt, I threw
it in with a chaser of natural spring water and Mr. Prince
Charming’s hair.

Vroom!

A puff of smoke shot up and hung over
the boiling pot. It fizzed and popped, and slowly I stirred the
frothy draught until the bubbles turned into a slow
boil.

I closed my eyes, and took a deep
breath as I tried to tap into my intuition for any insight of
upcoming danger.

Luckily, I have always had a wonderful
sense of intuition, but going to Hidden Hall A Spiritualist
University for intuition school was one of the best things I had
ever done as a spiritualist. Not only did it help me tap deeper
into my gift, but it also allowed me to understand my place in the
spiritualist world.

When I was a baby, my parents lived in
Whispering Falls until my spiritualist dad was murdered. The
community moved Darla, my mom who didn’t like to be called Mom, and
me to Locust Grove, a nearby “normal” town.

Darla owned A Dose of Darla, which was
a booth in the local flea market, and I had grudgingly worked
there. What teenage girl wants to be seen at a flea market, much
less be running a booth there? Surprisingly she did very well, but
passed away right after I graduated from high school, leaving me in
charge of A Dose of Darla.

I have to say that I think I did a
fabulous job. The more homeopathic cures I made, or you could say
potions, the more they sold. Customers started to flock to the
booth. When the Whispering Falls Village Council discovered I had
inherited my father’s spiritualist gift, they came knocking. Only I
didn’t know anything about my gift until I visited Whispering Falls
and realized it was the perfect town for my ornery cat and
me.

Cough, cough.

“
Level twenty-eight sure
is smoky.” I reached over and grabbed the Frankincense. My
intuition told me to use just a dash.

The smoke cleared and the cauldron
stopped bubbling, letting me know the potion making process was
finished.

“
That wasn’t so bad,” I
called in Mr. Prince Charming’s direction. The edge of the
tablecloth looked like a beating drum. He batted at the loose hem.
Directing my attention back to the potion, I knew I had to pick the
perfect bottle.

I scanned the shelf on the wall that
was full of empty bottles that just seemed to reveal themselves to
me. Usually the right bottle would step up to the plate and glow
after the perfect matching potion was made.

“
Come on.” I encouraged
each bottle not to be shy as I took my finger and went down the
line gingerly tapping each one. Nothing. Not a single bottle had a
hint of a glow.

Glancing back over them, I couldn’t
help but wonder if level twenty-eight required some other sort of
intuition skill that I hadn’t quite mastered.

The Magical Cures Potion book, the
only thing that Darla left me, flipped shut when I glanced in its
direction.

Hmm
…I started to walk over to take a look at it, but a bottle
suddenly glowed like the sun. “It’s about time,” I said crossly,
taking the bottle down from the shelf.

“
I wondered what you were
going to be used for.” I eyed the twelve-inch hourglass shaped
bottle that seemed too large for a potion. You can never have too
much protection. . .at least that’s what I thought.

The purple base glowed, showing off
the gold specks throughout the glass, and ending in the tip of the
glass cork. It was the most beautiful bottle.