Legacy Of Magick (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 1) (5 page)

As I organized them, I looked up to see Violet’s brothers leaving and waved at them as they headed out. I was getting ready to start counting cards when I saw Duncan Quinn. He was standing outside of the door, frowning through the glass, and into our shop.

A moment later he opened the door and let himself in. I was fairly hidden behind the card racks so I had the chance to watch him and his expression as he came inside. I was interested to see how he’d handle it. I had observed that some people were curious and loved the store, while others occasionally freaked and left in a huff.

My first reaction to my aunt’s store was surprise, and, okay I will admit it, delight. My mother had always discouraged anything mystical or what I suppose most people would call ‘New-Age’ in our home. Even though my father had quietly told me bedtime tales of faeries and the Gods and Goddesses when I was little, he had always kept his personal spiritual beliefs quiet. So I never knew or suspected about his family and their heritage.

After looking around for a moment Duncan started to smile. I had a hunch he wasn’t looking at the wares, instead the old oak floor and brick walls were more likely grabbing his attention. When he spotted me behind the card rack, he grinned.

“There you are.” He looked all around the store again and focused back on me. “Great looking shop,” he said enthusiastically.

“Thanks,” I replied as I began to walk to him.

Before I could take more than a few steps, my aunt walked up and moved between the two of us, effectively cutting me off. “Hello. May I help you?” While her tone was polite it was also frosty, very formal, and a bit stiff. It was totally out of character for Gwen.

My stomach tightened in response to the tension suddenly surrounding my aunt and Duncan, which made me wonder if perhaps I
was
a little bit empathic, like Holly. I was sure picking up on emotions today. Seeing auras, feeling tingles from sexy men… it felt like somebody had flipped the switch to high on my sensitivity, but did not bother to tell me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ivy start to walk forward. She also had a cautious expression on her face. Was she feeling the tension too?

Duncan extended his hand to Aunt Gwen and politely introduced himself. “Hi. I’m Duncan Quinn, I met Autumn this morning. What a great building. Is the exposed brick in here original?”

Aunt Gwen crossed her arms over her chest and ignored his extended hand. “It is.”

He gestured at the chunky rustic shelves full of dried herbs, arranged in pretty glass apothecary jars along the back wall of the store. “Do you grow all those herbs in your own gardens?”

“Not all of them,” Aunt Gwen told him. I had never seen her so stiff with a customer before.

“My mother studies herbalism,” Duncan announced. “I bet she would love your shop.” All good will, he started to move towards the back wall, to apparently check out those herbs, when a loud impatient tap sounded on the glass door.

His cousin Julian stood outside the door and gestured with a frown for Duncan to come out. “Let’s go!” Julian called.

“In a minute.” Unconcerned, Duncan ignored his cousin and went to get a closer look at the herb filled apothecary jars.

There was another loud tap on the glass door. I saw Julian yank his hand back from the glass as if it had burned him. He stepped back from the door, frowned down at his knuckles, and if possible, looked even angrier.

“I mean it Duncan. We need to go!” He sounded really and truly pissed off. “Right now!” He insisted.

“What’s his deal?” I asked Ivy quietly as she stepped to my side. “He could come inside the shop and wait.”

“No. He can’t,” said Gwen softly and in a deadly serious tone.

I stood there with my mouth hanging open. I had never seen her act that way before. Power seemed to crackle off of her, and I automatically backed up a step, tugging Ivy with me.

Duncan didn’t notice the sudden change in my aunt, or hear what she had said as he was all the way across the sales floor, but I sure did. I swung my gaze from Aunt Gwen to the guy outside, as Julian backed farther away from the glass door but continued to call for his cousin.

Duncan finally glanced over his shoulder at his cousin, who was looking angrier by the moment while he stood out there shouting on the sidewalk. Duncan rolled his eyes at Julian and then picked up an Enchantments business card off the shop’s checkout counter and tucked it in his jeans pocket.

He walked up to Aunt Gwen and then told her that he would come back later. “I’ll bring my mother in to shop,” he promised.

My aunt said nothing in response.

He smiled at me and headed for the door, calling for his cousin to settle down. As soon as he stepped outside, his cousin grabbed his arm and hauled him off. Ivy and I both went together to the door and watched them leave.

“Real subtle, Julian. What the hell is wrong with you?” Duncan asked.

We could hear Julian as they moved further down the sidewalk, “We are not supposed to cross into the Bishop’s territory, and you know it!”

“That’s ancient history.” Duncan stopped and scowled at his cousin. “It’s your problem, not mine.”

In a moment, they had disappeared around the corner.

Territory? What the hell did that mean?
“Okaaaay,” I drew out the word. “That was bizarre.”

“All energies not in alignment with me, must now depart.” Was Aunt Gwen’s reply as she made a broad shooing gesture, and then crossed her arms defensively over her chest.

“Wait, what did you just say?” I asked as I looked back at her.

As an answer, she focused over my head. Which of course made both Ivy and I look up, to see what she was staring at.

“Remind me to re-enchant the wards.” Aunt Gwen growled as she stalked forward and peered up at the large, dried, fan-shaped herbal arrangement displayed over the shop’s front door. “I am surprised he was even able to get that close to the door,” she said.

“Huh?” I asked.
What in the world was going on?

In answer, Aunt Gwen simply pointed up at the pretty floral swag, hanging right above the shop’s door. “That, my girl, is a defensive ward. The dried herbs woven into it are protective and a spell has been worked into the design. It protects the store, wards off negativity, and keeps evil from entering.”

“You mean the flowers above the door are a kind of protective spell?” I asked her. I tipped my head up to regard that floral swag more carefully. Come to think of it. there were similar dried floral arrangements above the back door of the shop and over both the main doors at the manor as well.

“And what, it didn’t do its job right?” I asked. I still had so much to learn about magick.

As Ivy and I stood there, looking up at the ‘ward’, all I knew was that I wanted away from it. Especially if it was broken. “So you’re saying that Julian Drake is
evil
?” I demanded. Without thinking about what I was doing or why, I put my hand on Ivy’s arm and drew her away, out from underneath that large arrangement of dried flowers.

As if on cue, the swag suddenly dropped, and fell hard, as if it weighed hundreds of pounds. It hit the wide planked oak floor of the shop with an impressive thud. The arrangement broke apart on impact, and dried herbs and flowers seem to explode and scatter everywhere when they hit the floor.

Ivy and I both squeaked and jumped back when the floral swag fell. Now we all stood waving our hands in front of our faces, and coughing as the dried herbs floated slowly back down to the oak floor.

“My spidey senses are tingling all over.” Ivy said as she looked up to where the floral swag had hung, and then down to where it had burst all over the floor. She shuddered dramatically.

I couldn’t help but shudder in reaction as well.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Well that explains it.” Aunt Gwen said in a grim voice as she looked down at what was left of the floral arrangement. “The ward has taken all of the negativity it can, the protective spell is spent.”

“I can help you clean it up.” I reached down to pick up the bigger pieces of the floral arrangement off the floor.

“No!” Aunt Gwen’s sharp reply stopped me in my tracks and I gaped at her. She closed her eyes and took a deep stabilizing breath and seemed to pull herself together. As she exhaled, the serenity I typically associated with my aunt returned to her.

“Don’t touch it.” She told us, as she reached out and flipped the lock on the door, spinning the door sign over to ‘Closed’. “We have work to do,” she announced.

“Are we going to do a protection spell, right now?” Ivy asked, practically rubbing her hands together in anticipation. That was new. I had never seen the family do an actual spell together before.

Aunt Gwen looked over at the two of us. “No time like the present.” Her tone was gentler, but still serious. “Ivy, I would like you to go and pick out two big chunks of the black tourmaline.”

Ivy nodded and hurried to the crystal display and picked out two palm sized pieces of the chunky crystals. Aunt Gwen sent me into the back of the store for a dust pan and her big, hand-made willow broom. When I came back, I found she’d gathered up a black votive candle, a glass candle holder, a bottle of spring water, and a stick of dragon’s blood incense from the store’s stock. Then she pulled out a big black garbage bag and a container of salt from under the front counter.

Explaining that she wanted the two of us to stay away from the broken floral arrangement, Aunt Gwen took the broom and dustpan from me, and swept up the herbs and the pieces of the floral swag and put them inside of the garbage bag. She handed me her broom when she finished and set the container of salt down on the floor at her side.

She lit the little black votive candle and set it in a glass holder and placed it in the display window to the left of the shop’s front door. Gwen lit the incense stick and set that in its holder, in the window on the other side of the door. Next, she opened the bottle of water and poured a bit into the palm of her hand. She sprinkled the water lightly on the now clean floor and around the doorway.

With her wet fingers she drew a pentagram in the center of the wide old wooden doorframe— right above the shop’s front door. As she finished, she shook her hands briskly and droplets scattered to the floor. As the drops fell Gwen said, “By the powers of air, fire and water, I cleanse this space.”

As the words were spoken, I felt something shift in the store. The mood felt lighter somehow and the overhead lights seemed to grow a little brighter. I looked suspiciously up at the lights, as Gwen directed Ivy to place the crystals on the floor, one on either side of the closed and locked door. Lastly, she had Ivy pour a thin line of salt across the threshold. Salt was not only protective, Aunt Gwen quietly informed me, but also evil could not pass a barrier of salt.

She continued her ritual by saying, “By the power of the element of earth, I protect this space. No evil can enter here, no manipulation can find its way in to do harm. The elements four now weave together, as I speak this charm.” She stepped back and took both Ivy and I by the hand. “As I will it…” She began.

“So shall it be,” Ivy and Gwen said together.

“So shall it be.” I repeated after my aunt and cousin. I guessed it was the right thing to do as they both beamed at me.

“Ivy,” Gwen then asked her daughter, “would you please cleanse the broom?”

Ivy retrieved the broom, and held up the bristle part of the broom over the incense smoke that was streaming up from the holder. Ivy looked at me and explained, “Passing an item through incense smoke is a quick way to cleanse it. Plus dragon’s blood is a protective scent.”

As I watched the fragrant smoke roll around the broom’s bristles, Ivy continued with, “By the powers of air, I cleanse this broom. All negativity must depart.”

I looked over at my aunt, and she nodded. She seemed pleased with my attention.

“That should hold us for now,” She told the two of us. “I’m going to dispose of these dried flowers and I think we will close up a bit early for the day.” She sent Ivy to the register and asked her to start running the daily reports so we could close out.

I went around the shop and clicked off the music and, with direction from Ivy, clicked off the various overhead lights. I picked up the forgotten greeting cards and set them neatly aside to be dealt with tomorrow. There was really no need to straighten, as we had been organizing and cleaning to help with end-of-summer inventory. So closing up the shop went very quickly.

By the time we had finished with the closing paperwork, the incense stick had burned itself out. Aunt Gwen picked up the burning candle and placed it, in its holder, inside of the shop’s bathroom sink. Where she told me it could continue to burn safely even while we were gone. But at the rate the candle was burning, I didn’t think it would take very long.

I nudged Ivy as we gathered up our belongings, and asked, “Why is the candle burning out so quickly? That’s strange isn’t it?”

Ivy looked back at the candle and its dancing flame and shrugged. “No, not always. A fast burning candle means the magick is either working really quickly or that there is a lot of energy working against the spell.”

Well there’s a happy thought.

I was on the verge of asking questions, when Gwen gestured for us to go out the shop’s back door before her. “We will talk about this more at home.” She announced.

As the three of us headed out the back door, Aunt Gwen hauled the black garbage bag with her. I locked the rear door, while she walked across the back parking lot to the dumpster. I could hear her chanting low as she opened up the bag and looked down at the remnants of the floral swag. Then for good measure she pulled that container of salt out of her purse, where she had apparently stashed it, opened up the container and dumped all the remaining salt over the broken dried flowers inside the garbage bag.

She knotted the bag three times and chucked it into the dumpster followed by the empty carton of salt. Ivy and I watched this before we climbed into the back seat of my aunt’s car.

I elbowed Ivy. “So would you call this an average day at the shop... Exploding wards, flickering lights, and protection spells?”