Enchanted, A Paranormal Romance / Fantasy (Forever Charmed) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the steering wheel, causing the Boat to give a loud honk like it was crying out in pain. She jumped and then laughed at herself. She got out of the car and walked to the meter, expecting to see that it had run out of time. There was always one too many town cops riding their bicycles through this parking lot checking the meters and ticketing the offending cars. Mandy looked at the meter and saw that it still had ten minutes left. So it couldn’t be a ticket…
    Mandy reached for the paper. It was a long white rectangle, but it was not ordinary paper. It was thicker and you could see and feel the pulp in it. In a gold pen someone had written “Check the trunk”. The paper fluttered down out of Mandy’s hand as she stood there frozen in her tracks. It took her only a second before she came to her senses and ran to door of the car. She flung it open and threw herself in, locking the doors the second they were closed. She barely looked around her before she backed up out of the space and high tailed it home, faster than she should have.
     
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    Chapter 3
     
    The last few days for Mandy had passed uneventfully compared to her first night in her new town. She had been pretty rattled after her experience with Ms. Ophelia. She had gone home that night and made a bee-line for the trunk that was sitting at the foot of her bed. It looked exactly as she had left it. She had half expected to find it stolen, open, or stuffed with something crazy like a skeleton. Instead she had found it sitting quietly and unassuming. She had slowly opened it, feeling shaky about the whole procedure, but had found it empty as before, blanketed by the lovely red satin. She had carefully inspected the ornate carving on the wooden exterior looking for any hint or clue, a name, or a date but had found nothing. She had stared at the woman’s face carved into the top for a while, mesmerized by its haunting features, wondering who she was.
    Mandy had debated internally over whether or not to mention the strange occurrences in town to her grandmother, but had decided against it. She was probably making a mountain out of a molehill. After all, psychics were supposed to be a little eccentric. It was part of the package deal. For people who believed in that junk, it would probably be a let down if the part wasn’t acted appropriately.
    Satisfied that there was nothing to find in or on the trunk and no apparent danger or mystery to solve, Mandy had pushed the subject from her mind. Her grandmother had put Mandy on the schedule to work the day after they had arrived, so Mandy had been able to keep herself occupied from being preoccupied from stupid superstitious weirdness.
    Working in Enchanted Dew Drops was not a hard task. What was hard was having to be constantly surrounded and watched by her family. Then on top of that there were the constant introductions. There was a pretty steady stream of customers that trickled in and out of the shop all day. Most of them were on a first name basis with Nana, so naturally they were curious about the new help that was working behind the counter. All day Mandy had to deal with “Oh, hi Marge! This is my daughter, Suzanne, and my granddaughter, Mandy!” or “Who’s this pretty young lady?” “Ah, this is my lovely granddaughter, Mandy.” “Mandy, say hello to Mrs. Sumners”, “Bill, this is Mandy. Mandy, meet Bill.”, “Claudine! This is my bucket of sunshine I was telling you about, Mandy!”. All day for the first two days Mandy had to deal with comments like this, force herself to make polite chit-chat with these total strangers, and force herself to smile. Her face felt weird from being held in a frozen grin all day. It was all she could do not to reach up with her fingers and touch her mouth to see if it really was frozen in a grimace as she suspected.
    Mandy was not someone who liked extra attention. Instead she most often shied away from the lime-light. She felt awkward and uncomfortable, like