It Takes a Witch: A Wishcraft Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

she could trip her up.
    A crack of thunder made me jump. Sylar squinted ­toward the front picture window. Rain slashed across the pane. He said, “I wish the rain would hold off until after the meeting.”
    My nerves tingled.
    Ve patted my hand, indicating that she would grant this wish. She turned away from any onlookers. I saw her left eye twitch as her spell was cast.
    No one but me seemed to notice that the rain had suddenly stopped.
    At sixty-­one, Velma was tiny, like Harper, but her eyes were a golden blue like my own. Tonight hers were skillfully made up with pink and purple shadows. Rosy blush made her cheeks glow, and soft gloss brightened her plump lips. Her coppery hair was worn off her face in a loose twist secured with a silver clip. I’d lived with her two weeks now and had never seen her hair down.
    I looked around for Harper and found her with Vincent Paxton, Spellbound Bookshop’s manager. She was smiling up at him as he pointed out reference books. Bookshops were Harper’s nirvana, and she and Vince had become fast friends the day we arrived in the village. Apparently, his type of wolfishness was okay with my little sister.
    “Is it hot in here?” Ve asked, drawing my attention back to her. She unwound a lightweight turquoise scarf from around her neck, then shimmied out of a cropped sweater and pushed both into Sylar’s hands. The skin of her shoulders and chest glowed red above the neckline of her flowing sundress. The beautiful golden locket she never took off swayed from a long chain as she fanned herself.
    “Very,” I said in hormonal solidarity. I was lying through my teeth. It was actually chilly inside the airy shop.
    Sylar dropped a kiss on Ve’s forehead and said, “Why don’t you get something cool to drink while I round up Gayle and get this meeting started.”
    Gayle Chastain owned the bookshop. I saw her standing off to the side, talking with a man at the snack table.
    Sylar had to be the “grand hoo-­ha” Harper had mentioned on the phone. “And I’ll round up my sister,” I said, looking around. She was no longer with Vince, who stood near the podium.
    “The quicker the better,” Sylar said darkly, his eyes narrowing on a spot across the room.
    I followed his gaze. Harper was now cornered by a woman who looked to be in her midthirties. She was tall and slender, with crimped long blond hair that seemed to burst from her scalp like Medusa’s snakes. She wore a striking blue one-­shouldered dress, gold high heels, and the reddest lipstick I’d ever seen.
    Harper caught my eye and mouthed “Help.”
    “Looks like Harper needs us,” I whispered to Aunt Ve.
    There was venom in Sylar’s voice as he said, “That she does. Truly, I wish Alexandra Shively would just go away forever.” He walked away.
    I glanced at Ve. “Doesn’t much sound like that wish was pure of heart. Though if she’s evil or something, then maybe her being gone forever isn’t a bad thing, right?”
    “Alexandra is a complex person,” Ve said. “She is a Seeker who publicly claims herself to be a Craft ‘high priestess’ and markets herself openly as a witch.”
    A Seeker was a mortal who sought to become a Crafter. “Does she realize she’s making us look bad?”
    Us
. My transition into a life of a witch was happening so seamlessly I hardly noticed.
    “Subtle warnings to cease go unheeded, and to openly discuss the matter, even in generalizations, would only fuel her fire. We all were hoping that once she realized she had no true powers, she’d simply go away. But she’s convinced she is a Crafter.”
    The types of Craft native to this area were hereditary gifts, passed down from one generation to another. The only way a Seeker could become a true Crafter was ifthe Seeker had a Craft ancestor. However, there was a Craft law that allowed a mortal to become part of the Craft society through marriage, though that mortal wouldn’t gain any power—­just knowledge.
    One thing for certain