“Crap!” I yelled. “Double crap! Triple and quadruple crap! Crap! Crap! Crap!”

  My spirit plunged to my shoes and suddenly, I felt like crying.

  Maybe there is something to this broken mirror business…

  Refusing to further consider the thought, I started toward the potion puddle, but the hook and drywall were still hanging from the towel, so I had to first disentangle myself. I’d have to give Marty a call later to ask him to fix it. He was good with small-scale, handyman sorts of projects just like that. Besides, I was looking forward to seeing him—Marty had a way of taking my mind off things that were bothering me. He could always make me laugh and today, humor was exactly what the doctor ordered.

  I finally freed myself and dropped the hook and the attached piece of drywall onto the floor while I approached the puddle and, leaning over, started sopping up the mess of broken potions.

  This was NOT how any Monday morning should start.

  Walking back to the sink and wringing out the drenched towel several times, I finally got the deluge mopped up. During my numerous trips to and from the sink, I bumped into or stepped on the drywall fragment repeatedly and managed to scatter white powder all over the floor. The soles of my shoes must have picked up some of the broken potions because now the oil mixed the white drywall dust into a paste, which I subsequently tracked all over the store. But, I couldn’t allow myself to care. No, I had to prioritize. I couldn’t fully clean the mess until I took care of the shattered potions and the box.

  Speaking of the destroyed potions, now I’d have to pull another late night and brew the potions all over again and some of them had customers already waiting on them.

  Quadruple crap! Had I used that one already?

  Quintuple crap!

  I got the broom and dustpan, but the potions had already soaked through the cardboard, turning it into a soggy sponge, which literally collapsed when I tried to pick it up. Cursing like a sailor, the front doorbell chimed to announce someone was here. I didn’t bother looking up because I was afraid the sponge box was going to dismantle itself in my arms. Instead, I scurried to the back room where I dumped the whole thing into the trash. All the while, I could hear the sound of loudly clacking, high-heeled shoes and dramatic sighing. And that could mean only one person…

  As I came around the corner to greet Wanda, I caught my arm on a sharp nail that was randomly sticking out of the wall. The nail tore right through my long-sleeved, plaid shirt and ripped into my skin, stinging like an SOB. Without thinking, I gave voice to the foulest string of obscenities that have ever released themselves from my mouth.

  “Poppy?” Wanda asked, eyeing me intently—as if she were trying to deduce if it were really me underneath my skin or if I’d been possessed by the cantankerous spirit of something that liked to swear a lot.

  I walked over to her, feeling the sting in my arm the whole time.

  “You’re bleeding,” Wanda pointed out.

  “Of course I am,” I said, clutching my arm while trying to talk myself out of crumpling onto the floor in a defeated heap. When I reached the front desk and started for the roll of paper towels I kept underneath it, I accidentally knocked my laptop off. And… you guessed it—the damned thing landed right next to the potion box. I watched the screen crack before the whole machine blinked off.

  “Son of a…!” I bellowed, finally looking up at Wanda as tears blurred my eyes. “Unless you want to witness my complete and total breakdown, you might want to come back later.”

  She smirked at me in that way of hers. Usually Wanda’s bizarre personality gave me some level of amusement, but today I just couldn’t seem to shirk the total and complete sense of defeat suffusing me. This was the absolute worst day I’d had in I didn’t even know how long.

  “I don’t think I’d miss witnessing your complete and total breakdown for anything. Got popcorn?”

  Wanda, Haven Hollow’s very own Blood Witch, was one of my closest friends, even though we were like oil and water—as different as day is to night. Now, she studied me with a mixture of curiosity and another expression just behind it that looked something like concern.

  When I didn’t say anything, she added, “Is something wrong, Poppy?”

  “Wrong?” I threw my hands into the air, shaking my head as the tears continued to burn my eyes. “What could possibly be wrong? Everything is… going to complete and total hell and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it!”

  She leaned against the desk. “Okay, explain.”

  “I spent seven hours last night painstakingly brewing five new batches of potions, which I just ruined. Then, when I was trying to clean this mess from hell up, I managed to pull a hook out of my wall, taking a sizable piece of drywall with it. Then a nail that has no business being in the middle of that wall,”—I pointed to the wall in question—“randomly attacked me!”

  “A nail attacked you?” she asked, wearing her doubt.

  “Yes, then you saw what I just did to my laptop. So is anything going wrong? No, everything is going wrong!”

  Wanda shrugged and sauntered towards the offending wall with the nail that had attacked me. She reached out and plucked the thing out between two long and sharp fingernails painted black. Then she turned to face me and, extending her palm, offered me the nail.

  “Thanks,” I grumbled as I deposited it directly into the trash.

  “Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me to look on the bright side and there’s always a silver lining and all that sort of crap?” she asked.

  “I can’t use a pep talk right now, Wanda,” I answered, fully aware it was going to take a minor miracle to save me from this mood. It had me and it wasn’t letting go.

  “As long as you’ve got the situation under control then,” she started and gave me another expression that said it clearly wasn’t under control, “I was wondering: do you have any more Dreamtime Oil? I need some Memory Drops, too.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” I rubbed my head because it felt like a headache was about to introduce itself as I made my way to the shelves. “I still have plenty of both, fortunately.”

  At that moment, Wanda’s phone rang.

  “Astrid,” she answered in greeting, then said a few ‘yeahs’. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” She nodded a few times—at who or what, I wasn’t sure—then started inspecting her nails before she held the phone down to her shoulder and looked at me. “Did you hear about some kid who just crashed his car on the highway barely an hour ago?” Then she listened to something Astrid was saying, before looking at me again. “They say he’d just left Finn’s school.”

  I perked up my ears. “Was he driving a yellow BMW?”

  She asked Astrid who, apparently answered in the affirmative because Wanda nodded to me. Then she zoned out on a potion in front of her as she continued talking to Astrid. “Okay, well, get back to class then. Okay, bye.”

  “Is the kid in the BMW okay?”

  She hung up the phone and looked at me again. “Yeah, but the car isn’t.” Then she studied me with narrowed eyes. “How did you know what the guy was driving, anyway?”

  I laughed. “Don’t go worrying that I’ve started developing witch abilities; I saw him at Finn’s school during drop off when he nearly plowed into the rental car.”

  “When are you getting the insurance money from the Jeep, anyway?”

  “Who the hell knows?”

  I missed her response, if she had one, because I walked over to the wet pile of drywall powder in front of the sink instead. Bending over to pick up the debris, my foot slid in the slippery paste and skidding to one side, I slammed down heavily onto one knee.

  The paste smeared all over my jeans and I landed palms-down on the chunk that had fallen out of the wall. The stupid hook added more insult to my injury when it gouged my palm and spattered blood all over the place.

  “Ugh!” I screamed.

  Wanda hurried over to me and helped me to my feet, looking at me with wide eyes. “By Hecuba! What is wrong with you today?”

  It was then that she took a step back and seemed to be looking at something just above my head. She frowned at whatever it was and then seemed to shake out of it because she instantly brought her attention back to my face.

  “Nothing! I’m fine!” Except I wasn’t fine. Not by a long shot. And that stupid broken mirror with its attached curse was starting to take front row in my reasons as to why.

  “You don’t look fine.” Wanda walked over and retrieved the first aid kit that hung above the sink in the back room. She pulled out a roll of gauze and faced me again.

  “Now hold still.” She looked at the gauze like it was a snake about to bite her.

  “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

  She frowned at me over the gauze. “How hard can bandaging up a hand be?”

  Then she rolled the gauze into an oddly shaped little lump and simply pushed it against my palm. It, of course, unraveled and promptly fell off—into the pile of drywall dust.

  “Well, clearly it’s harder than I thought,” she said, and then looked at me with a sigh. “Bandaging is obviously an art form, but cleaning isn’t, so I’ll tend to the mess on the floor and you take care of your palm while you tell me what in the spell is going on with you today.”

  I watched her take the broom and felt my mouth drop open. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Wanda?”

  “And keep your snide remarks to yourself.” She pushed me into a nearby chair and, grabbing the dustpan, started sweeping. “Now, what is going on with you?”

  So I told her all about the supposed bad luck curse that I didn’t believe in. “I don’t suppose you want to quit the clothing store and go into selling potions, do you? I need to go back to bed for six more months.”

  She looked at me and laughed. “Me and potions? I wouldn’t be able to sell one.” Then she took a breath and, leaning against the broom, studied me. “I’m sure your spate of bad luck is just a temporary glitch in the universe. You’ll be back to saving the world in no time.”

  My scalp prickled when she said the words, bad luck. And that damned busted mirror appeared in my mind’s eye again. If Darla’s prediction was right, this bad luck wasn’t as simple as a temporary glitch. It might be more like a seven-year temporary glitch.

  “Then you don’t believe in bad luck superstitions?” I asked.

  Wanda looked at me and nodded. “I absolutely believe in them.”

  “Then why did you tell me mine is just a temporary glitch?”

  She shrugged. “Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?”

  “No! Well, yes, but… no, I don’t want you to just give me lip service, Wanda, jeez! If this bad luck superstition is real, then I should do something about it, right?”

  Wanda put the broom away. I still had to inspect the laptop and now I was getting one whopper of a headache, but at least the store looked presentably clean in case any more customers came in.

  “I mean… if I’d broken a mirror and was having the doozy of a morning you are, I’d probably want to do something about it.”

  “Hmm,” I said as I started down the health-related aisle, stopping in front of a few potions I’d only recently started carrying. In general, I didn’t like carrying the more questionable tonics like hexing or anti-hexing potions. Mostly because people didn’t really know how to use them responsibly. And some banishment potions could backfire if not performed just so.

  “Purification Oil,” I said as I pulled the potion in question off the shelf. “This should do the trick.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good one,” Wanda agreed.

  I uncorked the bottle and taking off my already destroyed plaid shirt, anointed my wrists, the sides of my neck and the insides of my elbows as I closed my eyes and imagined the oils seeping into me and blending with the whiteness of my own energy to dispel whatever negativity was surrounding me.

  Then Wanda approached and holding up her hands, closed her eyes. She walked around me and as she did so, held her palms towards me so they were maybe a couple inches away. Close enough that I could feel heat emanating from her hands.

  “Lady Luck, Fortuna, dear, make Poppy’s bad luck disappear. She’s had enough, so I chase it away. Bring to her good luck today. As I will it, so mote it be.”

  When she opened her eyes, she dropped her hands and stepped back. I didn’t feel any different, but that didn’t mean anything. Usually, you couldn’t feel a spell.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said as I walked back to the desk and, retrieving the potions she’d come in for, handed them to her. “They’re on the house. As payment for your cleaning and witchly services.”

  She stepped in front of me, inspecting me as if she’d never seen me before. There was a strange expression on her face.

  “Are you sure you’re feeling okay, Poppy? Is anything… bothering you?”

  Her uncharacteristically attentive manner concerned me. “What do you mean?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Um?” I asked, my eyebrows reaching for the ceiling. “I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She was quiet for a moment or two, as if she were battling with herself over what to tell me. Finally, she took a deep breath and said, “Just now, when you tripped and hurt your palm, I thought I saw something… something behind you.”

  “Something behind me? What was it?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure, but there was something definitely there—something dark.”

  My heart started pounding in my chest, and I could feel beads of perspiration breaking out around my forehead. This didn’t sound good. “What more can you tell me?”

  She shrugged. “I noticed it when I first walked in and you snagged yourself on that nail. Something appeared behind you and then… just vanished. Then it happened again when you cut your hand. It was almost like… like someone was shining a bright light on you, making your shadow look larger behind you. Only the shadow wasn’t following your movements. It was moving on its own—like it was its own entity.”

  “Are you being serious?”

  Wanda had a strange sense of humor, and sometimes her comical timing wasn’t the best. But, when I looked into her eyes, trying to read them, I could tell she was bothered by whatever she’d seen. She wasn’t kidding around.

  “I’m being completely serious, Poppy.”

  I breathed in deeply. “What was it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “A ghost or something supernatural?”

  “Maybe.” She chewed her lower lip as she thought about it. “Did you work any recent paranormal cases with Marty lately… and maybe a ghost or a shadow person followed you home?”

  Marty sometimes called me in to help him with various cases in his ghost hunting business, but the last one I’d helped him with had been months ago.

  “No,” I answered. “It’s been a long time.”

  True, spirits could attach themselves to you and not reveal themselves for a while… But, I couldn’t help but think (if a spirit had attached itself to me the last time I’d helped with one of Marty’s cases) that I would have felt it or seen it by now. Yet, I hadn’t felt any ghostly mojo at all.

  Wanda sighed. “I don’t know what it was, but it looked like… like the shadow of a woman.”

  “Like it was attached to me?”

  She nodded. “Sort of. She was hovering right behind you both times you got hurt. But, when I first walked in, she wasn’t there. She showed up briefly when you snagged your arm, then disappeared again. Until the moment when you fell over.”

  “If it’s a ghost, I’ll get rid of it.” I hopped to my feet as I spied an opened bottle of Gypsy Magic I kept under my desk whenever I needed a little extra juju. After dabbing some on my third eye (in the middle of my forehead), I took out a white candle and set it on the counter. Lighting the candle, I dropped some Banishment Oil as well as all-purpose Gris Gris Oil onto the candle, through the flame.

  “Between the Purification Oil, your spell and this candle magic, whatever is going on with me should stop.”

  Fragrant smoke filled the store, but that was about it. I looked around, but didn’t see anything—not that I was expecting to see anything, per se. I just had no experience with shadows attaching themselves to people, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

  I placed my hands around the flame, raising my voice and calling out loudly, “If any spirit or shade is hiding in this establishment, I command you to show yourself!”

  Nothing happened.

  “I guess it isn’t a ghost,” Wanda said.

  “Unless it’s a poltergeist.”

  She shrugged and started to say something else when the doorbell jangled again. A young woman walked in. She briefly glanced at Wanda before immediately looking at me and there was an urgency in her gaze that rattled me a bit. She appeared to be in a panic, even though she hadn’t so much as uttered a word.

  “I better get going because customers are going to start showing up soon,” Wanda murmured under her breath as she took her potions and started for the front door. “Keep me posted.”

  I figured she meant about the shadow entity. “Will do.”

  Chapter Three

  My customer looked over her shoulder at Wanda, who was now on the sidewalk outside, headed for her own store, ‘Wanda’s Witchery’. Snow was falling down in earnest and Wanda looked like she was hobbling, so as not to slip in her ridiculously high heels.

  “Can I help you?” I asked the mousy looking woman who appeared to be in her early thirties, maybe late twenties. She was dressed all in brown—long corduroy skirt and turtleneck—and with her brown hair, eyes and glasses, she looked like the physical embodiment of a tootsie roll.

  The girl tiptoed closer to the counter. She kept casting furtive glances behind her as if she were afraid someone had followed her.