Candy of every shape, size, and color caught my eye, and I wasn’t even sure where to begin, in terms of filling my bag. Or maybe skip the candy altogether and go for the candy apples? The ones nearest me stood out proudly from behind the glass case. They were done in an assortment of colors, and I couldn’t even begin to name the toppings. They looked delicious, but I ultimately decided to move on.

  There were fat, rainbow lollipops, and marshmallow candies, peanut brittle, sixlets, mints, rock candies, and an assortment of novelty candies from the sixties. I tucked a few of those in the bag for Uncle Tobias and Uncle Joey, knowing they’d probably get a kick out of them. I was debating on whether or not I wanted toffee or milk chocolate when I walked into something at waist height.

  At first, I thought I’d bumped one of the barrels of chewing gum. Some of the more popular candies were stored in barrels and tubs with scoops for easy access. But, when I looked down, instead of finding a few displaced Hubba Bubbas, I found a little girl sprawled on the tile floor, glaring balefully up at me, rubbing her smarting rump.

  “Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry!”

  “I should hope so,” she chirped, sounding surprisingly like an adult.

  I blinked, a little dazed. Because for a moment, I could have sworn she’d actually chirped. But that was ridiculous because people didn’t chirp. Birds…

  Looking her over, I noticed there was snow still clinging to her white-blonde hair and lashes, like she’d just stepped in from the cold. She was very small, with a cute button nose, and pale pink lips. She had a pointy chin and high cheekbones. She was almost too beautiful, like a porcelain doll come to life.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated, heat flooding my cheeks. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  “It’s quite alright,” a cool, nasal voice responded from just behind me. “Wren knew better than to come inside.”

  I half-turned and found a woman standing behind me, one who could only be Wren’s mother. She was tall and rail-thin—a thin that only came from not eating much. It was like she was just skin and bones, with no fat or muscle to help shape her contours. And her face was just as angular as her body. She was pale, like Wren, and snow dusted her hair as well, which was tied back in a severe knot at the base of her neck. Her eyes were an almost colorless gray, like the glaze that films over your windows in the winter time. It was almost unsettling.

  Wren seemed to think so too, because she blanched, dropping the bag in her hand. The candies inside spilled out in every direction. Chocolates mostly, but there were a few mints, lollipops, toffies, candy corns, and marshmallows. Some disappeared under the shelves, and a few shattered on impact.

  “I walked by and thought,” Wren started, looking suddenly nervous.

  “That one detour wouldn’t hurt?” her mother snapped, interrupting her. “You do remember why we’re here? Rime has been waiting for you. Rude to keep him waiting for so trivial an errand, hmm?”

  “I know,” Wren said, looking down at her lap. She still hadn’t gotten up from the floor. “I’m sorry.”

  “Greedy, greedy girl! Pick up this mess you’ve made, at once!”

  “That’s really not necessary, is it?” I asked, looking the mother straight in the eyes.

  She glared at me and I glared right back. “How I interact with my child is no concern of yours.”

  “I can’t argue that, but I will point out she’s just a child.” It was all I could think to say. “And it was my fault she took a tumble in the first place,” I continued, pulling my attention back to the little girl, who was staring at the floor. “Let me help you,” I said, giving the mother a cold look over my shoulder as I knelt in front of Wren, shoving a large shard of broken lollipop into her discarded bag.

  “What is your name?” the woman asked suddenly.

  At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer her, but then figured: what did it matter? “Poppy.”

  “Ah, you own the shop up the road?” she asked. “Poppy’s Potions?”

  I nodded.

  “I see,” she said, and then said nothing more.

  “I’m Janara Darrow,” she said after another second, catching me off guard. “Seems we started on the wrong foot, as they say.”

  “Nice to,” I started, but she interrupted by simply turning on her heel and walking away. Wren was up and right behind her a second or so later.

  “Mom, can we go get ice cream now?” Finn asked as he strode up behind me.

  “Ice cream?” Janara repeated as she paused and then turned around to face us, her attention falling on Finn.

  “Yeah, Stomper’s Creamery has the best ice cream,” Finn answered.

  Janara nodded and faced her daughter. “Wren, we are going for ice cream. Tell Rime.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The moment Finn clapped eyes on Wren and smiled at her, I knew I was going to have to put up with Janara—at least for a while. I’d seen that expression before. Not on Finn’s face per se, but it was the look of instant adoration—of the makings of a schoolboy crush.

  So, it wasn’t a surprise that Finn was busily explaining to Wren anything and everything there is to know about video games and, essentially, talking her ear off while she sat there demurely, merely nodding on occasion and smiling.

  Janara sat across from me and attempted to make small talk, but didn’t do a very good job of it. She was just too… cold for inconsequential conversation. It didn’t suit her. I still didn’t like her, but Wren was a sweet enough girl. As to Rime… he seemed okay. I assumed he was Janara’s husband and Wren’s father, though Janara said nothing about either.

  He was a little reserved and passive, as if more a personal assistant to Janara and nanny to Wren, rolled into one. Maybe he was a trophy husband? He was pretty enough to have stepped off a GQ cover. Tall and stylishly thin, just like Janara, though he was broad through the shoulders and had enough muscle tone to escape being considered waifish. He was wearing shades of gray, though lighter than Janara’s. More silvery than charcoal.

  His face had the same angular quality, with hollow and high cheekbones. There were faint circles under his eyes, as though he didn’t ever get enough sleep. His eyes were a very pale blue, and distant, like he was lost in thought. The more I studied him, the more vacant his expression became—as if he wasn’t even aware of what he was currently seeing and experiencing. Even when he looked right at me, I didn’t think he really saw me. It was more like he was looking through me.

  Janara and Rime, and even Wren, were like clones of each other, like they’d all originated from the same manufacturing plant and someone had forgotten to rip their tags off. I kept expecting one of them to malfunction, revealing their inner robots. But nothing creepy like that happened. Well, nothing creepier than Janara’s smiles, anyway. It was almost like she wasn’t used to smiling—like she’d tried one on a few times, but realizing it didn’t suit her, she’d abandoned it. Then donned it once again for my benefit.

  Finn watched Wren as she scooped hot fudge off her sundae and brought it to her mouth. Her sundae was piled high with almost every topping in the store. She definitely seemed to have a sweet tooth and then some. She was also subdued, and I wondered if she was upset by her mother’s acerbic words in the candy store.

  “Are you guys moving here?” Finn asked eagerly, scooting a little closer to Wren. He was a head taller than she was, and even though Finn was tall for his age, she seemed small—very small.

  She may have been ten or eleven, but with the way she was dressed, it was hard to tell. She looked like a cupcake with all the frills and lace of her outfit. The skirt was poofy, and like her father and mother, she was also wearing gray. Her petticoat and tights were white. She looked like she’d just stepped off the pages of some fairy tale princess story. Maybe she’d come from an acting or dance class?

  “We shall be here for a while,” Janara answered Finn.

  “Do you know for how long?” Finn asked, facing Wren.

  Wren’s eyes widened a bit. “I… I do not know how long. Mother and Rime’s business may take a while, or it may be finished quickly.”

  I frowned. Maybe Rime wasn’t Wren’s father, owing to the fact that she kept referring to him with his first name, instead of calling him ‘Dad’. It was strange because they looked alike, so much so that anyone would have assumed they were related.

  Finn’s brow creased and he glanced up at me. He sensed something too—something off about the whole family. I could see as much in his eyes. Wren wasn’t telling the truth about something, but he didn’t know what. Neither did I.

  “Now, Wren, don’t overshare,” Janara said with a tut. “Our business is our business. Finish your ice cream, then we shall approach the realtor.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Wren mumbled, shoulders hunching forward, the picture of defeat.

  “Then you’re moving here?” Finn asked.

  Janara faced him. “We are.”

  I watched as Wren looked at the remainder of her sundae glumly, finishing it and then approaching a nearby trashcan in which she dumped the empty container. Rime stood up then as if something had bitten him, reached out to take Wren’s hand and, saying nothing, headed for the BMW. Neither one of them looked back at us, but simply seated themselves in the car and shut the doors. Then Janara stood up.

  “Goodbye,” she said blankly, facing me before turning on her toes and approaching the car. She opened the passenger door, sat down and immediately, Rime drove away.

  “That was the weirdest family ever,” Finn started and I nodded.

  Chapter Twelve

  “This is ridiculous, Wanda,” I said, pacing away from her.

  She couldn’t be serious. She’d turned up at my door, just shy of the witching hour, with an overlarge gym bag slung over one shoulder. Before she’d even set foot in my house, she shoved a sheaf of papers into my hand and demanded I sign on the dotted line.

  “What is this?” I commanded, looking at the ream of papers, but more asking why she was standing on my front step in the first place. Needless to say, Wanda and I weren’t exactly friends.

  “Just sign it,” she insisted, shoving one hand on her hip and giving me a look of pure impatience.

  She was dressed in a man’s jacket, a wool sweater, and sweatpants, but still managed to look spectacular. Wanda was technically midlife for a witch, but she’d never had kids, and that had kept her in shape. Or maybe it was magic that kept her in shape… regardless, she was a head turner and then some. Not your average 140-year-old.

  “First of all, I’m still not sure why you’re here.”

  “I’m here to help you,” she grumbled. “But, I can’t do that unless you sign this.”

  “I am not signing anything,” I said, not really sure what she thought she was here to help me with. “Especially after I haven’t taken the time to read through the…” I looked at the papers, “book.”

  “It’s hardly a book,” she groused, rolling her eyes like I was the one being dramatic. “And the gist, as I mentioned earlier, is that I’m here to help, but I need to cover my ass in the process.”

  “‘Gist’ is the wrong word to be using when referring to legal documents, and I’m not sure what you mean by you being here to ‘help’ me. I don’t need any help.”

  Her eyebrows reached for the dark night sky. “That’s definitely open to argument.”

  “Why are you here, Wanda?”

  “If you’re concerned with the contract, ask Hellcat to explain the finer points. He’s the one who drafted it, after all.”

  I glanced down at the cat she’d just let out of the carrier. Once freed, he bolted into my house and then slowed, strutting towards my living room, tail twitching as he muttered darkly about something to do with clawing up Wanda’s Jimmy Choos.

  “How’s he going to explain legalese to me?” I demanded, giving her a frustrated expression. How dumb did she think I was? “He’s a cat.”

  “Don’t let him hear you say that,” Wanda replied, a bemused smile settling on her lips. “And he’s hardly just a cat. He’s my familiar.”

  “And that makes him a lawyer?”

  She laughed, but there was no humor behind the sound. “No, it means he has an IQ that’s probably higher than the two of ours combined.” Then she looked at the cat as he circled my house and made snarky comments to himself about the furnishings. “Actually, I take that back. I can’t stand the little bastard.”

  “Then why is he… why are both of you here?” I looked at her again as the answer dawned on me and my eyes narrowed. “If you’ve come to try to get me to leave Haven Hollow, you’re wasting your breath.”

  She sighed, as if she didn’t have the time or simply didn’t want to explain. “Look, I’m a bitchy witch, I get it, but in this one instance, I’m not trying to kick you out of town.”

  “Why do I find that hard to believe?” I really didn’t have the patience to deal with Wanda at the moment. I’d just gotten Finn to bed and I’d had a long day. Uncle Joey was asleep and Uncle Tobias was in the bath, yodeling or, at least, it sounded like yodeling.

  “At the current juncture, kicking you out of the Hollow doesn’t exactly… benefit me.”

  “Yeah, because you don’t have any money to buy property in order to stake your claim to Haven Hollow. So it’s not so much that it doesn’t benefit you… it’s more like: currently, you can’t do anything about it.”

  “I can’t argue with anything you just said,” and with that, she cocked her head to the side, looking bored. “But, I still need you to sign the papers.”

  “Why?”

  She pretended extreme interest in her nails. “It’s a liability thing.”

  “A liability thing?”

  “Right. Something I can turn in to the city council if anything goes pear-shaped.”

  “What could possibly go pear-shaped between you and me when there is no you and me?”

  “Well, as far as tonight goes, there most definitely is a you and me.”

  “How is that?”

  She looked at me with one drawn brow and a frown. “Lorcan didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Then she sighed, shaking her head. “Nothing can ever be easy with that undead… penis.”

  “You know,” I started as she looked at me. “I don’t think ‘penis’ really has the umph you’re looking for…”

  “Where Lorcan Rowe is concerned, there is no insult that packs a powerful enough punch.” She took a deep breath. “Do you have anything to drink? Preferably hard?”

  I opened my door and allowed her inside, figuring Hellcat was already making himself comfortable so I might as well invite her in and find out what in the world this visit was about. I had a feeling Wanda wasn’t the only one about to be irritated with Lorcan.

  “What is that racket?” Wanda asked as soon as she stepped into the house to the sound of Uncle Tobias’ yodeling.

  “That’s just my… uncle,” I answered, and Wanda seemed to accept the explanation because she didn’t ask any further questions.

  After Wanda made herself something she termed a ‘Frankenstein’, owing to the mix of alcohols she found in my cabinet, she explained that Lorcan had reached out to her about the missing children and she thought, with my help, the two of us could possibly locate them… with magic.

  “As I’m a Blood Witch,” Wanda continued, faux yawning. Or maybe she really was yawning. “My powers are… unpredictable. Combine that with the fact that we’ll be scrying using the town’s magic, and who knows what could happen? The spell could end up being a complete failure, or the backlash could be so spectacular, it could explode your living room. Or set us both on fire. I just don’t know what could happen, so I need to protect my backside, if you know what I mean.”

  Put that way, I doubted whether this was a good idea... And yet, the children were still out there somewhere and so far, Ophelia and the council had failed them. If I could help… if there was anything I could do to help return them to their parents, it was worth it.

  “For the love of Tituba,” Wanda said, almost growling at me. “Will you sign the damned papers already so we can get on with this?” She shoved the ream of papers at me and I scanned them quickly, finding they basically said I wouldn’t hold Wanda liable if something happened, owing to her unpredictable magic. Grabbing a pen, I signed the liability page. I handed them back to her and she gave me a frightening smile.

  “Where shall we set up?” she asked.

  “We need to move the potential blast zone away from my house.”

  “And move it where?” she demanded, hands on hips, attitude fully present and accounted for.

  I glanced at the backyard through the sliding glass door. “Bundle up because we’re moving to the back porch.”

  ‘Back porch’ was an exaggeration. It had probably been a patio at one point, but now it was just a slab of granite. Not even a whole slab of granite, either. Years of exposure to the elements meant water had worked its way inside the cracks and frozen, splitting the slab in several places. The entire thing would have to be replaced soon. Not that I’d had any time to myself in order to get quotes from contractors about the remodel on my poor house—well, the remodel was still on my list, just not at the immediate top.

  Wanda muttered something unintelligible before turning to face her familiar, where he was curled up in front of my fireplace. “Hellcat! We’re going outside.”

  “Outside?” the cat responded in a high-falutin English accent.

  “You heard the woman,” Wanda answered. Meanwhile, she seized her gym bag and slung it over her shoulder. Then she faced her yowling familiar and ordered him toward the patio, and the three of us made the trek across the living room.

  “Do you see the snow falling from the heavens?” the cat responded once it reached the sliding glass door. It turned to look from her to me, as if the two of us had completely lost our minds.