“Unfortunately, such is the nature of dreams,” he answered, shaking his head as he sighed. “It’s very difficult to impart information when your subconscious is at the helm.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that so I shelved it and, instead, turned to the more important question. “What do I do about this trouble I’m in?”

  His expression said I should have already known the answer. “When you cannot find a solution yourself, you look to others who can help you.”

  Chapter Six

  The next evening, at 11:00, Wanda knocked on my door.

  “You ready to do some brewing?” she asked as soon as I pulled open the front door. Then she shivered in the cold wind that sailed past her, enveloping me in its icy embrace.

  “I guess as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  She walked inside and I closed the door behind her.

  I’d called Katie in the morning and explained the predicament we were facing regarding her mirror. When I’d told her we’d have to shatter the glass in order to release the ghost, she hadn’t actually sounded very surprised and had agreed with the plan right away.

  “How did today go?” Wanda asked, turning to look at me. Taking off her coat, she folded it over the side of the couch. “I didn’t hear from you, so I figured the curse didn’t act up.”

  I nodded. “Actually, I didn’t go to work today. I figured it was probably a better idea to stay in. Just in case—the last thing I want is for this curse to affect anyone else.” I took a breath. “And, although I kept expecting it to show itself today, it never did.”

  “Well, thank spell for that!” Then something occurred to her and her eyebrows knotted in the middle of her face. “If you didn’t go to work, does that mean you don’t have Katie’s mirror?”

  “No, I have it,” I answered and then explained, “I asked Marty to pick the mirror up and then drop it off while he was driving Lorcan around in the hearse today.”

  “Ugh, speaking of Lorcan, he’s driving me nuts.”

  “Doesn’t he always drive you nuts?”

  She gave me a look. “He’s driving me more nuts than usual.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen, where I’d laid out all the ingredients for the Witchbane Oil on the counter. Wanda followed me.

  “Because trying to crack this Blood Witch curse and continuously failing has caused Lorcan to turn to other more… spiritual endeavors.”

  “Spiritual endeavors?” I asked, frowning at her as I pulled out my grandmother’s potion recipe book. Witchbane Oil wasn’t something gypsies usually brewed because it required the magic of a witch, but the recipe was still included in the book. And, yes, most witches would have known the recipe by heart, but this was Wanda we were talking about and she was useless when it came to potions.

  “Yeah, he’s been spending all his time reading ‘A Course in Miracles’ and he won’t shut up about it.”

  “Oh, I love that book,” I answered as I remembered reading the book a year or so ago and all the ensuing visualization I’d done right before I’d moved to Haven Hollow. I was more than sure all that manifesting and positive thinking was the reason I’d found the courage to start my life over in this tiny but wonderful town.

  “Well, I don’t love it mainly because I have no idea what Lorcan’s talking about. He might as well be speaking another language.”

  “Yes, the book can be pretty… esoteric.”

  At the sound of a knock on my door, I looked at Wanda, who shrugged as if to say she wasn’t expecting anyone. I walked to the door with Wanda beside me and, glancing through the eye hole, turned to face her. “Speak of the devil.”

  I pulled open the door, and there was Lorcan, grinning from ear to ear.

  “And the devil shall appear,” Wanda added underneath her breath.

  “Poppy, dearest,” the devil said as he gallantly bowed. “Might I gain entrance to your most humble abode?” Then he glanced up the stairs and noticed the missing drywall and flooring. “Which has apparently become even more humble with the lack of insulating features.”

  I laughed as I held the door open for him, and he entered. Spending any time with Lorcan was always a treat—he and I had become friends the moment I moved to Haven Hollow and now that we had Wanda in common, we’d become even closer.

  “If you’ve come here to continue spouting all that spiritual crap, save it,” Wanda said as she glared at him, crossing her arms over her voluptuous chest. “Poppy and I are busy and will be for the next few hours.”

  “Oh, my dearest,” Lorcan answered as he reached out, took her hand, kissing it while she rolled her eyes, but a small smile played with the corners of her lips. “I have simply come to ensure that both my favorite ladies of this fair hollow are well protected.”

  “Ah, thanks, Lorcan,” I started.

  “I mean it, Lorcan, no BS,” Wanda said, pointing at him with a long and manicured finger.

  He grinned. “Of course, my dear, of course.”

  ***

  “Okay, I need one-half part Palma Christi,” Wanda said as I handed the oil to her. She nodded her thanks and added it to the carrier oil that was already sitting in the cauldron atop one of my burners. The heat was turned to low.

  Next, I handed her a measured portion of the Verbena and Pine oils and she added them to the cauldron while chanting something underneath her breath so no one but she knew what she was saying.

  “Do you know, Poppy dear, that nothing you see in this room, the view from that window, the quite offensive burn marks above your stove… none of those things mean anything,” Lorcan said from where he was sitting on a stool at my counter and methodically picking up potion bottles, reading the tags and then placing them down again.

  “Lorcan, don’t start with that crap,” Wanda growled, her back facing him as she stirred the oils.

  “We must learn to question everything we think we know,” Lorcan continued, nodding at me. “It is a process of opening our minds to the possibility that we may not know all we think we know—all that the ego thinks we know.” He sighed. “And that is quite a difficult task for me to undertake, you see, because I have been alive for such a very long time, I know oh, so many things.”

  “But, really, you know nothing, Jon Snow,” I said as I gave him a grin and he returned it, though I was fairly sure Lorcan wasn’t a Game of Thrones fan. I wasn’t even sure if he watched TV—or if he even owned one.

  “Learning to simply observe and not interact with your thoughts will help you detach from the ego,” Lorcan continued, nodding rigorously. “We must deactivate the ego in order to bring a sense of calm and peace.”

  Wanda turned to face him. “I’m trying to focus, so if you don’t shut up, I’m going to deactivate more than just your ego.”

  Lorcan looked at me and sighed. “Alas, it is a sad state of affairs but our dear Wandellmelia cannot accept things as they are, thus there can be no steps taken to either change or adapt her situation and such is what has led to her rigidity.”

  “All I know is we have an important potion to brew so, both of you, find your silence,” Wanda demanded, glaring at each of us in turn, before placing her focus on Lorcan. “Especially you.”

  I actually had no idea what he was talking about either. He’d lost me a few minutes earlier.

  “If only our lovely Wanda could understand that everything that surrounds her, and us, is love,” Lorcan continued, sighing despondently. “Love is ever present, but she cannot see the love for she wears bifocals of the past.”

  “I don’t even own bifocals.”

  “Are bifocals the ones with the little line in the middle of the lens?” I asked.

  Wanda nodded. “I think so.”

  “Anyway, here’s the pine drops,” I said as I handed her the eye dropper. She accepted it and dropped the pine into the cauldron, followed by the Frankincense. Then she stirred and stirred some more, continuing her nearly whispered chant.

  She then stopped chanting, closed her eyes, held her hands up over the concoction, and a blue light began to emit from between her palms. She released the light into the cauldron and the Witchbane lit up, echoing the same bright blue.

  “There, all done,” Wanda said as she turned to face me with a smile.

  “Looks like you know your potions to me,” I said, more than just a little impressed because the Witchbane, from what I could tell, was exactly the azure color it was supposed to be.

  “Hey, even when you’re failing science class, you might still get a question right here and there,” she answered on a shrug. Then she smiled. “Now, let’s take care of that haunted mirror, shall we?”

  ***

  The three of us stood outside, under the gibbous moon, or whatever the hell Wanda had called it the other day. Katie’s haunted mirror stood between us, and all of us were in the process of getting snowed on. Luckily for Lorcan, he didn’t give two craps about cold weather and looked as happy as happy could be. Wanda and I, meanwhile, were shivering.

  “What is that woman trying to say?” Lorcan asked as he looked at the pioneer woman who was still pounding on the glass and screaming soundlessly.

  “Who knows?” I answered.

  “And who cares?” Wanda added. “She’s about to meet her maker.”

  “And come face to face with infinite time and space,” Lorcan added, nodding as he dropped his eyes and let out a long sigh. “Soon she will see the truth,” he continued, sounding uncharacteristically glum. “And I envy her—I envy her ability to shed the skin of this mortal plane.”

  “She’s not really shedding her skin if she’s a soul stuck in a mirror,” I pointed out.

  But, Lorcan was already on soliloquy three. Or maybe it was four.

  “Soon she will be able to see past the physical plane and into the realm of the beyond, where she will understand there is only love, nothing else.”

  “Will you make him stop, please?” Wanda muttered.

  “Short of gagging him, what you want me to do?” I asked as I watched her reach down and scoop up a handful of graveyard dirt, which she then, rather unceremoniously, dumped over the mirror. She’d already anointed the whole thing in Crossing Over Oil.

  “Gagging him might work perfectly well,” she answered.

  But, I couldn’t say my attention was on Lorcan, his newly found spiritualism or even on gagging him. Instead, I was worried about breaking the mirror. “Are you sure we aren’t just going to give ourselves more bad luck?” I asked, frowning at Wanda. “I mean… look what happened when I broke my own mirror.”

  “This is different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re in a graveyard.”

  “And we are allowing this woman’s soul to awaken to the truth of the cosmos and the universe so she may see with true eyes,” Lorcan added.

  “What he said,” Wanda concurred.

  “So being in a graveyard nulls any bad luck coming back to bite us in the ass?” I repeated, just wanting to make sure I understood. “Because where bad luck is concerned, I can tell you my ass is already hurting.”

  “Fear not, fair lady, for fear does not exist, other than within the confines of your mind. Fear is simply a hallucination, a nightmare brought upon by nothing but the ego.”

  “Please stop.” Wanda glared at him before turning her angry expression back to me. “I promise you won’t attract any more bad luck, Poppy. The death magic of the graveyard and the spell I’m about to weave will make certain of it.” Then, clearing her throat, she held her hands up towards the mirror.

  The pioneer woman continued to run back and forth and pound and yell against the glass, and strangely enough, it almost seemed like she was reacting to whatever we were doing. But, of course, that was impossible.

  “Poppy, pick up the hammer,” Wanda said.

  I turned to look at her, and my mouth dropped open. “Wait, what? I’m going to break the mirror?”

  “Well, I can hardly break it when I’m the one weaving the spell,” Wanda snapped as she then motioned to Lorcan. “And Lorcan can hardly be asked to do anything when he’s gone completely daft.”

  “I have awakened to the truth, my dear,” he started, but I interrupted him.

  “I’ve already broken one mirror, Wanda, I’m not sure,” I started, but now it was her turn to interrupt me.

  “Will you stop worrying about it?”

  “Worry is nothing—” Lorcan said, but Wanda silenced him with her hand before turning to face me again.

  “What happened to that whole bit about not believing in silly superstitions, anyway?” she asked me with a smirk.

  Right. There was that.

  “Fear is the antithesis of love,” Lorcan spouted. “Anything that is not love is fear and such is worry, Poppy, dear. Thus, you should divorce yourself of your fears and turn your eyes only to the oneness of love.”

  “After you hit the mirror with the hammer, you have my permission to hit him,” Wanda said. Then she turned to face him. “Lorcan, I need to concentrate on my spell, so you need to say nothing. Got it?”

  “Yes, dearest, I do comprehend English.”

  “Thank Hecuba for that because I was starting to wonder.” Then she looked at me. “You ready?”

  “I mean, I guess so.” Was I ready? I wasn’t sure. Did I trust Wanda? Yes, of course, but I was also worried about breaking the mirror. What if it wasn’t the right step? What if it didn’t help matters and only made them worse? What if…

  “Poppy?” Wanda said, tapping her foot impatiently.

  “When do I hit the glass?”

  “As soon as I finish the spell.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  I nodded and Wanda resumed her stance in front of the mirror, holding her arms up as she breathed in deeply. I took the hammer and stared at it. Then I glanced at the mirror again and I could feel my features hardening into an iron mask of determination. I clamped my lips shut and marched out from under the skeletal, old tree above me.

  Stopping in front of the mirror, I stared into the glass. The moon shone full on the woman’s reflection. She kept incessantly pounding, calling, and moving back and forth. She looked as desperate and frightened as ever. What a way to spend a hundred years!

  Just behind me, I could see the shape of that blasted shadow and seeing it somehow strengthened my reserve.

  Wanda was still chanting, the words of which I couldn’t make out, and there was a white light emitting from between her fingers, aimed towards the mirror.

  “Goddess above, hear my plea. Release this spirit from the looking glass. Set her free!” Wanda called out. “As I will it, so mote it be!”

  Figuring that was my cue, I raised the hammer, swung it, and smashed the mirror. The hammer punched through the glass right on top of the woman’s head. A starburst of lines splintered through the mirror, but apparently that wasn’t good enough because Wanda called out, “Again!”

  So, I wound my arm back with the hammer and delivered another fierce blow. Soon, all the glass dropped out of the mirror, leaving only the wooden shell. The glass fell around us in shimmery pieces, reflecting the moon overhead.

  “Should we say something about her?” I asked. “About the woman in the mirror?”

  “Go ahead if you want to,” Wanda answered, but didn’t seem at all interested.

  I inhaled and let out my breath. “Okay, here goes. Wherever you are, I hope you’re at peace. You don’t have to fear anything any longer. You’re safe now.”

  “Look!” Wanda whispered as a silver-white wisp of smoke floated from one of the pieces of glass that was now in the snow of the graveyard, up into the air, above the mirror frame and then above our heads. It sailed up toward the moonlight and vanished in the night sky.

  As I watched it, another bit of what appeared to be smoke caught my eye. This one also flew up from one of the glass shards, but unlike the white wisp, it was as dark as night—even darker actually because it appeared pitch black against the otherwise white of the graveyard. This bit of smoke didn’t float upwards, though. Instead, it moved at a diagonal towards the center of the graveyard.

  “Um, Wanda,” I started as I turned to face her, but her attention was already on the dark shape that had just disappeared into one of the headstones.

  Judging by Wanda’s expression, whatever had just happened… wasn’t good.

  Chapter Seven

  After we’d released the spirit in the mirror, I returned home.

  Yes, I could have woken Finn and taken him home with me, but I didn’t want to disturb him. So, instead, I gave him a kiss on the cheek and walked back across the graveyard with the wooden skeleton of the mirror. Of course, Lorcan offered to take it for me, but it didn’t weigh much without the glass, so I was fine to carry it myself. Besides, Lorcan had gotten a little bit preachy lately, and I wasn’t in the mood to listen to more longwinded theories.

  Once I walked into my house, I locked the door behind me, left the mirror in the corner of the entry, and walked up the stairs. All the while, I couldn’t stop thinking about that slip of darkness that had smoked up from the broken mirror and then skulked into the graveyard, only to disappear.

  What bothered me most was that the little slip of darkness had looked a lot like a shadow.

  ***

  I was dreaming again.

  This time, I was standing in the middle of Hollow Cemetery, behind my house. And the moon was thick and full above me, bathing all the headstones in milky light. As I walked between them, I glanced down and noticed I was dressed in a diaphanous, cream gown that shifted around me as if I were moving under water.

  “You have failed.”

  I heard a voice from behind me and, turning around, recognized the man in the black suit with the black hair and blue eyes.

  “Failed in what?”

  “You did not handle the mirror the way you were supposed to.”

  I could feel heat burning within me and wanted to open my mouth and fire out an angry retort, but something in his earnest and penetrating gaze stopped me. Or, maybe it was the way his eyes seemed to reflect the milky rays of the moon. Either way, I said nothing—just stood there, staring at him. And he stood there, staring back at me.