They both stared at me.

  Poppy finally broke the silence. “Um, I think it’s safe to say ‘no’.”

  “Although there have been moments when the thought has certainly crossed my mind,” Wanda put in. “And more than once, I might add.”

  “Darla, what’s going on?” Poppy asked, giving Wanda a look.

  I sagged back against the door, the glass cool against my skin. “I’ve been having a day. Actually, a couple of days. Well, a week and a half, maybe.”

  Wanda examined her long, mauve nails. “Your dramatic entrance and all this talk of curses bought you about thirty seconds of my attention, but now you’re burning through those seconds at an accelerated rate.”

  “Right, sorry.” I took a deep breath and tried to calm my still-racing heart. “In the past few days, I’ve managed to trip over my previously tied shoelaces, almost knock myself silly with a door, slip in the shower, nearly electrocute myself, and had to sprint three blocks to get here because some mutt decided my gams should be its new chew toy.”

  Wanda’s eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. “That is impressive. Okay, ten seconds more.”

  Poppy held a delicate hand over her mouth, concern in her cornflower blue eyes. “That does seem like an unreasonably high number of potentially dangerous accidents.”

  I nodded. “You two are the only ones I know who are capable of putting something nasty like that on me, and if I’m not hexed then boy, oh boy, am I having the worst string of luck.”

  “Well, I believe it’s safe to say, that neither of us are behind your bad luck,” Wanda answered on a yawn. Apparently my additional ten seconds were up.

  I had to pause to suck in a breath. “Then who could it be?”

  Poppy came around the counter and put an arm around me, pulling me further into the store. “Just breathe, Darla. And we’ll try to figure out what’s going on.”

  Wanda leaned back against the counter, turning her neck in such a way that she looked like she was just waiting for a stray photographer to stumble by and announce she was the perfect candidate for a photoshoot. Her one brow was raised, her lips pursed, and I couldn’t tell if she was simply amused by or actually contemplating my dilemma.

  Poppy patted my back, consolingly. “We didn’t curse you, Darla,” she said, though she did throw a hesitant glance at Wanda.

  Wanda made a dismissive sound in the back of her throat. “If I cursed her, she’d know it and I wouldn’t bother with dogs. Werewolves are much more… thorough.”

  Wanda was a lot of things, but subtle wasn’t one of them.

  “Okay. But if I’m not cursed—”

  “Oh, no, you are cursed. I can feel it on you,” Poppy interrupted with a little frown. “I said that we didn’t curse you. And we didn’t. But somebody definitely did.”

  “She’s right.” Wanda’s lip curled with disgust. “Maybe that was the smell I caught when you first walked in.” Her posture was way more relaxed than I thought appropriate for the situation. “Yep, I can smell it from here.” She extended one hand as if she couldn’t be bothered to extend two. “And I can feel it too.” We both looked at her with interest and she nodded on another yawn. “Someone laid a whammy on you.” Then she smiled, and it reminded me of the smile the Grinch wore in that movie of his. “The question now is… who did you piss off?”

  Poppy steered me over to the counter and started fixing me a cup of noodle juice. I followed in a daze, wracking my brain as I tried to remember who I’d talked to over the past couple of days who might have gotten upset me with me. Hmm, there was Cain—he seemed like he was perpetually upset with me, though I didn’t think he’d curse me—mainly because I wasn’t sure he knew how. There was Taliyah, who also seemed like she got irritated with me at least once a day, but I also didn’t think she was the cursing type—especially since I was working with her on this case. Hmm, so that left… basically everyone else.

  I slumped over the counter, dropping my head onto my crossed arms. “I got into a fight with an FBI agent. I argued with a coworker, and my boss hates my guts. So, you know, take your pick.”

  “Are any of those people women?”

  I raised my head to look at Wanda, brows drawn together in confusion. “What?”

  She was back to looking totally disinterested, picking at her nails. “Magic is a largely female dominated field. So, to narrow down your suspect pool, are any of the people you’ve ticked off female?”

  I straightened up, slowly. “My co-worker is the only dame on that list.”

  Wanda’s shoulder rose and fell in a negligent shrug. “There you have it, then. Your co-worker is really the only person in the bunch that could have cast the spell. There’s a chance that one of the two living men could be a warlock, but that chance is so infinitesimally small, I wouldn’t really bother with it or them. The odds are, you’re looking for a magically gifted woman.”

  I wouldn’t have described Steamboat Solis as ‘magically gifted’ in any areas other than running her yap. “It has to be someone else.”

  Annoyance tightened the skin around Wanda’s kisser, and she straightened away from her artful slump against the counter. “Fine. If you don’t want my help—”

  “No! No, I do, I’m sorry.” I lunged, trying to grab her sleeve. Before my fingers could close on the soft gray cashmere of her sweater, the glare Wanda shot me made me think better of it. I left my hand extended, just hanging limply in the air, making me look like a conductor standing in front of an orchestra. “It’s just, I know when people are magic. It hums in the air around them. I woulda felt it if Steamboat was a witch.”

  “Her name is Steamboat?” Poppy asked with a laugh as Wanda’s other eyebrow arched to match the first and the hint of a smile ghosted her kisser.

  “Oh, no, it’s not,” I answered with a little shrug. “That’s just my nickname for her ‘cause she’s a nonstop yapper.”

  “Hmm, like someone else we both know?” Wanda asked, looking up at me with another ghost smile.

  I didn’t know what or who she was talking about, so I just kept going. “Her real name is Summer Solis.”

  Wanda barked with laughter then and began shaking her noggin. “Summer Solis? Is that bumbler still around?”

  Poppy handed me a mug of some steaming concoction that looked like pee-pee water. “Who are you talking about?”

  I took a sip from the mug. Chamomile. I grimaced, but hid my reaction behind the mug. Poppy was trying to help, but what I wanted more than anything was a cup of joe. Or a stiff belt of gin.

  Wanda leaned against the counter again, her nails drumming against the wooden surface. “Summer Solis is a sad excuse for a witch. She’s been tossed from coven to coven ever since she was a teenager, all of them trying to make something out of her. She was with the Crescent Circle Coven for about a decade before she got herself kicked out again.”

  “Oh. The poor girl,” Poppy said, her hands wrapping around her own mug of noodle juice.

  Wanda rolled her eyes. “Don’t go all bleeding heart for her, Poppy. I know it’s your natural state, but try to rein it in.”

  “Well, how am I supposed to feel?” Poppy set her mug down with a click, but held it tight enough that the blood blanched out of her knuckles. “Shuffled around from place to place, never finding a spot to fit in. That sounds terribly lonely.”

  “Of course, you’d say that.” Wanda snorted. “It’s not as though she was tossed out on her ear because she didn’t ‘fit in’, or whatever feel-good afterschool-special nonsense is running through your head. Summer was the type of woman who had to be the center of attention at all times, and would go to embarrassing lengths to get there.”

  Oh, this was getting good. “That sounds about right,” I said.

  Wanda nodded and continued, “She fraternizes with people she shouldn’t, and she almost became a Blood Witch deliberately, because she wanted to gain more power. She’s not the kind of person any halfway decent coven would keep around, which is why… they didn’t.”

  My eyebrows had climbed up into my hairline, and my kisser was slack. Flakey, gossipy, fortune-telling, grossed-out-by-bugs-in-amber Steamboat Solis had almost become a Blood Witch on purpose just for more mojo? It felt like my brain had slipped a gear and had chugged to a stop. How had I never felt any sort of magic from her?

  Wanda pushed her dark hair behind her ear. “Although, I don’t think Summer Solis, or Steamboat, as our irritating friend here calls her, could have cast this curse. It has some serious power to it, and she’s just not that good at magic.”

  “Oh, come on,” Poppy said. “Everyone is good at something. She has to have some sort of skill.”

  Poppy glanced at my barely touched mug, and I raised it to my lips in a hurry, trying not to grimace at the oddly floral taste. The problem was, Poppy was always so nice. She liked to see the good in people. It made me feel vaguely guilty to upset her, even about something as silly as the gross noodle juice she’d made for me.

  “You would say that,” Wanda muttered. She straightened up, tossing the long sweep of her hair back over her shoulder.

  “Wait a second, Wanda,” Poppy started. “If Summer was a witch, how is it that she’s even in Haven Hollow to begin with, since you claimed Sanctum here?”

  Wanda shrugged. “She was such a crummy witch that she renounced it and, instead, became a medium.”

  “Actually, she’s a fortune teller,” I corrected. “Tarot cards.”

  Wanda didn’t bother looking at me, because apparently her nails were of much more concern. “And even in that regard, she isn’t any good. The only things Steamboat was ever half-way decent at was fortune telling, and really, most respectable people think of that trade as a joke. Any witch who wanted her fortune read would just do it herself.” Then she cocked her head to the side as something else seemed to occur to her. “Oh, and she was handy with mirror walking, I suppose.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The back of my neck prickled, my heartbeat stuttering.

  I put my mug down and straightened up slowly. “Mirror walking?” I repeated as a memory of the handprint in the mirror on Mulberry Way came back to haunt me, no pun intended. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s like a more advanced form of scrying, but with a physical component thrown in,” Wanda answered.

  “Uh huh. And what does that mean?” I asked.

  Wanda rolled her eyes, looking at me like my entire existence was a burden. And according to her, it probably was. “In simple, basic, mundane terms, you project your power through a mirror, and your reflection can exit a different mirror in some other place.”

  “So… you can look through your own mirror, connect to another mirror somewhere else, and then… walk through it?” I asked.

  Wanda cocked her head to the side. “Right.” Then she paused, looking thoughtful. “Most witches, who are able to manipulate mirrors, do so to spy on others. Or for theft, I suppose. You could definitely use it to steal from people. Bit pathetic, though.”

  I stared at her, my mind racing. Mirror walking. Holy cats, Steamboat Solis could walk through mirrors. I wished I’d grabbed Cain’s ring before I’d gone out the door this morning, but with things going the way they were, I was terrified I’d lose it and Cain would get stuck haunting a sewer or a random bush or something equally undignified.

  “So, mirror walking isn’t like astral projection?” Poppy asked.

  “You mean, your reflection can actually walk through a mirror and touch things?” I added.

  “Yeah,” Wanda answered, frowning at us both. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  I shoved away from the counter. “I need to talk to Taliyah.”

  After about three steps, I caught the toe of my shoe against the floor and tripped. I managed not to crash into a freestanding shelf laden with potions, but only at the cost of slamming onto the hardwood floor that certainly lived up to its name.

  “Darla!” Poppy called out. “Are you okay?”

  It wasn’t lost on me that Wanda said nothing.

  I lay there, gasping for breath for a moment, the wind knocked out of me from the impact. Still, I didn’t even want to think what all those different potions mixing together might have done to me if I’d ended up drenched in them, not to mention the broken glass.

  “Ow,” I groaned, just letting myself lie there for a second. One part of being alive that I hadn’t missed was everything hurting.

  A second later, Poppy was by my side with a consoling paw on my shoulder as she helped me stand.

  “Where the spell do you think you’re going?” Wanda took one look at me and burst out laughing so hard, she snorted. Her hand slapped down over her mouth and nose, and then she glared at me as if daring me to comment. “You’re a walking disaster, or have you forgotten?”

  “Maybe we should think about getting that dangerous dark magic off you before you go running off somewhere?” Poppy squeezed my arm, her smile kind and sympathetic.

  “Yeah. That might be an idea.” Rubbing my sternum wasn’t helping, but I kept doing it in the hopes it would soothe the winded feeling in my stomach that felt very similar to wanting to vomit. “I think I sprained a rib.”

  “I don’t believe it’s possible to sprain a rib,” Wanda commented as, still wiping her eyes, she wandered over to the shelves.

  “Well, if it were possible, that’s what this feels like,” I answered.

  She picked up a bottle, examining the label. “Let’s see, what have you got here, Poppy dearest?” Then she put the bottle down and picked up the one next to it, studying it. “I’m sure you’ve got something designed to purge people of nasty energy.”

  Poppy settled me at the counter, pulling over a stool for me to rest on. “How about you just… sit there for a minute? Let us get you sorted.” She took a step forward and then, thinking better of it, turned back to face me. “Just, don’t touch anything. At all. Please.”

  My gams were just itching to book it out the door. The need to grab Cain and track down Taliyah was overwhelming. My thoughts were burning a hole in my head. But running off with the magical whammy I was carrying seemed like a good way to get myself bumped off, and I wasn’t in any hurry for that to happen… again.

  What if I got stuck haunting the same spot as Cain? I shuddered. It couldn’t bear thinking about. I’d already done ghostly cohabitation, and I wasn’t signing up for another round.

  “I’ll stay put,” I promised Poppy. “Won’t move an inch.”

  She still hesitated a moment or two, before hurrying over to the same shelf Wanda was perusing. They bent their heads together, one blonde and one dark, debating curse-breaking methods.

  Gripping the counter until my knuckles went white, I stayed still. I couldn’t blame Poppy. I wouldn’t want a hex victim bumbling around my shop full of volatile potions and fragile glass bottles, either. With any luck, the whammy hadn’t gotten strong enough that just sitting in place resulted in an accident.

  Wanda tilted her head from side to side, considering. “I might still be able to whip up a spell of Cleanse Aura. But considering the method of Darla’s resurrection, Cleanse Aura might evaporate her.” She eyed me, looking curious. “Or turn her inside out.”

  “Evaporate me or turn me inside out?” I called out, shaking my head as my peepers went as wide as saucers. “Pass!”

  Poppy eyed me as her fingers twitched against the bottle in her hands before she put it back down again. “Let’s call that one ‘Plan B.’”

  “How ‘bout we call that one, ‘Plan Ain’t Gonna Never Happen’,” I answered, shaking my head. “I’d rather live with this curse.”

  “I have Uncrossing Oil.” Poppy chewed on her lower lip. “But…”

  I perked up. “But what?”

  One hand rose to tug at her loose braid. “Well, I’m just concerned because Uncrossing Oil is pretty potent. It might disrupt your… summoning and uncross Cain.”

  “What she’s not saying,” Wanda drawled as she crouched in front of the shelf. “Is that it might boot your ghost back across the veil as well as disrupting the hex. It’ll just purge every spell on you.”

  “Oh, no. We can’t do that,” I answered. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to fish that fella outta the ether the first time around? I’m not even sure I could do it again.”

  “Maybe something more targeted, and a little gentler.” Poppy stepped over to a separate shelf and grabbed a beautiful, long-necked lavender glass bottle with a little cut crystal stopper. She reached to the back of the shelf and pulled out a thick black candle, and brought both back over to the counter.

  “Curse-Breaker Oil,” she explained as she set the bottle down. “You anoint the candle with it and burn it for seven nights during the waning moon. The candle will burn away the curse, weakening it each night.”

  “Seven nights?” I moaned.

  “Yeah, that stuff is like wagon-crossing-the-Oregon-Trail slow,” Wanda answered.

  “It isn’t as fast as we might have wanted,” Poppy replied, nose in the air, “But it will do the job, and it won’t risk kicking Cain out.” Then she looked at Wanda and smiled. “And, if you took some, it might even take care of your dysentery.”

  “Dysentery?” Wanda repeated, frowning. “Who says I have dysentery?” Then she frowned even more deeply. “What is dysentery anyway?”

  “Wanda, if you’re going to set up a joke, you have to understand how to follow through with it,” Poppy answered with a smile of one-upmanship that thrilled me to my marrow because it wasn’t often that anyone got a leg up on Wanda. Then I remembered how long this was going to take and my smile dissolved post haste.

  “Seven days?” I repeated as my head dropped into my hands almost of its own volition and I whined, “I don’t have that kind of time!”