Page 8 of A Spell for Midwinter’s Heart

The Midwinter magic shop was near the center of the main street, sandwiched between a fancy cheese shop and an antiques store, its face painted with silver moons and the words The Magick Cabinet.

They’d pragmatically decorated the front windows with an assortment of Yule decorations that could easily double as Christmas, given the shared DNA.

“Four to the right, two up,” she murmured before loosening a brick in the building’s face. The shop’s spare key was in the same hiding place it had always occupied.

Maybe time to talk about a new hiding spot, and probably a new Wi-Fi password too.

Slotting the key, she opened the door, revealing the interior of the shop.

It was like the most cluttered parts of the Midwinter home but with even fewer concessions to livability.

Shelves full of books ran high up the walls, a sliding cherrywood library ladder required to access their topmost heights.

Wicker baskets of stones and crystals, small statuettes of every sympathetic deity (and some not so sympathetic), incense, and witchy paraphernalia covered tables arranged throughout the middle of the wide-open room.

A curling wrought iron staircase led to a loft overhead, where one could find the more serious ritual items. Keeping the bottom floor light on the authenticity allowed tourists to wander in and leave with something “funky” without being confronted with evidence of witchcraft.

Only the innately curious or truly interested would venture up the stairs.

As she studied the room, a few of the items in the window display righted themselves, borne upward by unseen hands, and there was a general shuffling of books in the shelves as they returned themselves to the alphabetical order that yesterday’s customers had browsed them out of.

Cleanup had been so much easier with magic.

Not that anyone would ever have accused Rowan of being tidy, even when she had magic at her disposal, but it had certainly helped.

The witch controlling the shop’s cleaning spells, Zaide, stood at an altar full of goddess statues with her eyes closed, whispering under her breath.

A pale ceramic bowl filled with a thick red-brown porridge sat at the front of the altar—patjuk, laid out to ward off evil spirits as part of Zaide’s celebration of Dongji, the Korean winter Solstice celebration.

At the sound of the front door slamming back into its frame, Zaide’s eyes flew open, and she shouted, “Who the hell?” But her alarm gave way to a grin. “Rowan!”

“Z!” They ran across the room in a chorus of shrieking noises and collided in a tangled hug that nearly sent Rowan’s Coffee Time cup spinning to the ground, but she juggled it to the nearby countertop just in time.

Zaide had matured into herself in the last eight years.

Her short black hair was cut in a side shave and tipped purple.

She wore a sleeveless black tunic, revealing a tattoo sleeve featuring complex Sagittarius imagery and a triple goddess symbol that wrapped its way around her muscular shoulders and biceps.

Her nose sported a piercing tipped in a piece of garnet, and heat radiated off her skin.

When Liliana had said Zaide stood in the south, the cardinal of fire, Rowan hadn’t been the least bit surprised.

Creativity, passion, daring—Zaide Hak possessed all the traits of fire, and Rowan had no doubt she wielded it well.

“So you’re managing this place now?” asked Rowan.

Zaide nodded. “For the season, till your mom’s free to swoop back in. After that, who knows?” She closed her eyes. “I just don’t want to end up at the inn.”

Her extended family owned and managed a long-standing inn and spa in Elk Ridge, and it had been Zaide’s primary goal in life to never become one of its full-time employees.

Rowan nudged her gently. “Might be a good time to see what the rest of the world has to offer?”

It had been their plan to move away together—bound for separate schools in the same city—but then Zaide’s mom had gotten sick, and she’d stayed home to help take care of her siblings. But Zaide’s youngest brother was now a full year out of Elk Ridge Senior High, leaving her a free woman.

“Mmm…” said Zaide, her tone unconvinced. She picked up a utility knife and slit open a delivery box with a satisfying ripping noise.

“Not even a little tempted?” asked Rowan.

Zaide sifted through the contents of the box below without looking up. “Not all of us pick up and go as easy as you do, Rowan.”

Ouch.

Zaide continued, “It’s just…Moving for school is ‘leave-home-by-numbers.’ You already have somewhere to live, something to do…

Miss that window, it gets a hell of a lot more complicated.

People have zero reason to hire bar managers from anywhere other than the pool of art school burnouts already day-drinking in their front yards. ”

The words came out quick and tense. Zaide had clearly thought about this plenty on her own, without estranged friends trying to nose their way in.

“Okay,” said Rowan, “but if there’s ever anything I can do to help, like if you want a couch to crash on, let me know, okay?”

“Will do.” Zaide started pulling out shirts with pithy sayings like Keep the Yule in Yuletide and Witches Are the Reason for the Season, sorting them by size. Rowan slid up beside her to help.

“So you’re a part of the coven now?” asked Rowan, her voice coming out small.

Zaide joining them had been something she’d always wished would happen, but the Zaide of her time hadn’t been ready. That her friend had finally come to it now, when Rowan was no longer practicing, left an aching sense of missed possibility.

“Yep. Started dabbling last year, then a spot opened up, and it was like…” Zaide seemed to consider how to describe it. “Like the big old cosmic plan winked at me from across the bar.”

“Wow,” said Rowan, overcome with a feeling that was equal parts awe and jealousy at the certainty in her old friend’s voice.

I wish I’d ever felt that.

Zaide moved on to the register, fingers flying across the keys, and Rowan put away the last of the shirts. Her eyes came to rest on a stack of heavy stock paper covered in inky drawings. The topmost image was a reimagining of the occult shop’s logo, with a bolder, more modern flair.

“Are these yours?” asked Rowan.

Zaide glanced over and nodded with a smile. “I’ve done some design for a couple of other places, trying to update their branding. Been prepping those pitches for your mom, though she doesn’t know it yet.”

“Smart. Sneak-attack her with something mind-blowing before she can tell you not to bother.”

“Exactly,” said Zaide with finger guns. There was little that Liliana Midwinter enjoyed less than change, but Zaide’s designs were good, and the store’s logo could use modernization.

“So,” said Rowan, shuffling the papers, “I ended up driving from Seattle with Gavin McCreery, of all people.”

Zaide’s eyebrows jumped to the top of her head. “How did that go?”

“Fine, for a while, then very, very awkward.”

“You made it weird,” said Zaide with a nod.

“No! He made it weird.” Zaide stared at her with undisguised skepticism that forced Rowan to retreat. “Okay, so it might have been more on me. He said something…pretty harmless, and I overreacted. And I kind of overreacted again when I ran into him like fifteen minutes ago.”

Zaide nodded. “Uh-huh. You’ve always reserved a unique way under your skin only for him.”

“That’s not true!” said Rowan with a sputter.

“Um, yeah it is.”

Her brows bunched together. What was Zaide on about? Gavin McCreery had gotten under her skin because he had poked his way there, by acting like a McCreery.

At least, that was the first defense that leaped to mind.

But as for examples of such behavior, she came up short.

Gavin might have been her academic rival, but he’d never been a bully.

In fact, the more she thought about it, it was hard to even find much evidence of rivalry.

More often, they collaborated, complementing each other’s strengths and weaknesses so they could both excel.

“Okay,” said Rowan. “So, that might have been a thing.”

“It was definitely a thing. I mean, you cast a revenge spell on him! You didn’t even do that to Lane Smith when she tripped you on the bus, and you ended up with the nosebleed from hell that ruined your vintage Charmed hoodie we found in that thrift shop in Winthrop.”

Zaide was the only person who Rowan had told about the hair spell, confessing one night after they had gotten into her mother’s ritual wine.

Unfortunately, the Zaide of the time was still many years away from her own magical awakening.

The Zaide of today would have been useful in helping her undo it, but too much time had passed.

Gavin waking up with his hair back to black would do more harm than good at this point.

Besides, it really did suit him.

We’re mad at him, remember?

Whether or not she’d been rude, he was still helping the enemy. He didn’t deserve total absolution.

At that moment, a gaggle of four older women in colorful pashminas wandered in, flipping Zaide into seller mode. Her tattoo sleeve shifted, a dramatically altered design featuring a tumbling trio of cats taking its place. One customer spied it and squealed in delight.

“Well, I better…” began Zaide, nodding to the customers.

“Of course,” said Rowan

“I’ll see you tonight,” said Zaide.

Rowan froze. Was Zaide assuming she’d take part in the spell? Had her mother assumed she’d just say yes? Was the entire coven expecting it?

Something must have shown on her face, because Zaide clarified, “For dinner.”

“Right,” said Rowan, exhaling. The coven would gather for Solstice eve dinner at the Midwinter house, the way they always had, and only afterward would they go into the wood to perform the magical rites.

Her father would enjoy the feast with them, marking the occasion in a completely secular way, and stay back when the night took a turn for the mystical. That was an option for Rowan as well. If she took it, leaving the coven’s circle broken.

Was that something she could live with?

“Rowan.” Zaide’s voice interrupted her thoughts. Her old friend inclined her head toward Rowan’s half-drunk cup of coffee with a wry smile. “Don’t forget.”

She flushed as she grabbed it, because she had absolutely been about to forget. “Thanks.”

“?’Course,” said Zaide with a wink. “I’m not cleaning up after you.”

For the first time since she’d walked into the shop, it felt like old times.