Page 1

D aisy

“Yeah, uh, huh, uh, huh. Yeah!”

The music rang through Fields’ Herbals loudly, the boombox radio nestled within the shelves vibrating as the bass grew even more.

On early Monday mornings, not a soul in Willowbrook found themselves creeping into the store.

Despite being located in the heart of town, surrounded by aged bookstores and smoldering coffee shops, Mondays were for going to work and heading home.

Even the handfuls of tourists Willowbrook normally had lingered on by the shop, peering into the wide, squared windows then giving each other a shrug before going on their way.

But if they were to look inside, they would see a private dance party going on.

Daisy Fields, owner and master spellmaker, twirled between the aisles, her long and slender arms erected up above her.

The wooden floor beneath her thin shoes creaked and moaned with age, the bookcases and series of shelves shuddering from the movement.

She bumped a boney hip against a shelf, ignoring how the vials and glass bottles clinked against each other.

Mondays were for dancing, it seemed, and Daisy had no intentions of slowing down.

Across the room, dancing in an untimely similar fashion, was Tessa Hala.

She had cut her hair pixie short after her husband first began traveling for work.

Ever since then, Tessa insisted on keeping her brown locks short, and quickly started to look like a fairytale creature that sprung right out of a nursery rhyme book.

Tessa, who stood a head or two taller than Daisy, could be seen swaying between the aisles, her arms spread out and her eyes fluttering shut.

Daisy sang the lyrics as loud as she could, her singing drowning out the music.

“Who says you need a microphone to sing?” Tessa called out, her sharp laugh filling the air afterwards.

“Not me!” Daisy kept her voice high pitched and sing-songy.

Daisy was glad to be distracted by the music, because she was having an off day.

That morning, before the sun rose and while the moon still hung above the horizon, Daisy awoke with the feeling of something unusual coming her way.

As a skilled and proficient spellmaker, Daisy trusted her instincts more than anything else.

When they told her to jump, she asked how high.

As she brewed her first cup of coffee, slipping in a tonic to put her mind at ease, Daisy stared out the window with a furlong expression.

The feeling, however small or forgettable it seemed, remained with her still.

Even then, during her dance, Daisy felt tempted to slip into a reverie, fully aware that the last time she had a feeling like that, she…well, she was not in any hurry to think it over again.

Slam!

Daisy flung around one of the aisles. “Blessed be, Tessa,” she cooed with a shake of her head. “You’re as clumsy as a child, aren’t you?” Laughter ensued as she looked over the mess on the shop’s floor.

Sprawled across the old wood, Tessa was covered with every single scarf that once hung in a neat fashion beside the checkout counter.

They were in an array of colors, each handmade and personally delivered by the local knitting club.

The hooks they had been displayed on were now scattered across the floor, a few slipping too far beneath the counter for Daisy to even spend a moment thinking about how she’d get them back.

How could she consider cleanup when her best friend was crying from laughing so hard?

It was a typical, beautiful Monday.

Daisy knelt beside her, gently tugging the scarves out from beneath Tessa’s flailing arms. “One day,” she said, “you’ll need to tell me how Maverick manages to find you in one piece whenever he gets back from his work trips!”

“ Please, ” Tessa replied in a drawling tone. “You say it as if you aren’t as clumsy or even worse than me.”

“Since when?”

Tessa rolled her eyes playfully, tugging a scarf out from beneath her bottom. “I think I’ve known you long enough to make that assumption myself.”

Slipping an arm beneath Tessa’s back, Daisy hoisted her up, yanking out a scarf that managed to find its way into her pockets. “We’re getting too old to be so clumsy,” Daisy teased, knowing that bringing up age would push her best friend’s buttons.

“Now, you hold on there,” Tessa snapped.

Daisy grinned. “Here we go.”

“Just because you’re fifty-one -”

“Fifty- two , Tess.”

Tessa rolled her eyes again. “Whatever,” she said with a wave of her hand. “And I’m fifty, does not make us old. Does it?”

“In the simplest sense of the term, we -”

Tessa snapped her fingers. “You’re lucky I can’t remember where my de-aging recipe went. I’d slip a drop or two in your morning coffee and you wouldn’t even know it.”

Daisy laughed as she leaned against the counter, the fallen scarves now stacked in her hands.

The de-aging recipe sat where it had always sat: in the thick spellbook in the attic.

The building for Fields’ Herbals had sat in Willowbrook’s town center since its founding.

Every Fields woman who owned the building kept their grimoire of spells, tonics, and brews in the attic, where it could be safely stored and never misplaced.

When Tessa had started to work alongside her in the shop, they began combining recipes and ideas.

Daisy didn’t have the heart to tell Tessa that she had begun misplacing her ‘recipes’ the year after she turned forty-five. At least any recipe that had to do with her age. Tessa didn’t need to start messing around with such dangerous spells, especially not for vanity.

The familiar doorbell chimed as a customer slipped inside the store.

Daisy looked toward the door, surprised by such an early morning customer.

Dressed in a long trench coat, the patron stepped further in but hesitated, wrapping the edges of the coat further around her body.

She lifted her head, the hat she wore casting a dark shadow across her face.

Daisy left the scarves on the counter and walked around an aisle to get a good look at her. Something about the customer looked familiar, but the added trench coat and shadowy hat shrouding her face left her more confused than she wanted to be.

“Good morning,” Daisy called out. “Can we help you?”

The woman stepped further into the light. “I-I’m sorry to burst in like this.”

“Diana?” Daisy asked. “I could hardly recognize you with that get-up! What’s going on, are you -”

The regular patron stuck her hand out from within the trench coat.

Instantly, Daisy and Tessa jerked backwards in surprise.

Diana’s hand was three times the size it should’ve been, the skin plumped and tight, as if her muscles would surge out from within and tear her skin like paper. Even her nails, which were painted a deep purple, were much larger than a human’s hand ever should have been.

“Do you remember the lip plumping spell?” Diana asked.

Daisy winced. “Oh, you poor girl. Don’t tell me you split it on your hand?”

“Every last drop,” she cried out. “I have a huge interview this afternoon, Daisy. Tell me you can fix this!”

Daisy snatched up the boombox remote, pausing the music and growing serious within a second. “Don’t even think about worrying, Diana,” she said as she moved across the store. “We’ll have you right as rain in no time.”

Pride flared in Daisy’s chest. After so many years, this was the exact thing that reminded her why she loved the life she had been blessed with.

Hardship came and went, as it always did, but there was nothing more rewarding than solving a person’s mistake, healing a misfortune, putting a blunder to rest. Every single thing in her shop was concocted to bring a smile to someone’s face.

Even when it dared to go wrong, like it did in Diana’s case, Daisy was ready and prepared to fix it.

Daisy ran her hand along one of the shelves against the wall, her lips moving as she searched for a particular vial. She passed by a series of them.

De-shrinking, de-flowering, de-magnifying, de-growing?

Daisy snapped her fingers. “That ought to do it,” she whispered to herself, snatching up the de-growing vial.

There was a shimmering purple liquid inside, the light reflecting off it and sending a kaleidoscope across the floor.

“Hold out your hand, Diana,” she said as she curved back around the aisles.

Diana pulled up her sleeve, holding her enlarged hand out in between them.

All it took was a few simple drops, and Diana’s skin moved and shrunk before their eyes.

After just a few blinks of an eye, Diana looked as normal as Daisy remembered her.

Diana knew her well, having helped her with everything from preparing for a big project to getting ready for a spontaneous date.

Diana breathed a sigh of relief as she held her hand up to the light. The purple liquid had sunk into her skin, no remnants of the disaster remaining. “Have I told you how much of a life saver you are, Daisy?”

“You have,” she replied with a cheesy grin. “But I’ll hear it again, all the same.”

“Then you’re a lifesaver,” Diana breathed, not waiting another second to throw her arms around Daisy’s thin neck. “I can’t thank you enough.” Pulling back, she dug through her coat to retrieve her wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

Daisy raised her hand. “Not a thing.”

“But -”

“A mistake is a mistake,” Daisy interjected as she shrugged. “No need to pay for an accident.”

Tessa cleared her throat from behind the counter, still trying to sort all the fallen scarves. “You can pay through recommending the shop to your girlfriends, Diana.”

“Now, now,” Daisy said, giving Tessa a pointed stare. “She doesn’t need -”

Diana snatched onto her wrist. “ That reminds me,” she said. “I’ve got family coming into town in a few weeks, and I need sleep aids.”

“Are they that bad?”

“Oh, not for me,” Diana replied.

Daisy raised a slender brow.