Page 13

D aisy

“What more tests could be done?”

Tessa clung onto Daisy’s hand tightly. “More than you can imagine,” she replied. “But I think we should get home before anything.”

Daisy’s brow furrowed. “Why do you seem afraid?”

A laugh blurted out from Tessa’s lips. “Who said anything about being afraid?”

“Tessa.”

She chewed on the inside of her mouth before letting out a sigh.

They were almost home, and the neighborhood was quiet all around them.

“Without knowing what the potion entails,” Tessa began, referring to the original potion that had fallen all over Daisy’s shoes, “We can’t be sure how it affects others.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, what just happened for Maria is outstanding. ”

“But?”

Tessa hesitated. “How can we explain Alan’s hair? Or Rebecca’s clothes? Or Old Lady Weatherford falling?” She shook her head, a faraway look falling over her. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Pressing her lips together, Daisy remained silent as they continued their regular path towards their homes.

For a moment, she imagined what would happen if the potion turned out to have been a hex, or much worse, a curse.

The future of Fields’ Herbals and her residency within Willowbrook could be at stake without knowing what was causing her wishes to come true.

The moment she said the wrong thing, someone’s life could be at stake.

Daisy shook her head. There was no way it could get that far. Though the uncertainty surrounding it was incredibly hard to ignore.

“Steve’s home,” Tessa suddenly said.

Following her gaze, Daisy’s eyes landed on Tessa’s husband, Steve Hala.

He was a rather ordinary man, not a warlock or practitioner of any form of magic.

He merely loved his wife and his job all the same.

His wardrobe was always full of luau button downs and brightly colored shorts, his eccentric clothes matching his wife’s bubbling personality.

They were quite the pair and melded with each other easily.

Steve was standing across the street from his house, looking up at another man.

They were in the middle of a conversation, and it was easy to assume that it wasn’t exactly a friendly one.

As they drew nearer, Daisy narrowed her eyes on the other man, the realization hitting her almost at the same time as it reached Tessa.

“Isn’t that Richard Martin?” Daisy asked.

Tessa groaned. “That grumpy man can’t seem to keep his anger on his own property.”

“Last weekend he was yelling at the kids down the block from us,” Daisy said with a shake of her head. “All because they were riding their bikes a little too close to his mailbox. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

Tessa sighed. “I wonder how much anger a person has to have if they feel the need to hate on everyone else’s business.”

Daisy normally preferred to keep her mouth shut when it came to gossiping about her neighbors, but there was something about Richard that made the entire town turn against him.

First he was spending his free time throwing old cans and boxes at the stray cats living in the neighborhood.

That act alone turned most of Willowbrook against him.

Daisy herself fed most of the cats living in the woods around their houses, leaving out bowls of food and water for them to eat as they pleased.

One day, Richard made his way to her front door, banging his fist on the wood till she opened up to him.

He went on and on about the chores cats brought, how they liked to have their kittens in his garage during the wintertime.

Daisy was nice enough to give him the time of day, but never did she even consider halting in feeding the cats.

“The last time I spoke to him,” Tessa was saying, “I needed to bring a calming tonic to the house.”

“Whatever for?”

Tessa leaned over to lower her voice as they walked.

“His wife, the poor woman, was screaming her head off,” she explained.

“Apparently he had come home from work in a rage, and was even more upset when he arrived to his wife deep cleaning their fine china. Plates here, bowls there, expensive silverware everywhere.”

Daisy raised a brow. “Sounds harmless to me.”

“You’d think,” Tessa said. “But Richard, the loving man he is, decided to throw a temper tantrum and began throwing the china everywhere. It made a big mess, I’ll tell you that.

” She sighed and shook her head. “Richard and I went over when the kids found their way into our backyard. They refused to go back for hours, but it was settled in the end.”

“And she stayed with him?”

“Where else could she go?” Tessa asked. “Richard might be the biggest jerk with an ivory spoon up his you know what, but look at their house! The man is worth more money than that woman will ever get her hands on. I hate to say it, but you know it as much as I do.”

Daisy looked over their three story house and let out a low whistle. She couldn’t deny it.

As they drew nearer, the conversation between Steve and Richard grew clear.

Richard was at the top of his ladder, a thick paintbrush in hand.

Half the side of the house was already done in a nice color, the rest remaining what it normally was.

A paint bucket sat on the edge of the roof, directly beside where he worked.

“Now,” Richard was in the middle of shouting, “don’t you hear that, Steve?”

Steve stood at the foot of the ladder, turning to glance over his shoulder at the front of his own house.

A series of windchimes hung from their roof, directly above their covered porch.

The windchimes were mainly handmade by Tessa herself, from shards of glass or pieces of drywood.

As the wind rushed by the chimes made a pleasant symphony of sound, each one of them producing something different but somehow blending effortlessly together.

Steve turned back towards Richard with his hands on his hips.

“Sure,” Steve called out to him. “ I hear music. What do you hear?”

“Noise! Annoying, unneeded, uncoordinated noise! That,” Richard paused to shove an accusatory finger in the direction of their house, “is nowhere near music, Steve!”

Daisy glanced over at Tessa. She had a sour look on her face, her small hands clenching into tight fists. “Are you alright?”

Tessa pressed her lips together as they got closer. “What’s wrong with my windchimes?”

“Not a thing,” Daisy replied. “You know that. It’s just Richard. He can’t enjoy anything nice, it seems.”

As they drew near to the bickering pair, Steve glanced in their direction.

His face lit up the moment he saw Tessa, whatever bother Richard had been giving him going in one ear and out the other.

Tessa, on the other hand, was a bundle of rage, and was more than ready to defend her windchimes the moment she got close enough.

Daisy shook her head as she watched Richard, who was beginning to climb down his tall ladder. He was still calling things out to Steve, though the words were caught on the air and carried elsewhere.

“I wish someone could humble that man,” Daisy mused.

Richard turned while still holding onto the ladder, ready to unleash another slew of complaints now that he noticed Tessa had arrived.

He pointed towards them when the wind brushed by, and the paint bucket resting on the roof’s edge wobbled.

Before Daisy could say a word, the bucket moved a little too close to the gutter and fell on its side.

A flood of pastel blue paint washed down in Richard’s direction like a waterfall, the sound of it splattering on his head so loud Daisy swore it would bring out the entire neighborhood.

As the paint settled against the neatly trimmed grass, staining the driveway and the path leading to their front door, Richard climbed the rest of the way down the ladder.

He was entirely soaked with paint. It covered his expensive clothes, drenched his pointed shoes.

His normally suave hair was flattened against his face and dripping with paint.

He landed on the ground with a thud, the mess causing him to slip and slide if he wasn’t careful.

The trio standing at the side of Richard’s house were entirely gobsmacked.

They all had slack jaws and wide eyes, staring at the mess without uttering a single word.

Richard pressed his lips together, probably to stop the paint from going in his mouth, before storming off towards his front door.

Though Daisy had no doubt he was mumbling all the way there, he ripped his door open and slammed it behind him.

Tessa burst into laughter. Steve quickly followed, removing his square glasses to swipe at a stray tear.

Daisy allowed herself to laugh, though it wasn’t as boisterous as the rest of them.

She had said it again, hadn’t she? She replayed the moments leading up to it in her mind.

They’d talked about Richard and his angry tendencies, his unfortunate circumstances with his wife and cats. But she did say it.

I wish someone could humble that man.

The trio began to walk back across the street towards the Hala household. Daisy’s house was a few doors down, but it wasn’t much of a walk at all. She remained beside them as they arrived at the front porch.

“I don’t entirely want to ask this,” Steve suddenly said.

Tessa’s brow rose. “Ask what?”

“Did either one of you have anything to do with that?” He pointed over his shoulder to the mess on Richard’s front lawn. “Because if you did -”

Daisy glanced over at Tessa before he could respond.

The look on the empath’s face told her everything she needed to know.

Whatever happened wasn’t a freak accident, even if it was the easiest option to believe.

If they looked hard enough, Daisy’s magical fingerprint would’ve been written all over it.

At least Richard and the rest of his family weren’t involved in magic. That would’ve been harder to explain.

Steve crossed his arms disapprovingly. “Tessa,” he said in a stern voice. “How could you allow such a thing?”

“I -”

Daisy stepped forward. “Don’t be rash, Steve. Not before you know the story.”

He raised his hands and took a step back. “I don’t want to hear it,” he blurted. “Now, now, Tessie, don’t look at me like that. I may not be a warlock, but I know just as well as the both of you that harming another without cause is against the witch’s code.”

Daisy felt her stomach drop. After all this time, she’d never once stopped to consider the ramifications of the witch’s code.

It was the law that bound magic users together, that held them to a higher standard.

Weaving away from the code meant leaving the morally right side of things, disrupting the very flow of nature.

If it came down to it and Daisy was accused of breaking the code, she didn’t have much going for her case.

But it wasn’t her future that worried her. Daisy glanced in Tessa’s direction. Tessa was in the process of gaining her empath certification. Anything Daisy did could stand in the way of her success.

“Look,” Steve said, “I’m not going to involve myself in things I can’t understand. But this?” He shook his head. “That’s something I never expected out of the two of you. Just,” he paused before letting out a tired sigh, “be careful.”

Without another word, Steve began to cross the front lawn back towards their house. The door shut firmly behind him.

“Tessa,” Daisy said. “I-I never meant to cause -”

Bumping her shoulder into Daisy, Tessa let a smile cross her face. “Don’t you dare say what I think you’re gonna say,” she interjected. “You and I are like two peas in a pod. What happens to one, happens to the other. Okay?”

“But -”

“If you think I’m going to let you solve this without me, you don’t know me at all.”

Daisy watched her closest friend with a heavy heart.

“In the meantime,” Tessa continued, grabbing a hold of Daisy’s hand, “that spell, without a doubt, did something to Richard. Till we know exactly what to do, be careful what you wish for.”

She took a shuddering step backwards. Barely a second passed and Daisy grew flushed with panic.

Tessa lurched forward, her hands gripping onto Daisy’s thin arms. “Relax, flower,” Tessa cooed, the old nickname from their grade school years sending a rush of ease through Daisy’s body.

“We take this one step at a time. Tomorrow, after a good night’s rest, we’ll tend to it as we should.

For now,” she paused, making a breathing motion, “we only inhale and exhale.”

Daisy’s trembles came to a stop. “I do not want to put you at stake.”

“Don’t worry about me for a second,” Tessa whispered. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not the one who's gotten myself into a barrel full of issues.”

She laughed shakily. “Be realistic with me. What do you think this is?”

“Honestly,” Tessa said, giving her arms a reassuring squeeze, “I think someone might be trying to set you up.”

Daisy gulped.

“Imagine what would happen if you wished harm on the wrong person,” Tessa continued, her voice radiating comfort despite the words she used. “You’d suddenly have the Elders of the Witch Council knocking at your door. And you know that all they come around for is for instances of -”

“Dark magic,” Daisy finished.

Tessa had a grim look on her face. “Something like that could do something worse than destroy your life.”

“What’s worse than that?”

“Getting your magic taken away.”

Daisy paled. Dizziness swayed her for a moment, but she grounded herself.

The panic and worry was hard to ignore, but the constant presence of Tessa’s calming powers brought an undeniable ease.

She could make it home. And once she was there, all alone for the evening, she’d let the panic and worry take over her then.

Daisy pulled herself out of Tessa’s tight grasp. “Go on home, Tess.”

“Are you alright?”

She gave her a thin smile. “You’re such an empath.”

Tessa laughed.

Turning on her heel, Daisy began to make her way up the sidewalk towards her house. The evening came upon steadily, nighttime falling across Willowbrook. A haunting future presented itself to Daisy, and she walked straight towards it.

Her whisper came out as gentle as the air.

“ Blessed be. ”