Page 3 of Guarded by the Gargoyle (Hidden Hollow #3)

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WILLOW

M y alarm went off at six—the same time it does every morning. But even before I opened my eyes, I heard a “ Mmmmrow?” and a paw patted my cheek.

“All right, Miss Sassy,” I muttered, batting at my cat. “I hear you—I hear you.”

I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but I knew the bundle of calico fur sitting on my chest wouldn’t let me. Besides, it was time to get up and open the shop. There are always a few practitioners who want to get in early and grab some supplies before the start of business hours.

Yawning, I rolled out of bed and went to get a quick shower. Twisting my long, wavy black hair up on top of my head to keep it from getting damp, I swiped the steam off the mirror and glanced at my face. I have what they used to call a “roseleaf complexion”—which really just means I’m too pale and my skin bruises easily. The skin I got from my Mom. My thin nose and full lips came from my Dad.

My pale green eyes, that have no other color in them, I got from my Great Grandmother—at least that’s what Pop-pop always said. He claimed that his mother was a great beauty—so gorgeous that the artists begged to paint her and put her picture on cigar boxes. Which was a big deal back in the day—like being an Instagram model, I guess.

My eyes weird some people out though, because they almost seem to glow in the dark. “Cat eyes” my ex, Carlo used to call them.

He always hated cats.

I tried to push Carlo out of my mind as I stepped into the shower. He was a chapter in my life best left closed. The day he had signed the divorce papers, over two years ago, had been one of the best days of my life. I had been set free of a horrible, abusive marriage and I wasn’t about to take my freedom for granted.

Especially since I was fairly sure my Pop-pop had paid for my freedom with his life.

That might be hard to understand unless you know that my Grandfather had Romany blood in him—he always claimed that he was descended from a Gypsy Queen. And when I told him you can’t say “Gypsy” anymore, because it’s considered a slur, he would always wave me off.

“Please! It has always been an ugly name for our kind, Willow my love!” he told me. “But I will not let them make me ashamed! I have the blood of the Gypsy Queen in my veins and The Power that comes with it.” Then he winked at me. “Someday, you will have The Power too.”

I would always wave him off. I might have his blood in my veins, but I didn’t have any of the powers that my Grandfather did. Maybe because my blood was too diluted. Pop-pop was only half Gypsy—or Traveler, which is the nice way to say it—himself. Which made my Dad only a quarter Traveler and so I was barely an eighth.

Pop-pop’s other half was Italian—I could always tell when he got upset or excited because his accent got thicker. He could swear a blue streak in Italian too, which never failed to impress me when I was younger.

As for magical powers, Pop-pop really did have some, though it was hard to tell how much was genuine and how much was sleight-of-hand and skillful deception. He knew about a million card tricks and he was always making coins appear from behind my ear.

He did Spirit sessions and Tarot readings too—he had a special set of cards that were passed down to him from his Mother—she of the cigar box beauty fame. Despite their age they hadn’t faded a bit and the intricate patterns in golden ink stamped on their backs remained as fresh as the day they had been made.

The cards were special—almost as special as the keys that Pop-pop had begged me to keep with me always. I stored them in a shoe box in the small safe under the front counter of the shop and only took them out occasionally to look at them and remember my Grandfather.

I sighed as I got out of the shower and dried off. Thinking of Pop-pop still made me feel sad and guilty. I was sure he had given his life for me, though I wasn’t quite sure how he had achieved it. But he had only been sixty-five when he died—and a really young sixty five at that. I was sure he might have lived longer if things hadn’t gotten so bad with Carlo…

There my mind went, straying back to my no-good ex again. Why was I thinking of him so much this morning? He was out of my life for good and I no longer had to worry about him hitting or hurting me—or making rude, belittling comments about my weight, either.

Yes, I admit it—I’m curvy. I have full breasts and big hips and “thunder thighs”—at least according to my ex. But guess what? That’s just too damn bad. After the season in hell that was my marriage, I had decided not to try to conform to anyone else’s standard of beauty. I used to starve myself, hoping I could please my husband. Now if I wanted that extra donut, I was damn well going to eat it.

After all, it wasn’t like I was ever going to get married—or even date—again. My time with Carlo had made me extremely wary of every other man on the planet. All except my Grandfather, of course—Pop-pop had never raised a hand to me, even in my rebellious teenage years. He was never anything but loving and kind and patient and understanding and…

And I was crying. Sniffing, I swiped at my eyes as I pulled on some clothes. My closet was still kind of chaotic because, while I had boxed up all Pop-pop’s clothes, I still hadn’t been able to make myself donate them. So the small walk-in was crammed with cardboard boxes as well as my own colorful wardrobe.

Back when I was married, I dressed mainly in black. Not because I liked the color, but because it was slenderizing and made my juicy behind look a little less massive. But now I didn’t care about hiding my curves—in fact, I liked to flaunt them.

I found a red silky blouse with flowing sleeves and paired it with a long, deep blue skirt covered in red flowers. I wrapped a scarf around my head, letting my long wavy black hair hang down behind it and added a string of gold beads as well as the thick silver necklace with the keys Pop-pop had left me.

A pair of soft red flats finished the outfit which—while it wouldn’t work if I was employed at a bank—did just fine for running the Magic Supply Shop my Grandfather had left me. I looked like a Traveler Princess which was good—customers like to see someone mysterious behind the counter. Or so Pop-pop always claimed—especially the tourists who came in to ogle at our eclectic mixture of magical artifacts and New Orleans souvenirs. So I did my best to dress the part.

I went to the small kitchenette and fed Miss Sassy, who had been meowing almost non-stop since I stepped out of the shower. I put her morning can of soft cat food on a dish beside the automatic feeder and the automatic watering tank I had bought her at great expense. She routinely ignored the dry food that the feeder dispensed, though she would drink from the little reservoir below the tank as long as I changed the water daily.

She’s damn picky, my cat—probably because Pop-pop spoiled her rotten while she stayed with him during my disastrous marriage. Carlo refused to have a cat in his house—he claimed he was allergic but the truth was he was just an asshole and he didn’t want me to have anything at all that might make me happy.

“Ugh, this stuff smells!” I told her as I served her the “tuna delight.” “Don’t know how you stand it!”

She just twitched her tail at me as she dug in. She was getting a little bit chunky, but she still did a great job keeping the mice and rats out, so I didn’t think it was fair to put her on a diet when I refused to put myself on one.

I had inherited both the Shop—Madam Callahan’s Magic Supply—as well as the small apartment directly behind it when Pop-pop died. But I’d been living with him and taking care of him before that—I had grown up there as a child and had moved back in after my divorce. Shortly after I moved back, Pop-pop got sick and I had to be there to nurse him, so I never got around to finding my own place.

Now there didn’t seem to be any point in moving—unless I had to, which unfortunately seemed like a distinct possibility. The rent is really high on anyplace in the French Quarter and we had been getting fewer tourists lately, ever since the beignet café beside us went bust.

I missed the café for more than just the tourists it had drawn—if you’ve never had beignets, they’re these little pillowy pieces of fried dough that are usually tossed in powdered sugar. They are horrible for you and taste absolutely amazing. I used to have them for breakfast along with a big cup of chicory coffee—the café’s other specialty—every morning. Now there was nothing to do but grab a protein bar and make myself a coffee in my Keurig.

I sipped it as I made my way out into the store and turned the sign in the front door from CLOSED to OPEN. I unlocked the door and then took a look around the shop, making sure everything was presentable.

We had quite an eclectic mixture of things for sale but I tried to keep it all neat. There were the souvenirs of course—a collection of coasters, t-shirts, magnets, and mugs with voodoo skulls and variations of “New Orleans” or “The Big Easy” printed on them. There was also a display of Annie B’s chewy pralines and assorted caramels from the Royal Praline Company as well as some “Red-hot Slap you Mama” hot sauce.

These were the kinds of things that tourists came in to buy. We kept the real stuff—the supplies that magical practitioners came in for—behind the counter.

I had a huge stock of dried herbs—the kind you can’t get at the grocery store—as well as various crystals in all shapes and sizes. There were also candles—some that had been blessed and some that had been cursed—vials of holy water, feathers, hand-carved wands, tarot card decks, and everything else you could think of.

We also had quite a library including books on Wicca, White Magic, Black Magic, Voodoo practices, Mindful Meditation, Astral Projection, Divination, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and every other mystical subject you could possibly dream up—and a few most people probably had no idea even existed.

I didn’t believe any of them, of course. Pop-pop’s claim that he had magic power and that I would someday too, only went so far with me. I guess I’m kind of a natural skeptic—though of course I would never tell that to any of the customers that came into the Emporium looking for supplies. Usually I do my best to look mysterious and just ring them up and send them on their way.

Satisfied that the shop was in order, I went through the back room and into the tiny kitchen to make another cup of coffee. I kept telling myself I was going to cut back and then not doing it. What can I say? Coffee is a weakness and a necessity all rolled into one for me.

I was just adding way too much cream and sugar to my second cup and contemplating raiding the display of chewy pralines—Annie B’s makes the best—when I heard the front door jingle and hurried footsteps running into the front of the shop.

“Hello?”

I put down my coffee and came back to stand behind the counter. There was a young boy, around eleven or twelve, looking around with wide, panicked eyes. He looked like he might have some Creole in him—his skin was light brown and he had a riot of curly black hair.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked him. “Are you lost?”

He looked up at me, his eyes wide with fear.

“Please help me, lady! They say I took some stuff, but I didn’t—I swear!”

“Who’s ‘they?’” I asked but at that moment, I heard a familiar voice right outside.

“In there—little fucker went in there!” the voice said.

The sound sent a cold shiver right down my back

“Come back here—come on!” I motioned to the trembling boy.

At first he seemed frozen to the spot, but then he rushed behind the counter where I was standing.

“Good, now get down.” I put a hand on top of his curly head and gave him a little shove. “Get down and don’t move and don’t say a word,” I ordered him. “I’ll do my best to get rid of them.”

The boy nodded quickly and ducked down just as the bell jangled and the front door opened yet again.

Standing in the doorway was someone I had hoped to never see again—my ex, Carlo.