CHAPTER 1
DAHLIA
I was attempting to manufacture the perfect moment of tranquility with the desperate determination of someone who knew better. I’d draped myself across my favorite armchair like a Renaissance nude. I had even positioned myself precisely where the late afternoon light created a halo of warmth. The leather beneath me was worn to a butter-soft patina from countless hours of literary escapes prior to my magical life. It still cradled me like an old friend. My second energy drink of the day (because who could sleep when your city's magical feel had the stability of a house of cards?) condensed quietly on Dani's latest antiquing trophy. The side table had enough character to write its own memoir. It was a perfect addition to the plantation.
My tablet balanced precariously on my lap. My latest literary acquisition was open on the screen. Still page one. I kept willing my eyes to focus on the words with the same intensity I usually reserved for willing my roux to cook faster.
"These curtains," I mused aloud as my gaze wandered to the windows like a prisoner seeking parole. "Worth every exorbitant penny." The lie tasted almost believable. Dani had insisted on them during our latest bout of redecorating. She’d spouted phrases like "elevate the space" and "transform the aesthetic" with the fervor of a convert to the Church of Interior Design. I had to admit that they did make our sprawling plantation house feel less like a supernatural waystation and more like home. It was no small feat, considering I shared it with Dani, our mates, and whatever member of our extended family needed sanctuary from the latest magical crisis.
At that moment, everything was perfect. Peaceful. Pristine. And that's precisely why every nerve in my body was screaming red alert. Since Phoebe had unlocked our magical DNA and turned our lives into a supernatural crisis management firm, the universe had developed a particularly sadistic sense of timing. The moment you dared to exhale, reality would gleefully yank the rug out from under you. Yet here I was, playing the role of the oblivious protagonist in every horror movie ever made. I sat there foolishly believing I could steal one afternoon of normalcy.
The phone's ring shattered my carefully constructed illusion of serenity like a sledgehammer through spun glass. One glance at the screen had me inventing new combinations of profanity that would make a sailor blush. Hollie from Solid Solutions. She wasn't exactly on my speed dial for casual chitchat about the weather. That could only mean one thing. My attempted date with literary escape was about to turn into another supernatural fire drill.
"Hello?" I answered. I tried to infuse my voice with something other than preemptive exhaustion and likely failed miserably.
"Lia!" Hollie's voice achieved a pitch that probably sent every dog in Louisiana into a howling frenzy. "Thank goodness! You guys have to come quickly—" A crash resonated through the speaker. It was followed by the distinctive sound of something heavy breaking. "Oh God, not the rose quartz! There's something strange happening. Objects are moving by themselves. The lights keep flickering, and these whispers... I can't understand what they're saying, but they're everywhere!"
Fan-fucking-tastic. So much for my peaceful afternoon. "Stay calm," I instructed as I mentally kissed my quiet time goodbye while also wondering why she hadn’t called our new hotline. The magical world was slow to change and even slower in embracing it. Not that we wouldn’t have been notified if she had used the call system my sisters and I had instituted. "I’ll grab my sisters and we will be there in less than a half hour."
"Please hurry! The energy feels wrong, and—" Another crash. "That was my favorite display!" The call cut off abruptly, which did nothing to improve my mood.
I fired off quick texts to Dea and Phi, who were at their full-time jobs, to meet Dre, Dani, Kota, and me at the shop. I kept it simple. " 911 at Solid Solutions. Possible poltergeist. " That was my best guess given what Hollie had described.
I grabbed our emergency bags when I passed them on my way to hunt for my other sisters. We'd learned the hard way to keep emergency magical supplies gathered and ready. When supernatural shit hit the fan in New Orleans, it tended to splatter everywhere. I found Dani, Dre, and Kota in our gift shop. They were reorganizing displays. Again. Dani and Kota were worse than a bunch of caffeinated squirrels sometimes. They were always moving things around "to optimize customer flow" or whatever Pinterest-inspired reason they had this week. Dre and Cami stood aside giving them their opinion.
"Did we get new stock? Or did things just feel off?" I planted myself in the doorway with our emergency bags dangling from my hands.
Dani looked up from a box of crystals, her dark blonde hair falling over one eye. "We bought some voodoo dolls to sell to the tourists. Everyone thinks they're a New Orleans staple. We decided to profit from the misnomer." She nodded toward the collection of intricately crafted dolls. Each one sported different colored pins and was wearing ragged, yet colorful outfits.
"These will probably earn enough to pay the overhead for the store," Dre said from her perch near the counter. "Besides, they add a certain je ne sais quoi to the crystal displays."
Our sister, Kota, paused mid-shelf arrangement. She had a mug frozen in her hand. "More like lagniappe—a little something extra to either bless or curse our customers."
“You're going to have to finish this later. We've got a live one,” I interjected.
"Define 'live one’. Because the last time you said that, we all ended up chest-deep in swamp water chasing a killer. Phi still hasn't forgiven us for ruining her new boots," Kota replied.
I sighed and thought about the deaths near the gator shifter’s land. That had been a challenging case. "From the sound of it, Hollie's shop has gone full poltergeist. And before you ask, I mean moving objects, flickering lights, creepy whispers. The usual horror movie starter pack."
"That's not your average haunting," Dre pointed out as she straightened.
"No shit." I adjusted the bags to my other hand. "Hopefully, it’ll just be a pissed-off ghost for Dea to handle. My gut says we're not that lucky."
"When are we ever that lucky?" Kota grumbled as she moved toward the door. "Remember the LaLaurie mansion? That was supposed to be a 'simple haunting' too."
"Don't remind me," Dani groaned, grabbing her jacket. "I still have nightmares about that one." We all did. That evil woman’s spirit had tried to resume her murderous ways. It wasn’t easy to stop her.
“I’ll continue with the display while you guys are gone,” Cami offered. She’d become an integral part of the plantation after she was brought back as a ghoul. “It won’t be as good as you would do, but it’ll be done for now.”
Dani smiled and nodded. “It’ll be great. Thank you.”
We piled into my car. I navigated across town and through the French Quarter's narrow streets. I dodged tourists who apparently thought crosswalks were optional decorations. Then there were the street performers who seemed determined to set up shop in the middle of the road. "I swear they're getting worse," I muttered as I swerved around a guy juggling flaming batons. "The tourists, not the performers."
"At least the street performers are good this season," Dre said from the backseat. "That guy doing contact juggling outside Café du Monde yesterday? With those obsidian spheres that seemed to swallow the light?"
"You mean the warlock trying to pass off actual magic as performance art?" Kota snorted. "Subtle as a sledgehammer. I saw him pull shadows right out of the air when he thought no one was looking. I nearly dropped my beignet."
Phi was already waiting when we pulled up. The Uber she'd taken from the University passed us. She had her laptop bag slung over one shoulder and her head tilted slightly to the side. She looked like a bird listening to a distant song. Her eyes had that unfocused, faraway look she got when she was about to deliver a prophecy. I hoped she was only feeling out the threads of energy around her. They were unmistakable when we got out of the vehicle. She turned to us and it was then that I could see her mind mapping out the disturbances in the air. She was no doubt cataloguing every ripple and fluctuation for later analysis.
"Can you take me back to the University later?" she asked as she joined us. "I figured getting a ride would be easier than parking here. Plus, I've got office hours later."
"Smart move," I agreed. "You never know in this neighborhood. Remember when Dani's car got 'relocated' by the authorities?"
"That wasn't funny," Dani grumbled. "It cost me over two hundred bucks to get it out of impound.."
Dea arrived moments later. She was grumbling about parking. She'd had to circle the block twice before finding a spot. "I wasn't sure if I would have time to park in the back lot and walk over. It sounded urgent."
I handed her the bag with her stuff in it. "I brought the heavy-duty cleansing stuff, just in case."
"Good thinking. The Quarter's been weird lately," Dea said, frowning. As our resident spirit whisperer, she would know. "Too many ghosts are getting rowdy. There's been far too much ghost activity lately. Something is waking them up."
"Could it be residual energy from that magical storm?" Phi asked. "Maybe they’re less powerful than LaLaurie, and it’s taking more time."
"Don't even say that name," Kota shuddered. "I still can't walk past that place without getting the creeps."
“It’s the storm, but not because of any residual energy. We know it unearthed a multitude of things before we stopped Baron Samedi. I’m betting it’s something new,” I added as we entered the store.
Conversation stopped the moment we stepped under the weathered wooden sign of Solid Solutions. It looked the same as always. The name was spelled out in elaborate Celtic script with a silver pentagram cleverly worked into the 'o'. Yet, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. The air was charged, like right before a lightning strike.
The shop itself should have been welcoming. Sunlight streamed through crystal-hung windows. It cast rainbow prisms across walls that were lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves of herbs in glass apothecary jars. Brass cauldrons of varying sizes were nestled among collections of hand-dipped candles and tumbled stones. A curved glass display case housed everything from intricately carved athames to vintage tarot decks, while crystal balls of all sizes caught and magnified the light from ornate brass sconces.
But today, all that carefully curated mystical ambiance felt wrong. It was like a horror movie set dressed up in new-age trappings. The atmosphere pulsed with unsettling energy, which made even the tiniest silver bell above the door chime discordantly. Hollie practically teleported to us from behind the counter. Her face was drained of all color.
"Thank you for coming so quickly," she gushed as she wrung her hands. "I didn't know who else to call. The mundies are starting to notice something's wrong."
"There is always the new hotline number. But we're also here to help," I assured her as I reached out to give her hand a squeeze. "Just stay calm and tell us exactly what happened. When did it start?"
"This morning, everything was fine. I opened the store and handled my first customers like normal. Then, around noon, things started moving. It was little things at first. A crystal rolled off a shelf, and a book fell over. I thought maybe it was just the old building settling or something. But then?—"
Right on cue, the lights started flickering like we were in a low-budget horror flick. Objects rattled on their shelves. Those creepy whispers Hollie mentioned? Yeah, they were real. And getting louder. The unseen forces seemed to kick into overdrive at our presence. I swear they were putting on a show just for us.
"Show-offs," I muttered. “Are there ghosts, Dea?”
Dea's hands started glowing as she turned in a slow circle. Her energy pulsed outward in waves. "This isn't a ghost," she announced with a frown after a few seconds. "Something else is playing games here. The energy signature is not connected to any spirits."
I nodded as I felt the same unease crawl up my spine. "That means we need to dig deeper. Hollie, has anything unusual happened lately? Did you get new items in the shop? Any strange customers? Or weird dreams?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary," she said, then paused. "Well, there was this old woman last week. She tried to sell me some antique tarot cards. She claimed they were from her grandmother's collection. I didn’t want them. They felt wrong. When I refused them, she got really angry. She started muttering something under her breath."
"Of course, there was a creepy old woman with cursed tarot cards," Kota muttered as she shoved a hand through her hair. "Because that's not a walking horror movie cliché at all. Ten bucks says she cackled while she cursed your shop."
“Sounds about right to me,” Dre agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to pay in Spanish doubloons. Like, actual pre-Civil War coins that came off a sunken pirate ship.”
"Hold your conspiracy theories," Phi interrupted with her hands planted on her hips. Her researcher voice was out in full force. "The energy's been wonky for days. You all felt it. Hell, my coffee mug started doing the cha-cha across my desk this morning."
I couldn't argue with that. The weird vibes had been riding my last nerve all day. It was like someone was dragging their nails down a metaphysical chalkboard. We tore through that shop like a hurricane through the French Quarter. We checked every crystal, herb, and sketchy-looking tchotchke for curse residue. We searched for hex bags, demon signatures, and anything else that might explain why the shop was going full poltergeist.
An hour later, we had exactly jack squat. Well, that's not entirely true. We had a growing list of questions, a collection of mysteriously vibrating crystals, and what looked suspiciously like melted wax on Kota's new boots even though none of the candles had been lit.
"There is something bigger going on," Phi said, already typing furiously on her phone. "My office hours can wait. Something about this isn't sitting right."
Dea checked her watch and sighed. "I'll call Marcus and see if he can cover my shift. He owes me one anyway, and this feels like all hands on deck."
Ten minutes later, Dre, Kota, and Phi were piled into my car. Dea and Dani were in hers and we were all headed back to the plantation. The sun was setting and painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. It would have been beautiful if we weren't all wondering what fresh hell was about to break loose.
Back at the plantation, we regrouped in the ladies' parlor with Cami, our resident historian. Having lived hundreds of years ago and only recently been brought back to life, she had a unique view on things. The room, with its elegant Victorian furniture and modern touches, had become our default war room for supernatural crises. Phi was already deep in research mode. Her fingers were flying over her laptop keyboard.
"Could it be a poltergeist?" Phi asked as she looked over. "We know from Madame Delphine that they have a different energy from your average ghost. The activity patterns match that explanation."
Dea was sprawled dramatically in my abandoned armchair. She was still wearing her scrubs. They were wrinkled from her half-shift at the hospital. "Not a chance. My specter sensitivity isn't picking up anything close to spirit energy. Trust me, when there's a ghost involved—poltergeist or otherwise—it hits different. This is something else entirely." She pulled a book from the stack Cami had gathered after Dre called her to give her a heads-up. "Have we had any reports of similar activity recently? This feels familiar somehow."
"Nope, no other reports," I said, dropping onto the couch. When we'd started this whole supernatural investigation gig, Dani and I had agreed to be the point of contact for calls. And we would handle the simpler ones with Dre and Kota. It made sense with Dre living on the property and Kota being there most days anyway.
"Hold on." Dani lifted a finger and pulled up her notes app. "There have been a few isolated incidents. One of Cyran’s men reported someone called police about a haunted mirror in a mundie store near Jackson Square. The owner swears she saw something moving in it after hours. Then there was a street performer whose guitar started playing by itself. But it's been mostly tourist trap stuff. Things you hear after people take those ghost tours. Nothing close to this intensity."
"We need to consider all possibilities," Kota said, hugging a throw pillow to her chest like a shield. "What about historical events tied to the shop or the area? The Quarter's basically one giant supernatural pressure cooker."
"Good point," I replied, reaching for my energy drink. "The French Quarter is packed with history and magic. And Hollie's shop is no exception. We know the magical storm woke up more than just Delphine LaLaurie." I shuddered at the memory. That ghost had been pure evil incarnate.
Dea's eyes lit up like she'd just found a two-for-one sale on grimoires. "What about the Lost Legends? I was reading about those bad boys when we were dealing with that post-storm mess. Their M.O. matches what's happening now. Apparently, they used to treat the French Quarter like their personal playground."
"The what now?" Dani asked, her face scrunching up like she'd tasted week-old gumbo.
At the same time, our familiar, Adèle, said, “ That doesn’t sound good. And this group doesn’t ring any bells .”
Cami, who'd been perched in her wingback chair by the fireplace, straightened up so fast I thought she might levitate. "The Lost Legends?" Her voice carried that peculiar mix of antebellum propriety and seen-it-all wisdom that came from watching New Orleans history unfold from both sides of the veil. "Lord have mercy, I remember those devils. Back then, we would whisper about them in the kitchen after the master and missus went to bed. They were like the supernatural mafia but worse. They made the mob look like Sunday school teachers."
“That’s not surprising to hear.” Dea was already nose-deep in another dusty tome. "According to this, they started small. Like what's happening at Hollie's. But then things went sideways. Fast."
"Started small?" Cami snorted as her fingers drummed a rhythm on her chair. "They were like cats playing with mice. They made people see things in mirrors. They forced shadows to dance just out of sight. My mama used to say they enjoyed watching folks question their sanity before they really got started."
"Well, isn't that just fantastic," Dani muttered. "Because our lives weren't already enough like a supernatural soap opera."
"It gets better, sestra," Dea chirped with the enthusiasm of someone about to drop a metaphysical bomb. "They graduated to full-on poltergeist shenanigans. They performed furniture gymnastics and door-slamming championships. Except it wasn't ghosts. They were pulling the strings like some twisted puppet masters."
"And then?" Kota prompted, strangling her throw pillow like it had personally offended her.
Cami leaned forward. It was one of the rare occasions I could see the centuries of seen-some-shit wisdom in her eyes. "Then they got creative. Rooms would stretch like salt water taffy. I remember a friend talk about how they made the walls in her mistress’s bedroom breathe like they were alive. It frightened her so much she forced her husband to move away. There were also reports of floors playing now-you-see-me-now-you-don't. They'd plant visions in your head that'd make visiting the Underworld seem boring. They started getting handsy, too. There were countless attacks by unseen assailants, resulting in mysterious injuries. They had themselves a grand old time playing the invisible man with their victims."
"Please tell me we've hit rock bottom on the crazy train," Phi groaned, finally emerging from her laptop.
"In New Orleans, there ain't no such thing as rock bottom," Cami said, with the air of someone who'd watched enough supernatural drama to fill several history books. "They tried possession too. Though they were about as good at it as a drunk trying to line dance. But those traps they set?" She shuddered. "Now, those were effective. These evil inventions involved sharp things where they shouldn't be, gas leaks, and convenient 'accidents’. All of this reinforced the image that the city was one large supernatural hotspot. Few folks were willing to look too deeply at things. And no one argued when ghosts, vampires, and the like were blamed."
Welcome to our lives. 'It gets worse’, is practically our family motto. We spent the next few hours buried in research. I lost myself in online databases and historical records while the others did their own digging. The house grew quiet except for the soft murmur of voices and the rustle of pages. When we finally took a break, the table was covered in books, notebooks, and printouts.
"Anyone find anything useful?" I asked, gesturing to our research pile. Everything I'd found focused on mundie history with countless stories about strange incidents. None of it had any real information about the magical world.
"I found articles and books from some local historians and elders," Dani reported. "They mentioned similar disturbances in the past but didn't give much detail. One book postulated that some powerful families wanted to keep the stories flowing. It was after they realized the draw it became for their city. Tourism became the lifeblood here early on."
"I found more about the Lost Legends in old journals," Dea added. "They were supposedly behind most of the paranormal activity here. Information suggests they used dark magic and rituals to manipulate energy. Then they just vanished. No one knows where they went or what happened to them."
"There might be a pattern," Dre said, flipping through her notes. "If you consider less precise incidents, there have been paranormal disturbances happening every decade. Maybe something's been reawakening the energy for a while."
I laughed. "You can't establish a pattern with imprecise data. And I'm not talking about regular hauntings like LaLaurie's house. Like Cami said, New Orleans is a supernatural hotspot. We need exact matches to make a connection to the Lost Legends."
"If it is the Lost Legends," Phi said, leaning forward, "we need to be careful. Their magic was seriously bad news. But there might be a way to stop them if we can figure out how they were dealt with before."
Kota pointed to her tablet. "There's a mention of a powerful Voodoo practitioner. I’d bet money it was probably Marie Laveau. Her ancestors set themselves up as the top dog a long time ago. Maybe our Marie found new minions and brought the legends back? She might not have changed after all."
"Let's not jump to conclusions," I cautioned. "Marie seemed genuine at the reunion. I don't think she's behind this."
Before we could debate that theory further, Dani's phone chimed. She checked the screen and her expression tightened. "There are multiple reports of disturbances in the Quarter coming into the hotline. In one a street performer's instruments went haywire. Three shops reported moving objects. And get this—someone saw a figure in a mirror at Madam Louise's, but when they looked again, it was gone."
" I'll search for magical signatures while you investigate ," Adèle, our familiar added mentally. She'd been unusually quiet, which meant she was searching whatever magical archives familiars were born with for information. " I might be able to sense what's behind this. If I can, I will let you guys know. "
"Thanks, Adèle," Dre replied. "We're going to need all the help we can get."
We piled back into my car and headed downtown. The French Quarter was alive with its usual nighttime energy. Tourists stumbled between bars. Music spilled from doorways. And supernaturals were there to soak it all in.
Underneath it all, something felt wrong. The historic buildings loomed around us. Their facades hid more secrets than a teenager's diary. "Let's split up in pairs," Dani suggested. "We’ll cover more ground that way. Keep your senses sharp and report anything unusual."
"Splitting up always works out so well in horror movies," Kota muttered, but she paired off with Dre anyway.
Dea and Phi laughed as they walked down Royal Street. Dani and I headed for Jackson Square. We'd barely separated when things started getting weirder. A street performer's violin went suddenly silent mid-note. A panicked look crossed her face when the bow froze mid-air. Few noticed and she snatched her open case and took off.
We wandered for a half hour watching drunk tourists. There was nothing supernatural about it. I was about to suggest we hit another section when the lamppost above us sputtered and died like someone had pulled its plug at the worst possible moment. Because clearly this day needed more creepy ambiance. Those same whispers from Hollie's shop started their ghostly little concert. When I saw mundies nervously checking their phones for the time—which was the universal signal for "time to get the hell out of here"—I knew we were in deep gumbo.
Sure, we weren't dealing with outright attacks yet, but that almost made it worse. Small magic meant subtle spells. The use of less power was about as easy to track as a crawfish in the bayou during mating season. "Let's try a reveal spell," I suggested to Dani. "But keep it paranormal eyes only. The last thing we need is the Quarter's tourist trade getting a real show for their money."
We clasped hands and silently cast the spell. Our efforts yielded jack squat. "Well, that was about as useful as a screen door on a submarine," Dani muttered, just as our phones lit up with Phi's group text. "That was fast. Do you think they found something?”
I shook my head. “Doubt it. These Lost Legends are sly bastards.”
We found our sisters huddled at the corner of Royal and St. Ann like they were planning a supernatural heist. Kota was stress-eating a praline. While Dre paced circles around Phi like a rabid border collie. Phi hadn't looked up from her phone. Dea's scrubs were dusted with what I desperately hoped was powdered sugar, though knowing our luck it was probably essence of zombie or ghost dandruff or whatever other fun surprises the Quarter had cooked up today. My stomach let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like ‘Café du Monde or death.’ I caught myself eyeing the few blocks between us and beignet heaven. Unfortunately, there was a world-ending supernatural crisis to deal with first. We could have fried dough later.
I was still contemplating the merits of a quick beignet run when Adèle's voice slid into our heads like silk-wrapped steel. " I might have found the source of the disturbances ,” she told us.
Dre stopped pacing and focused like a bloodhound that found a scent. “Please tell me it’s close. So far, we’re seeing petty shit. I want to stop this before it gets violent.”
“Go down the street and turn right ," she replied. We all jolted into action and shuffled down Royal Street like the world's most dysfunctional tour group. We passed the usual Quarter chaos. Drunk tourists testing gravity, jazz musicians having theoretical battles about chord progressions, and street performers doing their best to separate tourists from their money. It all faded away faster than my morning energy drink buzz.
We stopped in front of what had to be New Orleans' most enthusiastic participant in the ‘Most Haunted Building’ competition. It wasn’t one I was familiar with. The brick was so weathered it looked like it might crumble if you sneered at it wrong. The vines were probably old enough to vote. It also had enough shadowy corners to host a goth convention.
" The energy's strongest here ," Adèle reported. Though she sounded about as confident as a vampire in a tanning salon. " But something's not right. It's here but not here at the same time. "
When we tried to probe the building's energy, it was like trying to catch a greased pig at a county fair. The power there was as slippery as a politician's promise. And it was as ancient as dirt. It felt about as friendly as a gator with a toothache. It also shoved back against our magical prodding hard enough to make me stumble.
"Whatever is fighting us and causing this chaos is not inside," Dre announced a few seconds later. She had her hands planted on her hips like she was scolding the building personally. "But you're right about the residual energy. It feels like an echo of something that could kick our collective magical butts."
"We need more information," Dani sighed. "We need to know about this location. We should get historical records. Anything that details the legends tied to this building. As well as anything about the area around it. There have to be clues about what we're dealing with."
I looked up at those dark windows. "Well," I said, "I guess our quiet days of just planning parties are officially over. At least we don't have any events on the calendar right now. Small mercies."
"Now you’ve cursed us," Kota informed me as if she was delivering particularly bad news. "Stay by the phone, Dani. You’ll be getting a call soon.”
"We will deal with it if it happens," Dre said as we trudged back to where we'd parked. Parking in the Quarter was a special kind of hell, but thanks to my mate, we had a spot in a nearby pack lot. "Who's up for drowning our latest crisis at Lafitte's? I'm thinking we could use three Hurricanes. Maybe four."
"God, yes," I agreed, already tasting that first sip of alcohol-induced denial. "We should also have the council share something with their people. The last thing we need is for false stories about this mess to spread faster than gossip at a church social."
"And then we need to do some research," Phi added. "Lots and lots of research."
We all groaned like students being assigned summer reading. We’d already decided on that, but that didn’t mean we liked it. Whatever these Lost Legends were—or weren't—we needed answers faster than a cheetah chasing prey. If history told us anything, things would get worse. Because in New Orleans? Things could always get worse. That wasn't just the city motto, it was practically encoded in the DNA of every brick in the French Quarter.
At least it wasn't boring. I'd hoped for a peaceful afternoon with my book. Next time I'd be more specific about what kind of excitement I was looking for. Maybe something that didn't involve potentially deadly magical artifacts and centuries-old mysteries. Who was I kidding? In our family, that was about as likely as finding a parking spot during Mardi Gras.