Page 4 of Love’s a Witch (The Scottish Charms #1)
CHAPTER THREE Sloane
I woke up fast, moving quickly from sleep to alert, as was my habit after years on the road. I blinked at the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling over my head and took a moment to recalibrate and figure out my surroundings.
Briarhaven.
And in my childhood bed, which was surprisingly comfortable given how long it had been since I’d slept here. Breakfast smells teased my nose, the chatter of voices reaching through my bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, and for a moment I let my mind drift to memories of childhood mornings.
On the good mornings, disco music would be playing, and Broca would be singing, and likely dancing along with the radio, shimmying her hips in whatever colorful or sparkly outfit she wore.
She was a horrific cook, but a delightful grandmother, and my love of music and unrefined cuisine came directly from her.
When most people thought of their favorite childhood breakfast meal it was likely something like pancakes or waffles.
Mine was cheese in a tube—Primula was the best, naturally—on top of Ritz crackers with one tiny piece of bacon on top.
Paired with a steaming cup of tea, that was my breakfast sorted.
Broca wasn’t one for paying attention to details like recipes and basic housework. Why would she be when there were more fun things to do like dance and teach magick?
On the bad mornings, my mother would be shouting at my father, or vice versa, and at least one dish would always break.
My mother did have a flair for the dramatic, and sometimes I wondered if she enjoyed having a fight just for the sole reason to smash a dish.
Her magick cleaned it up, so there wasn’t really any repercussion to her shattering plates other than a seriously mismatched dinner set.
That and scaring her daughters, but some people broke things just to watch them shatter.
Spotting my bag at the foot of the bed, I sighed in relief.
Nova, likely, had braved the snow and lugged my bag up the stairs.
Stretching, I took the blanket with me as I went to stand by the window and looked out at Briarhaven in the daylight.
Snow drifted down, lighter than the night before, and an old man shoveling his front walk saw me in the window.
Straightening, he held two fingers up—not the peace sign, mind you—and glared from beneath bushy brows.
I smiled brightly, waving enthusiastically at him, deliberately misinterpreting his rude gesture.
The snow had easily accumulated to at least a few inches, deeper in some places, where the wind had pushed it into drifts, and the gritters were out tossing salt on the streets.
Sir Plows a Lot drove by, and I huffed out a laugh, remembering Scotland’s penchant for naming their gritters fun names.
A particular favorite of mine was Blizzard of Oz, though Lyra preferred Gritney Spears.
Nova favored Melter Skelter and Spready Mercury, and I couldn’t blame her.
Both of those names were strong contenders for top gritter names.
Salt spread across the freshly cleared street, and the snow intensified, as though annoyed that anyone had tried to clear a path.
I sighed. Living with a cursed bloodline was something I’d grown used to, but that didn’t mean I particularly cared for it.
I couldn’t blame Broca for ordering us home to try to break the damn thing and live a life free of rules placed on us by one very angry and heartbroken witch centuries ago.
Moving frequently was getting old, and that was only one part of the curse that shrouded our family name.
Pretty cool, right? Not.
I tightened the blanket around me, apprehension kicking low in my core, as I thought about the next part of the curse, which, from all accounts, was going to land at my feet in a day.
My twenty-fifth birthday. When all witches came into their power.
From my vantage point, Briarhaven spread out in a twisty-turny way, with winding streets creating a maze of sorts beneath the castle that jutted from the hill overshadowing the town.
In the daylight, with snow-covered roofs, smoke piping from chimneys, and sun peeking through heavy clouds, the town looked quaint and cozy.
A sanctuary for magickals—witches, fae, pixies, and more—with humans none the wiser, and the only place the MacGregors had ever managed to live for longer than a year.
Now, a part of me itched to settle in, as much as depressing childhood memories made me want to leave, largely because I was just so tired of hitting the road all the time.
Maybe Broca was right. Perhaps her vision about the three sisters breaking the curse was meant to come to fruition. It wouldn’t be the first thing she was right about, though I tried my hardest to never let her know that. A bit of a diva, she was.
My eyes strayed to the castle. Was Knox standing in his window? Looking out over his domain and silently hating us from afar? I’d dreamt of him. Much to my irritation.
He pinned me against the car, icy snow melting against heated skin, his mouth a sin against my throat.
“Sloane? You up?” Nova’s voice trailed up the staircase.
“Yup, coming down.” Best to cut that train of thought off immediately, because clearly, I was just in the dry spell of all dry spells.
Throwing on a tattered hoodie I’d left behind in my room, with Keep Calm and Carry a Wand scrolled across the front in sequins—a gift from Broca—I tugged on leggings and thick wool socks before padding downstairs and into chaos.
Broca sat in the armchair, legs propped up, wearing a screaming-pink dressing gown with feathers at the cuffs and dripping in diamonds.
She could have as easily been lounging on the deck of a yacht somewhere as she was on the faded armchair tucked under the front windows in the living room.
Disco music jammed in the background, and Broca held a hand in the air, lightly maneuvering dishes with her magick, while Lyra and Nova dove out of the way in the kitchen.
“This is not helping,” Lyra barked, annoyed.
Everything clattered to the counter as a knock sounded at the door.
“Why? Why are there people knocking at this door? It isn’t even eight in the morning.
Don’t people have to work?” I mimicked a throat punch as I envisioned Knox at our door once more.
I stomped across the room and swung the door open, prepared to give him a piece of my mind, only to find a woman in a pale pink pantsuit, with perfectly coiffed blond hair, a plastic smile on her face.
Behind her, two women clustered, one smiling and one giving annoyed looks to the snow.
“Welcome to Briarhaven!”
“Holy hell, it’s the fembot,” Nova hissed, gripping my arm from where she’d followed me.
“We’re just so delighted that the MacGregor witches have finally returned, particularly because we’ve taken up your slack in the Charms. I’m sure you’re tired from your travels and based on the condition of this house”—the woman looked past us at the dusty sheets covering much of the furniture in the front room, open disapproval radiating from her face—“I figured you wouldn’t want to cook.
Here’s a casserole to sort you out for today. ”
“The Charms?” Nova whispered to me. I just shrugged, uncertain of making any sudden movements around the fembot. I eased back as all three women stepped inside.
My eyebrows rose as the woman reached inside her tiny pocketbook and pulled out a steaming casserole dish easily triple the size of her purse.
“Well, that’s a fancy trick,” Lyra said.
“I’m Mandy Meadows, head of the Charms, and your official welcome wagon!” Mandy exclaimed in an upbeat robotic voice. “While your grandmother has managed to keep your legacy seats open by attending our coven meetings by Zoom, it’s so much better now that you’re here.”
I tuned back in to what Mandy was chattering on about, zeroing in on her tight smile and wide blue eyes.
“Wait. What? Legacy seats?” I swiveled to look at Broca. “What is she talking about?”
“Och, darlings, it’s your coven, of course.”
“Our coven?” Lyra sucked in a breath of excitement.
She’d always been more into the witchy stories our mother had told us than either Nova or I had been.
It had suited me to ignore our bloodline, seeing as the only thing that had come from it so far had been misery and disrupted routines.
The appearance of one Mandy Meadows, looking like a country club woman hopped up on speed, had slammed our heritage back to reality for us.
“Your mother didn’t tell you about your coven?” Broca’s face fell.
“No.” The word almost came out on a growl.
“That’s right.” Mandy beamed and nodded, a touch too effusively for my taste, like one of those bobblehead figures you picked up at a petrol station and attached to the dashboard. “You have legacy seats in the most elite coven in Briarhaven—the Charms.”
Right, time to nip this in the bud.
“I have no idea what you’re saying to me.
” I stepped forward, gripping Mandy’s arm lightly, and propelled her toward the door.
“But I’m sure we can find another time to talk about this.
We’ve had a long few days of travel and haven’t seen our grandmother in years.
” Mum had done her best to cut us off from Broca, dragging us around the States, and by the time I’d been old enough to take charge of my sisters, we’d just been trying find our feet on our own.
And frankly, none of us had been quite ready to come back to Scotland.
Now, seeing Broca again in person, I realized just how much we’d missed her.