Page 15 of Two’s A Charm

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WITCH FOR

Bonnie

Bonnie had never anticipated that Uncle Oswald would become a regular at The Silver Slipper, and yet here he was again.

Perched on one of the bar stools in the pre-opening quiet, cane across his lap, he sipped his mint julep.

Bonnie had never been a mint fan. Effie was, but Bonnie suspected that her sister had cultivated a taste for mint chocolate purely to keep Bonnie away from her kitchen stashes.

‘I’m glad you came around,’ said Oswald. ‘It’s a smart business decision. And most importantly, the right decision for the town as well.’

And an excellent way to spite know-it-all Effie, thought Bonnie darkly. At least now she knew how Effie truly felt. Last night she’d wanted to get Effie’s thoughts on the collaboration, but being so summarily dismissed had made it an easy decision. Bonnie was all in.

‘Mm-hm,’ she said absently, turning her attentions back to the recipe she was working on.

Bonnie was making her third charmed tonic in a row, her wrists glowing purple as she tried to bespell the drink according to the simplest recipe in the ratty book that Uncle Oswald had slid across the bar after she’d agreed to his proposal.

She still wasn’t sure where he’d sourced the recipes from, because Oswald didn’t have magic of his own, as far as she knew.

But he might have learned a few things from Mom, even if he couldn’t actually put them into practice.

This particular spell was meant to negate attentiveness to numerology, which as someone who was strictly anti-math, Bonnie had a vested interest in.

She knew exactly who she’d test it on. Bowow Walker, who was always banging on about the connection between numbers and names and life paths.

She’d come to numerology after going down a YouTube rabbit hole, and since then she’d made herself quite the pest when it came to her bar tab, which always had to be a perfectly round number lest a volcano erupt or something.

The drink fizzed as it was meant to. But the glass shattered.

‘Dammit.’ Bonnie grabbed the dustpan by the counter and went to sweep up the shards.

Oswald leaned over with his handkerchief, mopping up the puddle that hadn’t been caught by the drip tray. Grimacing, Bonnie wrung out the green silk kerchief over the sink at the back of the bar.

‘Do you want me to throw this in the laundry for you?’

Oswald’s thick eyebrows rose over his spectacles as he sipped his drink. ‘You could just use your magic to dry it, surely?’

Bonnie wasn’t willing to risk another wayward spell. ‘Stickiness is hard to remove magically. I wouldn’t want to ruin the fabric.’

Oswald nodded, but Bonnie could tell that she’d slipped in his estimation. ‘All right. I’ll pick it up tomorrow.’

Bonnie set the handkerchief aside, trying not to imagine Effie’s expression when she spotted Uncle Oswald’s laundry mixed in with theirs.

Effie could easily charm the kerchief back to normalcy, of course, but Bonnie was hardly about to ask.

Not after their fight the other night. They’d each been carefully avoiding the other since, Effie heading out early to the library, and Bonnie hanging around as late as feasibly possible at The Silver Slipper.

She’d even brought her sleeping bag up to the partly finished upstairs apartment, just in case sleeping over sounded appealing after a few post-closing beers.

She’d given it a try, but after a princess and the pea-like experience where she’d rolled around agonizingly on a knot in the hardwoods, she’d decided that home was where the heart was. Just so long as Effie was asleep.

As Oswald observed judgementally, Bonnie mixed another drink, this time in a shatter-proof brass mug usually used for Moscow mules, before trying the charm once more. The drink fizzed, and although the mug grew warm to the touch, it held.

Bonnie set her head on her arms in relief. It had worked. As far as she knew, anyway. She needed someone to test it on.

With impeccable timing, Bobby came through the door pushing a dolly stacked high with crates.

‘Hiya, boss!’ he said cheerfully, waving at Bonnie and giving Oswald a nod. ‘Got your deliveries. Wow, we’re going big on the limes this week, huh? And the Himalayan salt. If it’s the whole milk situation all over again, let me know, and we’ll put key lime pie on the menu at the bakery.’

Bonnie nodded, but didn’t comment. Both the limes and the salt were part of Oswald’s enchantment recipe, along with gilded flakes and water charged with the essence of an eclipse-studded sun.

Oswald had brought the sun water himself, thankfully, which meant slightly fewer questions.

Although Bonnie was curious about why it had arrived in the form of a hundred bottles of Perrier.

‘Bobby, can you give this a taste for me? Oswald and I are working on a collab and we need a test subject.’

Grinning flirtatiously, mostly to cover the fact that she was worried the recipe might cause Bobby’s hair to fall out or his skin to turn green, Bonnie slid the fizzing drink across the bar and gestured for Bobby to take a sip.

Bobby nodded appreciatively as he regarded the drink, which was high drama in a glass. ‘Are we doing flaming drinks now?’

‘You know me. I’m all about theatre.’ Bonnie waggled her fingers. Were her nails starting to chip already from all of this spellcasting? She’d just painted them!

Bobby took a sip, then smacked his lips thoughtfully. ‘Citrusy. I think you have a winner there. I could see Gerald picking that over a shandy.’

‘Good, good,’ said Oswald, his rings flashing as he rubbed his hands together.

Bonnie, who was surreptitiously charming a quartered lime, nodded. ‘That’s what we love to hear. I’m still finessing the other drinks we’re looking at introducing, but I’ll get your expertise on those when they’re ready. Oh, look at the time!’

The three of them turned to look at the clock on the wall.

It was 11:11 precisely, something Bobby always pointed out with a reminder to ‘make a wish’.

Since they’d been kids, he’d set his clocks to twenty-four-hour time so he could see repeated numbers all the way through to 23:23.

He wasn’t a numerology person in the same way that Bowow was, but a fascination with number patterns had to count, right?

Bobby squinted, then shrugged. ‘Sorry, didn’t realize I was running late.’

Then he rubbed his forehead. ‘What was I doing again? I’m having a complete brain-fart over here.’

‘You were putting away the deliveries,’ said Bonnie, frowning as the lime hissed like a deflating balloon. Unfortunately, magic was a bit like chemistry. Get your method a touch wrong and you ended up inventing the atomic bomb.

‘Right, right!’ Bobby grabbed his dolly and trundled off to the storeroom. Well, sort of.

‘It’s the second door,’ Bonnie reminded him, as he almost dropped off the goods in the bathroom. Weird. The bar was strategically dim, but not that dim, and Bobby knew where he was going. Had Bobby missed his morning coffee?

‘He didn’t comment on the clock,’ Bonnie pointed out to Oswald, when Bobby was safely in the storeroom, unloading napkins and straws from his dolly. ‘He always comments on a clock at 11:11.’

‘And that was our numerology spell, yes?’ said Oswald, leaning across the bar to peer at the heavily thumbed recipe book, which was opened to a drink-splattered page headed By the Numbers.

Nodding, Bonnie spun the book around and tapped the title.

Oswald fiddled with his ring. ‘So, how long until we can officially move ahead with our partnership?’

Bonnie swallowed. There were dozens of recipes in the book, and she’d barely even mastered one.

She’d tried a few of the others, and had come this close to burning off her eyebrows with one that targeted herbalism, while another that focused on lucid dreaming had scorched the counter.

Not to mention the one aimed at tarot readers.

When she’d tried that, an entire murder of crows had descended upon the wisteria overhanging the patio.

‘A week, maybe?’ she said. ‘I want to make sure the magic is consistent.’

‘Yes, don’t want to be turning people into frogs or what have you. Still, better to move a tad fast than too slow, no? Especially with those start-up costs to recoup. And the loan you took out on the Cadillac.’

The sharp scent of lime filled the air as Bonnie’s knife pierced the fruit’s thick skin. How did Oswald know about the loan?

‘I keep an ear to the ground,’ Oswald said diffidently.

‘I tried the Small Business Association,’ groused Bonnie, ‘but they rejected me. They said my business plan wasn’t thorough enough. Apparently, the numbers were aspirational. But I did everything I was supposed to! I did a short course through the college and everything.’

All right, so her passing grade was mostly due to the fact that she’d shamelessly flirted with the teacher. But she had attended. She’d even taken notes!

‘It’s this changing world of ours,’ said Uncle Oswald, gesturing out at the square. ‘People can’t see past their screens. That’s how you know we’re doing the right thing. We’ll succeed together, just as long as we don’t lose momentum.’

Uncle Oswald tapped one of the branded coasters he’d brought over that morning.

For every coaster one of Bonnie’s customers brought over to his shop, he’d offer a discount on their purchase, and a kickback for Bonnie.

Given the ambitious markup on Oswald’s products, the kickbacks could be pretty solid.

And let’s face it, Bonnie desperately needed the extra source of income right now.

Her credit cards were so full that she crossed her fingers every time she tapped her phone to make a payment.

Thankfully, she could easily survive on the baked goods Bobby brought over each day.

As long as she remembered to take her iron tablet.

‘I’ll work fast,’ Bonnie promised. ‘I’ll have them perfected before you know it.’