Page 3 of Two’s A Charm

Especially in a town like this, where half the buildings were supposedly haunted (including the apartment upstairs), where the moon hung a tad too low in the sky, and where black cats lurked skittishly in every dark corner.

The Chalmers sisters might be the only two individuals in town with real magic – something they hid carefully – but everyone else was trying to find their own, and the internet made that easy.

Every day, Bonnie would hand over a drink to a girl scrolling through videos of palm readings, or she’d clear the plates of someone who’d clearly been trying to discern their future in the sauce of their home-made chocolate brownie.

Effie might judge them for their efforts ( dilettantes was the term she used), but Bonnie didn’t mind it at all: it made it easier for Bonnie and Effie to hide their true selves.

Besides, she enjoyed reading the horoscopes in the Yellowbrick Grove Gazette .

Especially since they’d been taken over by the mysterious Madame Destinée, whose identity remained secret, no matter how much begging the locals did.

Which reminded her: she hadn’t read today’s.

Fortunately, Winston had a copy of the paper sticking out from one of the huge pockets of his faded jeans.

‘Beers coming up, just so long as you read me my horoscope. I’m a Leo.’

‘Leo, huh?’ Winston rattled through the paper, pausing to share some of the more fascinating headlines.

‘Ooh, sale on barbecues this week. And Edna Furling is doing an art show in Emerald. I liked her work with the circles. Very circle-y. And your uncle has some new cat statues in from Egypt! La-di-da! Ah, here we go! Leo. Business unusual is more interesting than business as usual. Meanwhile, love is closer than it seems. Always has been. Always will be . Well, that’s a bit enigmatic, isn’t it? ’

‘Sounds like I need to watch out for someone peeping in my bedroom window,’ said Bonnie, pouring half a dozen pilsners for Winston’s friends, and a shandy for Gerald Ho, who was from New Zealand, where they did things just slightly, annoyingly differently from here.

And apparently called flip-flops jandals, which Bonnie wasn’t sure was a real thing, or whether Gerald was just, as he put it, ‘having a lark’.

‘Ah, this is a safe town – no one’s going to be doing that. I don’t know how Officer Brigsley isn’t bored out of his brains. Do you want me to read mine? What’s the sheep again?’

‘Aries. The ram.’

‘That’s the one! Aries. Keep your eye on the target, or sharp disappointment awaits. ’

Bonnie chuckled. ‘That could’ve been written for you specifically.’

‘Maybe I’ve got my own peeper, eh?’ Winston waggled his thick eyebrows as he cast a look around the room for said peeping Tom, before jamming a fistful of bills in the tip jar on the counter. ‘Thanks, sweets. I’ll be back in an hour or so.’

Winston hurried off with his tray, which he clutched to his chest as though it were the Sid Waddell darts trophy.

‘My god, that man can talk,’ droned Hannah in her famous monotone, which was so persistent that during high school the orchestra conductor would bring her in to help tune the brass instruments.

Bonnie grinned. ‘Some people try to get their ten thousand steps in daily. Winston aims for ten thousand words.’

‘So, how are we liking the decorations?’ Hannah gestured with long, manicured fingers.

At Bonnie’s request, Hannah had spent the afternoon hanging colourful bunting and blowing up balloons.

She’d even sourced confetti cannons from her mom’s impressive wedding-planner arsenal.

Bonnie suspected that this might be overdoing it.

But could you really overdo it at a party?

Especially when you were dealing with someone from the city, where things were bigger and brighter just by their very nature?

‘Very demure, very mindful,’ said Bonnie appreciatively.

‘ And I grabbed a welcome agate heart from Behind the Curtain.’ Hannah flashed a dramatically gilded cardboard giftbox from Uncle Oswald’s shop.

‘Oswald said it’s really important to start a new journey with the right kind of energy.

I’m going to start buying these for my clients as housewarming gifts. Money trees are so passé.’

Bonnie nodded along, because that was safer than opening her mouth.

Uncle Oswald was what some might generously call a grifter, and others, less generously, a conman.

Mom had called him a charlatan, and a few other choice names.

They’d never really got along, in large part because they viewed the responsibilities of magic in entirely divergent ways.

Lyra had always considered magic a great privilege that should be used sparingly and for good.

Oswald, on the other hand, saw it as an opportunity for personal enrichment – and since the family magic had a tendency to bypass its men, he’d spent most of his life pressing Mom for insight into her spells or begging for a quick enchantment to support his latest trick.

In fairness, Uncle Oswald lived in a gorgeous storybook house overlooking the town’s Botanic Gardens and had never complained about the electric bill, so, magic or not, he was doing something right.

Kirsty, who’d been keeping a close eye on the smart doorbell, waved her Lululemon-clad arms frantically. (Kirsty was always dressed in athleisure, citing the need for freedom of movement before the front-facing camera that formed the bulk of her career.) ‘Here he is!’

Here he was indeed. Bonnie had only met Theo once before, but her first impression of him had been, well, a bit of a tingly one.

Theo was tall and well built – so much so that Bonnie wondered whether she needed to invest in a taller, wider front door.

He wore casually expensive pants, a pair of leather loafers Bonnie associated with Wall Street, and had the kind of disarming smile that suggested he knew precisely the kind of impression he made on people when he entered a room.

Bonnie was all too familiar with that expression. It was the smile of someone who knew that the world was on their side, who experienced only pleasant interactions, because when you looked a certain way, doors opened for you. Bonnie knew that expression, because it was her own.

‘Theo!’ She hurried up with an Old Fashioned in hand, figuring it was hard to go wrong with a classic. ‘Welcome to The Silver Slipper, and to our charming little town! Are you feeling all settled in?’

She passed him the drink, ensuring their hands brushed just so.

Theo sipped his Old Fashioned – a bit nervously, it seemed. Was she having the same impact on him he’d had on her? Hopefully she was, and even more so.

‘Getting there. I’ve got a few boxes left to unpack.’

Theo cast his green-eyed gaze around the bustling bar, which Bonnie was pleased to note was packed with cheerful revellers dressed up to the nines. (She had a strict look-your-best dress code that she rarely relaxed. Well, except for the darts players. Their shlubbiness was grandfathered in.)

‘Nice place. It’s yours, right?’

‘All mine,’ said Bonnie, her tone betraying her subtext: just like you’ll be . And, of course, he would eventually be. It was how things went in town.

‘Hi,’ drawled Hannah, appearing beside Bonnie, the very picture of a wide-eyed ingenue.

Hannah wasn’t a threat, though – between her realtor’s schedule and caring for her dad, who’d been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s a year earlier, she’d decided that dating was a hobby she didn’t particularly need to invest in.

‘Yellowbrick Grove is going to love having you. What we lack in size we make up for in charm. And property values.’

‘And don’t worry. Whatever happens here stays here,’ added Alana, meaningfully. This was true, since gossipy though she was, she never left town long enough to share said gossip beyond the hills that bordered it.

‘Sorry, can I get through? Don’t mind me...’ Bobby, the Chalmers sisters’ floppy-haired, soft-eyed next-door neighbour, awkwardly wheeled a keg through the front door, despite the fact that Bonnie had requested multiple times that he go around the back.

‘Hey, Bonnie! Where do you want this?’ he asked, mopping his brow with the back of his wrist, around which he wore the friendship bracelet his little brother Kevvie had made several months back.

‘Ugh,’ muttered Kirsty, as she did every time Bobby made an appearance.

Bonnie felt a pang of sympathy. Yes, Bobby was far from the coolest guy in town, and he was way too interested in tabletop gaming and birdwatching.

But he was kind, and he always brought over cookies when his dad, who owned The Golden Hour Bakery, was testing out a new recipe.

And, most importantly of all, he did Bonnie’s bidding without complaint and without expectation of payment, which was a decent asset when you were trying to get a new business off the ground.

‘Behind the bar. Can you hook it up?’

‘Can do, boss.’ He smiled affably, flashing a chipped tooth that had been a teenage Bonnie’s fault – she’d dared him to climb the largest tree at the Botanic Gardens on a particularly rainy day. ‘Anything else while I’m there?’

‘I’ll take a top-up,’ said Kirsty, waving her glass at him.

‘Same,’ droned Hannah, squeezing her half-empty glass into the crook of his elbow.

‘Cucumber water, with extra ice, but only if it’s distilled,’ said Alana, who was constantly detoxing from one thing or another. Although, for someone who made a point of not drinking, she was quite helpful behind the bar.

Hannah tapped Bonnie’s shoulder with a glimmering nail. ‘Babe, you’d better get your claws in before Winston does.’

Theo had strolled over to the darts board and was now affably shaking hands with the darts team, who were merrily recounting the time they’d won a rotisserie chicken package after beating out The Chairmen of the Board, their competitors from the neighbouring town of Emerald.