Sympathetic Magic

Chapter 2-2

The days went by quietly after that. Late in the week after their wedding, Angela and Connor returned to northern Arizona, spending a few days in the house on Paradise Lane before heading up to Flagstaff so they’d be there in time for her latest doctor’s appointment. Angela seemed to have gotten visibly larger in only the few days they were away — or maybe it was just that Margot wasn’t used to seeing her normally slender prima so, well, round.

“Everything okay with the house?” she asked of Margot. They were sitting on the front porch, enjoying a mild afternoon breeze, as the house was still somewhat warm.

“It was, after I checked. You did leave the back door unlocked.”

Angela put a hand to her brow. “Oh, wow, sorry about that. But I guess it’s good that I asked.”

“Maybe, except that it was somewhat unnecessary, as Connor had asked the same thing of Lucas.”

“He did?” she asked, her eyes widening. “Oops.” Then she added, her expression growing somewhat sly, “And how is Lucas?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Margot said shortly, glad they were on the porch, so she could make a hasty escape. “I haven’t seen him since. I expect you’ll find out when you go back to Flagstaff.”

And after that she said a quick farewell and departed, inwardly fuming. Had it been a simple mistake…or had Connor and Angela both asked their respective relatives to come check on the house so they’d “accidentally” bump into each other?

Goddess save her from happy couples who felt the need to matchmake every unattached individual in a ten-mile radius.

By the time Margot got back to her house, she could practically feel the scowl she’d dug into her own forehead — a scowl that didn’t lessen when she saw that her mother’s car was parked behind hers in the driveway. True, because of the way the lot was set up, there really wasn’t anyplace else to park, but really, the last person she felt like talking to now was Sylvia Emory.

I knew I should’ve gotten the key back from her, Margot thought in annoyance, although she knew locked doors didn’t stop most witches if they wanted to get in. Still, whatever happened to privacy?

She did her best to settle her expression in more serene lines as she entered the house. The smell of cinnamon tea drifted out to her. Normally, it was a scent she enjoyed, one that evoked changing leaves and colder days and the Halloween decorations nearly everyone in Jerome put up. Now, though, it just told her that her mother had gone ahead and made herself at home in the kitchen.

Attempting not to sigh, Margot entered that room, saw her mother sitting at the round table under the window, watching the late afternoon sunlight slant in through the stained-glass suncatcher hanging there, casting hues of blue and red and gold and green over the white tile countertops.

“Tea?” said her mother, lifting a chubby brown teapot from the trivet that sat in the middle of the table.

“Thank you,” Margot replied. She knew it was pointless to ask her mother what she wanted, or what she was doing there. In time she’d get around to it, but on her own terms.

“I see our prima is back in town,” Sylvia remarked. “Not staying, though, I would imagine.”

“Not for long.” After blowing on her tea, feeling her mother’s sharp blue gaze on her, Margot added, “She has to see the doctor soon.”

“And I imagine she’d rather be someplace cooler. What were those two thinking, going all the way down to Bisbee in September? It must have been a hundred degrees.”

“They wanted to see the vineyards, talk to the growers.” Yes, there were vines planted all over the Verde Valley, but the growers still got a good portion of their grapes from the wine-growing regions down south, especially around Willcox. Margot tried not to think of the irony of that one small town being given that name. Two “L”s, to be sure, but still….

“Hmm,” her mother said, which could have meant anything. Really, why was she here? It wasn’t out of character for her to drop by unexpectedly, but in general she only did that when they hadn’t seen each other for a few weeks. Since not even a week had passed since the wedding, and Margot had shared a table with her mother then, she couldn’t quite figure out why the urgent need to be here now, of all days.

“And what have you been up to?” Sylvia asked then.

Something seemed to click in Margot’s head. She set down her teacup, shot her mother a narrow look, and replied, “Nothing at all. Tending my garden. Reading. Renewing the illusion across Boyd Willis’s driveway again so another drunk tourist won’t back into his garage.”

That driveway had proved to be a magnet to intoxicated or merely befuddled travelers over the years…until Margot came up with the idea to cast a long-lasting illusion of a sturdy stone wall across the entrance to his property. Even someone who’d spent a hard afternoon drinking at the Spirit Room tended to look twice before backing into that. But the spell wouldn’t hold indefinitely, so she maintained a schedule of refreshing it every two weeks. The only drawback was that Boyd had to wait until the street was absolutely empty of civilians before he came and went, as otherwise they would see him backing his ancient F-150 right through a wall, but that seemed a small price to pay compared to having to replace the garage door once a year.

“That’s all?” her mother asked.

Irritated, Margot snapped, “What else would I be doing?”

Without blinking, Sylvia reached out and poured some more tea into her cup. The sweet-smelling tendrils of steam curled upward, and she inhaled deeply, then said, “Well, I’d hoped you might be getting out and about more.”

“And where precisely am I supposed to be getting out and about? I’m an elder here — I can’t just go running around on a whim.”

Her mother looped a finger into the handle of her teacup but didn’t lift it, seeming content to merely let it rest there on the tabletop. “I think you could go many places, if you’d only allow yourself.”

“And what precisely is that supposed to mean?” Her mother loved to talk that way, in elliptical sentences that made her sound like the clan seer. In reality, her gift was for growing things — the glory of the garden outside was her work originally, although Margot privately thought she did just fine on her own without any magical help.

“My dear, the borders are open! We can go almost anywhere we like now. Haven’t you ever wanted to see Flagstaff?”

“No,” Margot said shortly. That was a lie, as she’d often wondered when she was younger what it would be like to walk amongst those ponderosa forests, to breathe in cool air scented with pine. Those lands had been off limits for so many years that she’d stopped thinking about them somewhere along the line. Now, though, with this new joining of the clans, she realized she could go there…if she dared.

Her mother lifted an eyebrow and finally took a sip of her tea. “Not even to see your new friend?”

“Friend?” Margot asked, although she thought she knew exactly who her mother was talking about.

“The tall one…you know…who you danced with at the reception.”

More than ever she found herself regretting that single foolish lapse in judgment. It seemed everyone was conspiring to get her together with Lucas Wilcox. Well, all right, not everyone — she had no doubt that Bryce McAllister and Allegra Moss would be properly horrified if hers and Lucas’ “relationship,” if one could call it that, were to progress any further than that one ill-advised dance.

“If you mean Lucas Wilcox,” Margot said, not bothering to hide the irritation in her voice, “he is not my ‘friend,’ and I have no intention of going to Flagstaff to see him, or for any other reason.”

“Too bad,” her mother replied, her placid expression saying that she was used by now to her daughter’s curtness. “He’s a handsome one.”

“He’s a Wilcox.”

“So? Being with a Wilcox seems to be working fairly well for our prima.”

This was ridiculous. Connor’s and Angela’s was a very special case, a relationship that apparently had been preordained by the Goddess. Margot wouldn’t question the situation, as it was clear they were meant to be together, but one fated pairing didn’t mean it was suddenly open season on all the Wilcox men. Maybe her mother could forget how Damon Wilcox had kidn*pped Angela right from her bedroom, and how his grandfather had attempted to do the same thing with Aunt Ruby back in the day, but Margot’s own memory wasn’t quite so short. Yes, according to Angela, Lucas had nothing to do with Damon’s plots, had actually tried to talk him out of the k********g, but that didn’t change the fact that he was born a Wilcox, was still a Wilcox, and would be a Wilcox until the day he died.

Just as she was a McAllister. Oh, her last name was Emory, but her grandmother had been Amanda McAllister, and so Margot was as much a part of the clan as anyone. More so, as she was an elder. And a McAllister elder couldn’t go off dallying with one of the Wilcoxes, no matter how good-looking he might be.

And that, she thought, is a big part of the problem. Those Wilcox men…they definitely have the “tall, dark, and handsome” thing down pat. I doubt they’d be as much trouble if they didn’t.

“Mother, if you’ve only come up here to ask whether I’m seeing Lucas Wilcox, the short answer is no, I’m not, and the slightly longer answer is, no, I am not, and never will.”

For a few seconds her mother didn’t say anything, only drummed her fingers against the glazed ceramic surface of the teacup she held. At last she said, her tone far gentler than her daughter’s, “Margot, being an elder doesn’t mean you have to live your life alone. That’s not what anyone intended.”

Oh, why was it that mothers always knew the exact wrong thing to say? Even after all these years, the hurt stirred within her, waking memories she’d worked far too hard to put away. “Maybe that’s not what they intended,” she said shortly. “But that seems to be how it’s working out.”