Reg and his Ma left about thirty minutes later, leaving me, Gretel, and Joel in the living room, surrounded by tea mugs. I started gathering them to bring to the sink just as they were leaving.

“I can-” Joel started, but I shook my head.

“I’ve got it,” I said, keeping my tone light as I took the empty mug out of his hand.

I brought my armload into the kitchen and put them in the sink, filling the basin with hot water and dish soap. “If there’s any spoons out there, can you grab them?” I called in.

I instantly regretted it, waiting for a spoon to come floating into the room. But Gretel walked into the kitchen with another mug and a couple of spoons. “Here,” she said, dropping them lightly into the sink.

“Thanks.”

“She’s a nightmare.”

“It’s no big deal,” I said, adding soap to a sponge and tackling the first mug. “She’s powerful. And she got the house covered. That’s what matters.”

“What do you want for dinner tonight? I’ll go get it.”

We needed groceries, so I couldn’t even get offended at the offer. “Whatever you want,” I said, setting the mug on the drying rack and moving on to the next one.

“Maybe I could take the day off tomorrow,” Gretel said as she dried the mug and put it on the shelf. “We could have a little vacation and just watch movies all day. I think it’s going to rain.”

The weather report hadn’t mentioned anything about rain all week. I could appreciate that she was doing this instead of trying to wear me down. But I reached over and took one of her soft hands in my soapy one.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll be at my desk the whole time and-”

“Hey, Dar?” Joel called in from the living room. “Your phone is ringing. Oh, it’s Auntie Heather!”

“Can you grab it for me?” I asked, the words slipping out like that was a totally normal request at this point in our lives. “I just need to rinse my hands!”

I heard him cheerfully greet my aunt – the only non-magical person in a house full of magical older women – as I rinsed the soap off my hands. Gretel looked like she wanted to keep arguing, but I dried my hands on a flower-printed towel, flipped it over my shoulder, and went into the living room.

Joel was lounging on the couch, my cell phone to his ear. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he was saying. “Just looking for work in the area, you know how it is. How’s your garden doing?”

He nodded along as she apparently detailed her large, rambling garden, the inspiration for my own. Then he looked up and saw me. “Oh, she’s right here,” he said. “Alright, love you too.”

It had been four years since we broke up. He handed me the phone, then actually went into the kitchen and took my place at the sink. I knew they were about to use magic to finish the dishes, but if I didn’t look, I could be fine with it. “Hey, Auntie,” I greeted.

“Hello, sweetheart. Why didn’t you tell me Joel was staying with you?”

“It’s a very new arrangement.”

“Oh? Just an arrangement. Or an arrangement?”

My outraged noise was cut off by her cheerful cackle, but then she got a bit more serious. “I know Beatrix told Gretel I was going to call, but that was about Fourth of July plans,” she said. “We’re planning a little garden party here and you, Gretel, and your boytoy are invited.”

“Auntie-”

She cackled again. “But that’s not everything,” she said. “Someone came by the house asking about you.”

My heart dropped. “We’re okay,” Auntie Heather said, before I could ask. “We’ve got protections galore in this place. And I still have my knives.”

Auntie Heather did have an impressive knife collection. “What happened?” I asked.

“It was a handsome young man. He came to the house and was just standing on the sidewalk, right outside the gate. And you and I both know what that means.”

Unfortunately, I did. It meant that something about this guy had triggered the magical protections on their property. I didn’t know which of my aunts had set that up, but just like here, I had to be grateful for its presence.

“I went out to talk to him-”

“Auntie,” I murmured, closing my eyes in defeat. 

“I didn’t go unarmed, young lady,” she continued. “I stayed in the garden and spoke to him over the fence. He told me he was a friend of yours and was in town for a few days.”

“There was a man at my work today, asking about the Scarlet Holding,” I said.

“Young with dark hair?” she asked. “Something about his face that’s hard to remember after you’ve seen it?”

Great, so it hadn’t been post-nap grogginess that caused that. “That’s him,” I said. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, I’m fine, Dar, don’t worry about me.”

It was hard not to when she was nearly seventy and wielding knives against strange magical men in her garden. “He’s not a friend,” I said. “I don’t know what he actually wants, but he refuses to believe I didn’t use magic to destroy it.”

“Of course you didn’t. But garden gnomes are hard to believe. Not for me, of course. I go to enough of your softball games.”

“He was mur-” I dropped my voice. “He was killing Joel,” I whispered. “I was desperate. So I threw that thing as hard as I could and got really lucky. He insists there’s more to it than that, that it’s impossible it wasn’t magic. I’m so sorry he came to you. He shouldn’t have known anything about you.”

“It’s an easy enough assumption,” Auntie Heather said. “It’s no secret I’m your aunt, and it’s no secret where I live.”

“He cornered me and I had to climb over the courtyard wall to get away.”

“That’s my girl.”

One thing I always appreciated about Auntie Heather was the way she had my back. Sure, she was probably horrified, the same way I was that she’d been approached at her home by this Declan guy. But still, her praise always made me glow inside. 

“Don’t talk to him if he comes around again,” I said. “I don’t trust him. He said he wasn’t going to hurt me, but he tried to lock me in the courtyard until I told him what he wanted to hear. I’m safe and I’ll stay away from him. He’s not going to be stupid enough to come back to the Landmark when Angie’s done with him.”

He might be exactly that stupid, but he wouldn’t survive a second encounter with Angie, I was confident of that. Or a first, if they still hadn’t found him. That was actually fairly likely. She’d been looking, but there was no reason for him to stick around the hotel or return there once I’d drawn attention to him.

“I won’t, sweetheart, I promise. You need to stay alert. Do you have your pepper spray?”

It was somewhere in my room, I’d have to dig it out of the drawer of crap in my dresser. “Yes,” I said, mostly the truth.

“Good. I’ll let you go. But let me know about the Fourth. Have a good night, sweetie. I love you.”

When I came back to the kitchen a few minutes later, the dishes were completely done and the room was spotless. Magic. Fine, whatever. Joel and Gretel were sitting at the kitchen table and had clearly heard at least some of my side of the conversation, because they both looked concerned.

“He went to her house,” I said, sitting down beside Gretel. “He didn’t do anything, but his presence set off their alarms. And he said he wanted to talk to me. So apparently he doesn’t know where we live.”

“No, just where you work,” Gretel said. 

“I took today,” I argued. “I’ll be careful, but I can’t just not go to work because of a weird guy. Do you know how many weird guys I’ve dealt with?”

Her eyes flicked to Joel, just for a second. But long enough for him to notice. Before he could protest, she turned back to me. “But not like this,” she said. “He’s magic.”

“I noticed,” I said flatly, regretting it immediately. 

Now Gretel looked frustrated. “Dar…” she started.

“Look, it’s been a really, really bad day,” I interrupted. “Can we just not?”

I didn’t normally cut her off like that, but she didn’t normally lecture me like a child, even if I was being a little petulant. But I had a headache forming, and I was going to say something much worse if I didn’t stop her now.

“I just need to go take a shower,” I said, standing back up. “I’ve got work in the morning and there’s about sixteen events that are going to have very specific demands. On top of everything that I wasn’t able to get done today.”

I knew Angie wouldn’t see it that way. She’d tell me to stay the fuck home if I had to. But I couldn’t just stay here, hiding in the shower in a condo that was rapidly turning into Wonderland. And that was my doing as much as it was anyone magical. I’d asked Joel to stay. I’d said I could learn to live with magic, both to myself and to them. And two days later, I was already crawling out of my skin.

Gretel nodded. “Fine,” she said.

Joel didn’t say anything, thank God. I might have killed him if he’d been dumb enough to join in our argument. And maybe I shouldn’t be arguing with my girlfriend in front of my ex-boyfriend, but it had been a bad day. I wasn’t going to be perfect either. Far from it.

Maybe I should have stayed and had a solid conversation to clear the air, but instead I went upstairs to take yet another shower.

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Continue to Chapter 7