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  INTERRUPTED MAGIC

  A Hillendale Novel

  BY

  KARLA BRANDENBURG

  INTERRUPTED MAGIC

  Karla Brandenburg

  Copyright 2021 © Karla Lang

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereinafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  This is a work of fiction.

  For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  “Excuse me, are you Brynn Taylor?”

  I set the basket of roses I’d cut on the ground, wiped the sweat from my forehead and tightened my ponytail.

  The young woman standing beside my garden couldn’t be much older than I was, not thirty yet by my guess. She looked harmless enough. Dark brown hair curled around her neck, and her light brown eyes looked almost hazel. She was an inch or two shorter than my five foot seven. Jeans and a Green Bay Packers T-shirt identified her as a fellow Wisconsinite. A hazy yellowish-gray aura hung around her like smoke. Until I knew what she wanted from me, I wasn’t offering any information. I’d had my share of unpleasant surprise visitors.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.

  “You didn’t.” Although people often said my eyes gave that appearance. I’d also been told they glowed like amber, which frightened some away. I straightened and brushed the dirt from my hands.

  “I knocked on the door, but no one answered. Then I saw you in the garden. You are Brynn Taylor, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t question the forces that brought people to me. In fact, I generally had special orders waiting for customers before I knew they would want them—potions or herbs or scents mixed from the flowers and plants I grew. When I’d considered closing the family shop in town, my aunt had told me people would show up at my home. The magic hadn’t provided me anything for my unexpected visitor—yet. “How can I help you?”

  She glanced at my chimney, at the triquetra someone undoubtedly told her to look for. I covered the bracelet my mother had given me, the repeating pattern of triquetras—what some people called Celtic knots.

  “My name is Daria Buckley. I found your website, and when I saw you were local, I thought I’d stop into your shop. The woman at Windfall suggested I talk to you.”

  She must have made a good case if my business partner had sent her to find me, and yet I hesitated to engage.

  “Your website said something about restoring balance using herbal recipes and scents.” She rubbed her forehead and scrunched her face. “I’m not even sure why I thought you might be able to help me. Maybe I’m desperate. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” She started to walk away.

  “Daria.”

  When she turned to me once more, her expression was forlorn.

  “Tell me why you came,” I said.

  The wariness returned to her eyes. “One of the customers in the shop told me you’re a witch. I have to be honest with you, I don’t want to make a bad situation worse.”

  Yeah, I got that a lot, and still people showed up at the boutique or knocked on my door asking for help. “And yet here you are.”

  She seemed to consider her position, then narrowed her eyes. “Are you a witch?”

  In my experience, she didn’t want a straight answer to that question. “I’m an ethnobotanist. Nature often provides restorative ingredients. The recipes I use can be construed as magical to someone who hasn’t learned to mix them properly.” Or someone without the gift of alchemy. I motioned to the patio furniture. “Have a seat. There’s a reason you came looking for me.” I lifted the roses onto the patio tabletop and sat.

  A strong breeze stirred the trees in the woods at the edge of my backyard and a cloud passed momentarily over the sun. The leaves turned over, displaying the lighter green of their undersides.

  “My mother always said when the leaves turn upside down, a storm is brewing,” Daria said.

  So, she was superstitious. “Yes. An old wives’ tale. I’m familiar with it,” I said.

  Tension pinched her brow. “Here’s the thing. I feel like there’s a dark cloud hanging over me. I lost my job. Then someone stole my credit card and maxed it out. Then my car was stolen. Yesterday, I was drying my hair and the blow dryer flew out of my hand and broke the mirror. On my way over here, I tripped on every curb I crossed.”

  “Oh, my. You have had a run of bad luck.” I pursed my lips, considering. “You do know the broken mirror is another old wives’ tale, though, right?”

  “Seven years of bad luck. At least that means it will end.”

  Likely, her string of accidents would end, as well. “Sometimes bad luck has to run its course.”

  Daria sighed. “Never mind. It sounds stupid saying it out loud.”

  “No, you’re here. We might as well figure out if there’s a problem.” I patted the basket of roses. “The solution could be as simple as giving you rose essence.” Which would relieve psychosomatic symptoms.

  She glanced at my chimney once more. “Isn’t that a witch’s symbol?”

  I followed her gaze, scanning the other chimney charms in the neighborhood, one of the things that made Hillendale unique—the owl across the street, masonry daisies trailing down the side of the house next door, Neptune holding a trident a couple houses down. “The symbol on my chimney is called a triquetra. It represents the three fundamental elements—air, water, and earth—the cycle of life. Some also say it’s a rune of protection.”

  Daria massaged her hands, her eyes fixed on me as if she couldn’t make up her mind. “Can you restore balance to my life?”

  I’d had my own string of bad luck when I’d first arrived in Hillendale. Aunt Nora had suggested the universe had been trying to get my attention. She hadn’t done anything to restore balance, at least not to my knowledge. I’d had to find my own way. What did the universe want with Daria?

  Tears streamed down her cheeks and I instinctively reached for her hand. I pulled a rose from my basket and held it under my nose. “Here’s what I propose. I can make a cup of rose chai tea. It won’t hurt
, and it might be exactly what you need.” I had been picking roses, after all. Rose essence would comfort her. I didn’t understand the magic, but it always seemed to know what was called for. “Why don’t you sit here a minute while I heat the water.”

  “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  I carried one rose into the kitchen, filled my teapot with water and set it on the burner. Through the window, I studied the yellow-gray haze that hung around Daria. Would a grimoire be waiting for me in my workroom, one that would tell me what I needed to know? I didn’t want to leave my visitor unattended long enough to find out.

  I washed the rose and plucked a couple of petals, adding them to the teacup. When the teapot whistled, I spooned chai spices into the steeping ball. After arranging the pot and the cup on a tray, I carried everything outside.

  While I poured, I gave Daria a reassuring smile.

  Daria dipped the steeping ball a couple of times before she laid it on the tray. Curls of steam carried the spicy aroma. “You sure this will help?”

  I shrugged. “It’ll make you feel better, if nothing else.”

  She blew across the top of the cup and took a sip.

  “When did you first notice things going wrong?” I asked. Talking about her problems might do as much good as the tea.

  Daria eased back in her chair. “About six months ago.”

  “Can you pinpoint an event that might have triggered your run of bad luck?”

  “No.” Her abrupt answer led me to believe the opposite was true.

  She took another drink of tea and set the cup down. “I don’t know what I was hoping for when I came here. Everyone has a string of bad luck now and then, right? I’m sure it will pass.” Daria rose from the table. “Thank you for the tea.”

  I couldn’t help her if I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I nodded and watched her walk away.

  Another gust of wind blew through the trees. My ponytail fluttered against my back. A storm was surely on its way—literal? Or figurative?

  Chapter 2

  I carried the basket of roses into the sunroom that served as my workshop. In the corner, the still bubbled quietly while it processed lavender essential oil.

  None of the grimoires that served as recipe books lay on the table. Odd, considering Daria had come to the house. The books had lives of their own, frequently predicting which mixtures people would ask me for. I checked the cupboard in the corner where the books were kept—firmly shut.

  I carried the roses to the sink, snipped the stems under cold water and put them in vases to stay fresh until I was ready to work with them. I had herbs yet to harvest. One of the recipe books would undoubtedly be waiting for me upon my return.

  I came in half an hour later with bowls of sage and rosemary. No books on the table.

  “Come on,” I said to the charged air around me. “Nothing?”

  Ash, my gray cat, announced her arrival with a loud meow.

  A recipe book flew from the cupboard and opened to a tincture for an upset stomach—not an answer to Daria’s problem. Then again, maybe I’d resolved Daria’s issue. I hadn’t needed magic to fix my life. Time, and love from my Aunt Nora had brought me to where I was. Kyle Jakes, my fiancé, had played a role, too, but he’d run into his own string of bad luck over the past few months.

  The Hillendale police force had made budget cuts, and as the low man on the totem pole, Kyle had been laid off. One of the benefits to living in a small town, however, meant the community banded together in times of crisis, and within a week, Jude Everly, Rhoda Christenson’s brother, had offered Kyle and his friend Chip a job renovating rental cabins in Door County. The downside was that Kyle spent the week up north working and was only home on the weekends. As a result, he’d insisted on postponing our wedding.

  I checked the clock on the wall. Plenty of time to work before Kyle arrived home. This weekend marked the anniversary of our first official date, and I’d bought steak and shrimp to celebrate, hoping to dispel the black cloud that had descended on him since losing his police job.

  I settled onto the stool behind my worktable and Ash jumped to my lap. She made herself comfortable and purred while I mixed the recipe I would sell at the boutique tomorrow. Once the product was bottled, my thoughts returned to Daria and her yellow-gray aura. Fear, but why did she look shrouded in smoke?

  I closed my eyes and silently summoned the grimoire hidden in the wall of my utility room, the one with the intentional spells. The fragile book landed on the worktable and brittle pages flipped. They stopped on a page I’d read before, one that discussed how to read auras. I had a copy of the page on my phone from when I was learning to interpret what the different colors meant, but there was no mention of a smoky aura. Prepared to abandon my concerns for Daria, I held a hand over the book to close it until my attention was drawn to the opposite page.

  Accident prone behavior accompanied by a hazy, or smoky, aura might indicate a spell hovering around that person.

  What did I know about Daria? I couldn’t be sure what kind of person she was, or if there was a reason for the spell that hung around her—if it was a spell.

  I picked up my cat, stroking her as I carried her into the small living room of my house and settled her on the afghan draped over the leather sofa. She pranced, purring loudly before she settled. The tea service was still on my dining table beside the bay window overlooking the backyard. I carried the tray into the galley kitchen.

  The used herbs from the steeping ball would go out to the compost pile, but before I dumped the sediment from the cup, odd swirls drew my attention. Was this akin to reading tea leaves? The Wiccan women I knew said we didn’t have the gift of divination, and yet something was going on at the bottom of Daria’s cup. Letters appeared, as if someone drew a finger through the dregs—M. S. The letters disappeared like erased chalk, and within minutes, they were drawn again.

  I returned to the workroom to consult the grimoire, but as was its habit, it had returned to the cache in the wall. I walked through the kitchen to the utility room by the back door, squeezed between the washer and dryer and felt along the brick wall beside the old coal chute. I tugged the edges of a jutting brick and the small compartment opened. The hidden grimoire levitated and floated to the top of the washing machine.

  “What about the tea leaves?” I asked it.

  The pages flipped on their own and stopped on an incantation marked with a skull and crossbones. I hated those pages, well aware of the dangers of intentionally casting a spell.

  To correct a wrong done to you, find a picture of the person responsible and affix a lock of their hair. Dip your finger in a mixture of lemon juice and water and recite the incantation with your terms to correct the misdeed while using your finger to draw your initials on the back of the photo. This identifies you as the author of the spell until the terms are satisfied.

  Tea leaves weren’t the same as a photo, but I interpreted the explanation as a variation on a theme, that M.S. was the author of the spell on Daria.

  Before I could finish reading the page, the back door opened. Startled, I blocked the book from view by holding my arms out to shield it.

  Kyle dropped his duffle bag on the floor and shot me a wary glance. “Everything okay?”

  Odd greeting. “As far as I know. Why do you ask?”

  “Edith Knight said you had a visitor. Someone she hadn’t seen before.”

  I hadn’t seen my neighbor outside while Daria was there, but this was a small town. Neighbors had a habit of looking out for one another, which was a good thing—sometimes. “Someone looking for help. Cassandra sent her over from the boutique.”

  “Did you have what she needed?”

  I looked over my shoulder. The grimoire was gone and the brick that covered the secret compartment was firmly in place. Kyle was privy to my hidden talents, but I continued to be uncomfortable talking to him about them. “I made her a cup of tea and she went on her way. How are the renovations coming along?”
r />   His lips twisted in an increasingly familiar expression of frustration. “Lots of mold to clean up, along with rotting wood.”

  “I suppose that’s to be expected so close to the lakefront.”

  “Jude would have done better to tear the cottages down and start over.” Kyle strode into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. His dark brown hair was in need of a cut, the natural wave turning into curls. When he’d been a policeman, he’d always kept his hair trimmed neatly—not that I was complaining. The casual look enhanced his boyish good looks.

  With a can of Pepsi in his hand, he closed the fridge, popped the top, and continued to the dining room to sit at the table. I followed, interpreting his mood as distracted. He stared out the bay window.

  “Want to talk about it?” I asked.

  “Hmm?” His slate-blue gaze landed on me as he took a sip of his pop. “Oh, I guess I was thinking of all the things that still have to be done across the street before I sell my house. I have no idea when I’m going to have time for that.”

  I suspected he wasn’t in a hurry to sell. He’d been moody for the past four months, since he’d been laid off from the police force. After pressing me to set a wedding date, he’d been the one to postpone, regardless of my thoughts on the matter. We hadn’t spent a night together since, with Kyle withdrawing into his own personal funk. No amount of reassurance from me that we could weather this storm together resonated with him. The attempts I made to draw him out of his moods generally resulted in an argument. I sat silently, struggling with the patience to see which direction his mood was headed.

  He sighed. “This isn’t the life I’d pictured for us.”

  “Because you’re doing carpentry instead of policework? You know it doesn’t matter to me. I thought you liked working with your hands.”

  “As a side job or a hobby, yeah. I worry about you living here all alone while I’m two and a half hours away all week. What if something happens to you?”

  His protective streak rearing its ugly head again. “Well, there’s always Edith Knight next door keeping an eye on me. And Roxanne Purdy is still on the police force. What do you think is going to happen to me here?” Hillendale wasn’t a hotbed of crime.