Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
But it was easier said than done. No matter how I lectured myself, I still felt blue. Having finished my affirmation, I was about to sit down and pick at my birthday cupcake again, when the front doorbell rang.
I really wasn’t in the mood for company. I was thinking of just ignoring the bell when I heard a familiar voice calling my name. Sighing, I turned to answer the door.
I had no idea what I was about to let into my house or how it was going to change my life forever…
CHAPTER TWO
“Celia? Are you in there? I know you must be because Sarah is running The Lost Lamb by herself. Come out here and hurry up—this thing is heavy!”
I hurried to the front door and jerked it open just in time to see Goody Albright standing there with one of the many Brownies she employed.
Brownies are magical beings who are kin to Fairies, though they’re not nearly so pretty. They have brown, bark-like skin, knobbly knees and elbows, and long, crooked noses. They’re extremely hard workers and I had been thinking of hiring one to work at The Lost Lamb, running the register, before Sarah had come along.
Goody Albright is also a witch—like most of the humans in town—and she owns The Red Lion, Hidden Hollow’s stately old bed and breakfast. Today she was wearing one of her many brightly colored muumuus and had her curly gray hair tied up in a paisley kerchief. Her sharp green eyes were narrowed with effort behind her gold rimmed spectacles—possibly because she was holding one end of a perfectly enormous portrait. The Brownie was holding the other end and her skinny arms were trembling.
“For the Goddess’s sake, let us in!” Goody Albright exclaimed. “This is so heavy we’re bound to drop it if we don’t put it down soon! And if that happens I’m just sure the frame will crack—it’s positively ancient!”
I didn’t think the frame—which was made of some heavy, dark wood—looked likely to crack even if you went after it with a sledgehammer, but I didn’t want to be rude.
“Come in, come in,” I said, standing to one side and holding the door open for them.
“Thank you!” With much huffing and puffing, Goody Albright and the Brownie lugged the enormous portrait into my living room and sat it on the foyer floor with a solid-sounding thud.
“What in the world is this and why did you bring it here?” I asked, looking at the portrait curiously.
It showed a very handsome man—no, not a man, I thought, looking at it again. He must be a Creature of some kind—he had horns and his skin had a reddish cast to it. Also, I thought I saw a tail curving around from behind him. Could he be a Demon of some kind?
He was dressed in a neatly tailored suit which looked somewhat old fashioned. It had a high collar and instead of a tie he was wearing a white lace cravat. There was a devilish glint in his black eyes—which held a hint of red, as though he had been staring into a fire when the artist painted him.
The strangest thing about the picture though, wasn’t the subject—it was the fact that I felt like I had seen the Demon somewhere before. For some reason he looked extremely familiar to me. Maybe he resembled one of my customers? I had been seeing so many new faces in the bakery lately since the town was expanding…
“This, my dear, is your birthright,” Goody Albright said importantly, dragging my attention away from the portrait.
“My what?” I said blankly, staring at her.
“Your birthright,” she repeated impatiently. “Before your Great Aunt Gertrude left town, she instructed me to give it to you on your fortieth birthday—but only if you hadn’t found your Heartmate yet.”
“But she never said anything like that to me,” I protested. “And why didn’t she just give it to me herself back when I first came to Hidden Hollow?”
Goody Albright shrugged.
“I don’t know. She didn’t explain—she just instructed me to give it to you at the right time.” She peered at me from over her gold rimmed spectacles. “You haven’t found your Heartmate, have you?”
“No—it’s just me, myself, and I.” I shrugged. “I keep meaning to get a familiar but I don’t have the time to train one right now.”
“And it is your fortieth birthday—correct?” Goody Albright demanded.
“Yes,” I said glumly. “Thanks for rubbing it in.”
“Oh, Celia—I’m so sorry! I wasn’t trying to rub anything in,” she exclaimed, instantly contrite. “Besides, forty is just the start of a witch’s life! Why, you could live almost indefinitely if you want to. Look at me—I’m over two hundred—not that a lady tells her age. And your Great Aunt Gertrude is still going strong—I just got a postcard from her all the way from Patagonia the other day and it sounds like she’s really living it up. She’s into armature paleontology now. Did you know they found the bones of one of the biggest dinosaurs ever discovered down there? It’s called the ‘Titanosaur’ or something like that.”