Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
From my grandfather she learned to trust that people could love you and want nothing in return. All the lessons took root, and I watched her bloom. When we graduated from high school, both of us newly eighteen, a lawyer visited us one evening. Lo and behold, her grandmother, who passed right after she was born, had set up a trust fund for Amanda no one knew about.
Grandparents. You had to love them.
She continued to live with us for that summer, though she was now rich, and when she said she wanted to repay our kindness, my grandfather replied that she already had by showing us her great heart.
“I love him so much,” she’d told me through her tears later that night.
When she left for college, she paid for mine as well. She got a degree in business, I got mine in folklore, and she made certain the gas for the house would always be paid, come rain or shine, year after year, forever, as long as there was someone living on the land. I appreciated that very much, especially since I had no income at the moment.
“Oh,” she exclaimed out of the blue, bringing me back from my stroll down memory lane, “you’re never going to guess whom I got an email from.”
“Who?”
“My mother,” she announced with a cackle.
I winced.
“She wants to borrow money so they can keep their yacht, since Daddy made some bad business dealings.”
“And you said?”
“I said,” she began with a snicker, “that perhaps she should not be asking the person who bought her home just so I could bulldoze it to the ground.”
“I think you have an overdeveloped sense of revenge.”
“Who? Me?”
She had bought the country club just so she could kick the Lanyons out. She also bought the majority of stock in their company and then sold it out from under them. Their house was also razed, and she built a counseling center where it had been. She named it after my grandfather: the Arthur Corey House. I got to cut the ribbon at the opening celebration.
She had taken the two million her grandmother left her and grown it into forty times that amount. I was very proud of her. Once her business took off—a clean makeup line that was now a household name—she created a charity foundation that gave loans to women wanting to start a business. I’d been thrilled when she returned to Osprey, having married a guy from Buffalo, New York, who was an actuary, which meant he could work from anywhere. He fell in love with our hometown and its charm on sight.
She was the pinnacle of power and success, and people who’d once snubbed her were now snubbed in return. Her memory was long, and she was vengeful. I cautioned her often to be forgiving. She said that certainly, in her next life, she would be a saint. But not this one. Kip Lanyon smartly moved out of town the moment he heard she was back.
“And don’t be mad I told the chief you’re a witch because come on, he was going to find out eventually anyway. Everyone knows who you are, and everybody loves you.”
I scoffed.
“Who doesn’t love you?”
I grinned slyly before taking a sip of my tea.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Elsie Abernathy.”
She gasped. “Elsie moved home? How could I not know that?”
“You were in Paris last week,” I reminded her. “You just got back the other day from your business trip.”
She grunted. “I would take you, but I know it’s hard for you to travel.”
“Only until early spring. Once I know that all the souls got through the winter all right and don’t need any help, I could go.” Certain flora and fauna needed looking after until then, and as steward of the land, it was my duty to make sure everyone and everything was well.
“Then you tell me when, and we’ll do late spring or early summer in the City of Light.”
“Sounds wonderful.” I sighed, still grinning at her.
“Now,” she said, going to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of tea. “Tell me all about Elsie. I’m dying to know.”
I tried really hard to stop smiling.
“Oh my God, tell me!”
We had a lovely, gossipy, slightly evil morning.
TWO
Three days later, I was at our local youth center, helping Millie Cho and her team lead the yearly craft class on wreath making. Many classes were taught there throughout the year, but this was the only one I participated in, even though Millie had asked me a hundred times to do more.
“You could teach knitting and crochet, or about runes, or crystals, or natural remedies, or how to dry herbs.”
That all sounded horribly boring. Or, more to the point, I was certain, I’d have people passing out or slipping into comas. I had no idea how to make something I did constantly—like create home remedies or knit—sound fun in any way. At least the wreath making was enjoyable and interactive, and everyone had that feeling of success at the end of having something tangible to take away with them. I could not be responsible for people nodding off while I was teaching something less exciting. That was all I needed. Chief MacBain would write me a ticket for causing narcolepsy.