My Midlife Magic Daze Paperback

Death doesn’t stop people from being assholes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I kept track of the woman browsing the children’s section while the ghost of her late husband shouted at her.

“How dare you sell my car! Do you know how much I paid for the vintage seat covers?” His meaty hands clenched into fists and though his face was the same sallow mist color as the rest of his insubstantial form, I thought if he’d been alive instead of a spirit, he would have been red in the face.

The woman’s wardrobe consisted of a nappy polar fleece hoodie over a long-sleeved V-neck and well-worn jeans that sported holes from long-term wear instead of a designer’s whim. Her once-white sneakers were stained, the laces mismatched as though one had broken. Going by her clothing and the fact that she was pawing through the used bin, she had bigger problems than a deceased mantrum.

Ghosts often didn’t know they had crossed the veil that separated life from the afterlife or that they were no longer ensconced in the land of the living. If I hadn’t been working on frothing a latte, I might have pulled the bastard aside and explained a few things to him. Like that, he was a spirit and had no use for an expensive car. Status symbols didn’t mean anything to the deceased. His wife was doing the best she could without him. I wished he would cross over and quit damaging the calm in Pages & Potions.

Even if I was the only one aware of him.

“Almost done, Emma?” Hatty perched on the middle stool in front of the counter. A laptop sat open in front of her. Her cat-eye readers perched on the end of her sharp blade of a nose. She peered at me over the top of them. Hatty knew I could see ghosts. She was the one who’d warned me not to reveal my gift in front of anyone else. It was all part of my hiding-in-plain-sight act.

“Mmm hmmm.” I turned my back on the pissed-off apparition and presented the foam-topped beverage to Milly Banks. Milly was a regular who came in every week to trundle through the new release section and treat herself to a latte and whatever baked good had come out of Rue’s kitchen that morning. Today’s special was banana walnut bread. The second I smelled it baking, I’d written it on the chalkboard in the window next to the defunct sign. Hatty had a habit of buying bananas that she never ate, so the bread was Rue’s way of utilizing the past its prime fruit. Waste not, want not, was her mantra.

Without asking, I cut two slices from the loaf and put them on a white dessert plate. Snack in hand, I headed to the register while the ghost kept up his tirade.

“Oh, I shouldn’t.” Milly eyed the bread like a starving woman. “Doc Trammel has me on a low-carb diet.”

“That is low carb,” Hatty lied without batting an eyelash.

“Really?” Milly’s Southern drawl stretched the two syllables out into infinity.

“It’s as healthy as banana nut bread gets,” I supplied. Rue was experimenting with her baking by removing trans fats and sugar wherever she could without sacrificing flavor. Whether the doctor would agree was a different matter.

“Oh, I guess this once won’t hurt anything.” Milly caved the way she always did. She fished in her wallet for a five-dollar bill and paid for her snack.

After ringing up the purchase, I thanked her. Once she was seated in a wingback chair in the new release section, I hissed at Hatty, “Banana nut bread isn’t low carb.”

“Did you want to stand here all day listening to her bemoan her diet?” Hatty arched one thin brow.

“No.” Mother Moon preserve us. Nothing was more grueling than listening to people ramble on about food they couldn’t or shouldn’t eat.

Hatty nodded crisply. “Well, there you go. I expedited the process. No thanks required. Now quit staring at that woman before you give her a complex.”

“She’s got a tagalong.” I used our codeword for a ghost who followed the living into Glimmer Ridge.

Hatty grunted. “There’s nothing you can do, Emma. Best leave them be.”

She was right. As I took the milk cup over to the sink to wash, I acknowledged the reality. There wasn’t a single thing I could do about the ghosts. Every time I’d tried, the situation went from bad to worse. The departed’s loved ones thought I was nuts. Or some sort of con artist hunting for a payday. More than one door had been slammed in my face. Plus, the ghosts pestered me for days after they realized I could see them. They hung around night and day because another fun fact about the dead, they never needed to sleep.

Having a demanding ghost standing by my bed and yammering at me all night wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat.

Plus, I was supposed to be keeping a low profile. Alerting people that I could see their tagalongs was the opposite of going unnoticed.

Hatty removed her glasses, letting them dangle on the gold chain around her neck. She stood to stretch out her back. “I’ve got the register. Why don’t you go sweep the front porch and the walkway?”

Nodding, I shucked my apron, balled it up beneath the counter, and then headed to the closet by the front door to retrieve the outdoor broom.

Hatty and Rue were very serious about brooms. It went along with their witchy beliefs. According to the Bramblewick sisters, one should never use an outdoor broom in an indoor space and vice versa. It didn’t make a lick of sense to me. However, they’d given me so much over the last five years that I did what they asked, no matter how silly it sounded.

Stepping onto the large porch, I looked out at the mist-enshrouded village. Mist Glen—population 1,243—had been built in the lowest part of the valley, surrounded by craggy peaks. The fog had a habit of spilling down over the rough terrain and settling in the bowl-like valley the way frothed milk poured into a mug. The mist often lasted until midmorning, snaking between buildings like a cat weaving between its owner’s legs until the sun crested the peaks and chased it away. The village was the only home I could remember, just like the house—Glimmer Ridge.

Technically speaking, Glimmer Ridge predated the village. Classic Linville architecture that combined one-part Swiss chalet with one-part Appalachian mountain. Built from the extinct Chestnut tree in 1922, Glimmer Ridge sported bark shingles inside and out. Over the years, it had been passed from owner to owner in a game of hot potato, each person taking on an aging structure that grew tougher to care for as the years passed.

Until Rue and Hatty Bramblewick inherited Glimmer Ridge.

I’d seen pictures from the early days—missing shingles, a sagging porch, and a crumbling foundation. Twenty years ago, the house had been on the verge of being condemned. The Bramblewicks had managed to turn the place around. The repairs were made using Poplar bark since the Chestnut Blight had taken out the original tree. The sisters worked tirelessly to restore the place to its original glory. A labor of love and foolishness, Hatty claimed.

The front door, situated steps off Main Street, welcomed patrons with classic Southern hospitality. The house boasted a large porch lined with rocking chairs that invited shoppers to stay for a spell. A vaulted ceiling with exposed log beams trapped the sultry summer heat while lazy fans circled overhead. Large windows with failed seals meant we shivered in the winter, but at least the view across the square toward the slow-moving New River was pretty.

Hatty was a fan of home renovation shows. When we watched, the sisters often commented on how nice it would be to update the house to more modern standards. The dicey wiring, the crappy weather stripping around the doors and windows, the dated kitchen that was barely functional. The stove was original and good enough for Rue to bake. The ancient water heater proved temperamental and hot showers were more a pleasant surprise than a constant. No matter the flaws, though, Glimmer Ridge was the only home I could remember.

My life before the night I’d met Hatty and Rue remained a total blank. It made zero sense. No one in town had ever recognized me. To my knowledge, no one had come looking. The story that I was a young cousin of the Bramblewicks had become my reality. Hatty claimed the Bishops were their family’s equivalent of the Sackville-Bagginses—the less imaginative branch of the family tree, often embarrassed by their witchy cousins. In other words, no one would refute my claim.

The mystery of where I’d come from went unsolved. No public transportation stopped in Mist Glen, and no major roads passed through. During the autumn, the village swelled with leaf-peeping tourists who’d stop by Abe’s Diner for a bite before hopping back onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. But most didn’t realize Mist Glen existed. So how had I found it?

Rue claimed it was fate. As part of a local coven of witches, the sisters believed in the occult. They accepted me and didn’t mind that I saw ghosts. They kept me safe. While I appreciated the family I’d found with the eccentric Bramblewicks, I still craved answers.

A gust of February wind numbed the hands that clutched the straw broom. After sweeping from east to west—the way Hatty claimed was proper—I leaned the broom against the door. Ignoring the rocking chairs, I lowered myself onto the top step, pressing my back against a vertical log, and wished my curiosity away. It was dangerous to want more. The fear that had coursed through my bloodstream on the night I’d come to Glimmer Ridge remained potent in my mind. Remembered terror made my heart race and the world cave in around me.

Shutting my eyes, I leaned back against the log support that held the roof over the covered porch, pressing my body firmly against the house. Just like that first morning after my fever broke, I felt the calm, protective presence coming from the house. It seeped into me like sunlight, warming all the cold places inside me, caressing and comforting, and staving off a panic attack. As if the rough bark was a conduit, that same dark voice echoed in my mind.

You’re safe. Everything will be all right.

Slowly, my breathing evened out. There was no way to describe the reassurance I received whenever I touched the house. It was almost as though Glimmer Ridge wrapped me in invisible arms as that resonant voice filled with smoke and shadows vowed to protect me.

The door behind me jingled and the woman in the holey jeans strode down the steps toward the street. My lips curled up as I spotted a wrapped loaf of banana nut bread in her hand. Hatty was such a softy, but only when she thought no one else was looking. The tagalong drifted through the wall, still bitching at her. When our gazes met, she gave me a weary smile before hurrying down to climb into her battered Hyundai Santa Fe. Even if she couldn’t hear the diatribe from her deceased husband, no one deserved to be talked to that way when all she wanted was to buy a book for her kid.

“Back off, pal,” I muttered to the ghost when I felt sure the woman couldn’t hear me. “She’s doing the best she can. So just cross over already.”

The apparition’s mouth snapped shut. He pivoted in place on the sidewalk and looked directly at me. Had he heard me? I hadn’t spoken loudly.

The echo of his eyes went wide, and his mouth dropped open as he gaped at me. My brows drew down in confusion. What was his problem?

Before I could say anything, though, he wavered a moment, like an old-fashioned television channel blurring out of focus. Then he vanished.

“Weird,” I muttered. Shrugging it off, I got to my feet, collected the outdoor broom, and headed back into the store.

When it came to Pages & Potions, weird was standard practice.

****

“Oh no,” Rue breathed as she set the newspaper down. “Jody Haversham is missing.”

“Who’s Jody Haversham?” Hatty didn’t bother looking up from her computer screen.

Rue tsked, “Oh honestly, Hatty. You remember Jody. He comes in every now and then and pokes around the occult section. Lives in that apartment above Mrs. Otis’s barn. I hope he’s all right.” Rue pushed her chair out, but I gestured for her to stay where she was and set about collecting our dinner plates.

“He probably took off with some floozy.” Hatty’s pale eyebrows formed a steep V over her sharp nose, her attention fixed on her spreadsheet.

“I don’t think he’s the sort, not if you’re talking about the man I’m thinking of,” I added and turned the hot water tap at the sink, hoping it would cooperate. “Mid-sixties, about five foot eleven, walked with a cane. All white hair and twinkling blue eyes. He was a gentleman, always tipped well when I got him a coffee.”

Staring at my reflection in the window above the sink, I wondered how someone would describe me on a missing bulletin. Mid-forties, brunette, with eyes that looked green when I wore green and blue when I wore blue. Average bust, larger than the average backside. Classic pear shape. Easy to overlook. No tattoos or piercings other than a single hole in each ear. Nothing special. No identifying features that would make me stand out in a crowd.

Sometimes I wondered if I blended in too well.

You’re perfect, Glimmer Ridge whispered in my mind, making me fumble with a sudsy skillet.

There was a unique feature. The house talked to me. More than that, it made me feel. At times, it was a comforting presence. And late at night, that rich, smoky voice sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with fear.

I’d told the Bramblewick sisters about how Glimmer Ridge spoke to me—leaving out the odd sexual thrill—hoping they knew something about it. They’d exchanged another of those long, loaded looks that meant I’d stumbled into unknown territory.

“There are such things as spirits of the house,” Hatty had said at length. “Oftentimes, a house will take on characteristics of its inhabitants. It’s why you should always treat your dwelling with respect.”

“But if Glimmer Ridge is a spirit, why can’t I see him?” I’d asked.

“Who knows, sweets?” Rue had done a one-arm shrug and changed the subject.

Long story short—they thought I was nuts to believe Glimmer Ridge was a person. And that was coming from the coven elders. Peachy.

“How do they know he’s missing?” Hatty asked, breaking me from my reverie.

“Mrs. Otis said he didn’t pay his rent the first of the month. All his stuff is there, including his car,” Rue fretted. “The police are looking into it. Speaking of the police…”

Her gaze slid to me, and I barely bit back a groan. Not again.

“Deputy Harding stopped by when you went to the bank earlier,” Rue spoke in a tone that made my spine shoot straight. “He was asking about you.”

“Was he?” I whispered faintly.

Art Harding was one of the seven single men under seventy in Mist Glen. Rue loved nothing more than playing matchmaker.

“Yup. He asked if you might want to go to the movies with him sometime.” Her tone was just a little too casual to be believed.

“Rue,” Hatty began, “She’s not interested.”

“Well, why not?” Rue huffed. “Emma needs to get out more. And he’s such a nice young man.”

Hatty made a gagging noise. “Kiss of death right there. You might as well tell her he has a great personality. Besides, since when does Emma need a man?”
“She doesn’t need one, but maybe she wants one.” Rue sniffed. “And he’s been carrying a torch for Emma since she came here.”

Hatty shut the laptop with a snick. “And doesn’t that strike you as a little odd? Why can’t he sniff around a woman who wants him back and leave our girl alone?”

Rue planted her hands on her substantial hips. “Just because you’re an old sourpuss when it comes to affairs of the heart doesn’t mean Emma’s in the same boat.”

“Well, why don’t you ask Emma?” Hatty snapped in a tone that brooked no nonsense. “Let her decide for herself if she’s interested in the man.”

Two graying heads swung in my direction. I hated it when the sisters fought, especially if it had anything to do with me. “I’m not sure I’m ready to date. Can I think about it?”

“Oh, of course, sweets. No pressure.” Rue was the soul of understanding as she picked up a tea towel and began to dry.

Hatty just smirked and opened her laptop once more.

Rue chatted about the upcoming full moon revel being held two towns over and who she expected would turn up. I finished washing the dishes and then headed out into the store to go through the closing routine. First, I locked the front door. The sign hadn’t worked since the night I’d arrived at Pages & Potions, so there was nothing to flick off. Next, I wiped down the counters and set up the coffee and tea service for the following day. I strode through the bookshelves with a microfiber cloth, eliminating dust and hunting for anything out of place. The children’s section, the room that once upon a time had been a sitting room overlooking the front yard, typically required the most straightening.

I plugged in the vacuum and pushed the ancient thing over the world map rug and then arranged the bean bag chairs and oversized pillows. We had the kindergarten class coming in for story hour the following day, and I wanted everything to be perfect.

After stowing the vacuum, I paused to admire the mural I’d done of the Jolly Roger drifting among the stars on an interior wall, one of the few that wasn’t shingled. If I was proud of anything over the last five years, it was that mural. Would the child I’d given birth to like Peter Pan as much as I did?

My hand covered my scar, right over the ache that throbbed deep inside whenever I thought of my baby. The not knowing chipped away at me day by day. Had my child survived? Somehow, I didn’t think I was supposed to. Who had done that to me? To us?

Frazzled, I turned around to replace a handful of bodice-ripper romances, which definitely didn’t belong in that room and almost walked into him.

Or rather, through him.

“Mother Moon.” A hand flew to my chest as I studied the ghost. Roughly five feet eleven inches tall, with a shock of white hair, he held a cane. His once blue gaze appeared muted, along with his chalky pallor. The intensity that I recalled remained and it fixed on me.

“Emma,” the ghost of Jody Haversham murmured. “I need your help.”

Book 1 My Midlife Magic Daze
Book 2 My Midlife Magic Knight

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