Once Upon a Curse: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Which Village Book 2) Read online

  Once Upon a Curse

  L.C. Mortimer

  Copyright © 2020 by L.C. Mortimer

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Once upon a curse...

  My mom is dead, and I miss her. I only planned to come to Which Village as a way to deal with her estate, but when I arrived, I found more questions than answers.

  Now, I'm coming into my witchly powers, and I'm not ready to leave.

  Besides, I still don't know if my husband is alive.

  I still don't know what secrets the town holds.

  I still don't know what it's going to take to be able to unravel the mysteries surrounding my mother's life.

  But I'm going to try.

  Once Upon a Curse is the second book in the WHICH VILLAGE series. This book features female main characters who are middle-aged (or fast approaching it) and who have magical powers.

  For Lynn

  Who showed me that it’s never too late to become who I want to be.

  Chapter 1

  Jaden

  "It’s a pie,” Fiona said, holding out what looked like the sloppiest, messiest apple pie I’d ever seen in my life.

  I stared at the crumbling bits of pie crust warily. Was that a pie? I didn’t want to be cruel when it came to her baking prowess, but I wasn’t so sure that I’d call it a pie.

  It was an attempt at a pie, sure, but I wouldn’t really call it a dessert. At least, it was unlike anything I’d ever seen, and I’d been to quite a few potlucks in my life.

  “Thank you,” I said, graciously accepting the monstrosity of a dish. What had Fiona done to it? “Did you use a family recipe?”

  “I found one online,” she said, pushing her wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose.

  “You did?”

  I didn’t even know that Fiona liked to use the Internet. I didn’t even know that she had a computer, to be honest. Fiona was the type of witch who didn’t like to ask for help. She was one of the neighborhood busybodies, and since I’d chosen to rebuild my late mother’s house directly next door to Fiona’s place, we were going to be neighbors for a good long while.

  “I did,” she said. “I even watched a video.”

  Fiona seemed so proud of her pie that I couldn’t force myself to tell her it was the worst thing I’d ever seen. I also couldn’t tell her that she was supposed to peel the apples before baking them. It was her first try, after all. Still, I couldn’t help but be a little curious about this video guide she’d seen.

  Before I could ask her about it, though, Fiona waved and started to walk away.

  “Have a good day, neighbor. Enjoy the pie!” Fiona scurried back over to her place, which was just next door.

  “Thank you!”

  I stared at the pie for a moment before I turned and headed back inside my new house. It was kind of her to think of me, but I worried the pie was inedible. The problem with witches was that they were used to performing a simple spell and just whipping up the meal they wanted to enjoy.

  Actually baking something tasty took a lot of work. It was harder than most people ever could have imagined, and it was trickier than most people anticipated. I remembered baking with my mom when I was a kid. She’d always let me lick the spoon when we were done making cookie batter, but I always had to promise not to get sick.

  It was a sweet memory that came rushing back to me all at once, and when I carried the apple pie into my kitchen, I set it down in the center of my table. Then I sat down and stared at it.

  I was going to do it.

  I was going to try Fiona’s pie.

  I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t about to be rude. She’d worked so very hard on creating this lovely dish just for me that I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least give it a chance.

  Wasn’t that one of the problems I had?

  People had judged me before they’d gotten to know me so many different times. Life in Which Village hadn’t been easy or simple for me on any level.

  I’d come to the village because I wanted to close up my mom’s estate after she passed away, but I’d fallen in love with the quiet paranormal village. It was the kind of place I could see myself growing old, and it was the kind of place I could see myself enjoying for a long time.

  When my husband and I had traveled around the world, we’d never really found anywhere to settle. Even the places we’d stayed for a year or two had never felt like home. Now that Stanley was gone, the world felt even less “homey” than I thought possible.

  Stanley had always been the kind of person who could ground me. He could make me feel like I was going to be okay. No matter what I was going through, I was always very aware of the fact that I was safe with him.

  He was my protector.

  Now he was gone, and I was left sitting in an empty house with a sloppy apple pie.

  I picked up a fork that was sitting on the table. I hadn’t done my breakfast dishes yet. Then I dipped it into the pie and took a bite. I closed my eyes as the magic of the pie took hold.

  Yeah, Fiona had not baked this pie on her own.

  It was, quite possibly, the best apple pie I’d ever eaten in my life. I wondered what kind of spell she’d cast on it before bringing it over that would make it taste like this.

  No matter what was happening, it felt like magic to me.

  It felt like happiness.

  I closed my eyes and just wished Stanley was here to share it with me.

  Chapter 2

  Jaden

  “Jaden, I wasn’t expecting you,” Eliza looked up at me when I walked into her office the Monday morning after moving into my new home. I was exhausted from buying furniture and unpacking boxes. Although my mother’s belongings had burned up in a fire, and despite the fact that I had only arrived at Which Village with a car full of personal possessions, it turned out that witches were a generous sort.

  The people I’d met while waiting for my house to be built had loaded me up with extra clothes, unwanted dishes, and rag-tag furniture they no longer needed, but were certain I’d like.

  The truth was that I appreciated the gesture. It wasn’t easy trying to start a new life in a new place. Having people who not only believed in me, but who believed in helping me, was pretty incredible.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t make an appointment,” I told the mayor, taking a seat in front of her desk. I was nervous to see Eliza. Although I’d gotten to know her pretty well since I first moved to Which Village, including living with her for a time, she still had the air and elegance of a mature witch who knew what she was doing.

  Eliza was everything I was not. I’d only started coming into my magic on my 35th birthday. Now, at nearly 36, I was still struggling to make sense of it all. My spells had gotten better and stronger, and most of the time, I was able to do a lot on my own.

  Sometimes, though, it was helpful to utilize the experience of stronger, cleverer witches.

  That was where Eliza came in.

  “It’s just fine,” I told her.

  “Settling in okay?”

  “I am.”

  “Bet it’s nice to be out of the hotel,” Eliza added gently.

  “You have no idea.”

  Living at a motel had been a fine choice short-term, but after a couple of months, it began to feel like the walls around me were closing in on me. I found that the longer I stayed at the little Which Vi
llage Inn, the more I wanted to be outdoors.

  I’d taken to hiking, exploring the city, and spending as much time in the forests as I could.

  Now that I had my own space, that feeling of claustrophobia had gone and it was replaced with something else.

  Urgency.

  “I know you didn’t come here today to talk about your house,” Eliza said, looking at me. “So, why are you here?”

  “Can’t an old friend visit a different old friend?”

  “I don’t appreciate being called old, Jaden. You know this.”

  Yes, I knew it. I knew a lot of things about Eliza. I knew that she’d loved my mother. I knew that the two of them had been inseparable. I knew that no matter what happened to me, Eliza would stay loyal to my mother’s memory by taking care of me.

  Out of everyone I knew in Which Village, Eliza was the one person who would never betray me.

  She’d stay by my side no matter what.

  I could trust her.

  “I need to find him,” I told her.

  “We’ve been over this, Jaden,” Eliza sighed.

  She didn’t seem nearly as excited about the prospect of finding my husband and I was. Part of it was because Eliza wasn’t entirely sure that we could find him.

  “I’ve spent the last year working on my mother’s research,” I told her. “We could finish it. We could do it.”

  “The time isn’t right,” Eliza said. “The festival is coming up next week. Can it wait until after that?”

  The Which Village Brew Fest was something Eliza had been working on all year. This was going to be the first annual event, and it was going to be incredible. She’d arranged for witches and wizards across the globe to come to our little town.

  Eliza said the event was designed to give people something to look forward to, but I was pretty sure there was more to it than that. Eliza had been worried about the town’s finances. Which Village really was a small place to live, and there weren’t too many different revenue streams for people.

  When Eliza had unexpectedly taken over the former mayor’s position, she had been surprised to discover that the town wasn’t exactly doing as well financially as it should have been.

  Rather than despair or panic, she’d come up with several different ways to produce money for the town. The festival was her first attempt at revitalizing everything that Which Village stood for.

  Although the previous mayor, Helena, had secretly tried to bring in werewolf-hunting tourists, it hadn’t exactly made the town any sort of cash. The festival would. There would be competitions and prizes and booths. There would be sales and visitors and specials.

  There would be everything.

  It was also taking up all of Eliza’s time.

  “I don’t think it can wait much longer,” I told her.

  “Just until after the festival,” Eliza said. She didn’t tell me that she was nervous about money or that she didn’t think everything was going to go seamlessly. I thought it would. I thought that for sure everything would go really, really well.

  I wanted to argue with her, but I could tell from the look on her face that there wasn’t really a point.

  Eliza was nothing if not stubborn.

  She was also a very, very busy woman.

  “Of course,” I said. “After the festival.”

  “After the festival.”

  Chapter 3

  Jaden

  There was no way at all that I was going to wait until after the festival. Stanley needed me. I needed him, too, and I’d already spent so much time searching for him that I couldn’t wait any longer.

  It had been a year.

  A year, and I’d been practicing my magic. I’d been researching. I’d been learning everything there was to learn about werewolves and shapeshifters and witches in general. I’d even signed up to take some classes with the coven.

  Although the former leader, Helena, was dead, there was a new coven leader who seemed to know what she was doing. Melanie was tall, lanky, and beautiful. She was also one of the oldest witches living in Which Village.

  She’d spent a lot of time with me teaching me new and interesting spells, but none of them had managed to help me decipher exactly what it was that I needed to do in order to understand the rest of my mom’s notes or how to finish her werewolf-saving spell.

  My husband also hadn’t made himself appear to me since the night he’d killed Helena.

  Apparently, she had been the one holding the curse over the full moon. I knew that people in Which Village didn’t like werewolves, but hexing their own moon seemed a bit crazy. Still, when she died, the curse was lifted, so the moon had returned to normal.

  That meant there was no longer a full moon every night, and if Stanley had wanted to go somewhere else, he very well may have.

  I didn’t think so, though.

  I thought he was still lurking, still waiting for me.

  I thought he was still holding out hope that everything was going to be just fine. He had to. He had to believe.

  I had to believe.

  When I left Eliza’s office, I headed straight to the library and went up to the second floor. I found a quiet corner where nobody was going to bother me, and I started flipping through the pages of my own notebook.

  “Lavender…lilies…lunar spells…”

  I found the page I’d been working on yesterday, and then I started writing out all of my ideas. I had quite a few. I dove right into writing and spilling my guts on paper when I heard someone clearing their throat.

  “Excuse me.”

  I looked up to see Patricia Rubies, the head librarian, looking at me. Over the past year, the two of us had developed a sort of friendship that was really starting to grow on me. She was easy to talk to, and she was kind. She was funny and interesting.

  She was smart, too, and she’d heard a lot of my stories.

  “Oh, hi, Patricia. Closing time?”

  “I’m afraid so,” she tapped her wrist gently, indicating an invisible watch. “You know if I could let you stay later, I would.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” I said, getting up. I stretched, feeling slightly stiff after sitting still for so long in the library. “It’s so easy to lose track of time here.”

  “You’re telling me,” Patricia smiled knowingly. She’d been a librarian for many, many years. I had a hunch that she probably had read close to all of the titles the library had available.

  “What are you doing this week?” I asked, gathering my things. I knew that Patricia would walk me out to my car. I was most likely the last patron of the day. That had happened a few times before. Luckily, she never really seemed to mind.

  “Nothing special.”

  “Is the library doing anything for the brew fest?”

  “Oh, the festival the mayor is organizing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We are,” she said. “Actually, it’s pretty fantastic.”

  Together, the two of us headed down the stairs to the first floor. I walked with Patricia as she guided me toward the front door, and then I waited as she flipped off the lights and locked up.

  “Tell me about it,” I said once we were in the parking lot. We headed toward her car first. We’d shared this walk many times before, and we had a sort of routine going.

  “We’re going to have tables with miniature books available. Each one is going to teach the reader a special charm.”

  “Really?”

  “Just simple spells and such. Children’s magic, really.”

  “That actually sounds pretty cool. What else?”

  “We’ll have magical readings,” she said, continuing. “I’ll read a story, but I’ll use a spell to change my voice as I read.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, have you ever read a story, but wished that the voices sounded more authentic than what you imagine them to sound like?”

  Only all of the time.

  “Yeah, that’s happened to me before,” I told
her.

  “Well, with this spell I developed, as I read, I can take on different voices.”

  “So you can imitate other people?”

  “Basically, yes. I can’t imitate people normally. I can’t come up with things for people to say. This spell, though, if I’m reading something that’s been written down, I’ll naturally be able to use the right voices.”

  “Wow,” I was surprised. “That sounds…really amazing, actually.”

  “It’s really amazing,” she agreed. “Hopefully other people will like the idea, too, though.”

  I knew what she meant. Magic, although wonderful, was a very personal thing. Nobody wanted to try using a spell or sharing a special hex with other people and have them be judgmental about it.

  That would kind of ruin the…specialness.

  Wouldn’t it?

  “I think they’re going to love it. You need to watch out, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Because people are going to want to steal your spell. It sounds amazing.”

  Chapter 4

  Jaden

  I couldn’t fall asleep.

  I tossed and turned for hours before I finally gave up and settled at the kitchen table to keep reading. It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t sleep, but I wasn’t going to charm myself into falling asleep.

  That was the kind of spell witches had to watch out for. If you charmed yourself too much, you might not want to stop. Addiction was real, even in the magical world. I would be happy to avoid that.

  I pulled open my notebook and started writing and reading.

  Again.

  It seemed like the millionth time.

  “Stanley, where are you?”

  That was the question that was burning in the back of my mind. Why hadn’t I seen my husband in so long? Why hadn’t he come back?

  He’d been working with my mom to try to find a cure for his werewolf-itis, but I had a feeling that the answers to the questions I was asking were complicated.