Hex Over Heels: A Witch Cozy Mystery (Fairy Falls Mystery Book 2) Read online

  Four dried bay leaves

  Three tablespoons of muddy puddle water

  One ounce dried lava, ground

  Four drops of melted honeycomb wax

  This was going to be the grossest potion ever.

  My gaze dropped to the instructions below.

  Drop the four bay leaves into the bottom of the cauldron. Add the puddle water, one tablespoon at a time, followed by the ground lava rock. Stir the mixture with a wand seven times counter-clockwise, remove the wand and place it on top of the cauldron, facing north. Tap the wand three times with your left index finger, then remove it.

  “Ok, this doesn’t seem that bad,” I said. “Is there a trick or something that I’m missing?”

  “No,” Victoria replied with a kind smile. “You’re right, it’s not that bad. This is a beginner’s potion, perfect for the inexperienced. Reading those instructions, is there anything you think you need to do before you get started?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I need to find out where north is.” My internal compass seemed to be on the fritz most of the time, and I found it easiest to assume north was whatever direction I was facing at any given moment. Of course, seeing as I was well aware that directions didn’t work that way, I was going to need something a little bit more accurate.

  I pulled out my phone and opened the compass app. Spinning around until I found due north, I placed the phone on the table, with the arrow pointing in the right direction.

  “Good job,” Victoria said with an approving nod. “This is why it’s important that you read through all of the directions before starting on a potion. If you’d skipped that step, you would have gotten to the part about the compass and had to organize yourself then. Doing it ahead of time and being prepared gives you the best chance at not messing up the potion. Now, it’s time to find the ingredients. I can tell you where they are on the shelves, but I think it would be best if you go looking for them yourself. The more you get used to seeing all of the ingredients, the faster you’ll learn where they are.”

  “Cool, I agree,” I said. “Settle in though; this might take a while.”

  I looked over at the shelves where thousands of bottles and boxes of every size, shape, and color sat still, almost as though jeering at me. This was going to take a while.

  “Start on the far right, top shelf,” Scarlett said to me with a wink.

  “Thanks,” I replied, grabbing the list of ingredients and heading in that direction. I felt a little bit awkward peering up onto the shelves since the workers were busy making potions underneath, and I stood back as far as I could while still being able to read the labels on the bottles and boxes.

  I started where Scarlett suggested, on the far right side, top shelf. In front of me was a short, older wizard who turned as he felt my presence and gave me a kindly smile, which I returned. I quickly spotted the box I needed.

  ‘Dried bay leaves’ was written on it in a plain serif text.

  “Excuse me, I’m just going to sneak by you here for a minute,” I said, squeezing past the wizard and grabbing the box.

  “No worries. Good luck with your lesson,” he said to me.

  “Thanks.”

  I held up the box triumphantly and brought it back to the table.

  “Great. Now, no more hints,” Victoria said, glaring at Scarlett. “She has to learn how to find the ingredients on her own.”

  “Fine, fine,” Scarlett replied, a mischievous smile on her face. “You’re on your own, now.”

  I took the list once more and walked behind the workers, my eyes scanning the labels. There were thousands of them; how on earth I was going to manage to find the three ingredients I needed was beyond me. Then, I had an idea.

  The muddy puddle water wouldn’t be in a box; it would be in a bottle since it was liquid. If I could find that next, I’d only have to look at the bottles, and there weren’t nearly as many of those as there were boxes.

  Sure enough, it was a lot easier to just look at the bottles, and after about three or four minutes, I spotted the one I was after. It was right above a witch with wavy brown hair tied back in a ponytail, who pored over her cauldron with so much concentration that I decided to wait a moment before asking her if I could slip in next to her and grab the bottle.

  When she stood up, I decided this was my chance.

  “Excuse me,” I said, sliding in next to her. I was about a foot and a half away from her, there was plenty of space, but she still started as I reached up for the bottle. I grabbed the one labeled ‘muddy puddle water,’ but the witch hit me in the shoulder, and my arm knocked into the bottle next to it. That one fell off the shelf, hitting the edge of the witch’s potion and smashing into a thousand pieces.

  I gasped as whatever had been in that bottle leaked into the potion sitting on the table, and a thick, grey gas began emanating from the cauldron.

  I had no idea what I’d just done, but I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t good.

  CHAPTER 3

  “What is wrong with you?” the witch snapped at me.

  “Sorry,” I said contritely. “I swear, I didn’t mean it. I was just trying to get at that bottle.”

  The grey gas was getting thicker.

  “You were in my way,” the witch replied. “This is a potion house. You have to be more careful.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Shouldn’t you… ummm,” I replied, motioning with my hands toward the gas.

  The witch rolled her eyes, pointed her wand at the gas, muttered a spell, and it disappeared immediately.

  “Thanks for costing me two hours of work.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “I don’t care what you meant to do, it’s your actions that count, and you wrecked my whole morning.”

  “Come on now, Renee,” Victoria said, coming over. “It was an accident. This is Mina, she’s new to Fairy Falls and new to magic. I’m teaching her how to make potions for the first time.”

  “Well, teach her how to stay out of people’s way,” Renee snapped at Victoria this time. Victoria looked hurt, like Renee had just slapped her.

  “Look, I said I was sorry, and I didn’t mean to do it,” I said. I was starting to lose my patience with Renee. I could understand her being upset, but there was no reason to take it out on Victoria.

  “Don’t take that tone with me,” Renee replied. “You screwed up.”

  “Is there a problem here?” a voice asked from behind me. I turned to see Grandma Eva, who had obviously heard the commotion. Her intelligent grey-blue eyes and poised figure reminded me of Meryl Streep.

  “Why are you letting random idiots learn to make potions in here?” Renee asked. “This witch just knocked a vial of indigo water into my potion and completely ruined my whole morning’s work.”

  “That random idiot happens to be my granddaughter and a fellow member of the coven,” Grandma Eva said quietly, and Renee’s eyes widened. She took a step back, her hand flying to her mouth.

  “I didn’t mean… I didn’t…”

  “I understand you’re frustrated because your potion was ruined. That’s a normal reaction. But I would ask that you please do your best to be kind to a witch who has just discovered her powers and is probably feeling a lot more out of her element than you are right now. You’re not in trouble for being behind now. I understand that it wasn’t your fault the potion was ruined.”

  Renee nodded. “Got it. You’re right. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

  Grandma Eva nodded, smiled at Victoria and myself, and then walked back to the computer.

  “Sorry,” Renee said to Victoria. It was a testament to how important following instructions in potion-making was that no one else had even looked up from their cauldrons to see what was going on; the other witches and wizards were all still busy with their own potions.

  “Thank you for the apology,” Victoria said. “Now, Mina, did you get the bottle?”

  I opened my fist, which had been clutching the bottle so tight
ly I was surprised it hadn’t broken as well, and showed it to Victoria.

  “Good,” she said, smiling. “That’s the one.”

  The two of us walked back toward the table, but before I’d taken more than two steps, someone grabbed my arm. It was Renee.

  I didn’t have a chance to react before she had pulled me to her, her lips pressed close to my ear.

  “You stay away from me or I’ll make sure you regret it. I don’t care whose granddaughter you are,” she hissed, before pushing me away.

  I stood stunned for a minute, wondering if that encounter had really just happened or if I’d imagined it, until I heard Scarlett’s voice.

  “Mina? Earth to Mina, are you there?”

  “Right, sorry,” I said, smiling and turning.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Scarlett said, then lowered her voice. “If you want me to curse her, just let me know, and I’ll do it.”

  “No, thanks,” I said, managing a small laugh. I had no doubt that Scarlett was completely serious about her threat. “It’s all good.”

  “She shouldn’t have been so mean to you,” Scarlett said, narrowing her eyes in Renee’s direction as she restarted her potion from scratch.

  “Trust me, it’s fine,” I replied. I didn’t want to rock the boat if I could avoid doing so. I hadn’t liked the threat Renee had launched at me, but I also wanted to handle anything that came of it myself.

  Scarlett shrugged. “Alright, but if you change your mind, just say the word. It’s been a while since I got to use the cool spell that makes a witch’s skin turn into a zebra pattern.”

  I smiled at the mental image but shook my head.

  “Good for you, Mina,” Victoria said. “It’s so easy to fall into the trap of reacting with anger when the truest form of love, and what we should be aspiring to in the coven of Venus, is to offer kindness to the other person. We never know what someone else is going through. It’s possible Renee got some bad news this morning and that she reacted more aggressively than she would have otherwise. Your diffusing of the situation was much more helpful than Scarlett’s suggestion.”

  “Please, Renee’s always been a mean little witch,” Scarlett muttered under her breath so only I could hear, and I bit back a smile.

  “Well, I just didn’t want to make the situation worse than it had to be. Although I do find it funny that the person here who’s not actually a member of the coven of Venus is the one who’s teaching me all this stuff about love,” I said.

  “Self-care is a form of love, and sometimes self-care means cursing the witch who was mean to you. That’s my lesson,” Scarlett said with a shrug, and I laughed.

  “I might not be from the coven of Venus, but I try to espouse the principals of the coven I’ve moved to,” Victoria said. “I like the idea of love being such an integral part of life and using love to improve your own life and that of others.”

  “Victoria’s our favorite adopted witch,” Scarlett said, wrapping an arm around Victoria’s shoulders and taking her into a sort of half hug. Victoria smiled at Scarlett.

  “Thanks, I appreciate it. One of the things I love the most about this coven is how welcoming everyone has been since I arrived.”

  “I have to agree,” I replied. Of course, there was one glaring exception, busily working on her potion not far away, but everyone else I’d encountered in the last few days had been nothing but lovely.

  “Now, how about we get back on task? You still have two items to find on the shelves.”

  “Right,” I said. I nervously walked around between the other witches and wizards still working away, half trying to stay out of the way and half focusing on the boxes. That had to be part of why it took me so long to find ‘lava, ground’ labeled on one of the boxes, especially since I had gone past it at least twice without noticing it.

  Luckily, I found the candles without much trouble, there was a whole pile of them toward the far end, and grabbing a small honeycomb candle was extremely easy.

  “Good,” Victoria said. “Now, time to get to work.”

  I set about following the instructions. The first thing I did was to remove four bay leaves from the box, then Victoria showed me where the weights and measures were. The magical world didn’t use a normal food scale like the kind you buy at the grocery store. No, instead the scales here were all old-fashioned, heavy, and made of brass with small plates on either side for measuring. With each scale came a set of weights of various sizes. I wasn’t sure I’d ever used a scale like this.

  Finding the one ounce weight, I placed it on one side of the scale, and it immediately dropped to that side. I then picked up the box of ground lava rock and carefully, pinch by pinch, added a little bit to the tray on the other side until the two were just about even.

  As I got close to the end, I added the ground bits of lava in small sprinkles. Eventually, the whole scale glowed gold, and I gasped.

  “That means it’s balanced,” Scarlett said. “You’re done.”

  “That’s really cool,” I said, impressed. I took the tray with the ground lava off the scale, and it immediately tipped to the other side once more with the weight of the lava gone, the gold glow disappearing instantly.

  I spent the next few minutes carefully following the instructions. Once I had added the ground lava powder to the cauldron, I lit the wick of the honeycomb candle and held it above the mixture until four drops fell in. Then I placed my wand on the cauldron, facing exactly the way my phone said north was, and tapped it three times.

  As soon as I removed the wand from the edge of the cauldron, the whole mixture changed. I gasped as it transformed from a rather sad-looking muddle of random ingredients to a brilliant orange goo with a similar viscosity to molasses.

  “Perfect,” Victoria said, nodding. “That’s exactly what it’s supposed to look like.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Now, you have to taste it,” Scarlett said. “That’s the way to make sure you’ve done it right.”

  I looked cautiously at the mixture. What was it going to taste like? Honestly, the orange goo didn’t look particularly appetizing. And on top of that, what would happen when I tasted it?

  “What does it do?” I asked. “Am I going to grow a third arm or something?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Victoria said with a laugh. “This potion is designed to give you the singing voice of an angel for about five minutes.”

  “There was a big scandal about fifty years ago,” Scarlett said. “A witch went to the human world and became famous for her incredible voice, only it turned out she was making this potion every day and just before she had to sing she would take a swig of it. She was a big star for about six months before she was found out and brought back to the paranormal world and charged with misuse of magic in the human world.”

  “That’s a crime?”

  “Oh yeah, if you do it obviously enough. And becoming famous on the back of a potion that turns you into the best singer ever certainly counts as being obvious about it.”

  “Well, there goes my backup career plan,” I joked. “Alright, let’s do it. You’re sure it’s safe to drink?”

  “I watched you every step of the way. You did everything correctly, and the potion looks the way it should,” Victoria said, nodding. “You’re going to be fine.”

  I grabbed a spoon from the shelf beneath the table and carefully dipped it into the mixture. Sure enough, it was thick. I brought the spoonful up to my nose, but the potion didn’t have an odor. I supposed that could have been a good or bad thing.

  Taking a deep breath, I plunged the spoon into my mouth and swallowed as fast as I could, hoping that if it was disgusting, I’d have to taste as little of the mixture as possible. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it tasted a little bit like orange pekoe tea with a light citrus overtone.

  “Not bad, actually,” I said when I removed the spoon.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll warn you before you have to drink the rea
lly disgusting ones,” Victoria said with a breezy laugh. “Most of the easiest potions taste pretty good. Now go on, try singing for us.”

  I looked around nervously. I had never been that outgoing person who always put their hand up for karaoke, instead I’d always been the kind of person who put their head down and worked hard, never looking for attention.

  “What should I sing?” I asked, and Victoria shrugged.

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Look,” Scarlett said. “You’re going to be singing better than you ever have in your life. Choose your favorite song, the one you always want to belt out but are too embarrassed to because it’s too hard and you think you sound terrible. I guarantee it’ll be amazing.”

  I thought about it for a moment then settled on a song. It was either going to be the greatest moment of my life or the most embarrassing, but I figured I might as well go for it.

  “And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII will always love you,” I belted, and Victoria and Scarlett both looked stunned. Even my eyes widened at the perfect pitch that escaped my lips. I wasn’t a bad singer, sure, but I also never had any training, and I certainly wasn’t Whitney Houston. And yet, there I was, hitting what was known to be one of the hardest chorus lines ever like it was nothing.

  I stopped and laughed. “Ok, the potion works.”

  “No kidding,” Scarlett said. “That was amazing.”

  “See?” Victoria said. “I told you, you did it perfectly.”

  I smiled shyly. I had done it well. Maybe I was eventually going to be a decent witch after all, despite my late start in life.

  CHAPTER 4

  I spent another two hours with Victoria and Scarlett, and made another two potions, before watching as Victoria made a much more advanced potion that made me realize just how far I had to go skill-wise before I’d catch up to her.

  My potions were designed to get rid of pimples – which was nice as I had a small zit forming on my chin that I was pleased to see disappear – and to automatically paint my fingernails a beautiful Tiffany blue color. Both worked perfectly, as did Victoria’s potion, designed to turn a person’s skin into rainbow scales.