A Witching Well of Magic: A Cozy Mystery (Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 2) by Constance Barker Read Free Book Online

grinding coffee for the following day. There were only a few customers sitting at the small tables outside on the wrap around porch of the little dutch style house, sipping coffee and chatting quietly in the last hours before night.
    Bailey smiled at the women as she came in. “Hello, ladies.”
    “ Ah,” Francis said, looking up from a bucket of coffee beans, “there she is. How did it go?”
    Chloe and Aria looked up expectantly as well.
    “ I’m starting tomorrow,” Bailey said, letting some of her excitement show. It masked the little bit of nervousness she felt about what she was planning. It wasn’t stealing—not really. She was part of the Coven now, initiated and everything; if anything it was borrowing temporarily.
    Chloe gave a high pitch, short hoot of victory, and came around the end of the counter to hug Bailey. It was tight, and fierce, as Chloe’s hugs always were. “I’m so proud of you!”
    “ I didn’t have to do very much to get it,” Bailey said as Chloe let her go. “But I did meet Aiden—the new owner—and I think Rita was right about him. He’s a slick one.”
    “ Handsome, I hear,” Aria said.
    “ Aria thinks all the boys are handsome,” Francis countered.
    Chloe pursed her lips at both the other women, then turned back to Bailey. “Your verdict?”
    Bailey only shrugged a little. “I mean… I suppose, in a certain light… he’s a little attractive.”
    “ I’ll take that to mean he’s devastatingly handsome,” Aria giggled.
    With a sigh, Bailey and Chloe shared an exasperated look. Aria seemed to want nothing so much as to set Bailey up with someone. She had her own ideas about what made for a good husband—not boyfriend, or interested party; Aria always jumped straight to marriage. Francis said it was because she never did, and always wanted to. Chloe was the only one who’d ever nearly married anyone, and that was a long time ago—and something she didn’t normally like to talk about.
    Bailey, however, was not here for advice on dating her new boss. “I’m headed upstairs to practice with the candle a little more,” she told them, making her way toward the back room and the stairs up to the attic.
    “ I’m almost done,” Chloe said. “Want me to come work with you?”
    “ No,” Bailey said easily, thinking quickly, “I think I almost got it before, and I was alone. I want to try and work it out myself. But,” she added after a pause, “I might ask you to help me if I can’t get it going again.”
    “ Some witches work better alone,” Francis said, pointedly. Chloe and Aria both were good at what they called ‘group casting’, but Francis’ style, or energy, or character or something tended to be solitary in nature. It took her an extra measure of effort to synchronize her will with anyone else’s. That probably accounted for why she’d never settled down with anyone. For Aria, no one was right enough; for Francis, it was just too much of a bother. She wondered why Chloe never had. Of the three, she was decidedly the prettiest, and her kindness was of a different quality than Aria’s giddy, optimistic sweetness. It was soft, warm, gentle.
    “ This morning,” Bailey said as she hung at the door to the back room, “I got it to smoke a little. I’m feeling particularly lucky at the moment. We’ll see!” She waved to them as they let her go, and she ascended the stairs to the attic quickly.
    She did intend to do some work on the spell, but in the event that one of the ladies came up the stairs she went straight to the wide, deep wooden chest at the far end of the room.
    It was never locked—spells set on the attic kept anyone who didn’t belong here out—so she opened it, and pushed aside folded robes and small boxes of spell ingredients to fish out the bundled book, wrapped and tied with leather and twine.
    The Arcanum, as Francis called it—Aria called it a Book of Shadows but Francis thought that was over-dramatic new-age nonsense—was