Karma's Shift (Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow Book 2) - Lacey Andersen (black female authors .TXT) 📗

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Carol said as she sat on one of the wingback chairs that surrounded the coffee table.

The teapot poured itself into a cup and saucer that had set themselves up together and the sugar bowl and milk jug went waddling over to the cup. Carol picked up two sugar cubes and dropped them into the steaming liquid before adding a splash of milk. The steam that rose after that formed a heart shape and she smiled down at it before looking back up at us.

I was pretty sure my jaw was hanging open.

Birds chirping drew my attention away from my friend for a moment and though I saw them, they weren’t what I expected. All kinds of finches, sparrows, and bluebirds hopped around, but they were inside the wallpaper. The trees were obviously painted or illustrated somehow but the birds looked completely lifelike. It made me rethink that short story about yellow wallpaper I’d read in my English Lit class.

Khat opened a door to a sitting room and the coffee table and wingback chair holding Carol began to shuffle into the room both with a surprisingly graceful gate that didn’t spill a drop of tea from the pot or Carol’s cup. I wanted to ask if I’d accidentally taken drugs before we came over, that was how bizarre it all was, but when Carol grinned knowingly at me, seeming perfectly at ease being carried by her chair as she went by sipping on her tea, I knew I was stone-cold sober.

Once we had followed Carol and Khat in, I could see that the sitting room had no birds in the wallpaper and no tiny doorways for anything to come in or go out. In fact, the only way into and out of the room was the door we’d all just filed through, which, for some reason, made me uneasy. “Now,” Khat said. “What can we do for you?”

“We need some help, if possible,” Carol said. I’d noticed that she sort of took the lead with the witches, whereas Deva was quiet, and Beth was practically nonexistent at my side, which was unusual for her. I reached out and clasped her hand in my own, giving it a squeeze of support and encouragement as Carol said, “We need to find out if there was any major magic done on a specific night.”

Khat flicked her finger and the teapot poured tea for the rest of us as we all sat down in the chairs that were already in the room. I’m not going to lie though, the idea that the chair under me could come to life had me perching on the very edge, ready to jump up at any second.

Hildy pushed her curly hair out of her eyes. “Well, it’s doable.” She and Khat exchanged a look, but I had no idea what it meant.

Khat arched an eyebrow at us and said, “But you’d better be prepared for whatever we find.” I knew that they meant to be kind with their warning, but we weren’t exactly in a place where we could rethink things. We needed answers, and if they had a way of providing them then I’d take whatever the consequences were.

Apparently, we all felt the same because we all nodded in unison. “We just need to get to the bottom of all this,” Deva said, glancing worriedly at Beth who was barely even looking up from her cup of tea. There had been no steam heart for her, or me for that matter. I wondered what it meant, probably nothing, just the teapot being weird, I mean the thing could walk and act on its own so who knew what the steam might do.

“Finish your tea,” Khat said, her eyes gentle, but her mouth drawn into a thin line. “And then, we begin.”

Begin? How exactly would we find the answers we sought?

I had a feeling things were about to get even weirder.

14

Emma

“Come on,” Carol said, smiling at me. “I think you’re in for a treat.”

We all stood and walked away from the tea, which had been delicious, with my curiosity piqued. “What kind of treat?” Part of me hoped it was food. All the intensity I’d been feeling when it came to visiting the witches and being by Beth’s side and protecting her was giving me a serious case of stress snacking. The problem was I had nothing to snack on. At this point I’d even take those crackers that my mom used to give me when I was sick that were basically cardboard with some salt on them.

Deva turned and grinned at me, her eyes twinkling. “I know for a fact there’s no way you’ve ever done this before.”

“What?” For some reason, they all seem a little too pleased with themselves for my liking.

“Fly,” she said, softly. If someone had hit me with a feather at that moment, they probably could have knocked me over.

Fly? As in they plan to make us all sprout wings? Or were we being turned into birds? I swear I read a book once where they were turned into birds and flew to the south pole. I really didn’t want to have to fly all the way to the south pole, or the north pole. No matter where we were going, I was pretty sure I’d prefer to take a car. Not that I would say that in front of the strange witches. Who knew what could piss them off?

I realized that they were all leaving without me, while I stood in stunned silence, and hurried to catch up to the group as they walked through the foyer again and across the house. I managed to catch up to them in the kitchen. “Um, flying?” I finally managed weakly.

Beth laughed and grabbed my hand. “Come on!” It was the first time I’d really seen her look happy in the last twenty-four hours, especially since we’d come to see