Excerpt

Chapter One

"Are you sure you didn't send this to me? Or arrange for it to be delivered?" AJ said on the phone to her younger sister Bea, while holding the latest Valentine's Day card she'd received in her hand.

Bea gave an exasperated snort. "Why would I go to such trouble?"

"I don't know," AJ said, putting the card on her kitchen table, along with the other half-dozen she'd received so far.

That day was Friday the seventh, and she'd received one Valentine every day since the start of February. They were kids Valentine's Day cards, with cartoon characters saying corny things, such as a bee with a honey-dripping heart that said, "Bee Mine?", or a bear with an overflowing bucket of strawberries that said, "I can't berry to be without you!"

None of them were signed. They didn't come through the mail, either. Someone wedged them into the edge of her front door, as there wasn't a gap under the door. Sometimes they'd been soaked with the rain.

They didn't seem ominous or threatening. Just weird.

Okay, maybe a little creepy. But that was just because they were anonymous. The cards themselves weren't suggestive in the least.

"Maybe you did it because you thought I'd be lonely, or something," AJ continued. She looked out the kitchen windows into her back yard. The day had been gray and blustery. Night had already fallen and the rain would start slashing down soon. She hadn't gone into her yard and practiced her water magic in the fountain for a while—the weather had just been yucky.

She had had many opportunities to practice making water flow away from her, magically drying herself off after being caught in a deluge. Or three.

"Don't you have a date with Roland on Valentine's Day?" Bea said.

"Yeah," AJ said. Roland was the unofficial historian of Milltown. Since that wasn't a paying position, he had his own lawn and garden care business. Winters were his "off" season, so he'd had a lot of time on his hands to do research, write papers, and work for the historical society.

AJ and Roland been dancing around each other for a few months now. He'd lied to her soon after she'd first met him, and it had taken some time for her to trust him again. He'd been completely honest since then, and there had been a growing attraction between them.

They'd met for coffee or tea some afternoons, spent time talking about everything and nothing. It was finally time to see if there might be something else there.

Hence, dinner. Valentine's Day night. Roland had made reservations at one of the nicer restaurants the next town over, up the coast.

"Since you're already set up for the big event, why would I need to take pity on you?" Bea said. Though AJ considered herself the practical sister, and Bea was merely an artist, Bea still had a good point.

It was AJ's turn to sigh. "Because you're my bratty younger sister and would like to play a trick on me?"

"Fair enough," Bea said. "But again, I wouldn't do something as elaborate as this. Do you think Roland's behind it?"

"Ugh. I hope not," AJ said fervently. "'Cause if he is, we're not really suited for each other." Seriously, the thought of Roland being behind the cards was so off-putting to her.

"Have you asked him?" Bea asked pointedly. "You know, used your words like an adult?"

AJ rolled her eyes. "I will ask him," she promised. "I just wanted to ask you first."

"All right, I'll give you that. Of course, you'd think I was that brilliant," Bea said, sounding smug.

AJ fought back the urge to smack her sister, even though she was miles away.

"But you have no clue who it is? No vision to show you the culprit?" Bea continued.

"No," AJ said.

"Did you actually try having a vision about it?" Bea said determinedly.

"I did. Kind of." AJ picked up her soothing peppermint tea and headed back into the rest of her house. She thought of the kitchen and upstairs as the "private" areas of her house, the ones that were truly hers. The front entranceway, the round tower, and the large sitting room where she did her tarot card readings were the public places, those sections she shared with her clients.

Normally in the evening, she'd finish eating dinner, make her tea, then head upstairs to either the study or her bedroom. Tonight, she decided to go to her reading room and see if maybe she could get another vision.

She didn't feel the urge to go and sit in front of her scrying bowl. But she wasn't repulsed by the idea either. So maybe something would happen.

"It's probably good that you aren't having a vision about the cards you're receiving, though, right? Means they aren't dangerous?" Bea said.

"There is that," AJ said. Most of the visions she'd had so far had been about bad things that were going to occur. "Though you do know that mostly I see the future, not the past."

"So ask about who is giving you tomorrow's card, then," Bea said.

"That's a good idea," AJ said.

"See? I do have them, now and again."

AJ couldn't help but roll her eyes, even though Bea couldn't see her. "Do you and Peter have plans for Valentine's Day?"

"You don't want to know," Bea teased.

"You're right. There isn't enough brain bleach in the world for that kind of thing," AJ said, shuddering. She didn't need to think about her little sister and her adoring husband or any of the kinks they may have.

Bea just laughed. "And while I want all the details of your date with Roland, I don't want all of them."

"Deal," AJ said. Though she doubted anything like that would be happening. It was much too soon.

Even though she had been thinking about how soft Roland's beard looked, and how it might feel against her skin…

"You do know that if you were going to be alone and miserable, Peter and I would make a trip down to see you, right?"

"I know. Thank you," AJ said. Though she'd never been that close to her sister while they'd been growing up, they'd spent much of the past summer together, sharing the vacation house that Bea owned, and had figured out how to be friends.

"Mom's been making noise about coming down with me some weekend," Bea warned.

"She's made the same sorts of comments to me. I'll believe it after she's been here for an hour," AJ said. Their mother was urbane and sophisticated, and unlikely to be impressed with the sleepy little coastal town of Milltown, where AJ now lived.

It wasn't the town that kept AJ there, though she'd made more friends over the past nine months than all her years living in Seattle.

It was the ocean.

All she had to do was walk out her front door and she was on the beach. She could lose herself for hours sitting on the cold sand, being buffeted by the wind, smelling the salty air, watching the waves. She'd bought herself a wetsuit so she could go swimming. Since she'd come into her magic—an actual gift of menopause—she was unafraid of the strength of the waves or the undertow. She was still careful, but being fully submersed in water whenever she wanted to would keep her there in Milltown for a long, long time.

"How's the inn?" Bea asked.

"Payne is planning a big Valentine's dinner," AJ said as she pulled open the sliding barn door to her reading room. "We've had a couple of go-rounds about the menu."

Payne Thomas was the cook and general handyman at the Bridgewater Inn, where AJ still worked as a manager three-quarter time. He was a dedicated vegan, the most beautiful man AJ had ever seen, and he still gave her the willies when he started fervently talking about food.

He just had crazy eyes. Possibly from his time in jail, after his conviction for involuntary manslaughter and illegal drug use.

Unfortunately, despite cooking for years now, Payne just didn't have a good palate, or the ability to develop meals that the average person would like.

"Good luck with that," Bea said. "I'm surprised that you were able to get out of eating there with Roland."

"I claimed that Roland had already made the reservations and I couldn't back out," AJ said. Though in fact, she and Roland had only been talking about it, and no reservations had been made at that point.

AJ sat down at the beautiful carved oak table that the original owner of the house had left behind. On one side sat AJ's scrying bowl, a large glass bowl with swirls of blue and green spiraling up the sides. A collection of beautiful agates sat on a white dish beside the bowl, things she could use to disrupt a vision. For Christmas, Bea had given her a graceful pitcher from carved glass, that AJ kept filled with water for her visions. Though she didn't consciously clean or change the water, it was always fresh.

A whitish ball made of selenite crystal, about the size of two fists, sat on the other side of the table. Willow, a person who worked at the inn and who fancied herself a witch despite her lack of actual power, had recommended AJ get it to help cleanse her spiritual space.

AJ had never had any sense that the ball was magical or did anything. Still, her clients appreciated it, and it added to the general ambiance of the room, which for the most part, was soothingly modern, with blue-green painted walls, white sea-shell sconces, and the large window overlooking the ocean.

"So how's your competition?" Bea asked next.

"She's not my competition," AJ said sharply. "She isn't even a psychic."

At the start of the year, a young woman named Carla Lowenstein had moved to Milltown and set herself up as a psychic. She had a shop right on Main Street, on the second floor of the McAuley building, above the saltwater taffy and sweets shop.

AJ had reached out a friendly hand, attending Carla's opening weekend, offering to put some of Carla's cards in the entranceway of her business if Carla would do the same for her.

Despite her old-fashioned sounding name, Carla was quite young, not even twenty-five. She was tall and blonde, with beautiful blue eyes that never lost their calculating edge and a smile that always had a bite to it.

Carla had agreed, but another client of AJ's had reported that not only had Carla made fun of AJ seeking to "help," she'd watched Carla throw the cards in the trash. After that, Carla had gone out of her way to make life unpleasant for AJ, calling her a fake and trying to steal her clients. She made snide comments about "other psychics" on the Milltown app—a discussion forum set up just for locals.

AJ wasn't worried. Though she had yet to develop Ursula's sense of who had magic and who didn't, she honestly didn't think Carla was special in any way.

Carla was a better con artist than most, and so had managed to draw in some people, even though it was still the off-season.

Come summer, AJ might have a worry, as Carla had a better location than AJ did to draw in tourists. For now, AJ had decided not to let it bother her.

"Have you heard about Carla's ghost box?" Bea said, being bratty. "Old Agnes swears that it let her talk with her grandmother."

AJ snorted with derision, though she did have a momentary stab of worry, as Agnes was one of her own most faithful clients.

"It's a fake," AJ declared. As far as she could tell, and Ursula, her mentor, confirmed, most ghosts passed out of the present and went someplace else. Only when they had unresolved trauma did they stay on.

Like Gladys, the ghost who haunted the Bridgewater Inn. Though AJ had finally had a vision and had been able to tell Gladys how she'd been killed, the ghost had stayed on, still demanding attention from AJ and everyone else, like a needy cat.

However, AJ felt as though the ghost's presence had grown less strong. When she visited AJ, the temperature in the office barely dropped. Would Gladys move on one of these days? AJ wasn't sure.

In the meanwhile, everyone at the inn still made sure that no loose papers were stacked in the lobby or Gladys would scatter them everywhere.

"Are you sure her ghost box isn't real? That it isn't her way of connecting to the spirit world, like you use your scrying bowl?" Bea asked.

"Pretty sure," AJ said. "You've met Carla. Does she seem to be on the up-and-up to you?"

"All right. She is a little shifty. She's also young. And very pretty," Bea teased.

"Being pretty and young doesn't make you more talented," AJ said dryly. Sure, she was older now, forty-two and already peri- if not post-menopausal. She was still mostly skinny (old-woman menopausal-belly be damned), had more than just a few gray flecks in her dark brown hair, and age spots starting to dot the backs of her hands.

"Sure," Bea said, the sarcasm evident. "Uh-huh."

AJ shook her head but didn't rise to the bait. She might always be older than Bea, but that didn't make her ancient, no matter what her younger bratty sister implied on a regular basis.

After a moment's pause, AJ told Bea, "I'm going to see if I can manage a vision, to see if I can figure out who's sending me these Valentine's Day cards."

"Or you could wait until the fourteenth. They'll probably reveal themselves to you then," Bea pointed out.

"Yeah, no," AJ said. "Not patient enough for that."

"Okay. Text me if you learn something," Bea said. "Talk with you next week. Bye."

AJ swiped her phone off, then turned the sound all the way down. She didn't want to be disturbed if she did end up having a vision.

She looked around her peaceful room, enjoying the beauty of it, listening to the waves outside, the mostly quiet night. The rain had just started, a soft patter on the windows.

She didn't want to try to force herself to have a vision. Pushing her powers generally resulted in a Grade A migraine. However, she felt something of a fraud by not being able to figure who was sending her those cards.

"Okay. Here goes nothing," she said, reaching for the water pitcher and filling her scrying bowl. "Let's begin."