On Sunday, I had Salinger over for blueberry pancakes and bacon. June was getting Hattie so we had the place to ourselves.

He was delighted.

After he had eaten four pancakes and almost all the bacon I cooked, he started talking. “Have you seen Pearl?”

Taking my teacup in hand, I nodded.

“She looks great, huh?”

“Yup. If you want to change your target to her, I wouldn't mind,” I said dully.

“Why would I do that? All I said was that she looks great. Did it make you jealous?”

“No.”

“Then what's going on?”

“My goal for Pearl was to get her to stop wearing stripes. I was going to help her pick a color that was right for her. I think I was thinking navy all this time, to offset her eyes. She went and chose it without me.”

“And you're bummed?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “That was my lifelong goal for her. Now it's done and I wasn't any use to her at all.”

“So, come up with a new goal for her,” Salinger suggested.

“No. I haven't got the energy. She has been so hard to help with the one goal, I thought she wouldn't stop wearing stripes before she turned thirty.” I shook my head and came out of my reverie. “How is your book coming?”

“I have made pretty good progress for one week, provided I don't need to go back and undo my work.”

I chuckled. “You don't knit, do you?”

“No. Why?”

“I knit. You almost always need to go back and redo some of your work. There are a lot of things that can go wrong. I would be surprised if it was different when writing a spell book.”

“Well,” he started saying when he was interrupted.

Someone was coming through the back doors. June was back, but she wasn't the first person to enter.

To understand the magnitude of the moment, a person must understand who June was. She was a tall, athletic woman who had spent many years studying ballet. Regardless of her age (which was in the neighborhood of fifty), she had silver hair and enormous brown eyes. Her hair was cut in a bob which was often done in a bun. She wore pantsuits, skirt suits, and very sensible, but stylish, gray loafers. She spoke in clear, rhythmic tones. You never saw a classier lady.

When Hattie came in. I knew it was her because it couldn't be anybody else, but I nearly froze in horror. She said she had given up witchcraft, but no declaration could have prepared me for the woman who came through the back door.

She was wearing every color. All of them. Not just the primary colors or the secondary colors. She was wearing all of them. She was wearing orange, vermilion, blood red, scarlet, rose red, crimson, cranberry, raspberry, pink, magenta, mauve, wine, and all through the color spectrum until you got to orange again. The dress had a black collar and brown cuffs. Her hair was a mass of frizzy, unnatural red curls, and her roots were showing. Jewelry banged about her wrists. She wore bracelets. Not just bangles, but chain links too. She wore beads from her neck, pearl ropes, and at least three dangling pendants. She seemed enormous and glittering like a circus tent. I didn't know how we would find room for her in the house.

I was wearing a gothic tea dress, with a minimum of ruffles and lace. I felt the black lace shawl over my shoulders slip to my elbows. June came in behind her. She was wearing a dove gray overcoat that billowed gorgeously when she moved. Salinger was wearing a black v necked sweater with intricate cables down both breasts. He looked fabulous (especially to a knitter).

Hattie span around the room as though she were looking for someone. She didn't seem to notice how out-of-place she was.

“Is Veda around?” she asked me breathlessly.

I stood up and put out my hand. “I'm Veda. This is Salinger, my gentleman caller.” I called him that to annoy him, but he did not seem the least bit nettled. He smiled like he was having a great time. He got to his feet and greeted Hattie properly.

“Nice to meet you.”

Hattie's expression read, “Are you for real?” She looked alternately between Salinger and me before settling on me and admitting, “From your voice, I thought you'd be older. Are you a teenager?”

“Of course, I am. This is my mother's house, but she's not in town. June and I share the living space. Plus, I get extra tutoring on decorum and propriety.”

Hattie humphed.

I got Salinger to take her bags to the spare room on the top floor. There were six suitcases and they were fatter than coffins. How had the plane managed to find room for them? And how was Salinger going to take them upstairs? I followed him. He was using strength spells.

I muffled a laugh. He sounded adorable telling off an inanimate object.

Afterward, all of us sat in the dining room.

June and Hattie recounted their triumph. The short version began with June's arrival. She found Hattie in a mess. They spoke frankly between them before June took command. She called a second-hand store and had them come with a truck to take away all of Hattie's furniture. Hattie cried. June bought the six enormous suitcases and put them in the living room. Everything that wasn't furniture had to be given away, thrown away, or put in the bags. Hattie felt like June was cutting her arm off. She had quite a lot of clutter.

With the beds gone, June took them to a hotel to stay. Hattie had not been to a hotel since her honeymoon with her last husband. The place was positively a palace compared to her house, which helped June convince her to throw out most of her belongings without regret. They ordered room service and watched a home decorating channel. Hattie had not had that much fun in a long time.

The next day, June had them on a schedule that said they had to be finished sorting everything by four o'clock. She had hired a crew of professional cleaners to come. They helped move, sort, and clean every last thing. June didn't even help them. She worked in the yard until it was tidy.

At four o'clock, everything was packed into the six cases and a home inspector was there. He said her house was worth twenty thousand dollars more than the last home inspector. They called the realtor and re-listed the house for more money.

They went back to the hotel, had a huge celebration, went to bed early, even though they were still squealing like schoolgirls, slept for a few hours, and then hot-footed it to the airport to make it back to Edmonton.

It was a superb victory.

I was also very excited. This was exactly the sort of opportunity I had been waiting for. Salinger seemed to notice both the bubbles brewing in my head and the hiccups my nerves kept having whenever Hattie spoke or moved. I was entertaining him, merely by being myself, which I didn't enjoy.

When it came time for supper, he got up to leave. I walked him out.

He paused just inside the storm door. For a moment, I was petrified he was going to try to touch me. Instead, he leaned against the door and asked, “Are you a good witch?”

“What do you mean? I'm not the Wicked Witch of the West. The title was already taken.”

“No. I mean, are you good at what magic you try to do?”

I cocked my head. “No one gets it right every single time.”

“Of course not. I mean, do you fail often?”

My voice became hard. “What an awful thing to ask! Of course, I'm a failure more often than I'm a success. I'm seventeen years old. Just because I fail more than half the time doesn't mean I'm nothing, and it doesn't mean I haven't been extremely successful in important ways. You look for my magic and you’ll see how successful I've been.” I opened the door for him and shooed him from the house.

He went and blew me a kiss on his way. It was a motion that made my breath catch. He knew how to cast a spell with a flick of his wrist. I thought he was adorable, and I should not have. I had just told him off. but he was not bothered by my resistance. He looked pleased.

That was not a feeling I wanted a man leaving my house to feel.

I turned my back on him.