As Abigail Merriweather Gooden reached the end of the sidewalk leading to the front door of her offices, a wave of low-level energy flowed over her skin, rippling the fine hairs on her arms and the nape of her neck. Sniffing the air, she separated out the strong chemical smells of burnt sulfur and magnesium from the ever-present cedar and vehicle smells of the urban neighborhood. Someone had performed powerful magick--and not so long ago. Her narrowed gaze swept the newly gentrified west-end Austin neighborhood. Nothing seemed out of place, unusual, or transmogrified, but appearances could be deceiving.
Highly attuned senses on alert, Abbie approached the entrance of the remodeled cottage that served as offices for her legal practice. As she reached for the door handle, the magick's signature amplified until she had no doubt to whom it belonged.
Mother!
The blessed Goddess only knew what her well-meaning--but meddling--parent had done now. Abbie gritted her teeth, then opened the Art Nouveau glass-paned doors to the reception area and stormed in.
"I tried to stop her." Daniel, her secretary and man-of-all-trades, met her at the doorway. His hand, palm out, was raised in midair as if halting traffic or, in his case, as if auditioning for an all-girl Motown singing group. He and his significant other, Van, had never forgiven Diana Ross for breaking up The Supremes. "But you know your mother--a force of nature."
Daniel, she knew, had meant that last statement literally. Her mother was a force of nature, a powerful witch with earth powers that would have terrified most of the Austin society crowd with which she hobnobbed. Only they didn't know. Being a witch was not something you bragged about, even in the twenty-first century, and especially not in the Bible Belt of Texas where there were still fundamentalist Christians, even in hippie-dippy Austin. The results of such knowledge would produce a conflagration that would make the Salem witch burnings look like a wienie roast.
Abbie blew out a disgusted breath. "What has she done now?" More importantly, "Was anyone around to see or hear the energy show?"
Her mother could do subtle, but much preferred the showier, whiz-bang kind of magick. Ilana Storm Gooden was of the generation who lived by the saying: If you've got it, flaunt it.
"She redecorated your office." Daniel tried hard not to smirk, but failed. "She said just because you chose to live like a nun and deny your heritage didn't mean that your surroundings couldn't be beautiful."
"Not again," Abbie whined. Her secretary choked back a laugh. If it had been up to him, Van, or her mother, she'd have been married off, ensconced in a mini-mansion overlooking Lake Austin, with a gaggle of little witches at her feet many moons ago. Family and friends could be such a burden at times.
She flung an I'll-deal-with-you-later look at her less than chastened assistant, then raced down the carpeted hallway to the ominously closed door at the far end. She threw open the door, then shut her eyes at the sight. After she counted to ten, she reopened them. Just as she feared, her twenty-twenty vision had been accurate the first time. The scene within was as bad as her first glimpse had depicted.
The palace at Versailles had nothing on her newly redone space. Her formerly efficient, businesslike law office now looked as if some overly energetic, newly graduated interior decorator with a Marie Antoinette fetish had been given carte blanche and an unlimited budget. Fourteen-karat gold-veined mirrors, gilt-edged baroque-framed oils, and swags of richly hued satins and silks swathed her walls and windows. The desk looked to be of an original Louis-whatever-in-the-Hades-his-number-was vintage. Fainting couches and spindle-legged chairs filled the room. The Aubusson rug under her feet had to be three inches thick. It was like walking on a comforter-covered floor. Her shelves...
"My books!" she gasped. She turned and glared at Daniel. His mouth opened and closed like an asphyxiating guppy's. "Where are my law books? Where are my files?"
"You've got me," he said with a shrug of his slight shoulders as he peered into the room, his eyes blinking rapidly as if to deny the scene before him. "I haven't been in here since she did her mumbo jumbo act."
Dire threats of retribution filled Abbie's head as she dug through the underlying foundations of the transformation spell her mother had used. She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers in preparation to reverse the spell.
"Ah-ah-ah!" Daniel remonstrated, shaking a warning finger in her face. "Remember last New Year's Eve? After the second bottle of champagne? You vowed never to use magick again? Remember..."
She swiped at the waggling finger. "This is an emergency! I need my books, my files--my space. Anyway, she started it! Now get out of my way, or be prepared to pay the consequences. I can't promise that the reversal spell won't turn you into a stick of furniture."
Daniel leapt out of the line of her itching-to-undo-a-spell fingers with a yelp of fear. His actions warmed the hidden depths of her witchy heart. Power was a sinful indulgence, one she hadn't catered to for quite a while. She'd almost forgotten how gratifying the threat of exercising her powers could be. She could feel guilty later--after her office was back to normal.
She shook off the momentary lapse into self-conceit and turned once again to uncover the threads of her mother's magick. As was normal with her mother's spells, the threads were complicated and multilayered, but there was always a way to reverse them. It just took patience, something that was in short supply when her mother was trying to rearrange Abbie's life.
Ah, there's the little sucker. A layer of purplish-blue seemed to be the primary spell layer. Capturing it, Abbie swiftly reversed the spell.
A loud reverberating clap echoed off the walls. The sound was closely followed by the vacuum-sucking sound of air as it left an enclosed space. The reentering whoosh of new air preceded a light show that rivaled the Fourth of July over the Texas State Capital. And, voila, it was done.
Well, not quite.
The room no longer reflected the luxury of the French court, but had evolved--into something akin to 1930s French moderne, encompassing exotic woods with metal accents, sleek geometric lines, and tribal and native art accents.
Daniel edged his way past a mahogany wood table topped with smoked glass and supported by graceful curved legs. Warily, he lowered himself into a mauve-colored club chair with rosewood accents as if he were afraid it would disappear. "Um, who's your mother dating?" he asked as he snuggled into the seat. "A French count or something?"
"I'm not sure they still have nobility in France, but you're probably correct--it has to be somebody French." Abbie could only be glad it wasn't some cowboy. She shuddered at the thought of cowhide couches, rusty iron Texas stars, and longhorn objets d'art. "Or someone into all things French." She turned to her secretary, whose pale blue eyes gleamed avariciously as he considered a bronze statue of Diana the Huntress. "Call my mother and tell her never to do this again."
"Me?" Daniel's voice squeaked and his pale white face turned redder than Texas dirt. "Why me? She likes me, says I have savoir faire." He flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his charcoal gray designer trousers and slicked back a lock of baby-fine blond hair that had dared to escape his carefully groomed head. "Besides, she's your mother--and a witch. You tell her you don't like her decorating. I like my ears and nose right where they are, thank you very much." He patted the appendages gingerly as if to make sure they were still there--and normal.
"Daniel, she didn't mean to give you bunny ears at the Annual Return of the Bats Ball," Abbie chided gently. "She was aiming her spell at that crass good-ole-boy politician. You just zigged when you should've zagged."
"So you say," Daniel huffed. "But ever since, I've made the attempt to stay on your mother's good side. You tell her you don't want her to be a buttinski." He turned to leave, then halted, throwing over his shoulder, "I've booked you a seven o'clock appointment this evening. I ordered in for you from Bubba's BBQ. Bon appetit! I'm going home to Van who loves and appreciates me."
At his last clipped word, he flounced down the hall.
"Goddess save me from overly sensitive secretaries and interfering mothers," Abbie muttered as she turned to try to revert her office back to where it had been this morning before she'd left for court.
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