“I’m not entirely sure.” To keep her hands busy, Mia began folding the chairs. “That’s what concerns me most. Something’s coming, and I can’t pin it down. It’s all right for tonight.” She glanced up the stairs as she carted chairs to the storeroom. “She’s all right for tonight.”

“She’s the center.” Lulu stored her own haul of chairs. “I guess I felt that all along, and didn’t cut her much of a break. But the fact is, that’s a sweet girl who works hard. Does somebody want to hurt her?”

“Someone already has, and I don’t intend to let him do it again. I’ll try a foretelling, but I need to prepare for it. I need to clear my mind. There’s time. I can’t tell how much, but it’ll have to be enough.”

“Will you tell her?”

“Not just yet. She’ll have her own preparations, her own cleansing to do. She’s in love, and that makes her strong. She’ll need to be.”

“What makes you strong, Mia?”

“Purpose. Love never worked for me.”

“I heard he’s in New York.”

Mia shrugged, a deliberate gesture. She knew who Lulu meant, and it irritated her to have Sam Logan tossed at her twice in one night. “It’s a big city,” she said flatly. “He’ll have plenty of company. I want to finish and go home. I need sleep.”

“Idiot man,” Lulu muttered under her breath. There were too many idiot men in the world, to her way of thinking. And most of them ended up bumping up against stubborn women.

Spells were, Nell decided, really just a kind of recipe. And there she was on solid ground. A recipe required time, care, and quality ingredients in proper proportions for success. Add a bit of imagination and it became a personal dish.

She set aside time between jobs and book work to study the spell book Mia had lent her. She imagined Mia would be amused by the idea of viewing it as a kind of metaphysical cookbook, but she didn’t think she would be offended.

Time also had to be carved out for meditation, visualization, for gathering and creating her own tools so that she’d have what she liked to consider a well-supplied witch’s pantry.

But now she intended to reward herself with her first solo practice session.

“Love spells, banishing spells, protection spells,” she chanted as she flipped through. “Binding spells, money spells, healing spells.”

Something for everybody, she thought, and remembered Mia’s warning about being careful what she wished for. A careless or selfish wish could boomerang in unpleasant, or certainly unexpected, ways.

She would keep it simple, choosing something that involved no one and couldn’t inadvertently cause harm or trouble.