The Misspelled Charm Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Misspelled Charm

  Copyright

  Praise for Shereen Vedam

  Dedication

  The Misspelled Charm

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this Wild Rose Press publication.

  The Misspelled Charm

  by

  Shereen Vedam

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  The Misspelled Charm

  COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Shereen Vedam

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Kim Mendoza

  The Wild Rose Press

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Faery Rose Edition, 2012

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-174-6

  Published in the United States of America

  Praise for Shereen Vedam

  “I was captivated by the first lines of DAUGHTER OF THE SORCERER KING. With an opening of mysticism and intrigue, and set in a wonderful castle, this story drew this reader in and held my interest until the last dragon had been taken care of. And I say that loosely, because the author is very clever about taking care of dragons in this story!

  “Well written and filled with vivid details, this is a tale of a woman's journey toward her destiny—despite that destiny having taken an unexpected twist. The characters in this story sparkle.”

  ~Peony, The Long And The Short Of It

  (4.5 Books)

  Dedication

  I'd like to thank Holly Lisle,

  who taught me how to

  draw a map of a fictional world

  and how to convert my mistakes

  into geography that can bring that world to life

  in people's imagination.

  Heart hammering with anxiety, Kord crouched in a narrow, muddy alleyway in Ponce. He leaned against a plastered brick wall painted a cheerful blue and rebuffed the love spell cast on him that urged him to race across the street like a pining idiot to declare his undying love to a shopkeeper he had never met.

  No, this hex would not claim his free will. He would choose whom he loved.

  Shortly after the spell first took its insidious hold, Kord had set out to break it. He sold his farm, his home, and all he valued to raise enough funds to pay his way toward freedom. He then tracked down the courier who’d passed him the cursed posy.

  After some strenuous coercion and parting with far too many hard-earned coins, that old hag confessed that a charmist from Ponce had paid her to pass him the charm.

  He had immediately written to the charmist to say he planned to visit about a love spell, which was true enough. To hide his identity, he signed the missive Kord, a nickname his father used for a son who had had a tendency to twist anything given to him into a rope.

  In his letter, Kord also prudently left out the bit that, if she refused to recant the spell, he intended to wring her neck until she did.

  Despite his resolve to rein in his spell-induced, over-inflamed emotions, he couldn’t resist making a sketch of the woman his heart insisted it adored. During his journey south to Ponce, like a lovesick fool, he had stopped to ask people, Do you know her?

  Every answer had been, No.

  Until he reached Ponce. Here, recognition was instantaneous. Clear directions led him straight to this shop across the street. The charmist’s shop he had been aiming for anyway. For the witch he sought, and the woman who tormented his dreams, were one and the same.

  There was worse news.

  Where the youthful lover of his dreams had silky blond hair that flowed lustrous and free, the woman across the street tethered her limp, straw-colored strands into a sad, demure plait. Where he repeatedly dreamed of luscious curves overflowing his eager embrace, any attempt to caress the real version would be assaulted by sharp, bony edges at every bend. And while confident, coquettish, enticing green eyes had lured him into nights of staggering passion, in the bright glare of day, those same soulful eyes now stared with a haunted, uneasy gaze he neither recognized nor cared for.

  The only logical conclusion was that the witch must have inflated her charms to make herself seem attractive, appealing, alluring. The bitch!

  Kord took out the sketch to double check. No mistake. He desired an emaciated witch who was a shadow of the woman he fantasized. His disappointment at her true form added to his misery.

  Yet, even now, knowing her true nature and shape, she inescapably drew him.

  Something brushed against Kord’s legs, drawing his irate gaze downward. A ginger cat.

  “Do you know her?” He indicated the witch across the street.

  “Meow.” The cat sat beside him, tail wrapped neatly around its stout body.

  Kord stewed in his despair. Who was this witch and why had she chosen to ensnare him? Then another more alarming question arose.

  What if increased proximity strengthened the spell? That explained his dreams growing more strident the closer he drew to Ponce. If so, what would physical contact engineer? Would that finally seal the spell so it could never be broken? Would he be trapped to love a witch for the rest of his days?

  His uncertainty kept him rooted to his hiding place, watching her shop, petting the cat and occasionally fetching food for them both. As the hours wore on, wrath built in Kord’s heart to match the desire that consumed him.

  This spell must be broken. He just had to figure out a way to do it without physical contact. Because if they touched, he would be lost.

  ****

  By sunset, with the tower bells clanging, the village gates closed, a new practice adopted in Ponce since the barbarian Windorns declared war on peaceful Edensa. The customer Charmaine had anxiously awaited all day had not come. May never come. The realization rolled over her like a chill wind.

  Business had been so bad lately that if she didn’t sell at least ten more floral charms before next full moon, she feared she must close her shop. The fact the Windorns were led by men who sported floral garlands that made them immune to attack had at first seemed a blessing for Charmaine.

  As a witch who made such flowery spells, she had been inundated with requests of her wares. People had seemed enthralled by enchantments. Until, one after another, her creations misspelled. Not every spell, but enough to make her customers question her talent. Their initial spiked interest turned to fear. Fear of flowers in general, and fear of Charmaine’s spells in particular.

  She went to lock up but as she reached the front door, it flew open, jangling the visitor bell and jolting her backward.

  Her friend Katie hurried inside with her newborn. “Your spell didn’t work.”

  Charmaine’s stomach plummeted. Not again.

  The newborn whimpered, adding a note of distress to the charge. Katie’s grip dug painfully into Charmaine’s arm. “Your water spell didn’t work, Charmaine!”

  The fifth charm to misspell this week. And Katie desperately needed help.

  “What happened?” Her words struck the earthen floor like metal roundels.

  “I did as you said. This morning I placed the charm beside the trickling stream and covered it with clean soil. This evening, I
went to check and there’s no water. The whole stream’s dried up. I could see the gravelly bottom. Walk on it. You said the water would gush past my farm.”

  Charmaine eased her friend’s fierce grip off her upper arm. Under candlelight, finger marks showed below her cap sleeve. “Could there be a blockage upstream?”

  “No blockage, but a new stream has formed to the north of the lake, away from my property. My plants will die without that water.”

  With her husband gone to war, Katie, with a back too weak so soon after giving birth to handle strenuous work, had counted on Charmaine’s spell to save her crop. Charmaine had counted on her work to save her friend.

  “Katie, I’ll come by tomorrow. If something went wrong with my spell, I’ll fix it. If I have to divert that stream myself, I’ll fix this. And you can have your money back.”

  She searched in her pocket for the last coins she had left, saved to buy food for the week. She closed Katie’s fingers around the copper pieces. “This should cover what you paid me.”

  Katie nodded, clutching the coins and her child.

  “I’ll need until noon tomorrow to prepare a counterspell,” Charmaine continued in a calm, confident voice. “If I don’t come by, come find me. I’ll be right here.”

  “Oh, I will. Don’t you worry.” Katie backed away, no longer making eye contact before she fled the shop.

  Charmaine locked the door and leaned her hot forehead against the cool glass window and gazed listlessly across the deserted street. “What am I going to do, Grandmother?”

  Directly across from her place was the milliner’s. Widow Horner had refused to open her shop at all since news came a week ago that her husband had died in battle. The woman who had once frequented Charmaine’s place with non-stop chatter now spent her days seated by the window on the floor above, rocking. Endlessly rocking.

  Charmaine had meant to stop by to see if the older woman needed anything. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t done so yet. No, that wasn’t true. There had been plenty of opportunity, but Charmaine had been afraid of being rebuffed. Since her spells began to misfire, she felt awkward in company. She didn’t want anyone’s pity or to have to justify why she was qualified to take over for her grandmother’s successful business.

  Besides, even if she had been welcomed, how could she help the widow? She had nothing to offer. No money. No food. Just words of comfort that were essentially empty without concrete help to back them up.

  Not wanting to dwell on regrets, she looked away from Widow Horner’s shop to the silversmith’s window, boldly displaying pretty jewelry for passersby to covet. Past bars installed to keep out thieves was a pair of silver earrings with pearl drops that glimmered like tears. Her grandmother’s earrings. Her last bit of wealth pawned.

  Only things left now were her books on magic, and since even she couldn’t make most of those spells work, she doubted they would be seen as valuable. All the money her grandmother left her, and there had been a surprising amount, had been depleted to repay people who demanded restitution for her misfired spells.

  At least the shop space was valuable, situated right in the village center.

  She had inherited the business after her grandmother unexpectedly passed away in the spring. The old woman had been a great charmist. The best in all of Edensa. Some even likened her to a sorceress.

  Charmaine’s talent didn’t match her grandmother’s extraordinary ability, but while she apprenticed under the old woman, her spells had grown stronger with every charm she cast. Until her grandmother died. Then, practically every other spell twisted and curved until its power burst out and landed on the wrong person or did the opposite of what it was meant to, as in Katie’s case.

  Her gaze slid restlessly toward the baker’s shop. She should turn away before the sight of his goods upset her empty stomach. Too late.

  Unable to resist, she opened the door and ran across the street, inhaling the scent of baking bread that imbued the night air. Under the moonlight, her delighted gaze focused on the stack of flatbreads that awaited morning breakfast customers.

  Flatbreads were a favorite in Ponce. Everyone made them, and if they didn’t, for a small price, someplace around the corner or at a market stall the bread could be warmed and slathered with mouthwatering accompaniments.

  She had hoped to buy one for breakfast tomorrow because of that sale to the customer from Camden. Most people asked for charms to bring good luck, for a better crop, to keep pests away, or to ward off trolls. But a request for a love charm was special. Rare. Expensive.

  That hoped-for sale was now dead, if it had ever been alive. Just as well. Love charms were expensive because they were also dangerous. And if she couldn’t pull off a simple charm anymore, what chance would she have had of making a complicated love spell work?

  If her grandmother could see her, she would say, You are a foolish dreamer, Charmaine.

  “Meow.” Her cat, a long, muscular ginger fellow, strode purposefully toward her.

  “Evening, Justin.” She gave his furry head a rub. “Hope you caught a tasty mole or rat for supper because I don’t have much left in the larder to share.”

  Unperturbed by the warning, Justin stretched his back high and gave his familiar greeting: a rub along her leg. The touch warmed her heart and reminded her she wasn’t entirely alone and unloved this night. He followed her back to her shop. She had barely opened the door before he scooted inside.

  From the size of him, she suspected he ate better then she did. While his body looked solid, her clothing hung loose and needed to be belted tighter every day. If business didn’t improve, Justin might have to feed her as well as himself.

  Smiling at the thought, and ignoring her stomach’s grumbles and cramps, Charmaine locked up. No more time to waste on hopes for a new customer. After fixing what went wrong with Katie’s spell, she had to get back to figuring out what distorted her magic.

  Justin raced upstairs, as if eager to turn in for the evening with or without the promise of food.

  She trailed him at a slower pace. At the top of the stairs, she shut the door behind her and ran her palm over the side table in search of tinder and flint.

  “Looking for light?” a male voice asked.

  Charmaine’s heart leaped in fear.

  A lantern shutter lifted with a clank and dim yellow radiance spilled out to highlight a stranger’s large booted feet and handsome angles on his face.

  Her hand scrambled for the door handle at her back. “Who are you?”

  “I said I’d come today.”

  She paused, uncertainty and hope struggling for dominance. “You’re the man who wrote about the love charm? Why didn’t you come to the shop below? How did you get in here?”

  “My business is private. I came through that window. You should fix its broken latch.” He had a strong, calm voice, one that she instinctively wanted to trust. Despite him saying things that should alarm her, her tension dropped. In its place, surprise reared. Why would this man need a love charm? He looked the type to have no trouble finding a mate.

  He set the lantern on the table where she ate her meager meals and gestured toward the bench across the table. “Why don’t you sit and we’ll talk about why I’m here.”

  She hadn’t invited him in but he was a potential patron. And she desperately needed to increase her custom.

  Still, she lingered by the door, fingers trembling on the cold door handle. If he attacked, and she cried out, her neighbors were more likely to bar their doors than come to her aid.

  Justin jumped on the tabletop, walked closer to the man and meowed, as if wondering why everyone still stood.

  The cat had an uncanny instinct about people. Her grandmother had picked him out of a litter of seven especially for Charmaine. He has strong magic in him and will guide you true when you need it most.

  Justin didn’t look afraid. In fact, if the way he padded the table’s wooden surface near the stranger was any indication, Charmaine should offer to
bed the stranger. She swallowed a nervous giggle at that far-fetched thought. Despite all of her grandmother’s prompting, Charmaine had never lain with a man. She just couldn’t bring herself to spell a man to share her bed against his will.

  No matter her frustrated needs, such an action seemed a deceitful way to love someone. But that meant she might never have children. The reason why most witches succumbed to the temptation of lust spells.

  She wasn’t past childbearing age yet, so why worry? When she grew older, and the chance of dying alone and not passing on her knowledge rose higher, the distasteful scheme might appeal more. Tonight, the very idea of forcing her attentions on another person felt as foul as ever.

  Releasing a pent-up breath, she fetched her last candle and approached the stranger. Close, he radiated more heat than the lantern and smelled of wheat and grass—fresh country scents.

  She used his lantern fire to light her candle and placed it on the table. No point lighting the hearth—nothing there to catch the flame.

  She sat on the bench.

  He set the lantern at the other end, which gave the room a wider glow, and then took the chair opposite her.

  Justin sprawled before her, a comforting barrier.

  Charmaine looked into the stranger’s eyes and he fired back a direct stare that burned with questions. By candlelight his eyes were the color of Edensa dirt after rainfall, muddy and brown.

  “You’re Kord?” she murmured.

  He nodded once. “Kord, from Camden.”

  Seated, he was a head taller, with broad shoulders and a muscled torso that suggested he labored hard in fresh air. “What do you do, Kord? Why aren’t you fighting in the war?”

  “I’m a farmer.” His words confirmed that he worked outdoors. “I help feed the fighters.”

  With men folk scarce, available women of marriageable age were plentiful. He should be married with a brood waiting at home.

  Born into a family of charmists—magic-wielding women who couldn’t land a husband if they employed a hundred love charms—Charmaine had long ago given up the idea of marriage. Her grandmother had taught her that living apart, with a cat for a familiar and charms the sole source of income, were the hallmarks of a charmist, a witch. On Edensa, these were also the hallmarks of a woman who could take a lover for a night but not for a lifetime.