The Misspelled Charm Read online

  Men don’t marry witches, Charmaine.

  “You want to find a suitable wife?” she asked.

  He gave her a keen look and then brought out a crumpled bundle of flowers tied into a posy and placed it on the scarred table between them. “I’m looking for the charmist from Ponce who spelled this charm.”

  Where the flowers settled with a feather-light flutter and gentle rustle, his words held the weight of a death knoll. Charmaine stared at the wilted bundle with rising unease. From the charm’s scorched state, it had obviously been released, but not well. It looked as if the spell had misfired. She’d seen enough of such things in the past months to recognize the signs.

  Yet, this wasn’t one of her charms.

  She leaned forward for a better look. Lilacs from her backyard. Chrysanthemums from her garden bed. Faded pink blooms from the silk tree growing beside the window he’d climbed through.

  “What happened?” she asked, stalling for time.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I’m a witch, not a mind reader.”

  He frowned as if gauging her words as true or false, then gestured using the flat of his hand at the posy with its burned edges. “Someone cast this on me.”

  She glanced at him, surprised. He didn’t look harmed. His strength and solidness suggested good health. “Why bring it to me?”

  He stared at her as if she should know. Then he slammed his fist on the table so hard, both she and Justin jumped. “You cast this spell. Now break it!”

  She’d fixed enough misspelled charms of late to know she couldn’t grant what he wanted. She waited for her heart rate to settle into a semblance of its normal beat before replying, choosing her words with care.

  “I’m sorry, Kord. I can’t help you. This isn’t one of my charms.” She made that a firm statement, but to her sensitive ears, her voice carried the strain of guilt. Especially since he’d probably sniffed two of the three flowers used in that charm as he climbed the ladder to the upstairs window.

  “Whose is it then?” Can sarcasm coat a tongue?

  “The only other charmist who practiced in Ponce was my grandmother.” But her charms never misspelled.

  “Could she have cast it?” Kord wore a frown, for the first time sounding uncertain. “Wouldn’t you know about it?”

  “I didn’t know of all her spells, only the ones I made under her guidance. When was this purchased?”

  “It slammed into me like a barreling ox six months ago, on the night of the new moon.”

  The day her grandmother died. She shivered. The day she’d found the love spell book left out in the open. In her mind’s eye, she stepped into the shop to discover her grandmother sprawled on the floor, unmoving, eyes wide open, a stunned look on her wrinkled, wise old face.

  Charmaine’s fingers trembled as she brought the charred posy closer for a more careful study. The knots that tied the flower stems were familiar. Every piercing, every curve, every tie would have sealed a piece of the spell.

  “If this was my grandmother’s charm, I still can’t help you. I’m sorry, but only the witch who casts a spell can break it. And my grandmother died…a short while back.”

  “You will undo this spell.” Not a suggestion. Not a request. Not even an appeal. It was a command.

  But magic couldn’t be commanded.

  Magic, my girl, can only ever be nudged, her grandmother always said.

  She glanced at him with concern. None of this made sense. If the spell had gone so awry that it killed her grandmother, it shouldn’t have worked on Kord. Besides, no sane witch would cast a love spell on someone unwilling or already in love.

  Such ill-cast charms can result in a painful backlash on the caster.

  Charmaine had to ask the question despite the answer being obvious. “You were already in love?”

  “We were to marry today. Instead, she’s marrying someone else because I can’t stand to touch her. At first, I hoped I could get over this madness. During the day, I worked harder and at night, I kept busy but every day grew worse than the one before. When Cela complained about my absence, I explained what had happened. But touching her turned my stomach. I couldn’t even kiss the girl I loved.”

  He took the posy back, turned it in his large, capable hands, and then carefully placed it back on the table. “She sensed my repulsion. And turned elsewhere for comfort.” He spoke the last through clenched teeth, his fists white-knuckled. “I told her I planned to go to Ponce to have the witch who cast the spell break it, but she wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t wait, said it was too late.”

  “She couldn’t have loved you that much then,” Charmaine murmured thoughtfully, “if she wasn’t willing to wait.”

  At the murderous look in his eyes, she immediately regretted her words, thankful Justin lay purring between them.

  She focused again on the withered charm. She couldn’t feel any remnants of a spell emanating from it, but that wasn’t surprising. The charm had been released. Any magic left in the posy could be too faint to sense. She glanced back at him, allowing her eyes to glaze over so she could see using her other sight.

  He had a halo. A pale blue blur surrounded him, faintly pulsing. She blinked, returning to the mingled radiance of candle and lantern. Now that was odd. If the magic in the charm had been released and completed, why did he look as if the spell were still in the invocation stage? That halo should have surrounded Kord at the moment of release and then sunk in, sealing the spell. Instead, it lingered on the surface like a festering wound.

  Because he fought the spell so hard? Or was this a sign that the goddess interfered? Ilisa considered love her domain, not to be interfered with. She was why most witches avoided casting love spells. It never bode well to alienate the goddess. She was known to be vengeful.

  Charmaine gulped past a suddenly dry throat, thinking her grandmother had paid dearly for her folly.

  How had Kord paid for her grandmother’s mistake? It couldn’t be easy to be struck by a love spell you hadn’t asked for. But refuse to succumb to it? Charmaine had never heard of such a thing. While his body was assaulted by desires, he apparently was able to keep his mind engaged in defensive battle. Such a strong-willed man.

  She imagined the difficulty he must face every day he was under the spell and her heart squeezed with sympathy for his torment. Nevertheless, he would eventually lose. Magic had a pervasive power, and didn’t need rest.

  Since her grandmother had put him in this unpalatable position, she truly wanted to help. But she must make him understand that she could not reverse another witch’s spell, even her grandmother’s.

  If she were to give Kord any advice, it would be to stop fighting the compulsions. Then his suffering might end. He wasn’t ready to hear those words. He needed a gentler approach.

  “Is the woman who disturbs your dreams not to your liking, Kord?”

  “What matters if she is or not?” he snapped. “I didn’t choose to love her. I want my freedom. You will undo what you’ve done.”

  “I didn’t do this! My grandmother might have, but she’s dead. Casting a love spell on someone whose heart has already chosen a true love can have dire consequences. I believe the price she paid was death. Can you not be satisfied with that?”

  He slammed his fist on the table a second time. Along with Justin and her, the candle shook and the lantern clattered. “I’m not leaving until you find a way to undo this spell.”

  ****

  Later that night, Kord lay on Charmaine’s cold hard floor, ruminating on his current circumstances. He had at least discovered one valuable piece of information. The witch was unaware he’d been spelled to love her. And he intended she remain ignorant.

  That knowledge, however, came as a two-edged sword. For he had counted on her being the cause of his troubles. Her culpability had been his main grievance, used to mentally distance himself from a woman whom every cell of his body wanted to possess.

  With his last compelling shield gone, Kord’s b
ody rioted at his self-imposed abstinence, calling it unnecessary and beleaguering him with visions of them making love.

  If his erotic thoughts weren’t enough to bedevil him, the sheet she’d carelessly tossed at him carried her scent. Smell had been the one sense not infected by the love spell. Now, it was the one sense that plagued him most.

  He wavered between inhaling her fragrance—an exotic blend of flowers and herbs—like a parched man gulping sweet, cold water, and then ruthlessly shoving the covering toward his feet and shivering.

  She lies not five feet away.

  When he’d watched her all day, she seemed lonely. And when she first walked toward him, there had been admiration in her gaze, quickly masked. She might welcome him to her bed.

  If he chose that path, however, she would immediately guess he was under a spell to love her. Because he’d foolishly admitted touching any other woman than the one he dreamed about was abhorrent. Regardless of the dangers of revealing his secret, Kord twitched from the fierce restraint required to keep from sliding under her covers.

  In physical agony, he reminded himself that no self-respecting man would claim to love a witch. Not if he valued belonging in a community, having friends, being accepted by his family.

  Hearing her deep breathing made him want to throw caution to the wind and ford that treacherous five feet separating them. He wanted to shake her awake, to disturb her peace. But that would mean touching, which in turn could lead to caressing, and then kissing.

  He groaned and turned over, adjusting his legs around her cat that had chosen to lie beside him.

  Justin. A solid, respectable name for a cat. At least she hadn’t called him Fluffy or Puss-puss or Mister Whiskers.

  The feline had shadowed Kord since he first arrived in the village this morning. Hidden in the alley across the street, they’d kept each other company. During those long worrisome hours, waiting for nightfall, debating the risks of approaching the witch to demand she take her spell off him, he and Justin had shared bread and conversation and pets.

  Not too surprising then that the cat chose to spend the night curved around Kord’s legs. He doubted she fed him properly, if the state of her larder was anything to go by.

  As Kord lay bleary-eyed, ruminating on the unfairness of life, this little bundle of fur seemed most unfair of all. Why must the one living thing he’d befriended since arriving in Ponce belong to her?

  ****

  The moment a hint of dawn filtered in from the window, Kord flung away the distasteful covering and jumped to his feet. He practically ran outside.

  Despite his lack of sleep, the new day brought hope his torment would soon be over.

  Past the back garden, he strode out to the street in search of a wash. He’d traveled for days without benefit of a good cleaning but most of all he wanted to wipe away the scent of her that the blanket had layered over him.

  The street’s central water channel opened wider for common use before it narrowed and moved along.

  Nothing like this extensive waterway existed in Camden, where rain was scarce. On his farm, to irrigate the fields, Kord had gone to extraordinary measures and built a complicated dam and network of pipes to shunt water to the fields that needed it most.

  Stripping off his tunic and boots, he rolled up his trews and set to washing.

  “Morning, stranger!”

  Kord looked up, cool water running in streams along his hot, flushed cheeks.

  A man in a brown robe cinched at the waist waved to him from across the street.

  “Morning,” Kord replied in a gruff voice, not wanting to encourage conversation. The last thing he needed was to be questioned on why he came out of a witch’s house in the early morning hours.

  Villagers tended to be wary of strangers, but even more so of people who associated with witches. Men had been stoned for bedding one, because it was said that a child of such a union was often malformed or cursed. He shrugged back into his tunic and avoided eye contact.

  “Are you a friend of Charmaine’s?”

  “No.”

  “A relative?”

  “No.” His feet were as clean as they were ever likely to get, so he sat on the ledge and rolled down his trews and put his boots back on.

  “Who are you then?”

  Kord pretended not to hear the prying question and headed to Charmaine’s house. He glanced back and discovered five people gathered across the road. Neighbors sensing gossip, or danger. He relented, wanting to allay fears. “I’m Kord from Camden. I’ve business with her.”

  “Oh,” a woman said with a warm smile. “Good. She needs the custom, poor thing.”

  About to retreat, that comment made him pause and face his interrogators. The woman had sounded as if she cared about the witch’s well-being.

  “You’ve known her long?” he asked.

  “All my life. We were schooled together.”

  Witches went to school in Ponce? How strange. Before you knew it, the University of Edensa would take one on for higher studies. The absurd notion made him chuckle. Then another part of her speech drew his attention.

  “Custom not been good for her lately?” And meant, Is she a bad spell-caster? Would she not be able to break his spell? And then another unexpected thought crept in. Is that why she’s so thin? Because lack of clientele meant lack of money to buy food?

  Having lived on a successful farm all of his life, Kord found the very concept of starvation repulsive. He’d never ever passed a beggar without returning later to offer him or her something to eat.

  “Shush, Missus.” The old man grabbed her arm and tugged her away. “What Charmaine does is none of our affair. We have to go now. Nice to have met you.”

  The others returned to their homes as well, no longer interested in conversation.

  Kord narrowed his gaze as suspicion blossomed around him like a fine spring morning.

  He returned to the house and found the cat watching him solemnly from the back steps. Behind him stood Charmaine, arms folded under her full bosom, mouth set in a grim line. “What do you want for breakfast?”

  Her expression suggested poison was the only acceptable answer. Which would be better than anything in her larder. Last night, he’d searched every nook and cranny while waiting for her to come upstairs and nothing stored inside that house appealed as food. Then he’d looked out the widow and seen her by the bakery, gazing forlornly at flatbread.

  When was the last time she ate? Not since he arrived here yesterday. Not once had she stopped working to eat. No wonder she was stick-thin. He blinked, wondering if once she might have actually looked as luscious as she did in his dreams.

  “You get started on the counterspell and I’ll fetch food.” He went in, picked up his gear, and walked back out, being careful not to brush against her.

  There had been a market he’d passed between the stables and here. Someone there might be more forthcoming than her neighbors about the mysterious charmist of Ponce. Now that he’d finally met the woman who spent so much time in his dreams, he found himself curious about the real-life version.

  His body throbbed as he made his way toward the market. Mornings were the worst. While daylight brought hope of breaking this blighted spell, soiling that good feeling was an ever-rising desire for a woman he could never claim as his.

  ****

  Charmaine watched him stomp along the street and depression settled in her heart. He wouldn’t listen. There was no such thing as a counterspell to fix his problem. She’d have to make something up. But she wasn’t a good enough witch to create a brand-new charm. Not when so many of her recent spells had gone so very wrong.

  She sat on the back step and absently petted Justin. “What can I do, boy?”

  “Meow.” He leaned into the scratch as if that were the most important activity she needed to do at that moment.

  Back inside, she went straight into her workroom. Maybe if she found this woman who’d commissioned the love charm, she’d uncover a clu
e on how to break this spell. She sat on a stool and opened the ledger on her lap. Carefully, she went over every sale her grandmother had made before she passed away.

  In the end, Charmaine looked up puzzled. All entries were from people who lived nearby. Certainly no one from as far away as Camden.

  Justin leaped onto her lap. Purring, he covered the ledger’s middle, buckling the book. She set him on the worktable and looked where wisps of fur now littered the page. With a sigh, she blew off the fluff that had accumulated along the column of expenses.

  An odd entry caught her eye. A sale for a charm for good weather, but the entry wasn’t under money received, but rather money paid out by her grandmother. Why would she pay for a charm she could make? And it had been for a hefty sum. Why so much? Weather charms were the cheapest and easiest to craft.

  Something niggled Charmaine about the name noted next to that peculiar transaction. She’d heard that name, “Dora,” referred to recently. Where? When?

  She dropped the ledger on the table and ran out, almost tripping over Justin who raced at her heels. Across the street, she reached past the bars and knocked on Anson’s door.

  No answer.

  She was sure it was the silversmith who had talked about Dora. She knocked again, more insistently. He had to be inside. It was too early to go to the market and in any case, he had a tendency to sleep in most days.

  Justin sauntered to the butcher’s two doors down and looked in, tail straight up as if to question his welcome. Then with a happy, “Meow,” he ran in.

  Lucky kitty. At this rate, soon he would weigh more than her. She was tempted to follow him because she’d heard Anson mention Dora’s name in there. The butcher might remember the conversation. Before she moved, the smith’s wooden door opened inward, leaving the bars still shut.

  “Yes?” Old Anson’s look implied that Charmaine meant to curse him. And she’d known him all of her life.