Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Cedar Lane kept popping up in all my research projects. Even my hobbies somehow found a way to be related. It was like the world was pushing me back to the path my ancestors had forged for me. Maybe even to bring me back to where I started—a full circle kind of thing.
So when I heard through a friend that Merideth, an older woman with thin-rimmed spectacles and wrinkles around her eyes that showed her age, wanted someone to take over her little shop on Main Street, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. Cedar Lane was calling me home. Complete with a witchy shop of candles, crystals, books, and a backroom of curiosities. And of course a little corner with tea and coffee and pastries from the corner bakery. After all, Merideth always had time for tea and tea leaf readings.
Now Bewitched Boutique is all mine. Plants crowd the windowsill. Rosemary, mint, thyme, and basil along with a beautiful pothos that climbs the bookshelf. With a little bell that dings every so often, lifting my eyes from my family heritage to the rainy outdoors of Main Street. The narrow storefront is like a second home to me, and I’ve tried to make it into a second home for anyone who wanders in. I keep an electric kettle on hand for people who like tea and a pot of coffee on hand complete with all the syrups. Although I can’t offer a reading, I am not attuned in those ways. I keep Merideth’s bell chimes by the door for protection. And I do my best to keep anything a local witch might need in stock, too. I’m constantly accepting deliveries of dried herbs and crystals and tarot cards. Lavender and sage are popular. Not as popular as black salt though, a necessity for protection. Oddly enough, rose bath bombs for Aphrodite baths and yellow candles to light for success can hardly stay on the shelves. It’s interesting what I pick up on the person across the register while I ring in their order. I always keep their secrets though. Especially those who come in with desperation and have questions. I’ve learned much in the years of my studies.
Some people in town think my shop is a joke. Some people think I’m running it out of kindness or because I owed Merideth something. Some people think I want to make a profit off the occult history in the area.
As I close up shop for the day, I know the truth is different.
I run this shop—my shop—because it connects me to something deeper inside that I can’t place. It lets me feel the changes in Cedar Lane as the seasons pass and stand in the places my great-grandmothers walked before me.
Most of all, it lets me live close to the library. And with that thought, the clock turns to eight at night.
Locking the door, I readjust my bag on my shoulder, pull my hood over my head, and make my way toward the library. My heart skips a beat as I go. My breath fogs in front of my face from the chilly fall night air.
It’s three blocks down and two blocks back from Main Street, and it’s one of the oldest buildings in town. My boots click on the pavement as I go. The roads are vacant this time of night. The soft patter of the light rain accompanies the clicking. The library started life as the town hall over a hundred and sixty years ago, then became the courthouse, and finally became the library when they built a new courthouse on the other side of town.
The sun starts to set as I turn onto the sidewalk leading to the library. There are two lights out front on either side of the old large door, and they click on as I get closer, lighting the limestone steps. The former courthouse and town hall is made of more limestone with a peaked roof in the middle and a peak on either side. A shiver runs through me as I hurry up the steps. I love an old, imposing building, and it’s even more imposing when the nights are longer.
For a second or two, I imagine coming here for a trial or a tense town meeting. I can almost hear the voices murmuring inside and the arguments starting to boil over.
But then I pull open the heavy wooden door, and it’s only the quiet library. It’s the last hour of the day. It closes at nine so it’s typically quiet this hour.
With only a few patrons or no one but the librarian…Finley.
With his dark eyes cast down reading the book in his hands, he stands behind the circulation desk in the middle of what used to be the main hall of the courthouse. It’s the main room of the library now, and most of the space is taken with packed shelves.