Chapter 1

Basil, lemon balm, and chamomile or lavender flower tea. Steep the herbs and drink to relieve headaches.

A teaspoon of a tincture made of ginkgo, gotu kola, rosemary, and peppermint taken three times a day to help with memory issues.

Rosemary and lemon thyme tea to drink for sheer pleasure.

What else could I create with the herbs in our garden? The options were endless, and my notebook was full of ideas for cures, creams, and spells. And with more than a month to go before the first frost did its damage, I still had time to create with the fresh herbs and plants too. Then I would harvest them and hang them from the rafters to dry.

I’d gotten so much done today, I allowed myself to clock out a few minutes early and take the leisurely route to pick up my granddaughter, Cricket, from preschool. This meant a walk along the Mississippi River. Breathing in deep lungsful of fresh air and watching the sunlight glisten off the water as it slowly made its way south was both rejuvenating and relaxing.

When I came to where a set of stairs led down to the river, I stopped to notice a houseboat docked there. The owner, Harriet Wong, told everyone who’d give her five minutes about the boat she was having restored. She saw me up on the road now and gave me a beckoning wave.

“Come on down, Dusty!”

Much as I’d love to see it, I needed to get over to the playground.

“Soon, I promise,” I called back as I gave her a wave. Then I crossed the street to another short flight of stairs that led directly up to my family’s diner. About fifty yards west of there was a large playground that drew children like a magnet. I had yet to see anyone crying or fighting there and suspected some of the town’s witches had cast a spell over it. Life was hard enough, even for children, so I approved of a place where things simply went well.

This was the pickup point. We dropped the kiddos off at Autumn Trainor’s organic flower farm in the morning and picked them up here in the afternoon, where they ended their day burning off a bit of their seemingly endless supply of energy. I envied their stamina.

“Hi, Lola!” Cricket called out the Filipino word for grandma her mother had taught her and waved to me with her whole arm from the top of a forest-green and tan tower. “Can I play more? Please?”

She dragged out the word please for about five seconds.

“Sure. Ten minutes.” I wasn’t in a hurry to get home but did still need to pick some tomatoes before I could call it a day. Cricket could help me with that.

I turned to find someplace to sit and spotted a toddler triumphantly releasing the lock on the strap holding him in his stroller. In a flash, I saw him topple forward and fall on his forehead. Another flash showed me him years older with a jagged scar over his left eyebrow.

I blinked and then reacted, like anyone would; I reached out as though I could stop the fall from happening. Except, I was a witch and, along with being able to see into the future, I could also alter the course of current events by simply reaching out. The child landed back in his seat, bumping his head gently against the padded backrest. The sudden motion startled him, and he burst into tears. I immediately pulled my hand back and clasped it with my left one—partly because of his reaction and partly because my hand had gone numb and tingled painfully. There was always a consequence for performing magic that interfered with a person’s life. Even if the spell was cast with good intentions.

“Oh, sweetie,” his mother crooned. “What happened?”

One of the women standing in the little cluster of townies pointed at me. “She happened.”

The woman had shoulder-length, somewhat stringy dishwater blond hair and looked vaguely familiar.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” she accused.

I shook my head. “Sorry, I—”

“That’s what happens when you literally run away from your problems.”

My spine stiffened. She was about my age, fifty, and very angry at me. There was only one thing this could be about.

“What did you do to him?” demanded the mother, now holding her squirming son.

“He was going to fall.”

“So she claims,” the blond woman hissed. “That’s what she does, you know. She makes things happen and then claims she was only preventing an accident. She’s a witch. A gray witch.”

Gasps of surprise and judgmental glares immediately followed the labeling. No matter how innocent the act, no matter how positive the outcome, non-magical people—Ordinaries, we called them—put gray witches on the same level as violent criminals or folks with deadly communicable diseases. We were to be avoided at all costs and shunned if possible.

“Nothing wrong with being a witch,” called out an older townie with a thick white Fu Manchu mustache and a massive black dog. “Not in this town. Not in any safe town. She is free to use all the magic she wants here. And I saw what happened.” He spoke directly to the young mother. “You wouldn’t know it because you were too busy jabbering and sipping your kombucha, but your kid was making an escape and about to land on his noggin. You should be thanking Dusty, not chastising her.”

The woman looked at me with big unsure eyes while rubbing her hand over her son’s thankfully undamaged noggin.

The blond, however, continued her attack on me. “Do you know what this witch did? Thirty-two years ago, she tried to kill me and nine other people.”

She had been on the boat. The one I stopped from crashing the same way I just stopped the little boy from falling out of his stroller. By reaching out my hand.

The man shook his head and snorted in disgust. “You mean she saved your life and nine other people’s.”

His coming to my defense this way absolutely shocked me. I’d only been back in Blackwood Grove for three weeks and had seen him and his big dog at The Paddle Wheel saloon once but hadn’t interacted with him at all. Like many people in this town, including this woman who looked ready to scratch my eyes out, the old man seemed familiar.

I offered him a grateful smile and then told the woman, “It’s been a long time. I recognize you but . . . I’m sorry, who are you?”

The blond laughed at me. “Tracy Slayton.”

My mind spun back three decades. The Tracy Slayton I knew was pretty and popular and had a huge crush on Nash Kramer, the boy who’d been driving the boat that day. Not to be cruel, but the years had not been kind to Tracy.

“You can’t trust her.” Tracy pointed at me while directing her comments to the crowd that had gathered. “You can’t trust any of them. They’re not natural. Touched by the devil, the lot of them.”

They. Them. She meant us witches.

“We’re born with these abilities,” I tried to explain or defend. Maybe both. “It’s not like we asked for our powers any more than we get to choose the color of our eyes.”

“What’s going on here?” a young woman in a police uniform asked as she approached the group. Officer Leezza Chapman.

“That witch tried to hurt this little boy,” someone called out.

“No,” I insisted, “that’s not at all what I was doing. The opposite in fact. He was about to get hurt—”

Officer Chapman shot a look at me that basically said, stop talking. Then she stepped closer to the child and, in a soothing voice, asked, “Did you get a boo-boo?”

He sniffled and squirmed. His mother admitted, “No, he’s fine.”

“What happened?” the officer asked.

The mom’s mouth opened, closed, and then she said, “I can’t say exactly. I was talking with these other ladies, and my back was to him. The next thing I knew, he was crying.” She offered me a softer expression. “Earl says Dusty stopped him from falling out of his stroller.”

Officer Chapman met my gaze briefly. “What’s all the anger about, then?”

Tracy started down the she’s a witch and can’t be trusted path again. A few people murmured their agreement with her. Others had already backed off.

Three weeks ago, literal minutes after I’d returned to town, a man was found murdered in our diner. It quickly became my mission, much to the frustration of local law enforcement, to catch the killer and clear my cousin’s name. I was able to do that, and the traumatized townies were so grateful there was no longer a killer roaming our streets. During the two weeks since then, however, attitudes changed, and conspiracy theories started flying.

“The timing is too convenient.”

“She probably set it up so she could be the savior of the town.”

“Trying to get us to welcome her with open arms.”

“Why is she back anyway?”

I had returned to Blackwood Grove because someone threatened my granddaughter, and the town was supposed to be a safe place for us.

Cricket. My heart raced. How long had I let myself be distracted? I scanned the playground, tensed when I didn’t see her right away, and then slumped with relief when I not only spotted her but saw her laughing with the other little witches from school.

“Seems to me,” Officer Chapman told the group, “nothing happened, so I don’t know why you all are this worked up.” Tracy opened her mouth to speak again, and the officer held up a silencing hand. “You’re dredging up rumors about something that happened thirty years ago. Those wounds have healed.”

“Healed?” Tracy blurted. “You weren’t here. Were you even alive thirty-two years ago?”

By the way the officer’s lips pursed slightly, I’d guess no.

“Some of those wounds,” Tracy continued, staring directly at me, “are still open and oozing.”

As empathetically as possible, I said, “I’m sorry to anyone who feels that way.”

“As am I,” Officer Chapman added, “but this is not the place to deal with that. Although, Ms. Slayton, it seems you might need to deal with it. If you need assistance—”

“This may not be the place,” Tracy hissed, “but I assure you, this problem will get dealt with.”