Too Hexy For Her Wand (Hot and Hexy #2) - Susan Hayes Page 0,1
Some promises have to be kept.”
“You’re my familiar. Your job is to help me. Why would you make a promise like that?” Tiff was the only one she trusted to have her best interests at heart. At least, that’s how it was supposed to be. When she’d been orphaned and left on her own, Tiff-Tiff had been there. In the ever-changing social whirl of her life, Tiff had been the only constant.
“I had to.” Tiff placed a paw on her knee. “Just open it.”
She pulled it toward her, ripped off the Goddess-awful paper, and lifted the lid with the same trepidation she used to have when playing with a jack-in-the-box. Any second, something was going to fly out and scare her.
Only it didn’t.
She leaned over and looked inside. There was another box. Or no, a tin, with a bright orange envelope sitting on top. It was battered, white, and covered with stick-on jewels and glitter glue. Across the top, someone had written “Fern’s Treasure Box” in black block letters.
Memories flooded in, flowing from some locked-away corner of her mind and filling her head with fragments of a hundred different childhood moments. A woman with a kind voice. A man with a warm laugh. A tin full of secrets and cherished treasures. “This is mine.”
“You remember it?” Tiff asked.
“Sort of. It’s all jumbled up, but yes.
Tiff sagged against her in relief. “That’s good. That you remember, not that it’s jumbled. Give it some time. It should all come back.”
Fern lifted the tin out and set it on her lap. “What’s coming back, Tiff? What is happening to me?”
“You’re starting to remember who you were.”
“Don’t be silly. I already know who I am. I’m Fern Wilkinson. I have a trust fund, fabulous hair, and amazing taste in clothes.” Even as she said it, something stirred in the dusty corners of her mind, a whispered protest that no, that wasn’t who she was—not entirely. She ignored it.
Tiff’s tail twitched. “Not exactly.”
Coils of something cold and slimy wrapped around her insides and squeezed. She stared at the tin in her lap. It seemed heavier now, and the sense of dread she’d felt before was back, only now the dial was turned up to thirteen. “Explain.”
“I can do that, or you can open the card and the tin first. It might help.”
“Won’t you at least tell me who sent all this?” A long-lost relative? A friend from boarding school? Her party wasn’t for hours yet, so why send the present early?
“It’s from Baba Yaga.”
Fern’s reality derailed into a tangled pile of wreckage. “Repeat that, please? Because I thought I heard you say that the high freaking witch, glorious leader of all, second only to the Glorious Goddess herself, sent me a birthday present.”
“She did.”
“Ice cream. I’m going to need ice cream.”
“Don’t forget the Baileys. And maybe some Kahlua, too,” Tiff said.
“It’s like that. Is it?” Fern wiggled her fingers and conjured up a bowl of rocky road with a healthy dollop of both liqueurs already added.
She popped a heaping spoonful into her mouth and opened the envelope. Inside was a card with two kittens tangled up in a ball of yarn and “Hope your birthday is a ball,” emblazoned across the top. Inside were the usual birthday wishes and a handwritten note.
Happy Birthday Fern,
The time has come for you to go home and reclaim your old life. I’ve been holding this box in trust for you in preparation for this day. Good luck, and may the Goddess bless you and guide you on your journey.
Baba Yaga
PS. Tell Tiff-Tiff I know what she did. We’ll be having words about that later.
“What does it say?” Tiff asked, standing up with her paws on Fern’s knee to get a better look.
Fern read it aloud to her and then glared at her cat. “What the hell is going on? And what did you do to piss off Baba freaking Yaga?”
“I did what I had to. If she doesn’t like it, she can bite my fuzzy black butt. And as to why I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. It was for your own protection, Fern. Keeping you safe has been my job for the last thirteen years, and what you needed to know couldn’t be discussed, not even in private. Too dangerous.”
“Well, that’s not ominous at all. If this were the movie of the week, next you’d be telling me I’ve secretly been in the witch-ness protection all this time.”
Tiff-Tiff hissed disdainfully. “Hardly. As if we’d entrust your safety to