Chased by Heather Ashley

Preview of Crossed Souls

Willa

My stomach rumblesfor at least the sixth time since I cracked my eyes open and blinked at the morning sun streaming through my childhood bedroom. I snuggle deeper into my nest of blankets, trying to ignore the incessant growling, but I've never been good at skipping meals when my body demands food, and today, nothing's changed—even if I am a year older.

I thought the morning after my twenty-first birthday would feel different, that somehow I'd feel wiser or more like an adult, but it turns out that twenty-five feels the exact same as nineteen.

How disappointing.

When I blew out the candle on my cupcake last night, I could've sworn my wish would come true. Magic was heavy in the air and swirled around me like a tingly caress. It's what I imagine having a boyfriend wrap his arms around me would feel like if I'd ever had one.

Unfortunately, this morning I still feel like me—complete with my potion magic that makes me warm and gooey inside when I brew a concoction I know people will love. Maybe next year will be the one that I wake up feeling like something's different, and I'll become a whole new witch.

With a sigh that's so deep my chest feels like it's caving in, I kick off the warm covers and hop out of bed, stretching my arms overhead. I notice I'm rubbing my chest where a strange tingle under my skin that was definitely not there yesterday hums, almost like my body and spirit are out of alignment.

I've never felt anything like it, but before I can think about it too much, the sound of dishes clanking around down in the kitchen grabs my attention.

I shake off the weird depressing thoughts about my birthday yesterday. Despite this being just another day, and my being just my same plain old self, at least I have Gramps' chocolate chip pancakes to look forward to this morning. It's one of the best things about spending the night here—that and my gramps is one cool old dude. I feel a lot more excited to get dressed and get downstairs with the prospect of stacks of sugary goodness calling my name.

If I'm really lucky, he'll even have some crispy bacon waiting.

I've always been a morning person, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, especially when breakfast has the best food of the day. By the time I turn off the shower, I can already smell the sweet scent of chocolate and vanilla curling through the air.

I hurry downstairs, and Gramps is already sitting at the table with a stack of pancakes in the middle. Dropping a kiss to the top of his shiny head, I slide around the table and sink into the chair across from him. "Mornin', Sugarplum."

"Morning," I say, stacking pancakes onto my plate before jumping up and grabbing a cup of coffee. "Need a refill?"

He waves me off, and I sit back down, digging into my breakfast. Gramps is watching me closely, almost like he's looking for something. I stop chewing, my mouth still full of chocolatey goodness, and arch an eyebrow since I can't exactly talk right now.

"How are you feelin' this mornin'?" he asks with that adorable Southern twang he has that I never developed like a proper Southern lady should've. I swallow my bite before I answer, wondering why he's even asking. It's not like we had a crazy night or anything.

I'm not bitter about having zero friends to spend my birthday with. Nope. Not even a little bit.

I mean, is it really my fault that Gramps insisted I go to a regular school with normal kids? Or that my powers decided to turn every kid in my History class's hair purple during a pop quiz?

He should've warned me that stress is a huge trigger for witches just coming into their power so I'd be prepared—or at least let me skip that day.

But after that, every kid at my school labeled me a freak, and any friends I had became non-existent.

Now I'm just that weird girl who runs the best magic shop in town. And by magic shop, I'm not talking about the kind of place you go to buy cheap tricks. Nope.

I sell potions that I like to think make people's lives better. It makes me smile to know even if people see me as a freak, I'm the one they come to when they can't get it up or have acne or suffer from panic attacks and need an elixir to help.

I may be a freak, but I'm their freak, and they'd be lost without me. At least, that's what I tell myself to deal with the sting of rejection.

It's a good thing binge-watching Friends with my grandpa, and eating massive amounts of junk food might be my idea of a perfect birthday. Well, like I said, if I had a friend or two—of the girl or boy variety—that might be nice. But my life hasn't worked out like that so far, so I'm happy to spend my free time with Gramps. He more than makes up for anything I might be missing out on.

I shrug one shoulder. "Same as always."

"I have some free time this mornin'," Gramps says lazily before sipping his coffee. Even though his words are casual, his eyes are sharp and assessing. I feel like he's waiting for me to do something, but I have no idea what. "Think you could use some help down at the store?"

"Sure, if you want to come to hang out, you know I'll never turn down your company," I say just as the old clock in the living room chimes. I shove the last bite of pancake in my mouth, springing up and rinsing my plate off before giving Gramps another hug on my way out the door.

I've got to run if I'm going to make it to my store in time to open.

Is it cliche to run a magical shop in the heart of New Orleans? Maybe. But there's nothing I'd rather do than brew potions that help people, so I have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Conjure & Coven is my baby, even if I don't have a coven of my own.

Not yet, at least. It's a someday goal.

Gramps is as close to a coven as I get, and while I do have some magical ability with my potion-making, I can't do any of the really cool stuff other witches can do, like flying or healing people.

The house I grew up in—Gramps's house—is within walking distance to my shop and the apartment I call home that sits above it. My favorite black Converse smack the pavement as I rush down the sidewalk. I'm so focused on where I'm going that I almost trip over my own feet when I see it—this mysterious-but-enchanting-in-a-magic-sort-of-way golden sparkling dust that stretches out like a tether from a guy across the street. It's like his whole body is coated in the shimmery substance—think a glitter bomb that exploded all over him—and then it gathers above his heart and stretches out, but even when I squint, I can't tell where it's going before it drifts off into nothingness.

Blinking rapidly, I realize what I'm seeing isn't going away. I want to stay and watch him to figure out whether I'm having some sort of hallucination, but I don't have time. The very possible brain tumor I've got going on will have to wait.

I try to shake off the itchy feeling between my shoulder blades and the tingle in my chest that's demanding I go talk to him, so I refocus on making my mental to-do list and hurry the rest of the way down the sidewalk.

I try not to, but I find myself searching for more of the same glittery golden ropes on anyone else, but there aren't any. I'm chalking it up to stress, and the distracting sensation of a splinter under my skin in the middle of my back is just a side effect. What else could it be?

A whimper pulls my attention away from unlocking the shop's front door and over toward the alley around the side of the old brick building. It sounds like an animal that's hurt or upset, and something about it draws me in. I have to help whatever it is that's making the pitiful sound; I don't have a choice.

My feet move on their own, carrying me forward and toward the darkened side street. It's not wide enough back here for a car since these buildings were constructed before cars were even a thing, and it smells musty and like old trash.

I let my gaze sweep the cobblestone ground littered with old cardboard and, at first, don't see anything unusual. It's not until I look again that I see one of the pieces seems to be shivering. I creep closer, crouching down and reaching out to gently move the soggy cardboard away. My fingers tremble, and I move slowly since I have no idea what might be under there, and a hurt animal will be quick to defend itself if it feels threatened.

"Oh my god," I whisper as huge, soulful brown eyes stare up at me from a sweet beagle face almost fully covered by trademark floppy ears. I scoop him up in my arms, and his tail gently thwacks against my side. He sniffs at my face, and I can't help but laugh. "How'd you get out here, hmm?"

He doesn't have a collar on, and right now, I don't have time to take him to the vet and get him scanned to see if he has one of those chips that'll tell me who he belongs to. "Guess you're spending the day with me in the shop, huh, bud?"

The dog looks up at me with what I swear is an arched eyebrow before he huffs out a breath, and I can't help but laugh. Standing up, I make sure he's securely tucked in my arms before heading back to my shop and unlocking the door.

This morning has already been nuts, and it's only nine a.m. Once I'm inside, I close the door and set the pup down on the floor. He looks up at me with those eyes of his that really look like he can see into my soul, like he's weighing and judging me, and I find myself hoping I'm worthy. Maybe if he doesn't belong to anyone, I can keep him.

It's almost like fate.

Fate. It's one of those words people throw around casually, but ever since I was a little girl, I've believed there's some bigger force out there that has a hand in our lives. Some people call it god, but not me. It feels too big to have the face of just one old man in the sky. No, this is more like energy that swirls around everything, living and not, and shapes the way things play out.

Gramps used to tell me that all I had to do was close my eyes and feel, and if I let go enough, I'd be able to get a sense of fate's guidance in my life. It was his favorite thing to have me do whenever I'd ask him why my mom had been killed when I was too young to remember her. For a few of my tween years, I was resentful and more than a little pissed off at how unfair the hand fate dealt me was.

But then there were plenty of days like today where my life took a sharp turn in a direction I didn't expect, and I ended up on an adventure I never saw coming. There's a weird energy today, almost like expectation hangs heavy in the air, and I don't think it's coming from me. As a witch, I like to think I'm more tuned in to the vibrations and energy around me than your average human.

Today feels different, and I'm not sure whether to brace myself or run headfirst into whatever's coming, but there's no doubt that something major is on the horizon.

That odd golden glittery rope-aura thing from earlier springs to mind, but then a customer's opening the front door, and I hurry to flick on the lights, all thoughts of pretty swirling magic pushed out of my head.

I finally get a break mid-morning and stop to watch my new little beagle buddy. He's been wandering around the shop all morning, and the customers seem to like him, but I always thought beagles were sweet and gentle. This one is a bit standoffish, which is a bizarre quality in a dog because he's not aggressive about it.

He looks at the people walking around the store, and if he doesn't like them, he walks away when they try to pet him and hides behind the counter. When he does it for the third time this morning, I look down at him with a raised eyebrow, and I swear he stares back up at me before rolling his eyes.

"You don't like them?" I ask him, watching the group of customers walk out without buying anything. The bell rings as they walk out the door, and he barks out once, and it's sharp. I can't help but laugh as I bend down to scoop him up and take him out for a bathroom break.

"If you're gonna be sticking around, you need a name," I tell him, setting him in a patch of grass outside my store while I think. My lips curve up into a grin when the perfect name hits me as he comes to sit beside me and leans his weight against my leg.

Picking him up again, I ruffle his ears, and he huffs out a breath looking annoyed. "I'm going to call you Chandler," I tell him, proud of myself for matching him up so perfectly with his namesake. "Could you be any more the dog version of him?"

I'm laughing as I walk back into my store. It's not until the next customers walk through the door that the smile slips off my face and is quickly replaced with a look of what must be horror, at least if the girl on the right's expression is a mirror of my own.

Because that girl? She's walking in with another girl at her side, and the way she looks sends chills skittering down my spine, and Chandler hurries over to them with his hackles raised.

"What the hell happened?" I ask, feeling a sick sinking feeling in my gut and hoping like hell the boils all over the girl's face and the way her skin has formed lumps underneath it like some kind of swamp creature isn't a side effect of one of my potions gone wrong.

If I thought I didn't have friends before, I can't imagine how big the crowd with torches and pitchforks would be if my potions and salves and balms started turning my customers into hideously deformed monsters. It'd be bad for business, but more than that, I'd feel like an absolute monster myself for having done that to anyone.

If there's one thing I have always been able to take pride in, it's my store and the creations I come up with to make people's lives better. Right now, I'm working on a bath bomb that leaves you feeling not only like you got a massage when you climb out of your soak but also painlessly removes all the hair below the neck. It's nearly perfect. Tonight, I planned to test it out since I always test things on myself before even thinking about putting them on my shelves.

I couldn't say the same for the shop down the block, though. They're my main competition, The Blackened Bone. If I had to take a guess, I'd bet whatever went wrong here came from them and not me.

At the very least, I'd see if I could figure out what happened to this poor, unfortunate girl standing in front of me looking like she'd rather die than go on looking like she does right now. I can't say I blame her; it's going to take a shit ton of makeup to fix the mess she has going on if no potion can fix it.

"I told her she should've come here, but no. She insisted on going to the shop down the block," her friend rambles as her wide eyes meet mine. "Please. We need your help."

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