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"Babe, I will grovel at the feet of a thousand old men in suits before that day ever comes."

"Besides," I said, "who would get Broomhilde in the divorce?"

"We'll let her choose," Mama said. "We'll stand equidistant from her and see who she comes to first."

"You'll only find a way to cheat," said Mim, nudging her toward the door.

"I would never." Mama put a hand to her chest in mock indignation, then caught my eye and stage-whispered, "The trick is to hide dust bunnies in your pocket."

They were both giggling by the time they made it onto the front porch. I waved them off, then flipped our Closed sign to Open. (Well, technically it was a sign that said The Witch Is Out and The Witch Is In, complete with a cartoon of a stereotypical pointy-hatted witch on a broom. A flea market find that my parents both thought hilarious, despite my attempts to convince them otherwise.)

I wasn't in the mood to clean up the back room or to dig out the cloves, rue, and angelica root I needed for a protection floor wash to replace all that banished negative energy with positivity. Instead, I wandered around the shop, nudging spell jars back into place on the shelves and taking note of which herbs were running low. Other than the cardboard taped over the broken transom window, all traces of the burglary had been cleared away, but that didn't mean the shop was neat. It never was, which was part of the charm.

Even so, I busied myself with the display of crystals that was messy beyond the point of charming, as per usual. Mim thought they should be organized according to effect and Mama thought they should be organized according to color, and the result was always a haphazard jumble with the handwritten labels sticking out all over the place.

I hummed a mindless tune and lost myself in the Sisyphean task. I wasn't even halfway done when the little brass bell on the counter picked itself up and gave three clear rings. I nearly jumped out of my skin. The bell was a new addition in response to the burglary. Last night we had spelled it to sound whenever someone came within ten feet of the shop. Mim had argued for a real security system, but Mama hated technology with a passion bordering on ludicrous, and Mama had wanted a guard dog, but Mim was afraid it would scare her cat. I suggested the charmed bell as a compromise. Besides, it would give tourists a good thrill.

I was pleased to see that the bell worked properly when the door opened a few seconds later. I had been the one to craft the spell, though I'd used Mim's runework on Broomhilde as a rough guide.

I half expected the sound to be signaling my parents' return. Part of the reason Mama was always running late was that she inevitably left something important behind—her wallet, her phone, occasionally her shoes. But the man who entered was a complete stranger, which is rare in a small town like ours. We got tourists from time to time, detouring from their ultimate destination when they saw our colorful sign along the main highway: Wonderful Witchcraft for Wonderful Prices. The sign had been there for nearly half a century, though it was less effective every passing year. Witches had experienced their heyday in the eighties, when fascination with the occult was at an all-time high, but nowadays people tended toward the fast convenience of magecraft.

Fortunately, as with many other aspects of the eighties, we were coming back into vogue. Just not fast enough to reliably pay all the bills.

Drive-by tourists were usually in flip-flops and T-shirts, camera phones at the ready. This man was in a suit—expensive by the looks of it, not that I know much about suits. No tie, and the first few buttons of his shirt were undone, making me wonder if this was his version of casual.

"Hi," I said, donning my customer service smile. I started to wave, then realized I was still clutching two handfuls of random crystals. I quickly dumped them back into the display, which looked exactly the same as when I had started—possibly worse.

"Hello." His hands were shoved into his pockets as he wandered in, surveying the shop with a look that seemed more critical than curious. I looked around at the homey, slapdash assortment of tables and shelves, all covered in merchandise. With the collections of herbs, bones, and other odds and ends that might appear random to the untrained eye, I could see that the Cottage more closely resembled a witch's hut in a fantasy film than a place of business. Certainly we were nothing like the sleek, contemporary offices where mages plied their trade.

"Welcome to Chanterelle Cottage." My tone was still polite, but a chill had crept in. For some reason his flat perusal of the shop was making me defensive. I much preferred the awestruck whispers or nervous chatting of tourists, even if they snapped too many pictures and couldn't stop touching things.