“It is, but there’s a ton of competition and the few customers I had weren’t cutting it. Plus, I got tired of college kids asking if I had vape pens or CBD oil.” He chuckled at that. “Maybe it’s silly, but I thought I might have better luck out here in the sticks.”
Marty leaned over the counter, snagging the beer nuts and mustard sauce I’d been eyeing from the top of the pile, sliding them over to me in one smooth move.
“Thanks,” I said with a little, guilty smile.
“Nah, I don’t think that’s silly. This town has a spooky reputation. Your shop will fit right in. Do it up like an old apothecary with some dark wood shelves, brass scales, and old bottles. People will eat that right up. You could call it ‘Holly’s Home Remedies’ or something.”
“Actually, I already have a name for it.”
“And what’s that?”
I cleared my throat. “Poppy’s Potions.”
“Poppy?” he started.
“It’s my middle name.”
“Huh,” he said, nodding. “Then Holly is…”
“My first name.”
“But everyone calls Mom ‘Poppy’,” Finn explained.
Marty looked at me and smiled. “Poppy,” he repeated, like he was tasting the word. “I like it.”
Finn plucked one of the large lollipops from the basket, scowling when I swapped it for a strip of jerky and a packet of wasabi peas.
“Mom.”
“You’ve had enough sugar for the night.”
He rolled his shoulders forward and cast a sullen glance over at the antique stove that dominated most of one wall. The La Cornue Range Stove had been stylish and modern... when it was installed in the 1920s. I wasn’t sure how much elbow grease it was going to take to get the individual pieces clean or if the thing would even start. It seemed like a fiery conflagration waiting to happen.
Finn peeled the wasabi pea bag open with a great deal of unnecessary attitude. “Are these things hot?” he asked Marty.
He shrugged. “I mean, kind of?”
“I don’t like hot stuff.”
“Just eat the jerky,” I said and took the peas from him.
He nodded and faced Marty again. “Where’d you get all this stuff anyway?”
“From all the shops in town,” he answered. “The jerky, nuts, peas, and pretzels are courtesy of Roy Osbourne, the owner of the Half-Moon Bar and Grill.” Then he looked at me. “The best steak you’ll get in the entire state, hands down.” Then he looked at Finn. “The candies are from Sweeter Haunts. It’s decorated year-round for Halloween and they have the best candy corns you ever had. Swear. The ice cream came from Stanley Stomper. He’s a bit of a reclusive sort and never comes out of the shop, but the floats are to die for. There’s some sugar-free gum and flavored dental floss in there from Lorcan Rowe’s Dentistry and the rest is from Miss Hazel’s Convenience store.”
“Thank you,” I said, touched he’d gone to such an extent to welcome us. It really said a lot about him. And I was happy to know there was a dentist in town. Hopefully he was an orthodontist, as well, since Finn had braces.
“Eh, don’t sweat it,” Marty said and gave me a lingering smile. “What are neighbors for, right?”
“Right,” I answered. “By the way, you were going to tell me about what happened to my apple tree?”
“Oh, right!” he said and nodded. “Ophelia happened to your apple tree.”
“Um… what do you mean?”
“I mean your apple tree didn’t react well to being around Ophelia.”
“I still don’t get it.”
Marty shrugged. “You should see her at the grocery store. She walks by the fresh produce and I swear it all starts wilting seconds later. It’s like the old hag is cursed.”
Or maybe she was the one doing the cursing? I had a bad feeling about my ancient, bad-tempered realtor. Soured milk and spoiled food could and did happen around witches...
“You think she’s a witch?” Finn asked, looking at Marty before he turned his worried expression on me. I immediately shook my head.
Ophelia wasn’t a witch. I would have felt the power coming off her if she were. And, besides, Ophelia didn’t look like a witch—she was way too old. Witch magic was strong—enough to slow the aging process down to a crawl. A witch had to be a century and a half old before she’d look anywhere close to my age. And that meant Ophelia would have to be close to four or five hundred to look as old as she did. Thanks to my own magic, I looked good for forty-three, but I’d never outlast a witch.
And there was that other thing about witches. They were fiercely territorial and jealously guarded their homes and land. So, the last place you’d find a witch was in a realty office. But there was something... off, about Ophelia, all the same. So much so, that I wasn’t surprised to hear she and fresh produce didn’t get along.
“A few friends of mine are doing an experiment on Ophelia,” Marty continued.
“An experiment?” I repeated.
“Huh?” Finn asked.
Marty nodded. “RJ and Henner rigged up some homemade ghost hunting equipment for this side gig we’ve got going. Henner is monitoring every fruit Ophelia comes into contact with.”
“How does one even do that?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I dunno, but leave it to Henner. He can accomplish the impossible. Anway… So far? Every fruit has gone bad as soon as she gets within five feet of it.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked.
Marty shrugged. “At first we thought maybe she had a ghost attached to her or something.”
“A ghost?” Finn asked, his eyes widening in worry.
Marty shook his head. “Yeah, it wasn’t a ghost, so far as we can tell. But it’s something. The readings around Ophelia are off the charts.”
“Is that why she was so mad at you?” I asked. “Because she didn’t want you doing experiments on her?”
He cocked his head to the side. “I mean… it could be. She gets annoyed with all our investigations.”
“What kind of investigations?” Finn asked.
“Well, mainly fruit and vegetable investigations where Ophelia is concerned. But her annoyance doesn’t end there. She gets irritated when we do our ghost investigations too. She mainly gets exasperated at those.”
“Ghost investigations?” Finn repeated.
Marty nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got a ghost hunting business on the side.”
“Oh,” I said and looked at Finn, worried how he’d react to this news.
The tremors in Finn’s hands were all the warning I had before he pushed away from the table. “I’m gonna play Super Mario in my bedroom, okay?”
He tossed the words over his shoulder as he crossed the hardwood kitchen floors and disappeared up the stairs. In other circumstances, I’d have called him back to apologize for being rude. Tonight I didn’t have the heart to do more than stare after him as he dragged a veritable bridal train of cobwebs after him.
“Okay, I’ll be up in a little bit!” I called after him.
Marty’s brows pushed together over those intense blue eyes. “Did I say something wrong?”