magical cures 07 - a charming fatality Read online

  “It’s fine.” Tiffany looked over at me with a sweet smile. “Aren’t those adorable?”

  “Adorable,” I groaned pulling the stretchy waistband. I could already feel the painful indentions the ribbed band was going to make around my stomach. “Is there something wrong with my product?”

  When the woman said something about the bottles, my internal intuition gift went off like an alarm. Something around here was off.

  “Wassup?” Another worker walked into the building with the same exact outfit on, saving Tiffany from my question. “Dude, a cat.” He reached his arm out.

  It was hard enough not to stare at his nose ring and I couldn’t help but notice the five-point star tattoo.

  My eyes bolted open and I gulped. It was true there were many witches in the world. The Good-Siders and the Dark-Siders were the two classifications. We were a very segregated world until I had mistakenly been appointed to be Whispering Falls Village President, which I gladly gave up to Petunia.

  Anyway, you could never be too careful and I wasn’t sure if he was part of the spiritual world or not, but anyone who sports a symbol from my world always made me cautious.

  Mr. Prince Charming stood on two legs, batted my wrist and darted around my leg when the tattoo guy tried to pat him.

  “What’s wrong with that cat?” he asked.

  “He’s a little shy at first.” I didn’t want Mr. Prince Charming to seem rude though I knew he was telling me something was off by batting my wrist. “I’m June Heal. I think we are going to be working together.”

  “Oh no.” Tiffany extended her arms over her head and in one fluid motion swung them down and around in a stretch. “Josh works on the line.” She tapped her watch.

  “The line?” I asked. The man and woman both turned and walked away silently. “It was nice meeting you!” I called.

  “Your contract states that we are only a co-packer for your line of stress free lotions. You have some attorney.” She nodded. “The other contract was the one where you raked us over the coals for the percentage you will get in order to be featured in Head To Toe Works.”

  “Oh.” I bit my lip. I had no idea what the Village Council had come up with in terms of the agreement. All I knew was that they had to contact the Marys, the Order of Elders, to get permission. And their decision was my decision. I had agreed to split half of the earnings to go back into Whispering Falls so we didn’t have to go through another recession like the one we had gone through around Christmas.

  “Follow me.” Tiffany instructed, curling her finger behind her shoulder and walking while still talking. She opened a door and we walked through.

  It was a long hallway with windows on both sides looking down into the factory part of the headquarters.

  “The factory portion is built underground due to the nature of the creams. They have to have proper temperature and having it built this way provides a more constant temperature without using as much energy. It is greener and we are able to use the money saved to use the best nutrients and vitamins in the product.” We stopped and both looked down on the assembly lines. “This is one reason why our customers love us so much.”

  “I see mine!” I was barely able to control my gasp of surprise when I saw the label being put on the bottles.

  When I first agreed to the deal, I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy seeing my product out there. A lot of people had my product even before I started to produce it. Darla sold plenty of this same homeopathic cure to the customers at the Locust Grove Flea Market. In fact, this one particular cure was the reason they would come back to the market. The only difference was I put a special potion in mine and Darla couldn’t.

  The potion I used was a basic one with a spell that conformed to the customer. Unlike a customer coming into A Charming Cure where I could intuitively tell what the nature of their stress was and tailor a potion to their specific needs, this adventure had to be as basic as I could and yet enough to work so I could do my part for my beloved village.

  “But. . .” I stammered when I noticed the extra special bottles, extra special as in where I had put the magic touch, were not what was being bottled, but rather still in the cardboard boxes I had sent from A Charming Cure. “Those are not my bottles.”

  “That is something I wanted to discuss with you.” Tiffany’s lips thinned. She looked at me with an intense but secret expression.

  I flung the door open next to us and bolted down the stairs with Mr. Prince Charming next to me.

  “No! No!” Tiffany hollered after me. She was so slow, I was already down the steps and in front of the machine.

  “Stop this machine,” I begged and ran around to the other side when I saw the dark skinned woman from the lobby. “Please stop this machine and use these,” I begged and rushed over to the cardboard boxes and took out one of the special potion bottles.

  I had taken the time to create these special bottles and hold them, giving each of them a special spell with my touch. Once the spell and the stress free potion, or lotion as they believed, mixed, the magical components of the product worked.

  I held one out to the woman and shoved it in her hands. Her mouth was gaped open and an inexplicable look of withdrawal came over her face. She sat it down next to her and continued to place the cheap plastic caps on the cheap plastic bottles, sending them down the line to be packaged.

  The tattoo guy kept placing the plastic bottles in the machine, letting them fill up with the stress free lotion I had sent. He shrugged.

  “June, honey.” Tiffany spoke calmly, with no lightening in her eyes, no smile of tenderness or even understanding to make me feel better. “If we were to carry those bottles, not only would we have to get special equipment, which is costly, but we’d have to up the price in the stores. It’s all business.”

  “I don’t care. I will purchase the new equipment.” Though I wasn’t sure how much it was or how I was going to do it. I just knew this was not right. “The magic won’t work.”

  “Magic?” the guy asked.

  “You know.” I waved my hand in the air and rolled my eyes. “The reason my products sell so well is all about the packaging.”

  I thought I did a nice job of covering it up.

  “Ouch!” I drew my hand back and rubbed my wrist. The liquid substance in the small potion charm was bubbling and hot against my wrist.

  Mewl, mewl. Mr. Prince Charming stood on top of the belt on the assembly line.

  “Damn cat!” Tiffany growled, slamming the palm of her hand up against the big red button to stop the product line, saving Mr. Prince Charming from going through and getting slimed with lotion. She drew her finger and screamed, “Get that cat out of here!”

  “Why did you stop the line?” It was the first time I had seen Burt Rossen since he had come into my shop telling me how happy I had made Tiffany with my stress free products over Christmas time and her love-hate relationship with his mother over deviled eggs. “This will cost us money and it will come out of your paycheck!” He pointed directly at the woman and man.

  “We didn’t do it.” The woman’s eyes drew down. “Not that you care,” she whispered behind his back when he walked past her.

  “Mr. Rossen, I’m not sure if you remember me.” I stuck my hand out. By this time Mr. Prince Charming was back at my ankles and the potion in the charm had stopped boiling. “I’m June Heal from the homeopathic cure shop in Whispering Falls.”

  “I know who you are, but you are in my territory now.” He rubbed his bald head and looked around, not giving me the time of day.

  “Please look at me when I’m talking. I’m not just a worker.” I sucked in a deep breath. My name and product was on the line, it was time I took charge.

  His eyes slid to mine. His features twisted into a maddening leer.

  “You have my attention, Ms. Heal,” he spat.

  “I have spent several years perfecting my lotions and as your wife can attest, they work.” Somehow I had to get him to get rid of t
he bottles he had already processed. “I didn’t agree to put my name and lotion in such cheap bottles.”

  “If the product is as good as you and my wife claim, the packaging won’t matter.” His brows lifted.

  “That is false. Statistics show that consumers will be more likely to pick up a nicely packaged product over . . .” Tattoo spoke up.

  “Are you Head To Toe Works’ marketing director now, Josh?” Mr. Rossen asked with a strong stamp of arrogance.

  Josh’s face reddened.

  “I didn’t think so.” Mr. Rossen turned back to me. “Plus we have already co-packed over 200 boxes. We will not lose product. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir, but this is not what I agreed to.” I had to get back to Whispering Falls and talk to Izzy about the agreement the Marys had come up with. There was no way they would agree to different bottling, not if they knew what was on the line.

  “Then we would have to get a larger belt for those types of fancy bottles.” He shook his head.

  “Not really.” The woman with the caps spoke up. “We have that barbecue sauce that went south. Those were big bottles on the line over there.” She pointed to the corner off in the distance.

  “And are you in charge of bottling?” His face was hard, crude, and merciless.

  “Burt, dear.” Tiffany lightly touched Burt’s arm. He stepped aside coming up to her shoulder. They were an odd pair. She whispered something in his ear. His chest heaved up and down with a big sigh and he looked directly at me.

  “After these go through, we will switch machines. But that won’t be until tomorrow. Got it?” He pointed at me. “These couple hundred boxes will be shipped out tomorrow as planned.

  “That’s my poky.” Tiffany ran her fingernails up his chest and pinched his chin. It must’ve been their thing because I had seen her do this to him the last time I saw them at Christmas.

  “You two,” he gestured between the two employees, “you each now have a demerit.”

  “But,” Josh protested. Tiffany shushed him quickly.

  We stood there watching Burt leave.

  “Get a leash on him,” Josh (the tattoo guy) said to Tiffany before she glared at him.

  Tiffany pushed the button to start the line again. In agony, I watched the few remaining fake bottles go through the line one-by-one getting filled up with perfectly good stress free magical lotion that was not going to be worth the two cents it was packaged in.

  Slowly an idea germinated inside of me.

  Burt said he wasn’t going to ship them out until the next day which meant they would be stored in the warehouse until the trucks would be there to pick them up to deliver them to the stores. There would be a window of time I could come back and put a special hand on each of the bottles that were already packaged, giving them the special touch needed.

  “Thank you,” I said to Tiffany as we made our way back up the stairs to the offices. “I really do believe you will see a difference in sales with the real bottles I sent.”

  “I know. I should have consulted you first, but Burt has a way of making me believe in his ideas.” She stopped and put her hand on my arm to stop me. “He has always been right. His ideas have always been spot on.”

  “But not this time.” I tried to be as nice as I could, but anger boiled in me. “I know my product and I think you believe that as well.” My intuition told me Burt was only in it for the money, which was a business and I got that, but that was not why I had decided to go national with this product. “Tiffany, I want to help people like I helped you. The cost was laid out in the contract. You knew how much your company was going to make using the bottles I had sent.”

  “Yes, but Burt knew we would have to get the special equipment that would fit your bottles on the assembly line.” She bit her lip. “I never thought of using the old barbeque equipment. I really should have and I’m sorry it created a ruckus.”

  “It’s fine.” I most certainly didn’t think it was fine. Now I had to come back and put a spell on those plastic bottles the lotion was already packaged in. This was a mess and certainly not how I had dreamed my first day would’ve gone.

  “It’s just that,” Tiffany began to make excuses for what had happened, but I wasn’t buying it. “Burt sort of oversteps his boundaries. He worked on the line after we met and I was just smitten with him. He had such a good business sense that I didn’t have. All I knew was that I was a woman and I had to get good products out there for all women.”

  We took a few more steps before she stopped at a door with my name engraved on a door plaque. She opened it and gestured for me to step inside.

  “He really does mean well. After all, he does put up with my little tantrums.” Her words went in one ear and out the other.

  When I stepped inside the room, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The office was amazing. The grey palette and fluffy furniture was better than the furniture in my cottage. There was a large grey area rug with a diamond pattern in the middle of the room. A grey sofa was place on the edge of the rug facing the desk and behind the desk was the most amazing view of Locust Grove.

  There was a kitchenette with a coffee maker and a pile of June’s Gems on a covered pastry dish. A picture of Gentle June’s Stress Relief was framed and hung on the wall in the exact bottle I had sent them.

  “Gorgeous!” I ran over to the picture and gazed at it. It was the first time I had seen a promo.

  “It will be in all the store windows and we did a big ad campaign in all the top national magazines,” Tiffany’s voice escalated.

  “And this is why it is important to use my bottles.” I continued to stare at it.

  “But not at those costs with all the ads we are running.” Burt trailed in the office behind us. “Listen, I know we kind of got off on the wrong foot, but I know business. Ask my wife.”

  “Oh, she assured me.” I doubled over and put my hand on the edge of my desk to brace myself.

  “Are you okay?” Tiffany asked.

  I opened my eyes and looked down at the ground to see if I could get a reading on my gut feeling. Madame Torres glowed from the small opening in my bag. The potion bottle charm raged with boiling liquid. Something was wrong.

  “I’m fine.” I shook my head and stood back up. It was all wrong. But what? “I’m not worried now that we have the bottle situation straightened out.”

  “It’s straight, but I’m telling you,” Burt’s voice escalated, he pointed his finger at me.

  “Stop it,” Tiffany growled and shoved his finger down toward the ground. “It will be fine.”

  He reached out and swung her face to him. “It better,” he spat through gritted teeth and dropped his hand from her face.

  “Hey!” Anger boiled deep in me. I sucked in a deep breath and envisioned my fist punching him as hard as I could in the gut. I had only been able to draw from this gift that was deep rooted in me once before. When I was a student at Hidden Hall, I was in a compromising situation and made a picture fly off the wall to knock someone out. Surely I could do it again.

  “Ugh!” Burt doubled over. His face rose to mine. His eyes blazed down into my soul. I wasn’t about to let him get the best of me. Even though I wanted to desperately look away, I knew I had to be the strong one here.

  He stalked out of the office and slammed the door behind him.

  “I’m sorry you had to witness that.” Tiffany turned to me. The red marks on her cheeks told me how hard he had pinched her face when he grabbed it. “He really wants us to have the best life possible and truth be told, we are hanging on by a thread. There have been so many companies established, doing what we are doing and going overseas to co-pack or even make the product. I promised him that your product was gold and going to put us back into profits.” Tears welled in her eyes. “You are our last hope. We have sunk every dollar into Gentle June’s.”

  “Tiffany,” a wave of apprehension swept through me. I wondered if I should keep my mouth shut, but I just couldn’t. “You really don’
t have to put up with that type of abuse.”

  “Burt,” she brushed it off, pfft, she waved her hand. “We can get a little loud, but I know he loves me.”

  “Are you sure because that didn’t look like love to me.” I sure didn’t want to stick my nose where it didn’t belong but I felt it was my duty to at least bring it to her attention that it wasn’t normal for anyone to put their hands on anyone else. Especially the way Burt had done, leaving marks.

  “Listen, we have invested a lot of money in your product. I believe in it and it’s now time for the rest of the nation to believe in it. Burt is a little on edge because it’s the most money we have spent on a campaign.” Fear, stark and vivid, set in her eyes. “Ever.”

  She quietly turned and walked out.

  One thing was for sure; I didn’t have a good feeling about Burt Rossen. There was something about him that was off and it wasn’t the fact he had just grabbed his wife who had obviously taken good care of him, but something I wasn’t able to put my finger on. And I knew to keep a watchful eye on him.

  I took Madame Torres out of my bag and sat her down on the desk.

  “That was something.” Her face appeared in the full globe. Her lips blood red, purple turban on top of her head, and green eye shadow across her eyelids. Her head swung around the ball. “I don’t have a good feeling about this place.”

  I put my kit on top of the desk and opened it. My body felt weak. Almost helpless, but I knew there was a limited amount of time to get this place cleansed.

  “Me either.” My chest heaved with breathlessness. It took all my energy to pull the smudge stick out of the kit and I quickly put it back when the door opened.

  Mr. Prince Charming darted in, Josh closely following.

  “You settling in?” Josh walked in and looked around the room. “Nice digs.”

  “I thought so.” My lips thinned as I watched his eyes zero in on the kit. I closed it and slipped it underneath the desk.

  “Nice snow globe.” He picked up Madame Torres and shook it.

  “Please don’t touch my stuff.” I grabbed her out of his hands and held her close to my body. “Is there something I can help you with?”