Read A Witch's Handbook of Kisses and Curses for Free Online Page A

struggling to find words that wouldn’t set off Miranda’s bullshit sensor. Frankly, I was fighting the absurd urge to slink down in my seat so noone in the shop would see me. I wasn’t ready for this. I needed to prepare for my visit to the shop. I cleared my throat and reminded Miranda about the perishables we’d loaded into the car. “I’ll come back some other time, but thanks for showing me where to find it.”
    Miranda shrugged and sped the car down the street. The farther we got from the store, the more I was able to relax. I leaned back against the seat and mulled over this latest development. My plans would have to change. I would need to do more research on Dick Cheney. I would need to change the way I approached Jane Jameson.
    The woman who owned my grandfather’s shop was a vampire. That could make my life a lot more complicated.
    *  *  *
    Sleep didn’t come easily that night, and not just because of my faulty internal clock or the lingering possibility of small mammals scurrying about my bedroom while I slept. It was a combination of worries, including the fact that I was sleeping under the roof my grandfather once owned. Penny called it a “beautiful coincidence” that she’d found it on a Web site listing local rentals. It made me edgy and uncomfortable, for reasons I hadn’t quite pinned down yet. So I tossed and turned in my newly outfitted bed, thinking of Nana Fee and the night she died.
    For a witch, Nana Fee died a shockingly normal death. Her heart was old and simply couldn’t give any more. When the body is unable to carry on, there’s onlyso much magic can do. She was tired of fighting nature and decided to let it take its course.
    So on one unremarkable evening a few weeks ago, she sat propped up in her bed, the same one where she’d spent a lifetime alone, well aware that she was breathing her last. She sent everyone from her cozy little bedroom except me. My uncles, aunts, and cousins did as they were told, knowing it was likely the last time she’d boss them around, but they weren’t happy about it. Death was rarely a solitary event in the McGavock family. We were practically our own Greek chorus.
    Nana tried to keep a stoic face through the whole affair. Although the family had never held an official election, Nana was definitely the leader. And somehow they’d gotten it into their heads that I was inheriting the position, no matter how much I pleaded for someone else to step in. Nana insisted that we dress her in the lavender bed jacket that Uncle Jack had given her for Christmas. Her snowy-white hair was piled high on her head. The fire was burned down to embers, giving her pale-blue eyes an unearthly glow. “It’s time,” she said, her voice steady but weak. “I made a mistake, putting it off for this long. He’s gone now.”
    “Who’s gone?” I asked.
    Moving slowly, she pointed to the foot of her bed, to the space between her mattress and box spring. I reached in and pulled out a well-worn manila envelope. She smiled, a slight lift of the corner of her mouth. “Your grandfather.”
    “Gilbert Wainwright?” I read the address on the envelope,listing a resident in Half-Moon Hollow, Kentucky, and looked up at Nana, a million questions burning the tip of my tongue.
    “He was a good man. Smart, just like my Nola.”
    I emptied the envelope into my hand and found several black-and-white photos of a much younger Nana laughing into the camera, her arms slung around a slight man with light hair and dark eyes. He was grinning down at her, a look of fond admiration on his face.
    “He didn’t love me,” she said. “But I didn’t care. I was young. A little foolish.”
    “You got his name tattooed on your bum?” I asked, sniffing as I sorted through photos, letters, and what appeared to be Nana Fee’s journal.
    “Impudent chit,” she muttered. “Shouldn’t have expected anything less from you.”
    “You would worry if I was behaving any other way.”
    “He