Almost Magic: Three Sisters, #3

By Barbara Bartholomew

Cairo is the youngest of the three Wagstaff sisters and the one without magic. Refusing to accept this definition, she sets out to prove her own abilities, but unlike her older sisters who use their talents for altrustic purposes, she chooses more personal goals. Using an old 'recipe' book left by her great-grandmother, she attempts to make a love potion and inadvertently traps herself and the wrong man in its coils.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Bartholomew
• Release date: Mar 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507057490

Barbara Bartholomew

Barbara Bartholomew lives in western Oklahoma, dividing her time between the farm which has been in the family for over a hundred years and a 1940s house in a neighboring small town. She frequently draws on this background and her years living in Texas for her books. She is the author of more than forty published novels and dozens of short stories.

Book preview

Cover Design by Melody Simmons of eBookindiecovers

Books by the Author

Everyday Magic (Three Sisters series)

More Than Magic (Three Sisters series)

The House Near the River

The Ghost and Miss Hallam (Lavender series)

Letters From Another Town (Lavender series)

Leaving Lavender (Lavender series)

Lavender Blue (Lavender series)

Lavender Dreaming (Lavender series)

Wrong Face in the Mirror (Medicine Stick series)

Awakening the Past (Medicine Stick series)

Bobbi and the Bootlegger (Medicine Stick series)

By The Bay

This Side of Forever

At This Time of Year (novella)

Dreams of Earth (Sanctuary)

Nightmare Kingdom (Sanctuary)

For Younger Readers

The Time Keeper (Timeways series)

Child of Tomorrow (Timeways series)

When Dreamers Cease to Dream (Timeways series)

The Second Jeep Harris

Finding Endymion

Royal Blood

Princess Alice

Chapter One

Cairo Wagstaff would be twenty two in August and was beginning to doubt that she had any special talent. This was why for the first time she’d skipped the annual last day of school celebration when the whole community brought lunches and watched the high school boys play against the trustees from the reformatory down in the mountains.

Her sister Sydney could hear unspoken thoughts from other people’s minds. Her other sister Airdrie had forecasting dreams. Dad didn’t talk about witches any longer because that had become an unpopular subject, but most people around whispered that the Wagstaff women were a little odd and traced that strangeness back through the generations. Cairo’s mom and aunt had both been consulted by neighbors for illness, injury and emotional distress. Her great-grandmother, one of the first settlers in Whippoorwill Corners not long after this Oklahoma land had been opened back in 1901, was noted for her ‘granny’ magic, the ancient wisdom brought over from the old country hundreds of years before.

In the modern year of 1949 people said that was all superstition and science had replaced magic as the major force in the world.

Cairo wasn’t so sure. Somehow she’d been so busy with other things that she’d failed to develop her own magic, the legacy left her by the women in her family, and she wanted magic. She wanted to be able to reach out and do things!

When her sister Airdrie married early last winter, Cairo had not moved into the downstairs room in the farmhouse which had been occupied in turn by her maiden aunt, then by each of her sisters, but had chosen to stay in the small suite she’d created upstairs from two small bedrooms, one of which contained her bedroom furniture and the other a little sitting room where she could be alone or entertain her girl friends.

The house her parents built after their family began to arrive seemed too empty these days with only her and Dad left and they rarely went to the area back of the kitchen with the big bedroom and the long add-on workroom where her aunt had  once lived and practiced whatever magic she’d had. But today Cairo, alone in the house with Dad off at the baseball game, found herself tiptoeing as she went back and opened the door, half expecting Aunt Nora, gone over two years now, to greet her.

Without Airdrie to keep up the house, all the rooms seemed a little frayed and dusty these days, but in particular this room left empty since her sister married, looked lonely and abandoned with dust motes dancing in the May sunshine as it came through the window glass.

I need help, Auntie, she whispered, but of course none of the former occupants of the room replied. Her mission was a simple one. For most of her life her aunt, who had never married and spent her life as a resident of her parents’ home and after their deaths with her sister, brother-in-law and their three daughters, had kept regular journals. Cairo had decided the time had come to consult those to see if her aunt had left any advice for her.

The trunk containing the journals had been shoved into a closet. Cairo had spent most of her life working in the fields, farming along side her mom and dad and, after her mother’s death, with Dad alone. Strong enough to move the big trunk without help, she pulled it into the middle of the room and lifted the lid.

Both Sydney and Airdrie read from this selection of journals varying from the early ones which were just sheets of crumbling paper bound together by ribbons to the red velvet volumes Aunt Nora had used in her later years. Now it was her turn to come into her own and find the magic that worked for her.

Her sisters seemed almost afraid of their own powers, but Cairo felt eager and excited. She’d read books, well, novels actually, and she knew about being invisible, cursing enemies, enchanting handsome young men and such. Of course, she grinned at the thought, there were those who said Cairo Wagstaff did pretty well at enchanting young men without any extra help.

She’d turned down half a dozen proposals from the guys with whom she’d gone to school, but she didn’t want to marry someone she’d known all her life as had her sisters. Oh, her brothers-in-law Gabe Cabot and Lucas Dade were the best. But for herself she wanted someone different—tall, dark and handsome and from another more interesting place than Whippoorwill Corners. But she was fairly sure just wishing didn’t work, ‘cause she had wished for her own true love to show up for a couple of years now and he still hadn’t come. Maybe Aunt Nora could give her some clues as how to go about this business.

Then she remembered that Aunt Nora had never married and laughed.  She picked up a red velvet volume from the top and began to read.

Most of the roads in this part of Oklahoma had been laid out before settlement and so followed a logical pattern of regular intervals and fairly straight progress. These had not been old cattle trails or the way the wagons went to market where roads had grown up. This place had been planned and should provide an easy way of travel.

But for Stratton Marshall, who had lived in a nearby town for the past year and been so busy he rarely drove out in the countryside, it was all confusing. And after the last half hour of driving, he was convinced he was becoming more lost with each mile he added on. And this was certainly the most God-forsaken boring countryside he’d ever seen with its rather flat landscape, its spartan farmsteads and overriding and obvious poverty.

He must have been out of his mind to choose to set up his practice here where the old doctor with whom he’d gone into practice still made calls deep in the country. And because Dr. Billings was in bed sick, he’d had no choice but to make this visit to an elderly woman himself. If he hadn’t, the old doctor most likely would have stumbled out of his sick bed to make the call.

Finally he had no choice but to stop at a shabby little house that he couldn’t imagine anyone living in to ask for directions. A huge mongrel of a dog greeted him with open suspicion as he got out of the car, his bark deep and solemn, but not too threatening. Down, boy, he said in a placating tone and when to knock on the front door. No answer.

Tired, hungry and with the feeling that his own patients were suffering while he did Dr. Billings the favor of visiting someone who wasn’t probably all that sick but only old, he stalked back down the rickety steps, the huge dog sniffing at his heels. Then he saw a man out on an old tractor in the field back of the house and with a reluctant sense he had no other choice, walked down there, collecting red dust on his shiny black shoes as he went up and down between the rows of some short green plant, probably cotton since this was what he’d been told was mostly grown in the area.

He flagged down the man on the tractor, a burly older man with a beard who scowled at him as he brought the tractor to a halt. The tractor was not cooperative, instead of idling it popped loudly a couple of times then whimpered to a stop. Damn! said his unwelcoming host. The dog barked as though gaining courage from the presence of his master.

Down, King, the man said.

Stratton started to offer to shakes hands, but then observing the filthy condition of the man’s hand, restrained himself.

You selling something? the man asked. ’Cause if you are, I aint’t buying.

Stratton drew in a patient breath. In the months he’d lived in western Oklahoma he’d learned that approaching the subject of his conversation too abruptly could be considered rude. He couldn’t walk in on a patient and say, What’s wrong with you today? without earning frowns and complaints to old Dr. Billings that the young whipper-snapper was downright unfriendly.

Even though this man was not and likely never would be a patient of his, he did his best. I am Dr. Stratton Marshall, he said, trying not to let his impatience seep into his tone even though he couldn’t help feeling that two people could die from inattention while he was out on this ridiculous mission. And I’m trying to find the residence of a Mrs. Myrtle Marshall.

You kin to her?

He sighed. The similarity of names is coincidental. Mrs. Marshall and I have never met.

The scowl deepened. You want to selll old Miz Marshall something? ‘Cause if you do you’ll find her a hard customer to do business with. Tough as nails, that old bird.

My good man, I do not wish to sell anyone anything. This is simply a curtesy visit to a patient for Dr. Billings, who is ill.

The scowl relaxed, the face taking on an almost friendly expression. Doc Billings. Good man. Took care of my leg when it was broke. He considered for a moment and Stratton allowed himself a faint hope that he was about to be given directions. You talk funny. You ain’t from around here?

I grew up in Maine, he said. And now if you’ll kindly tell me . . .

The man stuck out a hand and he had no choice but to give it a tentative shake. Jubal Dade, at your service, he said. Don’t know much about that part of the country except I figure it’s near the sea. Well, I reckon you must be  in a rush to get to Myrtle Marshall as she’d have a fit if you’re late. Sets a store about being on time, Miz Marshall does. Now if you just go back to the road and turn east at the next stop, then go a mile and a quarter past the house with the big red barn . . .

Stratton prided himself on his logical mind. Turn east at the corner and stop at the house with the big red barn.

No, no that’ll be the Harris place. Keep going until you get to the corner where a herd of prime Jerseys ‘ll be grazing down by the pond. Go past across the intersection and down the hill and you’ll find two houses. Miz Marshall lives in the second, the one with the yard so neat a man wouldn’t dare spit.

A little dazed, Stratton nodded. All he wanted by now was to escape this man. He’d been up most of the night with a seriously ill child and wasn’t at his best for tolerating eccentric characters. Expressing brief thanks, he went to his car and drove out to the road, turned east, found the house with the big red barn (much bigger than the modest little house) and drove on. At the second house as directed, he turned in and knocked on the door.

After a few minutes, a short rather plump elderly woman answered the door. I’m here for Dr. Billings, he said shortly, anxious to get this over and get back to his patients.

Dr. Billings doesn’t live here. He lives in Elk City. She started to shut the door in his face, obviously expecting as had his previous contact that he must be selling something.

In best salesman fashion, he put his black shoe in the way so she couldn’t close it. I’m Dr. Marshall. Dr. Billings sent me out to check on you because he’s ill.

She considered him appraisingly. My name is Marshall, she said.

As is mine.

I don’t think we’re related.

He sighed. Mrs. Marshall, Dr. Billings simply wished me to check your blood pressure and make certain you were feeling well.

She nodded. I suppose you have identification.

He pulled out his wallet and showed her his driver’s licence which she inspected carefully. You don’t look like a doctor. Too young. But I suppose you’re that young surgeon Thomas took in out of the goodness of his heart.

Being a distinguished graduate of an equally distinguished medical school in the civilized eastern part of the country who worked with a good-hearted doctor that he privately considered to be next neighbor to a quack, Stratton supressed his indignation and held up the requisite black bag. If you’d like me to check your blood pressure? he said, wondering if it wasn’t his own pressure that didn’t need to be measured after all he’d been through.

After that he was admitted, refused a glass of iced tea, and managed to check the old woman’s vitals and found them in reasonably good order. He couldn’t help wondering why Billings had sent him out on this wild goose chase, politely refused to answer nosy questions about his background and family which, Mrs. Marshall, having decided that he might be kin after all, asked even as he departed the house.

He started his automobile with more than his usual amount of impatience and prepared to flee to the safety of the building in Elk City where he spent most of his time, the unique little cooperative hospital, the first of its kind, where he’d voluntarily chosen to come after completing his training.

Not for the first time, he wondered what he’d been thinking when he elected to come to this beknighted country where the residents seemed to think he was the one who was out of his mind.

He’d driven only a couple of miles in his search to find what passed locally for a state highway when something pressing against the back of his neck made him realize he was no longer alone in the car.

Don’t make a move, Mister, a scared young voice whispered hoarsely. This here is a loaded shotgun I’ve got pointed at your back.

Chapter Two

She found it slipped within the pages of a red velvet diary. Sheets of paper tucked together with a faded ribbon around the whole and on the front the hand written identification, ‘Grandma Valen’s recipes.’

She’d heard a lot about her mother’s grandmother, usually called either Grandma or Granny. Everybody came to her for advice and treatment, Mom had said. And because their own mother had been practically an invalid for most of her life, Granny had a big hand in bringing up Nora and Lydia.

When Cairo carefully began to look through the yellowed papers she got a surprise. These were not recipes for Christmas cookies and special pies. Instead they were for ‘Grandma’s Salve, Grandma’s Rose Vapor, a care for warts, use of the madstone, and at