Secondhand Witchery

By Cassandra Johnson

Eden is just a small town girl, her mother is a small town girl and all of her friends are just small town girls - that is until she comes in contact with an old spell book.

The old saying is that, curiosity killed the cat, but Eden never figured on that curiosity bringing magic to life.

Convincing her two best friends to go along with her on this adventure, they start performing spells when mysteriously, a newcomer moves into town.

No one chooses to move to Marion, Arkansas.

Will this curious new stranger turn out to be the warlock to her witch or is he just another small town horn-dog?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cassandra Johnson
• Release date: Feb 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463607503

Cassandra Johnson

Growing up in the deep south I was taught some precious life lessons; you should always answer with Ma’am or Sir, tea that isn’t sweet and iced is blasphemy, and that you catch a lot more flies with sugar than you do with vinegar. I was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas but I was raised in the small town of Marion, Arkansas a short fifteen-minute drive from Memphis, the birthplace of rock and roll. While it may not seem like an accomplishment to some, I am proud to say that I was a published author before the age of thirty and I have many more books left in my head to share with the world. My first novel, LRR Hood is a twist on the classic Little Red Riding Hood fable, and I currently have two more books lined up for a trilogy series of the main character, Elle Marshal’s dramatic encounter with werewolves, one of my favorite mythical creatures. My writing continued to evolve from the time I was a teenager, getting involved in text-based roleplay games where my friends and I would create storyboards where we each contributed to the story through the eyes of the character’s we chose to write for. I also love fan-fiction and was an avid reader and still am to this day. I decided to throw my hat in the ring and write some of my own fanfictions until eventually, I wanted to work with characters that were my own. From those days I continued to write short stories that never reached the public until I was introduced to Kindle Direct Publishing because while I wanted to be a writer and I wanted to publish my work, I never truly believed that anyone would publish my writing and I now have a work in progress list as long as my arm, and it continues to grow every day, LRR Hood won’t be the last you hear from me.

Book preview

Part One.

No. 1

EDEN TRULY COULD NOT believe her luck – just when she thought that she would have to throw in the towel, something magical and mysterious had happened.

The Lights Plaza was closed, the smallest, most inconsequential malls in all of America were being torn down in order to make room for a bigger shopping center. Coincidentally, Carmichael’s Secondhand Book’s was housed in the plaza in the darkest, most forgotten little corner.

The book shop had been open for twenty years. Eden was only a little girl in kindergarten when it opened and she remembered her mother hurrying to pick her up from school and hurrying back to the shop after running through the tiny grocery store in their tiny town to pick up a little after school snack because the shop didn’t close until five o’clock sharp on the dot every day, seven days a week.

Eden grew up in that book store when they were struggling to line the shelves until eventually those shelves began to buckle, the books were stacked knee high on the floor in every available inch of  space, but then the problem was that no one wanted secondhand books – they wanted something brand new, they wanted to visit the big corporation owned warehouse like buildings that had a coffee shop inside.

The tiny alcove inside the plaza was small and cramped with a barely discernible path in the floor from the till to the door.

When people did visit the shop, they complained that it smelled like mold and rat piss. Moira had called countless times for someone to come out and get rid of the rodents, but they would have to completely clear out the shop. The leak in the roof had been reported to the landlord countless times and they’d send a repairman out to patch the leak, but it always came back.

Eden had all but lost hope until one morning a week ago when she was drinking her coffee, she saw a notice in the paper. The small town of Marion, Arkansas was going through a lot of changes. In the oldest part of town, just past the courthouse, the Mayor had commissioned that the old buildings be cleaned up and put back into working order. In recent years, if you called fifteen years ago recent a new library was built right in the center of town, the old Jefferson’s Pharmacy re-opened and was restored back to its former glory before Wal-Greens came to town, but it had been made into a natural and holistic medicine shoppe, like an old apothecary and the fun part was they reopened the soda fountain.

It was as if the whole town was taking a step back into the fifties, at least cosmetically speaking that is.

While she was drinking her coffee, she saw the notice, in the same strip of shops as the new apothecary, they had finally finished renovating the four buildings adjacent and as it said in the ad – one was a perfect place for a bookshop.

Picking up her cell phone, Eden called the number in the advertisement and talked to Mr. Hill he was the property manager and asked him how much the spaces were being rented for. Five hundred dollars a month.

It was a stretch and things would be touch and go at first, but Eden was sure that she could swing it. Why she was bringing in that much a month at least from her crafting. In her down time, because the book shop hadn’t been making money in years – really, the Carmichael’s had been losing money just renting the space in the plaza for the last fifteen out of the twenty years it was there. Eden always felt that if the shop was in a better location that people would come inside, but this – it just felt too good to be true. Eden told Mr. Hill that she wanted to come see the space, he agreed to meet with her that very morning.

With her little bit of savings, Eden was able to scrap together the money to pay the first and last month’s rent as well as the security deposit on the rental space. Mr. Hill brought the rental agreement with him as if he knew that the instant, she saw the space she would have to have it for her own – and he was right.

Moira thought that Eden was pulling her leg when she told her the news – after all those years trying to make the shop work and then the plaza closing, Moira felt like it was fate telling her that while it was a wonderful dream, it was time to let it go. Eden drove to the center of town, pulling up, down the street from the library in front of the apothecary and got out, walking up the freshly patched sidewalk. Just smiling to herself as she took the keys to the space out of her pocket and unlocked the door, letting it swing wide open for Moira to step inside.

It’s really ours, you aren’t pulling my leg? Moira had asked her as she stood in the middle of the space, looking at the shining hardwood floors, the beautifully whitewashed walls – shelving that ran from the ceiling to the floor. Two beautiful open display windows that let the bright spring sunshine flow inside. The space was entirely different from the plaza. This – this was the shop that she had dreamed of and never been able to attain.

I’m not pulling your leg mama, it’s ours and when I was talking to Mr. Hill, the property manager, he said that the owner is the same man who bought out the entire block of shops here and owned Mrs. Rogers apothecary next door. Remember, he worked out a rent to own agreement for her a few years ago? This place could be ours for real if we are able to show a profit. It could be all ours in a few years. Eden explained.

Moira had needed her inhaler and a place to sit, so they’d gone back out to the car and sat with the windows rolled down – staring into