Candy Cane Conspiracy: Lucky Magic

By Cate Lawley

A witch's destiny denied.

Fate made Trixie a hunter of devilish demons, except…demons aren't devilish, and Trixie's not hunting them. She gave that future the boot and became an unwilling creature whisperer.

But by denying her supposed destiny, she inherits a problem.

Furred, feathered, and scaled, the creatures have invaded her life. She's being pranked by furry fairies, stalked by mini-devils, and harassed by the messy scourge of dragons roosting in her yard.

Trixie's had enough. She's moving to Boise and hoping to leave the magical critters behind.

But what happens when moving isn't enough?

Join Trixie as she begins her new job as a barista at Magic Beans coffee shop and becomes a reluctant solver of magical creature problems.

 

NOTE: An early version of this book was missing a critical chapter. The updated, correct version has a total of 19 chapters and an epilogue. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cate Lawley
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201012137

Book preview

Prologue

Iwas moving to Idaho.

One of those I states, the one with a population less than the greater Austin area.

It was a lot to process. I knew it was time for a big change, past time. And Austin, Texas, to Boise, Idaho, was one whopper of a change.

But I’d known it was the right move as soon as I saw the posting on one of the more popular witch job boards.

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Ready for your life to move in a whole new direction? Looking for a great place to work? If you can make a good cup of coffee and have a knack for chatting with customers, Magic Beans might have just the position for you. Accepting applications for baristas. Experience preferred but not required.

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It spoke to me. To my situation. Especially the small note tacked onto the end.

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Magic Beans doesn’t discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual preference, national origin, or type of magic practiced.

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I’d googled Magic Beans, and it looked like most of the current staff (if not all) were witches, and the owner was a wizard. Then I’d discovered via LinkedIn that one of the baristas at a coffee shop I frequented here in Austin had just left his position at Magic Beans. Sometimes the magical world felt claustrophobically small, but sometimes its small size was a boon.

It took less than five minutes of conversation with Jonathon, former Magic Beans barista and all around great guy, to discover that Magic Beans was the kind of place that made everyone feel welcome. He’d left to follow the love of his life to Austin, not because the job, the coffee shop, the patrons, or the boss were problematic.

When I asked specifically about tolerance, he gave me a funny look and said, sure, they were really cool people, not judgmental at all.

I hoped that lack of judgment applied to witches with unique magical abilities.

The owner was a wizard married to a witch. Hardly newsworthy, but definitely an indication that he might be more open-minded than the average coffee-shop-owning wizard.

With a little luck, maybe he’d think nothing of my oddball talent and all its accompanying quirks. Or better yet, maybe I’d move away from Austin and all of my magical…ah…baggage would stay in Texas.

Maybe.

1

Furry fairies were the devil.

Satan’s little gift to our world.

No, that wasn’t fair. They weren’t evil, but they were troublemaking jerks.

The fluffy twits had festooned the shrubs in front of my house with candy canes. And I really had thought we’d managed a truce of sorts.

Yoo-hoo! Trixie! Mrs. Patrick, my neighbor across the street, waved at me.

I considered not making eye contact and getting in my car, but her voice carried well and it would have been obvious I was avoiding her. I liked Mrs. Patrick. I didn’t want to avoid her, but inexplicable candy canes weren’t a topic I was ready to discuss, having only just seen them for the first time myself.

From there it was all downhill. I didn’t even have the excuse that I’d be late to work. I wasn’t due into Magic Beans, the coffee shop where I was a barista, for another hour.

She trotted across the street, while I scrambled for an explanation. Mrs. Patrick was great, but she was also the one person on the street who knew all the comings and goings, all the good gossip, and who would be completely stupefied as to how I’d managed to decorate without being seen.

Also, who put candy canes in their shrubs? Maybe an indoor Christmas tree, or maybe fake candy canes outdoors. But real ones outside? Not a trend, for so many reasons. The sugar would attract ants and other critters and then there was the sticky mess of it all once they got damp. Boise was on the dry side—high mountain desert—but we got snow and had morning dew. This prank had the makings of a large cleanup effort. Big surprise there. Since when weren’t furry fairy pranks a massive bunch of work on my part?

What an interesting choice, she exclaimed, looking up into the boughs of the single tree in my front yard. Is that a Texas tradition?

They got my tree? I closed my eyes as I steeled myself for what I was about to discover. One glance skyward revealed all. There were candy canes. So, so many candy canes.

It was a big old tree, so there was plenty of room to pile on the sweets. They must have hijacked an entire truckload of goodies to come up with enough to achieve the red and white splendor of the sight before me.

They didn’t have human-friendly concepts of ownership, which meant I’d have to find out where these came from and pay for them. That would put a dent in my savings. My tiny house had an equally tiny mortgage payment after I rolled the equity from my Austin house into it, and I had a little set aside, but my barista pay didn’t leave me much wiggle room.

Mrs. Patrick was patiently waiting for me to respond, while I calculated the dollars and cents of my relationship with a bunch of furry pranksters. How had this become my life?

Ah, not exactly a Texas tradition, Mrs. Patrick. More of a family practice. I apologized silently to my family for the fib.

Mrs. Patrick was convinced that everything unusual about me had to do with my coming from Austin. She’d heard the slogan keep Austin weird and immediately assumed we were all just a little bit wacky.

I usually encouraged her assumptions, because it was better than her sussing out that I was a witch.

Sure, I could cover up any leaks about my witchy nature with magic, but I’d rather not have to do that to Mrs. Patrick. Again, I liked her.

Call me Joyce, hon. I keep telling you, and you keep not listening. She shook a finger at me, which was all for show. She loved it when I called her Mrs. Patrick. It both reminded her of her husband, who she’d lost several years earlier, and made me sound southern to her for some reason.

Not that I could read her mind or anything, but I did come from a long line of intuitive witches, and occasionally I got the odd twinge or feeling about something. Never anything terribly important, and nothing to do with my own life, naturally, but then, that was the nature of my magic in general: not especially helpful.

On the bright side, I was pretty good at spotting a fib. On the much less bright side, I had a harder time with big, bald-faced lies.

She looked up at my tree again. Unusual, but very festive. How do you get them to glow? I don’t see where they’re plugged in.

They glowed? I looked up at the tree again. The sneaky jerks must have hung them up in the middle of the night, because I didn’t see anything like a glow now. Mrs. Patrick was usually up quite early, and the sun didn’t rise until after eight this late in December. There’d have been a good number of dark hours for her to observe my glowing candy canes, at least two, maybe three.

Fabulous. I didn’t just have bug-attracting sugar treats strewn throughout my foliage; I had magically enhanced, glowing, bug-attracting sugar treats.

Solar. I nodded, as if, of course my furry-fairy-powered candy canes were solar-powered.

Ah. Isn’t that clever. Where in the world did you find them?

Where did I find my magic candy canes? Heck. Going out of business sale. Online. Sorry.

Oh, well. I thought they were a nice alternative to traditional lights, but they’re likely a bother to install. She peered up at my tree. I don’t quite see how they’re attached.

I just nodded and smiled.

I was going to kill those squirrel-impersonating jerks.

Fairycide wasn’t really a crime, was it?

2

An hour and a half later, as I served my boss’s fiancée, Lina, I felt a hint of doubt regarding my murderous intentions.

"You think they’re trying to help me?" I gave Lina a skeptical look over the espresso machine I was working. She was messing with me.

Seriously. You were just saying the other day that you didn’t think you’d get around to decorating for Christmas this year. And voilà, you have Christmas decorations.

She wasn’t messing with me.

You do remember when I moved here a little over a year ago that they scared the bejeebers out of you, right? I handed her a peppermint mocha. It was a special blend that had cocoa powder instead chocolate syrup. All the chocolate, a fraction of the sugar, and with the new oat milk we’d started using, still frothy and fun.

One sip and a look of near-ecstasy crossed her face. I love you.

Uh-huh. A love that lasts exactly as long as that coffee in your hand.

She grinned, not arguing. Is your yard pretty?

I scrunched up my nose. It was. If someone had described it to me, I’d have thought the whole idea over-the-top. Garish and overdone. It wasn’t. It was festive and fun in a whimsical way.

Ha! I knew it. It looks great, doesn’t it?

Lina, they’re made of sugar. You know what kind of mess they’re going to make when they get wet? And I’ve already had one neighbor quizzing me about the mechanics behind the glowing.

Ooh, they glow. I’m totally swinging by your place tonight to get a look. When do the lights come on?

I didn’t reply.

Right. You wouldn’t know that, because you didn’t put them up. And they’re magic. Hmm. I’m going with as soon as it’s dark. She moved out of the way as a new customer walked in.

Once I’d whipped up the double espresso shot that I knew in my gut the guy hadn’t truly wanted—he’d been practically pining for a pumpkin spice latte, the sugary variety with lots of whipped cream, but he was also human and wouldn’t appreciate my recommendation—I turned back to Lina. I should probably take them down.

Don’t you dare. Enjoy the candy cane crazy.

I’d consider it. Maybe if I discounted my knee-jerk reaction to any fairy interference in my life, I’d see Lina’s side.

But of all people, I’d think she’d get where I was coming from. "How exactly is your fairy infestation going these days?"

I’d helped Lina out with a furry fairy problem shortly after I’d started working at Magic Beans—after I’d gotten over being completely freaked out that they’d followed me from Austin. There hadn’t been any noticeable furry fairy activity before my arrival, so I was pretty darn sure I’d been responsible in some as-yet-to-be-determined way. Though Lina had convinced me that her fairies were local, and that I hadn’t actually been tracked to Boise by squirrel-like magical pranksters all the way from Texas.

I like them. She leaned her elbows on the counter. They’re fun. It’s almost like having pets, except I don’t have to walk them or feed them every day, just a sandwich a week to keep up my end of our bargain. They do occasionally prank me, but I think it’s just when I give them a book they don’t like. And they don’t come in the house.

Furry fairies might look like squirrels, but they weren’t rodents. They could read, and they enjoyed a good romance novel. Part of Lina’s agreement with them required her to provide them with reading material. Better than them taking up residence at one of the used bookstores in town.

And I’d come to Boise to escape my critter problems. Right, that was happening.

Wherever I went, I took my creature whispering talents with me. And it was my unique talent that drew the critters to me and quite possibly to those in my sphere. Alternatively, I cranked up critter activity in general wherever I went. Either way, Lina’s experience had something to do with me. I felt bad enough she had to deal with them at all. If they were more of a nuisance I’d feel terrible. Especially because I hadn’t a clue how to evict them from a property, just how to keep them out of the house.

Glad they’re not driving you crazy.

She gave me a sympathetic look. They also aren’t pranking me in such obvious ways. If you decide you do want to take down the decorations, give me a holler.

Are you crazy? This is your prime candy-selling season. You don’t have the time. Lina’s Halloween-themed candy shop was busiest from October to February, though her sales in general had picked up since her new partner and my sometimes coworker Sabrina took over Sticky Tricky Treats’ web store.

She flashed a mischievous smile. I’ll make Bastian help you.

Like I’d let my boss help me take down magic Christmas decorations that had been planted by furry fairies that were pranking me.

My boss who was also, basically, the local sheriff. Still. After he’d tried to retire.

Sabrina and Miles were supposed to have taken over for him, but then Sticky Tricky Treats’ online sales blew up, Miles’s job as head barista demanded more of his time, and magical crime seemed to putter to a slow trickle. So Bastian had just… not left.

He’d been looking for a replacement since I started at Magic Beans, but it hadn’t been going all that well. Between Boise having a relatively small magic community to pull from, the job requiring a pristine criminal background check, and the sometimes long hours, Bastian had been struggling to come up with a solid candidate.

I felt bad for the guy. He’d put in his time with the International Criminal Witch Police. As lead detective, he was responsible for investigating all magical crime in the area, not just the witchy