She poured each of them a glass of tea and grabbed a bag of Milano cookies. Placing a few cookies on a small plate, Maggie handed Gina a glass and grabbed her own.
“I don’t want you, well you, Annie, and Clara, to be mad at me.”
“Why would we be?” Maggie looked confused.
Time to spill the beans,she thought.
“I did something I shouldn’t have.”
“What do you mean?” Maggie sipped at her tea.
Gina sighed, knowing she had to come clean no matter what the consequences may be. “One evening, when I was closing up the café, something weird happened. One of the cupboard doors kept opening, so I went to check to see why it wouldn’t stay closed. I found a …”
“Our spell book.” Maggie finished Gina’s sentence for her.
“How did you know?” Gina asked.
“I didn’t. It was just a guess. There’s nothing wrong with you seeing the book. In fact, the book wouldn’t have revealed itself to you if it didn’t think you were worthy. Which we all pretty much knew anyway.”
Gina gasped. “What! What do you mean? The book thought I was worthy?”
“The book knows you possess magical abilities. That’s why it showed itself to you.”
“I don’t understand,” Gina stammered. What the hell was Maggie talking about? “Are you a witch?”
Maggie laughed. “I don’t know if you would call us witches, but we have magical abilities, and you do too.”
“I’ve never done a magical thing in my life.” Gina wondered if Maggie had been hitting the bottle or the bong while she was out with Nick.
“Sure you have. You just didn’t realize it. I know of at least two that you’ve been exposed to.”
“Care to share?” Maggie arched an eyebrow.
“For one, you came to work for us. The help wanted sign was spelled to attract a person who was open to magic and had magical abilities. Normal humans would have never been able to see that sign we placed in the front window.”
“My dreams?” Gina asked about the reoccurring dream that she had of Misfit Bay and the café.
“We had nothing to do with that. That was your own magic telling you to get your ass here, pronto. That couldn’t have been the only premonition dream that you’ve had in your life.”
Gina thought about it. She used to have dreams that foretold the future when she was a child, but she had outgrown them when she was a teenager, choosing to ignore her always-right intuition, so she didn’t feel like a freak.
“You’re right. I used to have them all the time. Then I stopped. It had been years since I’d had one. I just don’t remember them being as strong when I was younger. The dream that brought me here was pretty powerful. I don’t think I would have been able to ignore it if I tried.”
Once the café and Annie popped into her dream, there had been no turning back as far as Gina was concerned. She had to find out why she was being called to Misfit Bay.
“Probably not. Anyway, that was one time you used magic without knowing it. The second time was when the book called out to you. The magic inside you made it possible for you to find it and read it. Without magic, you would have never located it. It’s spelled so only people with magic can find or read it,” Maggie explained.
“Huh. That’s not what I was expecting to hear,” Gina said.
“So what is it that you wanted to get off your chest now that all of the semantics are out of the way?”
“Well, when I was going through the book, I found a spell for a love spell that I tried to do.”
“Nice!” Maggie smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with using a little magic to find your man.”
“That’s what I thought, too, but I’m not even sure if the spell worked. Well, I figured that it hadn’t, but then Nick showed up out of the blue and seemed to have eyes for only me. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I mind or anything. I’m just not used to guys like him being interested in girls like me.”
Gina wasn’t horrible looking. But it wasn’t like she was model thin and tall. She was short and had curves that wouldn’t stop. And her breasts were ridiculous and always in the way of everything. “The one super cute guy I dated years ago broke my heart. After that whole mess, I swore I’d never go for the hot guy again.”