Read Online A Broom With a View by Rebecca Patrick-Howard - Free Book Online

her head in disbelief and frustration. She was alone . She had little strength. She had something that needed to be done and nobody to help her do it.
    She was a witch.
    Granted, Liza was a witch whose abilities might not be all-encompassing but they were still present and formidable. Couldn’t she just move it? Just lift it up, watch it sail gracefully through the air by invisible hands, and then wait (unharmed and breathing properly) as it settled into the place where it was meant to go? She’d fixed her porch, after all. There wasn’t a real difference, right?
    Liza, who had always had trouble saying no to her own arguments, raised her hands before her and closed her eyes, ready to move forward with the spell when she suddenly took a step back and stomped her foot.
    “No! I will not do that. The porch was for my self-esteem, because I’d had a hard day. I can’t fall back on this every time something’s hard. I will take care of it myself,” she swore, wiping a grubby hand across her cheek. “Other women live alone and do this crap. I will, too.”
    So, she’d gone at it again, cursing the unit and her foolish pride.
    Once it was centered against the wall she slumped to the floor, panting.
    “I seriously need to start working out,” she gasped as the beads of sweat rolled down her cheeks. Then she began to laugh, an almost hysterical sound that carried throughout the house, disturbing the small animals that had made homes inside the walls. On and on she laughed, until she fell over on her side and clutched her stomach in agony.
    “I hurt and I’m hungry,” she laughed-sobbed. “I’m sore, I’m hungry, and I don’t have anyone to help me with either one of those things.”
    Her mouth felt like the Mojave Desert inside. She thought she very seriously could’ve killed someone for a drink of something–anything. Her hair, normally her pride and joy, hung in dirty, limp clumps in her face, broken free from its bobby pins. And in her exhaustion, soreness, happiness, and hunger she thought of Mode and brought to mind the many times she’d been in bed with the flu or something and he’d brought her soup and orange juice to her in bed.
    Not all the memories were bad . She didn’t want to just think of him in a bad way; she’d loved him once, after all.
    But why did the good memories hurt worse?
    The TV stand might have been heavy but it was perfect for its intended use. The top, once the dust and cobwebs were cleared, would hold her altar cloth and handmade rosewood box with the Swarovski crystal encrusted pentagram (a girl always needed a little bling). The VCR shelf underneath (the stand was old enough to remember the pre-DVD player days) would store her “props” as she liked to call them: small boxes of candles, herbs, stones, and oils.
    Liza didn’t use a lot of props for her rituals but she did like her fire and scents. She thought a little color, heat, and fragrant aroma made things festive on the right occasion. Sometimes the ritual of setting it all up, organizing what she needed, and then using them in the correct order and for the proper reasons was soothing and allowed her to focus more clearly on her task at hand.
    Liza Jane had always enjoyed the drama of certain things, even before she was a practicing witch.
     

Chapter Four
     
    “ NOW YOU DON’T have to make a decision right now, but we’d sure like to have you on that committee,” Effie Trilby assured Liza for what felt like the hundredth time.
    Liza had officially been open for one week. During their sessions, Liza had heard several clients complain about the “good old boy network” that supposedly ran Morel County. Liza didn’t know anything about that, but she did know that Kudzu Valley’s mayor was the size of your average ten-year-old, a seventy-two year old grandmother of thirteen and one of the most intimidating people she’d ever met.
    Effie, who had been waiting impatiently for Liza at her own front door when she