Everlasting, Maine

Marcy Lewis collected engagement rings like other women collected designer purses. She didn’t do it on purpose, and it wasn’t anything she bragged about. What woman would brag about being cursed to have her heart broken over and over again? It wasn’t that she merely had bad luck with men or only dated bad boys and made horrible choices. That would have been too easy. That she could have hired a therapist to deal with.

No, she was honestly and truly cursed.

Marcy was doomed to become whatever the man in her life thought he wanted, transforming her physical appearance and the dominant parts of her personality. If the man liked artists, the fact she had wanted to be the next Picasso in the third grade would emerge. If the man wanted an accountant, she found herself up in the middle of the night reading tax code. One man had a thing for the rodeo. Thank the heavens there had not been any nearby at the time, or she might have found herself on the wrong side of a bull.

Marcy slipped an engagement ring off her finger and set it on the bathroom sink. The relationships always ended poorly. That was what had happened the night before. She came home from work to find her house in shambles. Her recent ex, Donnie Huff, had taken everything of value he could find. She would have called to report it, but the police wouldn’t get anything back, and trying would only prolong the suffering.

“Hello, officer,” she mumbled sarcastically, “I’m cursed, and my ex stole my collection of engagement rings. Can you please go arrest him for being a jerk?”

A grumpy meow answered her as if protesting her sour mood.

“Point taken, Mr. Monty,” Marcy answered the cat as she went to peek into her disheveled bedroom. “At least he did not take what is most valuable.”

Her two cats were the most valuable things Marcy had. Life mattered more than objects any day of the week, and she’d give a thousand engagement rings to make sure her cats were safe.

Mr. Monty the Spectacular stared at her accusingly from his perch on an overturned dresser drawer. He’d somehow worked his way into one of her bra straps and wore it like a belt. She’d adopted him from the local shelter, but he looked to have the pedigree of a British Shorthair, with his hefty build, thick coat, and broad features. His bi-color fur was mostly blue-gray, except for the triangle of white starting at a point between his eyes, widening down his cheeks and covering his two front paws. Marcy crossed over to him and pulled the bra off. When she’d finished, there appeared to be an air of disappointment in his copper gaze.

Hiding somewhere was his best friend, Mr. Whiffle Pot Hopscotch the Magnificent, a white and orange longhair with small ears that bent forward and down toward the front of the head like the Scottish Fold breed. The two of them enjoyed staring out of the window and tapping the glass anytime a kid walked by. Marcy couldn’t tell if they wanted to play, or if they were two grumpy men yelling at the children to get off the lawn.

Strewn clothes and treasured ornaments covered the floor like they’d been tossed in a chaos salad, and then abruptly discarded for better prospects elsewhere. Her home décor wasn’t fancy, but it had been her haven, kitschy and cool, held together by craft wire and luck. An antique tin sign advertising soda pointed up from a nest of T-shirts on the floor. Her favorite piece of furniture, an old wooden park bench, lay in two pieces as if it had been stomped in half.

Marcy went back to the bathroom mirror to watch the flower tattoos on her arms fade as if they had never been there. In an hour, they’d be gone. At least she hadn’t endured pain at the hands of a tattooist to get them. The body art had appeared as suddenly as it left, and soon what she had worn as a badge of her commitment would disappear into her private mental trove of mistakes along with her other errors in judgment. In two hours, her hair would be a lighter shade of brown and the nose piercing would close, and in three hours no one would remember the last incarnation of Marcy Lewis except in pictures they would assume were costumes.

As a bonus, anytime she tried to tell people she was cursed, they looked at her like she was talking gibberish. The curse really did cover everything—no one saw the changes, she couldn’t tell people what was going on, and she was made to go through it alone with no ending in sight.

Marcy wondered what kind of person she would become next. “How long do you think it will last this time, Monty, being blessedly single before I find my next heartbreak and lose myself again?”

She leaned to look at him through the bathroom door. Monty had wiggled his way back into the bra strap and now licked his paw as he groomed himself.

“You are one strange cat.”

Monty lifted his leg and kept licking.

“I don’t suppose you have seen my phone in this mess, have you?” Marcy knew the cat was notorious for lying on top of anything small and electronic—TV remotes, phones, even the electric wine opener a friend had given her one year for Christmas. Marcy swept her finger under him and found her phone. “Thanks, Monty.”

Aside from a few social-media notifications and a call from her mother, no one had tried to get ahold of her. Marcy placed the phone on her dresser, trying to ignore the mess Donnie had made of her room, and went to find clothes to get ready for work. She looked at the tight T-shirts hanging in the closet like someone peeking in at a memory of what used to be her favorite. Her clothing choices read like the wardrobe of a theater troupe—relaxed chick, motorcycle old lady, naughty librarian, not-so-naughty librarian, sweater-vested schoolmarm, tax accountant, tattooed creative…

None of them felt like her true self, but they were all versions.

All it took was a mutual attraction, and she lost part of herself. She became someone else’s ideal, until she didn’t know who she was anymore.

There was enough artist left in her to make her pick a blue T-shirt, distressed blue jeans, and a pea coat for work. It wasn’t glamorous, but working at Witch’s Brew Coffee Shop and Bakery in Everlasting, Maine, was her idea of solid employment. She had been trying to make her way through college with online classes, but it was hard going when a relationship always seemed to throw a wrench into the works. Maybe the next guy would like educated girls who dedicated themselves to getting ahead. That would make for a nice change.

The longest she’d been single was three months. Of course, she hadn’t left her house much during that time, but it had been a glorious three months. Maybe she’d get lucky and no one would fancy her.

Maybe she could stop showering.

Or shaving.

Or brushing her hair.

Never mind. With her luck, she’d attract some hoarder who wanted her to live on top of a stack of newspapers from the 1970s.

There was the secret hope that someone, somehow, would have the answers she needed. This was Everlasting after all. Strange things happened here every day. The unofficial town motto was, “Everlasting, where there is no such thing as normal.” To an outsider, it looked like a thriving fishing village steeped in New England culture. In reality, it was a safe harbor for supernatural creatures. It was why she’d moved from her hometown of Nickerson, Maine.

“Feel free to clean up while I’m gone,” Marcy told Mr. Monty as she grabbed her purse and phone. He gave a dismissive meow and continued licking himself. “See you later, Whiffle.” Whiffle Pot did not deign to give her an answer.

The walk to work from her rental house was only a few blocks, which made the expense of owning a car unnecessary. Except for some strange happenings and untimely deaths during the Cranberry Festival, the town was relatively safe. Well, mostly…sort of.

She sighed heavily. This breakup wasn’t so bad. Donnie wasn’t her soul mate. She knew that. Betrayal hurt more than anything, but the sting was already lessening.

The irony was the only time she felt normal was after a breakup. Those parts of her that these men summoned to the surface cared for them, enough to create a fake kind of love. Perhaps not true love, but a worthy imitation of it. She’d tried to stop it, but the curse always found her. The curse always won.

Marcy searched her phone out of habit. Her mother hadn’t left a message, so Marcy sent her a text telling her she was on her way to work and would call her later. Social media provided a mild distraction on her walk. A few authors and celebrities posted clever quips about life, and some guy who claimed to have gone to her high school commented randomly on a photo of the latte art she’d created the other day.

“Thanks, Henry Franklin Jones,” she mumbled reading his name and politely liking his comment. He and a few others appeared on her profile like being from the same hometown made them buddies. She honestly didn’t even remember going to school with many of the people who commented. When she thought of high school, she remembered breaking her leg, working so hard for most of it only to barely graduate, and disappointing her parents’ hopes for her future. The curse had started her senior year with Joey Zimmerman and it had been downhill from there.

The sound of a siren broke through her thoughts as a fire truck shot from around a corner and headed away from Main Street. Marcy automatically lifted her eyes to watch as it passed. Firefighters were like soldiers. Slap a uniform on a man, and there was something more attractive about him. She lifted her hand in greeting, but light reflected off the window to hide the driver in a passing flash. A trail of smoke lifted into the distant sky.

Marcy quickened her pace. She worked in the historic downtown district. A giant oak tree marked her turn onto Main Street. Whenever she walked past it, she touched it for luck. She had no reason to believe it would actually work, other than it was old and pretty and she always imagined that the tree would have borne witness to a great many things.

All the festival decorations had been taken down. The town felt empty with the October tourists gone, and the streets were not as bright and cheery with the giant cranberry sculptures back into storage until next year.

Seabirds flew overhead. Fall leaves littered the ground and the air felt cooler. Marcy pulled at the lapels of her pea coat to keep the breeze off her neck. Snow was coming. She could sense it in the air.

Witch’s Brew Coffee Shop and Bakery was everything a small-town coffee shop should be. Mismatched chairs and heirloom tables seemingly scattered in a haphazard fashion over a painted concrete floor, gave it a sense of homeliness. Worn patterns from foot traffic only endorsed the hospitable feel of the place.

Marcy’s boss was a witch, or more correctly she was a witch-in-denial. Anna Crawford didn’t use her magical gifts. She preferred to do things normally. At first, Marcy had hoped that Anna could help her break her curse, but her boss didn’t like to talk about those kinds of supernatural things. And lately, Anna had been preoccupied with her relationship with investigative journalist, Jackson Argent.

Aunt Polly ran a small magic store in the back storage room of the coffee shop named, Polly’s Perfectly Magical Mystical Wondrous World of Wonders. It was a big name for a tiny store. Though she was Anna’s blood relation, everyone called her Aunt Polly. She was a special sort of person. She genuinely cared about people but didn’t care what anyone thought about her eccentricities.

Polly had no qualms about being a witch, or about marching to her own offbeat drum. However, the spells she cast often went awry. The woman had forced Hugh Lupine into wolf form and had, if rumors held true, given him fleas. Marcy didn’t believe that last part. Hugh was always well groomed.

Marcy had seen firsthand how Polly bestowed a rainbow comb-over on a customer. Jerry still came in for blueberry muffins several times a week and, to be honest, he was pretty proud of those new hairs.

Then there was Herman, Polly’s pet lobster who had to be enchanted. Otherwise, Marcy couldn’t explain how Polly had managed to dress him in a sailor suit for pictures…or why it had looked like the lobster actually enjoyed it. There were more examples of Aunt Polly’s spell casting around town, too many to list. Rainbow hair and enchanted crustaceans might be amusing, but they were not the type of help Marcy needed to end a curse.

Everlasting had not turned out to be the miracle cure Marcy had hoped for. At least the people were nice, and she had a steady job with a lenient boss. Plus she’d been given a raise and had been promoted to manager. That was something she could be proud of.

Anna tried to create a welcoming, creative vibe with her oversize couches and comfortable chairs, inviting people to stay and chat. Brick walls and exposed wood beams added to the feel. Anna was a talented photographer, and the walls were decorated with photographs of people and places in town. She switched the photo displays at random times. Currently, one showcased the lighthouse standing tall against a dark sky surrounded by cats. Another pictured a waitress whose nametag read “Betsy” as she served blueberry crumble at the Chickadee’s Diner. There was also a photograph of Wilber Messing’s old hunting cabin on the outskirts of town. It was a strange, dilapidated structure with boards over the windows and no-trespassing signs with warnings like, “Trespassers Won’t Be Seen Again.”

“Marcy, is that you?” Anna’s voice called from the kitchen.

Marcy turned her attention from the photos and shrugged out of her pea coat. “Yeah, it’s me.” She glanced at her arm. The floral tattoos had faded completely and her skin felt naked without them. She lightly touched her nose where the piercing used to be. Just once she wished someone would notice her physical change and ask about it. Then maybe when she said she was cursed and needed help, they’d understand her.

“The supplier forgot to send the extra baking flour we ordered, so Jackson and I are going to see if we can find enough to last us the rest of this week. It’s no Cranberry Festival mad rush, but we have several sizable orders waiting to be filled. The fire station has two recruits and a new hire, so I wanted to send over a welcoming box of something delicious. Not sure what.” Anna always spoke with a chaotic grace that amazed Marcy.

“All right,” Marcy answered.

Anna continued, “The Sacred Order of Hairy Old Men is hosting a new member drive tomorrow, the hospital staff has a birthday party for one of the doctors on Friday, there are three baby showers, a wedding tea party, a convention needing breakfast croissants for some trust seminar, and if a Dana calls here again begging for a birthday cake, please try to make her understand we’re not that kind of bakery, and I wouldn’t have the first clue how to make a four-foot teddy bear cake.”

“Want me to ask Polly to whip up a bear cake?” Marcy teased. She smiled even though Anna couldn’t see it.

“Oh, for the love of sanity, no,” Anna exclaimed. “The cake would probably come to life and try to take a bite out of the birthday boy in self-defense.” Anna’s words became muffled for a moment, before she finished with, “I hate to do this to you, but do you think you can stay late again tonight and help me handle the store? And maybe fit in a few extra hours this week?”

“Not a problem,” Marcy answered. The distraction would be welcome.

“You don’t have plans with Donnie tonight?”

She took a deep breath. “There is no Donnie.”

“What?” Anna came out of the back room. Dark, wavy hair had been wound into a messy bun at the nape of her neck, and curls threatened to spiral out of its hold.

She was in the process of putting on a scarf. The bright red contrasted the dark blue fleece of her sweater. She held her coat in her hand and looked at Marcy for the briefest of seconds like her employee was unfamiliar, and then she blinked slowly as her mind accepted the new appearance. “What happened? Did you breakup?”

Marcy thought about lying, but she liked Anna. She might even dare as much as to say they were friends. “He stole my jewelry and ran off with a woman that he met in the bar two towns over. I don’t know which town, but he said it was two over.”

“Oh, no, Marcy. Did you report him?”

“It was only costume jewelry,” she downplayed. It’s not like she wanted to report fifteen stolen engagement rings and eighty-three dollars in cash. That would make for some embarrassing small-town gossip.

“What do you need? Do you need the day off? A gallon of ice cream? A baseball bat and an alibi? I can send Jackson on his own to deal with the flour situation.” Anna followed Marcy into the kitchen. “Do you want me to have Polly cast a spell on him to make his hair fall out? Anything you need, name it.”

“I think…” Marcy glanced around, trying to figure out how to answer that question. “I think I feel like baking cupcakes. Do you care if we try cupcake varieties in the case this week? I know it’s not our usual thing, but…”

The urge to bake was strange, but it had to be all her since she’d not met any men on the walk from her house.

“Go for it. Comfort food. I’ll help.” Anna hung up her coat and started to reach for the closest white apron. It had the logo of a magical coffee bean screen-printed on the front. It also had Marcy’s name written on the strap. “What kind do you want? Candied hazelnut or key lime, or do we go chocolate pudding filled or a ganache or—”

“No, boss, you go with Jackson. I need to work and not think about anything. I’ll be fine.” Marcy glanced at the empty shop. “Besides, I can handle this crowd.”

Anna chuckled. “I haven’t turned on the open sign yet. I’ve been so frazzled by the flour crisis, I forgot.”

“That makes sense. I was wondering why we were empty.” Marcy took the apron from Anna and looped it over her own head before tying the straps behind her waist. “You go. I have this handled here. I’ll make cupcakes for the firefighters and enough to fill the case. Who knows, they might be a hit. And if Dana calls again, I’ll tell her it is cupcakes or nothing. If she’s that desperate to spend her money here, let her.”

“Who doesn’t like cupcakes?” Anna said by way of agreement. “Actually, while you’re in the mood, the Sacred Order will take whatever goodies we want to bring, so we could take some over there for their new member banquet, as well. That would probably make a nice change to go with the scones.”

“Done,” Marcy said.

“Call me if anything changes—” Anna placed a gentle hand on her arm, “—or if you want to talk, or yell, or cry, or if you need anything at all. Promise me you will.”

Marcy nodded. “Yes, but I’ll be fine.”

She listened to Anna’s footsteps hurry up the stairs to the apartment she shared with Jackson above the shop. Anna and Jackson had only been together for a short time, but Marcy had a feeling the two of them would last. There was something fated about the couple. With so many failed relationships under her belt, Marcy knew a good one when she saw it.