Well of Secrets Read online

  Well of Secrets

  A Chintz ’n China Novelette, Book 7

  Yasmine Galenorn

  A Nightqueen Enterprises LLC Publication

  Published by Yasmine Galenorn

  PO Box 2037, Kirkland WA 98083-2037

  WELL OF SECRETS

  A Chintz ‘n China Novella

  Copyright © 2021 by Yasmine Galenorn

  First Electronic Printing: 2021 Nightqueen Enterprises LLC

  First Print Edition: 2021

  Cover Art & Design: Earthly Charms

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any format, be it print or electronic or audio, without permission. Please prevent piracy by purchasing only authorized versions of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, or places is entirely coincidental and not to be construed as representative or an endorsement of any living/ existing group, person, place, or business.

  A Nightqueen Enterprises LLC Publication

  Published in the United States of America

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Welcome to Chiqetaw

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Biography

  Acknowledgments

  This is the last in the Chintz ‘n China series. I decided I wanted to give a little glimpse into their future, and into what they’re all doing. I hope you enjoy the story!

  Thanks to my usual crew: Samwise, my husband, Andria and Jennifer—without their help, I’d be swamped. To the women who have helped me find my way in indie, you’re all great, and thank you to everyone. To Kate Danley in particular, for running our author sprints that have helped me regain my focus in this current pandemic.

  Also, my love to my furbles, who keep me happy. My most reverent devotion to Mielikki, Tapio, Ukko, Rauni, and Brighid, my spiritual guardians and guides. My love and reverence to Herne, and Cernunnos, and to the Fae, who still rule the wild places of this world. And a nod to the Wild Hunt, which runs deep in my magick, as well as in my fiction.

  You can find me through my website at Galenorn.com and be sure to sign up for my newsletter to keep updated on all my latest releases! You can find my advice on writing, discussions about the books, and general ramblings on my YouTube channel. If you liked this book, I’d be grateful if you’d leave a review—it helps more than you can think.

  * * *

  March, 2021

  Brightest Blessings,

  ~The Painted Panther~

  ~Yasmine Galenorn~

  Welcome to Chiqetaw

  Time has moved on in Chiqetaw. Seven years have passed since we last saw Emerald and her family, and life has changed. Emerald is now 45, and Joe is 35. While Chiqetaw remains a quirky little town, the Chintz ‘n China Tea Shop is now an internet café. Miranda’s a graduate student and Kip’s just graduated high school. Emerald and Joe have settled into a new normal after an accident has completely altered their life together. Though the ghosts have been plentiful and always present, all has been quiet on the mystery front.

  But when they visit Harlow and James’s new home up near Mount Baker, Emerald literally stumbles over an old well that leads her into an old mystery surrounding the tragic death of a child. A strange and dangerous creature near the area may have been involved with the death, and now she fears that if it’s not destroyed, Harlow, James, and their daughter Eileen will be in danger of history repeating itself.

  Chapter One

  I stood at the sink, staring out over the yard. The dishes were in the dishwasher, I had taken out the garbage, and every surface sparkled. I had been cleaning a lot lately—it kept my mind occupied. I had buried myself in busy-work so that I wouldn’t focus on the events of the past six months. I still was somewhat in shock, but the numbness was wearing off. At some point I’d adjust to my new reality and learn to live with it.

  “Emerald?” Joe’s voice echoed from the living room.

  I glanced back outside. It was July, and a warm July at that. Life in western Washington didn’t include much sun, but I usually welcomed the gloom, enjoying the rainswept days. Now, however, I was grateful for the sun, even if it didn’t match my mood.

  “I’m coming,” I shouted back. Then, biting my lip, I turned. The table was filled with boxes and strapping tape, waiting for me to put together and fill. The upcoming move was hard to face. The thought of leaving the house where I’d built a new life for myself and my kids, where I’d fallen in love with a man who treated me like a queen, brought me to tears.

  But sometimes, life throws you a curve and you have no choice but to adapt. And I was standing smack in the middle of a crossroads.

  Joe was frowning, staring in frustration at one of the bookshelves. “How many times do I have to ask Kip not to put my laptop on the top shelf? He knows I can’t balance well enough to get it down from there.”

  I bit my lip, wanting to defend my son, but Joe was right. Kip knew better, but even though he had grown into a fine young man, he was still only eighteen years old. He was driven by hormones and the lack of consideration that most eighteen-year-olds had. He was a good kid, but flighty at times.

  “I’ll get it for you,” I said, stepping between Joe’s wheelchair and the bookcase. “I think he put it there so the cats wouldn’t walk on it.” I reached up on tiptoe and lifted it off of the shelf. It was still plugged in and I glanced at the screen. “It’s updating and he probably didn’t want them interrupting the process. Do you still want it?”

  Joe frowned, looking like he wanted to grumble some more, but then he just shrugged. “I’ll use my tablet till it’s ready.”

  I replaced it on a lower shelf where Joe could reach it. As I turned back to him, my heart sank. Our lives had been changed so much by the course of one accident. One mistake…that’s all it took. One misstep. One mistake. One bad piece of luck. That’s all it ever took for anyone to be facing a brand-new normal.

  “Do you want some lunch?” I asked, forcing myself to smile.

  He took my hand. “Not just yet. I thought we could talk about the move. I know you’re unhappy.”

  I caught my breath. Had I been so obvious? But over the years since we had first met, he had come to read me like a book. I debated trying to bluff my way through the conversation, but I owed it to him to be honest. Sitting down in the rocking chair, I patted my lap as Nigel padded past. The little fluffball bounced up on my lap, still spry, though all the cats had slowed down a little since the first day I brought them home.

  “You’re half-right. I will miss the house. But there’s no way to make it work for you, and I love you far more than I love the house. I’m just still…adapting to everything.” I didn’t apologize for my feelings. Joe and I had already been through that whole tangled mess of me apologizing and making him feel guilty, and the entire buttload of baggage that comes when life hits hard and leaves you reeling. “I have a lot of memories here, but at least we’ll be next door. Well, in another six months.”

  Joe and I had bought the lot next door around seven years ago, and now I was grateful that we had. We had commissioned a new house to be built on it, one that would meet all our needs. We’d already agreed to sell this house to Jimbo and Murray, who had finally tied the knot. They were fostering two teenagers and needed a bigger home than either of them owned.

  The upsides were that my best friend would be living next door to me, and we had the land to build on. The downside was that, until our new home was done, we had to move into an apartment. It was on the bottom floor of the building, and it was disability-friendly, but we’d have to store most of our possessions. The apartment was small, and our move-out date was in three weeks.

  “Are you sure that’s everything?” he asked.

  I ducked my head, smiling. “Joe, I love you. Nothing’s going to change that. And when I think about how close I came to losing you… As long as we have each other, we can face whatever comes our way.”

  I stood, leaning down to give him a kiss. “Nanna has been helping me through it, too. She’s been around a lot more since you were injured.” My grandmother’s ghost was a permanent fixture in my life, a fact for which I was infinitely grateful. She was the one I had inherited my psychic powers from. “And who knows, maybe we’ll be so in love with the new house, it won’t matter anymore!”

  With that, I handed him his tablet and returned to the kitchen to bake up a batch of cookies. Chocolate always made everything so much easier.

  So, I’m Emerald O’Brien, and I’m considered the town witch. Oh, there are more witches in town than just me, but I’m the best known. I kept my last name when I married Joe because of the children, and by now I was so used to it that it didn’t make sense to change it. Joe was ten years younger than me and he hadn’t minded a bit.

  I’m the owner of the Chintz ‘n China Internet Café. It used to be the Chintz ‘n China Tea Shop, but as the years wore on, I changed with the times. I still sold teapots and teacups, but most of my business came from expanding the food service side and adding a full-service barista bar, along with free wi-fi. I still read tarot cards for my customers. In fact, that side of my business had picked up dramatically and I was branching out into offering my services for house blessings, house cleansings, and personal ch
arm and talisman making.

  I’ve always been psychic, but as I aged, those gifts blossomed out even more. It had been daunting at first, but now I was grateful. Joe was on permanent disability—which compensated him about 70 percent of what he had been making—and I had been able to boost my business enough to take up the slack. So, life had moved on, and so had we, and everything around seemed to be caught up in a whirlwind of change.

  I had just finished making the cookies when my phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID, smiling when I saw Harlow’s name. It had been awhile since we had gotten together—though when Joe had been hurt, she had come out to stay with me—and I missed her. We texted, but there weren’t enough hours in the day to really have a heart-to-heart.

  “Hey, lady, what’s up?” I put her on speaker phone while I loaded a saucer with five of the cookies and sat down at the table.

  “Lordy, it’s been a long time since we’ve had a chance to talk.” She paused, letting out a long sigh. “I’ve been run ragged lately. I finally finished my newest book, yesterday I managed to get Eileen off to summer camp, and James is supposed to be home tomorrow from his assignment in Africa.”

  Harlow’s husband James was a photographer who traveled all over the world. Harlow—named after Jean Harlow—had been a supermodel in her younger days, but she had been smart, saving all her money for when her time on the catwalk ended. She had owned a gym for a while, but sold it, and now she was writing books—romances that did very well. Harlow and James had moved away a year ago to a house in Glacier, a barebones hole-in-the-road town sitting on the edge of the Snoqualmie Forest, a short trip from Mount Baker.

  Everyone in my life had been going through changes and it felt like we were all caught in a whirlwind, which I hoped would eventually settle down.

  “Congrats on the new book,” I said. Harlow was making a good living as a novelist—she had chosen the indie route, and her business sense had stood her in good stead as the publishing industry floundered. “When does it come out?”

  “In a month. I sent it to the editor last night.” She hesitated, then asked, “How’s Joe?”

  I slid out from the table and peeked through the archway. Joe was busy on the computer—apparently it had finished updating—and was engrossed in whatever he was doing. I returned to my seat and popped a cookie in my mouth.

  “He’s all right,” I said around the melting chocolate chips. “He gets frustrated, but that’s normal. He’s adapting better than I hoped. It’s finally settling in, though, that this is permanent.” I finished off the cookie and bit into another one. I was pushing size sixteen by now, but I didn’t really care as long as I could still hike around the mountains, keep up with my work, and do what I loved. Since Joe had been hurt, I had turned to food for a lot of comfort and while I knew it wasn’t necessarily the best decision, it was a hell of a lot better than booze or other intoxicants.

  “I know what you’re going through, to an extent,” Harlow said. “But I called to ask if you and Joe would like to come stay for a week, starting this weekend? We haven’t seen each other in ages, and James wanted to talk to Joe about some business idea he has. With Eileen off at camp, and your two out of the nest, we don’t really have to worry about anything. Can you get someone to cover the shop for you?”

  I was about to say no, but then I stopped. A vacation might be what we needed. It would give us time to get away from the hassles and frustrations that seemed to be plaguing us every step of the way.

  “Let me ask Joe and I’ll get back to you, but that sounds divine to me. I’ll call you right back.” I punched the end talk button and headed into the living room.

  “Hey, Harlow just called,” I said.

  Joe hit the enter key and then looked up at me with a smile. “What did she have to say? Everyone all right?”

  “Yes. James gets home tomorrow from Africa. She wants to know if we’d like to come up for the week, starting this weekend. James apparently wants to talk to you about some business idea, and Harlow and I haven’t seen each other since…” I paused, automatically biting my tongue.

  “Since I was hurt, right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, since then.”

  “What do you think? Can you get away?”

  “Cinnamon can handle the shop,” I said. Cinnamon had started out as a waitress, and after she got her accounting degree I had invited her to become a partner. She owned 25 percent of the business in exchange for helping to manage it, and taking care of the books. We had expanded, hired several waitresses, and because of the updates and the free wi-fi, we had survived the economic downturn fairly well. “So, you don’t mind going?”

  “I think it would do us good,” Joe said. “I’d like that.”

  Beaming, I kissed him again. “Thank you. I’m actually looking forward to it.”

  As I headed back into the kitchen, I texted Harlow, reminding her that if they had steps, Joe would need a ramp. Even though he was an ambulatory wheelchair user—meaning he could walk for a short distance on good days—I had no desire to take him to yet another place that would present us with accessibility issues. Our eyes had been opened all too wide to the obstacles that disabled customers faced in so many places .

  As she texted back an excited yay and the promise that their new house wouldn’t be a problem for Joe, a wary feeling washed over me. Frowning—I had learned to trust my premonitions—I pulled out my cards and sat down at the table, shuffling them as I focused on the question, What do I need to know about the trip?

  I pulled five cards—one for the energy of the trip, one for my main focus, one for what I was doing right, one for things to be cautious of, and the last was energy that would factor into the trip but wasn’t necessarily involved with me personally.

  The first card was the Princess of Cups. I stared it for a moment. Suddenly, almost out of earshot, I could hear a little girl crying so hard that it sent shivers up my spine and I instantly thought of Eileen. But Eileen was off at summer camp. Concerned, I turned over the second card.

  The Death card came up as my main focus for the trip. Death in the tarot usually meant major change, but in all my years reading the cards, I had come to the realization that sometimes—on rare occasions—the Death card meant actual death. However, given the transformations Joe and I were going through, I decided the usual meaning applied. So the trip would help put us at ease with the changes we were having to make.

  The third card was the Ace of Disks. While it often referred to a new job and the fountain of wealth, it also indicated change of abode. Not only would the trip be a change of scenery, but I felt the card referred to our new house, as well. Everything would work out, and this trip should give me the peace of mind to accept the changes.

  The fourth card—what I needed to be cautious of—was the Ten of Swords, which I read as chaos and danger. I tried to pick up on what it could be, but everything felt nebulous and questionable. The energy was strong, though, so I filed it under W for Warning, and decided to just be prepared for the unexpected. Hell, maybe I’d encounter a bear out there—or a mountain lion.

  The last card was the High Priestess, which usually referred to psychic abilities, intuition, and magic. As the outcome card, it usually meant that I was entering a period of intense psychic and magical work. And given how much stress I had been under lately, the thought was both nerve-racking and also welcome.

  After writing down the reading in my tarot journal, I folded the cards and tucked them back into their velvet bag. Even though I was excited at the thought of seeing Harlow, there was an foreboding to the coming vacation that made me feel uneasy, though I couldn’t pinpoint why. I grabbed another cookie, made myself a quad-shot mocha, and decided to go sit in the garden for a while to meditate and—hopefully—relax.