Love Potion #9 Read Free Page B

shelter, what dangers would confront her, whether she even could discover the secret of immortality.
    But Lilith would cut a new path. She would make a new life and find a haven for herself in some corner of the world. She would become something other than what she had been; she would shed the identity that had cost her everything, and shed it like a second skin. She would wait for the reappearance of her true love.
    That would make every sacrifice worthwhile.
    She did not miss the fact that Sebastian was not the only one to step toward a new horizon on this night of nights.
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    1
    The Magician
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    Toronto – August 1999
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    It was hotter than Hades in the city, the kind of sticky steamy summer day that most people consider more characteristic of New Orleans than the great white north. The humidity was oppressive and tempers were wearing thin on that Saturday afternoon.
    And Mitch Davison had the misfortune to be moving.
    â€œI wanna go swimming!” three-year-old Jen wailed from the back seat of the much-abused Honda wagon. She kicked her feet against her car seat impatiently and Mitch caught a glimpse of her trembling lower lip in the rearview mirror. The treasured toys she had refused to entrust to the professional movers filled most of the back seat of the car – at least what was available after the family wolfhound staked his turf.
    â€œI’m hot,” her brother Jason agreed.
    Both children looked expectantly to their father, as though he could solve everything.
    Mitch tried. He really did.
    â€œWell, you’re just going to have to wait a little bit longer,” he said with as much cheerfulness as he could manage. “What kind of Kool-Aid should we make first?”
    The dog nudged Mitch in the back of the neck with his wet nose, demanding an open window. Mitch rolled down his window and got a great furry head beside his ear as a bonus. Colley panted like a blast furnace on his shoulder.
    â€œCherry! And I wanna swim now !” Jen cried, as though volume could make it so.”
    The combination of a restless night and an unsettled day was affecting the toddler’s usual sunny disposition. It was a tough day for the kids, Mitch knew, but he wasn’t having a lot of fun himself. The traffic was brutal, the air conditioning had given out in the car and the sweat was running down his back like a river. Not for the first time, he knew why parents usually came in teams.
    Not that Janice would have done any better with this day than Jen was doing. That thought did just about nothing to improve Mitch’s mood.
    Maybe, maybe , Andrea was already at the house. Mitch could really use his stepmother’s help this weekend.
    Which pretty much guaranteed she had forgotten the whole thing and gone to the Caymans instead. The last trait Mitch would attribute to Andrea was reliability.
    Charm she had by the bucket, though.
    â€œI’m working on it, Jen,” he said. “Just hang with me. How about a song for our new house?”
    Jason started ‘Old Macdonald’ and much to Mitch’s relief, Jen went for the diversion. They got through the intersection on the next green light, and entered a miraculous stretch of unjammed road. Within moments, Mitch was turning into the common driveway that ran behind the houses on their new street. Ramshackle garages were interspersed with new ones. Gangly tomato plants and grapevines dangled over fences with such abandon that he thought they might take over the lane, given half a chance.
    â€œLook at those sunflowers!” Mitch pointed to the flowers in an effort to distract the kids when their song ended.
    â€œThose ones are really big,” Jason said, in his usual quiet voice.
    â€œOrange!” Jen shouted, the contrast marked as always. She shook her beloved Bun by the ear. “I wanna swim!”
    â€œAny minute now.” Mitch turned into the driveway behind the house and his heart sank.
    The