The Witches of Snyder Farms (The Wicked Garden Series) Read Free

her mother’s neck. She had never seen Gretchel being doted on—loved—by a man before. 
    Ame cleared her throat and spoke a little too loudly. “Good morning!”
    Eli smiled exuberantly. “Good morning, Ame-with-an-E!” he stepped forward, going in for a huge hug, but when he saw her flinch, he settled for a soft embrace and light pat on the back.
    Ame accepted Eli’s show of affection as gracefully as she could and released herself as quickly as politeness would allow.
    Gretchel dispelled the awkwardness by sweeping in with a hug of her own. She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Hello, stranger! Do you have an open slot in your planner for breakfast at home?”
    Ame took the breakfast plates off the counter and began setting the table. “I totally have time for breakfast at home, especially if there’s biscuits and gravy.”
    Ame watched her mother bustling around the kitchen, humming while she cooked. She watched Eli as he watched Gretchel, a goofy grin spread across his face.
    “I knew that we were meant to meet, Eli-with-an-I.”
    Ame’s words pulled Eli’s glance away from Gretchel—reluctantly.
    Ame continued. “I don’t have the same psychic abilities as Holly, but I felt that I should know you when we met in that elevator.”
    “Was that a psychic moment, or was it intuition?” Eli asked, giving Ame his full attention.
    “What’s the difference?” she asked as she poured a cup of black coffee.
    “Well, a psychic episode usually involves awareness of something that is going to occur. If it were intuitive insight, it would have been like knowing something that you already knew, but didn’t know you knew, until you knew that you knew it.”
    Ame gave Eli a deadpan stare. “You lost me at episode .”
    “I think what he’s trying to say is that, if you were psychic, you would have known you were going to see him before you saw him, but you didn’t. Instead, when you met him, you had a strong sense that you were supposed to meet him. That’s intuition.” Gretchel pulled herself up to the table. “Am I right, Eli?” 
    “Precisely,” he replied as he spooned some sausage gravy over his biscuits.
    “Hmmm. Maybe I’m just very intuitive, then,” Ame pondered.
    “Oh, I’d say that you’re definitely intuitive,” Eli said. “And that’s a very good thing to be.”
    “Why is it so good?”
    Eli chewed his food and thought about the question. “Your intuition doesn’t tell you your future. It guides you toward your potential. I don’t believe that the future is preordained. Intuition helps us see a little further down the path we’re on. It helps us see other paths we might take. Intuition is the insight we need to make wise choices.” 
    “Goddess guidance,” Ame said.
    “You can look at it that way. I often do,” he replied.
    Ame looked up from her plate to stare at him, “Who the hell are you, Eli-with-an-I?”
    Gretchel smiled brightly, and put her chin in her hand. “That’s a really great question, Ame. Who the hell is Eli-with-an-I?”
    This was a question Gretchel had wanted to ask for a long, long time. Eli had always been reluctant to discuss his family and his background back when he and Gretchel lived together in Carbondale. She never got the sense that he was lying to her, exactly…. But sometimes she could tell that he was hiding more than he was revealing, They had talked a little about the sequence of events that had led him back to Snyder Farms, but, she had been so grateful to have him in her life again that she was willing to let some questions remain unasked. Both of them had spent the last two weeks gently tiptoeing around the past.
    But Gretchel was tired of tiptoeing. She was ready to stomp.
    Eli ran a hand through his hair and looked at the two redheads on either side of him. He was trapped, and he knew it. He sighed.
    “I never understood what you meant all those years ago when you said you weren’t who you said you were, but then I tried to find