The Witching on the Wall: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 1) Read Free Page B

lipstick.” She glanced at Bailey as though it might be her. Bailey wasn’t in the habit of wearing any make up, much less anything from Poppy’s gaudy collection of eye-biting color palette.
    In fairness, Bailey was still coming into the full measure of her maturity. At twenty, she didn’t have to try very hard to look pretty; and she didn’t. It seemed like a waste of time. Poppy, on the other hand, showed every one of her forty-five years, probably because she spent so many of them being angry about things. Mostly, Bailey felt bad for her. Not because she wasn’t aging with as much grace as some of the other women Bailey knew, like her friend Chloe from the bakery, with her beautiful, mother-earth charm and infectious joy; but because it seemed like it must be difficult to live life so stressed out all the time. Poppy was incredibly fortunate, from Bailey’s point of view. She just wished the older woman could see it.
    Thinking of Chloe now made Bailey’s stomach grumble in complaint. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. It didn’t look like there was a meal in the very near future, either.
    “ I need you to go out to the caves and make sure everything is setup for the shoot tomorrow,” Poppy said matter-of-factly. “All the equipment was supposed to have been delivered, and the tech crew says they're on it but they’re a bunch of monkeys and I don’t want them doing any damage to the wall paintings. Make sure they aren’t crossing the ropes or leaving their trash around. They’ll probably need help getting the right angles for the shots, just tell them what to do. And do it with a little spine, for goodness sake, not that cheery, chipper thing you pull with the tourists.”
    Bailey was making an honest checklist in her head. “Got it,” she said.
    “ You might want to write some of that down, Bailey dear,” Poppy muttered. “It’s just the start.”
    For no other reason than to try and make Poppy comfortable, Bailey took a sticky note from the tall stack of them that Poppy never used, and a sleek silver and black pen from a canister of them that only Bailey ever used. None the less, Poppy seemed to note this and rolled her eyes.
    Bailey noted down the first few of Poppy’s expectations in her own shorthand, and then waited for the rest.
    Poppy never really did much, but she somehow always managed to make it look like she was busy. She typed away on her computer, her face a mask of concentration over her standard-issue scowl while Bailey waited patiently with a polite smile on her lips.
    “ Check in with Martha, but for the love of all things holy don’t be a sycophantic fan,” Poppy finally said. “The last thing we want her to think is that we’re too excited to have her here. We’re not. ATC is doing her a favor.
    “ Do suck up to Trevor, though; he’s a big deal, and a local that made headlines when he took up the anchor job at CBC. He’ll make more doing this, and he’s promised to mention my company so make sure he has good things to say.” She drummed her freshly manicured nails on the desk, glanced down at them, and then looked at one of them up close and made a disgusted face. “And book me a manicure at Delilah’s. Not with Cindy. What I wouldn't give for a decent manicure. This place is such a backwoods grunge-hole.”
    Bailey wanted to say that this ‘grunge-hole’ was the only reason Poppy was able to spend so much time on beaches and in casinos gambling away the money her father had left her when he left her this business. How Poppy had turned out like she did was anyone’s guess. Bailey hadn’t known Mr. Winters very long but he was a soft-spoken, intelligent, clever old man who loved the history of Coven Grove and the Seven Caves. He was wise, and always ready with a subtle joke or an anecdote about the Caves or some bit of Coven Grove’s storied past. He was part of the reason that Bailey loved the Caves so much, though she’d always had a strange attraction to them,