Spellbound Falls [5] For the Love of Magic by Janet Chapman Page A

to admit that ever since they got a new leader a few months ago,” Peg returned, “they’ve been acting weird. They all started wearing those freaky tunics and baggy pants, and since January, only the men come into town. We never see the women anymore or any children. I’m beginning to agree that the colony looks more like a cult now rather than a simple commune of hippies.”
    “Near as I can tell, it’s people from away who started calling them a cult,” Olivia countered. “As far as the locals are concerned, the colonists have been good neighbors for the last four years. Ezra has been selling the organic vegetables they grow at his Trading Post for the last three summers.”
    “My dad said they canceled an order for clear cedar boards,” Julia interjected—Julia being Nicholas’s wife and whose father owned a cedar mill a few miles north of town. “They wanted the lumber to build a large communal sauna, but when Dad called them in February to say he’d filled the order, the new leader told him they’d changed their mind.”
    “Duncan said they’re practicing some sort of magic,” Peg added. She looked at Rana. “He told me Titus thinks they’re trying to create a new god.”
    “Really?” Rana said in surprise, glancing at Olivia. “Did Maximilian say anything to you about that?”
    “He mentioned they were
trying
. But he said it takes a lot of focused energy to make it happen.”
    “Is that really possible?” Peg asked Rana.
    “I don’t see why—”
    Vanetta Quintana bustled through the door connecting the Bottoms Up with the Drunken Moose, expertly shouldering a tray laden with steaming cups and a large platter of prepared fruit—effectively ending the conversation, since the bar and restaurant owner was the only member of their group who wasn’t part of their magical family. She handed out the beverages, set the fruit in the center of the table, then plopped down in one of the chairs with a tired sigh.
    Julia moved her gaze from the fruit to Vanetta with an expectant smile. “Is the next batch of cinnamon buns coming out of the oven soon?”
    “Sorry, Jules,” Vanetta said. “The grange ladies got the last batch.”
    A heavily pregnant silence filled the otherwise empty bar. “You could have your cook throw together another batch,” Olivia suggested sweetly.
    Vanetta glanced at Maude, who was Nicholas’s mother as well as Spellbound Falls’ soon-to-be-official midwife, and then looked back at Olivia. “My cook doesn’t have the recipe for those buns. And even if he did, it takes several hours for them to rise.” She grinned at the three younger women. “But I have plenty more fruit.”
    Rana decided that bit of news went over about as well as hearing
who
had gotten the last of Vanetta’s infamous cinnamon buns, even as she noticed Peg MacKeage had dropped her scowl to the cup of amber liquid in front of her.
    “Um, I have someone else’s drink,” Peg said, lifting the cup by its saucer and taking a sniff, then looking around the table until her gaze stopped on the steaming mug in front of Vanetta. “You must have my coffee,” she said, holding out the cup as she reached her other hand for the swap. “One cream, two sugars,” she added more forcefully when Vanetta leaned back in her chair while clutching her mug protectively.
    Maude took the cup and saucer from Peg and set it on the table in front of her. “This one is yours,” she said with a warm smile, which Rana happened to know was the midwife’s secret weapon for disarming expectant mothers. “Ginger tea, no cream, unsweetened,” she continued, despite Peg turning her scowl on
her
. “And no caffeine.”
    “Tea?” Peg repeated, eyeing the amber liquid as if it were hemlock. She glanced at the cup in front of Julia, then at Olivia’s identical cup before looking at Maude again and smiling tightly. Or maybe that was desperation, Rana decided as she hid her own smile by taking a sip of her own tea. “I just