Scent of Magic

  SCENT OF MAGIC

  By Lori L. Clark

  Copyright © 2015 by Lori L. Clark

  Cover design by Lori L. Clark

  www.LoriLClark.com

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above author of this book. Except when quoting brief passages for the purpose of writing reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever wished for a little magic in their life.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  THE MOVE

  THE FAMILY

  THE PERFUMERY

  PROSPERITY

  OPPOSITES ATTRACT

  IRRESISTIBLE CURIOSITY

  BIRDS AND THE BEES

  LET THE MAGIC BEGIN

  HEART OF THE MATTER

  WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING

  THE INQUISITION

  FAT FREDDY

  COMING OUT COLOGNE

  PRINCE CHARMING

  CAREFUL IS MY MIDDLE NAME

  HOMECOMING DANCE

  THE CROWN CHANGES HEADS

  STARLEY’S DAY

  BYRDS OF A FEATHER

  MRS. BYRD GROWS A PAIR

  CAREFUL IS MY MIDDLE NAME

  SCENT OF A SPY

  STARLEY’S GOING TO HOMECOMING

  WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF LOVE

  GREEN IS NOT YOUR COLOR

  NO OFFENSE, BUT YOU’RE NOT MY TYPE

  IT HAD TO BE THE COOKIES

  MAKE IT A DOUBLE

  PRELUDE TO A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

  THE FLAME AND THE TEA LEAVES

  ALL CHOKED UP

  PLANES TRAINS AND AMBULANCES

  LIKE BYRDS, ACCUSATIONS FLY

  COME OUT OF THE BAT CAVE

  VISITOR HOUR IS OVER

  MY WHAT BIG EYES YOU HAVE

  INTO LIFE, A LITTLE RAIN MUST FALL

  IN WITH THE NEW

  BYRD MAN OF PROSPERITY

  A TIME TO LOVE, AND A TIME TO HATE

  A GUINEA PIG AND A UNICORN WALK INTO A STORE

  HELL HATH NO FURY

  THE BYRD FAMILY FLIES THE COOP

  UNTIL FATE MAKES IT A STAR

  WISH UPON A STAR

  THREE MEN IN A TRUCK

  THE RAIN MAN COMETH, AGAIN

  THREE BROTHERS AND THREE SISTERS

  THEY SEEM NORMAL

  FRANCESCA HAS A DATE

  ROMERO AND JULIETTE

  A CURIOUS CHRISTMAS FORTUNE

  EPILOGUE: A NEW YEAR IN PROSPERITY

  THE END

  OTHER NOVELS BY LORI L. CLARK:

  THE MOVE

  Sixteen-year-old Starley Duchesne had her nose stuck in a book when the station wagon pulled to a stop in front of an odd looking house. Starley didn’t get excited about new places anymore. Why should she? This was move number seven in the last four years. It was hard for her to think of any of them as permanent.

  “Starley, we’re here. Isn’t the house lovely?” Francesca Duchesne, the eldest sister asked.

  Starley peered over the top of her glasses at the tall narrow structure staring back at her from across the lawn. “It looks weird,” she observed.

  Middle sister Juliette snorted. “I agree with you, Squirt.”

  Francesca scowled and turned off the ignition. “It’s called a shotgun-style house.

  “Sounds inviting,” Starley said.

  The house sat at the end of a dead-end street and had been painted bright blue with Pepto-Bismal-pink colored trim. The place stuck out like an ugly stepchild compared to the surrounding houses bearing more conservative white siding and black shutters and even a picket fence or two.

  Starley closed the tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice; she’d read it a hundred times and the hopeless romantic inside of her never tired of the happily ever after, swoon-worthy Mr. Darcy. Once you got past the pompous ass part of his personality, he was actually a quite likable fellow.

  Prosperity was a small dot on the map, and it seemed abnormally deserted. The last city where they’d lived had been big enough for Starley to dissolve into the tapestry of colorful people making up the population. Starley and her sisters had relocated so many times; she’d learned not to get too comfortable in her surroundings. Sometimes it was easier said than done. She had liked their last home. Bigger cities were easier for her to remain anonymous and fly below the radar of nosy strangers with nothing better to do than meddle in all the business that wasn’t their own.

  Still, Starley had had friends there, but she knew that in spite of the good intentions and promises to stay in touch that it would only be a matter of time before they became another faded memory pressed between the pages of an imaginary diary.

  Starley reached into the back of the station wagon and plucked her small suitcase from the stack and took Larry’s crate by the black plastic handle. Larry — the human version — had been her first best friend. Larry, the terrier, was her closest confidant. She liked the fact that he never talked back even though she was convinced he understood every single secret she shared with him. The tilt of his head and the perk of his oversized bat ears told her so.

  “What’s the population of this place, anyway? Twenty?” Starley mumbled as she made her way to the front door.

  “Prosperity has a population of five hundred. Now, five hundred three,” Francesca responded brightly.

  Starley did an internal eye roll. Not that she was a sullen sixteen-year-old, but sometimes it grated on her teenage nerves just how annoyingly positive Francesca could be. Polly positive had closed her eyes and pointed to a speck on the map, bringing them to Prosperity, Arkansas.

  “I saw that,” middle sister Juliette whispered.

  Starley frowned. “What?” she asked innocently.

  “You rolled your eyes,” Juliette said.

  “Stop acting like you know what I’m thinking, Juliette,” Starley said as she brushed past.

  “I’m not that good of an actor, Squirt,” Juliette said with a grin.

  Starley dropped her bag inside the front door and put Larry’s crate on the front porch. She opened the kennel door, reached inside and clipped the leash to the ring on his collar. Like the rest of the family, he’d also been cooped up for several hours, and his whining had steadily increased.

  “Stay close,” Francesca called out. “There’s a lot of work to do.”

  “We will,” Starley said. “I think anywhere we walk in this town will be close.”

  Larry tugged Starley up the street, and she trotted to keep up with him. She wished she had her rollerblades, but they were still packed and she couldn’t remember if they were in the station wagon or the moving van. She’d packed in such a hurry she wasn’t sure.

  The town was as deserted as a ghost town in an old black and white western. While Larry continued his pursuit for the perfect place to potty Starley’s head swiveled like an owl as she observed her new surroundings.

  The only sound Starley heard was the whisper of the leaves of the stately oak trees lining the lawns. The streets were pristine. Not a cigarette butt or a wadded up gum wrapper anywhere in sight. Starley would have to remember to bring a poop bag with her whenever she walked Larry. City streets so clea
n probably meant a person could get arrested for even looking like they might spit their gum from between their lips, God only knew what they’d do if someone let a dog crap in the grass and didn’t scoop it up.

  She got to the end of the street and had a monumental decision to make. “Right, left or straight ahead, Larry?” Of course, Larry ignored her and lifted his leg on the stop sign post.

  Church bells rang, and Starley decided to take a right. She headed in the direction of the obnoxious noise, guessing that where there was sound, there must be people. She thought it might be nice to see someone other than her sisters for a change.

  When she got closer to the church, it was easy to see why there were no people or cars on the streets of Prosperity. Everybody and their brother had to be at church that morning. The parking lot was bumper to bumper, door to door and filled with what appeared to be every vehicle in the town, probably county, from the looks of things.

  The front doors to the large brick church swung open, and the entire population of Prosperity spilled out onto the front lawn. The laughter and conversation were light, and everyone wore a smile.

  Starley halted in her tracks and did an about face. She wasn’t ready to face a new town full of strangers. Cheerful or otherwise. She gave Larry’s leash a hearty yank and headed home.

  Back at the house Francesca and Juliette were busy hauling the few items from the station wagon to the house. Poe the Crow squawked and rattled his cage to protest being ignored. Any moment, he’d likely start cussing like a sailor. Where he learned his foul vocabulary was anybody’s guess. The sisters all claimed ignorance. Starley grabbed the handle of Poe’s cage with one hand while she wrestled with Larry’s leash in the other.

  “Put Larry back in his crate for now, Starley. The last thing we need is for him to take off for parts unknown while we’re unloading the car,” Francesca told her.

  Starley wrinkled her nose and apologized to her dog. “You heard the General. Back in the prison you go.”

  The house was long and narrow. From the front, it looked to be the size of a garden shed, but once inside, the place was surprisingly roomy. There was one bedroom on the main floor and three upstairs. More than enough room for three women, one dog, and a vocal crow.

  Francesca had given Starley first dibs on which bedroom she wanted. She hoped it might make up for another sudden late night departure from the last town. Starley had been less than thrilled about being uprooted again, and the older she got, the more she objected to the impromptu relocations.

  Starley had chosen the main floor bedroom. It was the largest of the four and had its own private bathroom. Francesca had chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds, trying to quell her silent apprehension over the choice. She couldn’t say no, after all, she had promised, and she owed her at least that much.

  “He who squawks the loudest gets the biggest prize,” Starley said. “What do you say, Poe?”

  “Crow’s can’t talk,” the bird replied with a comical voice.

  Starley giggled and sat his cage in a corner of the living room. She reached into her pocket for some peanuts and grinned when the bird snatched them from her open palm.

  Starley’s bedroom was at the back of the house with large windows facing a teeny tiny fenced-in yard. Starley knew Larry would be much happier having grass beneath his four paws as opposed to the hard, gray plastic of his crate. She decided to disobey Francesca’s orders about caging him and led him outside.

  “Come on, little dude,” Starley said. Larry obediently trotted beside her as she backtracked from the bedroom to the sliding glass doors that led to a patio at the side of the house.

  Before unhooking the leash, Starley did a quick inspection of the six-foot-tall privacy fence. Once she was satisfied that there was no way the dog could get out, not even an escape artist like Larry, she unhooked his leash and gave him temporary freedom.

  Starley padded back inside, through the house, and out front to the driveway. She dug out Larry’s food and water bowls and filled them both. She knew she had wasted about as much time as she could get away with and glanced stared at the clock. In exactly three, two, one —

  “Starley Duchesne, this car’s not going to unload itself,” Francesca shouted.

  THE FAMILY

  Having been blamed for every unfortunate incident in every town they’d ever lived, the three Duchesne sisters had lived a rather nomadic existence over the years.

  At the age of sixteen each woman had developed a unique and unusual gift.

  Francesca Duchesne, the eldest, had the ability to read people by the sense of smell. With one whiff, she instantly saw what a person’s soul desired and what made their heart sing with joy. Francesca intuitively knew the perfect scent for a person and her nose had never let her down. Francesca was the romantic sister.

  Juliette Duchesne, the middle sister, had the gift of touch. With a single touch, Juliette was able to read a person, and knew if they were off balance in some way. She knew exactly the right scent to help align a person’s body align with their spirit. She was the healer of the family. Juliette was the practical sister.

  Starley Duchesne, the baby of the family, turned sixteen a month ago and she was still waiting for her gift to mature. She had begun to worry maybe she was the oddball Duchesne girl and that her special gift was seeing people’s true form.

  Juliette and Francesca advised Starley not to worry; her magic would develop in its own time. Secretly, however, they were worried. Their gifts had arrived like clockwork on the morning of their sixteenth birthdays.

  It had been Juliette’s idea for Francesca to open up their first shop.

  “You love perfume. You’ve always loved mixing and creating different scents. Between your sense of smell and my sense of touch, how could we possibly go wrong?” Juliette said to Francesca.

  At first, Francesca had laughed it off. A few times, she’d even been irritated by Juliette’s nagging. Luckily, Juliette hadn’t been easily swayed by Francesca’s wrath. One night, as fate would have it, Francesca had a dream about a magical store called The Perfumery. When she awoke bright and early the next morning, she got dressed and immediately headed downtown to the bank.

  Because of Juliette’s coaxing and the seemingly random, yet extremely vivid dream, Francesca withdrew her entire savings and rented a newly vacated building in their hometown.

  Francesca was ten years older than Juliette. Juliette was ten years older than Starley. The elder sisters were beautiful women with dark hair and eyes. Starley was pretty in her own way, with her blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Each woman bore a birthmark in the shape of an infinity sign on the back of their neck. Since Starley didn’t look anything like her sisters, she decided the birthmark was the one thing that tied them all together, proving she hadn’t been adopted.

  Francesca was a hopeless romantic. Though she had yet to marry, she knew her Mr. Right was out there somewhere, and that he’d show up in her life regardless of where in the world she lived at the time.

  When she wasn’t creating perfume, Francesca wrote short stories. Romance, of course. When people asked her why she never wrote a full-length novel she smiled and said when the time was right, she would. So far, her love life had been a series of short stories, so it was only logical that her writing should follow suit.

  Juliette was romantic in her own way, but she tended to be much more grounded than Francesca. She had a mind for numbers and managed the financial side of the business. You might say she had the magic touch when it came to money.

  Starley felt like a failure after her sixteenth birthday came and went. About the only inkling that there was anything going on were the strange electrical anomalies that seemed to follow her around. Lights turned on and off of their own accord. Her cell phone battery was forever dying, so she just stopped carrying it with her. She couldn’t wear a watch for more than a few days without the damn thing running backwards.

  Strange, non-electrical things happened, too. At
the most inopportune time, glasses randomly levitated off the counter and crashed unceremoniously to the floor.

  Starley did her best to avoid the company of strangers because it gave her sensory overload and she felt like she was trying to listen to five different radio stations at the same time. That’s why Starley preferred the company of animals.

  Francesca had had to put her foot down several times over the years to keep Starley from taking in every stray animal that wandered by. Starley had been lucky she’d been allowed to keep Poe the Crow and Larry the Terrier.

  Starley had yet to grow into the beautiful swans that her sisters had grown to be. It didn’t matter much to Starley. She’d never been in one place long enough to notice boys, and being plain kept them from noticing her. She found it easier to blend in with the woodwork that way.

  Juliette and Francesca did their best to encourage Starley to wear a little makeup and stop dressing like a boy. The women constantly offered to take her shopping for more flattering clothes. Clothes that fit. Or maybe get her to visit the optometrist for contacts. The elder sisters had offered numerous times to show her how to apply makeup or style her hair.

  Each time, Starley silently replied with her patented eye roll and went back to reading her book of choice.

  No one expected things to be any different in Prosperity than they had been in any of the previous towns where they’d lived.

  THE PERFUMERY

  The first perfumery might have been Juliette’s brainchild, but it was Francesca’s hard work and creative touches that had made it successful. Each subsequent store brought in more money than the one before it. With that kind of success rate, maybe moving wasn’t such a bad idea after all.