Girl's Guide To Witchcraft

They don't teach witchcraft in library school. Vermin—check. Mold and mildew—check. Difficult patrons—check. But there was no course in witchcraft, no syllabus for sorcery. If only I'd been properly prepared for my first real job.

I was probably responsible for what happened. After all, I was the one who recited the Scottish play as I pulled a gigantissimo nonfat half-caf half-decaf light-hazelnut heavy-vanilla wet cappuccino with whole-milk foam and a dusting of cinnamon."Double, double, toil and trouble," I said as I plunged the steel nozzle into the carafe of milk.

"What's that from, Jane?" asked my customer, a middle-aged woman who frequented the library on Monday afternoons. Her name was Marguerite, and she was researching something about colonial gardens. She'd had me track down endless pamphlets about propagating flowering trees.

"Macbeth," I said.

See. It was my fault. Everyone knows that it's bad luck to say the name of Shakespeare's Scottish play. At least for actors it is. Still, I should never have risked the curse. I probably deserved everything else that happened that day and in ... read full excerpt from Girl's Guide to Witchcraft ebook