Magical Midway Paranormal Cozy Series Books 1-3 Read online

  Magical Midway Series Books 1-3

  Magical Midway Paranormal Mysteries Box Set Volume 1

  Leanne Leeds

  Badchen Publishing

  Contents

  Witchiest Circus on Earth

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Life on the Lion

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Unbearable Magic

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Thank You!

  Read Chapter 1 of Book 4, Go For the Juggler

  Witchiest Circus on Earth

  Published by Badchen Publishing

  11923 NE Sumner St., Suite 681364

  Portland, OR 97220

  www.leanneleeds.com

  ©2018 Leanne Leeds

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  For permissions contact: [email protected]

  1

  Shadows moved outside the yurt in the first-morning sunshine. Circuses, even paranormal ones, rose with the sunlight to ensure that everything was ready for the townspeople. Since my yurt was next to Hildegaard’s Kitchen, the tent that held breakfast and coffee for the tired paranormal carnies in the backyard, this all but guaranteed my early rise.

  Hey, everyone needed their coffee in the morning. Even paranormals.

  The performers and workers groaned and chuffed as they made their way to the coffee tent. I grabbed a pillow and buried my head underneath to catch more sleep, but it was futile. Between the drums and laughter, a hundred paranormals groaning outside your yurt while you tried to sleep wasn’t soothing white noise.

  “Charlotte, you awake?” My best friend at Magical Midway, Fiona Brus, was always awake long before I rolled out of bed. I grunted and stretched out from under the warm, downy bedroll into the brisk morning air as her soft Scottish lilt continued to poke at me through the canvas. “Come on, sleepy, it’s a Saturday! The normals will show up soon, and I have to get to my pen. Flag’s up! Let’s move.”

  “I know, I know, just give me a second!” Yawning, I made my way out of bed and over to the mirror by my writing desk. Peering at my image, I shuddered at the state of my hair. And my skin. And my puffy eyes.

  Ugh.

  Each summer I turned up at Magical Midway looking presentable. My clothes were clean and pressed, my skin soft and bright, my eyes clear with no bags. By the end of the week, I had the permanently disheveled look of a carnival worker suffering from malnourished sleep deprivation.

  Gnarled hair sprinkled with hay matted in random places on my head while puffy eyes screamed a glaring need for a comprehensive supply of makeup I wouldn’t have bothered to put on if I had it, anyway. “You may as well come in, it will take me a minute to make my hair presentable.”

  “No one pays attention to your hair, ya kin?” Fiona slid into the pavilion with a graceful glide. “No one cares about anything before coffee, and it’ll be lukewarm by the time ye finish unsnarling that nest of wheat on your head.”

  “Says the woman who stomped on my foot when I left a wee, tiny, itty bitty knot in her tail.”

  “That was different,” she argued as she plopped down on my bed. “Kelpies do not have snarls in their tails. That’s just not done. You should know better than that.”

  I stuck my tongue out at Fiona and returned to working on my fine, golden hair so I could get to Hildegaard’s before all my favorite coffee flavors for the day disappeared. It was a final day all around for both the Magical Midway and me. Tomorrow, the fair was tearing out to travel to its next town, and I was returning to my human life in Mickwac, Texas until the following summer.

  Well, tearing out or down was a misnomer. I’d never been around for a move from one town to the next, but Uncle Phil said it was about as complicated as snapping his fingers. The Magical Midway was a paranormal carnival and circus, home to over a hundred paranormals and run by my Uncle Phil.

  I always looked forward to getting back to my human life, though our family’s connection to the Magical Midway was of great significance. I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed my single summer week here each year. Every year when I left the circus, it felt like I had barely arrived and settled in before I had to turn around and walk away from it all.

  “OK, I give up, let’s get coffee.” Throwing my hairbrush down next to my bed, I wondered if Uncle Phil could magic my hair for me the way he magicked everything else. Hopefully, none of the cute centaurs would be at breakfast.

  Fiona and I made our way out of the yurt toward Hildegaard’s as the numerous inhabitants of the circus scurried this way and that way with waves, yawns and good mornings. Despite being in their human forms, many moved with the grace of the creatures they represented when the throngs of humans showed up to visit.

  “Charlotte!” my uncle boomed as he rushed across the expanse of the backyard. “Are you positive you don’t wish to remain just a few more weeks? Or months? Or years?” His rotund body jiggled as he hopped up and encircled me in a bear hug. “I despise it when you take off, young Charlotte. It’s like we lose the shining princess that gives the Midway its luster, dear girl.”

  “I hardly sparkle when I’m here, Uncle Phil.”

  “Oh, but you do, dear girl, you do! I’m constantly telling Samson how this place shines just a little brighter when you are here.”

  “I think you’re looking at the sheen of my nose.”

  Uncle Phil passed his palm over my face with a grin, and I felt a shimmery energy tingle along my puffy skin. My hands moved automatically to my knotted hair and realized it was now entirely coiffed. The wet gloss that appeared on my lips felt soothing over the cracked dryness that had been there just moments before. Uncle Phil could make a fortune in New York City doing makeovers. “Thanks, Uncle Phil. But I still can’t stay. Even for the hour a day you would save me on makeup and hair.”

  I don’t know why I lied and said I worked on my makeup and hair for an hour each day. I didn’t. I didn’t even really own makeup that hadn’t expired sometime back when I was in high school.

  “You don’t want to upset your brother,” Fiona pointed out. Uncle Phil rolled his eyes and waved his arms in a dramatic show of annoyance.

  “My brother. Pah! How he produced a lovely witch like you, I’ll never know. Assimilation. What a horrible word,” Uncle Phil spat as if a bug had just flown in his mouth. “Why would anyone want to integrate when they could live at the Magical Midway and stand out under the Big Top lights? You would make a beautiful lion tamer, my girl!”

  Uncle Phil criticized my fa
ther’s refusal to participate in or uphold our paranormal heritage for the hundredth time. “At least he allowed you to accompany us all these vacations, Charlotte. Though I wish you would remain with us for more than just one week a year. That’s no time to get to know anyone or anything, dear girl!”

  “I have to get back to the shelter, Uncle Phil. And you know Dad goes ballistic when I talk about going on a circuit tour with you.”

  “Yes, yes,” the big man snorted, hauling out a loud, multicolored hanky to blow his bulbous nose in. “I will always try to keep you here, dear girl. At least a dozen times per trip. I truly believe that it would do you good. You’re only half a witch living in the human world!”

  I was only one-tenth a witch in my regular life at best, but I decided not to mention that to my uncle.

  “At least let her get her coffee first before you work on her again.” Fiona grabbed my arm and pulled me away from my uncle. He bowed as we progressed on to the coffee tent, and I waved as he melted into the multitude of morning workers.

  Fiona and I lined up for our magical morning elixir. Mocha Elegance for her (not that she needed it), and Peppermint Pride for me (which I needed about a gallon of). As we parked ourselves down at one of the many picnic tables set out beneath the shade of the tent, my uncle’s black cat Sampson jumped on the table and cast an intent stare in my direction. “Not you, too, cat. Shoo. Let me drink my coffee in peace.” The cat hissed at me and hopped off the table.

  “I have to admit there are times I don’t get how you can live in the human realm,” Fiona observed as she sipped her steaming mug of chocolate coffee infused with an extra shot of elegance. “Don’t you ever miss all this? Or wonder what it would be like if you stayed and learned more about being a witch?”

  “I do, I guess.” I skimmed around at the men and women that made up this traveling family and swallowed the lump in my throat. I loved… well, most of those I knew. Some people were more challenging to embrace than others. The Larry brothers, who served as the security detail for the Magical Midway, were a little intimidating. Julius Larry stared at me from across the coffee tent as if he felt I had thought ill of him and I quickly turned away.

  Heck, maybe he knew my thoughts. How would I know?

  My family had been so lax on my paranormal education as I grew up that I understood little of the paranormals that lived at this fair. With over one hundred paranormals, one week a year was not enough time to get to know everyone. It wasn’t even enough time to familiarize myself with every type.

  Turning back to find Julius Larry still staring at me, I nodded in his direction as his eyes narrowed in response. “This all seems so fantastical to me, though. Not like real life—and the paranormal world is so restricted, Fiona. What are you now, a few hidden villages and townships and some traveling fairs? It’s such a limited world you all live in.”

  “First of all, it’s we. Not me. We. You are one of us, too, Charlotte. It’s not that bad, though. There are more than twenty towns in this country alone. It is bad for the carnivals and circuses, though. Only two traveling fairs left,” she admitted. “The Langdons disbanded. It’s just the Makepeace Circus and us now. I’m sure the Witches’ Council is thrilled that we’re all almost gone, but it’s sad. I love this life.”

  “I know. In the human world, too, circuses are disbanding all over the place. It’s a different time. Animals as entertainment are frowned upon pretty harshly which is a good thing for the real animals. Puts you guys in a weird position, though.” Fiona’s expression grew sad, but she didn’t argue with me.

  There were so few paranormals left, and the human world had turned their… our practices and characteristics into Halloween costumes and comic strip figures. Why the mythological creatures and beings would want to gather as one tribe was easy for me to understand. I just wasn’t raised that way. I didn’t want to stay in the past with them and define myself as only a witch. My parents believed the human world, living as humans, is where our destinies lay.

  On the days I left, I did sometimes feel a pull, though. Like a whisper just beyond the range of my hearing. Once back home, I put the Magical Midway out of my mind, and the murmur eventually went silent. Perhaps if I stayed longer than a week, it would have grown louder, but I never did, and so it never did. No doubt my father’s plan all along, I thought.

  “Magic still has significance. Always will. You’d know if you stayed here long enough to get more than a hint of who we are. Who you are, Charlotte.”

  “You guys always do this to me on my last day,” I said. I sipped more Peppermint Pride hoping the elixir would bolster my resolve to leave without regrets again.

  “You’re going to be thirty next year, Charlotte,” Fiona pointed out. Tilting her head, she stared at me. “Don’t you think you’re old enough to decide for yourself to stay longer than a week?”

  “Of course I am! Dad’s asked very little of me, though, and this is important to him. It’s not about being allowed or not allowed, you know? It’s about respecting him and what he believes. It’s what he wishes.”

  “You’re not a djinn, you don’t have to grant anyone wishes. I don’t get you. You can’t date humans because of your talent, you haven’t even moved out of your parent's house. I mean, Charlotte—what if your soul mate is on the Midway? What if by not staying you’re condemning yourself to be alone?”

  A satyr walked by their table and discharged a tremendous fart as the coffee tent erupted in protests. Fiona and I exploded into a coughing fit as the walking stink bomb laughed and roared at the hilarity of the reaction to his thunderous bodily function.

  “Never mind. Enjoy your trip back to Texas, Charlotte.” Fiona choked as she flapped her hand in front of her face. “I can't make any persuasive argument after that. I give up.”

  I nodded while holding my nose.

  Packing my things back at the yurt, I thought about what Fiona had said. Every time I had to leave this place I considered anew what it meant, why I was doing it, and what could change in my life if I stayed.

  Growing up as a witch and the only daughter of two witches had been nothing… well, mysterious or witchy or anything. It barely registered as anything special on my radar.

  My father was bound and determined to treat our witch heritage as nothing more than expertise we had, like playing the piano or being math geniuses. He was insistent that being witches was not who we were, not the foundation of our identities. I was raised as secular friends of mine were raised by ex-religious parents or secular parents from a devout family.

  Sure, our family was Catholic. Yep, our family’s ancestors are Jewish. We descend from witches.

  Little incidents and facets of our lives were colored by that history, but there was no coordinated attempt by my parents to instruct, train, or develop my understanding of being a witch. We treated that facet of who we were with a shrug of the shoulders and concentrated more on the specific talent we each had because we were witches than the fact that we were paranormal. They also focused those extraordinary talents toward benefiting the ordinary mortal world.

  Admittedly, we had some cool gifts.

  Well, my parents did, anyway.

  My father could telepathically speak to any living thing. He called it a spirit connection—if something had the spark of life, he could talk to it and it could talk to him.

  Dad worked with his power enough to block it out when he needed to, like when trimming the lawn. (The grass becomes seriously annoyed at any attempts to manage it or shape it into human neatness and would prefer to be munched on by whatever random creatures are hungry and left alone to grow wild. Thousands of blades of grass complaining in teeny, tiny whines of protest is deafening, Dad said.)

  Mom could affect the emotions of anything around her. This came in handy as I was growing up. I suspect her talent is responsible for the steady, calm relationship I had with my parents all the way into adulthood. As teenage angst raised its snarky head, and I complained, freaked out, or got
indignant, Mom would turn me down a notch or two. It allowed me to be reasonable at a point most teens were bouncing off the walls and drowning in waves of internal conflict.

  As I grew up I recognized I could sense qualities, I guess. I couldn’t get clear communication like Dad, but I could sense the truth of what someone was revealing. I could also sense emotions, like Mom, though I couldn’t change or influence them the way she could. While my parents could read and control and speak to rooms of people or fields of grass, I was limited to a single being at a time and depended on proximity for it to be of any use.

  I knew things, but I could not change things. I never went to the Witches’ Academy to learn wand work, flying, or anything of that nature. Perhaps I would have the power to influence those around me if my parents had taught me just a few of the typical witch things like spells, incantations, and potions.

  But they didn’t.

  So I couldn’t.

  Incidentally, this talent made dating impossible. It’s why I still lived with my parents at twenty-nine years of age. I’m blond, blue-eyed, not hideous looking—yet I found myself on the cusp of becoming an old maid because every relationship I start ended within three dates.

  That’s right. Not an exaggeration.