Pennsylvania Powwow

--By Kirsten Weiss, cozy mystery author

Licensed under Unsplash+

There are many strange corners of the world, and you don’t have to leave the United States to find them.

All it takes is a little curiosity.

Alas, when I was younger, I knew everything. So I had none.

My father once told me about an uncle who could pull healing magic from a potato and a slice of moonlight.

I laughed it off as silly superstition and asked no questions.

The arrogance of youth tends to keep the wonder out and the certainty in.

It was only later, far too late, that I learned more of that old craft: Pennsylvania folk healing magic, known as powwow or braucherei.

The words themselves feel like a spell half-forgotten on the tongue.

Learning about my family’s folk magic tradition sent me reaching backward through time toward the immigrants themselves—the stubborn German farmers who carried these traditions across a black ocean into an even blacker wilderness.

They left behind the ethereal, kindly forests of home. Their new world was dark, brooding, chestnut-vaulted and walnut-shadowed.

Aware.

With every leaf-rustle and branch-crack, those old farmers felt their watchers. Malevolent intent pressed hot against their damp backs like dragon’s breath.

They feared illness, feared Indian raids, feared starvation gnawing at their bellies.

But the real terror came from the woods. The real terror came from the witches.

And so they carried talismans scrawled on fragile pages for protection, small shields against the unseen:

I.

N. I. R.

I.

SANCTUS SPIRITUS

I.

N. I. R.

I.

Stubborn, reverent, industrious, they cleared the land anyway.

They sowed barley and buckwheat, raised flax and rye, carving sunlit, hard-won clearings from the teeth of the wilderness.

They built barns for uneasy livestock that shifted and stamped through the nights.

Resentful, waiting, the eyes witnessed everything from the wood’s edges.

Chalk toad’s feet above the windows to turn away evil.

There remains something uncanny about the Pennsylvania woods. Even now.

Summer canopies lock in the heat, humid and smothering and thick. Oak and chestnut, beech and birch press together, whispering. Spirits still dwell in the trees—some protectors, some malignant, all of them watching.

Plant hazel as a ward.

So we tread carefully. Wary of the witches. Wary, too, of the parts of ourselves that once dismissed them.

Because the magic didn’t die with the old farmers. It simply learned to hide in plainer sight—in the potato left on the windowsill, in the moonlight pooling on the kitchen table, in the moment when curiosity finally arrives and asks its first real question.

This is the same living power April discovers in my metaphysical mystery Legacy of the Witch—the deep, daimonic undercurrent that asks us to confront our shadows, heal old wounds, and finally listen when the woods begin to speak.

Because if you listen closely enough, the woods will answer.

And they still watch.

Death in Red, White and Rooibos Launches Tomorrow

Today’s the official launch date for my new Tea and Tarot cozy mystery, Death in Red, White and Rooibos. Here’s what it’s about:

A hit-and-run “accident”… a ghost from the past… and one unpaid debt that’s about to boil over.

When San Borromeo kicks off its summer festival season with near-daily parades, picnics, and concerts leading to the July 4th finale, Beanblossom’s Tea & Tarot is the coziest spot on the beach. Abigail pours perfectly steeped rooibos, her partner Hyperion reads Tarot cards that actually help, and his cat bosses everyone around—until a woman from Abigail’s past is found dead on the street, weeks before the 4th.

Now, Abigail owes a debt she never settled. The only way to pay it is to team up with her quirky gang of amateur sleuths, meddling relatives, and eccentric locals. Together they dive into a puzzle of small-town secrets, red-white-and-blue alibis, and whispered scandals.

But every steeped cup uncovers another layer of betrayal, and the closer they get to the truth, the more the killer seems determined to make Abigail’s own independence day her last.

Can this ragtag crew unmask the killer before the fireworks explode—or will Hyperion’s final reading predict liberty… and justice… for none?

DEATH IN RED, WHITE AND ROOIBOS is book 11 in the Tea and Tarot small-town mystery series. If you like laugh-out-loud smart sleuthing, satisfying justice, and slow-burn romance, get cozy with DEATH IN RED, WHITE AND ROOIBOS today!

Tearoom recipes in the back of the book!

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