by Mara Webb
“I can’t keep doing this. THE CHEESE WOULD SLIDE OFF! What part of that don’t you understand? And anyway, they don’t just do cheese as the stuffing now. You can get ones with pepperoni, or bits of hot dog or BBQ sauce,” Ryan replied. They were both doing a lot of pointing as they spoke which they must have thought helped their argument.
“Don’t you dare lie to me in my own house! No one is putting pepperoni in the crust Ryan. Oh, hi Nora!” Quin turned to me and let out a little meow. “Can you please tell this fool that the thing about stuffed crus—”
“Hi Quin, Ryan. I hope we aren’t fighting about nonsense again,” I interrupted. Ryan gestured with his eyes towards Quin, I knew what he was trying to say, and I believed him. I knew that Quin had started it like he always does. “Fill me in, I think I missed the good bits.”
Brent went to sit in the lounge with the cats to watch TV as I grabbed a glass of fresh orange juice as Ryan began to outline the last few hours. It was only then that I realized that the reason I was so tired was because I had stayed awake all night.
“Well that lady that ran at you…” Ryan began.
“Judith?”
“Yeah, well she hit you with some sort of torture thing, like a pain spell. Obviously, she had intended to hit Bridget. The whole group of people involved in the animal show had been doing all that terrible stuff under Bridget’s influence. She had stripped them of their free will, conscience, all of that, so they were all understandably furious.
“Judith was falling over herself trying to apologize but you had already blacked out. The justice department showed up and, well you know, it was a weird scene. I had tried to explain it over the phone but it’s confusing.”
“I agree.”
“The bad guys are being questioned; Bridget is in big trouble. Those crystals were stolen, the magic was illegal, transforming people to hold hostage is illegal, the blackmail is pretty sketchy, and your Professor kicked her out of O.W.L. so it’s not looking good for her. I reckon she will get her powers stripped, not a common thing but she clearly can’t be trusted. She tried to say she had seen it all in a movie and didn’t think it was that cruel, then she tried to claim that she was under an evil curse. It’s the magic equivalent of the insanity plea, a lot of people try to fake it.
“It was the son that killed Joseph, the same guy that came after you and Jen at the offices in town. He was legitimately under the influence so he might get a lighter sentence.
“What happens now?” I asked, pouring another glass of juice. I never seem to drink anything during these nighttime missions and it usually involved a lot of running around in terror, it’s thirsty work. Ryan pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and checked his messages.
“Well Jen is with family today, but I’m sure you’d guessed. Justin is stuck doing another séance, I should really ask more questions about that, but I keep forgetting to. Amber and I were going to help find the community of escapees, they are in the forest somewhere near here and Arnold was going to give us directions. He said he would send a message over, he wants to spend the day at home with his wife.”
“Can I tag along?” I asked.
“Sure, I figured you would want to rest up, but you are more than welcome. Many hands make light work. How’s the leg?”
Quin ran back into the room excitedly.
“Where are we going to? I heard the words ‘tag-a-long’ so I assume that includes me. Is it mini-golf?” he said, bouncing up onto the kitchen counter. Quin had missed out on the glory moment of saving everyone at the event hall. He had helped protect this house and everyone inside it and then stayed behind and missed out on an adventure, I knew he felt left out.
It never seemed to matter if I had excluded him for his own safety and I didn’t want to hear another ‘you don’t even know how powerful I am’ rant from my familiar. I explained to him where we were planning to go and why and he doubled down on his plans to join us.
Brent wandered back into the kitchen upon hearing Quin’s cheers and squeaks to let me know he would love to join us too, but he had an afternoon shift back at the station. I kept forgetting that his work was going on all year round, my job kept me on an academic calendar, and I got long breaks over the summer.
Ryan had driven Quin and I in a minivan he had acquired from somewhere and Amber was pulling up beside us in her own car. We had followed the directions that Arnold had given and after a short drive we had parked at the edge of some trees hoping that we wouldn’t have to wander in too far to find the missing people. I personally also hoped that the bath robe spell had reached out here, I wasn’t sure what to do with a large group of naked strangers.
As I climbed out of the van, I felt the pain in my leg flare up again. Amber had tried some healing magic but said I just had to wait until the spell wore off, the type of attack Judith had used was not permanent. Quin ran towards the forest floor and disappeared into the shadows. He had spent the entire drive over telling me how he was excited to see a bird and maybe catch a bird and see another one and catch that too. In his words he was ‘an astonishingly skilled hunter’.
All we knew was that they were in here somewhere and probably frightened. The three of us agreed that we would look for five minutes in separate directions and if we weren’t successful, we would re-group and try an announcement spell to let them know it was safe to come out. This wasn’t ideal as it would be loud and frightening.
I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of walking into the trees alone, but I knew that Ryan would come to my rescue if it was needed. I could rely on him to protect me, I hoped that didn’t seem like I was taking advantage of his feelings for me. I would try to help him to if he required it, he was…special to me.
The leaf canopy above me now was nothing like the wooded area near the event hall parking lot. It was the middle of the day and barely any sunlight was able to penetrate the greenery. It was a faux night down here. I heard the soft crunching of dead leaves under the heel of my shoe and realized it was the only sound. We had only just split up and now it was as if I was out here completely alone.
I heard a voice in the distance calling my name, I couldn’t tell if it was Ryan or Amber as it was too warped by distance. They must have found the group, so I began to jog in the direction of the sound. Man am I out of shape. Had it really been so long since I last went running? I was breathless within seconds. I persisted, keeping a slow pace that was only just faster than a walk. Something hit me suddenly and I dropped to the floor. The strange way that my body crumpled as I fell caused the pain in my leg to flare up again, much worse than it had before.
This was from my premonition. I was breathless in a dark forest; something had hit me, and my leg was in screaming agony. Something brushed up against me. My mystery attacker. A glowing pair of eyes.
“Whoops! I guess I’m out of practice. Live like an indoor cat for too long and you lose it, you know?” a familiar voice said. It was Quin. I gave his shimmering cats eyes a stern look as I knew he could see me clearly. “Did I hurt your leg? I’m so sorry, but if you could have seen how close I was to pouncing on a pigeon just now you would be so proud of me. It turned and looked at me at the last second and I panicked, fell right out of that tree and landed on you. Isn’t that wild?”
I laughed a little and Quin joined me. My premonition had been accurate, but I had misjudged it. It highlighted the importance of approaching my growing powers with caution, I didn’t fully understand what I was capable of yet, but did anyone? Quin helped guide me to the clearing where the others were waiting.
“So, the robe spell did make it here then?” I laughed to Ryan.
“No. No it did not. I cast a quick version of it when I found them all. I saw…a lot.” Ryan’s mouth curled slightly at the corners and I could see that at least he saw the funny side. The robes he had dressed everyone in where considerably shorter than the ones Professor Eastey had created. We would all be fine as long as no one needed to bend over to pick up anything from the
ground.
I walked out of the forest with the witches and wizards that had escaped captivity. The hood of the minivan had been vandalized while we were among the trees. Spray painted across the metal were the words:
‘Congrats! Welcome to your second year! – Professor Alse Eastey.’
The Professor must have given me the passing grade based on my work freeing the missing magical folk. I was part of a community now and was really finding my place within it. My powers were growing, and I felt like I finally knew who I was. I took a deep breath of fresh air around me. As I stared out at the mountains, I felt another premonition begin, Brent was there and he was holding a wand, but I shook my head to stop it.
I wanted at least a few days without any more spoilers.
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Something Borrowed, Something Broom
Book Five
1
The energy that students have when they come back from a summer break is something that they never seem to replicate at other times of the year. It would be useful if they could muster even a fraction of the post-vacation enthusiasm when exam season rolled around. It was slowly rolling into fall in Sucré and the air was thick with the scent of pumpkin spiced lattes already.
I loved this time of year, the heat from the summer months still lingers throughout the afternoons but the mornings start off with a sharp chill. I had worn so much knitwear already this week that I felt like a catalogue model. Working at the University of Awa allowed me to mingle will all sorts of people during the day, many of them were still bragging about their wild adventures over the long break. I worked at a University filled with witches and wizards so of course their stories were filled with adrenaline and magic.
I had not been on a fun vacation over the summer. You would think that being a witch would mean I was never bored, but I was sure that my summer break must have felt longer than everyone else’s as I was stuck at home with my seven cats, my dead aunt who haunted the mirrors and my human boyfriend, Brent.
It wasn’t an awful way to spend a few weeks, it just hadn’t involved scuba diving underneath a Fijian island to rescue someone’s familiar who had been kidnapped by an evil sea toad, there had been no laying out in the sun on a beach that was only accessible by broom flight, and I had not crafted my own vase at a glass workshop. The glass thing was the activity I was the most bitter about, it had been completed by my boyfriend on a team-bonding weekend with the rest of the Sucré police force.
“I think we are all done here for the day, Nora,” Professor Allen called from across the lab. I worked in the research department at the university after a recent promotion. “Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend?”
“Not one,” I replied. My face dropped at the thought of it. Of course, as my cat familiar, Quin, ran a cat café in town with the other six cats that lived at number thirteen Charm Close with me, I would probably visit them at work tomorrow. For a regular person that would probably be quite exciting. Even the cats had been on vacation this summer. I was having a hard time listening to Quin repeating his highlight reel of vacation stories, most of which centered around a tropical fish he had spoken to in a rock pool.
“Well try to enjoy yourself while you’re young, and don’t forget we have a tough day week ahead of us, we have over three hundred blood samples to process so we can try out that new ritual, did you read the paper I sent to you?” he asked.
I nodded; it had taken me days to get through it because every time I picked it up, I kept falling asleep. It wasn’t a thrilling piece of writing, but academic papers rarely were, even magical ones. I exchanged a few more pleasantries with my supervisor and then hung up my lab coat on the way out of the lab. I was balancing my handbag precariously over one shoulder as I simultaneously tried to locate my car keys.
The corridors of the University were filled with teenagers making plans to meetup, party and get up to mischief. I was just keen to get home and watch ‘The Masked Singer’, I had recorded it to watch tonight and Brent was coming over with a bottle of coconut rum and take-out food.
My summer might not have been the greatest this year, but at least my love life was going well. We had been dating for over a year and despite a few ups and downs, and by that, I mean having various murders take place in our small town that I somehow got caught up in, we were solid.
When I got into my car, I pulled out my cell phone to call Quin to let him know I was on the way back. The research project I was working on was taking up a bit more time than we had anticipated, and Quin was getting increasingly upset with my late returns from work. He had insisted that I call him every night to let him know when I was leaving the University so that he knew when to expect me.
This wasn’t so that he could put the kettle on or tidy up before I got home, which would have been great. It was so that he could give me a list of requests of things he wanted collecting from a grocery store. He was the neediest cat on planet earth. The phone only rang once before he picked up.
“Nora? Is that you?” he asked.
“Yes Quin, who else would it be? You asked me to pay for the caller ID feature on the house phone, why do I bother? I’m just letting you know that I’m on the way home now, what do you need?” There was no use either of us pretending that this phone call was about my welfare, it would save a lot of time if I just asked what food he wanted upfront.
“I’m good. Just come home! Drive safe!” he said. The line went dead. Nothing had ever filled me with more suspicion in my life. Quin was always hungry. There were seven cats in my house and if it wasn’t for my good salary after the promotion then they would have eaten us out of house and home. We would be living on the streets eating out of trashcans. I turned on the engine and tried to navigate my way home with a little extra urgency. All sorts of scenarios were playing out in my head. Maybe the house had been broken into and someone was threatening Quin with violence if he didn’t get me off the phone quickly, I could think of no other explanation as to why he wouldn’t want snacks on a Friday night.
I considered calling Brent and asking him to send the police over straight away, but I wasn’t sure how that would be received. Obviously by now my boyfriend was aware that I was a witch, but not everyone in town knew that they were living amongst magical folk. It was generally a well-kept secret.
Brent was just about comfortable with the talking petting zoo that lived with me, I could hardly ask a bunch of human police officers to break down my door because my cat had said something worrying over the phone, they would send me to a mental health hospital in the blink of an eye.
I pulled up outside the house and hurried up to the door. The cats had been nagging at me to put some plants in the tiny front yard next to the driveway. They wanted more of a jungle area to play in and more things to chew on and apparently all of the toys that they had inside the house weren’t enough.
I had spent one of my summer weekends on my knees in the dirt digging holes and filling them with bushes and flowers. I had been annoyed about it at the time but coming home to so much greenery was nice. It managed to distract me from my concern for a couple of seconds before I turned the key and burst into the hallway.
“Quin!” I shouted. I couldn’t see any forced entry to the house, when I had pulled up, I couldn’t see any smashed windows at the front and the door wasn’t damaged. Although I do suppose if someone with magic broke in then there might not be any evidence. Despite the number of protection spells now surrounding the house, people still seemed to find a way in. It was like a nightmare.
I heard the scramble of tiny paws on wooden floors and seven cats came flying down the stairs like thunder. They had picked up too much speed and started to skid once they reached the ground floor, Quin being the only one who was able to stop himself from crashing into me or a wall.
“Yeah? What’s up?” he asked.
“Are you okay? I can’t remember the last time that you didn
’t want food bringing home. At the very least I would have thought the kittens would have had some requests.” I crouched down so that I could reach him for a scratch behind his ear. As soon as I was low enough the kittens started rubbing up against my arms and shoulders. I have been calling them ‘the kittens’ since they arrived and they had grown so much that they just weren’t kittens anymore, old habits die hard.
I was losing track of time in Sucré, how long had I been here now? I had been brought to this place to check on my Aunt Edith after she had sent some worrying letters, her murder had left me as the sole recipient of her magic powers, her home and her talking cat Quin.
In the time since I had inherited everything, so much had happened that I would sometimes forget what my life had been like before all this. I had lived alone in a dirty apartment that I had moved to after my marriage fell apart. It had felt as if everything I touched was collapsing and I was trapped at rock bottom working two jobs I hated just to get by. Everything in this magical town had made my days better, even these needy cats.
“Do you want to shower? Or put on some make-up? Or change into something pretty? Or maybe you could get changed and make us a tuna casserole? Or at least brush your teeth, Nora. Come on, I’ll sit with you as you make us a snack,” Quin said. He began to lead a cat procession towards the kitchen while I remained crouched down and astonished.
I straightened up and followed them. My wonderful, mysterious, magical house had once again re-decorated itself during the day while I was at work. The kitchen was almost entirely different, the oven was in a new place, the sink had moved, the cabinets were now all a shade of soft pink and there was a net of balloons secured to the ceiling.