by Mara Webb
It’s not a big deal.
I heard a car door close and then footfall on the steps up to the house. Was I sweating? This was so embarrassing. He could be here for absolutely any reason in the world, I felt a tension in my stomach that made me fear that I would open the door and just vomit all over him.
He knocked.
I had briefly intended to wait for him to knock a second time, you know, so I could pretend I had been busy doing something else. That plan went straight out the window and I pulled the door open immediately, his hand was still raised from knocking.
For a few heartbeats we stood silently before each other.
I parted my lips to launch into a joke I had read on the internet when he stepped forward and kissed me. The feeling in the pit of my stomach grew more intense, but in such a way that I felt like I was flying. I put my hands on either side of his face and allowed myself to savor this glorious moment.
I was finally kissing Ryan, every time I had thought about his confession of his love for me there had been a fantasy where I reciprocated, and we had a life together. I had imagined it so many times that I was dizzy with the idea that this was really happening.
My adventures in Sucré were only just beginning.
Witch Things Happen at Sea
Book Six
1
"Look Quin, Ryan is going to be here any minute, can we do this O.W.L revision another time?”
“But you asked for my help, and now I’m trying to help!”
“Fine but make it quick. This is a lightning round.”
“School is in session!” he howled at the top of his voice. “Now your lowest score is on witch types…” Quin said.
“I’ve been practicing, honest,” I said. I had been struggling with this module though.
“Pop quiz!” he sang. “Ready? This witch draws power from arid climates and likes isolation.”
“Prickly cactus!” I said.
“Correct! This witch draws power from her collection of hapless lovers.”
“The Siren!”
“Bingo! What about this one? This witch draws her power exclusively from eating jello.”
I looked up at him. “Umm… the honeybun?”
“Wrong!” he said, making a loud klaxon sound. “I just made that one up. I’m bored of this now and want some jello. Shall we?”
I rolled my eyes and followed Quin downstairs, leaving him to wander into the kitchen. I opened the door just as Ryan was about to knock. “You’re fast!” he said, stepping inside. He kissed me on the cheek, and I closed the door behind him.
“I’m in desperate need of conversation with someone that isn’t a cat. You look mischievous. What’s going on?”
Ryan was beaming, he turned to face me and took a big breath. “Pack your bags, we’re going sailing.”
“Sailing?”
“Me, you, a luxury yacht. A weekend of open sea, sand, and seagulls. One of my rich clients has invited me along on a boat trip in exchange for me helping him out.”
“Well that’s great,” I said.
“Sure is, so pack up, come on!”
“Well…”
He paused. “Well?”
“I just think it is a bad idea. You barely know this guy and he wants to take us out onto the open ocean? Please think this through,” I pleaded. “It could be a trap,” I added quickly.
Ryan laughed. “For argument’s sake, why don’t we just take it at face value? A kind man with a lot of money has offered to take us out on his expensive boat for a week and show us some beautiful places with tropical fish and white sand beaches. We don’t have to spend a dime. What if it isn’t a trap?” Ryan held my hands in his and I could see that he clearly didn’t suspect there was anything to worry about with this unusual offer.
I had been on a few dates with Ryan since my last relationship ended and I could feel myself falling hard for him. Was it because he was a powerful wizard that was also a lawyer that was also drool-inducingly hot?
Who can say?
Since moving to Sucré I had made quite a few friends, but he had been the focus of my attention for quite some time. I had been dating a human police officer, Brent, for just over a year but there was an unsavory incident with him trying to murder me with his newly inherited magical powers that really put a dampener on our romance.
Since that breakup I had spoken to Brent a few times just to see how his magical training was going. I didn’t go as far as to suggest that we be study buddies, but our familiars seemed to get along. To cut a long story short, my aunt died, and I inherited her powers, her house and her talking cat familiar, Quin.
When I moved to town, I quickly realized that she had in fact been murdered, so I put finding her killer at the top of my to-do list. It turned out to be someone that sat on the magic council with her, Benjamin Rooper. He had killed her to protect a family secret of his and his punishment from the justice department was to be transformed into a familiar and undergo training at a boot camp North of here.
Quin just happened to be a trainer at the boot camp. He relished putting Benjamin through his paces to teach him a lesson for killing the witch he had lived with most of his life. I got hourly text updates about the unreasonable drills he would have him doing as well as menial chores. I should point out that Quin, as much as I loved him, was intense. He needed attention like most people need air so, despite Benjamin killing my aunt Edith, Quin became friends with him. I didn’t forgive as quickly so I remained hostile whenever his name was brought up.
Ryan stood in front of me with his deep blue eyes and smiled at me patiently, he had made his mind up already and I knew that I could either sulk and miss out or take a chance and experience something new and exciting. I knew the client he was referring to, and by all accounts he sounded like a perfectly lovely gentleman.
He had recently helped an eccentric millionaire escape jail time due to a ludicrous number of unpaid parking tickets by finding evidence that the parking signs were obstructed by low hanging branches, making it unclear that the road was not an appropriate place to leave your car for six hours. It had been a stretch to use that as an excuse because everyone, even me who was new to the area, knew not to park there.
Obviously, Ryan was handsomely compensated for his time, even getting a lawyer on the phone is like five hundred dollars. But this guy had also offered to take Ryan on the vacation of a lifetime, which subsequently meant that I was invited to join him. Ryan and I were in a new relationship, we hadn’t technically made anything official yet, but he was inviting me out on vacation. The pessimist in me was screaming that this was too soon, the realist was telling me that if he saw what I was like near deep water that he would run for the hills.
“Nora, we won’t be alone with this guy. He has a little group going on this trip and, I mean, he has shown me pictures of this yacht and it is out of this world. I don’t think this type of opportunity comes along every day so maybe we should take a chance. It will be all magical folk so if anything gets crazy, they won’t be alarmed if we ‘pop’ our way outta there,” he said. That was it, I was out of logical complaints, it was time for the crazy ones.
“They’re all magic?” I asked. That changed things a little. If we didn’t have to worry about hiding our magic we could actually relax.
“Everyone apart from one person, I think. We have the ability to relax and be ourselves!”
“I guess, but…”
“But?”
It was time to give him the real reason. The thing I didn’t want to say out loud.
“I think the sea is stupid,” I blurted out. Ryan looked at me wide eyes and I could see the beginnings of a laugh, but I continued. “It’s too deep, its dark at the bottom, does anyone really know what is living down there? I mean, sure there have been submarines and whatever, but I have thought all this for a long time and that was before I knew about magic. So that opens up a whole new world of evil just swimming about and I hate it and it’s stupid.”
&n
bsp; There was a silence as we both digested the words I had released into the air. I was a little breathless like I had been keeping all that in for a long time and finally expelled it.
“Are you scared of the ocean, Nora?” Ryan asked.
“Yes, I think I have just made that very clear! Do you know how many times some crazy giant sea thing has dragged a boat down to the murky depths?”
“Do you? I think that has only ever happened in movies, have you seen that in a newspaper anywhere? Or on video?” He was trying to rationalize the irrational. I appreciated that he was trying to calm me down, but I felt more fired up than ever, despite him correctly pointing out that it may never have actually occurred.
“What if…now bear with me, what if we are out on that boat and then a giant squid shows up, but it comes from directly beneath us so we don’t see it approach, then it wraps its nasty little legs, I mean tentacles, all over the boat and just crushes it and then what if the squid’s weird flappy head brushes up against me as I’m drowning and that is my last memory before I die?” Even I thought that was insane and I was the one that had just said it.
We were standing in the kitchen at number thirteen Charm Close, the house I had inherited from my aunt Edith, and I was just spewing out all sorts of madness on a day when Ryan and I were supposed to be having a little shopping date in town. He had come over to talk to me about what he thought was an incredibly generous offer from one of his clients and I was rejecting the very idea of it based on a lifelong fear of the sea. Nothing bad had ever happened to me in the water really, and when I gave myself a moment to think I remembered that witches can’t even drown.
“Nora,” he said softly. “You won’t drown. You know that you literally can’t, right?” I nodded. “If, in the unlikely situation that, a giant squid approaches the yacht, I will personally fight it off for you. I give you my word that you will not be attacked by a single ocean monster on this trip. I will protect you with my last breath, you will be absolutely fine. Now can we please go and get some lunch?”
I stroked the side of his face and then tried to relax the muscles in my body that had become rigid during my passionate outburst. Quin often told me that I needed to chill out, he had a very casual approach to almost everything and, as much as it pained me to admit it, I could benefit from being a little more like him. I had said my piece, now it was time to do something else. I took a deep breath and tried to leave all of those feelings in that past moment so that I could move on with the afternoon with a sense of calm.
Nope, still mad about it. I should meditate or something.
I took Ryan’s hand and we made our way to the front door of the house. His skin in contact with my own was doing what I couldn’t do for myself yet, I was detaching myself from the conversation we had just had, and my good mood had returned. Part of me thought that Ryan might be using his magic, but he did have a different kind of charm that was probably responsible. I reached for the handle of the door and something suddenly appeared in my left hand, a torn piece of paper covered in horrendous handwriting. I inspected it for a moment and as I was about to speak, Quin appeared behind us and interrupted.
“It’s just a small shopping list that we all put together because you made it very clear that we weren’t coming with you on this little excursion,” Quin said with a snarky tone. He was referring to the six other cats that lived here, yes, I have seven familiars.
“You have to go to work, Quin. They are all at the café already, why aren’t you?” I asked. They ran a place in town called The Catmosphere Café and it was incredibly successful despite Quin having no previous business experience.
“I told Stacey that I was needed back home, and she gave me the go ahead,” he said. Stacey was one of the staff at the café, they needed people in human bodies to serve drinks and make the snacks because the cats couldn’t do it for themselves. It was right on the high street so humans would come in all the time to eat lunch surrounded by little furry creatures and Quin had employed some students from the magical University where I worked to help him out. Stacey had very quickly become his favorite and it seemed quite clear to everyone that he had a crush on her. “Anyway, the list has a few things that we would like but if you see any other goodies then please get those also.” With a ‘pop’ he was gone.
“Ooh Stacey said I could leave because Stacey is so great,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Jealous much?” Ryan asked, pulling the front door open and guiding me outside.
“He talks about her all the time, I just…I thought I was his favorite person.”
“He is playing you; you can see that right? You are now going to buy him everything he asked for to try and win him back, that is him pulling a con on you. Come on, we can look at getting some new luggage for our boat trip!” Ryan said, sticking his tongue out at me to break me out of my funk.
I laughed, and in an instant the Quin thoughts faded to the back of my mind. Maybe this boat trip would be an amazing thing to do with my new boyfriend. Or maybe my witch intuition was right, and this whole thing would be a total disaster.
2
We had walked into town and Ryan had elected to take us to the bakery on the high street instead of Quin’s place. I appreciated the change of scenery as I spent a lot of my free time hanging around with the cats and I didn’t find it relaxing in the slightest.
I had been to this bakery a number of times since I moved to Sucré and had very slowly established a relationship with the owner. Molly was a woman in her fifties that ran the bakery with both an iron fist and a gentle smile. Every part of her day was planned out to the minute and she was always running on time, but with her customers she acted as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
When we walked in, she gave us a wave of acknowledgement and we took a table by the window. I had anticipated that there might be some bitter rivalry between her and I, especially as I was technically the face of The Catmosphere Café.
For obvious reasons I was listed as the owner and manager because I could hardly write down that a cat was in charge. Molly could not have been more gracious and encouraging about it all. She had been running her bakery for long enough that she knew we attracted different crowds. She would frequently pop over for a panini and a cuddle with one of my familiars and likewise, like today, I would go to her bakery for lunch.
“Good afternoon, sorry for the wait I just had to take some pastries out of the oven. What can I get for you?” Molly asked. We had barely been inside the building for sixty seconds, there had been no waiting on our part. Most of the food at the cat café was made by magic, Molly made everything with her human hands and nine times out of ten, hers tasted better.
There were only a couple of tables inside the bakery, it was mostly a place where people would run and grab a huge bag full of her wonderful baking before rushing home to eat. I loved to sit and eat in here though, the smell of butter, sugar and cinnamon alone was a reason to stay.
“The usual please,” I said, looking over at the glass display of food by the cash register. I had some sort of pavlovian response to the sound of the little bell above the bakery door, as soon as we had walked in and caused it to ring, my mouth had flooded with saliva in anticipation of her cooking.
“And for your fiendishly attractive companion?” she asked with a grin. Watching her flirt with Ryan was such a joy, she would always pour compliments over him the way an enthusiastic aunt would with her nephew. It always caused him to blush and stutter.
“I…well maybe not the, could I…just. I’ll have the same as Nora,” he finally announced. Molly laughed and shuffled back towards the food display to prepare our lunches. “Sometimes I can’t believe she doesn’t have powers because she manages to render me speechless every time we come in here. Even my mom doesn’t make me feel that flustered and she is intense.”
“She is just telling you what a handsome young man you are, and I happen to agree with her. You should hear it as often as you can,” I said
, smiling in a way to show as many of my teeth as possible to push his buttons further. “Have you confirmed when this boat trip is happening then, I mean, if I am going, when would I need to book off work?” Despite my previous reservations, I had allowed the idea to swirl around my head during the walk into town and the idea of laying out on a yacht with Ryan was appealing enough to assuage my fears.
“It would be in a week, I think. Can you take time off with such short notice?” he asked.
“Our notice period for vacations is twenty-four hours. Don’t ask me why, just University policy set by people that, and I quote, ‘Know the savings available for last-minute vacation deals’ so they actively encourage it. My supervisor called me a few months back from the airport to let me know he was about to board a plane to Greece. It’s a weird place to work but this is one of the many advantages.” My job as a researcher at the University of Awa allowed me to be so immersed in the magical community that I sometimes forgot all of the regular, human jobs I had suffered through in the past. I didn’t think I could cope with a nine-to-five job now if my life depended on it.
“That’s great, so are you in?” Ryan asked, his eyes sparkling with hope.
“I suppose so. It would be pretty irresponsible of me to let you go off on this boat to fight off squid without me. It really seems like a two-person job.” Ryan beamed at me as Molly returned with two cheese and tomato panini’s and a pain au raisin each. We both thanked her, and she scuttled back to her ovens to check on the progress of her next batch of bread.
During our short stay inside the bakery there must have been at least two dozen customers rushing in to collect orders. She was rushed off her feet, but I remember her telling me that those periods of the day were when she was at her happiest.