by Adam Johnson
“Good morning.” Wow, I even sound nervous. I don't think that's ever happened before.
“What can I do for you?” she asks, seeming oblivious to who I am. I must not have made a big scene after all. Either that or they're used to people reacting that way when they get letters.
I release a tight breath. “I’m here to see Mr Richards.”
“Of course.” She clicks her mouse a couple of times. “And do you have an—”
“Appointment?” I interrupt. “Abso-freakin-lutely. Amethyst of the Gemstone Coven.” The woman finally looks up at me, her eyes widening with recognition. “Oh, you. Let me check the schedule.”
“Sure, sure.” I resist the urge to tap; my nails against the smooth surface of the reception desk. I'm sure it will only annoy her. Her keyboard clatters and she shoots me a surprised smile. “Please take a seat, Miss Gemstone. Mr Richards will be ready for you in five minutes.”
“Excellent.” Though I wish they'd stop referring to me that way. It must be a modern change to make witches fit in more with some of the other species. But I don't like it. I never thought I was a traditionalist, but it turns out I might be.
I bridge the wait by getting myself a couple of chocolate bars from their vending machine and stuff myself like a stressed panda. I hope my wands passed the tests and they’ll lift my suspension. If they don’t…
It isn't worth thinking about. I've been training to be a wandmaker since I was fifteen and the Paranormal Police Department already crushed my actual dream of becoming a law enforcement officer. I suppose I could try again, but I doubt they're going to take a witch who failed a CWC evaluation.
I twiddle a piece of string around my thumbs, winding it tight and releasing it when my skin turns white. I do it over and over, jumping at every sound or noise. What's wrong with me? I'm not this person.
A gust of wind draws my attention to the sliding doors as two PPD agents walk in.
Shit.
I hope they’re not here to arrest me? What if they are?
No, I won’t have failed the test. Even if this is not my passion, I know how to make wands. Grammie taught me and she’s the best. Even if people consider sea glass unstable, I know how to use it and how to draw out its powers. Those wands will be the best, most stable wands they’ve ever had made during an assessment, even if they aren't my best work.
I wonder if they will let me take them back to the shop with me so I can make them better? I shake my head. I doubt they will. They'll want them to stay within the building so they can test them again if they need to.
I catch one of the agents staring at me and my heart stops. Please don’t let them be here for me.
They keep walking and pause at the front desk. The secretary greets them with a smile and directs them to the elevators.
Oof.
I release a tight breath as the two PPD agents step away and leave me be. Maybe I'm being a little paranoid, but I really thought… No, it’ll be fine. I’ll have aced my workshop for my certification and I’m sure my suspension will be lifted. And even if I haven't, it's not really an issue for the PPD anyway. With the agents gone, I munch on another chocolate bar until I spot Mr Richards walking in my direction. Guess he doesn’t want me in his office then. Not that I blame him after last time. I wait for the guilt over that to come, but it doesn't.
He greets me with a polite smile. “Amethyst of the Gemstone Coven.”
Oh good, he's greeting me properly.
“Richard Richards.” His smile turns sour at his full name, but he manages to keep his professional composure. “It’s good to see you again, Miss Gemstone.” Ah. So much for that.
“Great. So, what’s the result?” I ask, not wasting any time. I’m not here for chit chat and small talk, I want my wand back. He holds out a translucent folder.
“After thorough examination and inspection of the wands you created with sea glass, the CWC came to a conclusion about your suspension and the usage of this magnifier.”
Ugh. So much official talk. Why can’t he just tell me what I want to know rather than dressing it up in fancy words?
Somehow, I manage to bite my tongue. But it's hard to.
Mr Richards nods reluctantly. “Congratulations, Miss Gemstone. The suspension has been lifted.”
“Yes!” I clap my hands together and squeal. “I knew it, I knew it.”
“Here’s your wand.”
I can’t stop myself from snatching my wand out of his hand. The past few weeks without it have been awful, and I never want to go through that again if I can help it. Next time, I'll try not to get caught when I do something reckless like add a new magnifier to a wand. I'd say that I won't do it again in general, but I know what I'm like and that's not really an option.
"Thank you, Mr Richards. I really appreciate everything the CWC has done."
He raises an eyebrow as if he doesn't believe me. I don't know why, I'm telling the truth. While we may not see eye to eye on some things, I do appreciate that they came through and did the right thing in the end.
"I hope I won't be seeing you again, Miss Gemstone."
"I hope not either," I reply with a smile. "And now I need to go tell Grammie the good news." And spread it far and wide so the customers can start rolling back into the store. He gives me another tight-lipped smile before disappearing back towards his office without so much as a goodbye.
But even his slightly rude behaviour isn't going to ruin my good mood. I almost skip out of the CWC building, excited to be able to get back to what's important.
Maybe I can even reapply for the PPD now my wand is regulation again. I don't care how long it takes, one day I'm going to be solving crime for them and the paranormal criminal world won't know what's hit it.
***
The End
***
Thank you for reading Glass and Sass, we hope you enjoyed a look into Amy's life! If you want to join her when she finally gets a chance to work with the PPD, you can start the main series with Hexes and Vexes: http://books2read.com/hexesandvexes
* * *
About the Authors
Laura Greenwood and Arizona Tape are USA Today Bestselling Authors who have been writing their Twin Souls Universe together since 2017, while both also writing their own books, and those with other co-authors.
Laura is a British author who writes paranormal, urban fantasy, and fantasy romance, often set in the UK. She has a passion for Egyptology and drinks a lot of tea.
Arizona was born in China, raised in Belgium, and now lives in the UK with her girlfriend and her dog, Fudgestick. She mostly writes fantasy and urban fantasy with LGBT characters and a focus on inclusion. She loves to game and tries a new hobby at least once a month.
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Read More from Laura Greenwood & Arizona Tape’s Twin Souls Universe
Amethyst’s Wand Shop Mysteries: an urban fantasy murder mystery series with a quirky witch and a serious detective.
Twin Souls Trilogy: a complete paranormal romance series with soul-swapping, dragons, and vampires.
The Vampire Detective: a complete urban fantasy series with a quirky vampire detective.
Renegade Dragons: a complete paranormal romance series with dragon shifters who run a bar.
Dragon Soul: a complete paranormal romance series with dragon shifters.
For more of Laura’s Books visit: https://www.authorlauragreenwood.co.uk
For more of Arizona’s Books visit: https://www.arizonatape.com
AWAKENED
A Leila Marx World Novella
Amber Garr
December 23rd
When the Baby Jesus crashed into the floor, I’d reached the last of my
patience.
“George!” I cried out to a fading wisp of haze. “I told you to stop doing that to me.” A phantom laugh echoed through my living room, grating on my last nerve like the tiny holy shards now lying around my feet. Yet before I could chastise the infuriating spirit, the cracked porcelain Baby Jesus head floated up into my vision. A single painted eyeball stared at me with a blank expression.
“He’s never going to act his age is he, Ms. Elise?” Caroline asked. The teenage ghost offered what was left of my figurine. The nativity set would never be the same.
“No, he’s not,” I grumbled, taking the tiny, broken head and trying to figure out if I even wanted to bother finding the glue. Despite George being in his forties when he died, he still acted like a child.
“It’s because he’s a guy,” she said, cocking her hip and looking every bit as much as the living teens in my world today. But the full-bottomed skirt, southern belle dress, and delicate lace gloves covering her hands, would forever define what century she’d lived and died in.
“I don’t even know why I bother decorating,” I mumbled to myself. Bending over to pick up the rest of the Holy Spirit, I noticed George’s ethereal form now lounging on my couch. He was lucky I couldn’t kill him twice.
When I stood, Caroline suddenly appeared in front of me, bright red hair flowing out behind her in waves. “You do it because it’s the proper thing to do,” she stated, answering my rhetorical question with her still noticeable southern accent. “Plus, it is your home and your favorite holiday.”
She was right. But I didn’t love the Christmas season purely for selfless reasons. This was also my busiest time of year.
As though reading my mind, Angela walked into the room from my office. Her navy heels clicked on my wood floors, and the black rimmed glasses held back a mess of blonde curly hair. Papers filled her arms, several dropping to the floor along the way. Only she hadn’t yet noticed that my spectral visitors now followed behind her, picking up the discarded pieces and making it look like she had a veil. Albeit a veil that floated in midair and would surely scare anyone not used to working with the ghosts who liked hanging around a medium.
“Hey Elise,” she called out with a shaky voice. Her eyes darted around the room and when she turned to look behind her, the papers fell back on the ground. With tense shoulders and a tight grimace, Angela scooped up what she needed before walking over to me. “I have your schedule—oh, what happened?” Looking at the broken Baby Jesus head with one eyeball still in my palm, her expression turned suspicious. “Is George here again?”
I sighed. George, my otherworldly escort of sorts, had a really bad habit of visiting when he wasn’t invited. As a medium, I’m used to hearing and seeing spirits trapped in our world. But since George was my translator to the realm beyond, he had the ability to appear in near-corporeal form in my vicinity whenever he wanted. And that’s what he’d done just a few minutes earlier, causing me to drop the most important part of my favorite nativity set.
“Yes, he’s here,” I groaned, nodding my head behind me to the brown leather couch. He gave me a smirk and a small wave in response. Angela looked out above his head with a squint.
Even though she’d been my personal assistant for two years, Angela was still uncomfortable with the idea of spirits and my close connection to them. Her face paled when the indentation on the couch cushion moved from one side to the other—an old trick George loved to play on people. She couldn’t see him, at least not without me conducting a proper séance first. But she knew he was there. Many humans were sensitive to a ghost’s presence—Angela just hadn’t known that those chills really meant something until she started working for me.
“So how many do we have today?” I asked. Using my hands, I gently picked up the largest pieces of porcelain, resolving to vacuum the rest up before my first client arrived.
“Just one,” Angela replied once she tore her eyes away from the coffee table now spinning on its own.
“Only one?”
She cleared her throat. “Yes. And it’s in thirty minutes.”
Still stuck on her first answer, I stood, leaving the pile of Christmas dreams on the floor. “Why do I only have one? It’s almost Christmas Eve.” This was the season where the living wanted to reconnect to their dead loved ones. I typically had a least ten readings a day this time of year.
“They booked you for the full day,” Angela said. Shuffling through her papers, several more fell back to the ground. She’d yet to accept the ease and efficiency of electronic documents. And considering she was in her late sixties, I doubted that she ever would.
“The whole day?” I asked, intrigued. “Like they hired me for the whole day?”
Angela smiled up at me in a motherly way. “They paid you for a full eight hours.” Being my assistant, she knew just how much I needed the rush of the Christmas holidays.
Intrigued, I asked, “What can you tell me about them?”
“Not much,” she replied, setting her glasses back on her nose. “The man wouldn’t give me any of the regular information we require.”
“And you still made an appointment?” I raised a brow, giving Angela a hard time.
Her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “I did, Elise.”
Shifting through her papers, she finally found the one she was looking for. George appeared next to Angela, the breeze from his arrival lifting the edges of her hair. She tensed, shoulders high and lips pressed together. I glared at him while my assistant regained her composure.
“I think he’s someone important to politics,” Angela said, brows pinched in concentration. “The man who made the appointment even gave me a fake name.”
“How do you know that?” I tried to get a look at her notes but George stepped through Angela, the paper now resting somewhere between my living room and his rib cage. Although I wanted to smack him in the head, I’d learned through the years that if I ignored him, he’d eventually mind his own business.
I also didn’t want to freak Angela out any more than necessary.
“The client’s name is Abraham Washington.”
I looked at my assistant in question. Sounded like a normal name to me.
“Abraham Washington?” She shifted her glasses back to the top of her head and sighed. “Abraham Lincoln and George Washington? Get it?”
“Maybe.”
With a sigh, Angela took a few steps away from me, disentangling George in the process. He disappeared from the room in a huff. “He’s someone famous. I know it.”
Her sincerity made me smile. If I was going to have a famous politician in my living room in thirty minutes, then so be it. Although I did need to vacuum the mess George made… “I’ll take your word on it.”
That seemed to satisfy her, and after a few tips about what she thought I should wear, Angela headed back into my office. I hadn’t had my business very long, so we currently worked out of my house. Despite Angela’s concerns for my safety in regards to clients knowing where I lived, it had been working out okay. But if the business continued to grow, I probably needed to look into other locations.
Daydreaming about a large office suite and picking up the last remnants of Baby Jesus kept me busy, so when the doorbell rang thirty minutes later, I jumped. I’d managed to change into a skirt and jacket ensemble, but hated how constricted I felt. A small clip held back my chin-length blonde hair—the shortness due to a recent haircut to clear away the remnants of a bad dye job. Angela said I looked professional. I thought I looked stuffy and uptight.
Muffled voices filtered in from the front hallway when Angela greeted our guests. I finished organizing the magazines on the coffee table and fluffed the pillows on the couches. It was a nervous habit of mine. I never knew what kind of spirit I’d be asked to contact, and my nerves would try to get the best of me in anticipation. It probably didn’t help that I had a roomful of excited ghosts waiting to see what would happen.
“He’s ve
ry handsome!” Caroline shouted in front of my face. She wasn’t one who typically materialized unannounced, so I reined in my annoyance.
“Who?” I asked, finishing with the last pillow and wondering where George was hiding. I may actually need his help soon.
“The tall man,” she said with a giggle.
“The client?”
“No, his escort. He definitely looks like someone who could protect you.” Caroline lifted her arms and twirled in a circle, feet a few inches off the floor and ghosting in and out of the coffee table. “I wish I could meet someone like him.”
Lost in her own thoughts, I let her have her moment. I often felt bad for Caroline. Dying young hadn’t allowed her a chance to have some of the experiences all girls dream about. No courtship, no wedding, no family. Instead she was stuck between worlds, forced to watch the living enjoy life. And while that seemed to satisfy her most days, there were times when a hint of sadness would show through her regretful, dark eyes. I’d often wondered if she would have chosen to take her own life again if given a second chance.
“Ms. Elise?” Angela’s voice broke into my thoughts.
Putting the pillow down, I turned to face the mysterious client with a fake name and an apparently large bank account. But instead of seeing a person I may have recognized as a politician, my eyes focused on a rather large man with short, cropped hair and a dark scowl.
“Ms. Elise, this is Gallus,” Angela said with a smirk tugging at her mouth. “He is here to make sure that your house is safe.” Then Angela winked—actually winked in way that made me suspicious. She’d been complaining about me living as a single woman for a number of years now.
I would have either said something to her or would have been offended by the idea that my house was unsafe, except that I couldn’t stop staring at the giant man in front of me. Muscles pulled tightly against the tailored navy blue suit, making me wish he would at least take his jacket off. Intense eyes that seemed to look right though me, locked me in their gaze. His persona screamed danger, yet I felt instantly drawn to him for some reason. His focus, his strength, his…being spoke to me in a way I’d never experienced before.