by Ruby Loren
“Trust me, to get perfect hair, it takes some serious dark magic,” Linda assured me, tugging her own pale green curls with displeasure. “I figured that the gold would be a good place to start…”
“Linda…”
“Fine! I wanted great hair. I did the summoning spell to contact the entity who would wave a magic wand and make all my dreams come true, and…”
“…she was nearly sucked into a portal to the underworld and never heard from again,” Minerva finished.
I looked between them. “How did you, you know… not get sucked into the portal?”
“My familiar saved my butt. He was a giant spider and lassoed me out of the swirling vortex with a strengthened web spell,” Linda grumpily explained.
I took a moment to reflect that both my aunts had never mentioned their familiars before.
“Your familiar will not be with you forever. They accompany you when you come into your powers, but there comes a time when they seek their own paths in the world,” Minerva explained, seeing the question in my expression before I had to ask it.
There was so much about this witch stuff I didn’t yet know.
“You mean one day I’ll be free? Yes! Oh, yes!” Hemlock said from wherever he was spying on us from this time.
“No one’s stopping you from going, you freeloader!” I shouted up at him.
My aunts smiled.
“You have such a sweet relationship with yours,” Linda told me.
I looked between my aunts. They seemed to be serious.
“I think you were about to tell me the other reason why magicians and witches have been going missing all these years.” I bared my teeth into a smile whilst my aunts squirmed. I was getting good at this.
“Come on, Minerva. She deserves to know what she’s in for. I know you’ve been trying to prepare her, but nothing’s working! The Witch Council isn’t around to stop us from breaking the rules any more. Live a little… or she may die.” Linda stuck her hands on her hips and looked about as fierce as I’d ever seen her look.
Aunt Linda had told me soon after she and Minerva had arrived in Wormwood that she’d turned the governing body of all witches into slime, in order to avoid being prosecuted for misusing magic. The irony had not been lost on me.
Hang on… had she just said I may die?
“What is going on?” I demanded.
“Your witch trial,” Minerva said, finally cracking. “Your witch trial will be starting soon. You need to be prepared for the magical test of your lifetime. Failure is not an option.”
‘Well, it is… you just die,” Linda unhelpfully filled in.
I irrationally wished I had a cup of tea to hand, just so I could spit it out of my mouth. No worded expression seemed to be an adequate answer to this strange revelation. “You’re going to need to explain. Now!” I added, when my aunts threatened to do another exchange of looks.
“A witch trial is something that all witches and magicians go through when they inherit their powers. There’s no telling when it will happen, but it will.”
“I was always told that the trials are created from a little piece of every witch’s or magician’s magic. No one controls them. That’s why there are unfortunate accidents from time to time,” Linda contributed.
“It’s likely that the trials are nothing more than a complex and old piece of magic that was put together at one time by the governing body and continues to work as it did then to this day,” Minerva explained.
“That’s not making things any clearer,” I complained.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” my serious aunt reassured me. “The trials test every witch or magician’s talents to the best of their abilities.”
“That means, if you’re a weakling, then you get an easy test,” Linda translated.
“But if you’re strong, then it’s tough,” I finished. “Or… if you look like you should be strong.” I gulped. I was in so much trouble.
“We have every faith in you,” Aunt Linda reassured me. “Don’t we, Minerva?”
Aunt Minerva smiled a thin smile. “Keep practicing,” she advised.
I was doomed.
As if worrying about my imminent magical death wasn’t enough, I also had a coven of witches to take charge of. The meeting had been moved up to tonight to take advantage of some apparent positive energies thanks to the moon, or something, and I’d been too flustered to say no. My aunts had given me a few tips and tricks and promised to hang around close to the kitchen, where we were meeting, in case I got stuck, but it didn’t feel like enough. Plus, it would only take one spell, and the whole charade would spectacularly implode.
But maybe that was for the best. Maybe if I came clean about being rubbish then this witch trial and everything else magical could just be cancelled. It had to be a mistake, didn’t it?
I took a deep breath and then let it out again. I was panicking.
“Easy tiger, you look like the ugly kid at prom, who’s trying to pluck up the courage to ask the pretty girl to dance.”
I glared up at Hemlock. “We seriously need to discuss your TV viewing habits. Why are you watching that stuff?”
“I love how pathetic all of the humans are.”
I sighed. That did make sense. “Are you ready to bail me out if this all goes completely frog-shaped?”
“At a price,” Hemlock agreed.
“I bet other witch’s familiars don’t extort them. What did I do to deserve you?”
“Not a lot, apparently,” my cat told me, before running off with his tail in the air.
Hemlock’s little pep talk annoyed me enough that when I answered the door and let the witches in, I’d already resolved that I wasn’t going to crack. I was going to do this and prove that stupid cat wrong. I was…
Oh.
He’d totally pulled a rom-com on me, hadn’t he? I was the girl who couldn’t get a date who’d just been inspired by adversity to show the haters that they were wrong, and was now magically confident. I felt worry start to gnaw at me again and shut it down. I did need to see this through.
It wasn’t long before everyone was seated in the kitchen, and the moment I’d been dreading finally arrived.
“So… what have you planned for us tonight?” Aurelia drawled.
“I could probably whisk us off to Disney land and it wouldn’t be enough to impress you.” I clamped my hands over my mouth as soon as I said it. I’d only wanted to think that! The sound of a cat cackling came down from on top of one of the kitchen cabinets. Seriously - it was so unfair that my familiar was A: better at magic at me and B: using it against me!
“As if!” Aurelia said, crossing her arms and looking at Adelaide for support. The blonde witch flicked her hair and looked at me like I was a full-fat chocolate pudding.
“Tonight, we are going to be working on getting rid of things. It’s spring and it’s time for new growth… which also means we get rid of the old stuff that’s holding us back.” I shook away the thoughts that whispered I sounded like a self-help guru. It was my aunts who’d helped me come up with this idea for the coven, but it was me who was planning to twist it to my advantage and wring a little more information out of the group.
“We’re going to be hexing our enemies?” Emma looked concerningly delighted by the prospect.
“Er, no. I was thinking more along the lines of moving on without them?” I tried, feeling like I was already losing the group.
“Man, you guys are all so repressed! If anyone wants to come hunting with me this weekend, you are all welcome,” Zoe said, looking amused.
“Not everyone likes to shoot fluffy animals,” Victoria said in a rare moment away from her phone.
“Says the witch who wouldn’t think twice about hexing her competitors’ Instagram accounts.”
I looked between them, feeling like a helpless referee. “I know this coven is going through some changes, but I want them to be for the better. I don’t intend to exclude anyone and, even though not everyon
e wanted me in charge, I’m not going to run this like a dictatorship,” I said with so much passion that everyone looked at me. I’d spoken from the heart. I blinked. For a moment, I saw traces of golden magic all around me. I’d done something, but now wasn’t the time to question it.
“We still feel betrayed by Natalia and Hellion,” Adelaide said, drawing a shocked look from Aurelia. Adelaide looked pretty surprised she’d spoken up, too, but she owned it a second later. “What? It’s the truth! Your sister was crazy to bring that creep into this coven. Where are they now, anyway? They’re probably cursing us even as we speak, and we’re doing nothing about it!”
A cold feeling settled in the pit of my stomach when I remembered all of the nasty ingredients Natalia had bought from me. And I’d willingly sold them to her. Did I really think Hellion and Natalia would be petty enough to strike back against the coven who’d rejected them?
Who was I kidding? You bet I did.
“Aurelia, please ask your sister to refrain from cursing the coven. I’ll take care of Hellion myself,” I promised, having no idea how I would. Perhaps my aunts would have a few tricks up their sleeves. Or, if I was really lucky, my unpredictable magic might decide to blow him up.
“Ladies, if we don’t tread carefully here, we may be in for a re-run of Giselle Lee and Maureen Thomas’ faction takeover attempt. And no one wants that, do they?” Heather’s beady blue eyes focused on every member of the coven in turn. There was a lot of shoe-shuffling.
“Giselle Lee and Maureen Thomas?” I queried. I hadn’t even heard of these witches. Their names did sound familiar. I just didn’t know why.
“They were two witches who were members of this coven about five years ago. It was during a time like this one where there were several contenders for high priestess. Unfortunately, some members of our coven at the time weren’t willing to let democracy decide our future. They took matters into their own hands and did some terrible things.”
“Terrible things?” I queried.
“They cursed everything and everyone they could curse. It was awful,” Helen said, her eyes going wide in horror. “I’m sure my cat lost her kittens because of it.”
“Everything turned bad,” Zoe added. “Everything. No one knew which curses were causing what, but it was like being stuck in the worst run of luck you’ve ever experienced. My fiancé was killed in a freak climbing accident. I still blame them for it.”
“There’s no proving anything,” Emma contributed, but someone managed to access my bank account and stole all of my savings. The bank wouldn’t compensate me. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but the bad luck was just so terrible…”
Around the circle, all of the witches who’d been members of the coven back then nodded their agreement.
“What happened to Giselle and Maureen?” I didn’t remember either of them from when I’d been growing up in town.
“When the truth of their actions was discovered - they were using blood magic, of all the dirty things - they were excommunicated. Sensibly, they left Wormwood. And good riddance!” Heather finished. “We are not going to see a repeat of that ever again. This coven will stick together and face adversity together. Isn’t that right, high priestess?”
I nodded and murmured my agreement, but my mind was elsewhere. Blood magic. What exactly did that entail? My mind was drawn back to the mystery of Bridgette’s bloodless corpse and the case of mistaken vampire identity. What if her blood hadn’t ended up as a meal for the undead, and was being used, even as we spoke, for more nefarious purposes? Finding Hellion was my new number one priority. Whatever nasty piece of work he was up to, I was going to show him that I could be equally awful.
“Shall we do a banishing the old and bringing in the new spell?” Heather prompted, smiling kindly at me.
“Absolutely,” I said, opening the spell book to the page I’d marked.
The instructions were simple enough. You joined hands and chanted the incantation. The magical element came in with every witch contributing their energy to the spell, which would give it some more oomph.
This was the part I knew I would struggle with.
It was a good thing I had a trick up my sleeve.
“Join hands,” I instructed. The witches followed my orders with only minor side-eye from Aurelia when she was forced to link up with people she wouldn’t be seen dead with out in public.
I read them the incantation and then I played the ace up my sleeve. “Close you eyes and focus on your intention. Keep your eyes closed and channel your power as we chant…”
Out with the old and in with the new, I banish the past and those untrue.
As fresh as the dew and as strong as wood, I call forth a future filled with all things good.
So mote it be!
I opened my eyes and drew my magical aura back into myself before anyone could inspect how much (or rather, how little) I’d contributed to the spell. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but I knew, I just knew, that I hadn’t done anything. I smiled around the group, waiting for someone to call me out on my subterfuge, but no one spoke against me.
“That felt strong. Well done, ladies,” Heather said, looking at everyone in turn. She smiled at me and I smiled back, wondering if I could hand my duties over to the older witch, whom everyone respected.
Something flashed in her eyes and she gave her head the tiniest of shakes. She’d known what I was thinking and I had my answer. Heather Law had no ambitions to be the high priestess. With people like Aurelia, Adelaide, and Victoria in the coven, I could understand why.
I spread my palms wide on the table. “Excellent work tonight. I wish everyone a blessed week.”
And just like that, my first coven meeting as high priestess was over.
I’d got away with it.
It was too bad I knew it wouldn’t last forever. I could tell them the truth about my magic. I should tell them the truth, but there was something stopping me. Or rather, there was someone. Pride cometh before a fall, but there was no way I wanted to admit to Aurelia and her cronies that I was just as useless as they’d always imagined me to be. Instead, I would keep studying spell books and pray for a miracle.
“On the plus side, if you die in your witch trial, you won’t have to worry about any of this stuff,” I muttered. It was funny what counted as ‘cheery’ these days.
9
Maddening Magic
Hellion Grey’s little shop looked as grim as ever when I walked down the side alley towards it the next morning. Some part of me had decided that morning was a better time to approach Wormwood’s weirdest magician. I suspected it was vampire fever spilling over to me. Still… I didn’t actually think Hellion was a vampire, did I?
“Nope. Just a nasty piece of work,” I muttered, mirroring the writing on the shop window. It had been broken the last time I’d seen it, but here it was now, identical to the last one. It probably wouldn’t be too long before someone broke it again.
“Good morning and welcome to… Oh. It’s you,” Hellion said. He’d come down the stairs when the shop bell had rung and spotted me standing in the doorway.
I grinned at him and let my magic blaze around me. The magician looked edgy. Good.
“Did you kill Bridgette Spellsworth and drain her blood?” There didn’t seem to be any point in dancing around the details.
“Why would I do a thing like that?”
I shrugged. “I was hoping you could tell me, but I’ll bite. You knew that Natalia and Bridgette had a history of bad feeling and thought you could frame Natalia for the murder. For bonus points, you took the blood to work a really evil spell for some really evil ends. How’d I do?”
“Zero out of ten,” Hellion said, crossing his brocade covered arms and looking small and huffy. “First of all, do I look like I go for long hikes in the forest?” He gestured up and down his body.
“Maybe not in that outfit…”
He groaned. “I didn’t kill her! I’m not even trying to get back at Natalia.
I swear it. She’s not the one I’m trying to curse.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So, there is someone you’re trying to curse?”
Hellion looked annoyed at his slip up. “If you must know, it’s that dastardly Detective Heathen. Ever since he’s been in town, everything I do seems to go wrong. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s exacting dark magic against me - the master of the dark arts! Whatever he’s doing, it’s ruining my life. I’m merely repaying the favour.”
I frowned. “By killing Bridgette Spellsworth and setting Jesse Heathen up?” I didn’t know how he’d managed to engineer it, but it was a possibility.
“No! I had nothing to do with that woman’s death. From what I’ve seen of that Heathen man, he’s probably the one who did it. There’s something off about him…”
“Have you managed to curse him?” I was genuinely curious. As far as I could tell, Jesse Heathen was leading a charmed life.
Hellion met my gaze. “It’s a work in progress,” he started to say, before throwing his hands in the air. “Nothing seems to work! That’s why I think I’ve been cursed, or bound, or jinxed. I’ve tried nearly everything. It just doesn’t affect him. He has to be doing something…” He paced up and down the shop, his bushy eyebrows moving like wild caterpillars. “I’ll take stronger measures. That’s what I’ll do. It has to work.”
“Do you have any theories about why your curses aren’t doing the trick?” I asked, interested in digging a little deeper, now that we were on the topic of Jesse Heathen.
“Of course I do, but why on earth would I share any of them with you?” He glared at me. “Why are you even here, high priestess?” He said it with a sneer.
“I’m checking in on you to see if you’re cursing the coven, or thinking about doing it. That wouldn’t be okay with me, so… don’t do it.” I looked down at my fingernails, trying to play it cool.
“I wasn’t planning to do anything, but now that you mention it…” An evil glint came into Hellion Grey’s eyes. I saw something in his expression, something that warned me that, if I threatened him, he was going to ask what I was going to do to him. The twisted magician was curious enough about my new magical abilities to risk seeing a demonstration. I knew it would end with the whole ball of lies unravelling.