Witchy Trouble (Witchy Fingers Book 1)

by Nic Saint

  “Tornari, um, oh!” she muttered hesitantly, waving her hand the way Gran had shown her, making a pinching gesture with her thumb, index, and middle finger.

  And probably it would have worked if only she hadn’t faltered midway through the spell—or perhaps there was a problem with her intention, or the gesture itself, for instead of her backpack landing safely in her grasp, there was a massive whoosh! as suddenly she found that she’d taken flight herself, and was now high up in the sky, joining the eagle. A quick sideways glance told her that her arms had sprouted feathers and that she was now… flying!

  Instead of a mighty eagle, however, she looked more like a plump pigeon.

  Chapter 6

  “Um, birdie!” she called out, the moment she’d recovered sufficiently from her surprise.

  The proud eagle, however, didn’t even deign the newcomer a glance.

  “Hey, you!” she yelled, anger trumping fear. “Give me back my stuff!”

  This time, the bird did look over, but if he was surprised that the woman he’d just robbed of her backpack had joined him, he didn’t show it.

  “What are you doing up here?” he merely asked, sounding rather blasé.

  “I want my bag back,” she told him, panting a little from the exertion.

  “Oh, you mean this?” he asked, indicating the backpack he was still grasping firmly in his claws.

  “That’s my bag and you know it, you… bird!”

  “Of course I know that this is your bag. Why else would I take it?”

  She frowned, not comprehending. “Just hand it back already, will you?”

  She was finding this flying thing a lot more taxing than she would have imagined, and her arms were getting tired really fast trying to keep up with the eagle. How birds did this, she didn’t know. Lots of practice, probably.

  The bird appeared to smile, or at least that’s how she interpreted the slight change in the composition of his feathered face.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, “and I figured the only way I could get your full attention was if I stole that bag of yours.”

  She stared at him. “You did this just to get my attention?”

  “That’s right. So listen up, Edelie Flummox, because this is important.”

  The nerve of the bird! “How did you know I’d come after you?”

  The eagle actually rolled his eyes! “Puh-lease. With your poor grasp of the magical process? You were bound to make a mistake and end up here.”

  “Hey! I’ll have you know my grasp of the magical process is impeccable!”

  “Of course it is. Now listen up. Someone out there is coming after you.”

  “Yeah, you,” she muttered.

  “His name is Joshua and he’s after your powers—such as they are.”

  Her fellow bird was swooping down, and she had the hardest time keeping up. “You’re speaking in riddles, bird!” she yelled over the wind.

  “First off, I’m not a bird. I just donned this guise to approach you. Secondly—and listen carefully because I will only say this once—Joshua can only be stopped if you take away his powers before he can take away yours.”

  “And how do I do that? You just told me I’m not much of a witch.”

  “That’s why you need to team up with your sisters. Together you can take on Joshua. Alone? Not so much.”

  “And all this from a talking bird,” she muttered.

  “I’m telling you,” the bird repeated slowly, “I’m not a bird.”

  “You look like a bird to me.”

  “Have you ever seen a bird talking? Or stealing backpacks?”

  “Not really,” she had to admit.

  “I’m trying to help you here, so just pay attention already, will you?”

  He was still swooping lower, and Edelie had the hardest time keeping up. “Hey! Bird!” she now panted. “My arms are killing me, so if you don’t want me to splat down in the middle of Manhattan and make a mess, I suggest you get to the point.”

  “I told you already. Find Joshua before he finds you, and vanquish him.”

  “Vanquish.” She actually laughed at that. “I don’t vanquish people.”

  “You should. And he’s not people.”

  “Look, bird,” she began.

  “Will you stop calling me bird!”

  “What else can I call you?”

  “Just call me Tavish. Tavish Mildew,” he said, and then suddenly swept down and landed deftly on the top of the Empire State Building. Edelie, of course, missed her approach and shot right past the iconic building.

  “Hey!” she cried as she zoomed past. “My backpack!”

  “Safe landing!” Tavish shouted, and he was actually grinning!

  Her arms were now too tired to carry her weight much longer, and she suddenly regretted having eaten such a big breakfast—or having eaten big breakfasts for her entire life! She was going down and she knew it, the wind whipping her fuzzy face and the earth racing up to her at dizzying speed!

  “Crap!” she yelped, trying to remember a spell—any spell—that would keep her from landing with a horrible splat. She quickly stammered the first spell that came to mind, and suddenly, even as she was swooping down, she found her limbs turning to rubber and her entire body morphing into a black rubber ball of outsized dimensions.

  “Oh, no,” she muttered just before impact, and then she was bouncing her way through early morning traffic. If being a bird was tough, being a rubber ball was perhaps even tougher. She was bouncing off cars, and fire hydrants and manhole covers, and off the tops of people’s heads, and when finally she was starting to lose some of her bounce, some kid snatched her from midair and started playing with her, throwing her against the wall and deftly catching her. Finally, she’d had it. She was sick and tired and nauseous to a degree, so she whispered another spell, and lo and behold, suddenly found herself sitting next to Julius in front of the subway station!

  The entire episode had exhausted her, so she simply sat there for a while, glad to feel the ground beneath her feet. So when suddenly the elderly homeless man turned to her and told her, “Find Joshua and vanquish him,” she jerked up with a startled cry. And then she was hurrying away from him, only to stop when he yelled, “Hey! You’re forgetting something, ma’am!”

  It was her backpack, dangling from his fingers.

  She approached him a little warily, trying to figure out if he was Tavish Mildew or if Tavish was merely using him to convey his message, and snatched her backpack from his hands, then hurried away again.

  “Have a great day, Edelie!” Julius now caroled. “Full of magic and fun!”

  “Fun,” she grumbled, shaking her head. She hadn’t had much fun at all!

  Using magic was all well and good, but with her level of ineptness it was a miracle she hadn’t killed anyone. Or herself, for that matter.

  And as she outpaced a flock of New Yorkers, her phone rang, and when she picked it up, she was treated to the irate voice of her manager Ginger, asking her where she was. She was late. Again.

  She jogged along and thought about what Tavish Mildew had told her. Who was this guy, anyway? And what was all this talk about Joshua coming after them? Who would ever come after three totally inept witches like them? She decided to put the whole thing out of her mind until tonight, when she could talk to Gran. Well, at least the part about the warning. She wouldn’t tell her about turning herself into a bird or a bouncy ball, of course. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Ginger was mad, she didn’t need Gran mad as well.

  And then she’d finally reached Brigham Shatwell, and burst inside, moving past a throng of irate customers, and weathered Ginger’s angry looks as well as she could. And as she tied an apron in front of her, she popped a muffin into her mouth, remembering the one redeeming thing about this job: she could eat as much of the leftover pastry as she liked.

  Chapter 7

  Estrella was straining her voice and still the producer wasn’t satisfied, as he kept ge
sturing from the other side of the glass to sing higher. Higher! Higher!!! A manic man with Ray-Ban Aviators and a mane of blond hair that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the eighties, Mike Hognose had been pushing her all morning, like one of those crazed workout trainers on TV.

  But she couldn’t possibly go any higher than this! Her voice, she meant to say, had its natural restrictions, and could only reach a certain pitch. She was recording a new commercial for Teppy, the well-known laundry detergent, and instead of the tried and true ‘Washes whiter than white!’ they’d gone for ‘Try Teppy and make your laundry happy!’

  And she’d been trying in vain to hit that high note at the end, belting out ‘happy’ like an opera diva, when it occurred to her that a little magic might do the trick. Producer Mike kept yelling at her, and she kept failing to hit that high note, so she quickly whispered one of the spells Gran had taught her.

  It had the capacity to distort the human voice. Gran liked to use it to turn someone’s voice into a pig’s snort or a cow’s moo or a parrot’s squawk.

  Gran loved it, and so did the three girls when they were little.

  Couldn’t the incantation work on her voice as well? Turning it into something that would make an opera star proud? Of course it would!

  “Voxanima,” she muttered now, waving her hand just so.

  “Okay, take it from the top!” Mike yelled. “And this time hit that high note! Hit. That. High. Note!” he screamed, pointing to the ceiling, as if that would induce her to sing higher, “or else we’re gonna be here all day!”

  “Oh, no, we won’t,” she murmured, and then launched into the jingle.

  “Try Teppy and make your laundry happieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

  As she hit that last note, she gave it her all, belting it out with everything she had until the note seemed to take up every ounce of space in the small recording booth and then some. The high-pitched sound reverberated around the room and was so loud it was like a jet going through the sound barrier!

  And as she stood panting, she opened her eyes, proud as heck. She’d nailed it! She just knew she had. And when she looked up, her hands still pressing her earphones to her ears, her face quite red now, she found Mike staring back at her, shock etched on his features. She smiled at him.

  “And? Did I hit it?” she asked, her ears ringing from the sonic boom.

  Only now did she notice that the thick pane of glass that divided the control room from the studio had somehow disappeared, and when she glanced down she saw tiny pieces of glass all over the floor and the mixing console. Glass shards were in Mike’s hair and on his clothes and even falling from his lips, and it was obvious that by ‘enhancing’ her voice she had perhaps overdone things just a tad.

  She gave Mike an apologetic smile and an “Oops!”

  Ten minutes later she was walking to the bus stop, clutching her bag and thinking dark thoughts about the producer, who’d fired her on the spot. She didn’t know what was worse: that Gran would be upset she’d practiced magic outside of the house, or that she’d lost her job even though she’d done exactly what they’d asked her to do. What did the guy expect? Nobody could hit that note without a little help. Well, perhaps Mariah Carey could. Though she kinda doubted Mariah would have destroyed the studio in the process.

  She sighed as she rounded the corner on her way to the bus stop. And that’s when she saw him. An African-American man dressed in black from head to foot stood eyeing her keenly. She blinked, only to find that he was gone. First he’d been standing there, watching her, and then he was gone!

  She sighed again. Now, on top of everything else that had happened, she was starting to see things as well! Could this day get any worse?

  She didn’t have long to wait, for the bus almost instantly rumbled up to the curb, belching diesel fumes. And since it was only ten o’clock in the morning there weren’t too many passengers, so she had the luxury of space. She took a seat near the back, wanting to give her thoughts free rein.

  She was going to have to find another job, but with this latest incident, that might prove a little difficult. And then there was the fact that she didn’t particularly like being a voice-over artist. She wanted to be a singer, not spend her days selling laundry detergent. She loved singing, even though honesty compelled her to admit she wasn’t very talented. But wasn’t there a way around that? There were so many popular singers who couldn’t sing, so why couldn’t she be like them? They used special equipment in the studio and a lip-sync machine on tour and no one was ever the wiser.

  Or she could be a rap artist, writing her own stuff, and simply yelling her way through her songs. People loved that kind of stuff, didn’t they?

  “Excuse me but is this seat taken?”

  She didn’t even look up, but merely nodded her head. But when she caught sight of the black pants and the black shoes and the black socks, her gaze quickly traveled up to the black shirt and the black hat, and she recognized the man as the one who’d been checking her out before!

  Suddenly horrified, she started to scoot away from him, but he silenced her concerns with a hushed, “I’m not going to harm you, Miss Flummox.”

  Her jaw dropped at this. “How do you know my name?”

  He grinned, and she admired two rows of perfectly even white teeth. Hollywood, she instantly thought. Or perhaps a dentist?

  “Neither,” said the man, reading her mind as if she’d spoken the words out loud. “I’m here to help you, Estrella.”

  “Help me? Find a job, you mean?” was all she could think of to say.

  He laughed, and it wasn’t an unpleasant sound at all. More like a friendly rumble, and for some reason it sounded oddly familiar.

  “Do I know you?” she asked therefore.

  He eyed her keenly. “You might,” he admitted. “Though last time we met you were so young you probably don’t remember the occasion.”

  She watched him with perturbation, and suddenly blurted out, “Dad?”

  He laughed even harder, and she saw why. The man was dark-skinned and she whiter than Teppy. Besides, her dad was dead, according to Gran.

  “Not exactly, though I did know your father. And your mother.”

  This surprised her even more. “You—you knew my parents?”

  He nodded. “Quite well, actually. But let’s not get into all of that. I’m here to warn you. There’s a man who calls himself Joshua out there who means you harm. His name isn’t Joshua, of course. In fact he’s not even human.”

  “What is he, then?” she asked, though the story sounded too fantastical.

  “He’s what you might call a representative of the Dark One, the force of evil that’s hell bent on turning this world of ours into a rather nasty place.”

  “And this guy… is coming after me?”

  “You and Ernestine and Edelie, in fact. And if you’re not careful he will strip you and your sisters of your powers and destroy you in the process.”

  “Our… powers?”

  “Yes, I know you think you don’t have any powers, but you do.”

  She eyed him without comprehending. How did this guy know so much about her while she didn’t know the first thing about him? It didn’t seem fair.

  “Well, it isn’t, of course, and once this whole mess is cleared up, we’ll all get together and shoot the breeze, but not now. Now you need to find Joshua before he finds you. Stop him before he destroys you, you understand?”

  “But where is he? And what does he look like?”

  “Just follow the signs, Estrella. And talk to your sisters. It will take all three of you to battle Joshua.”

  “But what about Gran? She’s a much more capable… person than us.”

  He smiled a wistful smile. “I know she is, but this time she won’t be any use to you. This is one you have to handle yourself.”

  “And why is that?”

  He eyed her for a long time. “Because Joshua… is your grandmother.”

  And with these remarkable words, h
e suddenly vanished before her very eyes. She’d been leaning in to ask more questions, and now that he was gone, she practically fell into the next person, an elderly lady who looked worried.

  “Are you all right, dear?” she asked in a reedy voice. “You were talking to yourself for a moment there, did you know that?”

  “Yes—yes, I know. I’m sorry about that.” She pushed at her blond bob. “Tough day at work.”

  “I understand, dear,” said the woman with a merciful smile. “Don’t you worry about that nasty boss of yours. You just give as good as you get, you hear?” And before Estrella could stop her, she launched into a long-winded story about how she’d been booted out of the company she’d started herself.

  She tuned her out and thought back to what this strange man had said. Joshua was Gran. But how could he be Gran if he was after their powers? She didn’t know, but it was imperative she talked to her sisters. Right now.

  Chapter 8

  Ernestine was grinning at the client and she knew it but couldn’t stop herself. It was all the fault of that horrible spell she’d cast on herself!

  The moment the client had walked into the conference room she’d known she was in big trouble. She’d been waiting for him, poised and composed, dressed in her best charcoal suit, her hair tied back in a tight bun and her black-rimmed glasses lending her the solemnity this interview demanded. And then she’d caught sight of him and she’d heaved an audible gasp.

  The man reminded her so much of her favorite actor Hugh Laurie!

  With his elongated face and his puppy dog eyes, he was the British actor’s spitting image. She’d seen all the episodes of House M.D. several times, and Maybe Baby, of course, and everything else he’d ever been in, and had developed the kind of adulation that was perhaps more fitting for Estrella, not the more down-to-earth person she was.