Bump (A Witchlight Novel)

by Jaime Munn

  “Paper cuts,” Grace spat. Her anger seemed out of proportion to my comment, her green eyes burning with cold energy. “Are for amateur hour.” There was magic in the air. I was instantly wary.

  Grace stepped toward me. F.C. was pushed forward like a wave of power preceded the witch. I felt his need and let him tap my magical store. His movement stopped stone cold. He seemed to grow larger and less feline; jaws unhinging and widening, sprouting teeth that were sharp and jagged and dangerous.

  Grace stepped close enough to be within reach of his pointy bits; her eyes remained fixed on me.

  “You’ll never win, Nilla, if you don’t even try to fight back. That is your weakness, like all those pretty little heroes in the movies who are too frightened to become the very thing they hate. Goodness doesn't decide victory, it’s decided on the edge of a knife, on the tip of a bullet, on the blood of a spell.”

  “I don’t believe in killing, Grace St John,” I said. “If you think that makes me weak, you’re in for a big surprise.” Yes. It sounded pretty lame to me too.

  “It’s a big, bad world. It’s kill or be killed. The only way you’ll live is if you learn that. But I’m not here to be your tutor. You’ll only get this one second chance to find your way. Back off.” She was poised again, her voice even. “You’re not the only one in danger here. Maybe you should think about that.”

  I jumped to my feet furious that she would dare threaten my friends.

  “I won’t let you hurt anyone,” I told her. There was steel and fire in my words. I could tell that she saw conviction in them. She looked less confident of herself for just a moment. It was enough for me to wonder how much doubt dwelled in the depths of her dark heart.

  “You’ve tried your heavy handed spelling on the wrong witch. Go back to the city, Grace. Buy some brighter clothing and try to get along with your neighbours.”

  She snorted. “I’ve seen your spelling room. The walls are very bare. You’ll need more than bravado to match me.” She turned on her heel and left the store. The door slammed shut, seemingly of its own volition, behind her. The creepy Victorian angel lamp dimmed down to subdued light moments later.

  F.C. let out a hiss of escaping air as he downsized to feline proportions. He hopped up onto the counter seconds later seemingly an ordinary calico cat once more. Content to lick his paws clean like his tussle with Grace had left him feeling a little dirty.

  “You and me both,” I told him and gave him a little scratch behind his ears. He purred contentedly; a gravelly little sound that made me think about his origins. However much it pained me to admit it, there was more than a residual trace of what Grace had created within the heart of my familiar. I wondered how it would express itself in the future.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The morning dragged. I spend the time plotting how to keep my friends safe from Grace St John. The Wicked Witch had focused on Erica and Livia in her vendetta against me, which at least made the potential collateral damage easier to shield against. I contemplated the protective charms I would need to craft to keep them safe. It was hard though to see a resolution to the sudden war. I repeated to myself over and over that I would not kill Grace. I wouldn’t. Even though my mind kept turning back to it as the only solution to the problem. I closed the store fifteen minutes before noon and headed down into the basement. My spelling room as Grace had disparagingly referred to it.

  It was true enough that the place was bare when it came to arcane artefacts. I had no tomes of magical lore or mystical objects, but all that stuff was a crutch as one of my mentors had told me. ‘You don’t need the fancy stuff, Ms Hayes, and believe me, you don’t want it. Learn to craft your spells without them, and you’ll never find yourself in a hard place without a spell to put between you and danger.’ I’d taken it to heart, or maybe I’d just needed to travel light. Carrying your bric-a-brac dissuades you early on from a life of clutter. Fortunately, I’d never been a collector or a hoarder. Grace, from what I’d glimpsed of her spelling room, was both. I put my trust in the words of a mentor who had taught me a great deal. I didn’t need the fancy stuff.

  In the mellow light of the basement, resembling a warm and lazy autumn day with the sun just north of setting, I brought the box with Leah’s grave broach safely parcelled up in it down from the shelf and set it on the small table. I opened it up, carefully spilled the broach out, then tossed the box carelessly to the floor.

  I’d gotten into this mess because of Leah, the ghost who wasn’t who she claimed to be. It was time to learn whatever I could about the mystery dead woman. The small piece of jewellery was all I had to go on. I hoped that apporting it had imbued it with enough of the mystery woman to give me a clear sense of who she was or more accurately who she had been. I was still wary of touching it but there was nothing sinister about the broach as far as I could tell. I wasn’t even sure what kind of bird it represented. While I gathered my courage the amber light from the veiled world faded away to a rust-red hue. Time was fluid between this world and the veiled world and sometimes it seemed that the sun never sank in that magical realm. Sometimes a day seemed like a second, but that was only because we were looking into a world that didn’t follow any of the dictates that we’d been taught in science lessons.

  F.C. came down the stairs as though sensing that I was ready to touch the broach. He hopped up onto a column of boxes and peered down at me, sitting stiffly like he was ready to pounce down protectively should something untoward happen.

  I’d seen how potent a protector he could be, but wondered how well he’d fare against phantoms and things that go bump in the night. Considering that F.C. had started out a bump in the night, he might not be that ineffective.

  I pushed aside the delay tactics and took a deep breath as the twilight of the veiled world fell over me. The shadows deepened. A silver light spilled from above like a huge moon hung directly above me. It’s a light far superior to the moon that distantly graced the night sky under which I had grown up. It was as beautiful and ancient a light as the amber sunlight of the otherworld’s day, but it gave me a chill as I reached for the broach. I hoped it wasn’t an omen.

  I touched the broach. The connection was instant and images flooded through me like a rocket on its way to the moon. There were flashes of a beautiful place. An ancient stone building that reached spires and towers and spinnerets of every age and era up into a powder blue sky; ancient and almost like a small city crowded into a single plot. There was an orchard out back set on a hill with trees filled with glowing orbs of colourful fruit. And there was a woman more beautiful than any I had seen before standing among the trees. She was looking back at me.

  It was a woman of the veiled world, beautiful and potent with eyes like polished amethyst and hair like autumn, all yellows and golds and burnt umbers. Her name fell into my mind like a stone into a pool of water, rippling through my thoughts. Asbelia. Asbelia. Asbelia. Leah looked like a pale imitation of Asbelia and I felt my pulse race. My phantom had been no phantom at all but a powerful being from the veiled world.

  I pulled out of the vision, dropping the broach, with the knowledge that Asbelia had allowed me to see her. I could still see her bright amethyst eyes gazing into mine. I felt panic rising up inside of me. When the denizens of the veiled world took an interest in you, things were bound to get very…fucked up. It wasn’t a prosaic term but it was the gist of the definition you’d get from any authorised supernatural dictionary. Shit, I thought. What had I done to deserve this?

  I touched my finger to the broach and wasn’t surprised when it suddenly felt like it had lain at the bottom of the ocean for centuries. Every trace of history that naturally imbued almost everything and everyone was gone. I didn’t get to look in on a woman of the veiled world anytime I liked. It had been a one-time only offer. I fingered the diamonds in the broach. They shimmered and glowed and I had an intuition about them. I focused on a single small jewel and found a little power trapped in its heart. Asbelia had paid me in
magic. It wasn’t the kind of power to level a building, but it was significant nonetheless. It was a secret reserve for when I was all tapped out and best of all it was tax free.

  I pocketed the broach. Until the Grace St John problem had been resolved I was going to be a broach wearing kind of woman, even if Livia told me it made me look fifty. I winced at the thought, but brushed it aside to focus on the second reason I’d come down into my so called spelling room; protection for Livia and Erica.

  I started with Livia. I could have chosen to spell them both some protective jewellery, but people don’t always wear them. I wasn’t going to try and make the item stick by proposing to either of them. So I decided to twist a blessing, the same kind of spell I’d performed for Asbelia under her Leah disguise. Hopefully by the time the magic faded, Grace and I would have resolved our differences. I summoned energy and focused on Livia. I didn’t need any lockets of hair or personal items for my best friend. I gathered the power and turned the candy floss sugar rush into armour that would keep Grace from toying with Livia’s mind again. I didn’t release the blessing till the magic had reached an uncomfortable peak and I felt a dull throbbing in my head. When it was done I sank back into the chair feeling like I’d just run a short marathon.

  I allowed myself a break. Grace had already wrung all she could from Erica. I doubted she’d be heading back so soon, besides I needed a personal item for Ms Hanley. I needed to get out. F.C. jumped down from his post and ran up the stairs ahead of me as though he’d read my mind and knew that we were leaving. I followed behind him. I cashed out the register before leaving.

  I went by the supermarket and bought another pack of crème brûlées and a bag of cat food, while F.C. waited outside having secured a post in a large Jacaranda tree that was threatening to lift the paving stones around its thick trunk.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I didn’t sense anything amiss in the charged air of the apartment. F.C. did a casual stroll through every room before brushing himself between my legs. I had a cat for a bodyguard, so what, he was more than scary enough for it when he wanted to be. I opened up the kitty kibble and set some out for him. He gave it a wary sniff before tentatively taking a kibble piece and cracking it between his teeth. He chewed on it, appearing thoughtful and I suddenly had a foreign taste in my mouth. It wasn’t entirely dreadful but I got F.C.’s point. I opened up another of my precious tuna cans.

  I sighed. I was going to have to find something that F.C. enjoyed but that didn’t promise to bankrupt me. I gave the bag of cat food a sour scowl. I was definitely not keen on taste testing any more kibble.

  I phoned up Tangles to see how Livia was doing and Erica answered instead.

  “Erica, shouldn’t you still be at home resting?”

  “I feel fine, honestly. Today I’m the old new me.” I wondered what that meant and if Erica was referencing something that was flying completely over my head. “I woke up feeling ready to tackle the world again, so whatever bug I got it was only twenty-four hours of complete and utter misery. I guess you could call that lucky.”

  “I guess,” I echoed. “Just don’t overdo it or you’ll be revisiting misery.”

  “Nilla, you’re almost as bad as Livia,” Erica said with a bright laugh. “Speaking of, here’s your other half.”

  I raised my brows as I heard the phone being passed and Livia’s voice growing stronger until it wasn’t just a background noise. I caught the tail end of her scolding Erica. “…and there is no half here, Ms Hanley. I’m one hundred percent all accounted for.” I heard Erica laughing at her. “Hey Nilla.”

  Sunday was a morning of rest as far as coffee from the Whisper Falls java king went. Coffee-on-Main was a madhouse on Sundays when everyone in town seemed to hang out in the small shop. Making Livia and I feel like we were dirty dancing all the way to the counter as we pressed and were pressed against a living wall of people. We’d declared the day caffeine free, at least until the afternoon. Erica kept Tangles open till three on a Sunday. Livia and I usually hooked up for our caffeine fix after that.

  “Sounds like another day at Tangles, Liv. How quickly things fall back to normal,” I said.

  “Yes, Erica’s all glossy again like a Cosmopolitan advert.” I heard Erica responding to the comment, but couldn’t hear what she said. “Anyway, I know we’ve got a standing for this afternoon but Kevin wants to get together and….”

  “And you need to spend time getting up to half as glossy as Erica,” I finished for her.

  “Hey. I gloss up fully as glossy as Erica.”

  I laughed. “It’s fine, Livia. I’ll just have to muddle through my day in a caffeine free mental fog.”

  “No, you won’t, because you’re going to be having coffee with Erica. She’ll be waiting at our usual table, so don’t be late.”

  I sighed.

  “I’ll be with you both in spirit.”

  Yes, right, I thought, in matchmaking spirit. I wondered if she remembered that I’d been crushing on the gallery’s newest artist. That she’d only just been arguing with me about sending Erica mixed signals. Mixed signals was Livia’s cocktail of choice, I realised, considering her own dating preferences. I still thought you shouldn’t date where you work, or let your besties date where you work either.

  I didn’t say any of that. I sighed again instead and Livia hung up with a cheerful goodbye.

  I started on my own lunch while F.C. sat licking his chops before curling up in a patch of sunlight on my couch. I hoped he didn’t shed. I whipped up a stir fry and caramelised everything with a few teaspoons of brown sugar. I treated myself to a sweet latte using Livia’s expresso machine. Then sat out on the balcony at a tiny round table that had come with four uncomfortable chairs and not enough space for even four wine spritzers. I didn’t have space for my mug on the table since the plate took up almost every inch of it, so I sat the latte down on one of the chairs.

  I got through my meal without once thinking about Grace St John, but then my head was all filled with the svelte beauty of Sofia Bragga. I couldn’t help but anticipate the werewolf’s return and wondered if her pack would agree to give a witch a lock of hair from one of their own.

  After lunch, F.C. reluctantly agreed to stick close to home. I headed to the cacophony of the Sunday market to browse through the stalls and look at things I’d seen a thousand times before. It was because I knew what I’d find there that I kept returning and also because every now and then something original turned up. I didn’t want to miss that, but today my browsing was rushed. I headed straight for the secondhand dealers, of which there was never a shortage, and found Maggie Saunders standing behind a covered table loaded with every kind of jewellery. Some of them were old and others were replicas. I knew what I wanted but still I worked my way towards it glancing through every item. Maggie didn’t put prices on anything, which was one of my pet hates. I thought that she gauged her prices on the lust in a customer’s eyes.

  I made a point of asking the price of a few different items before picking up the little locket that would be perfect for Sofia’s spell if she ever came back for it. It was simple but elegant, not too large and entirely made of sterling silver. It was a deliberate choice. Few werewolves had suffered fatal injuries from silver, although silver bullets were another story. All the werewolves I’d dated had taken an almost perverse thrill in wearing silver. I hoped that Sofia and her pack were no different.

  I’d played my role well. When I asked Maggie for another price, she brusquely stated a fair one. I surprised her by pulling out my purse and paying for it. She gave me a wan smile as she took the cash, like she knew I’d beaten her at her own game. I pocketed the locket and glanced at my watch. It was still quarter of an hour before Erica would be closing up Tangles and heading for Coffee-on-Main, but I didn’t feel like window shopping.

  I thought I felt eyes on me as I left the market, but it was impossible to be sure. Though I searched for her, I saw no sign of Grace St John.

  C
HAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The coffee shop was almost empty. Although Livia always tried to make a point of grabbing the corner table by the window, I didn’t feel as possessive of it. I sat closer to the door so that Erica would spot me the minute she entered Coffee-on-Main and ordered a large slice of lemon meringue. The sweetest dessert the shop had on offer.

  I was deep into my slice when Erica arrived. She looked a little out of breath, like she’d made the short trip from Tangles to Coffee-on-Main at a canter, which I thought would have been impossible based on the heels of her shoes.

  “You’re just in time to stop me eating a whole slice of lemon meringue on my own,” I told her as she collapsed into the chair opposite me and took a deep breath.

  “I’ve seen you put away an entire tart, Nilla,” she replied after a momentary pause. Her voice sounded a little flustered. “I don’t think a slice is much trouble at all.”

  “Exactly why I need the help in resisting temptation.”

  “With those hips there’s no need and now you’re just making me insanely jealous.”

  I grinned at her. Then nodded to the counter with the large menu board behind it. “See anything you fancy?”

  Her eyes narrowed as she read through her options. I wondered if Erica was a little myopic. Pretending to do the same, I discreetly examined her from the corner of my vision. She did look entirely recovered from her unremembered ordeal. I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. It had been and still was a burden to me that Grace had targeted her because of me.

  “All of these sound suspiciously like sugar,” Erica frowned and turned to face me again. I echoed her a moment later.

  “The honey latte is sugar free,” I said with a wide smile.

  Erica laughed and shook her head. “I suppose that will have to do. It sounds good too.”