Son of a Witch: A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery #2

by M. Z. Andrews

  “Thanks Jax. What do you think Alba?” I asked the tall sturdy girl who lived down the hall from my dorm room. She was Holly’s roommate and the two couldn’t be more opposite – physically and mentally. Holly was a klutzy buxom blonde with vanity issues and Alba was tall, dark, and grumpy, in the nicest sense of the word.

  Alba grunted at me. “Eh. You look alright, Red. I’d date you.”

  I eyed her carefully. She made me wonder sometimes if she actually did prefer girls, but I’d never gone so far as to ask. I mean, after all, it was only the second week of witch college and I’d barely scraped the surface of trying to get to know any of these girls. And after the week we’d had, what with solving the Morgan Hartford murder, rescuing Jax from her abduction and saving the life of a town girl, we just hadn’t had the time to really get to know each other yet.

  “Uh, thanks?” I said with a chuckle. “I guess we already know Hugh would date me, I mean he did ask me out. That was the easy part. Now I actually have to be witty and cute and stuff. I’m not much of a witty cute girl. I’m more of the hopelessly weird and gloomy type. He’s probably not going to like me much.”

  “What’s not to like?” asked Sweets, the fifth member of our Witch Squad, a moniker we’d been nicknamed by the rest of the student witches here at the Paranormal Institute for Witches during the first week of school. Sweets’ real name was actually Mildred Porter, but she’d been nicknamed Sweets and it was no wonder. Not only was she the sweetest of the sweet, personality wise, she was also a baking matchmaker. Meaning she could match couples together by baking the potion into a sweet recipe. She also liked to eat her concoctions which was probably why she was more than a tad on the overweight side. Personally, I thought her figure added to her charm and she had quickly become one of my favorite people at the school for witches.

  “Aww, you’re a doll, Sweets,” I said, giving her a thankful little smile. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m beyond nervous. What time is it?” I asked the room.

  Jax looked at the alarm clock on her desk. “7:00. What time is Houston picking you up?”

  “7:30 sharp, remember?” I said. I wasn’t sure how anyone could have forgotten that little detail. He’d asked me out in the quad in front of the whole school, including my group of friends. It had been absolutely humiliating to say the very least.

  Jax laughed. “Oh yeah, and wear something pretty, no sneakers,” she remembered.

  “Yeah, he’s lucky he told her that, otherwise she’d be wearing her Chuck’s as we speak,” Holly said, rolling her eyes. “You just look a thousand times better like this.”

  “I, personally, like to be comfortable,” I told the girls. “Especially in college. Why do I need to look like – this – in college?”

  “To snag a boyfriend,” Holly said with a little shrug.

  Jax and Sweets nodded. “Agreed,” Jax said with a smile.

  “I agree with Red,” Alba said, leaning against my dorm room door. “Comfort is key in college. I could wear sweatpants and sweatshirts every day to class.”

  Holly raised an eyebrow. “You do wear sweatpants and sweatshirts every day to class.”

  “Hello? The elevation of Aspen Falls makes it colder here than it ever is at this time of year in New Jersey,” said Alba. Alba was a New Jersey native, her family owned a furniture moving business in the city which made her powers of telekinesis very handy to have.

  Holly, with her blonde hair and blue eyes, was a true California girl. Sweets was from Georgia and Jax claimed she was from all over, but it had been recently revealed that not only was she the daughter of Sorceress Stone, the headmistress of the Institute, but she also wasn’t a witch. We hadn’t had time since the big reveal to discuss it in more detail, but she had promised someday she’d give us the scoop.

  I hailed from Dubbsburg, Illinois, a small town outside of Chicago. My mother, Linda, had recently dropped me off at the Paranormal Institute for Witches, which was located in Aspen Falls, Pennsylvania, a small college town nestled high in the Appalachian Mountains. It was a beautiful town with large stands of scarlet oak and hemlock trees. Even though I’d never been in Aspen Falls during any other seasons, fall was, by far, the best season to be here.

  “Just because the days are cool now doesn’t mean you have to dress like a polar bear,” Holly said with her hand on her hip.

  “At least I wear clothes,” Alba retorted.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Alba shrugged and jerked her head towards Holly’s low cut blouse. “You know what that means. You don’t wear your heart on your sleeve; you wear your breasts on your sleeve.”

  Sweets’ eyes opened wide. “Alba! That wasn’t very nice!”

  Alba and Holly exchanged annoyed glances. “What? We all know that Holly’s shirts leave little to the imagination.”

  “But you don’t have to be rude about it,” Sweets said with a little frown.

  “Fine,” Alba growled.

  “Anyway, girls. I’m not trying to snag a boyfriend,” I told them.

  “Of course you’re not. Just like these three idiots aren’t,” Alba said with her arms crossed and a frown on her face.

  “Geez, who sank your battleship?” I asked her indignantly.

  “Ugh, I’m going to my room,” she retorted grumpily. She promptly turned on her heel and left my room with a slam of the door.

  “What’s with her?” I asked.

  “I think she’s upset because her family hasn’t called her once since she’s been here,” Holly said with a little frown. “She’s constantly checking her cell phone for messages and she never has any.”

  “My family hasn’t called either,” said Sweets, sticking out her lower lip and looking pouty. “That didn’t bother me until just now. Why hasn’t my family called me yet?”

  “Because you’re twenty years old and don’t need mommy and daddy checking in on you every fifteen minutes?” I suggested.

  “You’re nineteen and your mom checks in on you every fifteen minutes,” she retorted.

  “That’s different. My mom’s all alone back home. Oh, plus, I haven’t had time to tell you what she told me earlier today.”

  “What did she tell you?” Jax asked as she jumped onto my bed and curled her legs up underneath her.

  “Big news,” I started then looked down at my watch 7:05. “Ok, I have a few minutes. Brace yourselves.”

  “Oooh, this sounds juicy!” Sweets said with a big smile which dimpled her chubby cheeks.

  “It sort of is. I really haven’t had time to process it yet. I feel like I’m still in a state of shock,” I began.

  “Gosh, out with it already!” Holly said, scooting Jax over so she could sit down on the bed next to her.

  “You want the long version or the short version?”

  “Long!” they answered in unison.

  “Ok,” I began, taking a deep breath. “When my mom was young, like sixteen, she fell in love with this guy. He was hot and this really amazing wizard. But he was older and my granny didn’t really like him for some reason. Which does not surprise me in the least, my granny doesn’t really like anyone.”

  “Runs in the family, eh?” Holly quipped.

  I glared at her. “Do you want to hear this story?”

  She pressed her bright pink lips together and nodded, wide-eyed.

  “So she did a spell which bound my mother and her hot wizard boyfriend from ever laying eyes on each other again.”

  “Aww, that’s so sad,” said Sweets. “I wonder if a matchmaking spell could trump a binding spell?”

  “That’s a good question! We’ll have to ask my mom that in class on Monday,” Jax said excitedly.

  I eyed them both with frustration. “Anyway, so, yeah, my mother and her boyfriend had to break up and she was all sad and depressed and stuff and she didn’t notice what was going on…” I took a breath.

  “What didn’t she notice was going on?” Holly asked, hanging on my every word.
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  “She didn’t notice that she was pregnant!” I revealed dramatically.

  “With you?” Jax asked. “The hot wizard guy was your father?”

  I shook my head. I had no idea who my father was, but not because my granny had bound my mother or myself from contact with him, as he had left my mother of his own accord. “No, not with me. With a son!”

  “A son?” Jax gasped.

  “You have a brother?” Holly asked, her eyes opened wide in shock.

  “Apparently,” I said nodding.

  “How did you have a brother your whole life and you never knew it?” Sweets questioned me.

  I took a deep breath as my adrenaline took a slight surge. “Well, I wasn’t done with the story. After my mother gave birth, she was really tired and needed to take a nap. My granny said she was going to take the baby to the nursery so that my mother could get some rest. My mother didn’t really want her to, but granny insisted and when mom woke up and asked to see her son, she was told that her mother had given him up for adoption. The papers were all signed and it was too late!”

  The girls’ eyes and mouths opened wide. No one spoke for a few long moments while that news sunk in.

  Sweets shook her head. “She couldn’t just give away your mother’s baby without her permission?”

  Just relaying the story had caused my pulse to thump loudly in my ears and filled my eyes with unshed tears. I took a big swallow. “My mother wasn’t 18. There was nothing she could do. And my granny refused to ever tell her what she had done with my brother.”

  Jax jumped up and threw her thin arms around my shoulders. “Oh, Mercy. That’s such a horribly sad story.”

  Two fat unwanted tears slid down my cheeks. I quickly wiped them away and silently hoped that no one had seen them. “Yeah,” I choked out.

  Holly jumped up and passed me a tissue. “Oh, now look, you’re ruining your makeup!”

  Drat, they’d seen the tears, I thought, as two more sets of arms encircled my shoulders. I rolled my eyes as the group squeezed me hard. I wasn’t really into public displays of affection. Or affection at all for that matter. “Ok, ok. Thanks girls, but that’s good,” I finally said when I had had all that I could take.

  The girls all retreated back to their seats around my small dorm room. “I can’t believe you’ve got a brother you’ve never met out there somewhere,” Jax said in astonishment.

  “Yeah, and why did your mother wait so long to tell you?” Sweets asked. “She waits your whole life and then she tells you today? Of all days? We finally got Jax back and solved Morgan’s murder…you’d think she’d have given you a little time to decompress from all of that.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I could have used a little more time to relax. That’s really all I want for tonight, is some time to relax, but here’s the thing,” I began again. “She told me now because my brother found her. He came to see her.”

  “Stop it!” Holly exclaimed. “You’re kidding me!”

  “Not kidding. When she got back to Dubbsburg after dropping me off here at school, he was at her house waiting for her.”

  “That’s crazy!” Jax said in bewilderment.

  “Yeah, so he stayed with her for awhile and then he decided he wanted to meet me, I guess. So he’s on his way here.”

  “Wow, so how are you feeling about all of this?” Sweets asked me.

  “You know, no one asked me, no one was like, ‘Hey Mercy, you want to meet your long lost brother?’ He just decided to show up. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I don’t need a brother. I don’t want a brother. I was perfectly content with it being just me and my mom and now this random guy shows up and I’m supposed to be all, ‘Oh, you’re my brother, and I love you so much’,” I said in a mocking voice.

  “Wait. This guy is on his way here?” Holly asked, shooting up to stand on her feet. “When?”

  I lifted both of my arms up and shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. Mom wasn’t sure when he’d get here. She said anytime. But sit back down,” I said pointedly to Holly. “You’re not dating my brother, so let’s just get that out of the way. Brother’s are off limits. Girl code.”

  Holly sat back down casually. “What? I didn’t say I wanted to date him!” she admonished.

  I shook my head with my eyes closed. “You want to date everybody.”

  “So you just wait around here for him to show up?” Sweets asked nervously.

  “No! He’s not a kid. He’s an adult. I’m not going to wait around for him. Besides, I have a date, remember?” I said. The words made me think to look at my watch again. “Oh my gosh, girls, I better go.”

  “All that and you’ve got to run now?” Jax asked with a little pout.

  “We’ll talk more after my date, ok?” I asked her and then shot her a little wink.

  “Ok, promise?”

  I nodded. “Promise.”

  I shut the door behind me and stood quietly in the hallway for a long moment taking a deep breath. The thought of having to meet Hugh and my brother’s pending arrival made my stomach do summersaults. Instead of turning right to go down the staircase to the lobby, I took a left and knocked on Alba’s door.

  “What?” she grunted from inside.

  “It’s Mercy,” I hollered. Alba was a grouchy soul, but I could trust her. She was honest and direct, and she meant well. Plus I appreciated her lack of enthusiasm for everything. Sometimes a girl just doesn’t want to be perky and cheerful and Alba gets that more than any of the rest of the girls in the Witch Squad.

  “What do you want?”

  “Just let me in, alright,” I hollered back.

  She opened the door and stared at me. “Don’t you have a date to get to?”

  I shrugged. “He can wait a minute or two. Can I come in?”

  Alba made a huffing sound but opened the door wider to let me in. Her dorm room was nothing like mine. Jax had decorated ours before I’d even checked into the dorm. She’d covered the cold tile floors with grey plush carpeting and she’d lined the stone walls with movie posters and put cute aqua and grey bedding on the top bunk. At first it had disgusted me, but as our room became the meeting place for our little circle of friends, I’d reluctantly grown to appreciate the coziness of it. Holly and Alba’s room, on the other hand, was pretty sparsely decorated. No wall to wall carpeting or movie posters for them, but Holly had covered her bed with a pale pink bedspread and some cute little throw pillows. Alba’s bed was covered with a navy blue quilt that looked like it had seen the insides of a washing machine about 20 too many times. They did, however, have a cozy saucer chair that I envied and I quickly made a beeline for the round comfy seat.

  “Really? You’re staying?” she asked, looking down at me in the chair.

  “I just wanted to see what’s going on with you. The girls said you’re extra grumpy lately.”

  “Well they’re extra annoying, what can I say?” she said caustically.

  “Something’s gotten under your skin, I can tell.”

  Alba threw herself down onto her bed and rolled onto her back. She dug her cell phone out of her pocket and held it up in the air in front of her face.

  “Waiting for someone to text you?” I asked her.

  She slammed the phone down on the bed next to her. “Why would I be waiting for someone to text me?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. When’s the last time you heard from your family?”

  Alba sat up and peered at me. “Just stay out of my business, Red.”

  I held up two hands in the air. “Fine, fine. Just wanted to help.”

  We sat together quietly. Neither with anything to say. Finally, I said softly. “I’m sort of nervous about this date.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re nervous. You’ve hung out with this guy before.”

  I shrugged as one finger found my hair and began to twirl a curl nervously. “I don’t know. I suppose I kind of like him,” I answered honestly.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” she muttered.


  “Yeah, but I’m not really the type of girl that needs someone.”

  “Everyone needs someone,” Alba said matter-of-factly. I thought I heard her breath hitch in her throat. I craned back to see if I could catch an emotion on her face, but she quickly covered up whatever I might have caught.

  “You need someone?”

  “I was talking about you, Red.”

  “You said everyone needs someone.”

  “Everyone but me I meant.”

  “You didn’t say everyone but you.”

  “I’m saying it now,” she growled. Then she looked at her watch. “Don’t you have somewhere to be right now?”

  “Kicking me out?” I asked her with a little laugh.

  “More like forcing you to put your big girl panties on. I’m sure Hugh’s waiting for you.”

  “Alright, I’ll go. We can talk more about this later.”

  “Nothing to talk about Red. I’m fine.”

  { Chapter Two}

  My high heels on the wide curving stone staircase made a flat clicking noise as I made my way to the Winston Hall lobby. I held onto the ornate baluster tightly as I walked, praying that I wouldn’t twist an ankle and roll down to the first floor. I attempted to walk casually across the marble tiled floor to the other side of the lobby where my date had promised to meet me. I felt like Bambi on stilts in the heels and I had to hold both hands out by my side to keep from falling as I carefully navigated the slick tile floor. Stupid heels. Why did I let Holly talk me into wearing shoes with stilts on them? I wondered.

  As I exited the side doors of the lobby to the courtyard we shared with the Paranormal Institute for Wizards next door, I held my breath and silently begged the spirits not to let me fall before I made it to Hugh. He was already standing there, on the cobblestone next to my very favorite scarlet oak tree whose leaves were the most perfect shades of orangey-red. He had his back to me, but the cowboy hat and cowboy boots were a dead giveaway that it was him. He was the only cowboy wizard that I’d ever met before and most certainly the only cowboy wizard that attended the all men’s school next door.