Witches and Ghosts Supernatural Mysteries

by Angela Pepper

  “Good. Your songwriting is sloppy.”

  “Your kissing is sloppy.”

  He looked genuinely hurt by this. I would have apologized, but I was still stinging from his rejection, so I twirled on the ball of my foot dramatically and stormed out with my head held high.

  When I got home, I went straight for Kenny’s fresh-baked brownies, which I didn’t realize were laced with hallucinogenic mushrooms.

  I had eaten five and a half brownies when the wallpaper in the kitchen started to dance. I looked over at the dog, who was wearing a tuxedo, for no reason.

  “Why are you dressed up so fancy?” I asked him.

  The dog, who I thankfully hadn’t fed any brownies to, because I knew chocolate was toxic to dogs, answered my question with, “I’m wearing a tux because I’m taking you to dog prom.”

  “Dog prom sounds awesome!”

  “We have to decorate the house,” he said.

  I was glad for anything to take my mind off Arturo rejecting me, so I happily zipped around the house putting up decorations for dog prom.

  Two hours later, Kenny emerged from his bedroom to find me and the dog wrapped in toilet paper, sharing a bowl of canned dog food. The food was delicious.

  Kenny ran to the kitchen, did a quick count on the remaining brownies, then called the emergency poison control phone number to ask them a hypothetical question.

  I continued dog prom, blissfully unaware. All the elves from the kitchen wallpaper were dancing around me, and I was so happy. Everything was magic. Me. The wallpaper. Everything.

  Kenny gave me a glass of what he called “magical prom juice.” I glugged it back, not realizing it was syrup of ipecac. Much excitement ensued, most of it in the bathroom toilet.

  That night, Kenny showed me his true colors. His aura glowed with an orange-gold hue similar to my own.

  “Everything will be okay,” he said soothingly as he patted my back. “Things have a way of working out.”

  “You’re my best friend,” I said between heaves. “I’ve never had a best friend before.”

  “Me, neither. We moved around a lot when I was growing up, on account of my dad being a wizard.”

  I turned and looked up from the toilet. “Your dad’s a wizard?”

  “Yes, and so am I.”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be a secret? Why are you telling me?”

  “Zeb, you have sparks shooting out of your ears every time you barf. You didn’t mean to tell me, but you did. Fair’s fair.”

  He got me a glass of water, and we spent the next hour sitting on the floor of the bathroom, talking and giggling. I told him everything I knew about my witch status, right up to and including the disaster that was my sex-free sex date.

  Kenny grabbed a wash cloth and wiped down my chin.

  “Hang in there,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Sure. Yeah. I’m a witch and everything, but I’m still going to be a virgin forever.”

  He grimaced. “If you let me look at some gay stuff on my laptop, I could give it a try.”

  “You’re the best friend a girl could have, Kenny.”

  Then I started crying, and he started crying, and the dog came in and demanded to know why we weren’t at dog prom. It would take another twenty-four hours for the mushrooms to leave my system, but the memories… the memories of that night would last a lifetime.

  7.

  On Sunday, I went to my very first coven meeting. The elders were cross with me for not registering with them immediately when I arrived in town, but when they found out who my great-grandmother was, they lightened up.

  I learned that my situation wasn’t that unusual. Lots of people don’t find out about their witch powers until their twenties. The families actually keep it from them on purpose, until the young witch is mature enough to handle the responsibilities.

  “That explains why nobody told me,” I said. “I’m the least mature person I know. Shouldn’t you guys cast a forgetting spell on me? For everyone’s protection?”

  One of the elders said, “Good idea,” and started thumbing through a tiny notebook.

  “No forgetting spells,” Kenny said. “Zeb can handle it. She’s somewhat competent in other areas of her life.”

  I gave Kenny a sweet smile, thankful I had such an amazing best friend to lie for me.

  The meeting went on for two hours, mostly politics, then we broke for snacks, and the other witches asked me to play a song for them.

  I didn’t have my guitar with me, but another woman loaned me hers. She was also a song witch, and I would become her apprentice shortly, but as of that moment, we were still sizing each other up.

  Her lovely guitar was perfectly in tune—the first spell I was to learn under her instruction—so I began to play one of my original songs, about a girl whose husband is shipping off to war.

  The witches and wizards all listened, and were polite enough, but they seemed even less interested than my worst audience.

  “Sorry,” I said after I was done. “My mojo is gone. This wannabe song witch has no mojo.”

  “That’s because you’re playing cover songs,” a bald, jovial-looking man said. “I know you wrote that song yourself, but it’s still a cover song. Zeb, you’re not a woman whose husband is leaving her for the front lines. You don’t have three hungry children.”

  “But I’m an artist. I’m supposed to put myself into other people’s shoes. Right?”

  The woman whose guitar I’d borrowed answered by humming a melody. There were no words, but I saw a picture in my mind as she sang. In the dream-like image I saw a girl, feeding cows in a field. Her boots got stuck in the mucky pasture. She got one foot free, and fell backward into the cold mud. She didn’t get up right away. She lay there, because the damp earth was fragrant, and she missed someone, but the scent of the new life in the mud made her feel better.

  The whole experience of seeing the shared vision gave me chills and goosebumps from top to bottom. It was magic.

  “Very nice,” said the bald man when she was done.

  She smiled at me. “Yes, we can put ourselves in other people’s shoes. And we should. But first, we must crawl before we run. Begin with the truth, Zeb. Can you do that?”

  I looked down at the guitar in my hands, then quickly strummed a chord progression. I strung together some words, “Got mushroomed last night, took a dog to the prom, hey, that’s the way it rolls.”

  She nodded for me to keep going, and I did.

  I played a song I made up on the spot.

  I, Zeb, wannabe song witch, played for a coven of witches, and it was the worst. Not just my worst performance. But the worst performance. Of any singer, in any venue, ever.

  And they ate it up.

  They ate it up with a spoon, and asked for more.

  And that was how I learned to stop pretending to be someone else, and play music as myself.

  Just Zeb.

  On the tiniest bit of ‘shrooms still left in her system.

  But mostly just Zeb.

  8.

  When I saw Arturo at school on Monday, back in his composition class, he acted like nothing had happened between us over the weekend.

  I waved my hand in the air and asked him a stupid question about homework. Everyone laughed, and we were back to normal.

  Almost.

  Sometimes when I caught his eye, I noticed a gleam of amethyst. Magic occasionally sparked between us when he walked past my desk.

  Regular people couldn’t see our fireworks, but they were as real as his blue shirt—the one I’d borrowed from his house and now used as a pillow case. Whenever I climbed into bed at night, after a long day of studying either music or basic beginner-level song witch spells, I would rub my cheek against his shirt and pretend my pillow was Arturo’s chest.

  If anyone asked, I would deny this, of course. I told Kenny I used the blue shirt as a pillow case because the thread count in my sheets wasn’t high enough, and scratched my fa
ce. When Christmas came, my other roommates chipped in and gave me luxurious new linens, so from that point on, I had to keep my Arturo-pillow hidden in the closet during the day.

  The roommates would ask me who my new songs were about. I had been tapping into my honesty and writing about my feelings for Arturo—some good, some bad. He had lifted me up when he said I was special, but he also dropped me. Hard. Right on my heart.

  “The lover is a composite character,” I told people. “He’s an archetype. The one who slipped away.”

  My audiences believed me, and they liked it, because they could imagine the person in my song as someone who slipped away from them, or someone whose time hadn’t yet come.

  I mostly told the truth at shows, because of my new strategy to embrace honesty, but I kept the identity of Arturo to myself. I didn’t want the whole city to know that Zeb, singer and songwriter extraordinaire plus fun girl-about-town, was carrying a torch for her uptight composition professor.

  * * *

  By the time summer came, and school was finishing up for the year, I had achieved a solid B average, which is great for someone like me, whose wild spirit is difficult to funnel into final exams.

  Kenny had mostly Cs, but an A+ in composition. He was really good at composition, when he wasn’t too high. I had a C- in composition, but thankfully I still passed and wouldn’t have to take Mr. J’s class the next semester, assuming I returned.

  Things with the coven were going well, and by well, I mean fabulously. My new mentor was teaching me singing techniques I didn’t imagine were possible. We played together on occasion as a duet, and she always outshone me, but I was gaining ground. I worked hard to make her proud.

  My new song witch powers made performances even more interesting. Sometimes I would just be playing in a coffee shop, caught up in my own thoughts, and I’d start pulling threads from the audience and twisting them together, playing around, and things would happen without me even trying. One night I was thinking about what might have happened if Arturo hadn’t walked out of the bedroom that night, and I heard some strange panting and moaning in the audience.

  Before I realized what was happening, I’d given three ladies and one gentleman a spontaneous pleasure spasm.

  The tips were good that night.

  9.

  Graduation day came, and the whole music school gathered in the auditorium for a ceremony. The school offers a multi-year program, but many students only take the first year of fundamentals, which is a complete program on its own. (Listen to me, I sound like a brochure for the college. Honestly, I don’t get any kickbacks, I swear.)

  As of that day, I wasn’t sure if I’d be back for a second year. Kenny and I planned to hit the road for the summer, to see where the road took us.

  First, we had to survive the ceremony and a bunch of sloppy, emotional stuff.

  I try not to be all sappy and maudlin, but seeing everyone in the auditorium hit me hard. It was like high school graduation, only minus all the jerks. It’s going to take you a few minutes to even imagine something that special. I’m writing a song about it, actually. I’m having a hard time coming up with words that rhyme with douche-canoe.

  Moose renew?

  Tush lasso?

  Anyway…

  In my bag that day was a freshly-laundered and folded blue shirt. I planned to return the garment to its rightful owner, but was too nervous to approach Arturo before he took his place on the stage for the ceremony.

  I waited until my name was called and crossed the stage to receive my first-year diploma. After getting the rolled-up paper, I proceeded through the line, shaking the hands of all my professors.

  When Arturo’s palm swept into mine, sparks shot up. He looked into my eyes, and I nearly had one of those spontaneous pleasure spasms. I looked around nervously, even though I didn’t need to. Regular people can’t usually see the sparks flying off witches and wizards, and other than me and Arturo, Kenny was the only other wizard at the college.

  “I need to see you,” Arturo said.

  “You had your chance and you walked away. That was almost a year ago. A lot has happened since then, Mr. J. I turned twenty, and I grew up. A lot. I know all about dryer sheets now. Did you know they’re not just good for preventing static cling? You can put one in the bottom of your kitchen trash container, and your bin will stay smelling fresh.”

  His blue eyes danced with amethyst lights. “You’ve changed.”

  “I’ve also moved on. For the record, you can’t have your blue shirt back. The dog actually ate it. Sorry.”

  He murmured a string of numbers, and tattletale gold sparkles flew from my mouth, down to my shoulder bag.

  Busted. I unzipped the bag, grabbed his blue shirt, and handed it to him, grumbling, “You math wizards and your arcane truth spells.”

  “Shh,” he said. “Later. Tonight.”

  He tossed the shirt on the chair behind him and turned to shake the next student’s hand. Orange sparks shot up from their hands, because the next student was Kenny.

  I turned and gave Kenny a wide-eyed look as we walked off the stage.

  “Dirty boy,” I said.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I’m twenty. I don’t have much more of a crush on Mr. J than I do on any other straight man under fifty in this auditorium.”

  “Good, because I’m calling dibs on Mr. J.”

  “Yeah? Trying again for that sex date? One hot night together before you, me, and the dog hit the road tomorrow?”

  I sighed. “A girl can dream.”

  “That’s a good name for the band. You, Me and the Dog.”

  “That’s confusing and weird. I love it.”

  10.

  Kenny and I weren’t planning to attend the post-graduation dance, but two things convinced us:

  1. We were both curious about what Arturo wanted to talk to me about.

  2. Kenny’s application to have the dog declared an official therapy animal came through. We received his official yellow vest that very day, and put it on like a long-lasting magical glamor spell. Now the dog could go anywhere, and help Kenny cope with his anxiety, so he wouldn’t have to take so many drugs just to be able to leave the house. Since the dog was all dressed up and ready to party anywhere, we declared the post-graduation dance to be dog prom, and the three of us fancied ourselves up.

  I submitted to having myself “made over” in the image of a proper young lady. Kenny’s not the kind of gay friend who does makeovers, so he called in some friends of his, and they got out the sandpaper and grime-remover and went to work on me and my barnacles.

  I’m just kidding about the barnacles. I do practice basic hygiene. But, according to the gay dudes, my cuticles were ragged as hell, and the fun rainbow of colors in my hair were a total nightmare. Whatever.

  When they finished, I looked exactly like my favorite old photo of my great-grandmother. I nearly cried all over my vintage dress. I quickly hummed an I-will-not-cry-now spell to myself. As I looked in the mirror and listened to myself hum, I recognized the melody as the lullaby my great-grandmother used to sing to me. With that memory, not even the spell could hold back the floodgates.

  Kenny picked me up off the floor, though, and we got into Piglet with the dog and drove to the dance.

  Once we got there, I looked around the dance hall for Arturo, but couldn’t see him. Before I could go asking around, someone asked me to dance. It was a fun retro song, so I danced. Then another guy asked me to dance. And another.

  The makeover was working too well! I was the most popular girl at the dance, much to my pretend-horror.

  Two hours later, my feet were getting tired from dancing when a very familiar face popped up in front of me.

  It was Arturo, looking spectacularly handsome in an actual tuxedo.

  The guy I was dancing with frowned, noting that the real tuxedo trumped his tuxedo-print T-shirt, and quickly left the two of us.

  “You’ve become Miss Popularity,” Artu
ro said over the music.

  I shook my dance fists from left to right like miniature pom poms. “Vote Zebbie for Prom Queen!”

  “We don’t do that here.”

  I poked him in his chin dimple with one finger. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  He caught my hand and kissed my fingertips while looking into my eyes. A blast of sparkles shot out from… let’s just call it “from underneath my dress.”

  The horror! I stopped dancing and crossed my legs. The other students couldn’t see the magic light, but Arturo had. His eyes glowed amethyst.

  The light blasted out again. I didn’t know what to do. Sparkles had never shot out of my ladyparts before. My song witch mentor should have mentioned something like this.

  I could have curled up right there on the dance floor, praying for death from embarrassment, but I was pretty sure that wouldn’t stop the sparkles shooting out like a telltale crinoline of horniness. So, I turned and ran.

  I ran as fast as I could.

  Arturo chased after me, slowing down only to pick up my shoes as they fell off. He followed me outside, into the crisp, dark night air. I kept running. I’d been meaning to get some exercise, and now was the time.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” he called after me.

  “I’m never wearing a dress again!” I sobbed.

  He caught me by the hand and tugged me to a stop under a streetlamp. “I think it’s sexy.” He reached for my cheek and pulled me gently to face him and his glowing purple eyes. “Zeb, I think everything about you is sexy.”

  “I’m like a broken fire hydrant blasting horny sparkles.”

  “You look beautiful, for a broken fire hydrant. Is your hair all one color?”

  “Don’t look at me with your sexy purple wizard eyes.”

  “My eyes are purple? Well, I guess there’s no hiding it. That means I want you.”

  “You don’t want me, Arturo. You think you do, but as soon as you get me naked, you’ll just walk away again.”