Fabulous Witch

by Tess Lake

  I pulled my hand away from him, but a moment later he put his hand on my knee and leaned in closer.

  “You should come to dinner with me, we’ll have it here in my trailer, I have a personal chef,” he said.

  He was so close he could have almost kissed me, and I’m fairly sure if I sat still, he would have tried. I jumped up, the recorder slipping off my knee, bouncing off the glass of alcohol at my feet, and sliding across the floor of the trailer. In an instant, Tobin was up and had downed his drink, retrieved the recorder and held it out to me. I took it from him and noticed it had turned itself off when it landed on the floor.

  “Let’s interview another time, get the real behind-the-scenes, yes?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said and then practically ran for the door.

  It took a few moments outside for me to catch my breath. Inside his trailer with him, it had felt like the entire world had disappeared and I was almost trapped there. This was despite there being practically a hundred people right outside the door. I saw a few of the crew members glancing across at me with looks that I didn’t have to be a mind reader to interpret. Young girl goes into executive producer’s trailer and comes out a few minutes later somewhat flustered?

  I returned to my seat on the set and decided that if I did interview Tobin, there would be other people around, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be in his trailer. The shock of what had happened was causing another problem, though. A few dark clouds had gathered on the horizon and were rapidly advancing across the sky. I could focus on my breathing all I wanted to calm myself, but there was going to be a thunderstorm no matter what.

  “Quick, before we lose our light,” someone yelled out on set. The stunt driver, Kaylee, who was dressed exactly like Bella in this scene, got into the stunt car. Benton stood at the window talking with her as people scurried around, setting up for the start. After Benton finished talking with her, Cyro came down and said a few words through the window before waving his arm at the girl who carried around the clipboard.

  “Scene twenty-three, take one,” she yelled out and then clapped the board.

  Kaylee started the stunt car and then hit the accelerator. Although she was driving what looked like a small car that a small-town girl would own, it clearly had a powerful engine under the hood. It let out a huge roar and then shot off in a straight line down the road. From my position, I saw Kaylee wave her hand in the car, imitating Bella casting a magic spell. The moment she crossed the green spray-painted line and didn’t stop, I felt a sickening lurch inside my chest as I realized something was about to go terribly wrong. The car shot past the green line, and even over the roar of the motor I heard Kaylee yell from inside. There was a horrible squealing noise from the car, and it slowed slightly, but not enough to stop her from crashing headfirst into the brick wall. The sound of the car hitting was enormous, broken glass and metal, and the entire front of the car crushed in.

  There was a moment of stunned silence before all the crew rushed in, some of them carrying fire extinguishers and spraying them on the car. Benton ran for the driver’s-side door and then yelled out, “Medical, we need medical!” Across from me, I became aware of two figures moving behind the crowd of shocked spectators and crew. One was Tobin Hemming, looking at the crash with an angry expression on his face. The other was Mattias Matterhorn, still dressed as a Roman general and looking almost gleeful.

  Chapter 7

  I woke up when Adams dropped his toy mouse on my face.

  “I need you to talk to George,” he said.

  I rolled over and stretched before wiping the sleep out of my eyes. It was three days since Kaylee had driven the stunt car into the brick wall and then Benton had shut the set down to go over their safety procedures once more. I was taking advantage of this time off to sleep in and relax.

  “What do I need to talk to George about?” I asked, yawning.

  “He’s not happy being on surveillance duty. You need to tell him it’s for his benefit too.”

  I had no idea what Adams was talking about and figured it was perhaps some game that he was playing, but I knew if I didn’t humor him, he would keep waking me up early in the morning. So I picked up George the toy mouse and brought him up close to my face.

  “George, it’s very important you take part in the surveillance operation. Adams needs your help,” I said.

  “Okay, George? Happy?” Adams said.

  I guess George must’ve given some imaginary answer, because Adams stood up, carefully took him in his mouth, and then carried him back out into the main room to put him back into his surveillance position. I got up and had a quick shower and was making some toast when Adams jumped up on the kitchen counter.

  “Your cousin has gone crazy. You need to go to the coffee shop,” he said.

  “Which cousin?” I asked.

  “The one with the boyfriend who always smells like paper and books,” Adams replied.

  “Do you mean Molly?”

  “I guess so,” Adams muttered.

  Although Adams was friendly enough towards Molly and Luce, in the last week or so he’d developed a bit of a grudge against Molly for persistently refusing to share her food. After the coffee machine had been stolen, Molly had taken to snacking late at night and other stress eating. But she’d refuse to share the extra food with Adams, who was getting increasingly annoyed about it.

  “It’s her food, she doesn’t have to share it with you,” I told him. “How do you know she’s going crazy, anyway?”

  “I was there,” Adams said. Being a magical cat, Adams had the ability to show up anywhere he felt like, disappearing into nowhere and then reappearing in other locations. Honestly, I had no idea how far he traveled whenever he felt like it. Before I could ask him anything else, Luce called me.

  “You need to come to the coffee shop right now!” Luce yelled into the phone.

  In the background, I could hear Molly swearing and yelling all kinds of threats.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We might’ve” – something smashed in the background and Luce’s voice became muffled – “found it. We need you here right now,” she said. Then the phone went dead.

  I grabbed my bag (I’d be visiting the set later today) and raced outside to jump into my car. I’d been working hard on using my magic to boil the well and float stones around, but even so it was getting hard to get this new slip witch power under control. Even Adams waking me up unexpectedly by dropping a toy mouse on my face had caused a small puff of cloud to appear above the mansion.

  Hence, all the sleeping in and not doing much in these few days off. While the set was shut down for safety reasons, Jack was still working on building sets at the other location. We were seeing each other every night and it was an incredibly calming experience. On top of that, I hadn’t seen Mattias since after the car accident. I’d even gone back to the set, only to be stopped at the gate by the security guard, who wasn’t letting any nonessential people in.

  I started my car, listened to it cough a few times, and then took off down the hill. We were slowly gliding towards winter and the weather was cooling day by day. We were still having the occasional hot day when the tourists would rush out to the beach, but it wouldn’t be long before the cool weather finally settled in and the majority of the tourists returned to their homes.

  I drove down the hill and into town, briefly seeing John Smith flinging himself off the town hall to land on the footpath unharmed. He peeled himself up off the sidewalk and waved to me as I went by, and I waved back.

  I pulled up outside Traveler, and even from the street I could hear Molly yelling from inside and Luce trying to calm her.

  Feeling the weather twitching above me, I bolted out of my car and up to the front door, only to find it not only physically locked but magically locked too.

  I banged on the glass and called out, “Luce! Unlock the door.”

  It went quiet inside for a moment before Luce appeared at the door and then pulled it
open. Instantly Molly was beside her, trying to shove her aside to get out, muttering things under her breath.

  “Don’t let her out!” Luce said, trying to push Molly back.

  “I’m going to murder them! I’m going to kill them!” Molly swore. Her face was red and she had crazy eyes. I managed to push my way inside Traveler, and then Luce slammed the door behind me before locking it again, all the while fighting Molly off.

  “What’s going on?” I said, grabbing Molly by the arms.

  Molly and Luce are both nature witches at their core. Their strongest affinity is with living things. Right now, Molly’s anger was swirling like crazy, and the plant that was sitting on the counter was responding by growing fast. If Molly didn’t calm down soon, there was a good chance that all the plants in the area around us would go crazy, developing spikes and trying to stab at people.

  “They stole our coffee machine!” Molly ranted and pulled away from me. She rushed out the back and tried to open the back door, but Luce had magically locked that one too.

  “A new coffee shop has opened called the Magic Bean. It looks like they have our coffee machine in there,” Luce said.

  “How did you find this out?” I asked.

  “We drove by and we saw it out the window. I had to come here and drag Molly inside before she ran in there and burned the place down.”

  Molly came rushing out of the back room, her face a mask of fury.

  “Those people who wanted to buy our coffee machine stole our coffee machine, and now they’ve set up their own business with our coffee machine. Let’s curse them. Curse them so bad they won’t know what hit them, and then, then we kill them!” she said.

  Most days I would say that if Molly said she wanted to kill someone, she would be exaggerating. I mean, half the time she said it, it was about Aunt Cass or Luce or me or her mother. Not today. She looked deadly serious.

  “Let’s sit down and calmly discuss it,” I suggested.

  “No!” Molly said and stamped her foot.

  The plant on the counter, which had been a harmless little succulent, tripled in size, smashing its pot open, the roots growing down over the top of the counter. Wickedly long sharp spikes appeared along its leaves, and it started trying to move across the counter.

  “Okay, I’m really sorry about this, but you have to calm down,” I said.

  I pulled on the magic swirling together, running it down my arm, and then hit Molly in the forehead with it like I was some kind of faith healer. It was a kind of calming spell that, if you went too far, could knock people into unconsciousness and sleep.

  Molly didn’t have time to resist it. She crumpled, and I only just managed to grab her arm in time to stop her from banging her head on the floor.

  I felt a slight wave of tiredness myself after casting the spell. The plant on the counter stopped its trek across the counter.

  “I might have overdone it,” I said to Luce, who was looking very relieved.

  “No, I think that was about right,” she said. We pulled Molly across to one of the empty booths and propped her up. She was still asleep. Luce went to the front window and closed the blinds, throwing Traveler into dim gloom. She came back to the booth after turning on a small lamp, which gave the place a warm, cozy feel. It was obviously what I needed as well. The stress of seeing Molly go crazy had pulled in more cold wind far above me, and I could already hear the slight scatterings of rain that were dropping from the sky. Luce looked up towards the ceiling and then stretched out her hand, feeling the magical current herself.

  “You really need to stay calm, huh?” Luce said.

  “I’m trying. But between people dying on set and telling me they’ve been murdered, and then a car accident, a storm following me around, and Molly going crazy, it’s been a little hard!”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” Luce said, touching me on the back of the hand.

  Molly let out a loud snore, which somewhat broke the small amount of tension.

  “So, can you tell me what happened before she wakes up?” I asked.

  “Pretty much what I told you. We were driving in and those two people who wanted to buy Stefano have opened a new shop called the Magic Bean. They have the exact same coffee machine as we do. When Molly saw it, she went crazy and was going to curse them and do all kinds of things, and I had to drag her back here before anything bad happened.”

  “Do you really think it’s your coffee machine? Could it be the same type?” I asked.

  Luce shrugged and ran her hands through her hair.

  “I guess it could be the same model. The place that made them only had a limited run before it went into bankruptcy. We got the one we bought off a Russian website. What are the chances that someone else who wanted to buy ours happens to get the exact same coffee machine and open up a coffee shop in the same town?”

  “Do you want me to go in there to take a look?” I offered.

  “When Molly wakes up, I think we all need to go together. She’s been fighting with Ollie a lot,” she said worriedly.

  Because Molly and Luce worked closely together, Luce would often have the inside track on what was going on in Molly’s life. I was aware she’d been fighting with Ollie, but now it seemed it had become much worse.

  “Is it really bad?” I asked.

  “Ollie is a patient guy, but I’m really not sure how much of it he’s going to take from her. She yelled at him yesterday at lunchtime because she said something to him while he was standing on the other side of the Pie Baron’s shop and he didn’t hear her. She then claimed that he’d been ignoring her deliberately.”

  Molly made a kind of sleeping snort noise and lolled back in the booth, her hair covering her face. Since the bakery had burned down, the lives of the Torrent witches had been thrown into disarray. Sure, I had a boyfriend and Jack was amazing, but it was like everything was happening at once, and even good things could be stressful too. Our moms were running the Torrent Mansion Bed and Breakfast, but it simply wasn’t making enough money, so Aunt Ro was out doing cleaning jobs and taking Molly along with her. Luce was trying to run Traveler, but the word had obviously gotten around that the coffee was average, and because of the redesign they didn’t even have the ability to set up their previous tourist shop with T-shirts and fridge magnets and the like. I tried not to think about the bakery burning down too much, but I think the truth was that it had been a traumatic event for all of us and we had all sort of… ignored it. Now all that suffering was coming out in unexpected ways. For Molly, that meant fighting with her boyfriend, Ollie, who she absolutely adored. I would say I’m not the meddling type, but, hey, I’m a Torrent witch, so that would be a lie. I decided I’d visit the library whenever I could to talk with Ollie and see how he was doing. Maybe if he understood a bit of what Molly was going through, they would be okay.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Molly murmured and then opened her eyes. She sleepily pushed the hair off her face and then yawned, looking at us blearily.

  “I had to cast a calm spell on you, I’m sorry,” I said gently.

  “It’s okay, I feel much better now,” she murmured.

  “We’re going to go to the new coffee shop and see if they took our coffee machine, okay? We’re not going to have a fight and we’re not going to curse anyone,” Luce said.

  “Sure, that sounds good,” Molly said.

  I really might have overdone it with the spell, because she seemed incredibly calm about the whole situation.

  Given there were no customers, Luce locked up Traveler and then we walked down the street, heading two blocks away, where the new coffee shop was open. When we turned the corner, we saw a line of tourists out the front of the shop and large double-decker buses parked nearby. As we walked up to the Magic Bean, I saw some of the bus drivers standing around sipping coffee. They must’ve recognized Luce and Molly because they guiltily looked away.

  We made our way to the front of the line and into the Magic Bean. A few of
the people in the line grumbled about “get in line,” but on the whole they were older travelers and generally polite. Inside the Magic Bean, it was very close to being a rip-off of Traveler. There were lots of comfy booths, the counter was set far back, and they even had a potted succulent in the corner. This one hadn’t grown spikes and broken out of its pot, however.

  The couple who had offered to buy Molly and Luce’s coffee machine were working frantically. The man was on counter duty taking orders and payment, while the woman was dealing with the Fuoco Oscura, which was yelling at her in Italian every few seconds. To me it looked exactly the same as Molly and Luce’s coffee machine. When they’d first received it, it had come with an instruction book in Italian that included the few hundred ways that you could be severely injured by the coffee machine. Even after using it for a long time, Luce still would return home with cuts, burns, bruises and strange marks. The woman working the coffee machine had a medical plaster patch on her forehead, some healing cuts on her arms, and a thin scratch across her cheek. As we approached the counter, she didn’t even look up at us. To take your attention off that coffee machine for even one second was to risk serious injury.

  “You took our coffee machine,” Molly said to the woman in a neutral tone.

  The woman turned her head to look at Molly, which was a serious mistake. A small metal arm with a cup on the end of it swung out of the machine and cracked her across the head. She fell to her knees, only to be doused a second later as a jet of cold water shot out from the front of the machine and hit her in the face.

  I thought she was about to pass out from being hit in the head, but she managed to jump up, grab a cup, and throw it in front of the jet of water, and a second later she was making coffees as though nothing had happened.

  “Not… yours,” she grunted, frothing some milk with one hand while pushing buttons and turning dials with the other.