Switching Witches

by Robyn Peterman

  “Don’t make me flip my witch switch,” Baba Yaga warned as she flounced out of the house with Marge on her heels.

  “I wanna drop a house on her,” Sassy whispered as she slowly dragged her ass outside.

  I bit back my laugh and followed the group of grumpy witches. I didn’t want to go to the Witchypoo Convention, but if it meant getting a break from Baba Yobutthole, the trip was beginning to appeal.

  “So let me get this straight,” I said as I led the crabby posse a safe distance from my house. “We’re supposed to find some assmonkey witches who are involved in shenanigans—whatever the hell that means—and we can’t use magic to stop them.”

  “Is shenanigans a Canadian word?” Sassy asked, shielding her eyes against the sun.

  Without missing a beat, Marge nodded so Sassy wouldn’t get perturbed and uproot a bunch of trees. And speaking of trees… Sleepy, Doc, Sneezy, Grumpy and Sponge Bob had meandered over, tearing the yard to shreds. Mac was getting seriously annoyed with my giant wooden minions, but luckily he was mated to a fabu witch that could repair the damage. Sadly, there was a lot of damage.

  “Can you fuckers be a little less destructive?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at them.

  “Would that make you happy, O Hangry One?” Sponge Bob inquired, perplexed.

  No one could hear the trees talk except me. However, I was pretty sure Henry and Audrey understood them as well.

  “Duh,” I snapped with an eye roll. “I’m the Shifter Wanker, not a landscaper. And what the heck does hangry mean?”

  “Hungry and pissed,” Sassy volunteered since she, Marge and Baba Yaga could hear my side of the conversation. “It’s a German word or possibly Canadian. I’m definitely hangry right now.”

  Well, Sponge Bob had gotten the hangry part right. Sassy and the origin of the word? Not so much.

  “As you wish,” Sneezy said, bowing to me.

  It was all kinds of weird to see a tree bow to you. I kept thinking they might snap in half. So far so good. They were still in one enormous piece.

  In a flash of lightning, the yard was repaired. I narrowed my eyes at the dummies and tried not to laugh. “You mean to tell me that you never needed to uproot the ground to move?”

  “Nope,” Doc told me.

  All five of my leaf-covered dorkos chuckled and rocked back and forth in the morning breeze. At least they hadn’t started in with the horrible tree jokes.

  “Zelda! What did the tree do when the bank closed?” Grumpy asked with a high-pitched giggle. He was the happiest of the trees despite his name.

  I stood corrected. This could take a while if I didn’t play along. “I have no clue and you guys can only ask three riddles. You feel me?”

  “It started its own branch,” Grumpy announced as he wiggled with glee and a ton of his leaves fell to the ground almost burying a shocked Baba Yaga.

  My evil smirk grew wide. “You guys can do ten more.”

  “What type of tree fits in your hand?” Sponge Bob shouted, shaking with excitement and further covering a now annoyed Baba Yaga.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, lying. They’d told this one practically every day since they’d shown up.

  “A palm tree!”

  “How did the warlock get hurt while raking leaves?” Sleepy asked, not wanting to be left out.

  “How?” I asked.

  “The warlock fell out of the tree!” Sleepy screeched with delight, not sleepy at all.

  Leaves exploded from his branches and Baba Yaga disappeared for the most part. It was all kinds of awesome… and then not.

  “Enough,” Baba Yaga roared, shooting out of the leaf pile like a pissed off bullet.

  Not only was she irate, she was glowing like a freakin’ firework.

  “Look out, people. I think she’s hangry,” Sassy pointed out with a grin.

  Floating back down to solid ground, Baba waved her hands and scattered the massive leaf pile she’d been under.

  “Are your trees done with riddle time?” she asked so calmly I blanched.

  “Yep. Done,” I promised.

  “Good,” she snapped, not realizing her overly lacquered hair-do was covered in leaves. I wasn’t about to tell her. She was still glowing and I valued my life. “However, they’re here for a reason—and it’s not to bury me alive. Did they bother to tell you that?”

  “Umm… nope,” I said, glancing over at my wooden boys. “What were you actually supposed to tell me, dudes?”

  “Not tell,” Grumpy explained. “Give.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What are you supposed to give me?”

  Sleepy shuddered and I heard him crack in a few places. A fragrant pine scented wind began to blow and shimmering dark green crystals floated through the branches of my minions. The sun shone brighter and my trees stood taller. It was majestically enchanting.

  Aside from the bad jokes and the yard destruction, they were actually pretty dang cool to have as minions. They were far more pleasant than Baba Yaga’s minions — a grumpy group of bobble-headed warlock douchebags.

  As the wind picked up and tossed the long wild grasses around, I was sure I heard a beautiful melody on the breeze. With a grunt and a giggle, Sleepy trembled and swayed. A thin, short stick of wood popped out from his leafy branches and made figure eights in the air as it found its way to me. It landed at my feet in a small bed of green crystals. It was alive—or it seemed to be.

  “For you, O Hangry and Lovely One. With this wand of sorts, you can summon others like us from anywhere in the world,” Doc explained.

  “Dude, seriously? I can call trees to me that aren’t mine?” I asked as I reverently and warily picked up the stick.

  “All trees are yours, Zelda,” Marge said, bowing in respect to my minions. “You have the power to summon all living trees.”

  “However, I’d suggest you take this gift and use it with extreme caution,” Baba Yaga told me as she admired my simple yet wildly powerful stick.

  “Do I get one too?” Sassy asked, finally waking up.

  “No, my dear,” Marge said, gently touching Sassy’s cheek. “Your gifts are very different from Zelda’s. I will be giving you a bottle of the magic balancing potion to use in the case of an emergency.”

  I ran my hands through my hair and squeezed my eyes shut for a brief moment. I wanted to say a whole bunch of really bad words strung together, but figured that wouldn’t really go over well. If the Goddess was watching—and I was pretty sure she was—I’d get an ass zapping like no other if I was rude about such a monumental gift. However, I still had to let it rip.

  Roger, my dumbass therapist, told me holding my feelings in was not smart. Smart wasn’t the first word that came to mind when describing me, but I definitely wasn’t going to hold it in.

  “Soooooo, this is kind of large. You know, finding out I can uproot the fucking world if I’m in the mood. Is there a good reason why you people are saddling me with this shit? I’m not exactly the most responsible witch we know.”

  “The Goddess allows everything to happen when it’s supposed to,” Baba Yaga said with a smile.

  “If that’s true, then am I to believe I’m gonna need this stick?” I asked, pressing the bridge of my nose in frustration. Shenanigans were turning out to be very bad indeed.

  “I hope not,” Marge said, reaching into her Chanel bag and pulling out two little palm-sized machines. “These are walkie-talkies. Since magic is prohibited unless the circumstances are dire, you can use these to communicate with each other at the Witchypoo Convention.”

  “Ohhhhhhhh, for real?” Sassy asked, hopping up and down with excitement. “I’ve always wanted a walkie-talkie. We never got any of the cool stuff at the orphanage.” She paused and deflated for a moment. “We never got anything at the orphanage.”

  Now that I had my own children, thinking about Sassy being dumped at an orphanage for witches when she was a little girl made me ill. How could a mother do that to her child? Although I
hadn’t fared much better and I hadn’t been dumped. Nope, my mother had tried to kill me—a fact that still gave me nightmares occasionally.

  “Speaking of mothers,” I started.

  “We weren’t,” Baba Yaga pointed out correctly.

  “Okay. Fine,” I agreed with an eye roll. “But where exactly is my mother now?”

  Carol and Marge exchanged loaded glances and my stomach tightened. Was my sorry excuse for a mother on the loose? She didn’t possess magic anymore, so she couldn’t harm anyone. Although, there were many ways to harm even without magic.

  “She’s in the pokey in Salem,” Baba Yaga said. “Why do you ask? Has she tried to communicate with you?”

  I shuddered and then sighed. “No. Not at all. I was just wondering.”

  “Does she have to wear a skanky orange jumpsuit like we did?” Sassy inquired, scrunching her nose in disgust.

  That was another thing that gave me nightmares. The orange fucking jumpsuit had clashed hideously with my red hair. The pain of being incarcerated in the pokey had almost been outweighed by the gag-inducing prison wear.

  Marge nodded, still staring at me strangely. “What made you bring your mother up?”

  Shrugging, I sighed. Honestly, Carol aka Baba Yopaininmyass was more of a mother to me than my mother had ever been. Baba said what she meant, had rules that she stuck to, and she loved me. I’d never admitted it—and probably never would—but I loved her too. The fact that she and my dad were shacking up and in luuurve made me secretly happy, as much as it gave me gas.

  “I suppose it was thinking about Sassy in the orphanage and then thinking about my own babies,” I told Marge. “It still boggles my mind that a mother wouldn’t love her child.”

  Baba Yaga smiled sadly and took my hand in hers. She and Marge were no strangers to awful mothers themselves. Endora—their pathetic excuse for an egg donor—had recently tried to steal my children, kill me and rule the magical world. Endora was not in the magical pokey. Nope. She was far too dangerous. The mother of the two most powerful witches in existence was residing with the Goddess at the moment. I was quite sure it was not even a little bit pleasant after what Endora had done. The Goddess did not fuck around when it came to punishment.

  “Sometimes the world doesn’t work in natural order. Sometimes the fairy tales we dream are not the ones we live,” Baba Yaga said quietly.

  “However,” Marge continued, putting her arm around her sister. “We are not slaves to our beginnings, Zelda, unless we choose that option. At some point we are given a choice—a path, so to speak. Whether we elect to go in a new direction and leave the past behind us is completely up to us.”

  “That’s pretty deep for seven thirty in the butt crack of the morning,” I said, smiling at Marge and Baba.

  “I’m good like that,” Marge replied with a wink.

  What she said calmed me. I had chosen a new path, but I wasn’t stupid or arrogant enough to think I’d done it on my own. Baba Yaga and the Goddess had watched over me. As much as I had and would continue to give Baba Yaga crap, I owed her a buttload.

  Sassy raised her hand and waited patiently to be called on.

  “Yes, Sassy?” Baba Yaga asked, looking a little scared.

  Since we never knew what would come out of Sassy’s mouth, Baba had every right to be a bit frightened.

  “I’m still hangry. What else do we need to know?”

  With a giant sigh of relief, Baba nodded her head and got back to business. “The Witchypoo Convention is in Lexington, Kentucky. We’ve made hotel reservations for you and your mates next door to the convention center. It occurs over three days starting tomorrow. The festivities are held in a place called Rupp Arena.”

  “Well, that certainly makes sense,” Sassy said with a grunt of laughter.

  “Not following why that’s funny,” I said, cocking my head to the side and trying to figure out what was going on inside Sassy’s whacky brain.

  “Rump Arena is a great name for a poop convention. You know, since poop comes out of the rump,” she explained.

  “Good Goddess,” Baba Yaga groaned and let her chin drop to her chest. “Rupp Arena. Not Rump Arena.”

  “Whoops. My bad,” Sassy replied with a giggle. “Can we eat now?”

  “Yes, Sassy. We can,” Baba Yaga said with a laugh. “And one more thing. You can use your magic, but use it wisely and carefully.”

  “Roger that,” Sassy yelled as she took to the air.

  Sassy literally flew back to the house. We didn’t need brooms to fly even though Sassy was a big fan of using one. I’d tried it once and crash-landed right in the middle of Main Street in front of all the good folk of Assjacket. I was not going to make that embarrassing mistake again.

  Marge followed Sassy up to the house, which left Carol and me alone.

  “Would you like to talk about your mother anymore?” she asked with concern.

  I glanced over at Baba Yaga and grinned. She was a hot mess—covered in leaves and glittering spandex. I couldn’t adore her more.

  “You promise not to repeat what I say?” I questioned her.

  “Witch’s Honor that anything you say will never leave my lips.”

  I didn’t even have to think about it—which shocked me. But I had taken my own path. My past didn’t define me thanks to the horribly dressed witch who cared about me.

  “I love you,” I told her.

  Baba Yaga’s eyes grew wide and she quickly swiped at a tear. Her smile made her beauty so incredible I almost had to look away. “And I love you,” she replied softly.

  I took her hand in mine and started off to the house. I was hangry too.

  “If you tell anyone, I’ll totally deny it,” I warned her.

  “I promise to keep your dastardly secret, Zelda,” she said, squeezing my hand.

  Of course, it wasn’t really a secret at all. Even though my mom hadn’t loved me, I was able to love others.

  And I did love Baba Yaga.

  However, I still didn’t want her damn job.

  Chapter Five

  “You do realize you have more syrup on your plate than your children do,” my dad, Fabio informed me with a grin and a raised brow.

  He sat across from me at our large kitchen table as I shoveled delicious pancakes into my mouth. His chin rested on his hand and he watched me in fascination. My dad’s face was so much like mine it was a little freaky. It was like looking into a mirror and staring at what I would look like as a man. Of course, he was hundreds of years old and I wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. Since all magical beings stopped aging around thirty-ish, we really did look like twins. But as much as I loved him, maple syrup was serious business and I was a hangry witch. He was not going to fuck with my sugar intake.

  I flipped Fabio off covertly so my kids wouldn’t see me. Henry had already told everyone in the room they were sexy, much to my horror. I didn’t need my son lifting his birdie finger in greeting. My dad’s belly laugh warmed me all over. We’d started our relationship off on a weird foot. He was my cat and I ran over him three times with my car. Not exactly a stellar beginning—I spent nine months in the pokey for that little mishap.

  The simple truth was we would always be weird, but we were perfect for each other and I adored him. Plus he had fabu taste in designer clothes and seriously enjoyed shopping for me. I was eighty-five percent sure he paid for most of it. He was loaded, thanks to his gambling habit, but still had extremely sticky fingers. Having Fabio in my life now almost made up for being raised by my mother. Of course, he’d taught the twins to play poker, but certain things about a person would never change. My dad lived right on the edge of being legal.

  “Your point, Fabdudio?” I asked, aiming my fork at his forehead.

  “No point, just an observation,” he replied, wiggling his fingers and turning my fork into a flower.

  Reaching across the table, I pilfered his fork and went back to my pancake pile. Thank the Goddess, witches had an insanely fast metab
olism. I’d eaten a house while I was pregnant—granted it was a cookie house, but a house—and I still looked fantastic.

  Clearing his throat dramatically, Bermangoggleshitz stood up and took the floor. It made me a little itchy. Sassy and I were still occasionally training with her dad to control our dark magic. If he was going to suggest a session before we left, I was going to zap him hairless. However, that wasn’t what he wanted to share. Nope. It was far more horrifying than that.

  “I’d like everyone to know that I made the pancakes,” Bermangoggleshitz announced grandly as he bowed and kissed a wildly alarmed Marge on the top her head.

  Marge quickly and subtly pushed her plate of pancakes away… as did Baba Yaga and Sassy.

  I almost puked in my mouth. I was now terrified that I’d been poisoned. Roy was a worse cook than I was and I burned water.

  “We threw his batch out,” Fabio whispered to me with a slight gag. “They resembled charred hockey pucks with hair.”

  I sighed very audibly and let my forehead fall to the table in relief. The thud was loud. Thankfully, Roy didn’t seem to notice—he was far too proud of himself. At least my kitchen was still standing. I was shocked that Roy had been allowed to cook at all. The warlock was trying really hard to fit in here in Assjacket and we all wanted him to feel welcome. However, burnt hairy pancakes would have sent me over the edge. It would be a shame if Roy left my house with enormous knockers and fifty warts on his handsome face.

  “Alrighty then,” Mac said, seating himself next to me and handing me a fresh plate of pancakes. He was totally getting a blowjob later for that. “We’ll be gone for three days. I trust that Henry and Audrey will be well looked after.”

  “I will kill the shit out of anything evil that comes near them,” Roy promised, crossing his heart.

  “Shit,” Henry shouted with a delighted squeal.

  “Sexy shit,” Audrey added, not to be outdone by her profane brother.

  Roy paled considerably and slapped his hand over his mouth. “Sorry,” he whispered between splayed fingers. “My bad.”