Witch Cursed in Westerham

by Dionne Lister

  Bed.

  Chapter 3

  Will’s alarm went off at eight, and we both got up. It was rare for us to go to the PIB at the same time. Having breakfast with him was something I usually only did on the weekends, so I actually woke up in a good mood for a change. I used the bathroom first, and when I was done, I went downstairs to make breakfast.

  Angelica was already there, ready for work, sitting with her back to the door. My steps faltered as I entered the kitchen, and I stopped. What the hell?

  Without turning to look at me, Angelica said, “Whatever are you doing, dear?”

  “Um…” I walked around the other side of the table and sat to face her. “I just didn’t expect you to change your hair colour. That’s all.” And only at the back. Her hair was greying and normally immaculate, but whilst the front and top of her hair was still that colour, her bun was hot pink. Funnily enough, it didn’t diminish her aura of authority. But still, was she having a late midlife crisis?

  Her brows drew down. “What are you talking about? I have too much to deal with today to suffer fools.” Hmm, someone got up on the wrong side of bed today.

  “Are you having a lend right now?”

  “Whatever does that mean, having a lend?”

  Gah, the language barrier between Australia and the rest of the world. “You know, are you joshing me? Unless there’s something wrong with my eyesight, your bun is hot pink. Would I lie to you?” I tilted my head to the side and raised my brows. I was nothing if not honest, and being accused of fibbing really made me cranky. This was too much to deal with BC—before coffee. I mumbled the make-myself-a-cappuccino spell, and the coffee mug appeared in front of me, a few inches above the table. It crashed down with a loud clink-thud onto its side. Coffee splashed everywhere, then spilled across the table. What. The. Hell? At least I was still in my PJs.

  “Was that to make a point, dear? If it was, you can stop with the histrionics.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Of course not! That was an accident.” I stood and grabbed a sponge from the sink. I could’ve cleaned it up with magic, but sitting at the table staring across at Angelica was not good for my health while she was in such an ornery mood.

  Will walked in. “Good mor—” He managed to get further into the room than I had before he halted.

  I rinsed the sponge and wrung it out before continuing the clean-up. “Tell her,” I said. “She doesn’t believe me.” Angelica pressed her lips together, obviously hating the fact that she was about to be proven wrong.

  Will wrinkled his brow. “Doesn’t believe you? But she would have done it.” He came to my side of the table and looked at Angelica. “Why do you have a pink bun? I mean, it looks fine, but it’s just surprising.”

  She growled. Yikes. She slammed her hands on the table, inadvertently landing in the coffee I hadn’t yet wiped away. It splashed on her white shirt. I cringed. She stood, the force of her anger pushing her chair back so violently that it fell. Man, it was noisy in here this morning.

  As Ma’am stormed out and up the stairs—hopefully to check that we were telling the truth—Will and I looked at each other. He raised a brow. I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. She thought I was joking about her hair though, and I thought she was joking about me being joking.” I shook my head. It was definitely too much to deal with BC.

  “What happened here?” He flicked his gaze to the coffee disaster on the table. “Angelica didn’t throw your coffee at you, did she?” He smirked.

  I chuckled. “No, although the mood she was in, I’m lucky she didn’t throw her teacup at my head. It was my stupid fault. I must’ve been distracted when I made my coffee spell. It didn’t appear on the table but above it. I think I’m just tired.”

  His brows drew down. “That doesn’t sound right. Unless you have practically no power left, that spell should just work. Even if you mumble, the magic knows what you want.”

  “Apparently, it wasn’t listening very well today.” I finished cleaning, rinsed the sponge out, and put it on the counter next to the sink. For safety’s sake, I stayed at the sink and said my spell again, this time adding the condition that the cup had to appear safely and upright in the sink—if I managed to stuff it up again, at least the mess would be contained.

  The cappuccino materialised, safe and sound in a mug in the ceramic bowl. Phew! I reached in and grabbed it, taking a sip to soothe my nerves. “Thank God that worked.”

  Will’s magic feathered my scalp, and pancakes, jam, and cream appeared on the table, along with two plates and knives and forks. I smiled and sat. “Why, thank you, kind sir.”

  He grinned. “My pleasure, my lady.” He took my hand and kissed it. Okay, so I giggled. I was such a sucker for a gentleman, especially if it was Will.

  I grabbed two pancakes and smothered them in jam and cream. My mouth watered—although it was closed so I didn’t hit anyone with my salivary excitement this time. I cut a piece and lifted the fork to my mouth. It smelled delicious. I popped it in. Mmm… I stopped midchew, gagged, and spat the pancake onto my plate. Oh my God!

  Will glared at me. “What are you doing?”

  I blinked and swigged some coffee. “‘How much salt did you put in there’ is not a question I should be asking of someone who just made pancakes. Are you trying to kill me?”

  He gave me a what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look and tasted it himself. His eyes almost bugged out of his head, but instead of spitting it out—he was too refined for that—he quickly swallowed and gulped down his own coffee.

  Angelica appeared at the door, her poker face stubbornly in place. “We need to talk.”

  I started laughing. Oh, God, the more I looked, the worse it became. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I guffawed. Will, the cool guy he was, just smirked. “I didn’t know you were a fan of Pikachu. If I’d known, I would’ve gotten you a Pikachu onesie for Christmas.”

  Angelica’s jaw muscle twitched, and if looks could kill, we’d both have been cremated on the spot. But what did she expect our reaction to be? She’d changed her coffee-stained work shirt to a white T-shirt that had a joyful, smiling Pikachu on the front. I stopped laughing long enough to say, “The Pika slippers are a nice touch.” The heat in her glare intensified, and I snorted. Oh, God, my stomach hurt. As I laughed, I held my hand to it.

  “Enough!” she yelled. Nooooo! I couldn’t stop laughing, and that had made it worse. I slid down my chair onto the floor. This was too much. Even Will couldn’t hold it in anymore and was cracking up, his dimples making a good showing.

  “Please?” Her plaintive tone brought me back to my senses. I’d never heard that from Angelica before—it was shocking that she even knew how to convey that tone.

  Wiping my arm across my face to remove the tears, I took a few breaths and clambered back into my chair. Setting eyes on that getup made me want to keep laughing, but I mashed my lips together and bit my tongue. She rolled her eyes. “For goodness’ sake. Get over it. I’m wearing childish clothes. Big deal. Now, can you tell me why this is a problem?” Her voice was back to its normal bossiness. Still, the question risked setting me off again. I was going to let Will answer.

  He schooled his expression until seriousness replaced mirth. The fun was over. “I take it you didn’t intentionally make your hair pink or… the other… stuff.” Thank goodness he didn’t spell it out, or I’d surely be done for again. I shut my eyes, just in case, blocking out Angelica and her cute attire.

  “No, I didn’t, and as clumsy and inexperienced as Lily is at times, I’ve never seen her botch a simple spell—well, except for that one time when she was first here. The point is, making coffee is new-witch stuff.” She just had to get that dig in there. Typical. Now I didn’t feel so bad about laughing.

  Will nodded. He rubbed his forehead. “My pancakes have too much salt, as in, an inedible amount. There’s definitely something going on.”

  Angelica gave a firm nod. “Right. I’m going to go upstairs and get changed. Then we’ll drive to t
he PIB. I’m not taking any chances.”

  Huh? “Are you saying that our magic’s been… compromised?”

  “Yes. I’ll leave Will to explain it to you. I suggest you both go and get dressed. We’ll need to leave ASAP since we can’t travel to work. I don’t want to be late.” She turned and strode out.

  I turned to Will. “Does that mean our bubble-of-silence spells won’t work?”

  “Not necessarily—some will work, and some probably won’t. Someone—most likely whoever attacked us yesterday—has infected us with a confuse-magic spell, which comes under curses in witch lore. They’re more than a simple spell. A curse, unlike a spell, will have continuing effects. A spell does whatever it does either right away or once, but a curse embeds in the witch’s magic until a cure can be found or the spell unravelled, but it’s tied off so it doesn’t drain the witches power. It’s created the same way a spell is, but with a twist, and it’s way more complicated to set up, which is why they’re not common. Does that make sense?”

  “As much as it’s ever going to. Is it easy to fix?” Magic was hard enough without it being super unpredictable. And we didn’t need RP being privy to everything we said and did. Even if it wasn’t them who’d done this to us, they would benefit from us turning into clumsy hacks.

  “It may be, but it may not. I can explain in the car. We’d better get dressed. We don’t want to keep Angelica waiting.” He winked and stood, then frowned at the table.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Should I risk cleaning this up with magic?”

  I sighed. “No. You might make a bigger mess. Come on—it won’t take long.” I grabbed the plate of pancakes and slid the salty mess into the bin before putting the plate in the dishwasher. Not using magic was going to be painful. I just had to hope it didn’t last too long, especially since RP now had the upper hand.

  I tried to put that out of my mind as I loaded cutlery into the dishwasher—I didn’t need to stress myself into a frenzy. Stay positive, Lily. This had to be a record for how fast my day had devolved. Let’s hope it didn’t continue, or none of us would see tomorrow at the rate things were going. Positive, I said. But some things were easier said than done.

  Chapter 4

  Because of the new development, when we got to the PIB, Ma’am delayed the start of the meeting in the lecture hall. She wanted to liaise with James, Will, and a couple of other agents before she addressed everyone. The halls were teeming with agents in uniform. Even though they were short-staffed, they looked to have a healthy number of employees. I’d never seen so many agents in the building. I guessed that made sense since they all did shift work. Because everyone was busy, and I wasn’t included, I decided to attempt breakfast again.

  I found a table in the cafeteria to sit at and enjoy another coffee and a ham-and-cheese croissant. Most of the tables were full, for a change—likely others were in the same predicament we’d been in—magicking an inedible breakfast. Unlike in Costa, no one was laughing. Longing for the warm, vibrant café filled me. It had become part of my routine, and part of what it meant to be home and happy. How strange that your life could completely change, and within a few months, it became the new normal. Unfortunately, danger and wonky magic were today’s new normal, and I didn’t want to get used to that.

  This issue was serious. How would they catch witch criminals without having reliable witch power of their own? And how vulnerable were my family, friends, and I to the whims of RP? The croissant wasn’t giving me as much joy as it should with all the worry clouding my brain. What a waste of a flaky, yummy croissant.

  This glitching of everyone’s magic would also put a halt to figuring out and neutralising my tattoo. I shook my head. My “stay positive” mantra was not going to cut it today. I sighed and drank the last of my coffee. Thinking was not a good idea. Maybe I could read. Oh, nope. I hadn’t brought my iPad, and I hated reading on my phone. There was no way I was going to try and magic my iPad to myself—I’d probably break it. Not having magic was way more of an issue than I’d ever realised…. I guessed I’d never really thought about it too much, or if I had, it was in extreme situations where I hadn’t actually had a chance to miss it yet.

  “Hey, Lily.” Olivia sat opposite me.

  I smiled. “Hey! How are you feeling today?” It was good to see my best friend. I missed living with her.

  “I’m okay. A bit tired. How are you? Have you had any… accidents today?”

  She must be referring to my magic. “Yeah. What did B do?” He must’ve had an issue this morning since he was at the PIB yesterday.

  She grinned. “It was hilarious. We’re lucky no one else was around because he magicked his clothes on, and that was fine, but two minutes later, they disappeared, leaving him buck naked. We were just about to leave and travel here.” She giggled.

  My mouth dropped open. “Oh my God.” I laughed. “That would’ve been funny.”

  “So what happened at your place this morning?” I recapped this morning’s shenanigans, and she laughed. “Ha! Lucky Ma’am’s wardrobe issues were just Pikachu related.”

  I snorted. “I do not want to see her naked. That would’ve been mortifying.”

  We laughed for a minute, and when she’d finally calmed down, she said, “It’s been a madhouse since that breach yesterday. I assume you know they stole some things?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. The whole thing’s scary. If they’re capable of that….” We looked at each other, neither of us willing to finish the sentence.

  Someone shouted profanities. Liv and I sat up straight and jerked our gazes to the kitchen behind the counter. Crockery smashed on the tiled floor in there, and two chefs had run to the counter. Another crash came from the cooking area. The chefs looked at each other, one gesticulating. The word “Idiot” was also shouted. Magic tingled my scalp, then more magic. Looked like they were trying to get whatever it was under control.

  Oh, crap.

  I stood, my mouth dropping open. The two chefs ran around the counter to the café side because they were being pushed out of the way by a giant… omelette? I sniffed the air. Yep, it smelled like one, and it was yellow with bits of bacon, onion, and tomato visible in its giant pillowy folds. It was slowly consuming the kitchen and counter area. Oops, there went the cash register.

  A more powerful burst of magic and the omelette stopped expanding, but it was still there. The taller chef put his hands on his hips and stared at the other chef, whose white hat was skew-whiff on his head. He folded his arms. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “I told you not to use magic after the bacon disaster this morning, and then there was the orange-juice flood. How many times do I have to tell you? No magic!”

  Dong, dong, dong, dong. It was as if we were in the airport, and an important announcement was coming. The two chefs stopped their altercation and looked up at the speakers. Ma’am’s voice filled the room. Oh, so it was an announcement. “PIB agents, your presence is now required in the lecture hall. The meeting will begin in five minutes. Don’t. Be. Late.”

  Liv stood, as did everyone else in the cafeteria who wasn’t already standing ogling the omelette catastrophe—no one wanted to incur Ma’am’s wrath… sensible, really. People started filing out, and Liv and I followed.

  The lecture hall was located on basement level one. Rather than having hundreds of people wait for the lift, security had propped open the fire exit doors. Liv and I took the stairs.

  The large black door to the hall opened to the top and very left of the tiered seating, which cascaded over thirty rows towards the lower-level stage. The rows held twenty-two seats each. Dimly lit, it was like being at the movies. Liv led the way to one of the lower-level rows, and we nabbed seats in the middle. Low murmurs hummed in the large space as hundreds of agents in uniform took their seats.

  Ma’am stepped onto the stage from between black curtains. She approached the lectern, which already had a glass of water on it. Situating herself behind the lectern, she tapped
the microphone. Feedback squealed through the speakers. A roomful of groans told her what we all thought about that.

  Her smirk was clear from where I sat. Typical.

  Before Ma’am had to ask us to be quiet, the room hushed, such was her formidable presence. She nodded, satisfaction radiating from her face. “Thank you for joining me here today for this extraordinary PIB meeting. As agents, you’ve dedicated yourself to the betterment of the world and the upholding of justice. The PIB has put away thousands of criminals, but there are, unfortunately, always more. And none as formidable as those we now face. But as capable as they’ve been so far, we will prevail. As you may have heard, the frenzy of theft yesterday was orchestrated in order to virtually empty this building of agents. The ploy worked—three powerful artefacts were stolen from one of our safes, and any agent who had attended this site yesterday was infected with a confuse-magic curse spell.” She paused and took a sip of water. “So, you may ask, how are we dealing with this security breach and compromise of our power? Any agents who have magic that is misbehaving is now on desk duties. There were some agents in the field on unrelated cases who were not called back yesterday. They remain uninfected and will stay with their cases. Two of our doctors who had RDOs yesterday are also uninfected, and they are currently working to ascertain a cure. Until that cure is realised, I would ask everyone to refrain from travelling and using your magic in any way—we have enough trouble without adding to it.” She wasn’t wrong there, although that giant omelette could have fed a village of starving people. “In the meantime, you will await the announcement of your name over the loudspeaker. Once the cure is found, we will call you in one by one. As for dealing with these criminals, we are still working that out. Please get to any unfinished paperwork you have—make the most of your time in this building. If I have any research assignments for you, you will find them in your email as the day progresses. I’m not taking any questions. That is all.”