As Kyran made his way back towards The White Tree, Mr. Meowgi and I walked back home.
“Well, that was far less of an adventure than I had been hoping for,” Mr. Meowgi complained.
“Hey, they can’t all be super exciting,” I said. “Besides, you never know what’s going to happen at my party tomorrow. Although honestly, I’d be very okay with it if it ended up being the most boring party ever and nothing interesting happened.”
“It certainly sounds like it’s going to be boring,” Mr. Meowgi said. “You should have asked me what movie you were going to play; I’d have said The Karate Kid in a heartbeat.”
“Well, if it goes well and this becomes a regular thing, then you’ll probably get your wish eventually,” I said with a wink.
I really, really hoped this went well. While a part of me was excited, a part of me was also a little bit scared. After all, I was still very new in town, and I wasn’t sure that throwing myself out there and making a huge mark in the community straight away was the best idea.
Still, it was too late to turn back now. I was dedicated, and I was going to do my best to do this right.
Chapter 21
As soon as I got home, I found Amy, Sara, and Ellie in the living room, all of them looking intently at the TV.
I had never really gotten a good look at a paranormal TV; up until now I had kind of assumed that it was exactly the same as a regular human TV. However, the screen had grown to take up almost the entire wall of the room, and everything was three-dimensional; it was more like watching a play than watching a screen.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I tried to make sense of the scene in front of me. It looked like a shot from in front of Hexpresso Bean. In fact, I was almost certain that was where it was from.
“Chief Enforcer King is arresting Farawir,” Amy said in a hushed whisper. I turned the screen to watch. Sure enough, while it wasn’t super noticeable because the camera was so far away, Chief Enforcer King’s blonde hair stood out anyway. She was leading away an elf who looked suspiciously like Farawir as others looked on. A minute later, the camera turned to a fairy with a blond bob and gold glasses that matched her wings.
“We have just seen the startling images of the elf Farawir, son of recently murdered community stalwart Lorondir, being arrested for the murder of his father. This is happening live, right in downtown Western Woods. I’m going to make my way towards Chief Enforcer King to see if she has any more information.”
I turned to Sara. “This is great news for you, at least. Now you can go back to your job, right?”
“I hope so,” Sara said, allowing herself the glimpse of a smile. “I actually did enjoy the job. It was nice, being able to use my broom for something.”
“You really should thank Amy for this,” I said. “It’s all because she was studying law in the coven library that this happened at all.”
Ellie gave me a strange look. “There are no books about law in the coven library; that’s not something witches study at all.”
I looked over at Amy, and noticed the blush creeping up the back of her neck. I grinned.
“You snuck into the elf library to study law, didn’t you?”
The other two girls gasped, as if this was the most surprising thing they had ever heard in their lives.
“Did you really?” Sara asked, her mouth agape.
“I knew she wanted to be a lawyer!” Ellie shouted triumphantly. “And I also knew she had a bit of a rebellious streak in her.”
Amy scowled. “Fine, so I don’t think that education should be limited to a certain species. Is that so much to ask?”
I grinned. Amy was definitely starting to come around. And now, with the murder of Lorondir solved, I could focus on the party.
“I organized the movie for tomorrow,” I said. “We’re going to be watching Spice World.”
“Ooh, is that a movie about the spice islands in the East?” Amy asked, and I shot her a look.
“First of all, I don’t think anybody has called them the spice islands in like three hundred years, at least, and secondly no, it’s a movie about pop stars in England.”
“Oh,” Amy said, looking a little bit dejected. Ellie laughed.
“I think it sounds awesome,” she said. “I’ll make some extra cinnamon buns at work tomorrow and bring them along. You have any idea how many people are going to come?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea. The vampires will know about it, but whether or not anybody will show up is a whole different story. We’ll see. I’m not getting my hopes up; honestly I’d be really happy if there were like, ten people there.”
Sara nodded. “Good idea, keep your expectations low, just in case. Besides, no matter what, we are going to be there, and I know we’re going to have fun.”
“Thanks,” I said to my friends. I was really glad that no matter what, I knew I could always count on them.
The next morning Amy was gone somewhere - probably the library - by the time I had woken up, Ellie was at her job at Hexpresso Bean, and Sara left me a note that she had gone back to the law firm to see if she was rehired now that Farawir had been arrested for the murder and she was no longer a suspect.
I poured myself a bowl of cereal and tried to quell the nerves that were building up inside of me despite everything. After a while, there was a knock at the door, and Kyran came by with a large projector, a DVD player, a copy of Spice World on DVD, and instructions on how to use all of it.
“This is awesome,” I said with a grin as I connected everything in the living room and shone the projector onto the wall. “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t mention it,” Kyran said, shaking his head. “This is for a good cause.”
“Are you going to come tonight?”
Kyran shook his head. “Believe me, if I thought that it would in any way improve things, I would be there. But I think given my position in this society, an appearance by me can only harm your cause.”
Disappointment welled up inside of me, despite everything. “That’s too bad,” I said. “I would have liked for you to be there.”
“Well, maybe one day things will get good enough that I’ll be able to show my face in public without everyone looking at me with scorn and ridicule. But, we’re not quite there yet.”
“If you’re sure, then,” I said, trying to hide the disappointment in my voice.
“Trust me, it’s for the best. I hope it goes off really well for you, I’ll be cheering for you.”
“Thanks,” I said with a smile. After Kyran left I familiarized myself with the projector even further and started to really get ready for my event that night.
By the time 8 o’clock rolled around, I was a mess. I hadn’t organized an event well, ever, and I had absolutely underestimated how much work was going to go into it. Luckily, magic made things a lot easier.
Amy came back home at around five and went down to the gardens with me; Sara followed after us with all of the movie equipment, and the two of us got started while Ellie stayed at home to take care of the last of the food and drinks.
“Are you going to have chairs?” Amy asked as we made our way to a large clearing in the garden. I figured this was a nice place to have the movie; the lake was just to the left of the clearing which gave a great view over the rest of the park while leaving plenty of space in case by some miracle half the town showed up.
“I don’t know,” I said, my heart sinking. I hadn’t even thought of chairs. How on earth was I going to get dozens of them ready now? “I guess chairs would be good; or maybe I could try to find some blankets last second so people could just sit down on the grass?”
Amy pointed to the grass and a couple of seconds later about a dozen extra-large picnic blankets appeared out of nowhere. She moved her wand a little bit and a dozen lawn chairs suddenly manifested themselves on the lawn as well.
“There. Now you have both: anyone who wants to sit down on the grass can do so, and if you have some older people
who would rather sit on a chair, then they’re covered as well.”
I looked at Amy, gratitude written all over my face. “Thank you so much,” I said. “I don’t even know what I would do without you.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have a screen to project the movie onto, either,” Amy laughed, pointing her wand to the clearing and making a huge, white screen appear out of nowhere as well. I shook my head, incredulous.
“That’s amazing.”
“If you continue your studies, and if we eventually discover which coven you belong to, there’s no reason why you won’t be able to do this as well.”
I nodded, but the idea still seemed so far out into the future that it didn’t seem real. I was still working on learning really basic spells; making stuff appear out of nowhere definitely didn’t seem like it was going to happen anytime soon.
“This is set up as well,” Sara said, motioning towards the projector. “Ellie just texted, she’s coming over now with all the food.”
Everything was really coming together.
An hour later, as the sun was really setting and we were definitely in the twilight period, I started to get a little bit antsy. After all, I had told the other girls to let people know to get here after the sunset, and I really hoped that at least a few people would show up.
“It’s going to be fine, people will come,” Amy said.
“We told a lot of people,” Ellie said. “Trust me, a few will show up.”
I was just starting to lose hope as dusk turned into a true night and Amy set up some fairy lights around the space. No one was coming after all.
Then, out of nowhere, I began to hear the sound of voices. I looked to see where they were coming from, and found Bluebell, one of the fairies who worked at Hexpresso Bean, making her way over with four other fairies in tow. One of them was Aurora, one of the other fairies who worked at the coffee shop, but I didn’t recognize the other two.
“Tina, thank you so much for doing this,” Bluebell said, as she and her crew made her way over to me.
“Of course,” I smiled. “I thought it would be really fun for everyone to watch a human movie.”
“I’ve never seen one,” one of the other fairies said, her red wings fluttering excitedly behind her. “I’m very excited.”
Just then, Maria Grecu, the vampire who was currently on trial for biting people, came out of the woods as well. She looked a little bit nervous, and when she saw that there were no other vampires around it looked like she was going to turn and walk away, but Ellie quickly made her way towards her and assured her that she was totally welcome.
It looked like we weren’t going to have zero turnout after all.
After I made sure that the fairies were nicely settled on some of the picnic blankets, I turned to find Jackson Lupo, the head of the shifters, standing on the edge of the woods, and my heart skipped a beat. Jackson was tall, blonde, and every bit the strong lion shifter. He strode towards me with confidence, a smile on his face.
“When I heard the new witch in town was having a party, I figured I had to come by and make an appearance,” he told me.
“Thanks for coming,” I stammered. “I hope you like the movie.”
“I think you’ll find that my taste in movies is very broad,” Jackson said with a smile. “I think a few others from my tribe are coming along as well.”
Before I knew it, there were thirty people all milling around. Sure, no one was mingling with one another – the fairies were speaking with the fairies, Maria had found a second vampire who had shown up, and that sort of thing – but the point was, everyone was here together for now.
Even a few elves had shown up – Manarwa, from the law firm, was here with Lorondir’s sister Elawa.
“Alright, everyone, we’re going to get going in a few minutes, if everyone wants to find a seat,” Ellie called out to the crowd. Slowly but surely, all of the paranormals made their way to the seats in front of the projector, and I moved in front of the screen. After all, I figured that at the very least I should say a few words before the movie started.
“Hey everyone,” I started. “I wanted to thank you all for coming to my movie night. As most of you know, I’m definitely new in town, and I’m from the human world where we have a bunch of great movies that apparently none of you have ever seen. So, I figured I would fix that by having movie nights here in the coven gardens every so often and I wanted to thank you all for coming. I hope you’ll enjoy the movie.”
I motioned to Sara, who was standing behind the projector, and she started playing the film.
Chapter 22
To my surprise, absolutely everybody seemed to love Spice World. Raucous laughter poured from the crowd appropriately, and I had to admit, I was very much enjoying this movie as well. It had been quite a few years since I had last seen it, and despite the fact that it was very 90s, it held up surprisingly well for being a twenty-year-old movie.
The movie definitely had its intended effect: when it had finished, all of the paranormals made their way towards the table where Ellie had left out all of the food, and to my immense joy, I couldn’t help but notice that the different paranormals were even speaking to one another.
“I loved the bit where they all fell out of the boat,” Bluebell said to one of the other fairies.
“That was absolutely my favorite bit as well,” Maria Grecu said, and the fairies all moved to let her into the circle.
“Posh Spice being angry about her dress being dry cleaned only was phenomenal,” Bluebell said. This was really happening; the movie had broken the ice between all of the paranormals, and they were now interacting normally instead of adhering to the super strict hierarchy that seemed to dominate life here in Western Woods.
Maybe there was hope yet; maybe my plan was actually going to work. Sure, I wasn’t going to change paranormal minds overnight; one night with the Spice Girls, as awesome as it was, wasn’t going to be enough to destroy a hierarchy that had existed for thousands of years, but slowly, I was going to chip away at this outdated ideal that the different species of paranormals were too different from one another to truly be integrated together.
I noticed a rustling in the woods, and suddenly Kyran appeared from behind a tree. He had been here after all. I smiled and grinned, but he simply held up a finger to his lips, winked, and turned away. He wasn’t going to make a public appearance, but he had been here, and that made me happy.
“I’m going to head home,” Sara said a few minutes later, coming towards me. I had just finished having a conversation with Manarwa and Lorondir’s sister, Elawa, thanking them for coming. They had told me that while the movie wasn’t their usual style, they had very much enjoyed it. “After all, it turns out that I might have another job lined up on top of the one at the law firm.”
“Really?” I asked, a smile crossing my face. Everything was coming up Sara right now, and I didn’t know anyone who deserved it more.
“Yeah,” she replied. “I got my old job back at the law firm, but I was at the post office this morning dropping off some papers for one of the lawyers, and I spoke to the lady there who told me that they could use someone like me for emergencies.”
“Emergencies?”
“Yeah, like when all the owls are out of commission for a few days because there’s an illness, like what happened earlier this week.”
Right. The post office owls. I made a mental note to make my way over there; I wanted to see just how similar to Harry Potter it really was.
“That’s great news,” I said to Sara. “Thanks so much for all the help tonight. We’ll have to go out and celebrate at some point when all four of us have an evening off.”
“Oh, it’s nothing that good,” Sara said, a blush rising up her face. I had a feeling Sara really wasn’t used to getting praised all that much. I made my way over to her and gave her a hug.
“I’m super proud of you; I’m so glad you’re finding your place in this world.”
When I pulled aw
ay, I couldn’t help but notice Sara’s eyes glimmering in the glow of the lights Amy had put up, and I realized just how affected she was by my words.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said with a wave before heading on back home.
All of a sudden, a chill ran through my spine. Everything made sense, and I realized that Farawir hadn’t killed Lorondir.
I had to find Chief Enforcer King, and I had to find her now.
I made my way over to Ellie, who I knew had the day off the next day. “Hey, sorry to bail like this but you mind taking care of everything for a little bit? I swear, it’s super important.”
“Sure,” Ellie said with a nod. “Do what you need to do.”
“Thanks, I owe you one,” I said, running off in the direction of town. After all, Chief Enforcer King would most likely be at her office at this time of night, right? Well, okay, she was probably home, but someone at her office would be the best way for me to find out where she lived.
As I raced through the forest, I suddenly heard a voice calling out behind me.
“Tina, excuse me, Tina.”
I stopped to see who was calling after me, and as soon as I did, my blood ran cold. It was Elawa, the very person I was about to go tell Chief Enforcer King was a murderer.
“Hi, Elawa. What can I do for you?” Elves had a real intuition-based magic, and I did my best to not think of her as a murderer, and to keep my thoughts light and airy. After all, while elves couldn’t read thoughts directly, they could definitely feel a person’s energy.
“I couldn’t help but notice you running off,” Elawa said. “Is everything alright?”
“Of course,” I said with what I hoped looked like an easy smile. “I just remembered that I forgot something at home, and so the other girls are taking care of cleaning up for me.”
“I see. So it didn’t have anything to do with that conversation you just had with your friend?”
“What conversation?” I asked with a tilt my head.
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