WICCA was a great place. I loved working there more than the law firm, and when I turn 30 in a few years, Mrs. Coe is going to sign it over to me, and I can call it my own. In the meantime, I was padding my bank account with the higher paycheck from the law firm.
"Hi Dear." Mrs. Coe said, coming out of the backroom. Mrs. Coe was an older woman, in her mid to late 80s though she did not look a day over 45 -- perks of being a witch. Depending on how well one took care of themselves, a witch could live to about 150-200 years.
We aged so slow. Not as slow as halflings, but slow enough. Mrs. Coe liked to joke that she used to be 5'10, but with age, she shrunk to 5'5, but I know she's lying. Her skin was a deep dark brown, but when she smiled, you could see the bronze undertones in her cheeks.
Mrs. Coe was my saving grace; she was the reason I was able to find my way around the magical world. I might take credit for it all on my own, but honestly, if Mrs. Coe hadn't helped me along the way, who knows where I would be. She took me in when I turned 18 after I was kicked out of my foster family's home.
Mrs. Coe had owned WICCA for the last 30 years. She started WICCA after her husband died using inferior products to brew a healing potion. She told me he was trying to cure a simple head cold, but because they were sold expired ingredients, the potion reacted badly in his system. He died a painfully slow death as a result. After that experience, she wanted to make sure no one else would ever suffer the way she did, nor have to deal with inferior products.
Mrs. Coe made sure that she not only used the best ingredients but that she provided them at an affordable price. She told me it took her a long time to get to this point. When she first opened the shop, the major suppliers refused to work with her, an Unbound owner, so Mrs. Coe decided to work with Unbounds to help Unbounds. She made contact with a few small Unbound magicals out of state who grew what she needed, and in a matter of years, she was able to turn the fortune around for herself and her suppliers.
WICCA wasn't large – only about 1200 square feet – but the walls were lined with hundreds, actually thousands of jars of different ingredients. The store had a huge following within the Unbound Community. It was a place where Unbounds could come and know they would be treated with respect.
Finding this place when I was a teen was a godsend. Like Ciders, WICCA is only visible to those with magical blood in their system. Once I crossed the threshold, it felt as though I was home; it was the confirmation that in needed after years of thinking I was crazy. I finally knew and understood what I was, and, in the process, I found my family. Mrs. Coe, she wasn’t just my boss, she was my mother in all the ways that mattered to me. She took me in and helped me grow in ways my foster family never could.
"How was your week?" She asked as I walked behind the counter. I dropped my bag on the little shelf and gave her a tight hug. "It was work, not much else to say. It pays the bills. How was your week?"
"My week was just fine. You know I worry about you at that place. Are they still treating you good?" She asked, and I had to smile – she asked the same question every week. I could understand her concern. While things weren’t great for Unbounds in the magical world, they were a lot worse when Mrs. Coe grew up.
"Yeah, they are,” I assured her. “I'm not miss popular, but I'm not openly disrespected, and the people are generally nice." I didn’t tell her that I wasn't ever invited out to lunch, and most of the time, people didn't talk to me if they could avoid it.
"I'm glad," she smiled as she patted my arm. "I don't think today will be too busy. With the snow from last night, I think most people will stay in."
"I think you’re probably are right." I agreed.
~
My head snapped up at the sound of the bell on the front door ringing, alerting me someone entered the store. "Hi. Welcome to Wicca." I greeted the small woman as she brushed fresh snow from her coat and wiped her boots on the welcome mat. "How are you today?"
"I'm well." She smiled as she looked through the shop.
"Is there anything I can help you with?" I asked.
"No, no," she said as she waved me off. "I'm just looking around; my aunt comes here sometimes. She said that you guys have the best protection potions. It's my turn to do the potion for the family compound, and I figured I could use a little help."
"Oh, well, tell your aunt we said thank you, and the potions are off to your right." I pointed to the side of her.
"Great, thank you," she said, turning towards the potions.
I let her look around as I fell back into my thoughts. She looked around for another ten minutes until she came to the front with ten potions in hand.
"That's a big compound," I noted as I started ringing the bottles up.
"Yea, we live in five brownstones a few blocks from here, and I like to double up on potions."
"I don't blame you," I smiled. "You can never be too careful. That will be $90.13."
"Not bad." She dug into her purse and grabbed a crisp $100-dollar bill.
"Thank you," I said as I gave her her change. I snapped my fingers, and the bottles wrapped themselves in bubble wrap and placed themselves neatly in a paper brown bag.
"You are saving me hours of brewing. Thank you so much." She took the bag and stuffed it in her large purse.
"It's what we do." I smiled and waved goodbye as she left the shop.
"How is it going out there?" Mrs. Coe said as she came up from the back of the room.
"It's fine, Mrs. Coe," I answered. "I'm going to have to stay late and prep the base to some protection potions. We are running low. The woman who just left bought ten, and we won't have enough to fill our standing orders at the end of the week." I explained.
"How late?" She asked. "You know I don't like you working late."
"Eh, it's ok," I said. "You know I rather work late than come in early; I have a system."
"Sure." She laughed, leaning on the doorframe. "Are you avoiding Dessen?"
Dessen was my vampire neighbor. Fun fact: vampires only needed about an hour of sleep a week to function. Which meant Dessen liked to hang out late. Real late.
"I am not avoiding anyone; I just want to make sure we have enough potions for the end of the week."
"Ok, but I want you gone by ten. Portal home when you're done."
"Are you sure? You never like for me to use my portals."
"I don't like the thought of you walking home late at night, not with all the attacks. Are you good to close up on your own?"
I checked my watch: 7:50. The shop closed in ten minutes anyway. "Yes, I'm good."
"Good." She smiled. "I'm tired. I'm going to take these old bones to bed."
"You're barely eighty-four, and you don't look a day over forty-five," I teased.
"Well, I feel like I’m a hundred and five." She yawned before turning from me. "Goodnight. I'll open the store tomorrow; you can come in around ten."
"Perfect!" I called after her while doing a mental happy dance. I hated the morning shift. Now don't get me wrong, I was more a morning person than a night owl, but I didn't like to work first thing in the morning on the weekends. I liked to sleep in as much as I could on Saturday and Sunday. I needed the time to rest from my week at the firm, and I couldn't do any of that if I had the morning shift.
Once the clock struck 8pm on the dot, I started locking up. With a wave of my hand, the doors and windows locked, and the lights dimmed. I grabbed the till and counted the day’s receipts and the money in the register. As always, the funds matched. I placed the money in the bag and locked it in the safe, and headed to the basement, where we kept all of our potion-making equipment.
There were potions for everything a person could need. A witch by themselves, without a potion, could move an object with their mind or create a force field if required. We could also create and use the four elements at will, but to do anything else, we needed potions. I could make anything from love potions to hair loss potions, and everything in between, but I was great at protection potions.
/>
I walked down the stairs and pulled out my large cast-iron pots and placed them on the small flame stands. I grabbed my ingredients and laid them out in front of me, making a mental note of what I needed to restock before the week was out and got to work.
I lost track of time because before I knew it, I heard footsteps coming down the staircase.
"Olivia? Why are you still here?" I looked up and saw Mrs. Coe coming down the stairs wrapped up in her robe.
I glanced down at my watch. It was 11:05. "Oh crap, I'm sorry," I said, looking up. "I lost track of time."
"Yes, I see that." She nodded to the many potions around me. "You should have been gone an hour ago."
I laughed. "Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am avoiding Dessen."
Mrs. Coe just smiled and shook her head. "Get out of here. Go home and get some rest."
"I am," I said, feeling a yawn come. "Let me just pack this up, and I'll head out. I'll only need about another ten minutes."
"Promise?" She asked.
"I promise," I smiled. "You know most employers would love for their employees to do this much work off the clock."
"Well, I like my employees to have their own lives." She replied. "But," she hesitated slightly, before walking over to the small desk in the basement. She pulled out a drawer and pulled out a stack of papers. "You know, when you turn thirty, I will sign WICCA over to you."
"Yes, I remember. Just a little under five years until I turn thirty," I smiled.
"Yes, that’s right." She smiled. "But I was talking to a lawyer-"
"Talking or yelling." I laughed as I cut her off. Mrs. Coe never liked dealing with those who practiced law. Said they practiced lying for a profession.
"Talking, young lady, and don't think you are too old for me to take over my knee." She gave me her best “don't talk back to me” look, and I was not ashamed to say it still worked on me. "But as I was saying, I was talking to a lawyer, and he suggested that while I'm getting up in age-"
"You're not," I muttered under my breath, but she ignored my interruption and kept explaining.
"-that it is better to have all my wishes written on paper just in case anything happens to me."
"But nothing is going to happen to you," I replied.
"I know, but I'm thinking ahead," she smiled and gave me a slight nod, "and on the very off chance, anything does happen to me, I want it on paper that the store will go to you." She said before laying the stack in front of me.
"Oh, ok," I said as I looked down at the mound of papers. "Do I just sign?"
"Right here." She pointed to the line at the bottom of the page and handed me a pen she took from the desk.
"Ok, fine." I skimmed through a couple pages. I kept seeing words like “assignment,” “transfer,” “conveyance” - the usual contract jargon I was familiar with. I signed on every page that had a “sign here” sticky on it.
"Thank you," she said once I finished. She waved her hand once more, and the papers righted themselves back into a perfect stack. She picked up the stack and placed it back in the small desk. "I'll take it over to him next Monday to file." She turned back to me. "Now, young lady, you need to get out of here."
"I still need to bottle the potions," I said as I motioned to the pots in front of me.
"Dessen must want to go dancing." Mrs. Coe just laughed. "Spostare trasferire," she muttered and gave a little wave of her hand. Immediately empty bottles flew off the shelf and started filling themselves.
I grabbed my bag and walked over to the door we installed in the basement. Mrs. Coe wanted me to take a portal home, and portals were sometimes tricky. When I made my first one at 17, Mrs. Coe made me promise never to tell anyone I could. Portal openers were very rare, and there hadn't been one in years. They were highly coveted, generally not by good people. I could pop in, and out of anywhere I wanted to.
Let me tell you, the first couple of times I did it, I was utterly freaked out. One moment I’m running late to work, rushing out of my foster home wishing for an on-time train, and the next, I’m walking into WICCA, staring Mrs. Coe in the face. She explained what she thought I was, a portal maker, rare and dangerous. I didn’t try a portal again for a while, on purpose, but there were plenty of accidents. It took a while before I got the hang of it. I learned very early on portals took a lot of energy to create. Doorways were easier to control, I could anchor my portal in it, and it took a quarter of the power to do so.
I grabbed the handle and felt my necklace heat up as the magic flowed through me. I felt it envelop the doorframe until it glowed.
"Oh, don't forget to tell Clive and Dessen I would like to have them over for dinner on Thursday night." Mrs. Coe said behind me.
"No problem. See you tomorrow." I said, opening the door and coming face to face with my bathroom.
"See you tomorrow. Good night Olivia."
I walked through the doorframe and turned. "Good night," I said before closing the door. I released the door handle, and the door stopped glowing, signaling the portal was closed.
It was on nights like this, as sleep started to claim me, that I was happy I was a portal maker. I walked into my bedroom, dropped my bag on the floor, and changed into my nightclothes. I crawled under my sheets, and before I knew it, I was sleep.
THREE
The rest of the weekend went by in a short blur, and before I knew it, it was Monday, and I was back in the office at Sanders & Angell.
It had been a slow morning, thankfully. I hummed at my desk as I shuffled papers around, trying to make myself look busy. It wasn't that I didn't have work to do... it's just that my head wasn't in the game. I mean, it was Monday.
I shook my head and tried to clear my thoughts, but I couldn’t focus – all I could think about was WICCA. It was amazing to think in a few short years, I would be running the store. I already knew what I was going to improve upon and how I’d bring the store into the current century. Even though I had everything figured out, Mrs. Coe wouldn't let me implement any of my plans until I took the store over.
But I couldn't think of that now, I still needed this job for the foreseeable future. I needed to buckle down and get some work done before my day job fired me for daydreaming about my dream job. I checked my email and groaned. My boss sent me an email 10 minutes ago, requesting to see me.
My boss, Stephen McDaniel, was an overall nice guy, but he was completely cut and dry. I liked that about him; he wasn't a hard ass; he just wanted the work done correctly. He wasn't a senior partner in the law firm, and I think he liked it that way. He had been a junior partner for the last ten years and worked hard to keep it that way. I never knew why he kept refusing a promotion, and I never asked.
I stood up and smooth out my skirt and walked to his office, struggling to keep my nerves at bay. With him, you never knew if it was a good thing or a bad thing to be called into his office.
"Mr. McDaniel?" I knocked on his opened door, alerting him to my presence before walking in. He was sitting at his desk, staring at some contracts, his reading glasses perched upon his head. The sleeves of his white oxford shirt were rolled up to his forearms. Stephen was in his mid to late 40s, but as you know, black don't crack, and with a little help from being a wizard, he didn't look a day over 25. Most of the younger new hires tried to get him to notice them, but from the moment he stepped in the office to the moment he stepped out, he was all business. It didn't help that he worked out regularly, his muscles always bulged under his shirts.
He had a neatly trimmed beard, full lips, a nose that was almost too perfect for his face, and to top it off, he had light brown eyes. Not hazel, but a beautiful light brown that contrasted perfectly with his darker skin tone. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes, Ms. London, come in." He looked up and motioned to the chair in front of his desk. I quickly crossed the small office and sat down as he pushed what he was looking over aside. "Let me start by saying the work you have done here has been a great help to not just myself but the company
as well."
"Oh no," I whispered, unable to stop myself as dread filled my stomach like sour milk.
He paused, hearing my outburst, and a small frown settled on his face. "I'm sorry, Olivia."
"Seriously?" I asked, trying my very hardest to remain calm. Why was I getting fired? Stephen did not have the power to fire people, so I know this decision did not come from him.
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "They told me they need to make cutbacks, that they are downsizing your department."
"So, I guess I drew the short stick." I forced out a dry laugh, but I knew it was really about the fact I was Unbound. I guess they no longer wanted me here.
"I'm so sorry, Olivia. You will receive your severance package, your next six months will be paid, and I am happy to write a reference when you may need one." He offered.
"Well, what now?" I fought back the tears. I didn't completely love my job, and I always knew it was temporary, but I was proud of myself in surviving here.
He looked down at his watch. "Everyone is at lunch right now. I wanted to do it now so you could leave when there were fewer people here. Also, so you wouldn't waste your Monday here." He gave me a soft smile.
I nodded, appreciating his small gesture that would save me some embarrassment. I knew some of my coworkers would love a chance to gossip about this. To laugh at the Unbound witch being put in her place. At least this way, I wouldn’t have to see or hear the snickers as I left.
He picked up a folder from his side and handed it to me. "This is your termination letter." I swallowed thickly and took the envelope and opened it. I gave the paper a once over before signing at the bottom as a tear dropped on the page. "I'm sorry," I said as I hastily wiped the stray tears away. I didn’t want anyone to see me crying and mistake it for weakness. I Wouldn’t let them think I was weak. I knew I never planned to stay here forever, but I always thought that my time there would end on my own terms. Not that I would end up fired.
Ahmentree's Magic Page 2
