Cozy Witch

by Tess Lake

  It was still reasonably early in the morning, before visiting hours, but I wanted to be sure I could talk to Harry without being interrupted by any nurses or doctors, so I found a chair in the room and used it to block the door.

  Using what felt to be the last of my energy, I also magically locked the door behind me.

  I looked over at Harry lying in his bed. He was covered in a thin white sheet up to his waist. I could see that both his legs had been bandaged as well as one arm and up his neck. He had one pale arm resting on top of the bed sheets with an IV line in it.

  I crept over to get a closer look and that’s when I saw the blue tattooed lines running down the back of that hand. They went up to about his wrist where they were then covered by what looked like makeup that must have been wiped away sometime last night. I’d seen that pale hand and blue tattoo before… on Hannibal Blood.

  “The tattoo isn’t real either,” a croaky voice said from next to me.

  I jumped and turned to see Harry watching me. He had one blue eye and one brown eye.

  “You’re Hannibal Blood? And Harry Sparkle?” I blurted out, my heart still hammering my chest.

  Harry reached up into his eye and pulled out a blue contact lens.

  “You’re that girl who was chasing me the other day. The one who was with Red. Is this a scheme to reveal who I am?” Harry asked.

  “I’m not crazy,” I said and realized a moment later that’s exactly what someone who was crazy would say.

  “They put the nurse call button on the wrong side, so I don’t think I can get them in here that quick… so if you’re here to murder me go right ahead,” Harry said.

  “I’m not here to murder you. Why would you think that? I do have some questions,” I said.

  Harry looked at me as though he was considering whether he should lunge for the nurse call button. Then he smiled. He appeared to be Harry Sparkle again, happy and joyous despite the fact he was wounded and bandaged.

  “Sorry, someone attacked me so I’m a little jumpy. Ask away,” he murmured.

  A lie came to me so fast I felt as though my brain had been preparing it during the night and had only now revealed it to me.

  “My name is Harlow Torrent and I’m a journalist, I work for myself and also for another paper in town, The Harlot Bay Times. Not so long ago a man named Carl Stern was attacked in the middle of the night. He claimed he had seen a monster, but then he didn’t stay in hospital long. He discharged himself and you, or Hannibal Blood I should say, drove him away. Then yesterday you’re attacked by something. Can you tell me what you saw?”

  “My cousin, you mean,” Harry said.

  “Carl is your cousin?”

  “He sometimes works as my personal assistant, but also he does some acting work on the side. He was meant to be helping Markus Hornby with a publicity stunt. They were gonna pull that same thing they did back in Chicago where he apparently gets attacked by, this time, a wolf monster. It looks like someone decided to make it real,” Harry said.

  “So Carl thinks it was a person who attacked him? Not a monster?”

  Harry rolled his eyes and gave a shrug before he winced at the movement. “I don’t think he’s clear on what he saw. At first he said it was a monster, but then he became convinced it could have been someone in a monster suit. Now I guess that I’ve been attacked perhaps it’s just someone out to get us,” he said.

  “Is Carl still in town? Can I talk to him?” I asked.

  Harry gently shook his head. “He got out of here as soon as he could. He’s returned home to New York. I think he wants to put this whole thing behind him,” he said.

  Damn, there goes someone else I could have collected evidence from. Never mind, I still had Harry here and he was talking.

  “So what did you see last night?”

  “I finished my set and drove my cart back to my truck up the top of the hill. It was secluded so I was taking a few minutes to have a drink of water and eat when something came out of the gloom and attacked me. All I know for sure is it had teeth and claws. The next thing I remember is crawling along the road and someone talking to me. After that, I think I was in the ambulance and then I was here,” Harry said.

  “Could it have been a wild animal?”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it. My cousin gets attacked and then me too? It is clear that someone doesn’t like us. So as soon as the doctor says I can go, I’m outta here.”

  “Do you suspect someone wants to hurt you?”

  Harry looked at me, his smile fading away. It was only a subtle transition but then I swear I had Hannibal Blood in the bed in front of me and not Harry Sparkle.

  “Success breeds jealousy, jealousy creates enemies. There are plenty of authors in this town who would like to see me taken down, both mes, Harry Sparkle and Hannibal Blood. Why aren’t you writing any of this down?”

  “Oh, I’ll remember it.”

  “Most journalists usually record interviews or take notes and you’re doing neither. So I have to wonder what it is exactly you are doing.”

  Oh crap. He was completely right. I could only play the character of a journalist if I was, you know, doing journalist things. I’d been so caught up in getting here that I hadn’t bothered to bring my handheld recorder with me.

  “I want to keep it off the record because I think there’s a bigger story here,” I said. Harry seemed to accept my lie, nodding gently.

  “Could you please keep my two identities a secret? Harry Sparkle and Hannibal Blood are very important to me. Both would be ruined if the truth came out.”

  “I won’t tell a soul,” I promised him. It occurred to me that Harry Sparkle and Hannibal Blood were both fake names.

  “If your cousin is Carl Stern, does that make your real name Harry Stern or is it Hannibal Stern or something else entirely?” I asked. I could feel something tugging at the back of my mind. It felt like a word on the tip of my tongue… ideas struggling to come into my consciousness.

  “My real name is Harry Stern. I guess that whoever attacked Carl and me doesn’t like the Stern family,” he said.

  I stopped breathing for a moment as the idea hit me like a cold wave out in the ocean. Carl Stern attacked; Harry Stern attacked; the man up in the forest had called us Torrents. The monster that had left the scratches in the alleyway had been sitting up on that rooftop watching the Chili Challenge warehouse where Aunt Cass Torrent worked.

  Magic can be fantastically unreliable. It’s incredibly easy to screw it up, for it to get out of control. Brew up a love potion the wrong way and it wouldn’t be only that boy down the corner who wanted you, but all of the dogs and cats and fish and mice in the neighborhood as well.

  Brew up a curse and give it two names, Stern and Torrent, and it wouldn’t particularly care whether they were witches or ordinary people with coincidentally the same name.

  “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to faint,” Harry said.

  “Leave town as soon as you can,” I warned Harry and then I was gone, unlocking the door, pulling a concealment spell over myself, and bolting out of the hospital.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “So… are people coming or can I go back to my very important business?” Luce asked, tapping away at her phone, bored.

  “They’ll be here soon,” I grumbled, checking my own messages. It seemed my ability to call an emergency family meeting wasn’t as powerful as I had assumed. We had been waiting an hour now and so far there was only Luce, Kira sitting on the sofa, and Adams gently snoring. The moms said they were on their way and so was Molly, and I hadn’t received any response from Aunt Cass yet.

  “What is your important business anyway?” I asked.

  “Will is currently gardening at his house and when he does that it’s in a pair of shorts only and there’s a spot inside his kitchen that looks out over the backyard and it’s directly beneath the air conditioning. Do you see what I’m putting together here? Me on a chair under the air conditioning, drinking somethin
g cool, Will in a pair of shorts. That’s what I could be doing rather than sitting here listening to Adams snore,” Luce said.

  The little black cat woke up at the sound of his name. “I’m not snoring!” he retorted, somewhat blearily.

  “Fight the power Adams,” Kira murmured and scratched him on the back of the neck with her free hand, tapping away on her phone with the other. Adams rolled over and went straight back to sleep, starting to snore again.

  “I’m sorry to keep you from your very important business, but this is important and an emergency. I don’t know why everyone’s not taking it seriously,” I said, pacing around.

  Thankfully, I only had another few minutes to wait. The moms came walking down the drive, faces red from the heat. They stumbled inside looking like they’d been running a marathon. All three of them had enormous bags under their eyes, obviously the result of burning the candle at both ends. The three of them slumped down onto the sofa, Aunt Ro pushing Adams aside, who left grumbling to himself to find somewhere else to sleep.

  “What is this about Harlow?” Mom asked in a tired voice.

  “We have to wait for everyone to get here so I don’t have to explain it over and again,” I said.

  Outside, Molly parked her car and rushed in with Ollie following close behind.

  “Could you get us all cold drinks, darling?” Molly asked him in a sweet voice.

  “Sure thing,” Ollie said and headed for the kitchen. As soon as he was even slightly out of earshot she turned and pointed her finger at me.

  “I don’t know what this is about but try to keep the magic to a minimum okay? I don’t want too much magic today,” she said, making sure the moms heard her.

  “He already knows you’re a witch,” Aunt Ro murmured, her eyes closed.

  “Listen to what I said,” Molly said.

  “Why did you bring him if you didn’t want any magic business?” Aunt Ro asked.

  “Because leaving him for some secret magic meeting is as bad!” Molly hissed in an undertone.

  Ollie returned with cool glasses of water, going back and forth from the kitchen ferrying them for us.

  I checked my phone again but there was still no response from Aunt Cass.

  “Aunt Cass isn’t here, but I think we can get started seeing as I don’t know when she’s going to show up,” I began.

  Right on cue, Aunt Cass came through the front door. She was dressed in all black from head to toe with a rolled up balaclava sitting on her head and black around her eyes. Her cheeks were red, which was no surprise given the temperature outside.

  “What are you doing dressed like that? What have you been up to?” Mom said.

  “I’ve been sneaking and breaking and entering and stealing,” Aunt Cass said with a wicked grin. “Give me a minute,” she said. She rushed past us all and went into the bathroom. As the moms murmured amongst themselves and Molly looked positively aghast, Aunt Cass got changed, coming back wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top with a grinning sun on it saying “I’ve been down to Florida” on it. She had attempted to wipe the black away from her eyes but some of it was still there, giving her the look of a somewhat crazed raccoon.

  “It’s good everyone is here because look what I found,” she announced, taking over. She held up the map, the one the writers had found.

  All of us could feel the magic emanating from it. Had it grown stronger? It felt old and powerful.

  “Is that the magic map those writers found?” Aunt Freya asked. She yawned into the back of her hand, seemingly unable to stop herself.

  “Ten points for the tired witch,” Aunt Cass said. “I crept in and took it, and there’s a spell on it but I’m not sure how to activate it or what it’s going to do,” she said.

  She passed the map to Mom who started turning it over in her hands, examining it.

  “The monster is cursed to attack anyone with the last name Stern! I think it’s after Torrents too!” I blurted out, seeing my emergency family meeting being taken away from me.

  Everyone turned to face me with puzzled expressions. Except for Molly, of course, who was looking increasingly angry that we weren’t keeping the magic to a minimum. I presume it was because she didn’t want to scare off Ollie, who seemed fine and taking it all in his stride. He was leaning against the counter drinking a glass of cool water, looking like this was a perfectly normal weekend.

  “Didn’t it attack Harry Sparkle?” Luce said.

  “Sparkle isn’t his real name!” I said.

  Kira had finally put her phone down and was now paying attention. “His real name is Harry Stern?” she asked.

  “Yes, and his cousin was Carl Stern. The monster was up here in the forest, keeping watch on us and out on those rooftops looking over the Chili Challenge at Aunt Cass Torrent. I think the man we saw in the clearing is the one behind it,” I said.

  “The man is the monster? The one who called you Marguerite?” Mom said finally, passing the map along to Aunt Freya.

  “Maybe we could take it a bit easy on all the magic talk,” Molly said in a brittle voice. Everyone ignored her.

  “Yes, I think it’s him. Maybe he transforms or he’s connected to it somehow. Doesn’t it seem like an enormous coincidence that two people with the surname Stern would be attacked, and then he talked to us and said ‘Keep away Torrents’?” I said.

  “But he hasn’t attacked any Torrents, has he?” Kira said.

  “We have wards up around the mansion and grounds. That might explain it,” Mom said. She gave an enormous yawn and then both Aunt Ro and Aunt Freya followed her.

  I looked at the three of them, and realized exactly what was going on. Ongoing magic spells are a dangerous thing for a witch. If you cast one at lunch today, then tomorrow at lunch it will use the same amount of energy to keep itself going. Cast too many spells and you can die.

  “So let me get this straight–you’ve put wards around the property. Plus you have a concealment spell on Grandma and you’ve been cooking for the bed-and-breakfast guests, and running the bakery? Aren’t you afraid that number of spells is going to kill all of you?” I said.

  “Maybe we should talk about this later,” Molly said, her voice becoming shrill. Again, everyone ignored her.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing, keeping our family safe and our businesses going,” Aunt Ro said, sounding possibly meaner than she intended due to her tiredness.

  Luce stood up and began pacing around. “You’re telling us there is a man or possibly a monster out there who could have attacked us, but he hasn’t because there is a ward around the property? Did you put one around Traveler too?” she asked.

  Aunt Ro shook her head. “Only around where we sleep, which includes Will’s house, Jack’s and also Ollie’s,” she said.

  “There’s a magic spell around my house?” Ollie asked.

  “You betcha librarian,” Aunt Cass said, giving him the double finger guns for some reason.

  “Mom!” Molly protested.

  “Do we have any idea of who that man is? The one who called you Marguerite?” Luce asked.

  Ollie cleared his throat and stood up from leaning on the bench which caught everyone’s attention because he normally didn’t talk that much.

  “I have something on that. I’d been researching the Torrent family tree trying to find out who Rosetta’s mother was, after Harlow asked me. I’ve also been looking into Juliet Stern and trying to find where she fits,” Ollie said.

  For some reason Molly started glaring directly at me. She had known I had asked Ollie to research the family tree but apparently having this revealed again was upsetting her today.

  “It was the strangest thing… this morning at home I was flicking through a stack of old papers I’ve been through many times before, and then there it was. I found some old property records where one of the local church members had written details about other townsfolk on the back of them. I found Marguerite Torrent who had a daughter Rosetta. She was married t
o a man called Johannes Tilson. Rosetta had a daughter who, in your family tree, is your grandmother’s grandmother. I also found Juliet Stern married a man called Benjamin Mainer and they had a daughter. There are some odd gaps in the family tree so I haven’t been able to connect it to Hattie yet, but that’s what I found. If that man saw Harlow and called her Marguerite perhaps, if it’s magic, he was Johannes or Benjamin, or maybe someone who knew her all that time ago?” Ollie said.

  “Oh, you brilliant, brilliant boy,” Aunt Cass said and grabbed Ollie, planting a big kiss on his cheek.

  “Are we saying that the man in the forest, who could possibly be the monster, is the husband of either Juliet or this Marguerite?” I asked.

  “Do you remember out at that explosion site? It felt like there were pieces of old magic scattered around the place. Aunt Cass said it felt the same. You could be right. Maybe it’s a man or men cursed into monsters, told to attack Stern and Torrent,” Aunt Freya said.

  Molly moaned into her hands. “I can’t have this much magic happening, it’s too much,” she said.

  “It’s fine Molly, he knows we’re witches,” Aunt Ro snapped. She summoned a tiny horse made of gold light that ran across her palm and then dived off, bursting into a glitter of gold on the floor. Considering how tired she was from maintaining the wards, the concealment spell, and everything else she was doing, I was surprised she had the power to pull it off.

  “I said keep the magic to a minimum!” Molly yelled.

  Just then, when Molly was on the brink of a major freak out, Kira passed me the map that Aunt Cass had stolen. The moment I touched it the magic around it lurched and every witch in the room felt it. There was a sudden burst of white light as though I was holding fireworks in my hands. Sparkles of white and then blue began to shoot off the map, landing on the floor before dissipating. It was a few seconds before it ceased but it sent Molly into complete overdrive.