Seven Year Witch

by Samantha Silver

  “I bet she has a boyfriend,” Ellie said with a grin, and the blush on Amy’s face got even deeper.

  “It’s not that!”

  “Oh, so there is something,” Ellie said. “If it’s not a boyfriend, though, what is it?”

  Amy sighed. “Fine. I didn’t want to tell any of you, because honestly, I don’t know if it’s going to work out, and I’m not sure if I can do it.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you,” I said, “it’s that you can do anything. You’re one of the most dedicated, hard-working people I have ever met in my life.”

  “Well, it’s not just that,” Amy said. “Everything about this is a different step in my life. I’ve been keeping it a secret because while I know the three of you will be totally ok with what I’m doing, I’m not sure everybody else in my life will be so accepting. So until I know that I can do it and that I’m going through with this path, I wanted to keep it a secret so that if I failed, I could just let it be a secret failure. And on top of that, with the finals coming up for the broom competition, I didn’t want to take anything away from Sara’s special time.”

  “In that case, as long as you don’t need anything from us, I’m happy to leave you be,” I said.

  “Me too, I guess, but I do love good gossip,” Ellie said with a grin. “I’m with Tina, though. If you’re not comfortable telling us, then as long as we know that you’re happy and healthy doing whatever it is you’re doing, then that’s good enough for me.”

  Amy smiled. “No, it’s fine. I think it’s time that I tell you guys the truth. There is only one person in Western Woods right now who knows the truth about what I’m doing, and two people in the paranormal world. Well, apart from me, that is.”

  “So, spill,” Sara said. “Just because I won the broom competition doesn’t mean you don’t get to have your own wins in life. What are you doing? Tell us so we can all celebrate together.”

  Amy took a deep breath. “I’m in the middle of studying to be a lawyer.”

  Ellie and Sara both gaped at Amy, while I broke out into a grin. “That’s awesome,” I said. “You’re going to be great at it.”

  “That’s the thing, I have no idea if I will,” Amy said. “After all, who’s going to hire me? Being a lawyer is a job for the elves, not for witches. There hasn’t ever been a single witch accepted as a lawyer in the history of the paranormal world.”

  “Are they going to let you take the exam?” Ellie asked. “I thought only elves were allowed to take the exam to get a law practicing license.”

  “Kyran’s father fought for me to be allowed to do it,” Amy explained. “You’re right that only elves were allowed to do it, but he went to the top lawyers and argued that in order for the profession to stay relevant, they had to start allowing witches and wizards. It was eventually accepted that as long as I scored a higher grade on the exam than every single elf who takes it at the same time as me, they will give me a license.”

  I let out a low whistle. “Wow, that’s going to be quite the feat to manage.”

  “Yeah, but if we know anybody who can out-study all those elves, it’s Amy,” Ellie said with a grin.

  “It is going to be difficult,” Amy conceded. “However, trailblazing almost always is. The thing is, you’re the one who inspired me to do this, Tina. You’re the one who put the idea into my head that maybe being a witch didn’t mean having to be pigeonholed into a certain job. And I love the law, and I love looking into all the little details of it. When I got to pretend to be a lawyer a little while back, that was the happiest I had been in a long time. I knew after that that it was what I wanted to do, but there was no path for me. So I spoke to Kyran, who spoke to his father, and they came to that arrangement. I know I have to do more than anybody else trying to become a lawyer, but I’m absolutely going to do my best to do it. After all, if I manage it, maybe it will open the door for a few other witches and wizards to do the same.”

  I made my way over to Amy and gave her a big hug. “I’m so proud of you for following your dreams,” I said. “It will be tough, but if you need anything from me, please tell me.”

  “I will,” Amy said with a smile.

  “And we’re going to keep this secret,” Ellie said. “Until you’re ready to let the world know what you’re doing, no one is going to find out about this from any of us.”

  “You guys are the best friends ever, you know that?” Amy said, smiling from one of us to the other. “I was so worried about how this conversation was going to go, but you’ve absolutely put me at ease.”

  “You’re going to be the best lawyer,” Ellie said. “Now I can go ahead and commit any crime, and I know you can take care of it for me.”

  Amy laughed. “I plan on being good, but even in my wildest dreams, I don’t think I would be that good. Try to stay on the right side of the law, please, for all our sakes.”

  “So how long is it going to take?” Sara asked. “For you to do all the studying, I mean?”

  “A couple of years, I think,” Amy said. “A lot of elves take longer, but of course, when you have an infinite number of years to do your studying, I can see how they would let it fall by the wayside a little bit. But looking at the amount of things I need to know, I think within two years I should be ready to take the exam, and then I’ll be able to practice as a lawyer, assuming I managed to beat everybody else.”

  I snorted. “If being smarter than everybody else in a room is the only thing you need to do to reach your goals, I have absolutely no doubt that you will get there.”

  Amy laughed. “I wish I had the confidence you guys have in me. Anyway, with all this talk about me, I haven’t even gotten to the news that I was here to deliver.

  “Chief Enforcer King came to see Lita at coven headquarters today, and I may or may not have cast a bit of an eavesdropping spell while they were meeting. Anyway, it turns out Michael admitted to everything. He was the one who killed Diane, and he killed Rosa, and he tried to kill Sara.”

  “We all suspected so,” I nodded.

  “Here’s the kicker, though, which absolutely nobody suspected: he also killed his mother. He made it look like an accident, but he was the one who cast a spell on her to make her fall asleep when she was on the broom and crash.”

  “Wow,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “What on earth for?”

  “Apparently he said his mother was annoying him, and that he couldn’t take it anymore. He targeted the others because their red hair reminded him of his mother.”

  “Sounds like a good old-fashioned breed of crazy who unfortunately took a few lives before he got caught,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “But at least Rosa’s killer was caught.”

  “Thanks to Tina,” Sara said. “And I’m glad the he was caught, since he had also killed Dianne. I’m just sad I didn’t get a few minutes alone with him before they hauled him off to prison. I’m guessing there hasn’t been any sign of your biological father?”

  I shook my head. “Not so far. Personally, I’m hoping it turns out he’s long dead. I’m trying not to worry about it too much; whatever will happen will happen, and if he comes after me, it’s an issue we’ll have to deal with then. Of course, if you guys aren’t comfortable with me staying here anymore, I can always find somewhere else to crash for a little while.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ellie said immediately. “This is your home, and you’re staying here. That’s final.” Amy and Sara nodded in agreement, and I was once again flooded with gratitude for all of my friends.

  As long as I still had them, I knew I could handle anything the world—or Titan—threw at me.

  Chapter 24

  That night, I sent Kyran a quick text asking him to come over, and I asked Amy if she had any more of that potion.

  “Am I allowed to ask what you’re up to?” she asked as she handed me a small beaker filled with the liquid. “Or are you keeping it a secret?”

  “I’m keeping it a secret from one person in here,” I
said with a wink. Ellie had already gone to bed, the long hours at The Witching Flour catching up to her.

  “You’re going to buy a coffee machine, aren’t you?”

  “See, keeping secrets from you is no fun, because you’re too smart. You just figure them out before people have a chance to tell you what they are.”

  Amy shrugged. “The three of you figured out that I was hiding something from all of you as well.”

  “Yeah, but we weren’t smart enough to figure out exactly what it was. Compared to you, we’re basically monkeys drawing with sticks in the mud while you’re painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”

  “That’s by that famous human painter, isn’t it?” Amy said with a laugh. “Well, I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit, but for what it’s worth, I think it’s a wonderful idea. If I may ask, though, where are you getting the money for it?”

  I explained to Amy that I had found the perfect machine but didn’t have the money, and then how Lily had insisted I take the check. I figured the best way to start spending the money was to invest in Ellie’s business in this small way.

  “You know, I’m really glad that life worked out as it did. If you had stayed in Kilokilo, growing up as a member of the coven of Titan, we almost certainly never would have met you. And that would’ve been a shame. I can’t imagine life here without you, Tina. I can’t imagine my life without you. You know, if it wasn’t for you, I never would have even considered the idea that I could become a lawyer one day. I would have simply written it off as a thing I was completely unable to do, and never tried. I don’t know if I’m going to succeed. It’s going to be hard, and the requirements they have set out are insane, but I’m going to do my best. And even if I fail, I will know that I tried, and that I did everything I could to reach my dreams. I don’t think I would have managed to do it without you.”

  “Well, that’s incredibly humbling of you to say,” I said, my eyes moving to the floor. I didn’t really know what to say, so I reached over and hugged her. “I’m so proud of you. If anybody can do this, I know it’s you.”

  Amy set the beaker down on the table and smiled.

  “Are you going to take the coffee machine right in tonight?”

  “I was hoping so,” I said with a nod. “Then I can surprise Ellie with it in the morning.”

  “Ok,” Amy said. “Is it ok if Sara and I come when you and Ellie show up, so we can see her reaction?”

  “That would be amazing!” I exclaimed. “Honestly, it really is a gift from all of us. It’s not like I’m going to keep all of that money for myself. All of us played a role in finding Rosa’s killer. We all deserve the cash.”

  “Oh, we do not,” Amy said. “Keep it. Use it to start your life in the paranormal world. One million abras will keep you very comfortable with whatever you choose to do in the future.”

  “Well, we can always discuss what to do with it later. But for now, I think we will spend some of it on that coffee machine, and it can be a gift from all of us to Ellie. You’re going to make sure Sara is there at five when Ellie shows up to work?”

  “It might be a bit hard convincing her to get out of bed, but absolutely,” Amy said with a grin. “Alright, I’ll leave you to it.”

  Amy made her way up to bed just as Kyran showed up, and the two of us shared a glass of wine on the couch as I told him about the events of the last couple of days.

  “So Amy’s finally broken the news to you,” Kyran said with a grin.

  “The other day, when I said Amy was at home, you gave me a strange look. That was because you knew she was doing lawyer studying, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he replied sheepishly. “I had seen her about half an hour earlier in the library, helping her make a list of what she was going to need to study. Luckily, you let it go pretty quickly. And the other day, when I said that you had no idea how your attitudes were going to cause a ripple effect, I also meant Amy, even though I couldn’t tell you that at the time.”

  “I get it,” I nodded.

  “Now, do you want to talk about what happened at the stadium?”

  “I don’t know what there is to talk about. I don’t know how I managed to cast a spell despite the whole place being hexed.”

  “You said you asked Titan for help, right?”

  “That’s right. The spell just came out of my mouth. I didn’t even know what the words were until I said them.”

  Kyran looked at me thoughtfully. “There are two explanations. The first one is that somehow the spell that prevented people from casting spells was lifted right then.”

  I shook my head. “It couldn’t have been that. Amy was right next to me trying to cast her own spell to stop him. I could see her doing it.”

  “In that case, it means that when you called upon your coven, your magic was so powerful it broke right through the spell that was designed to prevent thousands of witches and wizards from performing magic.”

  I sat in silence, letting the words hang over us. Eventually, I spoke. “That’s what it was, wasn’t it? I really am that powerful.”

  “I think you are,” Kyran said quietly. “All signs point toward that being the case.”

  “Well, I guess that’s better than finding out you’re the weakest witch of all time,” I said with a small smile.

  “Power will definitely help if Titan comes to try and find you. Which I think at this point is a foregone conclusion.”

  “Great. So now I’m just waiting for the hammer to drop.”

  “Try to put it out of your head, at least. Come on. Let’s go back to Riomagia, and we can enjoy breakfast by the sea again while we wait for the shop to open.”

  I smiled at Kyran as he led me out of the house and back to the portal to Italy.

  As we drank coffee sitting by the sea, I breathed in the cool air. “You know, we could run away to someplace like this. No one would need to know who I was, and we could live quiet lives.”

  Kyran laughed. “I could become a fisherman.”

  “Exactly,” I said, smiling through my cup as I took a sip of the latte. “And I could become a professor at the academy here, teaching young witches and wizards the magical basics.”

  “And we’d both be bored within the year.”

  “Fine, bring logic into this.”

  “Sorry,” Kyran grinned. “That said, I wouldn’t be opposed to coming back here from time to time just to have some nice time together.”

  “I’d like that,” I said with a smile. I liked everything about where our relationship was going right now.

  A few hours later, the pink coffee machine and a top-of-the-line grinder had been purchased and delivered to The Witching Flour, which must have looked somewhat suspicious to anyone around, since it was still the middle of the night in Western Woods. The owner of the appliances shop helped me hook up the coffee machine, and a few hours before the sun was set to come up, everything was ready. He had even given me a crash course in how to make coffee for customers and set me up with fifty pounds of beans from a source he promised me was excellent quality. After having tasted Italian coffee, I had absolutely no reason to doubt him.

  I spent the next few hours practicing with the machine, getting used to it, since I figured I would probably have a large number of orders for the next morning. Eventually, Amy and Sara came in through the front door.

  “Ellie’s right behind us,” Amy said. “She’ll be here in two minutes. Also, it smells amazing in here.”

  “Do you want a coffee?” I asked with a grin. “I’ve made about fifty of them. We don’t have any take-out cups, though.”

  “I’ll take care of that as soon as Ellie gets here,” Amy said. “You’ll have cups and lids before you open.”

  “You’re the best,” I said to Amy, just as Ellie walked in through the door, stifling a yawn. She looked at all of us suspiciously.

  “You’re up to something. What’s going on?”

  “Surprise!” I said, and the three of us
moved to reveal the beautiful pink coffee machine. Ellie’s mouth dropped open.

  “What is this?”

  “A surprise for you, from the three of us,” I said. “Everyone who comes here wants coffee, and you’ve been so busy trying to get this place up and running that I figured you wouldn’t have the time to research and look for the right one, so we took care of it for you.”

  Ellie made her way over to the machine and carefully ran her hand over the glossy exterior. “She’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Thank you so much. All of you.”

  When she looked back at us, Ellie had tears in her eyes. “I have the best friends ever, you know. Just the best.”

  “I agree,” I said with a smile. “I completely agree.”

  Book 8: Behind the Eight Spell: Tina finds herself in more danger than ever as the past comes back to haunt her. But with the help of her friends, will she be able to fulfill the prophecy and bring peace back to the paranormal world?

  Click or tap here now to preorder the eighth and final book in the Western Woods Mystery series.

  Also by Samantha Silver

  First of all, I wanted to thank you for reading this book. I well and truly hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I loved writing it.

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  Want to read more of Tina’s adventures? The eighth and final book in the Western Woods Mystery series, Behind the Eight Spell, is now available for preorder on Amazon, set for release on December 28th, 2019. Click here to preorder it now.