Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Robyn Peterman. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Magic and Mayhem remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Robyn Peterman, or their affiliates or licensors.
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Just Like Magic
Virginia Nelson
Contents
Just Like Magic
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
About the Author
Amazing Magic & Mayhem Authors
Just Like Magic
A cold, a baby, and a talking horse…
Stevie March just wanted to kick back, relax, and maybe dip her toes in someone else’s pool for a while. When she saw the ad on the Witch’s List to pet sit someone’s beloved four-legged friend, she jumped at the chance and hauled ass to West Virginia.
The beastie in question turned out to be far bigger than any canine companion she’d ever seen—something that should be kept in a stable rather than a dog house—but convincing Mr. Not-Ed to stay outside is a task beyond her abilities. Especially once she realizes she’s picked up a nasty cold and starts sneezing spells. Then the baby shows up, but the Shifter Whisperer—the only one who might be able to fix at least some of her problems—is out of town.
What’s a girl to do, saddled with an equine whiner and a bawling thumb sucker?
Only her nightly visits from Aspen, her hunky new neighbor, are keeping her sane. Sure, the horse is nowhere to be found once the sun sets, but that’s probably okay, right?
Right?
For Beastie
Acknowledgments
Thanks so very much to Robyn Peterman. I had so much fun writing this and can’t begin to thank you enough for your friendship. You’re amazing!!!
Chapter 1
A quick search online showed majestic mountains, crisp cool springs, and wild animals looking like something off a nature show on television. Log cabins dotted the landscape, practically begging visitors to invest in fuzzy socks, bulky sweaters and leather boots.
Just thinking of the boots had Stevie March opening a second tab on her browser to one click a pair. While she was shopping—when wasn’t she shopping?—she invested in the socks, a few sweaters, and an adorable pair of leggings to finish the outfit off. The view out her window didn’t call for any of the items, but she was sick of Texas heat and grit. Sick of hiding inside with the AC running when she could be outside breathing in the clean air of a forest. Maybe she’d never visited a place like West Virginia before, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t where she belonged.
Of course, she didn’t know who sent her the email about how wonderful West Virginia was, but that part didn’t matter so much as her bone deep need to visit.
Her mother would say that she had a bone deep need for lots of things, suggesting that perhaps her actions were impulsive, but her mother wasn’t here. Serving time in the magical pokie meant good old mom couldn’t talk her out of adventures. Which was great, because there were a ton of options on Witch’s List.
Of course, Mom wasn’t a fan of the List, either. Blah, blah, blah, don’t trust jobs or items for sale when you have no idea who the seller/employer might be. Blah-de-blah-de-boo-frickin-hoo, they’re all serial killers and crazies…
Stevie stuck her tongue out, just thinking about her mother, and when she didn’t receive a rap to the back of her head for thinking smack, she couldn’t help but grin. Having her mother put away for a magical time out might be the best thing that had ever happened to her. Something about her mother niggled at the back of her mind, with a crawling sensation of fury that didn’t make much sense, but when she tried to pick at it, it always made her a little nauseated. Better not to focus on good old mama witch and instead focus on the idea of West Virginia and her search on Witch’s List.
The ads weren’t all great. For instance, no way was she signing up to spend a few weeks helping out at the local shifter hospital. No, she liked to look at animals, not to clean up after them. Nor did she want to work at a daycare—babies were wet. They drooled, leaked, and otherwise were just way too juicy for Stevie’s tastes.
Gnawing on the end of her straw, she looked around her apartment. If she moved to the window, she could see the empty carcass of what had once been the selling point of this particular development when she’d moved in. A pool that she didn’t have to care for? Which meant someone else was footing the bill for the pool boy and keeping the crystal clear water blue? Sign me up, she’d thought.
But the pool was cracked, empty, and little more than a shrine to the hopes Stevie fostered for her new life in Texas.
That was it! She needed a gig that offered a pool. Switching tabs, she invested in a new bikini that screamed wilderness sexy. Gnawing her lip, she forced herself to focus on the task at hand, since one-click was clearly a weakness of hers. Before closing the tab, she did go ahead and add on a bottle of sunscreen. Focusing didn’t mean wanting to burn.
Back to the Witch’s List. Narrowing down her search, she stuck with West Virginia and the word ‘pool.’
One option came up, but it was perfect. Housesitting for someone, including their four-legged companion, while they went on an extended European honeymoon. They’d included pictures and they were just like the ones she’d found based on the tourism email. Log cabin, wraparound porch, mountains, and nature.
Not to mention the view from that pool. Whistling low, Stevie copied the email and opened a document to come up with her response.
She should make herself look really adult on the response. Mature, someone they’d want to trust with their belongings, home, and whatever cute little purse puppy they owned. Rich people always had tiny dogs, and she imagined she’d probably bond with the little ankle-biter. She even ordered a purse—dammit, stay out of the one click tab!—perfect for carrying a pampered pooch which matched the boots and sweater outfit she’d picked earlier.
This was going to be good. An adventure. What could possibly go wrong?
By the time she was on the road toward West Virginia, her list of things that could go wrong was pretty long. Firstly, since she wasn’t sure what she would and would not need on this trip, she might have overpacked just a teensy, tiny smidge. Her back window was useless, as she had things stacked to the roof. She’d broken a nail, trying to get the back gate on the car to close, she had things tetris-ed in so tight. She’d resisted the urge to put things in the front seat—hello, where was she going to keep road trip snacks if not on the front seat?—but the back seat was equally jammed. She comforted herself with the thought that the nail was a viable sacrifice to whatever gods watched over travel.
While she also worried that she might’ve forgotten something important.
Whatever, it was a sign from the universe that the couple even gave her the job. They probably had a whole stack of people who applied to watch their gorgeous woodland getaway, so it was all just a little luck and fate for her to be the one selected. All she had to do was make it there by Tuesday, grab the keys from owners, and relax in her temporary home.
How much did dogs eat, anyway? Well, they’d probably left her directions to take care of Fido. Or Fifi. Probably rich people named their dog Fifi. And no doubt it would be a female dog, as male dogs had a tendency to hump things, from what she k
new.
Once on the road, she rediscovered that driving across Texas took forever. She wanted change, excitement, adventure. Not more of what she was trying to escape.
She sneezed and glared at the same old view out her window. Texas never ended.
But then it did, finally, and she sneezed again—probably pollen, damned mountain cedar—at the Arkansas border. By the time she hit Kentucky, her nose was running like a faucet. Whatever, she could stop at the welcome center at the state line and grab some allergy medicine. No big deal.
By the time she got to the West Virginia border, she had to consider the impossible. Witches couldn’t carry disease. It was literally impossible for her to be sick.
Wasn’t it?
As if to shine a shit-colored light on her problem, she sneezed four times so hard that she bopped her head into her steering wheel and then dissolved into a coughing fit.
On the last sneeze, sickly green bubbles of magic came out with the exhalation and then popped in slow motion in front of her bewildered and tearing gaze. That couldn’t be good.
Biting her lip, she pulled over and sat for a moment, trying to decide what on earth could be the problem. She hadn’t abused her magic, hadn’t annoyed anyone that she knew of—other than her credit cards, because one click was a thing—and didn’t deserve to come down with some freak of nature illness. She could, of course, visit a healer and try to explain her situation.
If she knew any healers who coincidentally were in West Virginia or wouldn’t mind magicking themselves there for her benefit. Not that any came to mind, but it was hard to think with all the mucus clogging her brain. She turned the heater up another notch, then paused. Could she be running a fever? She’d read about them on the internet, but couldn’t imagine it ever being a witch thing.
Another coughing fit wracked her body and she exhaled more of the sickly green bubbles. When one popped, her familiar appeared on the seat next to her.
“What’s wrong with you?” the chameleon asked.
“Fergus?” she said, considering him. “Where have you been this whole time?”
“At the house,” the slow-moving creature responded, walking slowly to the edge of the seat and looking down. “You forgot to bring me.”
“Knew I forgot to pack something,” she muttered under her breath. Then she sneezed again. Both she and Fergus considered the resulting greenish bubble. It floated for a second, popping in a shower of glittering sparkle which dusted the chameleon.
“Gross!” he squealed, but then something happened.
One second, an annoyed chameleon was on the seat. The next, a sleek, huge cat that looked suspiciously like a serval. Fergus considered his spots, flicking a short stub of a tail in obvious irritation. “Why did you turn me into a cat?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” Stevie protested.
“I was a chameleon. I liked being a chameleon. I liked my tail, my colors… and now I seem to be huge, have fur, and kind of want to bite you. You turned me into a serval,” he explained. Somehow, he still talked in the slow, hesitating tones of a chameleon, even though he was clearly not one anymore.
“I don’t know what is happening,” Stevie admitted, bursting into tears. This didn’t help the mucus issue even a little bit, leaving her scrabbling for tissues while her formerly cold blooded familiar simply gazed at her with eyes that didn’t swivel even a little to follow her motions.
“I thought witches didn’t get sick?” he pointed out, rather unhelpfully.
“We don’t,” Stevie blubbered, mopping her face. “We can’t carry disease.”
More coughs, and she lay her head slowly on the steering wheel, wondering what she could’ve done to deserve this particular fate. Could she even tell anyone? It wasn’t normal. They’d make fun of her so bad, she’d never live down the shame.
“Where are we?” Fergus asked, finding his additional height useful, apparently, as he gazed out the passenger side window.
“West Virginia,” Stevie admitted.
“Hmmpfh,” the serval responded. “Would you care to tell me why?”
“No,” she sniffled, pulling back onto the road. “I don’t.”
In no time, she found herself entering the town of Assjacket, West Virginia. According to her maps, she would find her temporary home on the westernmost side of town. Driving slowly, she took in the buildings on either side of the street. Unlike the somewhat chilly outside of town, jewel tones marked the hills leading into the town. On the main street, she noticed a lineup of expected businesses. Barbershop, hardware store, gas station and a mom and pop grocery store…although she had to admit something about the grocery store seemed a bit sketchy, even from the outside. A cement statue of a bear missing one side of his head dominated the town square and all in all, she might have been excited at how very different it all seemed from her home in Texas.
If she could’ve focused on all of it instead of sniffling and blinking back tears the whole way through the town.
Chapter 2
The house didn’t quite look like the picture on the Witch’s List ad. As a matter of fact, it didn’t look at all like the picture. Actually, although it looked familiar, she’d never seen anything quite like the cabin in question in real life.
It took her three minutes of standing on the front walk, staring at it, to remember where she’d seen something quite like the log cabin.
“That weird email,” Stevie muttered.
“What weird email?” Fergus the chameleon turned serval asked.
Stevie sneezed. Both she and Fergus watched the resulting green bubble until it popped, showering another explosion of glittering light which dusted the big cat’s back.
In seconds, an elephant stood next to Stevie, teetering on too big feet. It wasn’t a normal elephant, though. This one had long black stripes on its body, more like an art deco design than anything found in nature. But then the dust sparkled again, and the creature shrunk down to become a snail. Fergus’s voice came out of the tiny creature, as Stevie fumbled for her wallet. “This could get old fast,” the chameleon, elephant, snail familiar said.
Offering him a credit card, she waited while he made his way onto the plastic before carrying him toward the front door. “You’re telling me,” she muttered.
Ringing the bell with her free hand, she sniffled and tried to look professional. Like someone who could watch a dog, no problem.
No one answered the door, but she noticed an envelope hanging out of the mailbox next to the door. On the front, in big block letters and written in black marker, she spotted her name. Sitting her familiar and credit card down on the windowsill, she then plucked out the letter. “I wonder if they stepped out for a moment…”
The contents of the letter were not heartening. Aside from a key, the only thing in the envelope was a short list:
Welcome,
Please remember to clean out the stall at least once a day. This is important!
2 coffee cans of grain mix, morning and night
Fresh water constantly! Also, hay as needed.
Don’t shave his chest! Even if he asks.
Thanks! Welcome to Assjacket!
Stevie reread the words three times and still couldn’t make sense of it. Sure, she maybe lied about her experience with animals—googling what experience a good pet sitter might have and just copying and pasting that into the quickie resume—but she never heard of a dog who liked grain. Or hay. Maybe it was some hipster diet? Like, protein free or something?
Whatever, she had bigger problems than a dog’s weird eating habits. Opening the door, she allowed the setting sun to light the front entranceway of her temporary home. She’d expected something like the inside of the house in the movie The Proposal. Instead of Alaskan mansion, though, it looked pretty mundane. A coat rack offered a multitude of coats in many sizes and colors—from childlike small to huge wool big enough to fit a quarterback. It looked like someone took the contents of the closet from that Narnia movie—furs included—and
stacked all of it on seven hooks right by the door. Under the coat mountain, she could see an equally disturbing pile of miscellaneous shoes. Who lived in this house, anyway? The seven dwarves?
Past that mudroom, she found shabby chic furniture mostly filling the wood structure. The couch was comfortable looking, if worn, but the throw pillows were cute as was the blanket tossed across the back. It invited her to come, curl up under the blankie, and hide until she felt better. The wood made all of it seem warmer, more lived in, and she was turning and wondering about it when she heard the soft sound of Fergus in the snail body screaming from outside.
“You forgot me again,” he said, when she went to retrieve him and her identification.
“You’re really tiny,” she defended before sneezing again. Her credit card became heavy before he dropped to the ground and rolled as a black pug. The animal yelped in surprise, but didn’t seem injured as it glared up at her from googling brown eyes.
“Sorry,” she said. “A credit card can’t hold a pug.”
“Stop sneezing on me!” the chameleon serval elephant snail pug, answered. Fergus’s normally slow voice sounded almost like a yip. “This is not okay. Cover your mouth like a normal person.”
“I’ve never had a cold before,” she sniffled. “And I don’t want those bubbles on me.”
The pug ignored her, turning his big behind—hers? Had she turned Fergus female with that last sneeze?—around and stomping as much as a pug could stomp into the log cabin.
“Well, since you’re a dog now anyway, want to help me find the dog that lives here? Should be around here somewhere…” Stevie said, stifling a yawn. Between the odd illness and the seventeen hour drive—only broken by restroom stops and fueling up the car—she was surprisingly tired. She thought she could just lean on the wall and sleep happily for about a day. But she should find the dog, first, and make sure it was fed.
Magic and Mayhem: Just Like Magic (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 1
