“Well, that’s not what a mother wants to hear from her daughter.”
“No daughter wants to hear that her mother has decided to become a private investigator as a septuagenarian, either.”
“That’s ageist,” Grandma Rosie replied.
I ignored the bickering and focused on my stew, but my mind kept going back to the reward money. After all, I was barely scraping by on my current salary, and I had to wait another six months to try the test to be accepted as a magical fixer again. Half a million abras would certainly get me a lot closer to buying my mom the kind of home she deserved, the kind of home where the kitchen table wasn’t so small that my feet hit hers every time I shifted a tiny bit.
After all, if the money was up for grabs anyway, why shouldn’t I be the one to get it?
Chapter 5
Leaving my mom’s house satisfied and feeling like I was pregnant with twins after a bowl of stew and two slices of cheesecake, I staggered back to the shed, ready to collapse in a food coma, but thought I’d check my email first. There was a message from my boss, and I let out a groan. With the stress of the day, I’d forgotten to let him know I wasn’t going to be able to make the day’s deliveries.
The email told me to meet him at the company headquarters in Spokurse the following morning. Great. That was just what I needed.
Still, it was my fault for not sending out the email in the first place. I’d explain what had happened in the morning, and everything would be fine. And then I’d come home and sneak another slice of that delicious cheesecake.
At least, that was the plan. Reality had a different idea.
I woke up the next day, got dressed, and stopped by my favorite local coffee shop, The Magic Brewmstick. They had an absolutely perfect location, right on the lake. The entrance was marked with a swinging wooden sign that hung above the door, and once I stepped inside, I was immediately blasted with the aroma of roasted coffee beans. The ceiling was low, with dark exposed beams throughout the space and industrial-style lighting. It certainly wasn’t meant to be bright and airy. However, once I received the coffee I had ordered, I stepped out onto the patio on the other side and found myself in a perfect oasis here in the center of town. My feet were nestled in lush grass, surrounded by picnic tables that gave a perfect view over the lake. Strings of fairy lights hung around the tall wooden fence that enclosed either side of the patio, allowing for a bit of privacy.
Yes, this was the perfect way to spend a few minutes in the morning. Even the coolest witches like myself were allowed to enjoy a calm fall morning.
Of course, my personality meant that I was able to enjoy myself for exactly five minutes before I started getting impatient. I finished off my coffee, brought the mug back inside, and headed toward the portal to Spokurse.
The Magical Pharmaceuticals headquarters was in a huge steel and glass building right in downtown Spokurse. Walking through the front doors felt eerily like passing through the jaws of a futuristic monster. I walked past the shifter guards in the lobby and made my way up to the fourth floor, where the elf Florondir, who was in charge of all the company’s plant collectors, had his office.
Now, personally, I had always thought elves were super creepy. That whole thing where they can sense another paranormal’s feelings? That’s so far over the line of creepy, it belongs in the plot of a horror movie, not real life. And of all the creepy elves in the world, Florondir took the cake. For one thing, there was the way he decorated his office. In the sense that there were no decorations. And when I say no decorations, I don’t mean that he skipped the potted plant in the corner. I mean I walked into his office and looked at four completely blank walls painted pure white, without a single photo hanging on them. The floor and ceiling were also white, and the room’s furniture consisted entirely of a white desk, behind which Florondir sat, and a white chair on the other side of the desk that I immediately sank into, trying to ignore the fact that this office gave me the heebie-jeebies. Seriously, this was the sort of place a serial killer would use as his office. Was it soundproof? I bet it was soundproof.
I forced the thought out of my head and tried to convince myself that I was going to make it out of here alive. Florondir was tapping away at his computer, which was, you guessed it, a white Mac. Goodness. How long was this going to take? I wanted to get my day’s assignment and get out of here.
Florondir’s eyes moved from his screen to my face. His eyes were blue like the glacier ice on Mt. Rheanier in the summer. Again, super creepy.
“A little impatient this morning?” he asked. “My apologies. I will be only a moment longer.”
There it was again, that super creepy habit of sensing people’s feelings. “Take your time, I’m fine,” I said, plastering a smile on my face that I hoped looked genuine.
Two minutes later, Florondir looked away from his screen. “Do you know why I’ve called you in today?”
“Because I forgot to send you an email yesterday telling you why I didn’t bring in my plants.”
“That’s right,” Florondir nodded. “Do you have an explanation for me?”
“I do,” I said. “I came across the body of a murdered friend near the field I collect wild basil from, so after I called the Enforcers and they took over, I decided to go home and take the rest of the day.” Ok, calling Blaze a friend was a bit of a stretch. He was more of an acquaintance, but I figured the white lie would only help my cause.
“Was the body in the basil field?”
“No, over a ledge nearby.”
“So there was no reason why you couldn’t have collected the basil after speaking with the Enforcers?”
“Other than the fact that I’m not a psychopath?” Sometimes my mouth worked faster than my brain. It wasn’t my fault; I couldn’t help it.
Florondir’s lips tightened. “I don’t understand why you didn’t simply do your work afterward.”
“Well, I don’t know how many times you’ve come across your friends’ dead bodies, but this was a first for me, and I wasn’t exactly in the right headspace to do anything. I’m sorry I didn’t email you. The fact that I didn’t think of it should give you a good idea of how I was doing, mentally. Besides, the Enforcers told me to get out of the area. I don’t think they would have let me collect the basil regardless.”
“The fact is, here at Magical Pharmaceuticals, your contract is clear: in the case of a close family member’s death, you are allowed two days off for mourning. This death was that of a friend, not a family member, and therefore you are in breach of your contract, and we are terminating your employment.”
The words hit me like a pile of bricks over my head. “Wait, what?”
“You were unable to bring the herbs required in time, as you are required to do, and we cannot have plant collectors on staff who decide to take days off whenever they face a minor inconvenience. You will be paid for all of your work up until yesterday.”
“A minor inconvenience? You call stumbling across a dead body a minor inconvenience?” Rage rose up inside of me. I couldn’t believe I was being fired. What on earth?
“Yes. It does not fall under your contract stipulations that justify taking an unexpected day off.”
“You’re joking. I already told you, regardless of that fact, the Enforcers wouldn’t have let me get to the basil anyway. And I would have had to continue along the path that they had closed to get to the other two spots I needed. So no, I couldn’t have gotten the plants yesterday no matter what.”
“You’re a witch; you could have flown there. Was there nowhere else you could have gotten the wild basil from?”
“I don’t know of another patch large enough for what I had to get yesterday.”
“Well, perhaps you should learn the area better. The fact is, you didn’t bring us the plants, and so we’re firing you.”
I stood up and stormed out of the creepy office. As I left the big steel and glass building, I wiped angry tears from my eyes. I was pissed. How dare they fire me f
or this? I had worked for the company for a few years now, and I had always, always gotten them their herbs. Now, this one time I messed up because I found a body in the forest and needed to take a bit of a break to recover, they fired me?
No, this was bull. Total bull.
I looked up at the headquarters when I got about a hundred yards away, rage filling my body. I couldn’t believe I’d been fired for that. One day. One day of not doing exactly what they wanted, and I’d been fired. Heck, I wouldn’t have been able to collect the plants even if I had wanted to. I wouldn’t have been able to get enough basil from the other spots.
I pulled out my wand and pointed it directly at the windows at around the height of Florondir’s office. “Rhea, goddess mother, paint this building and make it permanent.”
A giant glob of paint flew out from my wand and splattered the windows two or three stories up. Thanks to my spell, it would be especially difficult for anybody to remove that paint. I grinned to myself, pleased with my petty act of revenge, and ran off toward the portal before any shifters arrived, looking to bring me to justice for what I’d done.
Chapter 6
The reality was, I didn’t feel any better after having vandalized my former employer’s building. After all, I still now faced the same problem: I had absolutely no income, and no future prospects. I walked around town, avoiding home. I didn’t want to run into my mother by accident and have to explain to her how her screwup daughter managed to get fired from one of the lowest-paying and easiest jobs in the paranormal world.
I needed a way to get some more money, and fast. That was when the conversation with Grandma Rosie from last night came back to me. Was Blaze’s family really offering half a million abras to whoever solved his murder? I needed to find out for sure.
I sent a text to my best friend, Willow. How on earth we had ever become good friends was absolutely beyond me. Willow was the complete opposite of me in every single way. She had always studied hard, and while she wasn’t a particularly talented witch, thanks to her willingness to do everything it took when we were at the Academy, she now worked as a Healer and made good money doing it. She was the kindest witch I had ever known, although she was quite shy. That was how we had met: in the Academy, when we were about fourteen years old, a few of the “cool” wizards had decided they could take advantage of her, thinking that because Willow didn’t have a big group of friends and kept to herself, they would be able to bully her into doing their work for them.
I found them having cornered Willow behind coven headquarters one day, with her begging them to leave her alone. When they wouldn’t, I stepped in and, with a few carefully cast spells, managed to drive them away. To this day, I don’t think Michael Redwood’s mother knows why he had come home that day with his skin turned blue and his hands and feet shrunk to the size of tennis balls.
What can I say? I was pretty creative as a child.
Ever since that day, Willow and I had been inseparable. It turned out her need to work hard and be successful the traditional way meshed well with my ambition that took a slightly different form, although at the moment it looked like hers was a lot more successful. After all, I was about to beg her to pay for my coffee because I couldn’t afford it.
Willow suggested we meet for lunch instead, insisting in the text that she treat me, and at the same time as I was filled with shame for not being able to even afford to buy myself lunch at a local restaurant, I was also filled with gratitude at my friend who understood my situation and never made me feel bad for it.
We agreed to meet at a small café a few blocks away from the lake, and by the time I got there ten minutes later, Willow was already sitting at one of the tables, waving at me. Willow Desrochers was short, just a couple inches over five feet, with a medium build and a heart-shaped face. Her chestnut hair reached halfway down her back, but it was always tied back in a ponytail. Her blue eyes lit up as soon as they saw me, and I made my way over to her, giving her a quick hug.
“Thanks so much,” I said. “For everything.”
“No problem. I hope you don’t mind that I ordered for you.”
I grinned. Every time we went to this café, I always ordered the same thing: broccoli and cheese soup, half a club sandwich, and a root beer. At this point, Willow definitely knew my order off by heart.
“Only if you got me the usual,” I said, sitting at the table across from her. The café here had a real rustic barnyard feel to it. The chairs and tables were made of wood that had been painted white, with a few rustic streaks still visible in the paint. It was a light and airy space, with high ceilings and light hardwood floors. Even the brick walls had been painted white, and the windows at the front went from the floor to the ceiling, allowing as much light as possible to flow in. This was the perfect spot for a beautiful early fall lunch.
“I heard you were the one who found Blaze,” Willow said quietly after I had sat down. I nodded glumly.
“Yeah, that was me,” I said, recounting the previous day’s events. Willow shook her head sadly.
“Such a shame. He was nice. Whenever we needed a dragon to volunteer to show the Healer trainees some dragon-specific stuff, he was always willing to come by and let the trainees poke and prod him.”
“He was nice. Even though he didn’t go easy on me in the test to become a magical fixer.”
“How did that go?” Willow asked, and I recounted the entire sorry tale to her, with her face falling when she realized I wasn’t going to be allowed into the training.
“That sucks! I’m sorry, Ali. But hey, at least you know for next time that you not only have to get the collar off, but you have to do it without potentially burning down the entire town in the process.”
“Technically it was Blaze that was burning down the whole town,” I said with a grin. “You’re right, though. I want to sit here and be angry at Keith for failing me and say that because I got the collar and there were no extra conditions, I should have passed, and a part of me does still think that, but at least in six months I’ll know better.”
“He is right, though,” Willow said. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but when you’re a magical fixer, you have to be a scalpel. You have to carefully figure out what the problem is and surgically fix it without destroying anything else around it. You’re more of a hammer. You’ll get the job done, but you’ll also go through and wreck everything in your path doing it. I think the best thing for you to work on is your subtlety and your finesse.”
“Please, I’ve got finesse up to here,” I said, shooting Willow a rude gesture, and she laughed.
“Evidently, you were just little miss subtlety.”
I was luckily saved from having to come up with a clever comeback by the arrival of our food. Willow and I spent a couple of minutes digging into our meals, and when my sandwich was half eaten and my soup bowl empty, I looked at Willow and told her the news I was so ashamed of that I’d avoided it so far.
“I got fired from my job,” I told her. Her fork, holding a meatball and a couple of pieces of penne, stopped halfway to her mouth.
“What? Are you serious?”
I nodded, staring down into my empty bowl. “Yesterday, I didn’t get my herbs. After I found Blaze’s body, the Enforcers sent me away, and I ended up just going home and sleeping all day. I wouldn’t have been able to get them anyway—there wasn’t enough basil outside of the giant patch, and with the Enforcers there, I wouldn’t have been allowed in the area. Florondir called me in this morning and fired me.”
“For one day of not getting your herbs? And when you couldn’t, because of the body?”
I nodded glumly. “Yup. That’s all it took.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Willow said, obviously outraged on my behalf. “Is there anything you can do?”
“Well, I vandalized the building on my way out.”
“Is there anything legal you can do?” Willow said, shooting me a disapproving glance. “Can you appeal, or anything like that?”
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“I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. Normally I wouldn’t care. After all, it’s not like being a plant collector is prestigious, and it certainly doesn’t pay well. But now that I have to wait six months before I can train to be a magical fixer, I just don’t really have a lot of options.”
Willow’s face fell. “I’ll see if the hospital is hiring any witches and wizards right now. There might be something in maintenance. It wouldn’t pay well, but at least you would be able to get by.”
“Thanks,” I said with a small smile. “Have you heard anything about Blaze’s family offering a reward to whoever can find his killer?”
“Sure,” Willow said. “It’s all anybody was talking about at the hospital this morning. Half a million abras to whoever can find the killer and make sure they’re convicted of murder.”
“Grandma Rosie was talking about it last night, too. She and Connie have decided they’re going to try and solve the crime.”
Willow groaned. “Yes, that’s just what this town needs, the two craziest old ladies going around pretending to be super sleuths. Is your grandma even able to cast spells anymore?”
“With varying levels of success,” I replied with a smile, my mind turning back to a couple of weeks earlier. Grandma Rosie had tried to cast a spell that would make a wooden spoon stir her tomato sauce automatically, but instead, the spoon began flicking the sauce all around the kitchen, hurling globs of hot tomato at the walls, windows, ceiling, and floors.
When Mom had come home, she had thought an intruder had slaughtered her mother, and Grandma Rosie was henceforth banned from ever casting spells inside my mother’s kitchen again.
“Well, hopefully Chief Enforcer Loeb can get to the bottom of this before your grandmother and her best friend create even more chaos while trying to solve this crime.”
Going through the Potions Page 3
