No, the prophecy had to be wrong. Prophecies were stupid, anyway. I had never believed in them in the human world, and there was no reason why I should automatically accept that in the paranormal world they would be true.
And yet, the looks Ellie, Sara and Amy were giving each other were looks of worry. I didn’t like it one bit.
“Where is Titan now?” Sara asked. “After all, if Tina is supposed to destroy him, that means he must still be alive. But no one has heard from him in years.”
“No one knows where he is,” Ashleigh replied. “We haven’t heard from him either. But he must be somewhere. The Oracle would not have made the prophecy if he had died.”
“Ok,” Amy said. “Anyone else have any more questions for them?”
She looked around the room as we all shook our heads. Amy reversed the spell that kept Ashleigh and Daniel locked up, but instead of running off, they just stood there with that same glazed expression on their faces.
“You can go,” Amy told them. “But I want you to tell the head of your coven that you do not believe Tina is Karen’s sister, and that Tina is probably not even from a water coven.”
“We will,” Ashleigh said with an expressionless voice. Without another word, both of them walked out the front door while I collapsed onto the couch, my head in my hands.
Chapter 17
Ellie was sitting next to me a second later, her arms wrapping around me.
“Hey, you. It’s going to be ok. You understand me?”
“What on earth is happening? There’s a freaking prophecy that says I’m supposed to destroy one of the most powerful wizards the world has ever seen? Like, how does that even happen? The prophecy has to be crap.”
I looked up at Amy, who wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Prophecies here aren’t necessarily true, right?” I said, unable to stop my voice from going an octave or two higher than I had intended. I sounded hysterical, but I was fairly certain I kind of had a right to be right now.
Amy’s reply was slow and pronounced, like she was considering every word. “Prophecies in the paranormal world are announced by Oracles. They’re witches or wizards who have been gifted foresight by the celestial being that governs them. Most covens have an Oracle who announces prophecies whenever they are given to him or her. The prophecies are generally accurate.”
“Generally?”
“The prophecies that are handed to an Oracle are real,” Amy explained. “However, it has happened in the past that slightly unscrupulous Oracles have announced false, invented prophecies, for their own gain.”
“So unless the Oracle of Titan just made up that prophecy – and why would somebody do that – it means that it’s real?” I said.
“It makes sense,” Ellie said quietly. “You were abandoned in the human world as a baby. Why else would a witch leave a baby in the human world? If she knew what the prophecy said, if she knew that Titan was going to come after you to kill you, then she might have thought the human world would be the safest place for you. An untraceable baby in a world visited by very few paranormals? If it weren’t for the fact that you accidentally fell through a portal, the odds were you would have lived your entire life without knowing you were a witch, and there would have been no witches or wizards around to recognize who you might really be.”
I hated to admit it, but Ellie was right. It fit in perfectly with all of the questions that I had about myself.
“Then my father is one of the most infamous wizards in the world,” I said, my mouth going dry. “Everyone is going to think I’m evil. How on earth am I supposed to live a normal life with a pedigree like that?”
“Not everyone is going to think you’re evil,” Sara said, coming over to me and taking my hand. “Besides, now you know who your family is. Karen is your half-sister. And I’m sure we can find out who your mother is, if maybe not what happened to her.”
I nodded, looking at the ground. I felt so conflicted. To be honest, I had never imagined that this was how my story was going to end. I had always thought I would either never know who my parents were, or that if I found out, they would have been an ordinary witch and wizard who, for some reason or another, had given me up to the human world. Even if that reason had simply been that they didn’t want me.
I never in a million years imagined that I had been abandoned because my mother wanted to hide me from my psychopathic, evil father that I was prophesized to destroy.
“If you guys don’t mind, I think I’m just going to go up and go to bed,” I eventually said, standing up from the couch. “I think I need a little bit of time to decompress and come to terms of everything that we’ve learned.”
“Of course,” Ellie said. “I don’t blame you one bit.”
I managed a small smile. “Thank you,” I said. “If it wasn’t for you guys, I wouldn’t know who my family is. I might not like the answer, but at least now I know. And at least I’m not being followed by a couple of weirdos from another coven anymore, either.”
I made my way upstairs and crawled into bed, even though it was the middle of the afternoon. A part of me wanted to sleep, to forget that any of this had happened and dive into the sweet oblivion of dreams, but my mind was having none of it. Instead, I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking over the conversation we had just had and wondering what on earth it all meant.
Was I really prophesized to destroy my father? Was he really my father? Or was this all some sort of giant misunderstanding?
As much as I wanted it to be, I had a sneaking suspicion it was all correct. After all, Ellie was right when she said it made perfect sense given my history.
Still, that didn’t mean the prophecy was real. Maybe Titan was really dead, and had been for years. After all, nobody had heard from him in decades, and the paranormal world was so small I had trouble believing somebody could hide like that for so long.
Maybe that was the entire story. The prophecy was false but Titan believed it, and my mother hid me in the human world to protect me.
Another, darker thought threatened to take over though: what if the prophecy was real? What if I was destined to destroy my father? If that were the case, it would mean he was still out there. And if he found out I existed, would he come after me? Would he try and finish what he had tried to start when I was a baby? Was I in danger just on the basis of my existence?
I really, really hoped not. I just wanted to live a normal life here in Western Woods with all of my friends. Was that really so much to ask? Earlier this morning, the biggest stress in my life was the fact that I was about to undertake the final witch’s examinations to determine what kind of job I could get here in the paranormal world. It had seemed like the worst thing ever at the time, and yet now it felt almost irrelevant.
At least I wasn’t stressing about the exam anymore.
Eventually, my brain caught up to my body and I fell asleep, slipping into sweet oblivion. I woke up early the next morning, very early. It was still dark outside, but given as it was the middle of winter, that was no surprise. I made my way down to the kitchen, thinking that I would maybe make a hot chocolate or something. I was quiet; I didn’t want to wake up my roommates, and I didn’t know exactly where Mr. Meowgi was. He hadn’t been in my bedroom when I came up the night before, and I figured there was a good chance he was lying in front of one of the heaters somewhere, ready to complain if I woke him up at four in the morning.
I made my way into the kitchen, but found that I wasn’t the only person there. Ellie was already at the counter, busily pointing her wand at some dough that was kneading itself.
“Couldn’t sleep?” She asked, glancing up at me, and I shook my head.
“No. What are you doing?”
“It’s time for the midweek market,” Ellie said. “I know fewer people go to these, but until I can find something more permanent, I need to sell my cinnamon buns wherever I can.”
I nodded. “Good idea. Sorry, I completely forgot about the market what with everything going on
.”
“I think if anybody has an excuse, it’s you,” Ellie said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. “No, I think I’m going to go with repressing what happened yesterday as much as possible. I’m seriously hoping that Titan is just dead, and the Oracle of Titan gave out a false prophecy for some reason.”
“Fair enough,” Ellie said. “Whatever happens, your secret is safe with us. Nobody will ever find out that you’re from the coven of Titan from us, and no one else knows for sure. Even the head of the coven of Titan, and we’ve send Daniel and Ashleigh away with false information.”
I nodded. I was quite lucky that Karen Voda’s costume in the broom competition included a mask that covered the top half of her face, hiding the fact that we look so similar. Nobody who watched the broom competition would be able to tell that we were related, unless they saw her without her mask. Thanks to my friends, my secret was safe. It would give us time to figure out what to do.
“Do you need a hand?” I asked as I went to the fridge and grabbed some milk and chocolate, putting chocolate shavings in the bottom of a mug and covering them with milk before sticking the whole thing in the microwave.
“No thanks, I’ve got this,” Ellie said. “You’re welcome to hang around and watch if you want, though.”
I did want. It gave me a small sense of normalcy, sitting at the kitchen counter on a stool and watching as Ellie made her famous cinnamon buns, batch after batch of them. She eventually moved them into the oven, letting some of them bake while she continued to make even more on the kitchen counter.
Sitting there watching Ellie let me pretend that the previous day had never happened. It let me pretend that everything was normal, and fine, and that nothing bad was going to come from the fact that I now knew what coven I came from, and that I knew who my father was.
Everything was going to be fine.
Chapter 18
A few hours later it was finally time to go to the market. The others had woken up, and while Amy had to work, and Sara needed to go to Desert Plains for a promotional photo shoot, I was available to help Ellie with whatever she needed. The two of us managed to pack up everything and make our way back to the Coven Gardens, where stalls were being set up for the day once more.
Today was a little bit different, though, and I couldn’t help but notice that there were only about half the number of stalls that there had been on the weekend. There also seemed to be a little bit of a nervous vibe from all the vendors, as if they were worried that there might be another murder here this week.
“Oh, we totally never ended up speaking to Barry yesterday,” I said to Ellie, having completely forgotten that we were going to go see him.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, shaking her head. “We’ll see him today. And even if we don’t, what we learned yesterday was much more important than solving a murder that Chief Enforcer King is also working on.”
I nodded, but I still felt a little bit bad. After all, Barry was now one of our prime suspects, and I had completely dropped the ball when it came to speaking with him.
Very quickly though, my mind moved on as I worked on helping Ellie set up The Witching Flour for the day. She had brought over a lot more cinnamon buns this time, fifteen dozen in total. It was going to be a slower day, she knew that, but she had run out so early the last time that she wanted to see if this would be enough. There were also only cinnamon buns today; Ellie had explained to me that she wanted Saturday’s market, with more people, to have a couple of different options, but the midweek market would feature her bestseller only.
Personally, I had a sneaking suspicion that those delicious cookies would quickly become her bestseller, but for now, she was right: Ellie was famous for those cinnamon buns.
By the time we finished, the market was about ten minutes away from opening, and I fussed around getting some last-minute things sorted until our first customers of the day showed up.
I thought that working at a popular bar in downtown Seattle I would know what busy was. I was very used the nights when I wouldn’t have a single second to breathe during an entire shift, and as a result, the time absolutely flew by and before I knew it my shift was over and it was time to go home.
But that entire time, there was never much of an actual line. I had a constant flow of customers, but that was it. Here, Ellie had a line, and I found myself panicking, hoping that people weren’t waiting for so long that they’d leave to go elsewhere. We quickly figured out a system in which I handled all of the cash while Ellie packed up people’s orders. Within ten minutes the lineup was five people deep, and after half an hour, there were at least fifteen people waiting in line to get a cinnamon bun. I had a sneaking suspicion that fifteen dozen was going to be nowhere near enough.
I went straight back into retail mode, taking people’s money and handing them back their change with a smile, and before I knew it, a few hours had passed, and we were quickly getting down to our last cinnamon buns of the day.
“I knew I should have made more,” Ellie said regretfully.
“This is already more than you had last weekend though,” I replied. “You can’t have known that they would have been this popular. I guess word is getting around that you’ve gone into business for yourself.”
“I guess so,” Ellie said. “Well, I’m going to have to find a permanent setup quickly.”
“You’ll find something, it’ll be fine,” I said.
When we finally ran out of cinnamon buns, Ellie quickly began packing up the stall.
“Do you mind handling this on your own for a bit?” I asked. “I want to go over and see if the lady who made the pins is at her stall, and if she is I want to get Amy something nerdy and annoying.”
Ellie flashed me a grin. “Great idea. Then, when you come back, I should have everything packed up and we can go and speak to Barry.”
I nodded, gave Ellie a quick wave, and made my way through the stalls trying to find the lady with the nice pins. It didn’t take me too long to find her, and I browsed through her pin selection for a little while, as she was busy helping a few customers.
It didn’t take me too long before I found a pin in the shape of an encyclopedia that called out random facts about seemingly every topic under the sun. That seemed like exactly the sort of thing Amy would like, and I picked up pin and made my way to the witch in charge of the shop.
“Oh, hello again,” she greeted me with a friendly smile. “Come back for more pins, have you?”
“Well, this one is technically for a friend,” I replied. “She saw the broccoli one that I had and loved it, and so as soon as I saw you were back here today, I thought I would get her one.”
“How lovely,” the witch said. “This is a great choice. I really enjoyed making this pin.”
“How long do they take you, out of curiosity?” I asked.
“Now that I’ve got a system down, I can make one pin in about twenty minutes,” the witch replied. “It depends on the complexity, though. One like this would have taken me at least an hour. Since I just sell at the market, I do them at home for the most part. In a perfect world, I would get a little shop, and I could make the pins when I didn’t have any customers, but of course I would only need a really small space, and all of the shops available for rent in town are a lot bigger than what I need.”
A grin spread across my face as an amazing idea suddenly came to me.
“Can I have another one of your business cards?” I asked. “I have a fantastic idea, but I don’t have time to deal with it right now. Can I get my friend to call you later on in the week?”
“Sure,” the witch said, handing me a business card along with the pin that I had bought. I carefully put both of them in my pocket, and rushed back to The Witching Hour, where Ellie was just finishing the packing up.
“Did you find one?” she asked, and I nodded enthusiastically.
“I not only found the perfect pin for Amy, but I think I may have also
solved your problem about finding a permanent location for The Witching Flour. But first, let’s go speak to Barry.”
A couple of minutes later, Ellie and I were making our way to the coffee bean roaster’s stall. Sure enough, Barry was there, working behind the espresso machine as a handful of people waited for their coffee.
“Oh yum, this smells delicious,” Ellie said, immediately making her way into the line. I joined her, and we paid for a couple of lattes, waiting for Barry to make them. A sudden thought flashed through my head - if Barry really was the killer, and he knew that we were investigating the murder, it would be all too easy for him to poison the coffee he was making. I watched extremely carefully, but he didn’t seem to slip anything into the cups, so when he finally handed us our lattes, I took a careful sip before deciding that the rich, creamy liquid had nothing but extracted espresso and milk in it.
“Ready for your witch’s examinations tomorrow?” Ellie asked while Barry made the coffee, and I sighed.
“No. But that doesn’t seem to matter, I’m still going to have to do it.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Barry said to me without looking up from his machine. How’s it going? Are you any closer to finding the killer?”
“That’s actually why we came by,” Ellie said. “Any chance you’d be willing to talk to us after you’re done here?”
“Sure, I’m actually due a break,” Barry nodded. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll come have a chat with you.”
Ellie and I stepped to the side, sipping our coffees while we waited the five minutes.
“So what’s this cool new idea you have about the store?” Ellie asked me, and I smiled.
Six Ways to Spellday Page 10
