Witch Weigh (A Paranormal Romantic Comedy)

by Caroline Mickelson

  ***

  Closed.

  Tessa stared at the sign, torn between dismay and panic. Her stomach growled in protest. Yesterday she could have solved the problem of a closed kitchen with a spell. As simple as a few strokes of her fingers and she’d be sitting in front of a prime piece of beef.

  She looked around, not liking the helplessness she felt. This was no way to live. She had no magic. But she had to have some power left.

  Sidestepping the sign, she headed into the dining room. A young, Hispanic waiter stopped clearing a table and looked up, a surprised look on his face. “Can I help you, Ma’am?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  He looked away.

  “Did you hear me?” Tessa demanded, raising her voice so the waiter could hear her over the rumble of her stomach. “I want to eat.”

  “You know I’m not allowed to feed the guests, Ma’am. I’m sorry.” He gathered up the last of the glasses and picked up his tray. “The rules are the rules. I can’t make exceptions.”

  He attempted to move past Tessa but she jumped in front of him, not caring that he had to slam the tray on the table to keep from dropping it.

  “What kind of restaurant is this?” She looked around for some sort of clue but it looked like any other elegant dining establishment she’d visited. Minus the guests. Minus the food. “Wait, what did you just say about the rules?”

  “Have a seat, Ma’am and I’ll see if I can find you something.” Pablo, according to his name tag, pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit. “But please keep your voice down. I need this job.”

  Tessa used his absence to examine her surroundings more closely. The décor was tastefully inspired by their tropical locale. There was a simplicity to the design that she appreciated, almost as if it had an Asian flair. Asian. Her stomach growled again and she tried not to think of the Mongolian Beef she’d passed up only a few hours ago.

  Pablo reappeared, a tiny plate in hand. His nervous manner annoyed Tessa but she held her tongue. Until she saw what he was trying to pass off as food.

  “Carrot sticks?” She grabbed the saucer from his hand. The only place something this small could be considered an actual dish was in a doll house. Now that the food was in her possession she felt free to raise her voice. “Celery sticks? I told you I was hungry, not looking for food for my pet rabbit.”

  “Shhh, you’re going to get us both in trouble if you don’t stop yelling.”

  “How am I going to get in trouble? You’re the one refusing to serve me. Let me see a menu.”

  “Lady, the first day is the worst. Just hold on, it gets easier.” He shook his head. “I’m leaving now. I’ll deny it if you tell them it was me who let you have this food so let’s keep this between us. Just remember, you signed up for this.”

  He was gone before she could ask what the hell he meant by that.

  Desperate, Tessa shoved a carrot stick into her mouth. And then a celery stick. She eyed the sliver of radish with distaste but she ate it too. However paltry, it was food.

  Completely unsatisfied, Tessa followed the signs to her room. A few of the outlaying buildings were lit but overall the property was darkened. She wished she knew what time it was but she hadn’t a clue. About anything. The sense of powerlessness was overwhelmingly frustrating and foreign to her. She hated it. Uneasiness settled over her, along with another emotion she couldn’t readily identify. But whatever it was didn’t feel good. It felt lonely.

  ***

  A head splitting, ear ringing alarm tore through Tessa’s sleep and jolted her into the morning. She pulled her pillow over her head and rolled over, an action that caused her to freeze. The bed was too soft. She sat up and punched her pillow. It was too fluffy. She tossed the pillow across the semi darkened room. Where the hell was she?

  She reached out and felt what was likely a nightstand. Her hands groped the tabletop until she found a lamp. She switched it on. A small clock that made the sound of an artillery tank showed it was six o’clock. In the morning. Unreal.Tessa grabbed the clock and fumbled with it until it was quiet. She threw it in the same direction she’d thrown the pillow.

  And then she looked down at her fingers. Terror tore at her heart. She shook them as if to fling them away. They couldn’t be her hands. They weren’t her hands. They were too puffy. Too fat.

  “Shit.” Her legs tangled in her bed linens, Tessa worked to extricate herself from the white cotton sheets that threatened to mummify her. That did it. From now on she’d sleep on satin sheets or she’d sleep standing up.

  Once free, she scrambled to the door and flicked on the overhead lights. A small fourteen inch square mirror hung over the dresser. Biting her lip, Tessa stood in front of it and gaped at the woman who stared back at her. The long auburn hair was the same, silky as always. She recognized the delicate arch of her eyebrows and her angry black eyes. Yes, she was definitely herself, but a puffy version.

  She pinched her cheek. The pain that shot through her face assured her this nightmare was no nightmare.

  What had happened to her overnight? She was swollen obviously, but how? She hadn’t eaten anything high in sodium. She’d hardly eaten anything at all.

  She sat down on the edge of her bed and surveyed the room. It wasn’t exactly luxurious, not with the prison issue bed sheets, but it wasn’t a cell either. An overstuffed arm chair with a tall floor lamp next to it filled the corner. There was an armoire, a writing desk and a door that led to a small bathroom.

  Her dress from yesterday was nowhere in sight.

  A knock at the door made her jump. Not caring that she was still wearing a frumpy granny gown, she lunged for the door handle.

  “Good morning, Tessa. I’m Tiffani, your floor leader.” A statuesque blond woman in her early twenties smiled at her. “I see you’ve overslept a tiny bit. Forgivable the first day but you’ll need to adhere to our schedule from now on.”

  She pushed past Tessa and opened the armoire. She took out a black velour track suit and handed it to Tessa. “Your t-shirts are folded in the drawer. If you don’t hurry and get dressed you’ll miss breakfast.”

  God forbid. Tessa’s stomach loudly echoed the sentiment.

  “Where is breakfast?” Tessa asked. First things first. She could ask where she was later. She had a sneaking feeling the information would be better received on a full stomach.

  “Out your door, left down the hallway and four flights down.”

  Four flights? “Where’s the elevator?”

  Tiffani grinned. “Good for you, Tessa. I’m glad you brought along your sense of humor.” She crossed to the door and pulled it almost closed behind her but then turned back. “Hurry if you want breakfast. Coach Kennedy will be expecting you out front in precisely thirty minutes.”

  “Kennedy?” She knew it. She knew Liam was up to his neck in whatever had happened to her.

  “Oh, that’s right. You haven’t met him yet. I forgot you got in late last night.” Tiffani hugged her clipboard to her ample chest. “He’s a dreamboat. And, lucky for you, he’s going to be your personal trainer. I’m sure he’ll have you whipped into shape in no time.”

  Chapter Seven

  Late to the dining room, Tessa carried her tray through the almost empty kitchen, quickly seeing that her dream of a plate filled with bacon and biscuits was far removed from her current reality. The last cup of yogurt was rudely snatched from the counter by a kitchen worker just as Tessa reached for it. What appeared to have been a tray of fresh fruit was now a barren tray with one solitary strawberry top left on it. The pick-your-own-ingredient omelet station was wheeled past her, its work done for the day. All Tessa ended up with was one eighth of a scrambled egg on her plate. When her request for orange juice was denied, her mood soured even further. A tepid cup of tea was all she was given to wash her fraction of an egg down with.

  Welcome to fat camp, she groused as she looked around for her assigned table. She’d been set up, plumped up, and sent to hell to slim down. F
lippin’ unbelievable.

  She glanced around the almost empty dining room. There was little to separate the scene from a typical resort spa except for one thing, every guest was well past plump. She didn’t need a full length mirror to tell her that she now fit in perfectly. Her black track suit was a size twenty two. A snug twenty two. The two twos on the tag added up to her normal size four.

  Ignoring Tiffani’s instructions to eat at her assigned table, Tessa chose an empty one near the door and sat down. She pushed her egg around her plate, torturing it the way she felt tortured. She’d like to zap her fairy godfather into the next century. And she had more than a few choice words for the Upper Hallows Witch Council, every last wart covered one of them. But it was Aunt Trudy’s betrayal that stung the most. Tessa knew she wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t even good much of the time. But she was Trudy’s only living family, which apparently didn’t count for much when it came right down to it.

  “You can’t stay here all day, Tessa.” It was the clipboard toting Tiffani. “Sitting lost in thought doesn’t burn calories. Let’s go.”

  Tessa didn’t move. “Where precisely?”

  Tiffani frowned for a nano-second. “The others are waiting outside for your morning hike.”

  A hike. Perfect. Not. And then a thought occurred to her.

  “Liam’s outside?”

  “Liam?”

  “My trainer.”

  “Oh, you mean Coach Kennedy.” Tiffani smiled indulgently. “We prefer that our guests call their trainers Coach. We feel it’s more appropriate.”

  Distance? The only distance Tessa cared about was one that would allow her to wrap her non-magical hands around Liam Kennedy’s throat. She indulged in that fantasy as she followed Tiffani outside.

  ***

  Hike her backside. This must be how they train mountain goats. Tessa stopped walking long enough to drain her water bottle. Finished, she tossed it over her shoulder and started trudging uphill again.

  “Here you are, Tessa.” Jogging up from behind, Liam appeared at her side, water bottle in hand. “You dropped this.”

  She refused to acknowledge his presence. Not fifteen minutes ago, at the bottom of Mt. Miserable, he’d pretended not to recognize her when Tiffani had introduced them. He’d politely welcomed her to Camp Suffer-a-Lot and introduced her to her two team mates as if he hadn’t ever seen her before. As if he hadn’t gotten her into this mess. No, he wasn’t worth wasting her precious breath on, especially not when she was almost out of oxygen.

  But he stayed right next to her throughout the hike. He stayed relatively silent, only calling out encouraging comments to her two team mates, Bethany and Claudia. Wisely he refrained from speaking to Tessa. But once they reached the top of the hill he turned to face her.

  “Great job, Tessa. Are you doing okay?”

  His smile held the same intriguing mix of boyish innocence and bad boy charm that it had in her apartment. Well, this time she wasn’t buying. He’d known then what was in store for her and he hadn’t done anything to help her. Some fairy godfather he’d turned out to be. The only words she wanted to hear out of his mouth were instructions on how to get out of this fat suit and back home.

  She turned away from him, preferring to struggle for air without an audience.

  Breathing just as heavily, Bethany and Claudia joined them.

  “All ya’all go ahead back down without me,” Claudia panted, flopping down on the grass. “Just send a helicopter to come pick me up.”

  Liam and Bethany laughed but Tessa rolled her eyes. She’d taken a close enough look at Claudia’s flashy diamond rings to know the stones were real. The southern belle accent she wasn’t so sure about.

  Her gaze flitted over to a red faced Bethany. Her two team mates couldn’t be more different. Bethany was in her early thirties, Claudia tried to appear in her early fifties. Bethany was the wife of a soldier stationed in Afghanistan, Claudia was the wife of a prominent trial attorney in Shreveport. Both were mothers, although Claudia’s two sons were in college. Both women stood to lose a good hundred pounds. Tessa had nothing in common with them.

  “Let’s all sit for a moment,” Liam said, joining Claudia on the grass. “We can take a minute to talk before we head down. Once we’ve lit up our muscles it’s okay to take a short break. We’re still burning calories.

  Bethany obediently plopped down on the grass beside him.

  “Join us, Tessa,” Liam’s voice held just enough of a command that she did as he bid.

  Fine, she’d play it his way, just until she figured out her own game plan. She sat, momentarily taken aback by how hard it was to sit with her legs crossed. “Okay, Coach Kennedy, what’s so all fire important that we need to talk about?”

  “Let’s start by establishing some common ground between you ladies.” He looked straight at her, the challenge in his eyes unmistakable. “Why don’t you go first? Tell us what brought you here.”

  “It’s a mix-up of the worst order, and you can believe a man is behind it. But mark my words, I’ll get it straightened out. And I don’t have anything in common with anyone at this godforsaken facility,” she scoffed.

  Bethany looked confused. “Didn’t you come here so you could work on your, um, you know, losing weight?”

  Tessa raised an arched eyebrow and favored her with a well-practiced, haughty look. “I do not have a weight problem.”

  Claudia burst into laughter. “That’s rich, honey. Not only do you have a weight problem, you’re sitting on it.”

  Her amusement fueled Tessa’s already smoldering anger. “You cow,” she hissed, her eyes fixed on Claudia. “You’re one to talk. I could turn your backside into a barn door and no one would be able to tell the difference.”

  “You little witch.” Claudia grinned, seemingly not the least bit unnerved by Tessa’s rage. “Save your spells. They won’t work on me.”

  Her words were like cold water thrown on the flames of Tessa’s anger, leaving only smoke. As much as it galled her, Claudia was right. Tessa couldn’t cast a spell to save her life right now. She bit her lip. If ever there was a time to change tactics it was now. Anger was only going to draw her further into Liam Kennedy’s trap. She’d have to forego reacting and think her way out of this one.

  “I’m sorry.” The words sounded strange coming from her. She doubted she’d ever said them before without tacking “that you’re a prize winning idiot” on the end.

  “Forget about it. We’re all hungry. And in my world, that means crabby,” Claudia said. “Back to business. I’m here because my husband and sons are spending the month at some Nascar speedway in Florida. I’m so sick of watching those damn cars chase after each other, ripping up that track and spewing exhaust into the air that I decided I’d torture myself here rather than there. At least here I can get a decent mani and pedi.”

  Tessa had little experience hanging out with mortal women but something told her that Claudia she might be able to tolerate, at least in small doses. Bethany she wasn’t so sure about.

  “Your turn, Bethany,” Liam prompted her. “What brought you here?”

  Tears pooled in Bethany’s eyes. Tessa looked away. A protection spell would come in handy just about now. She was not going to get sucked into someone else’s misery. No way. No how.

  She focused instead on a ladybug navigating the blades of grass along her journey to wherever it was that ladybug’s went. She was not listening to Bethany’s soft voice tell of her husband’s latest deployment and of how she’d struggled to cope with three young children all alone. Not listening, Tessa silently chanted. Not to a word, not even to the tales of days spent working in a tedious clerical job and evenings spent trying to be both mom and dad to the children, all the while worrying about her ill mother who lived clear across the country. Nope. None of it was sinking in. Not the nighttime Oreo binges or the attempts to medicate herself with French fries.

  “I don’t know how much more loneliness I can take,” Bethany confessed. H
er fragile voice held a soul bearing honesty that unnerved Tessa.

  Unable to bear anymore, Tessa jumped to her feet. She brushed the grass off of her surprisingly puffy thighs. “I’m going back down now to find some food.”

  Liam frowned for a moment and then stood. “We will pick this conversation up later. Claudia and Bethany, you take your time talking and just follow us down when you’re ready.” He glanced at his watch. “Lunch is in an hour. After that we’ll be taking a tour of the gym and starting our first workout.”

  “Sure thing, Coach,” Claudia said. “Tessa, are you sure you don’t want to sit and chew the fat with us for a bit?”

  Liam slipped a hand under Tessa’s elbow. “I need to have a word with her so we’ll meet you ladies in the dining room.”

  Tessa waited until they were out of hearing range before she protested. “Whatever it is you have to say, it had better be good. And where is Jinx?”

  “I wondered when you’d get around to asking about your dog.”

  “Cat.” She tried to cross her arms over her chest but couldn’t easily manage it. Damn double D cup. She avoided meeting Liam’s eye, she had no doubt he was amused by her efforts.

  “Jinx is fine,” he assured her. “He’s at the groomers.”

  Tessa groaned. How much more ridiculous could this all become? “I demand to know what the hell is going on here. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m furious. I’m hungry--”

  “You said that twice,” he interrupted her.

  “That’s because I’m twice as hungry as I’ve ever been.”

  “Then let’s quit wasting time and get moving because we’ve got something to do before lunch.” Liam motioned for her to go ahead of him down the path.