Potion of the Hound

by Alicia Scarborough

  Two-dozen more toads appear due to the spell cast to stop the fox. Helga grumbles.

  The sisters hold their dresses down to keep the ends from floating up.

  Helga, fumbling with her dress, huffing and puffing, points at Ursa and the door, commanding, “CLOSE that DOOR!”

  While floating in the air, Ursa uses the counter and various chairs to pull herself close enough to the door. She cringes each time a toad floats by her face and tries to avoid the toad slime.

  “Ewww,” she cries when a slimy trail washes over her face as one toad swims by her. She finally reaches the front door and closes it.

  Helga turns her head to Higgins, who, out of everyone in the cafe, is the only one not floating in midair. Everyone else, including the toads, are floating about the room.

  With her index finger she first points at Higgins and then about the room, inquiring, “Do you mind?”

  He cocks his head to one side, innocently asking, “Hmm? What’s that?”

  Rolling her eyes, Helga grimaces and manages to ask, “Ugh . . . Mr. Higgins, would you mind removing the spell?”

  Examining his fingernails, he breathes on them and then brushes them against his vest. Then he asks again, “What spell? I don’t know what spell you speak of . . .”

  She gnashes her teeth together before asking Higgins again, “Mr. Higgins, would you mind removing or dissipating the ‘Moment-tis’ spell?” Next she forces out, “Please?”

  Higgins bats away a few toads that get too close to him and then wipes his hands on one of his handkerchiefs. “Mmmm, there are already too many toads in here. I do not think it would be wise to cast a spell while a rather fierce case of toad flu is in the vicinity.”

  He waggles his eyebrows at Helga, adding, “Unless you have a cure for it . . .”

  “I don’t have time to play your games, sir!” Helga pushes herself towards Higgins. “Remove the spell or else!”

  Higgins narrows his eyes at her and questions, “Or what?”

  “I will turn you into one of these slimy vermin floating about my shop,” she informs him in a low voice.

  “HA!” Higgins slaps his belly as he rolls into full laughter, “You? Ha ha! Turn me . . . hee hee . . . into a . . . ha ha . . . TOAD? Ha ha ha ha ha!”

  Agnes asks, “Helga, why don’t YOU remove the spell?”

  “I could . . . but that’s not th—” Helga starts to reply.

  Ursa interrupts, “Just shut it . . . both of you . . .” she commands. Looking at Higgins she adds, “ALL of you. I’ll remove the spell.”

  Agnes and Helga both shout, “NO!”

  However, Ursa continues on with her spell incantation. “Gravitate-tis returnis,” she announces while twirling her fingers about in the air. Beads of sweat appear on her forehead. Helga notes that Ursa does have talent. It’s impressive that she can continue casting spells, especially magic that reverses a gravity spell, with no wand after expending so much magic earlier.

  The toads and frogs fall to the floor in a squishy-like rain, landing on one another and making slopping sounds. More poof into existence. Helga and the others fall down on top of the toads and frogs that litter the floor.

  As Helga tries to lift herself up from the floor, a nasty side effect occurs pushing everyone, except Higgins, down as though gravity became twice as strong. The toads and frogs squirm about the room as two-dozen more pop out of thin air and plop loudly onto the tile floor.

  Realizing Ursa isn’t quite as talented as she’d assumed, Helga breathes, “Ursa, what did you . . . do?”

  “Ah,” she starts, tilting her head towards Helga while breathing in and out, “I . . . removed . . . the . . . spell.”

  Helga gnashes her teeth once more, sucking breaths of air in-between each grind. The gravity in the room increases as everyone struggles to breathe. The toads and frogs protest with loud croaks flailing their little slimy arms and legs about the floor.

  Ruby whimpers and whines clawing at the floor with her front paws still frantically trying to escape.

  Helga growls between each labored breath at Higgins, “Fix . . . this . . .”

  “Hmmm, it is troubling to see three witches of your so-called status unable to remove a ‘Moment-tis’ spell properly,” notes Higgins, walking slowly, passing Agnes who is busy just trying to breathe, “especially when it is quite OBVIOUS that neither one of you is capable of controlling your spells.”

  He stops in front of Helga and bends down to face her.

  “Moment-tis gravatate-tis removis,” he whispers with his bushy mustache moving slightly as he stares at Helga’s narrowed eyes.

  Three-dozen more toads spring out of nowhere and rain down on top of Helga. She stays where she is on the floor while the rest of the crew stand, except for Max who is still out cold.

  Ursa, with her kind-heart, calls out to her sisters, “Hey, um, guys . . . that, uh, inspector . . . he doesn’t look too good.”

  Agnes spins around from where she’s standing and almost falls over. She catches herself on the counter and stands back up. Helga lifts herself up onto her arms on the floor and looks over at Ursa and then Max.

  Indeed, the inspector does not look good at all. She looks back up at Higgins whose smirk has all but vanished as he gazes upon the ill inspector. Higgins’s mouth drops open, but he says nothing.

  Ursa asks the room, “Uh, what should we do . . . guys?”

  Agnes starts walking towards the phone. “We need to call—” She stops mid-way and then tries again, “Uh, we need to call . . .” She looks over at Helga.

  Cocking her eyebrow up at Agnes, Helga suggests, “An ambulance?”

  With a smile and nod, Agnes starts back towards the phone, confirming, “Yes! An ambulance!”

  Helga, watching Agnes proceed to the phone, hopes she will remember to call an ambulance and not someone else.

  Meanwhile, Ruby continues to run around the shop, looking for an escape. Jay sits in a chair watching her. Higgins waits until the right moment to snatch Ruby up and tuck her under his arm. He walks over to Jay, hands her to him, and starts to ask him questions.

  “Jay, I presume?” Higgins begins as he hands Ruby over.

  “Yes, sir,” Jay confirms as he grabs ahold of Ruby.

  “Do you have a license for that familiar?” Higgins asks.

  “Uhh.” Jay’s face flushes as he tried to answer, “Umm, no . . . er, no, sir, I don’t.”

  Higgins frowns, pursing his lips. “Hmm.”

  He continues to stare at Jay while humming before continuing, “Honestly, young man, I can’t let you have that familiar. I will need to take her back with m—”

  Jay explodes from his chair, clutching Ruby closer to his chest. He shouts, “NO! You CAN’T!”

  Higgins’s eyes become round while wagging his finger at Jay, saying, “Now, young man, you did not let me finish!”

  Jay spins away from Higgins holding Ruby even tighter and crying into her fur, “NO! You just can’t . . . it’s not just a familiar.”

  Cocking his head to one side, Higgins’s face becomes puzzled. Interesting. What is so special about the fox? Does it have a connection to that hound potion? He inquires, “Not just a familiar, you say?”

  Jay says nothing and continues to squeeze his eyes shut as he holds onto the fox, struggling in his arms.

  “Come now, you can get your familiar back when you’ve obtained your license,” Higgins coaxes with his arms outstretched in front of him, stepping closer to Jay.

  The fox whines as Jay squeezes even tighter. “NO! You can’t have her!”

  “Young man, I ins—” Higgins stops, his eyes roll back up into his head, and he collapses onto the floor.

  Agnes sucks in her breath as Helga shrieks, “URSA!”

  Jay turns around to see Higgins on the floor and then looks up. He sees Ursa standing a few feet from Higgins, clutching onto one of the store candlesticks in her hands. It’s completely unlike Ursa to resort to violence.

  “Ugh,�
�� Helga groans throwing her hands over her face and drawing them downward, “we don’t NEED another one out cold!!”

  Ursa worries her lips, looking at Helga, offering, “Er, umm . . . sorry?”

  Helga holds her breath, counting to ten. Then she breathes out in a low whisper, “Give me one good reason why I should not tar and feather you right now.”

  Ursa winces, letting go of the candlestick. It clatters to the floor.

  Agnes jumps in between them with her hands up, deciding, “Now hold on! No one is gonna be tarred and feathered today. Why are you so angry, Helga?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Helga responds, gesturing towards Higgins, “We have another official—an Order of Magic Official—out cold on our floor.”

  “So?” Agnes hitches her hip to one side and rests her hand on it.

  “So? SO? We’re in deep trouble, not just with them but with the whole Order of Magic . . . That’s the problem!” she yells waving her arms frantically up in the air.

  Agnes wrinkles her nose, asking, “How? I still don’t understand . . .”

  “WE. HAVE. A. MAGIC. OFFICIAL. OUT. COLD. DUMMY,” Helga says slowly to Agnes.

  “Helga, you are not making any sense,” Agnes responds, rolling her eyes at Helga, “So, he bumped his head. He’ll be back up eventually.”

  “If the Order of Magic comes sniffing around our shop looking for their chief, then we’ll be in serious trouble when they find him knocked out with a bump on his head. They’ll know we did it on purpose. How are we going to explain to them that he ‘accidentally’ bumped his head?” Helga argues.

  Chuckling, Agnes offers, “He bumped his head under the table while trying to get a doughnut that rolled off his plate.”

  Ursa and Jay start to laugh along with Agnes and her ridiculous excuse for why the Magic Official was knocked out.

  “Knock it off!” Helga tells them, trying to not catch the case of the giggles herself. “This is serious!”

  They cover their mouths to try to stop their snickering.

  Helga grimaces, “Guys, look, I have to tell you that we’re in trouble.”

  “Yes, I know, we’re already in trouble, Helga,” Agnes reminds her.

  Helga glowers back at Agnes and grinds her teeth a little. “Yes, before we were in a little trouble . . . but now—now we’re in BIG trouble.”

  “Huh?” Agnes and Ursa ask.

  Huffing out a breath Helga explains, “We’re in big trouble because an assault on an Order of Magic Official makes us look like we are bad witches. Like we’re fighting for that dark society that everyone’s been so hush-hush about.”

  Ursa’s body stiffens at Helga’s remark. Then she asks, “How’s that different from the magic potion you gave him? Huh, Helga?”

  “It’s different because,” Helga explains pointing accusingly at Ursa, “YOU have physically assaulted the Magic Official.”

  Wiping tears from her eyes, Ursa sniffs, “That doesn’t explain anything. How is that different from the potion?”

  “Yeah, how’s that different?” Agnes and Jay both ask.

  The muscles in Helga’s face tighten so that the green hue becomes more crimson. “You ninnies, you know the rules—”

  She stops to consider her next words and then continues, “The difference is that it was a PHYSICAL assault! A magical assault is fine because any official affected by magic is at their own fault. They are held responsible for managing their defense against magic. If they fall victim to magic, then it’s because they are sleeping on the job.”

  Agnes tilts her head a little, furrowing her brow, muttering, “I still don’t get it . . .”

  Helga stomps at the ground, barking, “Argh, seriously? You STILL don’t get it?”

  “No,” Agnes admits.

  In a slow and deliberate voice Helga adds, “A physical assault on a Magic Officer is a major offense. Think of it like us doing the same to a mortal officer—we would be in big trouble there too.”

  Agnes and Ursa both blink their eyes as they look at one another, uttering in unison, “Oh.”

  Pacing about the room kicking toads and frogs out of the way, Helga continues, “When and IF he wakes up, we’ll still be in trouble. We might as well kiss our shop and magic licenses goodbye.”

  Jay whispers, “Why can’t we use Agnes’s story and make him believe he knocked himself out?”

  The girls stop and look at Jay as the fox struggles in his arms.

  Agnes scratches her chin. “You know, it is a pretty good story,” she chuckles, “I don’t see why we can’t use it.”

  Ursa looks down, kicking a few toads on the floor with her foot, murmuring, “It’s worth a shot.”

  Helga’s eyes dash from Jay to her sisters and finally the unconscious Order of Magic Official Higgins lying on the floor.

  Her lips set in a grim line before she says, “Fine, we can try . . . Come on, Jay. I’ll need your help to move his heavy butt over to the table to set the scene.

  Jay hands over the fox to Ursa and then dashes over to Helga to help move Higgins. Toads hop out of the way as they drag the Magic Official to a spot close to a table. They place his head under the table with one of his arms outstretched.

  Agnes rushes to get a doughnut from the counter while toads croak loudly because they have to keep hopping out of the way. She takes a few bites out of the creamed-filled chocolate-glazed doughnut as she slowly walks to the table under which Helga and Jay placed Higgins.

  Bending down, she smirks as she puts the partially eaten doughnut down within a few inches of Higgins’s outstretched right hand to make it appear like he dropped it after he knocked himself out.

  Standing back up, Agnes bumps her head on the underside of the table. “Ouch!” she yelps, grabbing the back of her head and rubbing it.

  Helga, Jay, and Ursa giggle as Agnes turns around with a goofy grin on her face. Agnes ambles back to the group to admire their handiwork. The scene is set as they look around the room filled with toads.

  “Now what?” Ursa asks as she hands the fox back to Jay.

  Grabbing a bucket, Helga holds it up in the air, announcing, “We catch toads.”

  Ursa sticks her tongue out and wrinkles her nose. “Ick, not what I wanted to hear—”

  Helga shoves the bucket into Ursa’s arms. “Too bad! Now get to it.”

  The crew scurries after the toads and starts throwing them into buckets. Jay checks in on the health inspector while shooing away some of the toads that happen to be resting on top of the inspector’s chest.

  The inspector’s skin appears waxy as Jay reaches out a free hand to rest upon the cool and clammy skin. Jay leans in to listen to the ragged breathing of the inspector and then sits back up. His voice trembles loudly when he asks, “Hey, does anyone know when that ambulance is coming?”

  “Ambulance?” Agnes asks while tilting her head to one side.

  Helga raises an eyebrow and gives Agnes a glassy stare. “The one you called, you nitwit.”

  “Oh yes, that . . .” Agnes quickly looks away, whistling as she snatches another toad from the floor.

  “You did call for an ambulance,” Helga asks, eyeing Agnes, “right?”

  “Sure, sure . . .” affirms Agnes, waving her hand at Helga as she edges away from her.

  The bucket in Helga’s hand clatters to the floor. Helga demands, “Agnes, what did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Agnes,” Helga calls after her sister.

  “Leave me alone. I have toads to catch,” she mumbles and walks a few more feet away from Helga.

  The toads hop out of the bucket Helga dropped. Helga looks down at the floor and then closes her eyes. She holds her breath while counting to ten.

  Suddenly a knock on the door is heard, followed by a young man, yelling, “Pizza delivery! Gotcha pizzas here!”

  Helga whips her head up, and her eyes widen as she sees the pizza delivery guy standing there with five pizza boxes. She turns slowly towards Agnes taking a
few strides closer and shoving the sleeves of her dress up her arms with each step. “Pizza?”

  Agnes shrinks down a little and steps backwards with her hands up in the air, explaining, “Yes, but . . . but . . . it was an emergency, right?”

  Helga stops for a minute. Her nostrils flare as she inhales deeply. Her eyes close and snap open with a steely glare at Agnes. Helga starts with a low growl and then lets out a roar as she launches herself at Agnes.

  10

  Toady Explosion

  Agnes wheels back as fast as she can while Helga is in mid-launch of her aerial attack. Scrambling to grab hold of her trusty spatula from her apron Agnes trips over a bucket of toads and falls backwards. Helga lands on top of Agnes knocking them both into a ball of tangled limbs as the bucket gets toppled aside scattering toads across the room as they loudly croak their complaints.

  The two sisters continue to bat at one another as they tumble around the room. Frogs and toads croak and call as they leap out of the way. Helga swats fiercely at Agnes’s face. Agnes tries to steady her arm to take proper aim with her spatula, but it keeps getting knocked out of the way causing her to cast spells left and right but never hitting the target. With each spell more toads and frogs fill the room.

  Helga throws a few spells at Agnes and misses. The two suddenly go thud against the cafe counter followed by the sound of several shattering coffee cups and mugs falling to the floor.

  Agnes manages to shove Helga off of her and then waves her spatula in the air, calling out, “TANGULA!”

  Helga who was knocked to the ground is trying to get back up when she hears Agnes shout out one of her most nasty spells. She whirls around and freezes upon seeing that the spatula is aimed right at her. Agnes stands still there, with her chin pushed out, her eyes brimming with tears, and her shaking spatula pointing directly at Helga. It is too late. The green color in Helga’s skin drains as she realizes the trouble that she is in, and she cannot do anything to reverse it.

  First, Helga’s hair begins to quiver and shake as it grows longer and longer. Her auburn tendrils reach the floor and slither towards one another becoming entangled and then grow to make big ropey limbs. Helga’s eyes widen as she gazes upon the limbs of her hair that look more like tree roots and branches than her own pretty mane.