Potion of the Hound

by Alicia Scarborough

  “Your choice,” Lady Ava taunts.

  The two sisters look at one another and then take a few backward steps away from Brimstone while keeping focus on Lady Ava. Brimstone watches his old master from his crouched form. He quickly snatches the bobby pin on the floor with his free hand while Lady Ava keeps watch on the sisters backing away from him. He sees a maniacal look dance about her eyes when the sisters are no longer by his side.

  Laughter rings throughout the room as Lady Ava goes to uncork the bottle, cackling, “FOOLS! After I am done with this soon-to-be-loyal hound, you will be next!”

  “GANGWAY!” Agnes shouts, barreling past Lady Ava, “Coming through!”

  Lucius follows Agnes knocking Lady Ava and Jay over. In her fall, Lady Ava loses grip on the vial, and it sails upward into the air. Jay breaks free of Lady Ava’s hold and runs to Ursa.

  Helga leaps forward trying to save the vial from shattering onto the floor. Lady Ava jumps up reaching for the vial. The two collide with one another as they both grab onto the slender glass tube. The purple contents slosh about within it.

  Lady Ava uses her nails and claws at Helga’s hand, leaving deep scratches, to try and make her let go. Helga keeps a firm hold on the glass as it become slippery from sweat.

  She uses her free hand to smack Lady Ava across the face. Lady Ava spits into Helga’s eyes, and she howls in response when the venomous saliva touches her eye cavity.

  “Let go,” Lady Ava snarls, “Accept your fate, traitor.”

  “Never,” Helga hisses.

  Helga gets her thumb on the cork of the bottle, managing to undo it. Lady Ava notices and moves her free hand to the bottle to try and tilt it towards Helga.

  “Want to be a dog, huh?” Lady Ava taunts, “It would be an improvement.”

  Helga grunts moving her free hand to the bottle to try and tilt it back to Lady Ava. The bottle continues to teeter between the two with the liquid becoming dangerously close to falling on either one of them. The venom in Helga’s eyes starts to burn.

  She releases one hand to try and rub them. The vial tips more towards her as a drop threatens to fall. Her arm gets weaker as Lady Ava continues to push and twist the bottle. Helga wonders what it would be like to be a dog and not worry about such things as stupid magic and health inspections. She’d not even need to worry about proper licenses for the shop.

  Helga grits her teeth deciding that today is not the day to become a dog. She thrusts her hand back up using the last bit of her strength to tilt the bottle back towards Lady Ava.

  “WIND LASH!” Brimstone bellows.

  Helga clenches her teeth and feels the bottle tip over. The liquid falls down onto Lady Ava splashing all over her face and body. She cries, “NO! TRAITOR! NO! THIS WASN’T SUPPOSE TO HAPP—”

  A puff of purple smoke appears. Where Lady Ava once stood becomes vacant as her clothes crumple to the floor. The pressure that Helga felt is no longer there, so she falls forward onto a pile of clothing and something small.

  The bundle of clothes makes muffled yipping sounds until Helga rolls over to one side allowing the source of the yapping to become clearer.

  Ursa is by her side. “Stay still,” she says while casting the cool, soothing healing spell on Helga’s eyes.

  Helga continues to stay still, not wanting to move and keeping her eyes closed. She hears Brimstone’s footsteps come close and the rustling of fabric nearby. The tiny barks become more frantic.

  “A chihuahua?” he chuckles.

  “Yeah,” Helga replies, still keeping her eyes shut, “seemed fitting at the time.”

  The room is quiet, except for the sounds of hissing that come from the snake pit. This strikes Helga as odd because wasn’t there a full-on battle happening a moment ago? What the heck happened to that?

  It is at that moment she hears someone bark orders, “EVERYBODY FREEZE! YOU ARE ALL UNDER ARREST BY THE ORDER OF MAGIC! NOBODY MOVE!”

  “Oh good grief,” Helga moans wrapping her arms over her eyes, “What now?”

  16

  Caught

  Down at the station Helga waits in a room, handcuffed to a metal table. With the hard chair making her sit up straight, she glowers at the wooden door with the single slim window. Over to her right is the huge one-way mirror-window that the cops use in these types of rooms. She sighs, wishing that they would just get it over with, for she just wants to go home to her comfy bed and sleep for a week.

  The door slams open as two men walk in, one tall and slender and the other short and stout. Both of them wear grey fedoras and long grey cloaks with their shiny silver medal badges displaying on their right breast.

  The tall one tosses a manila folder onto the table. The contents scatter before Helga. She eyes the photos and recognizes some of the people in them. One is of the older lady from the other day, another of a child that got the sudden case of caramel measles, and another of herself when she is at the TRUE society initiate meeting.

  Helga takes in a sharp breath when she sees the photos, for she realizes that there is no way of wiggling out of this.

  “We’ve been watching ya,” the short officer jeers, “Helga.”

  “Seems ta me,” the tall one speaks, “that you’s gots no alibi.”

  “Seriously?” Helga asks, cocking her eyebrow up.

  The small one slams his hands onto the metal table, shouting, “We ask the questions! Not you!”

  “What’s yer connection ta da TRUE society?” the tall one asks.

  Helga leans back and says nothing.

  “Answer the question,” the short man demands, slamming the table again.

  Helga’s eyes flutter as she stares the little man down. “Where are my sisters?”

  The little man spits, “None of your business. Now answer the dang question.”

  “No,” Helga replies.

  He sneers back, “It’s the big leagues for ya if you don’t start talking. There’s no juvie for underage witches. Now, why were ya working for TRUE?”

  Helga cocks an eyebrow up and states, “I’ll ask slowly . . . Where . . . are . . . my . . . sisters?”

  The tall officer answers, “Yer sisters are in da other rooms being questioned, like yer-self.”

  “Darn-it, Carl! She’s not got the right to get answers,” he reminds the tall man, “She has to answer ours.”

  “Sorry, Nick,” the tall man states, raising his hands in apology.

  Nick turns his gaze back to Helga, interrogating yet again, “Now, what’s your connection to the TRUE society? Why were you making potions for them?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” Helga jeers.

  “Yeah, actually, we would,” Nick replies with a crooked smile.

  “The answer is simple.”

  “Yeah? Then spit it out.”

  Helga smirks, “To make money, duh!”

  “Argh! Quit fooling around!” Nick stomps his feet.

  Carl asks, “What’s yer connection ta da demon we saws at da scene? Was he yer familiar?”

  “No, he wasn’t MY familiar.”

  “Who’s was he?” Nick demands.

  “I really don’t like your tone, little man,” Helga informs Nick, pulling away to add, “and your breath stinks.”

  “Little, LITTLE?” Nick shrieks.

  Carl places his hands on Nick, advising, “Calm down, don’t let her get ta ya.”

  A knock on the door sounds.

  “Go away,” Nick calls out.

  Another knock.

  “I said, GO AWAY.” He stomps over to the door, asking, “Can’t you get the hint?”

  “Chief Higgins,” says the usual gruff voice that Helga remembers.

  The two men, Carl and Nick, look at each other and scramble, pushing one another aside as they fight to open the door for Chief Officer Higgins.

  The door opens, letting in Higgins. He steps in and surveys the room, letting his glance linger on his two lieutenants with their disheveled uniforms. They quickly straighten up and salut
e their superior officer, saying, “SIR!”

  He dismisses them with a wave. “That will be all. I will take it from here.”

  “But sir,” begins Nick, stepping forward, “we were just getting start—”

  Higgins turns his head to Nick. “I said, that will be all. I will take it from here. You are dismissed.”

  Nick shrinks down and backs out of the door, tripping over Carl. They close the door and leave.

  Higgins turns back around and sighs. He looks down at the table and sees the scattered contents of the manila folder. He grabs the metal chair opposite of Helga and pulls it out, scraping the floor, and then sits down.

  Helga watches with curious eyes, waiting for him to start questioning her. He merely reaches for the manila folder and places the contents back in it, taps it a few times on the table, places it back down in front of him, and folds his arms over it.

  He then looks up, twitching his bushy mustache, before saying, “Things don’t look too good for you right now, Helga.”

  In a small voice she answers while looking down at her hands, “I know.”

  “You’ve seen some of the evidence that we have on you, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know that this is more than just the casting of spells on mortals and the physical assault on me, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you know that you will have to do time and you might even lose your license for good because of your actions.”

  “What about my sisters?”

  “Your sisters will be fine.”

  Helga glances up. “Huh?”

  Higgins smiles, explaining, “Your sisters have been cleared of all charges. I made sure of that.”

  “But how?”

  “I knew that your sisters had no knowledge of your involvement with the TRUE society. That they were making potions for Lady Ava under a lie that you cooked up for them.”

  Helga grimaces.

  “Though, I may ask, why on earth would you want to be a part of that society? Your parents certainly would be appalled to find out that you were a member.”

  “Our parents don’t give two shakes about us,” Helga mumbles, “They abandoned us. At least I think they did. If it weren’t for Uncle Cornelius we would have been separated from each other by the Order . . . though he too abandoned us after a year. It was up to me to make sure that our cafe thrived because without my potions our cafe would have failed years ago, and we would have ended up on the streets!”

  He shakes his head in shock, asking, “What?”

  “I only joined that society because Lady Ava promised me that her members would be faithful customers and continue to buy from our shop as long as I made her special potions for free.”

  “Come now,” he coaxes with a soft voice, “Surely the courts offered you help after your parents disappeared, did they not?”

  “No,” Helga grumbles, “Only Uncle Cornelius helped us. He gave us a home even though it was only for a year, and he told us to go to the Order if something happened to him. We did, but the Order said that we sisters could use a bit of dirt under our nails to understand our place. That it was good of our parents and Uncle Cornelius to kick us to the curb and make us finally earn our living.”

  He sputters, demanding, “What?”

  “Yeah, your precious Order of Magic felt we had it too soft. That we deserved to struggle. That’s when Lady Ava came to my side and offered the help of the TRUE society.”

  Helga adds, “Though after the initiation I realized I had made a mistake. I wanted to get out. That’s when I started to look for help . . .”

  Higgins waits for Helga to continue.

  “That’s when I agreed to Brimstone’s plan: spiking Lady Ava’s tea with the potion. He said that once she was transformed, then all those under her control were to be freed.”

  “Hmmm,” Higgins notes with a frown, “you believed this demon, Brimstone?”

  “Yes,” Helga replies, “I had no one else to turn to.”

  Higgins toys with his bushy mustache, still frowning, and says nothing.

  “Go ahead, lock me away, I deserve it. Everyone else thinks so.” She turns her head to one side and squeezes her eyes shut trying to not to shed a single tear.

  Silence reigns as Higgins sits across from her, creaking his chair every now and then. Helga peers back at him. He’s waiting for her to look at him. His mustache twitching back and forth as he readies to speak again.

  “I respect your honesty, Helga,” he speaks softly, “I only wish you had been honest with me earlier, and maybe it would have helped your case.”

  Helga sits in her chair quietly.

  Higgins continues, “But, without you, we would never have found the missing court members. Some of them have been missing for years.”

  Surprise overwhelms Helga’s face as her mouth slightly drops open.

  “We found the court members in Lady Ava’s kennels. Most of them have been returned to their rightful selves; however, we ran low on the cure, so some of them will have lingering effects.” Higgins leans back, as the chair creaks, to say, “Two of them you know.”

  Helga asks wondering if one of them was Uncle Cornelius, “Who?”

  “The wizard-in-training, Jay.” Higgins nods his head slowly in an up-and-down fashion. “And the girl, Ruby.”

  She exhales a sigh of relief as she thought about Jay and his friend Ruby. Finally Ruby got her cure, and Jay is going to be alright.

  Helga remembers the yapping chihuahua, so she inquires, “What happened to Lady Ava?”

  “Gone.”

  “Brimstone?”

  “He fled the scene with some small yippie dog. Or that is what my men say.” He clears his throat, admitting, “I was still out cold.”

  Helga’s heart flutters for a minute thinking about her sister Agnes. “And Lucius?”

  “That behemoth of a hound my men told me about?”

  “Yes,” Helga shudders.

  Higgins restacks the papers in the manila folder. “Hmm, yes, according to my men, it simply vanished when Lady Ava went missing. Went up in a dark puff of smoke. Shadow hounds do that when their masters no longer are able to hold them to this dimension.”

  Helga sighs in relief and slumps forward letting her head rest on the cool metal table. “Good.”

  He raps the table, and she lifts her head up. He informs her, “Helga, you’re forgetting that you will still be going on trial for your crimes.”

  She shrugs her shoulders, disclosing, “I’m alright with that . . . I guess.” She then whispers under her breath, “Rock hammering, here I come . . . whoopee.”

  Higgins leans in closer to say, “You know, Helga, even though you are classified as a 3rd Order witch, I cannot stand by and let a witch of your 1st Order talents be wasted.”

  Blinking disbelief, she sits back up, questioning, “Huh?”

  He smiles a toothy grin and explains, “That was some Toady Day Flu potion you gave me. ‘Twas the worst case of that flu I’ve had in years.” He chuckles, “Rather powerful stuff. Most witches and wizards can only make it last an hour or two. Yours continued for a day and a half.” He points his finger into the air. “That, my dear, shows 1st Order talent.”

  Higgins gets up from the table and walks to the door. He opens it and turns to Helga before leaving to say with a kind voice, “I cannot promise you much, Helga, but I will try and do what I can before you go on trial next week. I will also start an investigation on why the courts treated you so harshly.”

  He exits the room, bidding, “Until then,” and closes the door.

  Helga continues to look at the door for a few more minutes before she rests her head back on the table. “I highly doubt you will be able to do anything,” she grouses and lets out a long sigh, “Why me?”

  17

  Probation

  A week and two days after the trial we find Helga back at the shop with her sisters. She sits on one of the bar stools that they had installed
when they repaired the cafe after the frog and toad explosion. With her leg up on another stool she continues to file away on the ankle bracelet when her sister Ursa passes by, dusting the counter tops with her feather duster, admonishing, “Stop it, Helga, or you’ll end up back in jail.”

  The shop wasn’t open to the public yet, for they were waiting for a few special guests that morning. Agnes bellows from the back room, “Are they here yet?”

  Helga barks right back, “No! For the last time, NO!”

  “Wait, who’s supposed to come again?” Agnes asks.

  Rolling her eyes, Helga replies, “Jay and Ruby, you nitwit.”

  Ursa lets loose a titter as she continues to dust the various bottles on the shelf. The front door jingles as two teens, one ebony-skinned boy and another red-headed girl with tons of freckles, enter the shop.

  The boy flashes a grin and calls out, “Ursa! Helga! It’s nice to see you.”

  The girl, walking behind him, smiles timidly as she peers around him.

  “Nice to see you too, Jay,” Ursa, greets warmly and goes to him for a hug.

  She turns and hugs the girl too, saying, “Ruby, nice of you to come with Jay this time.”

  Jay readjusts his coat. “She had to . . . by order of Mr. Higgins.”

  “Shush, Jay,” Ruby chides, “they don’t need to know that—”

  “Oh, come off it, Ruby,” Jay responds, “You’ve been experimenting, and you need to know why you shouldn’t.”

  Ruby rolls her eyes with a sigh, insisting, “I have not.”

  Helga barks, “Will you two just get it over with and just kiss already?”

  Jay and Ruby stop bickering and shuffle their feet on the floor, making sure to avoid eye contact.

  Ursa bites her lip trying to not laugh at the young lovers and continues dusting around the shop. The front door jingles again, and Higgins enters. He looks around to see Ursa dusting, Jay and Ruby with their backs to each other, and Helga with a file in hand just above her ankle bracelet. He sniffs the air and smells the luscious brownies that Agnes is apparently baking in the kitchen at that moment.