by Cassandra
Had the demon followed her to her parents’ house?
She stood quickly from the table and looked toward the window. “Was there anything strange about it?” she asked. It seemed logical that even though her father was a mundane, he would have undoubtedly noticed if the dog chasing him happened to have two heads.
Her mother gave her a curious look as she crossed the kitchen and peered out of the window above the sink.
“No. Just a regular mutt trying to score some food.” Mark paused and also eyed his daughter curiously. “Why? Did you see it too?”
Jessica breathed a sigh of relief and shook her head. “No… I, um… It’s nothing.” Her voice faltered. Presumably, her father probably wouldn’t want to know she was currently on the lookout for a two-headed demon dog that could show up at any moment. She exchanged glances quickly with her mother and tried to relay that perhaps they should talk again later.
On the other hand, she wondered if it would be best for her to simply leave and avoid the risk of the demon coming to look for her at her parents’ house. If a regular mutt had her father so worked up, she didn’t exactly want to imagine how he would react to a demonic two-headed canine invading his property.
“Well, enough about hungry strays because I’m hungry myself. Let’s eat,” Mark said and removed the food from the large paper bag. He set a carton of noodles on the table and paused to sniff the air. “It smells like…melted wax?” His face twisted in confusion. “What’s this? Why are their candles on the table?” He looked at his wife, his eyebrows raised. “Were we supposed to have a candlelit dinner or something?”
Jessica’s quick glance at her mother confirmed that unfortunately, she seemed to be at a loss for words.
Crap, she thought when she realized she would have to come up with an explanation. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, Mom told me that you two would have a nice romantic dinner, so um…I’ll leave now. You know, give you two your privacy. By no means do I want to interrupt. I missed you guys, that’s all. So, I’ll be on my way now. I have homework to finish and—”
“Oh, nonsense, Jess. You can stay. Now that you’re staying with your Grandma Ethel, your mother and I have plenty of alone time these days—right, honey?” Mark wiggled his eyebrows and leaned down to kiss Theresa on the cheek.
“Okay…ew.” Jessica shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “I really didn’t need to hear or see that.” Ironically, it was in that moment that she remembered her real reason for stopping by to visit her parents. Suddenly, she felt much more keenly that she really did want to leave in case it was decided that her father needed to know about her wild night out drinking.
She looked at her mother again and noticed the contemplative expression that had come over her face. Her lips were pursed tightly together, and she drummed her fingers on the table while she eyed Mark.
“What?” he asked and sounded slightly worried. He looked from Theresa to Jessica, and then back to his wife.
The woman sighed and folded her hands in front of her on the table.
“Uh oh,” Mark said. “I know that look. This is serious, huh?” He looked at Jessica again. “Spill it. What kind of trouble are you in?”
Jessica swallowed and took a step away from the table. This was happening too fast. She had hoped she’d be in her truck and down the road already before her mother spilled the beans.
“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that,” Theresa said.
Her daughter raised her eyebrows, surprised. “It’s not?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Theresa shot her a look.
“You two are killing me, you know that?” Mark said.
“All right. Here it is.” The woman cleared her throat and followed up with a rather dramatic pause. She turned her gaze firmly to Mark. “I’ve come to realize,” she said slowly, “how much I really hate keeping secrets from you.”
Jessica’s heart began to race once again. She stared at her mother and wondered where she could possibly go with this if she wasn’t about to rat her out about the night of underage drinking.
“Secrets?” Mark narrowed his eyes. “Secrets like what, exactly?”
Theresa swallowed, looked at Jessica, and then looked at the candlestick. “I know you don’t exactly like to hear about this sort of thing, but as her father, I feel that you should know. Mark, Jessica lit the candle. By magic. She’s done very well in her…training. She has amazing aptitude. You should be proud.”
He paused for a long moment and looked like a deer caught in headlights. In silence, he shifted back and forth on his feet, clearly not sure how to respond. For a fleeting instant, he looked like he wanted to bolt from the room. When he suddenly seemed unsteady on his feet, he gripped the back of the chair in front of him. His knuckles whitened and strained under the pressure.
After what felt like forever, he cleared his throat. “Well…” he said and nodded at his daughter, “good for you. I… You…you’ll have to show me sometime… Well, actually—there’s no time like the present, right?”
Jessica’s eyebrows shot up so far, they were almost lost in her hairline. “Wait—what? Are you serious?”
Mark nodded and forced a smile onto his face. “Yes.” Slowly, his tense smile shifted into a more genuine one. He turned to his wife. “Why don’t we set the table, honey? And then…” He looked at his daughter. “You can show me how you do it. Dinnertime entertainment.”
Jessica grinned, crossed the room toward her father, and threw her arms around him in a hug. “Sure, Dad. Of course.”
He kissed the top of her head.
Okay, here goes, Jessica thought and closed her eyes as she stood at the kitchen table. Her parents sat on the opposite sides with plates full of noodles, orange chicken, and steamed vegetables before them.
She concentrated on thoughts of coldness rather than hotness, exactly as her mother had instructed her to do. First, she recalled a blizzard she remembered playing in when she was a child and relived the way her hands had practically frozen when she’d lost her gloves trying to make a snowman. She had come very close to getting frostbite that day, but she’d had so much fun building her snowman that she had flat-out refused to quit until she was done. In fact, it was one of the best snowmen she had ever built to date.
By the time she had gotten back in the house, however, she had lost all feeling in her hands. It had taken forever for the numbing cold to relent, and she could remember the sensation of pins and needles when she could finally feel her fingers again.
Her mother had fussed at her relentlessly that day and demanded an answer as to why Jessica hadn’t simply come back in the house to ask for another pair of gloves. While she’d lashed out, Theresa had taken her hands in hers and rubbed them furiously in an effort to build enough friction to sufficiently warm them again. Afterward, she’d gone to the stove, lit one of the burners, and told her daughter to hold her hands over it. Of course, she’d carefully monitored the situation to make sure that she didn’t burn herself or that a trip to the emergency room wasn’t warranted.
Jessica squeezed her eyes shut and recalled the way the blue flames had flickered from the stove to warm her painfully cold hands.
The memory was broken by the sound of Mark’s gasp.
She opened her eyes, pleased to see a bright flame flicker from the candlestick. A slow grin spread across her face when she saw how astonished her father was.
Meanwhile, Theresa beamed brightly and applauded. “Excellent job, honey,” she said.
Jessica gave a little bow. “Why, thank you.”
“I never thought I’d hear myself saying this, but that was really impressive.” Mark stared, transfixed, at the candle that had magically been lit on the kitchen table right before his eyes. He shook his head and glanced at his wife. “You know, something like that would have come in handy during power outages.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know. But I never thought you would have approved.”
“Well…” Mark dabbed soy sa
uce from the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “I think I may have had a change of heart.”
Theresa laughed. “Finally. I guess it’s true what they say—no one can soften a man’s heart like his daughter.”
“Hey now,” Mark said, “that’s supposed to be a secret!”
Jessica laughed. “I can do more,” she said and felt like showing off now that her father was finally interested in her magic. She cleared her head and recalled the smoke spell Chad had recently taught her. Before long, she sent streams of smoke billowing around the kitchen to obscure their vision for a moment before it lifted and faded away.
“Jessica, you’ve really found your calling,” Theresa said and smiled serenely. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Thanks.” She took a seat at the kitchen table, now hungry after her little impromptu magic show. Without hesitation, she piled a plate with orange chicken and noodles.
“So, what else is going on in your…magical world?” Mark asked. He seemed to have difficulty getting the question out, but years of training himself not to think about the magical world were more to blame this time than his unwillingness to have the discussion. After all, old habits died hard sometimes.
Still, she recognized it was probably best that she not fill him in on some of the more problematic areas of her newly acquired magical lifestyle just yet.
Baby steps, she reminded herself. That was the way to approach dealing with her father and the magical world. He didn’t need to know about the demons, but she thought telling him about Frank would be all right.
“Well, I have a witch’s familiar,” she announced around a mouthful of noodles.
He raised his eyebrows. “What is that?”
“A lifelong companion for witches, usually in the form of some creature or other. They sometimes possess magical abilities of their own,” Theresa answered.
“Right,” Jessica said. “Very eloquently stated, Mom.”
Her mother smirked.
Mark nodded his head. “Oh. So like what you see on TV when witches have pet cats or owls? That sort of thing?”
She snickered. “Yeah, sort of.”
“Neat. So what do you have? A cat? Frog?”
“No, not quite.” Jessica set her fork down and looked across the table at her mother, suddenly unsure if it was wise to explain the imp to her father after all. Theresa merely shrugged as if to say that she might as well keep going. She took a deep breath and decided to go for it. “My familiar is an imp.”
Mark blinked. “A what?” he asked a few seconds later.
“An imp.”
He tilted his head. “What’s an imp?”
“It’s like…a little creature that resembles a troll,” Jessica explained. “He’s a little startling to see at first glance, but he’s actually pretty cool once you get to know him. His name is Frank, and he’s, like, a hundred years old. It’s amazing all the stuff he knows. I’ve really learned a lot from him.”
His eyes wide, Mark reached for his glass of water and drained it in a couple of gulps. “Wow,” he said and set the empty glass on the table. “A hundred years old? That’s…old. I never knew magical creatures lived so long.”
“That’s actually young, for an imp,” Theresa said.
Jessica nodded. “Yeah. He’s like a teenager, by imp standards.”
Mark laughed in disbelief, shook his head, and leaned back in his chair. “A one-hundred-year-old teenager? I’d hate to be the parent of that!”
Theresa grinned. “Leave it to you to think of that,” she said and laughed at her husband.
A brief pause settled over the table, and Jessica swallowed another forkful of noodles. She glanced at her father. “Would you…like to meet him, by any chance?”
His eyebrows shot upward. “He’s here?” His eyes darted around the kitchen as if the imp had been hiding somewhere in plain sight.
“No, but I can summon him. He usually comes when I call him.” Jessica set her fork down once again and took a sip of water. Afterward, she cleared her throat, sat up straight in her chair, and called in a loud and clear voice, “Hey, Frank! Come!” She felt a little silly as if she was commanding a pet dog.
A loud noise followed like someone had popped a balloon. Out of thin air, Frank appeared in the middle of the kitchen table, directly beside the carton of noodles.
Mark shrieked and slid back in his chair so abruptly that it almost tipped over. His arms flailed wildly as he tried to prevent himself from losing his balance. The chair scraped on the tiled floor and he stood abruptly.
“It’s okay, Dad!” Jessica held her hands outward in a gesture meant to tell him to calm down. “It’s only Frank. This is my familiar.”
“Sit down, honey. It’s okay,” Theresa said and clasped her husband’s elbow to pull him back down into his seat.
“That’s a…a… What the hell is that?” Mark stammered.
“Nice to meet you too, sir,” Frank said rather crossly and glared at Mark with his arms folded across his tiny chest.
“Frank, that’s my father,” Jessica said and hoped her tone had warned him to be polite, despite her dad’s reaction. “You have to excuse him. He’s a mundane. All this magic stuff is new to him. He’s stayed away from it for a long time, and my mother never revealed it to him. Until now.”
“Mark, sit down!” Theresa said tersely and yanked his elbow a little more forcefully. “Don’t be rude to our guest.”
Flabbergasted, Mark finally plopped into his chair. “Uh… Hi,” he said, after a moment.
To break the awkwardness, Theresa smiled warmly and extended her hand to the imp. “Hello, Frank. I’m Theresa, Jessica’s mother. How do you do?”
Frank instantly appeared to like Theresa a lot more than Mark and he bowed and shook her hand—or her finger, rather, for that was all that could fit inside his tiny palm. “Hello, ma’am. I’m doing fine, and you?”
“Wonderful,” she replied. “It’s very nice to finally meet you. Jessica’s told me so much about you.”
“Likewise,” Frank said. He turned toward Jessica and eyed her skeptically. “And what is it that I can do for you? Did you honestly call me here simply to meet your parents?”
“Actually, yes.”
He blinked, clearly surprised. “Oh.”
“Are you hungry, Frank? We have plenty of food.” Theresa gestured around the table. “Please, help yourself.”
“I don’t mind if I do,” Frank said. “I love Chinese.”
Theresa handed over a much-too-big plate, but the imp didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. As best as he could, he spilled noodles onto his plate while Mark watched and seemed a little perturbed to see an imp digging through the food. Theresa nudged him with her elbow to signal for him to once again refrain from rudeness.
“Uh…so, Frank,” Mark said and tried to recover from his shock, “what is it that you do in the…magical world?”
“I try my best to keep your daughter out of trouble, which is a lot easier said than done. Did she tell you how she—”
“Frank,” Jessica scolded.
Theresa looked quizzically at her from across the table, and Mark paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.
“What?” the imp said innocently and proceeded to slurp a noodle. The noodle wiggled in the air before him, longer than his entire body. Once he reached the end, it slapped him across the face and splashed soy sauce all over him. He fought the last of the noodle down, swallowed with a loud gulp, and burped.
She stared and wondered how someone so small could manage to eat so much. Where did he put it all?
Beside himself with sudden amusement, Mark laughed loudly and heartily. In that moment, the tension at the table instantly vanished.
Jessica leaned back in her chair, unable to keep from laughing as well. The tension effectively broken, they proceeded to finish dinner, chatted amicably, and managed to keep the conversation lighthearted.
Once they’d all had as much as they could eat, Frank p
assed out in the middle of the table and snored softly.
Theresa cleared the table quietly around him and packed the remaining food for Jessica to take back to Ethel. “Tell my mother I said hello,” she said as she hugged her daughter goodbye at the front door.
“I will,” she promised. She turned to hug her father, who squeezed her gently, careful not to wake Frank, whom she had stored in her pocket beside the candle her mother had given her to keep and use for practice. Jessica didn’t need the candle as Grandma Ethel had plenty, but she had taken it anyway. She knew she was only being sentimental, but she wanted to hold onto the first candle she had succeeded in lighting with magic.
“We have to do this again sometime soon,” Mark said. “And you’re welcome to bring your imp with you again. That little guy is the life of the party, isn’t he?”
Jessica laughed. “I’m glad you think so, Dad.”
And with that, her parents stood in the doorway and waved and watched as she climbed into her Jeep to return to Grandma Ethel’s house. Also, Jessica knew, her Dad kept an eye out for the stray dog he had complained about.
She had barely got herself settled, put her extra layers on for warmth, and turned the radio to a station of her liking when her phone buzzed. Her heart momentarily sped up, her first thought of Kacey.
It proved quite a feat to reach her phone with her gloves on and try not to make too much movement so that she wouldn’t wake Frank. Finally, Jessica clutched the phone and unlocked the screen, only to see with some confusion that it was her mother.
She glanced back at the house. Her parents had already retreated inside and shut the door.
What’s this all about? she wondered and opened the message.
I didn’t want to say anything in front of your father, but you’re grounded for a week, or until you clean out the basement and attic. Whichever comes first. Drive safely. Love you. XXX.
Jessica sighed and tossed her phone onto the passenger seat.
On the one hand, she was annoyed. But on the other hand, she decided she should at least be grateful that her mother hadn’t made things harder for her by letting her father know what she’d done. His willingness to accept her affiliation with the magical world was one thing. But his ability to accept that she had used her magic to sneak into the twenty-one and over section and buy alcohol was another.
