by Cassandra
“Snakes here? Heaven’s no. My familiar would never forgive me.” The girl grinned sheepishly and drew a rat from her pocket. She set the little creature on the desk and it stood on its hind legs and squeaked at Jessica for a moment. “Yeah, I know. It’s pretty lame to have a rat as a familiar. But we don’t get to choose our familiars, unfortunately.”
“Hey, no judgment here, trust me,” Jessica said and laughed. “You’ll never believe it, but my familiar is an imp.”
Christa stared at her for a few seconds and clearly wondered if she were joking. Then she snickered. “I’m sorry. Really?”
“Yes, really. He’s currently in my bedroom, sitting in a dollhouse that cost me a hundred bucks, watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians. It’s his favorite show. He’s completely obsessed. All he talks about is Kourtney and Scott.”
“That is the funniest and most awesome thing I’ve heard all week.” Christa laughed and turned her attention to the rat. She leaned over and spoke to it. “Why don’t you go home? I’m sure you’re not interested in going to the pet store with us? We need to visit some snakes.”
Without further ado and with a little popping sound and a poof of smoke, the rat disappeared.
Christa laughed again. “I knew he would do that.”
“A rat for a familiar actually isn’t that bad,” Jessica mused.
“Yeah, I got used to him quickly. I’m only glad it didn’t take me too long to figure out he was my familiar because when he first showed up around the house, my mom bought all kinds of rat traps and poison. I still have nightmares about what would have happened if he had accidentally been caught. Thank goodness he was smart enough to not fall for them.”
“Oh no,” Jessica said and laughed. “Well, thanks to your mom, I don’t feel so bad anymore. I tried killing my familiar a few times before he finally let me know who he was. In my defense, a trio of rogue witches at school had once sent an imp to my house, basically to raise hell and mess with me. So when Frank showed up, I thought it was them messing with me again.”
“Oh wow,” Christa said and shook her head. “I bet that led to an awkward start between you two.”
“That’s an understatement. We’re cool now, though.”
“Well, that’s good. I wish there was a way to warn us ahead of time what our familiars might be. It would spare us the trouble. Being in the nature coven, I thought my familiar would be something really cool. After all, the nature coven’s representative is a lion. A lion. King of all animals Yet what do I get? A rat?” She shook her head. “At this point, though, I wouldn’t change him for anything in the world.”
Jessica smiled. “Yeah, that’s how I feel about my imp.”
“Funny how they grow on you so quickly, right?”
“Definitely,” she agreed. “I’d still say you have the advantage, though, being in the nature coven. Being able to talk to your familiar is one thing. But being able to talk to all different kinds of animals? That is too cool for words.”
“Yeah, it is, I must admit. That’s why it’s definitely a coven worth considering.” Christa winked, and she suppressed a laugh. She could only imagine how jealous and annoyed Chad would be if he were there to hear their conversation.
“Well, let me lock up here so we can get to the pet store before it closes.” Her companion moved speedily through the shop to close doors, turn lights off, and lock the cash register. “All right, come on.”
Jessica traipsed out the door. Once in their respective vehicles, she followed the other girl to the pet store.
“Go ahead, try it again,” Christa instructed between giggles. “Remember, snakes respond best to hissing sounds. It’s weird but try to imagine what a snake would sound like if it could talk.”
“Oh, yeah…talking snakes. I imagine those every day,” Jessica said.
The other girl pressed her hand to her mouth to hold back her laughter.
The two of them had made it to the pet shop in the nick of time. The boy on duty for the evening hadn’t initially wanted to let them in as he had tried to clean up so that he could close the store for the night. But after Christa put considerable effort into batting her eyelashes at him, he eventually relented, much to Jessica’s relief. She had told herself that she had retired from the whole convincing spell business, but had come rather close to thinking she would have to make an exception. Her companion had come to the rescue though, so no magic had been necessary.
Now, they were in the reptile section of the store and stood in front of a tank of snakes. Christa had faced a challenging time in her attempt to seriously teach Jessica how to communicate with the snakes without being caught by other shoppers. For the first half hour they were there, all they had managed to do was a lot of giggling between their attempts to deflect attention away from themselves.
Now, however, with the pet shop so close to closing for the night, they were finally able to get some real practice done.
“Okay.” Jessica cleared her mind and thought about precisely what Christa had instructed her to do. The way the snakes slithered around so much as opposed to lounging like they were when they had first arrived made her wonder if they had possibly reacted to them in some way. Either that or they had simply grown agitated with their presence.
“Concentrate,” Christa whispered.
She closed her eyes and envisioned the snakes in her mind’s eye rather than actually looking at them. Her focus stilled and she imagined looking into their eyes, seeing their tongues flicker, and seeing them do exactly what she wanted them to do. When she spoke, she kept her voice whispery and light. “Rissseee…” she commanded.
“Open your eyes, Jess.”
Jessica could hear the smile in Christa’s voice. She opened her eyes, and sure enough, the snakes in the tank had all collectively began to rise upwards.
I did it, she thought excitedly. “Yes!” She threw her arms triumphantly into the air and jumped up and down until her companion grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Hold on, that’s only half of it. Tell them to look away now,” she said.
“Oh, right, right...” She nodded. “That’s the most important part, isn’t it? Okay.” She closed her eyes again and envisioned the snakes all facing in the opposite direction. “Look away,” she told them in a stern voice.
When she opened her eyes this time, the snakes had all turned and the backs of their heads now faced her. She grinned and turned toward her friend.
Christa grinned back and held her hand out for a high-five, which Jessica enthusiastically returned.
“Excuse me.”
The girls both jumped.
Jessica’s heart hammered and she turned quickly. The pet shop boy stood behind them and looked considerably annoyed. “Are either of you going to buy anything?” he asked.
“Oh um…yeah. I need cat food,” Jessica lied.
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and this is a likely place to find it—in the reptile section.”
“Sorry. We got lost,” Christa said. She smiled widely and batted her eyelids again.
The boy sighed and pointed. “Well, the cat section is that way. So, get what you need because the shop will close in five minutes, no exceptions.”
The girls nodded and scurried away with no choice but to go to the cat aisle.
“Thank you so much for helping me. I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate it,” Jessica said and grabbed a random can of cat food before they made their way back to the front of the store.
“No problem,” Christa said. “Helping is the least I could do after you ended up with those stupid cards from our shop in the first place. Besides, you have a real knack for the nature coven. I enjoyed helping you out. Of course, I wish it was under better circumstances.”
Jessica smiled as she quickly paid for the cat food. “That makes two of us.”
The other girl laughed. “Well, don’t forget the part about considering the nature coven,” she said once they were in the parking lot.
&nb
sp; “Oh, I won’t,” she promised.
“Good. And if you want to learn more, just—”
“Jessica?”
Christa’s words were cut short when someone called Jessica’s name from the neighboring parking lot that belonged to the grocery store.
“Huh?” She looked up, confused for a moment before she spotted Kacey standing with a cart full of grocery bags.
“Ooh, he’s cute,” Christa said and Jessica nudged her arm hastily.
Jessica waved. “Uh…hi, Kacey!” she said, unable to hide the surprise in her voice. She turned toward her companion and gave her an apologetic glance. “I’ll talk to you later?”
Christa smirked and wiggled her eyebrows. “Yeah. Sure. Have fun.” She waved and headed back to her car.
“Jessica, I thought you were still grounded,” Kacey said as she headed his way.
“I am,” she said quickly. “But I needed to get some cat food for my grandma.”
“Oh.”
She stopped a few feet away from him and the two of them eyed one another as an awkward silence hung between them.
Jessica cleared her throat. “Here, let me help you,” she said and proceeded to help him load the grocery bags into his car.
“Thanks.” He smirked. “Well, I’m looking forward to our next date. You know, if we ever manage to actually have it.”
She laughed. “Yeah, me too.”
Kacey fumbled in his pocket for his car keys for a minute and appeared to have more to say as his gaze darted constantly toward her.
Jessica, in turn, stood rooted on the spot, not sure what to do. Hug him goodbye? Kiss him goodbye?
She suddenly realized that she felt warm despite the coldness of the late hour. Then, before she could do or say anything more, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket before it rang.
Chapter Nineteen
“Looks like you’re in high demand,” Kacey said as Jessica retrieved her phone, which still chimed and buzzed furiously. “Am I not the only one anxiously waiting for you to not be grounded anymore?”
Although he kept his voice light and teasing, she could detect the underlying suspicion that lurked beneath his question. “No, it’s nothing like that,” she said as she finally grasped her phone and looked at the screen. “It’s only my grandma, probably wondering where I am—or why I’m talking so long, rather. I mean…because, you know… She knows she sent me out for cat food. Uh…excuse me for a second.” She turned to avoid Kacey’s gaze and knew full well that her rambling explanation hadn’t done her any good.
“Hello?” she answered the phone.
“Jessica—”
“Grandma, what’s wrong?” she asked and knew instantly that something was up from the tone of Ethel’s voice.
“Have you had any luck learning some good nature spells yet?”
“Yeah…I have, actually. Why?”
“Good, good. Because a woman with extraordinarily creepy hair is running around in my living room. She has the cats—and everyone else—quite on edge, to say the least.”
“Oh, my God!” Jessica yelped. “I’ll be there in a minute.” She ended the call and without thinking, raced across the parking lot to her truck.
“Jessica!” Kacey called after her. “What’s wrong? Is everything all right?”
Crap, she thought as she remembered Kacey and came to a halt. She turned and waved at him. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’ll talk to you later. I…uh…have to get home. The cats are super hungry. They haven’t eaten all day.”
Without waiting for a response, she spun away, hurried across the parking lot, and ignored the way Kacey sputtered in confusion behind her.
The cats are really hungry? Was that seriously the best you could do? she chastised herself. But there was no time to think about that now. All she could do was hope that he would eventually give up on her and write her off as the mental-case she so often appeared to be when she was around him.
Why did things have to always get so weird whenever she was near him?
But again, that was something to ponder another time.
Her heart pounded as Jessica cranked the engine of her old truck and burned rubber on her way out of the parking lot. She wondered irritably why Medusa had come out so soon.
Maybe the demon card game had a way to know precisely when the necessary defensive spell had been learned. If that was the case, perhaps she should have taken her time learning the spell.
No, the sooner you can get this game over with, the better, she reminded herself.
Fortunately, there weren’t any cops around because she made it back to Grandma Ethel’s faster than she had any right to.
Holy crap, Jessica thought and stared at the shadows that moved across the living room window. For a brief second, she glanced around at the rest of the block. If any of the neighbors happened to be watching—which fortunately, for some reason, it never seemed they were—they would have thought Grandma Ethel was running some kind of madhouse. With all the strange things that had happened lately, Jessica could only wonder why no one had called the police on them yet.
Maybe it’s harder for mundanes to recognize magical or demonic activity, she mused briefly. She realized that couldn’t be the case, though, because she recalled the two cops who’d been killed by demons some weeks before.
There was no time to think any further on this, however. When she looked at the windows of her grandma’s house, she could see a woman’s figure prancing around with long and wiggly appendages sprouting from her head and waving to and fro. Unmistakably, those were snakes.
She could also make out smaller figures jumping around her—the cats. From the looks of it, they were clearly attempting to take some swipes at the snakes.
Thank goodness, they must be immune to the curse. Otherwise, Grandma Ethel’s cats would have undoubtedly turned to dust by now.
Jessica flung herself out of her truck and could practically feel the evil that penetrated the air around the house and grew heavier the closer she got. By the time she reached the front door, the sense of foreboding was thick enough to choke on.
She glanced up at the second-floor windows and confirmed that the hallway light upstairs was on. Pastor Norman peeked out at her from one of the windows. Evidently, the others had hidden upstairs to avoid meeting Medusa’s deadly gaze.
Her heart raced at a million miles a minute, and she took a moment to review the spell Christa had taught her before she fumbled with the front door. When she opened it, a slew of cats rocketed out, hissing and screeching. The less brave ones now raced into the front yard for cover rather than trying to fight the woman and her snake hair.
Don’t look at her, Jessica warned herself.
Mentally, she braced herself, took a deep breath, and stared firmly at the floor as she rounded the corner and entered the living room.
Goosebumps erupted on her skin when angry hissing filled her ears. The shadows danced across the floor to reveal that the creature was mere feet away from her. To her astonishment, she actually did want to look. There was something intriguing about the way the shadows swayed on the floor
Certainly, a very quick look wouldn’t hurt, would it?
“Jessica, don’t you dare!” Ethel’s voice bellowed from somewhere upstairs.
She snapped back into her senses and felt quite stunned, not to mention ashamed, that she had even considered taking a glance, knowing full well how dangerous the woman was. Apparently, Pastor Norman had been right. Avoiding Medusa’s gaze was easier said than done.
But Jessica was ready for battle now, and the fleeting desire she’d had to look at the demon was gone.
“I got this, Grandma!” she called, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor.
“How nice of you to join ussssss,” the woman said beneath the sibilance of the hissing snakes.
Her voice sent chills down Jessica’s spine. She balled her fists as the shadow moved closer to her.
She squeezed her eyes shut and knew she didn’t hav
e much time. With all her might, she imagined the snakes and saw them in her mind’s eye as they danced on the woman’s head.
It’s exactly like being in the pet shop. Pretend it’s like being in the pet shop.
Jessica put herself into the same state of mind she’d been in while she’d stood beside Christa in the pet store. She imagined Christa’s voice in her head, guiding her through the steps. A little calmer now, she imagined the snakes’ dark steely gazes, their elongated pupils, their muscular bodies, and the patterns of their reptilian skin.
“Look the other way,” she commanded in a voice that was quiet yet full of authority. When she spoke again, she remembered to include a hiss in her voice. “Look away, and under no circumstancesssss are you to look at me.”
She continued to hold her hands in fists at her sides despite the way her palms had started to warm up. When she finally dared to open her eyes, she kept them trained on the floor and examined Medusa’s shadow to determine where the snake-headed woman was.
Judging from the location of her shadow, she had moved several paces away.
As for the snakes on her head…
Jessica swallowed nervously, knowing what she had to do. It was the only way.
She held her breath and took the risk of looking up. Sure enough, the snakes all faced in the opposite direction.
If Medusa wasn’t so frightening, the expression on her face would have been comical. It was obvious that she was thoroughly perturbed by the unexpected behavior of her snakes. The way they had all turned away from the girl seemed to have thrown her off-balance, particularly since the snakes all leaned to one side. It was as if they tried to leave Medusa’s scalp altogether in order to get as far away from the human as possible.
The woman looked at her and a slightly panicked expression in her eyes quickly turned into one of rage. Jessica couldn’t help but observe that the woman was actually quite beautiful, save for the fact that her head was covered in snakes.
The demon snarled and appeared to realize what Jessica had done. It was difficult to tell if the woman was more upset with her for having outsmarted her, or at her snakes for betraying her by obeying someone else’s orders. It struck Jessica briefly how weird it must be to have hair that could literally think on its own. Granted, she’d had a few bad hair days in her lifetime that had made her think hers had its own free will, but that likely didn’t compare to what Medusa currently experienced.
