Black Magic Kitten
by
Sara Bourgeois
Blurb
Welcome to Coventry!
Kinsley Skeenbauer never thought she would go home. At seventeen, she’d left Coventry and didn’t look back. But after a messy divorce, she packed up her stuff and drove toward the only place that she knew would accept her.
Life hadn’t been easy for Kinsley since she left town. Despite wanting a family desperately, she was childless. She had a college degree but had just been fired… again…
She’d spent her entire adult life rebelling against what she was, and that meant hiding her true self from the world. Kinsley left Coventry on a mission to be ordinary.
But you know what they say about the best-laid plans…
Coventry isn’t your typical small town. It’s home to the most powerful family of witches in the world. Two ancient witch families united when her parents married, and she was supposed to be their leader.
Nobody ever asked Kinsley if that’s what she wanted, though. Funny how the universe worked because there she was divorced, childless, and jobless… again… rolling into Coventry in her broken-down car with a U-Haul full of everything she owned.
The joyous welcome home party was short-lived, because a dead guy turned up, of all places, behind the diner.
Of course, the town’s hunky sheriff starts to give Kinsley the side-eye. But a lot of people wanted the victim dead, and that only complicates the investigation.
There’s a murderer on the loose in Coventry, and Kinsley’s got to learn to harness her powers to avoid the killer’s snare.
Oh! And, then there’s Meri, the black cat familiar. Someone decides to grant him one wish for his faithful service to his coven, and it doesn’t go as planned either…
Welcome back to Coventry. The events in this story take place thirteen years after the final scene the Wicked Witches of Coventry series. It can be fully enjoyed on its own and is suitable for all ages. You’ll find no swearing, gore, or adult situations, but you will find magic, mystery, and a hint of lighthearted mayhem.
Chapter One
“No! No! No!” I yelled to no one in particular and hit the steering wheel hard enough to hurt my hand.
Then I realized there was a car coming from the other direction, and I had to pull over as safely as possible before I caused a horrible accident. My car’s engine lasted long enough for me to guide it and the trailer I was dragging off to the shoulder, and then it died completely.
I was a couple of miles out from Coventry. I’d almost made it home.
My cell phone showed no signal. You’d have thought with all the new technology, they could get a signal out there. I was sure even Coventry had to have one of those newfangled towers, but alas, the phone was useless.
No matter what the scientists came up with, the ley line in Coventry could destroy it. Earth’s magnetic something or other, according to them, but I knew it was magic.
I had two choices. I could wait there on the side of the road for someone to come along and rescue me, or I could do something I hadn’t done for at least thirteen years.
Inside of me somewhere was the power to make that engine behave and get me the rest of the way home. All I had to do was wave my hand over the errant engine and focus my intention. I was out of practice, but I still knew how it was done. By the time I’d quit my magical studies to go to regular school, I was more accomplished than most adult witches.
No one had really pressed the matter when I refused to take magic seriously again after they pulled me out of regular school either. I dithered around doing the bare minimum until I ran away at seventeen, but I still understood enough to get me in big trouble.
But I wasn’t ready yet. At some point, I’d have to go back to being a witch. It would be the price for returning to Coventry.
I was not giving in yet.
After I popped the hood of the car, I went around and slid my hand under to find the latch. When I had it opened and propped up, I tied the flag from the safety kit I kept in the trunk to my side-view mirror and got back in.
A couple of cars did go by, but they were both self-driving. It figured. Even out in the sticks, I was the only one left driving a twenty-year-old Subaru. Oh, well, I loved her. I’d paid for that car with my own money after the divorce with Gavin had left me high and dry.
I found out that’s what happens when you marry a lawyer who is friends with no one but other lawyers. I couldn’t even find someone decent to represent me, but by the end, I didn’t care.
You see, I’d caught him cheating on me, and somehow, he and his shark lawyer friends ended up making me look like the bad guy.
I’d been indignant and full of fight in the beginning, but a year and a half into the proceedings and the weight of catching the love of my life with my best friend and then having him smear my name in front of everyone we knew had taken its toll. I’d stopped fighting and let him ruin me so that I could just walk away from the mess.
The icing on the cake had been that one of his best friends was also good friends with the woman who owned the company I worked for at the time. I’d received my walking papers the week before. He’d gotten me fired one week after taking everything in the divorce.
What I did have was an envelope full of cash stashed in the back of my closet. Somehow, I’d known to save for a rainy day. I hadn’t been able to add anything to it since Gavin and I had separated, but I’d squirreled away what I could while we were still together.
It wasn’t much when you considered how wealthy we’d been, but at least it was something. I’d thought there was only $2,000 in it, but when I checked it as I was packing, there was $7,000.
I took a cab over to the nearest discount car dealership, because I’d had to turn my Mercedes over when the divorce was final, and I’d bought the Subaru with half the money. What I had left was enough to rent the U-haul, buy out the last couple months of my apartment lease, and eat value menu hamburgers until I got to Coventry.
The car hadn't been as great of a deal as I'd thought, though, because there I was sitting on the side of the road waiting for someone to come by and rescue me.
By the time it started to get dark and I'd eaten the rest of my snacks, it because evident that no one was going to rescue me. I took out my phone again and hoped that maybe at night I could get a signal. I didn't, but that didn't stop me from getting out of my car and standing in the middle of the road trying. I reached my arm up into the air to see if it helped to get the phone higher. It didn't, and how would that have helped anyway? It's not like I could talk to anyone with my phone up in the air like that. Maybe they could have heard me on speaker, I reasoned.
No matter. There was no signal. I was in one of America's last dead zones. I sighed and put the phone in my pocket.
I also needed to get out of the middle of the road before one of those self-driving cars ran me over. I still didn't trust those things.
The way I saw it, I had two choices. Well, three if you counted sitting in my car all night waiting for someone who wasn't coming to come along.
My other two choices were to use magic to fix the car or start walking. It took me a while to decide. I wanted to just walk. It was only two miles, but then I remembered that it was two miles along a deserted highway in the pitch-black dark.
I'd heard enough stories about the woods around Coventry to know it wasn't a good idea to be out there at night. My parents and family would talk about things when I was supposed to be asleep.
I wasn't asleep, though. I was usually sitting at the top of the stairs listening. Meri would be there too, but he'd never tell on me. I bribed him with bacon, so he'd happily keep me company while I eavesdropped.
; Sometimes they would talk about the time Mom and Dad discovered zombies in those woods. The very ones I could see from the road where I was standing.
The witches in our family were powerful enough to raise the dead. Some of them were powerful enough to raise the dead but also clumsy enough to unleash all manner of demons and horrible ghosts on the world. I don't know that any of them ever learned their lesson either. They would just clean up their messes and live to cast another day.
Then there was also Uncle Brody. He died when I was a baby, but his spirit never crossed over. Mom didn't know it. Sometimes when I was a kid, I would see him outside my window. Even then, I could almost feel him out in the dark watching me from behind a tree.
As I lived in the real world and my magic faded, it was harder and harder for him to reach me. It got to the point where he could only visit me in nightmares. I'd stopped having to worry about being out too late and having his angry specter following me home. I could even forget to close the curtains before dark without finding him there looking in at me.
But just then, with the moon out and shadows falling from every tree, I could sense that he was close again. Something told me that he had to get to me before I got to Coventry. Once I was back home, the ley line would make me invincible to his malice.
That made up my mind for me. I quickly ran my hands above the engine. "Please start. Come on, baby. I promise I'll take good care of you if you'll just get me out of here."
I didn't know any spells for fixing cars. What I did know was how to focus my intentions. As long as the car started, that was all I needed.
After I slammed the hood down, I rushed around to the driver's side and got in. I knew not to look in the direction of the trees to my right. My brain was screaming at me not to look, but I did.
He was there. Brody stood at the tree line staring at me. It was the first time he had manifested himself into the world, at least in my presence, since around the time I got out of college.
I turned the key and prayed to the Goddess I'd abandoned that it would start. "Come on, please. I will do what I was put on this Earth to do if you just get me home safe."
It was a promise I knew I'd never be able to take back, and one that I was happy I made when I saw Brody's ghost running towards my car.
The engine roared to life, and I didn't hesitate to put the pedal to the floor. It was just a Subaru and not a stock car, but she was fast enough. Except that I forgot I was towing a trailer and nearly jack-knifed off the road.
"Stay on!" I yelled as the car swerved. "Drive straight. I'm going home!"
Whether it was magic or just good driving skills, I was able to get the car going straight without running off the side of the road or breaking the trailer hitch. I looked back using the rear-view mirror and saw Uncle Brody's ghost standing in the middle of the road. He looked furious, but he knew he couldn't follow where I was going. I would be safe from him once I reached Coventry.
And at the speed I was going, I'd reach it sooner rather than later. I slowed down a little as the town sign came into view.
It wasn't too late. I could still go back.
"To what?" I asked myself with a slightly hysterical laugh. I had nothing to go back to.
Everything in my life was gone. Except Coventry.
I rolled into town and even though it was dark, there were still people out milling around. Most of them turned and stared at me like I had at least three heads. Some were probably because they recognized me while the others saw nothing but a stranger driving into their town in a beat-up old car after dark.
When I passed the bed and breakfast, I briefly considered pulling in. I could stay there for the night and not bother my parents until the next morning. They didn't even know I was coming. I hadn't called.
They would know soon enough, though. I'd already seen a couple of the Aunties, and they'd be on the phone with my parents in a heartbeat.
I drove the rest of the way to my parents' street but I sat down the road for a while. It was like I was begging the Universe to give me one more shot at not coming crawling back home.
It was not meant to be. Nothing happened except I wasted more time. Plus, I'd just made the promise to embrace who I was.
"Being a witch isn't bad, Kinsley,” I said to myself. "You're just being a spoiled brat. You're mad because you were wrong, and you don't want to admit it. You never should have left and now you feel like a fool for having to come crawling back."
But I knew my parents would take me back with open arms. Even if I hadn't visited them in thirteen years. Tears began to spill down my cheeks. How prideful and stubborn I had been.
It didn't matter if I had to move back in with my parents at thirty. As I pulled into the driveway, my heart began to pound.
All of the lights were out at Hangman’s House. The place looked completely abandoned. I hadn’t seen my parents, but I had spoken to them. Neither of them had mentioned going on vacation or moving away.
Maybe they are just in the back of the house, I thought.
I walked up the front steps and considered whether I should just walk in or knock first. It was the house I had grown up in, but Hangman’s House hadn’t been my home for a long time.
When I raised my fist to knock, the door popped open. “Okay,” I said. “Hello?”
No one answered, but the door opened a little more. Having been raised in Coventry, my first suspicion was ghosts.
It was also possible that the house itself just wanted me to come in. Hangman’s House had a mind of its own, and it tended to do little things to manipulate its inhabitants’ lives.
“Hello?” I said again as I stepped through the door. “Is anyone here? Mom? Dad?”
I looked around and the furniture was all gone. There was also no… stuff of life… There was no furniture, but there was nothing else to indicate that people lived in the house either. There were no books, magical supplies, trinkets, or photos on the walls. The house looked completely abandoned.
“What in the world?” I asked as I took a step deeper into the living room.
It was right then that red and blue lights flashed across the walls. The blip of a siren followed.
I froze. My parents weren’t in the house, and I had no proof I was even supposed to be there. My stomach clenched at the thought of spending the night in the Coventry jail. People would be talking about it for months. I’d be the butt of every joke for at least a few weeks.
Unless they were still too afraid of me. “What is wrong with you?” I asked myself. Going to jail was worse than being made fun of. I had my priorities all out of whack.
“Come out with your hands up,” a male voice announced over the cruiser’s speaker.
“Okay,” I called out. “I’m coming out.”
I walked out slowly with my hands raised up. The sheriff had his hand over his gun, but he relaxed when he saw me. I guess I either wasn’t that threatening or I wasn’t what he’d expected.
Or both.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I swear I didn’t break into the house. This is… was my parents’ house.”
“You can put your hands down and walk down here. Do it slowly, though, and keep your hands where I can see them.”
The front step creaked loudly under my foot. The old wooden treads needed to be replaced badly. It seemed off to me. My parents never would have neglected the house. There was only one thing that it could mean, and that was Hangman’s House was not happy about my return.
“You say you’re Brighton and Remy’s daughter?” the sheriff asked me. “That makes you Kinsley Skeenbauer, correct?”
“Yes.” I shook my head along with my answer.
“If that were true, you’d know they don’t live in the house anymore,” he said skeptically.
“You would think so,” was my only answer. “Are you going to arrest me then?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s not that late. I’ll give your mother a call. She and your father are over on Hallow
s Road.”
“His old house,” I said.
“Well, if you know that, you might actually be their daughter,” he said. “Give me a minute.”
He took out his phone and punched in a number. His intense blue eyes wandered up from the ground and met mine. A brief smile pulled at the corners of his mouth before he caught himself and went back to his stern “law enforcement face”.
“Hey, Brighton, this is Thorn… I’m good. How are you?”
Thorn. Where did I know that name? I wondered. It sounded really familiar.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Thorn said. “I’m doing pretty well myself, but hey, I’ve got a question for you. I’m sorry to disrupt your evening, but I’ve had an incident at Hangman’s House. No, I’m fine and the house is fine, but I caught a woman inside. She says she’s your daughter, but I have to confirm that.” He looked at me again. “Around five-five with long auburn hair and green eyes. A few freckles across the bridge of her nose.” He was describing the way I looked, and I couldn’t help but blush a little when he described my freckles. I had no idea what was wrong with me, but it made my stomach do a little flip-flop. “Okay, Brighton. I’ll take a picture really quick. Hang on.” He aimed the camera at me and took my picture. “I sent it. Okay. Yes. Thank you so much, Brighton. Have a good night.” He hung up.
“So, am I under arrest?” I asked when he put his phone away.
“She said it’s you.”
“I know that,” I said with a chuckle. “Sorry to cause problems, officer.”
“You can call me Thorn,” he said.
“I don’t mean to pry, but that name sounds familiar. Maybe my mother had a friend named Thorn a long time ago? But you look too young to be one of my mother’s old friends,” I said.
“You’re talking about my father,” Thorn said. “He was friends with your mother and sheriff of this town until my mother made him move away. I’m actually Thorn Junior.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Thorn Jr. Sorry it was such a rocky start,” I said.
Thorn’s sapphire eyes sparkled a little when he laughed and said, “I’m actually glad you’re not a burglar, Kinsley. Not having to arrest you and do the paperwork will make my night much easier.”
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