Page 56 of Big Witch Energy

Ben

Did it count as a parent-teacher conference when your kids’ magical mentor texted to ask you to come over “really quick” for a “talk”?

It still felt weird to walk into Shaddow House as a welcome guest when it had been a secretive fortress, shutting him out, his whole life. But his kids were inside—not just welcome, but honored, guests—and therefore, the doors were always open to him. Plover may not have been a fan, but he’d made that policy clear.

Part of Ben knew that the ladies were devoting so much time to helping the kids adjust because having untrained magic bouncing around the island wasn’t just dangerous to others, but to the kids themselves. But still, it was a little weird to have this much time alone in his own house. He was able to keep up with his patients and update their files. Hell, his email inbox was clear. That hadn’t happened since before Josh’s kindergarten graduation.

And now…he just had time to sit around and think, which was never good. He wanted Caroline in his life—not just because he wanted her, but because life made so much more sense with her in it. The kids seemed to adore her, which was an unexpected gift he was sure he didn’t deserve. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, just to fold her back into his life like the last twenty years never happened, but he wanted whatever she had to offer. He hoped that offer included a place in her life, long-term.

And just when Ben was starting to feel happy and settled into that groove, his ex called, and everything got turned on its ass again.

Thank goodness Riley texted him to distract him from his emotions twisting themselves inside out. Her message only said, “please come over when convenient,” and yet he raced up the stairs to Shaddow House, as if he could outrun his co-parenting problems. He found Josh and Riley sitting in her office, staring at a weird paperweight thing made from copper loops.

“Hi! Did Josh break something?” Ben asked, skidding to a stop in front of her huge desk. “How valuable was it?”

“No! Why do you always assume I broke something?” Josh exclaimed.

“Because of that time at Grandma’s house,” Ben said. “And that time at TechStop. And that time at the zoo.”

Riley turned to Josh. “What happened at the zoo?”

“There was an incident. At the Polar Zone habitat,” Josh mumbled. “All of the penguins were fine.”

Snickering, Riley turned her gaze back to the lock on the desk. Ben could tell it wasn’t a good thing. He didn’t have to be a witch to feel that. It was angry, cold, hateful, and furious. It wanted to hurt anything it could reach, including his son. Ben wanted to throw the copper weight through the window, far away from his child…but it would just land in the atrium and that wouldn’t make much of a difference. Also, the damn thing was magic, so it would probably just come back to him like an evil boomerang.

“I texted you because Josh had himself a ghost moment and his breathing got a little…intense. And I was afraid he was going to pass out,” Riley paused to gesture between her shorter-than-average frame and Josh’s much taller one. “If he ends up on the floor, I cannot pull him back up. The physics are stacked against me.”

“Oh! Medical stuff. Something I can handle,” Ben said, kneeling in front of his son to check Josh’s pulse and pupils.

“Dad! Dad, I’m fine,” Josh promised, fending him off.

“If I may, young sir, you did turn the approximate color of oatmeal,” Plover said.

“Plover! Bro Code violation!” Josh gasped.

“I don’t know what that means,” Plover replied. “Does this Bro Code translate to ‘ignoring potential medical crises to one’s own detriment’?”

Josh pouted. “No.”

The little self-care lecture sounded like something that had been repeated often enough that it was now rote. Ben would have to thank Plover later for that, even if he did violate some unspoken promise to protect Josh’s anti-parental privacy.

“It’s so much more fun watching him forcibly sensible-male-father-type-figure someone else,” Riley sighed, smiling to herself.

That knocked Ben back a step. His kids hadn’t had grandparents for years, not since his parents passed. And now they had a ghost grandpa? Weird.

“So, Josh, what has your heart rate spiked and your face oatmealed?” Ben asked, earning an approving nod from Plover.

“It’s fine,” Josh said. “I just, um, heard some really loud whispers from the basement? And I thought, since I was down there, I might as well look for the entrance to the that secret basement thing that Aunt Riley was talking about?”

Ben arched a brow. Josh was posing everything as a question, something he only did when he knew his actions were, well, questionable.

“You probably shouldn’t be wandering around in another person’s house, like a burglar, especially when burglars have previously died in that house,” Ben noted.

“You make a good point, but there was just a bunch of junk down there,” Josh agreed. “Nothing dangerous or haunted. Just old Christmas decorations and furniture and a weird number of taxidermied animals. And then I heard this voice coming from behind the wall—the one near the back of the house? I think it’s under the kitchen. There were all these scorch marks on the stones, like I don’t know, somebody tried something magical they weren’t supposed to. And the thing behind the wall was saying…not nice things—all sort of crap about my mom and how sad I must be that she couldn’t be bothered to move here with us. It said I was accepted here, I could stay here forever. All I had to do was take the locks out of the house.”

“Oh, no, honey,” Riley said. “That’s not true.”

“Oh, please,” Josh scoffed. “I’m a teenager who spends time on the internet. You don’t think I know when I’m being lured by a predator?”

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