Page 3 of Wallflower Witch

The only good part was a lunch of cheddar and roast beef on sourdough—the bread freshly baked by George’s wife—which the two of us ate between the children’s creative caboose hour and the smut club finding their next book of the month.

They settled on a popular new book about dragon riders, war, and romance as I made my way back downstairs to work until 6 p.m. finally rolled around.

With the steaming bag of Mexican takeout carefully balanced on my palm, I make my way over to dump it on the coffee table next to my bed that takes up nearly a third of my postage-stamp-sized apartment. I take the extra helping of rice and dump it onto the windowsill for Quoth’s dinner, admiring the red hue of the super blood moon as he swoops down to greet me.

The raven has been a constant companion at home for the last three years since the night he turned up nearly dead at the apartment’s window. Weeks of care later, he finally flapped his beautiful wings out of my life, only to come swooping back in a few hours later. Now, he spends most of his nights perched on my sill or pacing after me as I go about my night.

Honestly, most of the time, he seems to be taking care of me more than I take care of him. More of a roommate than a pet. He even seems to be able to follow along when I’m listening to audiobooks while cooking.

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” I sigh, leaning against the kitchen counter with my supper. “Maybe I should’ve taken up George’s dinner invitation. I think I’ve been spending far too much time alone.”

Quoth croaks, gulping down rice like he hasn’t eaten for weeks.

I cough. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’m the weirdo who talks to a bird like it can understand me.”

I dig into the meal and soon after fall into a YouTube hole of bookbinding and creating art with books; a sacrilegious yet beautiful practice, even if I can’t quite bring myself to chop up the pages like that. The bookbinding videos give me a few new techniques to experiment with in my free time, though, and I can’t wait to try them out.

* * *

The odd lady is back, once again standing in the corner of the archives, not a frill or ruffle out of place on her old-fashioned dress. I round my desk and slowly approach, reaching for a pen and paper as I go, since she couldn’t seem to speak the last time she was here.

Her face twists into a severe scowl, mouth working but nothing coming out. I pass the notebook over, and she grabs it, once again dropping it to the ground. But this time my eyes catch on her outstretched hand, watching as it changes from a pale—nearly translucent—white into a warmer ivory tone.

A soft sigh escapes her lips, and the scowl turns into a smile. “I knew it. You do have the gift.”

“Oh!” I stumble back a little, falling onto my ass. “You do speak. I’m sorry, Ma’am, I don’t know what gift you’re referring to. But if you could give me a few more details, I can get us started in the right direction.”

We may not have the largest collection of historical and public records here, but it’s still a decent amount spread across twenty shelves, three worktables, and a book carousel modeled after the one in the Biblioteca Palafoxiana.

I was thrilled to find this job in a place that would allow me the freedom to collect and care for so many books in need. It’s taken some time, but with the hard work of myself and the other archivist, James, we’ve turned the bottom floor of this library into a historian’s wet dream. At least, that’s what he tells me.

“Is it a historical record you want to find?” I wave her over to my desk. “I can check other archives as well, in the case that we don’t have what you’re looking for.”

“Follow your heart, child,” the lady whispers.

I gasp, not expecting her to be standing right behind me. She’s surprisingly light-footed for her looks, but one should never judge only by what’s on the cover. I should know. That’s Archivist 101.

“O-kay.” I draw the word out slowly, considering my search options. “Follow. Your. Heart.” I press enter and cross my fingers. I’m not sure what she expects to find with that, but if this is how things are starting, it’s going to be a long day.

The search results pop up, the first from a diary with an entry saying “They told me, follow your heart, and it led me to Spells Hollow. I know now that was what saved me from those monsters with their torches.”

“Come home, Morrigan. Your family needs you.”

I turn around. The lady fades out of sight, her words burning their way into my mind.

I’m screaming when I wake up, some random YouTube video about the historical burning of witches playing through my laptop’s speaker. Quoth flies into the air from where he was snacking on the bag of chips I opened around midnight last night. He glares at me and perches on the windowsill, a loud croak pronouncing his irritation at being disturbed.

Shit, it was just a dream.

Blowing out a breath, I sit up and brush chip-crumbs from my shirt. “Sorry, Quoth. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

I pause the video and freeze. Across the top of a desolate town are the words Spells Hollow: Thought to be home to one of the largest witch covens in the USA before its destruction in the 1600s.

“Spells Hollow again,” I mutter. A quick Google search shows it’s only a couple of hours away. I shake my head. “This is stupid, Mor. You aren’t going to drive to some ghost town in the middle of nowhere because of a weird dream.”

Quoth croaks, coming over to peck at the map on my laptop screen. When I swat him away, he flies over to my key hook and steals my car keys, dropping them in my lap as he swoops past. I swat at him, shaking my head in reprimand.

“No, Quoth. I’m not going to Spells Hollow. I’m going to go into work and finish transcribing the journal we just got in. Hopefully, I’ll forget all about the dream and Spells Hollow while I do that.”

---