Page 2 of My Blind Date is a Warlock

“Have you ever thought about how weird the English language is? It has all these phrases from other languages across the world and tries to pass them off as its own. Don’t even get me started on all the weird expressions and metaphors,” I mused out loud, a little drunk off sugary goodness. Note to self, next time I think having more than two bowls of Ben and Jerry’s caramel chew-chew is a good idea, I’ll impale my hand with my spoon. There was a slightly tingly feeling zipping up and down my body and making me feel like I’d drank a bottle full of gran’s favorite Gunpowder Irish Gin, and the jury’s still out on whether this was a good thing or not. It made me feel a little bit trippy, hence the reason why I’d been vegging out on the couch for the last twenty minutes, contemplating the complexities of the English language instead of focusing on the mountain of work waiting for me.

“What are you talking about?” My sister’s exasperated voice piped up from the other side of the line, her impatience seeping through loud and clear. My eyes felt heavy as they looked down at the caller ID on my cell phone. I had her on speaker because my entire body felt heavier and more sluggish than usual, as if I was wading against the current or in a vat of molten tar.

“I mean expressions like ‘strike while the iron is hot.’ I’m twenty-four and I’m just figuring out now that the saying comes from the craft of blacksmithing—you know, like how they had to literally strike the iron while it’s hot to mold it. Which makes me wonder where expressions like ‘shoehorning something’ come from.” I sighed and sunk deeper into my couch. For something that I bought secondhand online, it felt like the most comfortable place on earth.

“And don’t you think it’s weird how they cut off all these proverbs to show only the positive or cautionary parts. Like how the complete proverb is, ‘Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.’ Why do people do that? Do you know how many times someone stopped me from doing something I really wanted to do by saying that to me?” I huffed, rage simmering within my gut out of nowhere. My skin and flesh felt as if it was about to melt right off my bones even though I had the air conditioning on full blast. What was happening to me? It kinda felt as if there was something…other taking over me and making me feel lethargic and a myriad of emotions all at once. And this wasn’t the normal day-to-day exhaustion one experienced after a day of hard work. Was I coming down with a virus or something? If so, I needed to get ahead of this right quick because with the week ahead of me, I could not afford to be laid out for more than a few hours.

“Soph, are you drunk right now? You know what, never mind. I don’t want to know, just please answer my question and then I’ll let you get back to your one-woman drinking,” Piper quipped. There was a rustling sound from her end as if she was going through a bunch of documents.

“What question was that again?”

Piper let out an annoyed groan. I could picture her curling her hands and strangling a phantom image of myself. “If you wanted to carpool to the coven circle. I’ll come pick you up at your place if you want.”

I screwed up my face and laid down on the couch in a fetal position. The summer solstice was in two days, and the local coven would be convening to recharge the ley lines and give our thanks to the gods and goddesses for another blessed year. It was one of the few occasions when the entire Mystic Cove coven came together, including the out-of-towners, to juice up the ley lines that kept the magic in our town “alive,” so to speak.

As much as it was an important ceremony, it also happened to be an excuse for witches and warlocks to get totally smashed off the abnormal amount of magic charging the air. It had all the makings of a large family reunion, except everyone used magic and the fight between the two crazy aunts tended to end with someone getting hexed at best and an entire familial line getting cursed at worst—generations present and future.

“Imma have to take a rain check on that. The mayor is having some big to-do in five days with potential investors or whatever. He put me in charge of the gift bags and I’m nowhere near done with the candles and bath salts. Please send everyone my regards.”

The pause on Piper’s end was telling. “I promised myself I wouldn’t pry because I know you hate it when I do, but I need to know what is up with you. You’ve been down in the dumps for two weeks now and you haven’t attended any of the coven meetings in a while. I’ve had to cover for you more times than I can count and I am running out of excuses. How long is this going to go on?”

“Let me think? How long is the new Clarke staying in town for?” I chirped in a droll tone. Piper mumbled out a string of curses Mama would threaten to wash her mouth out for. Most of them, our sweet and genteel mother would be shocked to hear, we learned from our grandmother.

“Are you trying to tell me that you’ve been avoiding the coven because of Hailey friggin’ Clarke? We’re not kids anymore. What is that hag going to do to you here of all places? She’s smart enough to know not to mess with a Barnes witch on our home turf.”

“This is her home turf now too—that witch just would marry the douchiest warlock in town. It’s like they were made for each other. Sometimes I think she married Jerome so that they could come back here and relive their glory days of tormenting me. And besides, your reasoning only holds if the witch in question has the power to defend herself. Pretty sure she won’t have any trouble picking on me the same way she did back in school. I just don’t want to deal with her right now…or ever.”

“Sophia, you are not sixteen anymore. You are a full-grown witch with a successful business and more confidence than you know what to do with. Hailey Clarke is just a dark blimp in your past. Isn’t it high time you moved on already? We’re a long way from Redwood Academy,” my sister groused, naming the private boarding school for witches and warlocks we used to go to in Salem. She made it sound as if I was being childish and making a mountain out of a molehill by holding onto a grudge from—and this is a quote I have heard from her and many of our peers and family members—“when we were young witchlings who didn’t know any better.”

Easy for her to say. Easy for everyone to say that when they didn’t have to grow up with the shame of being born into a familial line that boasted some amazing witches and warlocks and be the only one not to possess even a speck of power. It was so easy for Piper to tell me to let the past be when she wasn’t the one who was tormented for years at Redwood by our classmates for not being able to complete the simplest of spells. She didn’t have professors looking their noses down at her or suffering the endless pranks and humiliations that I did. And at the helm of those bullying incidents were Hailey Clarke and a group of entitled, self-important warlocks.

It was thanks to those bumbling baboons that I ran in the opposite direction the minute one of our kind showed a romantic interest in me. They had soured me on warlocks for life. We witches may outnumber them ten to one, but they still strutted around as if they were the superior sorcerers. As if our place as witches was to be the wind beneath their wings. Their helpmeets. And in their eyes, I was less than a witch. In fact, I was lower on the totem pole than a human, deserving of all their scorn and none of their respect.

My looks and last name might make me a tantalizing prospect every now and then, but I was only good enough for a few nights in their beds. Never would they dare to compromise their familial bloodlines by marrying me. The witching community was fanatical about bloodlines and keeping them pure so as not to allow the power of the family to wane through the years. In fact, I’d rather mate with any of the werewolves in town. Sure, they were horn dogs in perpetual heat, but when a werewolf loved you, when a werewolf mated you, nothing, not even your impure blood, would stop them from claiming you.

Piper had a grand time during our high school years. So much so that she somehow found the time to tackle normal nursing classes and collegiate level witching classes at the same time. Her time at Redwood was all rainbows and roses, so I could understand why she looked back on those years with fondness. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was why my own twin sister was turning a blind eye to the horrible experiences I had and was super keen to insist that I was exaggerating about what a miserable time I had attending Redwood Academy.

“I’m not having this argument with you again, Piper. I just don’t have the strength. It’s not like I’ll be much use during the solstice anyway other than watching from the sidelines as you all charge the ley lines and feel like the world’s biggest loser. I am not coming and that’s that.”

“Sophia, you’re being—”

“Look, I don’t feel well right now. We’ll talk about this some other time.” Hopefully after the solstice passed. “Love you, sis. Bye.” I cut off the call before she said another word and sat there for almost ten minutes, staring at the dark screen of my cell phone. This was why I’d chosen a university as far from Mystic Cove as possible. Why I’d stayed away from my home and coven for so long. I loved them all to bits, but being around them hurt. Watching them take for granted the power the goddess had blessed them with while I could barely conjure up a few sparks on the tips of my fingers grated on my nerves and left them raw and bleeding.

I hated the way I’d walk into a room or make an appearance at the coven circle and conversations would suddenly stop. How everyone treated me as if I were a fragile piece of pottery that would break if I were not coddled or handled right. The more my family, my coven, tried not to draw attention to my condition, the more it became blatantly obvious that I was defective and had no business being among them.

“No. No! No pity parties for you, madam. We are way past that. You know what you need, Soph?” I picked myself up from the couch, groaning as my joints creaked like the rocking chair out on my front porch. A hot soak was in order, and then I’d be spending the evening in my lab out back. I might lack innate power, but I was the best damn potion maker this side of the equator, and quite the cosmetic scientist.

CHAPTER 2

My “lab” was actually just a shed behind my cottage that I’d renovated into a workshop to be able to make all my homemade cosmetics. Next to it was a greenhouse my parents graciously had built for me—an extravagant housewarming gift when I told them I was coming back to Mystic Cove to stay. I grew everything in there, herbs, flowers, my own vegetables—it really brought down production costs when I was growing all the herbs I needed for tonics and potions. My business partners, Dawn and Destiny, also witches, had their own workshop and greenhouse at their place too. But we’d recently opened a boutique in town that was quite popular with both the locals and tourists.

The bath left me feeling marginally better, but my body still felt wonky, as if something was blocking my chakras. My world had tilted on its axis and I didn’t know why. I debated bringing out the tarot cards, but I had a thing against reading my own future, especially when it felt like I had a swirl of negative energy surrounding me.

Or maybe it was the unbearable summer heat wave bearing down on us. You’d think living in a town nestled between the sea and a snowcapped mountain we’d have it easy during the warmer months. Normally we did, but it felt hotter than Satan’s toenails this year.

“Friggin’ global warming,” I muttered, glaring at the setting sun as I opened the door to my shed and letting out a sigh of relief as the cool air blasted my face. My sister had spelled the workroom to maintain cooler temperatures in the summer and remain warm and cozy during the fall and winter. A swirl of aromatic scents blanketed the workshop from the essential oils that I used for scented candles, face washes, face creams, bath salts and bombs, and an assortment of other cosmetics. One wall of the workshop consisted of shelves that spanned the entire length of the wall. One was filled with jars of dried and fresh herbs, tools, tonics, and potions. Another was dedicated to all the journals I’d collected since I discovered my love of potion brewing. Dozens upon dozens of recipes filled the pages, some of them passed down from my grandmother and mother.

Most of the recipes were of my own making, from healing tonics, tinctures, and tisanes, to frivolous potions like one to change your hair color without using hair dyes. There was one I’d concocted for a classmate who was failing the oral portion of Latin and Gaelic classes because she couldn’t pronounce the words. It made her tongue loose and limber. Once you drank it, you’d be able to speak any language you wished to for the next half hour—including Klingon, Parseltongue, and Quenya. I’d made quite the killing off that potion back at Redwood whenever midterms and final exams were around the corner, and from a select few in the cosplaying community who wanted to authentically portray their Lord of the Rings and Star Trek characters. My personal favorite was the energy-boosting mixture I’d concocted. Its only drawback was that it tasted like a donkey’s arse—not that I was an expert at what a donkey’s arse tasted like.

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