Page 1 of A Date With Demons

Chapter

One

Portia

The airin the fabric store hums with the energy of sewing machines and unrestrained curiosity.

I’ve arrived to pick up the final pieces of my costume. And to deliver the bad news about my dating life, apparently.

Five pairs of owlish eyes glance up from their cutting tables, needlework

and quilting, spying me through the tops of their bifocals. The fabric store squad—Birdie, Amaryllis, Sirena, Adele and Zena—have been expecting me.

Squaring my shoulders in fake confidence, I approach the counter and address Birdie. “I got the text that my order is in.”

As if I needed a text to know that. But I like to preserve my psychic energy whenever possible.

Birdie gets up from her sewing and goes to the cubby where she keeps the special orders.

Everyone else watches me, but no one speaks. They don’t have to. They know I know what they want: an update.

My social interactions are like this a lot of the time among certain members of the population. Specifically, the ones who know I’m clairvoyant.

I’m not a mind reader, per se, but my particular type of gift does make me notice things everywhere I go.

This gift is heightened when I’m in a craft store full of gossipy witches dying for news about me. The eagerness pours off them in equal measure to their glittering magic.

“Here it is,” Birdie says, first to break the silence, clomping back to the front counter in her chunky-heeled witchy shoes, a cardboard box in hand. She slides the box over to me, and I open it up to examine it. The sateen material glows. It is buttery to the touch.

“Perfect,” I say with a smile. I can’t wait to get home to finish the overdress. The gold cord trim I ordered is there, too, and it shines in the light when I pick it up to examine it.

“It’s going to be so gorgeous,” I say, bouncing on the balls of my feet, excited to get home.

No one here but me cares about my costume.

Birdie rings me up while the rest of the witches cluck impatiently. Sadly, none of them have the same gift as me. If they did, maybe they could tell me where I went wrong in interpreting my vision.

The truth is, I never should have blabbed in the first place when I saw myself with a date on Halloween night. But how could I hold it in? The man in my vision was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.

He had compassion in his eyes. I knew he would be my first, and that he would be gentle. That’s the extremely personal part I don’t share.

I complete the transaction with Birdie then swallow my pride, facing the music. “He didn’t come.”

My body cannot take the outpouring of sympathy that follows. “Oh honey,” says Adele, her shoulders slumped at her sewing machine. Amaryllis and Sirena sigh over the cutting table and shake their heads sadly. In a fierce little snit, Zena drops her cross-stitch hoop and utters a curse under her breath. She plucks up a needle from a nearby tomato pincushion and stabs it into a small cloth poppet nearby. I don’t bother to remind her that effigies don’t work if she doesn’t know who the victim is. The much older witch already knows that. I love her spirit. Today, all men can get a twinge in the testicles, for all I care.

“Don’t you dare cry over him, Portia. You’re going to look like a queen in that dress, and whoever he is will be sorry he messed with destiny,” Birdie says, her deep brown hand squeezing my pale one.

“Destiny” is a big word for a simple vision of a one-and-done date. All I ever wanted was someone to be nice to me. Someone fun and silly, who would play along with my couple’s costume idea: me as Princess Lily, and my date as Tim Curry’s Lord Darkness from the movie Legend. And then, at the end of our perfect Halloween date, find a private place to be together, so I could have sex for the first time and not regret it.

I was so excited about my vision that my dad let me use his 3-D printer to make the horns for the male counterpart of my costume.

I won’t cry, even though Birdie has that effect on people. She’s one of those witches who can get you to tell the truth, and it sometimes makes people admit feelings before they’re ready. The Barbara Walters of witches. She reminds me a lot of the late high priestess Magda, who was like a grandmother to me.

I thank Birdie and give everyone a quick wave, then I’m outta there. I don’t care if they can tell I’m hurting; I don’t want to start blubbering in front of everyone. I’m 22 and I don’t cry over getting stood up. Not anymore.

I wind through the crowds at the downtown Birchdale fall festival, taking a shortcut to my dad’s truck. My feet move quickly, trying not to be reminded that here was the spot where my parents fell in love, thanks to a rogue demon spell that made them switch bodies for a day. I also don’t need to pause long enough to think about the wishing well over there, where Dane broke up with me a few months ago when he found out I was a virgin and I wasn’t going to “give it up” for him.

It was like reliving the days leading up to my would-be prom night: my date canceling when I clarified that I wasn’t going to put out just because it was prom night. What’s worse, he’d mocked the hand-sewn bow tie I made for him from the same fabric as my prom dress.

---