Page 1 of The Accidental Witch

Chapter

One

Jesus. It was just a game of Twister…

“Miss, do you really think this is a good idea?”

She looked around at the small room that led to a much bigger room, its walls made of brick, the floor littered in Sheetrock debris, and sighed. How could a spirited game of Twister have led to this?

“Miss? I repeat, do you have your listening ears on? Do we really think this is a good idea?”

Good ideas had levels. This one might be on the lower end, but it was the only idea they had.

“Stop calling me ‘miss,’ Tottington. We don’t want these people to think I’m some pretentious rich kid with a servant.”

He raised his salt-and-pepper eyebrow with perfected haughty disdain. “Youarea richwomanin her mid-thirties with a servant, Roberta Tisdale.”

On the cusp of thirty-six, if they were splitting hairs.

“Well, at least you didn’t call me pretentious, that’s something. And call me Robbie, T,please,” she emphasized. “Roberta makes me sound like a spinster who lives with a hundred cats.”

Tottington raised the other eyebrow. “But you do?—”

Robbie rolled her eyes and flapped her hand at him. “I don’t live with a hundred cats. I have three.Three.”

Three of her favorite furry things in the whole wide world. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Two boys and one unfortunate girl who had a boy’s name because it fit with the other two musketeers.

Tottington pursed his lips in stern disapproval as he eyeballed the small antique-looking desk with a vase filled with gorgeous fall sunflowers, running his finger over it for dust.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you, when I dust, it surely feels like a hundred at times.”

“Then be remiss. And I don’t have money anymore because my mother took it all away. Also, I don’t care that she took it all away. So I’m not rich, and I’d prefer to be called Robbie. Now, pipe down before those women in there who look like supermodels think we’re nuttier than a macadamia.”

Tottington opened his mouth, but Robbie shook a stern finger under her faithful, lifelong servant’s nose. “I said don’t, T. As indo not. I already know you think I’m nuts. Remember, I’m the nut who gave up a zillion dollars to live in a slum becausemorals. And if I didn’t think I was nuts before tonight, I’m giving you confirmation now, because I feel nuttier than ever afterlastnight. Even nuttier than when I told my mother she could stuff her fat wads of cash up her old keister. I mean, I must be hearing things. Okay? I’m nuts. The end.”

“You are not ze macadamia, Robbieee!” a heavily French-accented voice indignantly insisted. “You are not hearing ze things. I do indeed talk and zis is very real.Iam real.”

Robbie exhaled with a raspy sigh, holding the broom at arm’s length—atalkingbroom that had appeared out of nowhere in her tiny apartment, its bristly head twitching as it spoke.

Tottington cleared his throat, folding his hands in front of him, looking anywhere but at the broom because he knew thiswas nuts, too. He could play all cool as a cucumber, like his feathers weren’t at all ruffled, his typical MO, but Robbie knew him well. On the inside, he was a riot of continually fraying nerves.

Becausetalking broom. The broom was talking to them, and Tottington knew it just as sure as the day was long.

Clinging to the worn handle, Robbie gave it (him?) a shake. “You are not real!” she cried, hoarse from all the screaming she’d done earlier, when it had first spoken. “This is a bad joke. A poorly executed hoax, maybe. I don’t know how you’re doing it, but this isn’t real!”

It couldn’t be real. A talking broom? It was right out of a horror movie—except the broom was kinda nice (like that Disney movie with all the dancing brooms, nice) and Robbie didn’t entirely hate…it. Him? Was the broom a him? Did brooms have genders? Did it matter if she got its pronouns right?

It was atalking broom, for heaven’s sake!

Winding its handle around her neck like a snake, it caressed her cheek and whispered, “Oooh, ma chère, why do you hurt me so?” he purred in her ear, soft and almost mesmerizing. So mesmerizing, she found herself leaning into it.

But then she remembered this couldn’t be happening.

Robbie snapped back in the padded chair as far as she could, putting her fingertips on its handle to push it away. “I’m going to tell you one last time…” She paused, frowning. “Uh…sorry, what’s your name again?”

“Hervé. My name isHervé, mon amie.”

Her disbelief was clear. “Like Tattoo? Hervé Villechaize fromFantasy Island? That Hervé?”

---