Page 46 of Mochas and Minotaurs

“I’m Griselda. Gigi for short. What’s your name?” I asked.

There was a pause. “I don’t remember.”

“What did the witch before call you?”

“Child.She called mechild.”

That didn’t help. “I’m too young to call anyone child,” I said.

“You’re older than me. Physically anyway. I was only fourteen when Mama transformed me.”

“Transformed you?”

“Into the compact.”

I shook my head. This was a lot to take in. “Why did she do that?”

“She was hiding me from papa and his friend. I was supposed to get married, but I didn’t want to.” My reflection made a face of disgust. “He was old and mean.”

“So your mom turned you into a compact so your dad couldn’t marry you off?”

“Yes. He never found me. Mama was supposed to turn me back, but she died and I was stuck in here until Father remarried and the new woman sold all of my mother’s things.”

I ran my thumb across the detailed metalwork of the compact. That was some strong magic. She was actually transformed. This was a real compact, made of brass and glass. Not a flesh-and-bone girl made to look like a compact through illusion or some other trickery. This was testing the bounds of physics, and as a witch, I knew that magic always had to work within its bounds, even if it sometimes seemed like it didn’t.

Like portals. We could make portals connecting two points, but we couldn’t teleport ourselves, lest we end up put back together with all our cells in the wrong order. Or perhaps we’d be physically sound but missing our consciousness. That was scarystuff. Scarier than talking to a ghost through my reflection in a mirror.

“And you’ve been stuck since.”

“Yes. It’s not too bad. I’ve gotten used to it, but it got boring being alone. I’m glad you found me.”

The face in the mirror changed for the briefest of moments, showing a plain-looking girl with mousy brown hair and dark brown eyes. But it was her genuine smile that had my heart lifting. I smiled right back.

This wasn’t some vengeful spirit. This was a lonely girl, wronged in life, who just wanted some company. My heart broke for her.

“You won’t be alone anymore,” I promised.

Chapter 22

Marcus

I hadn’t meant tolisten to the conversation. I was worried that Arcane or my mother was up to something, so I’d checked up on my camera feeds. The equalizer at the bottom of the feed showed the stairwell was moving. Remembering that I’d left the basement door open, I’d thought at first that it was Gigi singing to herself.

I turned on the sound to hear her voice because I could never seem to get enough of her despite all the time we’d been spending together.

My first instinct when I heard the stranger’s voice was to rush down there and protect my little witch. And I almost had until I started to listen to their conversation.

I immediately felt a kinship with her. We were both raised by narcissists, her father, and my mother. And we both were trying to escape unwanted fates, with limited success. Though I guess she was successful in the end.

Deciding to bring Triscuit along, I loaded both him and his dinner up in the carrier I’d seen Gigi use to take him down to the coffee shop. With him in tow, I went up and over the rooftop patio and back into my home, with Triscuit complaining about the cold during the short walk over.

As I heated up our food, I listened as the girl explained how her father had blamed her for the bad luck that had befallen him and tried to sell her off to one of his friends, a much older man who only saw her as a possession. Her mother had tried to save her, using magic to transform her into what she was now.

“That’s strong magic. Your mother must have been a great witch.”

The other voice hesitated. “Something like that,” it said cautiously. “But then she died. They said it was suicide from heartbreak after I ran away—that’s what she told them. But I know the truth. My father poisoned her. I was right there in her purse; I heard him admit it.” The voice was sobbing now.

“I’m so sorry,” Gigi’s voice cracked as she spoke. “And I’m sorry I made you live through that memory again.”

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