Page 1 of Bewicched

1

They Weren’t Kidding When They Called Me, Well, a Wicche

Ursula, a villain who did not deserve to be considered one, was my favorite Disney princess. She’s a working woman, offering a service, and was vilified for it. The payment was obvious. The whiners knew the score. They just thought they were special, that they could get magic for free. That’s not how magic works. You always have to pay. Plus, octopuses are incredible, so I refused to support fairy tales disparaging them.

The Little Mermaidaside, I was calling my Monterey seaside art gallery and tea bar The Sea Wicche because I, Arwyn Cassandra Corey, am a sea wicche, or at least I really wanted to be. The wicche part is true enough.

It was a perfect day, with clear blue skies and a cold, salty wind on the California coast. I went out the back door of my art studio to the deck that ran along the ocean side of a small, abandoned cannery I was having renovated. The deck gave a little with each step. Strangely enough, rotting wood was a bit of a safety hazard. I loved this place, though, even when it had been filled with standing water and rusted machinery.

I used to break in and run around here when I was little. Mom worried I’d hurt myself, but Gran said she’d seen in a dream it would be mine and to leave the poor child alone. In wicche families, the older you are, the more powerful. No one messes with the crones. I was, consequently, looking forward to getting old. The crones do not give a fuck. They’ve seen and done it all and have lost the ability to be polite about it. They’ll tell you what they think to your face, because what are you going to do about it? That’s right. Nothing.

I couldn’t wait. Anyway, Gran said the cannery was mine, so it was mine. Even at seven, it was all mine. The deck sat on tall posts that were mostly submerged at high tide. Now, though, at low tide, the barnacles, oysters, coral, and algae were visible. There were even a couple of gorgeous orange starfish that had made my posts their home.

I sat on the edge of the deck and leaned over, holding on to the weather-warped wood with my ever-present gloves. The two starfish were still there. One was clinging to a post covered in a carpet of purple and green algae. I needed photos. Tourists snapped them up for a good price, especially this close to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Tipping back, I rolled over onto my stomach and took my phone out of my back pocket. Dangling over the deck edge, I framed the shot and took it. Perfect. Yes, my DSLR camera would be better, but the light was magical now. The colors were so vibrant, they’d pop out of the frame. If I ran back in for my camera, the light could change and I’d lose the shot. I’d made that mistake too many times. I had a phone with the best digital camera on the market and I could tweak the image once I got it on my laptop.

I wear special gloves all the time, not just when touching rotting wood. They’re a thin, soft bamboo fabric with connective threads on the fingers so I can still use my smartphone. Touch is a problem for me; clairvoyance is not for the faint of heart. I see too much, hear too much. You try shaking someone’s hand and hearing he thinks you’re a money-grubbing fake taking advantage of his mother, bilking her out of her last dime, and he wants you to drop dead. All of that and more the moment his hand touched yours.

Or, even better, how about finally getting a kiss senior year from the guy you’ve had a crush on since sixth grade, only to learn that he really wished your ass was smaller and he hoped Rachel heard about his kissing you because he was trying to make her jealous. Oh, and he actually thought you were a weirdo, but groping was fun, so…

Yeah, dating sucked when touch meant picking up every stray thought and emotion. For a while, I self-medicated with booze. That wasn’t a sustainable plan, though. I hated drunk Arwyn and hated even more the predators who moved on me when they saw I was wasted enough to dull the voices. So, new sober me wears gloves and has sworn off dating and sex. It’s a modern world. There are electronic alternatives that don’t close their eyes and think about someone else.

I took a few more photos as long as I was hanging here, none as perfect as that first one, though. A text popped up on my screen and I flicked it away. It was my mom again, reminding me that Gran expected me at dinner tonight. They’d been trying to get me to join the Council since I was in my teens.

Maiden, mother, and crone, the Council oversaw all disputes, heard pleas for help, and granted magical aid, usually for a fee. Now that I was back from England—and my chess set was finally in the hands of the werewolf book nerd it was intended for—they were pushing hard for me to join. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t help when they needed me. I just didn’t want to be tied to the regularity. I had my work and really did not care about the day-to-day petty crap. If they needed me to power a spell, fine. The rest of it, not so much.

Mom and Gran knew the toll it took on me, knew I lived through the worst horrors the people petitioning us carried with them, but they didn’t experience it, so it was easy to forget the price I paid for my magic. I hadn’t had a full night’s rest in ever. The nightmares haunted me as though they were my memories.

So gloves, isolation, and my ocean buddies it was. There was movement in the water below. A tentacle almost broke the surface. Yes, my octopus friend was still hanging out below the cannery. “Hello, Cecil! I hope you have a lovely, watery day!” The way he moved was mesmerizing to watch. So much so, it took me too long to realize what was happening. Damn it! I was going to end up in the ocean.

Throwing the phone over my shoulder, I gave it a magical push to get it to the deck and then hoped for the best. My vision went dark.Snarling.I heard that first. Often the sounds and scents came to me before the images.Growling and the scent of the forest. Two yellow eyes, huge, staring into me, before the scene formed. Large wolves circling one another, one jet black, the other tan.

The tan lunges. The black meets him, clashing tooth and claw. Blood flies as they shake off the pain, circle, and charge. It’s vicious and violent. I don’t want to watch, don’t want new nightmares. The tan one, bloodied and limping, cringes away when the black one howls. The black wolf is set upon by others as they drive him into the dirt…

My body tipped as I watched the wolves tear each other apart. Damn it, I knew it. I was about to get dunked, watching wolves kill each other.

Yellow eyes stare into mine, waiting.

I wasn’t in the water, wasn’t wet. What I was, though, was hanging in the air. A very tall, very strong man was holding me a foot off the deck, a hand gripped around the back of my neck. I stared into warm brown eyes and shouted, “What the fuck? Put me down!”

He dropped me like I was on fire. Thankfully, my balance was pretty good and I kept my feet under me.

He cleared his throat and pointed toward the water. “You were sliding in.” He handed me my phone.

“Thanks,” I said, “for picking up my phone and grabbing me before I went in. I’m an epileptic.” Not really. I just needed a cover for my habit of hitting the ground. “This is private property, though. You shouldn’t be here.” I shaded my eyes. Oh, my. He had to be six and a half feet tall, a perfect muscular specimen, with dark hair starting to curl around his ears and a full, dark beard. He wore faded jeans, sturdy work boots, and a t-shirt topped with a flannel. I might not be able to touch, but I could look.

“I’m on the construction crew. Phil asked me to stop by to take measurements on the deck.” He stared at me as though he was pretty sure I was insane but was too polite to say it.

Ha, joke’s on him. People have been calling me nuts my whole life. It didn’t even register anymore.

“So you’re okay?” He had a deep growly voice that I liked. “You threw your phone at me and then just flopped over the edge, like dead weight dropping into the ocean.”

I checked my phone. “Seizure. I’m fine now.” No scratches on the screen. Score! “Go ahead,” I said, gesturing to the rotting deck. “Do your thing.” I started back into my studio and stopped. “Why are you working today? It is Sunday, right?” I checked my phone for the date.

“I wasn’t doing anything, so I figured I might as well get started.” He shrugged one beefy shoulder. “Plus, I need the work.” He pulled a measuring tape off his belt. “Do you want the deck any different, or am I replacing this one exactly?” He took an old receipt and a pencil from his shirt pocket, starting to take notes.

“You can do it without dropping planks into the ocean or pounding on the posts so hard you disturb the ecosystem, right?”

---