Page 23 of Bewicched

In Which Arwyn Needs to Deal with Creepy Shit Closer to Home

Iwas feeling better than I had in I didn’t know how long. I went to the back door, pushed it open and then lay down on the floor, my arms crossed over the doorsill with my chin on my arms.

“Good morning!” Since my starfish friends Charlie and Herbert were clinging to the outside of the farthest posts, the ones normally right under the edge of the deck, I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were there.

“How did you sleep, Cecil?” After a moment, a tentacle broke the surface in what I interpreted as a wave.

“It’s a beautiful morning.” The air was chilly, the gorgeous greens and blues of the ocean sparkling under a cloudless sky. It was a tentacle day! While Declan rebuilt the deck, I’d finish sealing a tentacle before starting the next.

While I considered the shape and curl of that next one, I saw something green and round out of the corner of my eye. “I swear, Wilbur, you’re like a circus seal.” There was no way I could reach the post where he’d left the tennis ball, so I either left it or…

I didn’t see anyone nearby. There were fishing boats far from the coast, but unless they had binoculars trained on me, they wouldn’t see anything. “You’re trying to get me busted, aren’t you?” I grumbled.

One quick spell later, the cold, wet thing was in my hand and I was winding up for the throw. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a werewolf’s strength so it didn’t go far but Wilbur had never seemed to mind.

Deciding to get an early start, I closed the door, jogged upstairs, got cleaned up, donned another pair of overalls with a green thermal top and my trusty paint-spattered sneakers. When I went back down to my studio, I stopped by the kitchenette for a large mug of tea and a cranberry orange scone.

I had the back door open to vent the sealant fumes and so heard when Declan arrived to begin deck construction. As a good night’s sleep warranted gratitude, I grabbed him two scones and went to the door.

Hanging my head out, I’d intended to offer the plate, but something dark caught my eye.

“Hey, those look great.” His deep grumble of a voice was oddly comforting. That talisman, though, was not.

When he leapt to the top of the first post, I held up my hand. “Stop. Go back. I need to take care of something first.”

I went back in, slid the plate onto my worktable, and opened the cabinet that held my wicchey supplies. I wasn’t a potion maker, so my stores were pretty slim, but I knew how to conjure a nulling draught.

Someone had left a curse at my doorstep. I couldn’t feel its presence, which scared me more than anything. Whoever had left the cursed fetish meant me harm and was a skilled black wicche or sorcerer.

“Everything okay?” he called.

I finished my silent chanting over the water. “No. That black feathery thing sitting on top of that post is a curse.”

Contemplating how to get to it, I looked back out the door and found Declan balancing atop a post beside it, bending over to get a better look at the magical fetish.

“How are you doing that?”

He looked up, his scowl disappearing. “I have good balance. This is a curse?”

I nodded.

“I saw this yesterday. It was nailed under your deck. Found it when I was demo’ing. Carefully.” He shook his head, hands on his hips, still balancing on the ball of one foot. “If you hadn’t asked me to make sure none of the boards fell on your friends, that would have fallen in the water and been lost.”

A chill had gone up my spine at his words. “You found this yesterday? Attached to my home?”

“Yeah.” His scowl had returned. “I’m the one that moved it there. I figured it was some wicchey good luck thing.”

“You didn’t touch it with your bare hand, did you?”Shit.Was this why I’d had a vision about wolves tearing into each other? Had the evil seeped in?

He glanced down at his hands and then shook his head. “I was wearing work gloves.”

Oh, good. No berserker wolves today. “Meanwhile, how do I get over there?”

“I can bring it to you.”

“No way. I don’t want that in my house. Plus, you need gloves.” I considered a moment. “Do you remember which way it was hanging when you found it?”

He leapt from pole to pole until he was back on land. “Maybe. I thought at first it was a decomposing crow or some seabird that got stuck under the deck. I was about to throw it in the ocean, but then I saw the stone and got a whiff. It smells like homemade catgut was used to tie it all together.”

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