Page 35 of Midlife Witch Unexpected

“Did I mention young, also?” Hilda browsed the shelves for books.

“Don’t even start about Branson,” I said. “No way.”

Hilda shook her head. “You kids need to get that sorted out.”

“I’m not a kid!” I exclaimed. “He is.”

"You're both kids to me," she shrugged, moving along the stack of books. "Your Aunt Emma had to have a spellbook. Everybody has one, but I never saw hers."

“Is there a chance she didn’t have one?” I asked.

“No,” Hilda shook her head. “Grimoires are handed down through the family. What about the paperwork about The Estate? Maybe it’s with that?”

“Branson said all the papers were in the trunk.” I pointed at the leather trunk in the corner. “But it wasn’t in there.

“Must be all he knows, because he couldn’t have told you anything that wasn’t true,” Hilda said.

“How do you know this, and why haven’t you told me this before?” I asked, suddenly curious.

“You didn’t ask me,” she said. “I told you to trust him.”

"But you didn't explain to me he had to tell me the truth at all times," I asked. "I've been doubting him this whole time and you could've just told me he was magically bound to never lie to me. Kind of makes things a little easier, right?"

“You two seem to be getting on as fine as you should be getting on and I didn’t think you need to be getting any closer,” Hilda said. “Don’t want things messing up the coven.”

I hated how even at my age my skin heated up and burned bright red when I was embarrassed. She must have known what happened in the cemetery the day she drove up.

“So, there has to be a book.” I turned my face to the shelves. “Aunt Emma couldn’t have memorized all the spells of our entire family and, she should’ve put them down somewhere to at least pass them on to me. She knew I was not being raised in the coven and she knew her house would have to pass to me.”

“Well, seems fairly logical thinking, but we scoured every single book in this library,” Hilda said. “It’s not here.”

I turned a look at the large Bible on the pedestal. What a weird thing to have in a Wiccan household. It’d be a lot more useful if that was the family grimoire.

“If you don’t figure it out soon, you’re going to have a real problem.” Hilda sat down on the edge of the red velvet chair.

“I thought you said the coven’s magic will protect me from the vampire?” I asked.

“It’s not the vampire I’m worried about,” Hilda said. “It’s what happens after the vampires don’t get through.”

“What?” I asked.

“Well, leave it be this,” Hilda said. “There are things in this world you never want to meet. Gross, disgusting, living dead.”

“Zombies?” I asked.

“Zombies happen,” Hilda nodded. “And monsters. And, well, there are a lot of reasons we want your magic to work and to stay under the radar.”

It was later when I was alone, I realized there had to be a spell that would unlock my magic and it had to be in this house. I wasn’t going to find it when members of the coven were there, not if it had been kept a secret from the coven itself. I was only going to be able to find it on my own. I went to the room where the altar was, and I slowly approached the copper bowl. Placing my hands on it, I watched the electricity bounce around between the green and the purple lines.

“That which is mine, allow me to find. That which is mine, allow me to find. That which is mine, allow me to find.”

I knew the basics of spell-making. It had to be simple, easy to repeat, and it helped the pattern if it rhymed. By repeating the words long enough with the right intention, they would become powerful, and the magic would be sparked. Magic gathered around the bowl growing brighter and brighter as it crackled and popped in a large sphere.

Suddenly a bolt of purple and green energy shot up to the ceiling and sparked along the roof in a line of dots headed into the other room.

What the fuck?

“That which is mine, allow me to find.”

---