Page 20 of Love's a Witch
“Let me just put this stuff away. I was thinking maybe soup and a nice salad, some picky things, for lunch.” Lyra loved putting together charcuterie boards, and she hummed as she quickly put the groceries away, leaving the ingredients out she’d need for later. Once finished, she brought a tray with orange juice, a bucket of champagne, and glasses over to the table.
“Should I drink?” I glanced at Broca, not knowing if alcohol would affect the manifestation of my magick later on.
“Don’t worry, I thought of that.” Lyra beamed at me. “Nonalcoholic.”
“Oh, good.” Was it? I had no idea. A glass of champagne might soothe the nerves currently playing the drums in my stomach. All day I’d been trying to ignore this Big Thing that was hanging over my head, the unknown of what magick—my magick—would be. As the hours crept by, the drums intensified, and I worried I’d have to make a run for the bathroom soon.
An odd snuffling sound came from the back room.
“What was that?” I made to get up, but Nova hopped up and pointed at me.
“Sit.”
“But—”
“It’s fine, Sloane. Nova, go see.” Broca waved at Nova. I suppose since she insisted on being the intimidating one, she could be nominated to investigate the weird noise for all I cared. “Now, Sloane. Don’t be nervous. This is such an exciting time for a witch. I promise you, whatever your magick is, you’ll learn to love it.”
“I’m sure, once I know how to work with it, everything will be just fine.” At least that’s what I kept telling myself.
Nova came in from the back room, cradling something under a blanket in her arms. My shoulders stiffened.
“Nova, I swear to the goddess, if you throw a rat on me or something—”
“Chill.” Nova grinned at me. “It’s your gift.” Bending over, she deposited a warm bundle in my arms and my mouth dropped open.
I blinked down at a gray-and-white dog—just like a Boston terrier, except for one huge difference. As he stood on his wee paws in my lap, he shook his body out and the blanket fell off to reveal his wings.
Beautiful, milky gray, pearlescent wings in soft shimmery scales.
“An emberwolf,” I breathed.
Emberwolves, a cross between wolves and dragons, had once been fierce predators and even fiercer protectors in Scotland. Domesticated through the ages, it was now rare to find them in the wild, many preferring the comfort and luxuries of living in houses. Still, they were an unusual and highly exotic pet, and I’d never seen one of this variation—with a soft coat, big loving eyes, and a mile-wide smile that made him look just a bit like the Joker from Batman but in a nonpsychotic way. Leaning up, he swiped his rough tongue across my cheek, and a laugh escaped me.
“He likes you!” Lyra exclaimed.
“But how? Where? Can I even have one?” I looked to Broca, my hands automatically reaching up to stroke his soft coat.
“A friend owed me a favor.” Broca leaned forward to look at the emberwolf. “He was orphaned, but from what we can tell, he comes from a long line of working emberwolves, bred for their companionship. Can you believe these lads used to be as big as this room?”
“Then they learned we had couches.” Nova snorted.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was just about the cutest animal I’d ever seen.
“And yes, you can have one.”
“What about when we go?” I reached up to scratch an ear, and he leaned into my palm, letting out a soft snort of contentment. His wings stretched, fluttering out, and I waited to see if he would try to fly. Instead, he settled contentedly onto my lap, tucking his wings back at his sides, his eyes drooping closed.
“That’s the whole point of you being here, Sloane.” Broca’s tone took on a serious note, and I finally raised my eyes from the emberwolf to her. “To finally sort out this curse nonsense. So you don’t have to leave. At least, if you don’t want to.” Stay here, instead of leaving? Instead of packing everything into a car, saying farewell to yet another house, another set of friends, another semi-settled existence. It had been so long since we’d simply… stopped. Made a home become a home.
I turned to look at my sisters, who had varying degrees of emotions flitting across their faces. Our childhood home hadn’t been a happy one, and staying in one place wasn’t something we were used to. What if we didn’t want to stay? Reading us like a book, Broca sighed.
“At least try to break the curse before you make any decisions about staying in Briarhaven. I know that I’d like to stay. I’m tired of moving, girls. I love Briarhaven, and I loved our time here, even though I know how much your mother struggled.”
“You know, growing up… How come we could stay here so long?” Lyra asked, easing carefully onto the cushion next to me and reaching out to stroke a finger over the emberwolf’s back.
“Copious amounts of magick,” Broca admitted. Her eyes took on a faraway look as she steepled her fingers, flipping through the pages of the past in her mind. “The Charms. Every time a new curse emerged, we worked to distill it. We never managed to completely erase it, but we managed it, for a while at least. Until your mother got too tired of trying.”
“Standard operating procedure there.” Nova sniffed, coming to sit on the other side of me. Together, all three of us lightly stroked the emberwolf, none of us ever having been able to have a pet before.
