Page 79 of Best Hex Ever
Dina was a walking thunderstorm, and anyone who stepped into her radius of destruction would feel her wrath. Except her wrath was more like deep, broiling grief, manifesting for passersby as dog poop under their feet, broken umbrellas, and gusts of wind that made their hair stick to their lip gloss. Dina wasn’t trying to do it, but her magic was overflowing, cascading off her in waves of pain.
She didn’t trust her magic not to cause several signal failures and bring down the whole tube network, so she walked all the way home, her feet aching as she made the final steps to her front door.
The moment she had the door closed, Dina threw herself onto the sofa, burying her face in the cushions. She choked out sobs, not even caring that her mascara would smudge all over the fabric. After a while she felt Heebie’s tentative tail swishes and cautious sniffs around her cheeks. Dina shifted to her side so Heebie could crawl into the curve of her lap, kneading Dina’s belly with her sharp little claws.
“What are you baking today, Madame Heebie?” Dina sniffed, tickling the cat under her chin as she kneaded. She liked to imagine Heebie in a little baker’s hat and had once even tried knitting one—but Heebie had hissed when Dina had tried todress her in it. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, petting Heebie’s soft black fur, but slowly the pain in her chest started to loosen, as if gentle fingers were prying open a stiff knot thread by thread. It wasn’t gone, but it was a little quieter for now.
Heebie woke Dina up hours later, her living room bathed in the evening streetlights’ glow. The cat meowed, butting her face against Dina’s arm, and then going to stand by her food bowl.
“How inconsiderate of me. I slept through your dinner time.” Dina’s whole body ached as she stood, but she hauled herself into the kitchen and served up Heebie’s dinner.
All the magic that had seeped out of her on the way home seemed to have taken its toll, and she felt utterly depleted. Although that could also just be the heartbreak.
Her phone buzzed, and without even looking at the caller she answered.
Immy and Rosemary’s faces popped up on the screen.
“Dina, oh, Dina love, are you okay?” Immy said. Dina saw her tiny face in the corner of her phone screen: puffy, skin blotchy red and salt-stained.
“I fucked up,” she croaked. Eric must have told them what had happened.
“You’re okay, we’re here for you. Tell us what happened,” Rosemary said, her video a little slower, as she was calling from the States.
Dina took a deep breath and told them about the charms, and the accident, and how she loved Scott so much she felt her heart breaking.
—
Late that night, Dina tossed and turned, sleep just out of her grasp.
“You have to tell your mum, Dina, I’m serious,” Immy had said on their call earlier. “She’ll know what to do.”
“But what if she hates me when I tell her I’m bi?”
“Dina, she won’t. But listen to us,” Rosemary said. “You have to tell her anyway. And if it goes badly…Well. We love you, and we will be here for you until your mother decides to join us in the twenty-first century.”
They’d spoken for a while longer, until Dina had felt exhaustion biting at her heels.
Her magic was too volatile right now, otherwise she would have bespelled herself to sleep. Instead, she stumbled bleary-eyed to the kitchen and made herself a cup of chamomile tea to take to bed. These flowers were from a batch she’d grown and dried last year on her very own windowsill. They didn’t have quite the same strength as wild chamomile, but where was Dina meant to find and forage wild chamomile in London?
The tea was delicately sweet, and after a few long sips she felt her eyelids begin to droop. Sleep came over her at once, and when Dina next opened her eyes, the dawn sunlight was streaming in through her curtains, peachy pink.
There was a weight on her belly—Heebie sat there grooming herself, one paw outstretched.
“You should go home for a bit, Dina,” Heebie said, in the voice of a classic Hollywood starlet. But that was preposterous, because Heebie couldn’t speak.
“You’re a cat,” Dina mumbled.
“Indeed,” Heebie replied drily, “but I’m your cat, so I can tell you what to do. You need to go home, Dina. To help heal your heart. To break the hex.”
“I can’t break it, I’ve tried everything. I made him wear protection charms, I checked his fortunes constantly, and it still fucking hurt him. I’m telling you I’ve tried everything.”
Heebie looked at her with wise, knowing eyes.
“Noteverything.”
Dina snapped awake. The light coming into her bedroom was bleak and gray, like the clouds were sodden with rain. Heebie sat on her stomach, grooming the fur of her belly.
“Very funny, Heebie,” Dina said. “You’ve been able to talk this whole time and only now you tell me?”
