Page 15 of Bewitched By the Wicked Witch
"Who else could it be but our very own town wicked witch," Mrs. Randolph retorted, then turned her sharp, narrow eyes directly at me. I felt my lips twitch upward as a delicious memory surfaced, Mrs. Randolph frantically trying to hop across the town square, hands covered infrog pee, desperately attempting to catch flies with her tongue after one of my more creative hexes.
Of course she would blame me. She still hated me all these years later.
"Sage," Cindee grumbled, breaking through my memories. "You can't run off all of my customers. We still have a business to run."
I let out a long exhale. "Sorry, Cindee. Cosmo wanted a danish. And you know how he will do anything for a cheese danish, and I mean anything."
We shared a chuckle as I stared down at Cosmo, who had shrunk back down to big cat size. He jumped up onto the counter and stared into Cindee's eyes, waiting. "Yes, very famished," he added as he sat back on his haunches and examined his extended claws.
Cindee rolled her eyes, not in the least bit intimidated by him. "Cosmo, you know you aren't supposed to be on the counter. If you want a danish, you'll get back on the ground like a good kitty," she said, but her voice lacked warning as she sighed.
Cosmo rounded his eyes as they went big and doe-like, as if he'd taken pointers from that orange cat cartoon he loved with the cute accent. Cindee melted and gave into the desire to scratch him behind the ears right where he loved to be scratched, causing him to purr at her in delight.
"Fine, I can't say no to you." She turned and washed her hands before pulling out, not one but two cheese danishes just for Cosmo. She never did that for me. After putting them in a bag, she handed the bag to Cosmo, who gripped the paper bag filled with danishes in his teeth and hoppedoff the counter. Cindee then sighed at the kitty print marks on her counter before she sprayed it down and wiped the evidence away.
Cosmo was already waiting at the door with his prized danishes still packaged and ready to be opened, an expression of impatience on his cat-like features. He sat the bag down and growled, "Come, witch, I'm starving!"
"I should have left you in the woods that day," I grumbled back at him.
"You wouldn't have dared. You need me," he retorted, his voice laced with arrogance and challenge. His tail flicked upwards with defiance, and he rolled his eyes in a remarkably human-like gesture. With a huff, he plopped down, his body tense with impatience.
I turned my attention back to Cindee. It was then I noticed the way her usually neat appearance was different. Her rumpled clothing clung to her figure, while soft curls of light brown hair escaped her ponytail and framed her face. Crescent moons of dark circles rested beneath her amber eyes.
"Are you okay, Cindee?" I asked finally. Something I rarely did, but there was no one in the shop at the moment to see my odd behavior. Her eyes widened for a moment as if she caught me in a moment of true concern. "If you're not okay, the coffee will taste horrible," I blurted. But really, I was concerned.
"I look that awful?" Cindee's hands went to the messy strands that were coming undone from her ponytail, tugging more than fixing it, the curls springing back into place and brushing the top of her shoulders. Curls that looked similar to mine. It was one reason Cindee liked me,despite my reputation. I reminded her of how her daughter could have looked more like her and less like her mate, Danny. But Brexley looked like Danny's twin.
"No, you just don't look like you usually do. You look worried."
And she did. Her eyes kept going to the door as if some big bad was going to barge in, but I was the only big bad in this town. And I liked her.
"You know Dan's mother is a shifter, right?" she said as she picked up a rag and began moving around the cafe, working to clean and keeping her hands busy as she talked.
"I didn't know that," I said as I moved closer, understanding her fear now. Paige had said all her missing friends had shifter blood in their background. Paige even had some from her father's side. Now Brexley was also on that list. "Paige said a few of her friends went missing at school."
Cindee nodded, her lip going between her teeth as she chewed it. "One of Brexley's older friends went missing, too. I think I'm going to pull her from school. Just to be safe..." she trailed off, worry flashing in her features, "and Sage?"
"Hmm?" I hummed as I straightened the napkins.
"Be very careful." Her voice dropped to a whisper, the kind that made the hairs on my arms rise. "I was scrying the other day, and something... shifted." She closed her eyes, drawing in a sharp breath like she'd touched something electric. "I opened myself to the source, and your energy surged through. You, my dear, were at the center of what was coming."
"What was coming?"
She reached for my hand, her fingers cool against my skin. As our palms met, her pupils vanished into white, eerie and glowing, her gift snapping awake like a storm breaking across still water.
"Two paths stretched ahead," she said in a voice not quite her own."One ended in fire. The other righted a long-buried wrong. The choice was yours, but beware. There were those who feared what you were capable of. And fear, more than anything, made people dangerous."
Then just like that, her eyes cleared, her face returned to the worry that had etched her features before as if nothing had happened, and she continued to stock the clear glass display to the right of the cash register as if nothing had occurred.
Danny walked out from the back, wrapping his arms around Cindee and nuzzling her neck. I used to think he was a low-level warlock, but the way he clung to her made sense now. Shifter blood. They expressed love physically, and Cindee melted into it, her frown softening into a grin. I turned away, cheeks warming.
Watching Danny nuzzle Cindee reminded me painfully of when my warlock... No, not my warlock. Not anymore. It reminded me when Callum had once been just as openly affectionate All the way until he blindsided me and broke things off. I'd rewarded him with a nasty curse, one that ensured he never enjoyed the act of intimacy with anyone else. Unless they enjoyed dying from it.
I'd hexed his anatomy to be so oversized any time he let it out of his pants that women would run screaming. In hindsight, I realized it had probably done the opposite of what I'd intended. I snorted at the memory, wishing I'dbeen there to see his face after that. Did he know I had done it? I hoped so.
I hoped every time he got aroused, it made him light in the head until he passed out. Because even now, thinking about him made my wicked little heart hurt. Now, it yearned for something taken from it. Black magic weilding witches like me, we didn't deserve a happy ending.
"Sage?" Cindee's worried voice pulled me from my petty, dark thoughts.
