Page 12 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
Sitting at the bar with rum and cokes, Ophelia and Mateo had become the center of attention.
It was the blank card.
It meant he was hiding his magic, and everyone wanted to know why.
Having a maliciously secretive mother meant he was savvy enough not to let anything about his situation slip, but as the people around him chatted and prodded, the absolutely wrong answer to what kind of magic he used became alarmingly clear: anything having to do with demons.
Associating with demons was considered vile. Even blood magic was pushing it, since blood magic was often tied to demon powers.
Which was super unfair because the difference between something dubbed ademonor dubbed agodis pure human-biased semantics. Higher magic requires siphoning from something else, and borrowing power doesn’t come for free. So, when the cost is mild, like devotion or homage, everyone’s like: Great. Love it. This one’s totally a good one.
And when the cost is something high, like blood and death, everyone’s like: Oh no. Don’t like that. Obviously, it’s evil.
And yes, he calls the thing inside of himevilall the time, but he’s allowed to over-reduce and generalize because one day it’s going to kill him. It’s actually really annoying when everyone else ascribes morality to things that don’t think in corporal or even mortal terms.Evilisn’t the same thing asbad for a living, breathing human. It’s whatever the human does to get the power, or with the power, that’s capable of good or evil. His mom, for example, isn’t evil because she does blood magic. She’s evil because she’s a gigantic asshole.
Finding out the local magic scene thinks you’re an evil abomination and ought to be dead is a real bummer, though, so he’d never gone back.
But he thinks about the combination of disgust and fear on the faces at that club every time he readies the cascarilla. His mother’s preparation was really dramatic. Magic-ass dagger, candles, smoldering herb blend, and the slow mixing of blood and cascarilla with mortar and pestle.
He’d improved the process by buying a spritz bottle and filling it with water and his blood once a week. He needs to apply the wards every time he leaves the house or he risks detection, and who has time for blood rituals first thing in the morning?
Last night, during his curse research, he’d compiled a list of protection spells and cleanses for Topher’s situation, so hegets to brewing those. It takes four knocks for him to realize the sound he’s hearing is a person at the door and not a kitten softly batting a stuffed toy into another stuffed toy.
Mateo finds Topher standing outside the front door. His hair is once again in the disarray of a violent tumble out a high-rise, hand raised to attempt another ridiculous feather-soft kiss of knuckles.
At the sight of Mateo, Topher withdraws his fist toward his chest and then opens it into a weak wave, like he’s not sure what to do with his limbs now that there’s someone there to see that he possesses them. “I’m early. Too early. Sorry. Is this too early? I can go away. And come back. More at the time. The right time, I mean. The time we agreed upon. Which isn’t now.”
Ophelia, miraculously roused and somewhere in the living room, lets out a mean laugh that Topher absolutely hears. This very rich guy they’re trying not to offend’s see-through complexion is suddenly bright pink.
Mateo pretends that hadn’t happened. “Now’s fine. Come on in.”
Like at the print shop, Topher takes one step in but goes no further, gaze skittering around the room, glancing off of every candle and crystal Mateo had artfully sprinkled around. The room is full Halloween, all of Mateo’s mother’s performance pieces dragged out from the front closet. Eventually, Topher’s attention snags on the mantle.
The out-of-commission fireplace is the single most cursed looking thing in anyone’s house anywhere.
A simple framed picture of a shriveled-orange of an old woman with a stony-eyed stare sits at the center. She’s Mateo’s grandmother or great-grandmother—he never met anyone in his family and his mother wasn’t chatty. But she called this oldlady abuelita with a pronunciation that included a silentshittyat the start. Two additional and exponentially worse frames flank the surly old woman. The things inside of them are posed like a portrait from the shoulders up of something seated, but the shadowy forms are difficult to look at, the eye naturally sliding away.
Abuelita is surrounded by candles, incense, trinkets, figures, and a shallow bowl of water. All of which he upkeeps once a week, exactly as his mother had. He doesn’t know this old lady, but he likes to think that she’s just as disappointed with her lineage as he is.
“Come on,” Mateo says when it’s clear Topher’s stuck, coaxing him like he has a piece of cheese and Topher’s a little skittish dog he wants to urge close enough to pet.
It’s at this point that Topher sees Ophelia but also realizes he has shoes on. This short-circuits his brain. It’s a whole thing. Another wave of apologies spews out of him as he backs up into the door, frantic to remove his shoes.
Ophelia watches with dangerous amusement. She’s probably Looking at Topher, with a capital L, but her expression makes him think she’s coming up with a sick burn.
In an effort to hinder that, Mateo hustles Topher into the living room to sink onto the couch, taking the low stool on the other side of the coffee table for himself. “Okay. So, we texted a bit about our progress. Research, mostly.” They’d looked into the accidents Topher had described. But then learned Topher’s dad’s house was legit a mansion and spent a lot of time on an old Fillow listing admiring the pool. “Every culture has curses. Meaning there’s a wealth of information out there, which is fantastic, but it also means we’ve gotta sift through that information in order to pinpoint the exact flavor of what’s happening toyou so that we can figure out how to deal with it. We can narrow it down in some obvious ways, though. What’s afflicting you seems to be bad luck, but bad luck curses don’t usually cause bad luck to people around the hexed.”
Topher nods, eyes googly and huge again, but Mateo doesn’t think it’s because of what he’s saying. Ophelia is standing just inside the room, leaning against the wall closest to their bedrooms. Topher’s gaze keeps flicking to her in abject terror. It could be a curse thing, afraid he’s going to hurt her. It could be a Topher thing, other people too much for this flimsy, washed-out rich boy to deal with. But he suspects it’s just Ophelia.
Objectively speaking, she’s terrifying, even if she barely comes up to his chin. Armored in little airy maxi dresses and flip-flops, she makes men and women alike cower. Ophelia is cute in the same way a small, pink pocketknife is. Her mass of hair is a cloud of soft browns and blondes in direct contrast to the coldness in her eyes and the hostility of her smile.
Since dying, her mystique has only gotten worse.
“This is Ophelia, the colleague I mentioned,” Mateo says a little louder, gesturing at her.
“Yo,” Ophelia says without moving, and Mateo realizes that he should have had a customer service conversation with her. She’s never held a job in her whole goddamned life, and she’s basically a nightmare gremlin given cute human girl form.
“Hello,” Topher whispers, and he’s doing that trembling thing again. Is this excitement? Fear? Deep desire? Difficult to decipher what a bug-eyed trust fund guy might be into. Whatever. Not his concern. Time to focus on the money in his digital pocket.
