Page 4 of Whisking Her Dragon Away

I never saw it coming, even though I knew it would. Most importantly, I never ever never heard the cuckoo cookie-head approaching. I freakin’ had no clue.

In the past, she lulled me into a sense of false security. She worked really hard to make me believe she had turned over a new sugar cookie and all would be well. She did it every damn year. Last year, she even went so far as to give me gifts and make my favorite coffee drink when I got up every morning for the month leading up to January twenty-fifth.

This time, I had nuthin'. That was why I forgot what night it was, even with Auntie S's phone call. There were no red flags, warning bells, or Gingerbread Coocoo Crazy Pants Cookie Women in sheep's clothing.

However, none of that mattered. She. Was. Coming. There was no doubt about it. The crazy, banana pants Familiar of mine was trying to pull her shenanigans when it had been nearly seven hours since my last quad-shot-extra-hot-white-chocolate-vanilla-latte-with a heap of whipped cream and cinnamon without any of her usual preparations. She'd surely lost her freaking mind. It had to have been coming for decades, centuries even. The little butthead was madder than a Hatter when I met her, and things had been going downhill ever since.

Some things just never changed. Sadly, there were times when they just got worse. And to that, I say,Welcome to my world.

Could Auntie Faye embroider that on a sampler for me to hang by the front door? I needed to ask her the next time she called. It was exactly what I needed to spruce up the place and remind me to keep an eye on that blasted Gingerbread Woman.

Anyway, when the inevitable happened, and she struck like a rattlesnake, my cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs Familiar would tell me there was an emergency onlyIcould handle. She would execute an Emmy Award-winning performance with a shrieking monologue emphasizing that I had to get up right that minute and save the day. Then she would watch me fumble around, put at least one item of clothing on backward, and stumble down the steps when I should have just Magicked myself. At that point, she would film it on her Biscotti cell phone and load it to Ghoultube, so all her little friends could laugh at me.

Hell, one time, right before Brown Family Coven Founders Day a couple of years back, in the wee hours of the last night I could sleep past dawn, she had the nerve to tell me one of my cousins was in trouble – about to be eaten by Krampus. I was out of bed in the blink of an eye, dressed in half a second in my sweats with a hole in the booty, and all the way downstairs about to Magick my happy heiney halfway around the world when she roared hilariously and cackled, "Gotcha! Smile for the camera."

Yeah, it was one of her less perilous practical jokes, but it still pissed me off. It also led to one cranky, sleep-deprived Brown Witch with a bad attitude who had to pretend she was happier than a Cat in a tuna factory until The Brown Family Coven Birth-Funding-Becoming Day Party-stravaganza and the Reason We Are All Here Festival. Yes, it was me. You got it in one.

For some sick and twisted reason, that demented but cute Magical confectionary lookalike loved it when I was tired and cantankerous with dark circles under my eyes while trying to bake millions of goodies and whip up all the Happiness needed for a happy-happy-joy-joy-kickass… oh, you get where I'm going with this.

All I could figure was that it was one of her sick pleasures. I liked to pop the bubbles on the bubble wrap, and she wanted to turn my hair gray from sheer exhaustion and frustration. Why had the Great Goddess seen fit to make her my Familiar? I was a good girl. I followed the rules. I was the little Witchy-poo who was always early to school, stayed after to clap the erasers, and swept the floor for good measure.

Why? Why me?

“Because you, Lucy Abigail Bliss Brown, are the Brown Witch of Magical Deliciousness and Special Memories, and the Holder of the Golden Spark of Warmth and Happiness that makes all the most wonderful times of the year possible, and she is the Gingerbread Woman of Insurmountable Sugar and Spice ordained by Brigid, the Celtic Goddess of Life and Cerridwen, the Celtic Goddess of Magic to be your Familiar. It is Ginger’s job to help you make celebrations of all shapes, sizes, and origins all that they can be and more and more and more for every living being on the planet for as long as the world spins round the sun.”The voice of Auntie Eleanor Brown, Elder of the Brown Family Coven and the smartest of all of us, whispered through my mind.

It took me a minute to realize Auntie Eleanor wasn't in the room with me. Cut me a little slack. I was tired and remembering one of the millions of times she'd repeated those exact words. I got confused – well, more confused than usual. Damn, I loved that woman, but she did enjoy making a point, and I always seemed to give her the perfect opportunity to do so.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Last year, that fanatical Familiar, who will be the reason I lose my mind sooner rather than later, woke me up at precisely three-o-three am by putting a dozen Ash Black Slugs – the most enormous Slugs in the known world – in my bed. No, I am not scared of slugs, or bugs, or spiders, or even puppy dog tails. Still, I do get a bit testy when their cold, slimy bodies are slithering up my legs while I am sleeping, and my Familiar is singing 'Let it Slime' to the tune of 'Let it Snow' while dancing across the headboard of my bed in the middle of the night.

(Yes, she filmed it. Yes, it went viral. Yes, I had Em and her boyfriend, Nostradamus, take it down from Ghoulgle, the Supernatural search engine they created. Oh, and yes, I Magically destroyed all traces of said video, for which I spent a month with an itchy rash on my curvy backside. Remember: Using Magic for selfish reasons always comes at a cost.)

Meanwhile, back at the story…

After jumping out of bed, screaming my Get Me to the Bathroom Spell at the top of my lungs, then Magicking the slug slime off my legs, I was just about to send my deranged Familiar back to the Great Goddess in teeny tiny, little pieces in a pastry box wrapped tight with red twine when the fiend held up the index finger of her right hand and made a show of pouting as if she'd lost her last friend. Before I could so much as get my mouth open to tell her what I thought of her method of waking me up, that blasted excuse for a stale biscuit with sprinkles for facial features whipped us down to the kitchen and asked me to get her favorite hot cocoa mug off the top shelf of the cabinet.

Yeah, I know - despicable. And yeah, I am also well aware that Ginger could have used the Magic she employed to fill my bed with slugs and get us to the kitchen to get her mug off the top shelf without me, but did she? No, no, she did not. Now you see why I was losing whatever was left of my mind, right?

Well, just wait. It gets better.

In unprecedented fashion, I completely and totally lost my cool. You see, I was usually very understanding, calm, and even-tempered when she was teasing and taunting me. However, on this occasion, I had had enough. I ranted and raved. I jumped up and down. I threw Magic around like my cousin Nettie, the Brown Witch of Luck, in Vegas on Tax-Free Day. I spun like a top on high speed and broke not onlymyfavorite mug but also the mixing bowl given to me by the Celtic Goddess Brigid. (Thankfully, She is a gracious Goddess who fixed it for me after I explained what had happened. But again, I digress.)

Nearly inconsolable and needing to be anywhere other than in the same room with my Familiar for fear I would wring her little neck and be forced to plead insanity in the Court of Witches to avoid being sent to Hell to clean the kitty litter of Satan's Hellcats for the rest of forever or worse yet, get thrown into TGGH, I made it through the doorway connecting my kitchen to the dining room when a vat – yes, I said vat, and I am talking about the huge stainless steel ones they use in the Hershey Chocolate factory in Hershey, PA – of red icing fell from the ceiling dumping its entire contents on my head. With steamliterallycoming out of my ears, my hands fisted so tightly my newly painted, light blue with snowflakes decorated nails were biting into my palms, and my fuzzy, red and black buffalo plaid slippers filling with royal icing I slowly turned just in time to see that blasted Familiar of mine Magick herself out the house, the county, and dare I say the country.

She hadn't even filmed me covered in icing. That's how scared she was. It was the one and only time in all the years she had been my Familiar that she phoned in her part of the Magic that makes January twenty-fifth so special – and it wasbeautiful.I drank so much coffee my eyes went from light blue to brown, and my dark curls were bouncier, springier, and lusher than ever. I played every show tune known to man so loudly that the windows shook and baked anise cookies for all the people who love black licorice as much as I do. After all, I hadn't been able to make them for years becauseGinger hated them.

It was the best Brown Family Coven Birth-Founding-Becoming Day Party-stravaganza and the Reason We Are All Here Festival I’d had in years. And it was over way too soon. Of course, she spent the next year making me pay, but I still say it was worth it.

"Lucy," she sing-songed, snapping me back to reality and my impending doom.

That was new. I had to admit it piqued my curiosity. So much so that I actually thought about turning over, giving in, and just letting the inevitable chaos ensue. Maybe she would take pity on me, and whatever she had planned wouldn't leave scars - or, at the very least, would be over quickly and be something Dr. Bombay could fix without too much trouble.

But I was too stubborn for that. I had a point to prove, and dammit, I was going to prove it, or my name wasn’t Lucy Abigail Bliss Brown.

Gathering all my strength, I hunkered down, so to speak, because I was already in bed, did my best imitation of a sleeping Witch, and waited. Time seemed to stand still, but I knew I could besther. Hell, I was the Brown Witch in this relationship, wasn't I?

Brown Witches were special. Like I told you before, we were created by the Universe, the Great Goddess, The Powers That Be, and a couple of Goddesses to keep things running, the world spinning, everyone safe, and to put theva-vain everybody’svoom. We all had important jobs. We could do anything. We were strong. We were damn near invincible. We were Witch.

(Yes, I was channeling Helen Reddy and refused to feel bad about it. Sorry if you sang that song. It was imperative to my story to throw it in there.)

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