Page 6 of Whisking Her Dragon Away

“Ow!”

The little brat did it. Ginger Goop-Face McCrocker literally popped my ear like she was going for the winning goal in a game of paper football in the school library during detention - and it hurt like the dickens.

But she wasn't running away.

Then... She did again. Even harder and with a pop of her Magic. This time, she had to pay.

“Damn you all the way to the bottom of the oven, Ging!”

Okay, maybe it was not my best effort when it came to insults. I'm usually really good with sassy, witty clapbacks, put-downs, and general snarky remarks. Rest assured that I only use this ability in my home and only ever point them at Ginger or the occasional technical support operator when my cell phone refuses to work. Still, those are few and far between because I believe in being nice to everyone. For example, Auntie Nettie once said I could tell someone to go to Hell, and they'd look forward to the trip. I think she was exaggerating, but I leaned into it and have no complaints.

However, on this occasion, I was tired and hungry and really over Ginger's whole song and dance. So, give a girl a break. I was about to go all Wicked Witch of the West on her ass.

Of course, cursing did nothing to dissuade the crazy cookie-head. Not that I thought it would. Ginger was sassy, snarky, and was never without her usual pain-in-the-broom-handle self.

"That's Ms. Ginger Bridgette McCrocker to you, Lucy Abigail Bliss Brown, and you damned well know it. How many times do I have to tell you how I feel about nicknames? I have repeatedly explained it to you in every language with all the infection and conviction I have in my sweet little body."

"Sweet little body? Did you really just say...? That's a laugh."

But she wasn't listening. Nope. She was still ranting and raving as always.

"My dad,TheGingerbread Man, did not allow any of us to be called by anything other than our given Paranormal Government names. You know, the ones on our Supernatural Security cards. That is the way it has been since…."

"The beginning of time - because that's when you were baked. You are literally so old that you and Will of the Wild Grass Grain Family played on the merry-go-round together."

"I cannot believe you are bringing the First Cookie, the Cookie to End All Cookies, the Founder of all Sweet Confections, into this. Just know that I'm ignoring you," she sighed with a roll of the candy eyes the Great Goddess had given her.

“But….”

"But nothing. After all these years, you seem to think that, as your Familiar, I don't know when you're pretending to be asleep. How many times have we been through this? How many times do I have to remind you that we – you and I – are joined at the epicenter of our Magic? It’s like….”

“It’s like being joined at the….”

"…at the soul," she cut me off with a glare that was meant to make my blood run cold but really only gave me a headache. "Yes, I said soul, but I am most assuredly, without one single doubt, and in no way, shape, or form Not. Your. Mate. That is a whole other kind of meeting of the souls, not one I ever want to experience with you or anyone else." Using both her gingerbread hands, she drew an upside-down triangle, the Witch's symbol for Earth, then sighed, "Bless the Great Goddess, the Dadga, the Goddess Cerridwen, and the Goddess Brigid for not saddling me with the burden that is you for anything other than the Witchiness to my Familiarness."

“Me?” I tried and failed to keep the screech out of my voice. “Are you seriously calling me the burden in this… this… this relationship?”

Pointing the tip of the index finger of my left hand at the red pearl sprinkle that served as her nose, I huffed and puffed and failed to get even a single word out of my mouth because I was fit to be tied and then some. It was as if all of my frustration and rage had dammed up the road between my brain and my mouth. I had all these really cool insults to hurtle at Ginger, but they were backed up like the drain at a sorority house on date night.

So, I did the only thing I could. I inhaled deeply, held it for the count of three, and finally snorted, "Oh, hell no!"

No, it was not my best comeback. Hell, it wasn’t even in the top one hundred, but I'd gotten it out of my mouth, and there was no taking it back.

Falling back onto the stack of warm pillows that perfectly fit my head, I threw my precious blankets, quilts, and comforters made by all my Aunties and Grannies with their own hands and not the Brown Family Sew-It-Yourself Spell over my face. I needed a minute. That gingerbread tyrant was dancing on the one nerve I had left, and I was about to explode. I needed a time out, a few deep breaths, and a chorus ofwoosahesbefore even attempting to untangle the mental minutiae that was my Familiar.

Once again, I found myself counting the ticks of the clock. This time, however, I made it to seven before I calmly growled through my blankets, "In case you’re wondering, I was praying to the Great Goddess that you disappear before you have the time to enact your evil plan. I know, and you know that you only came in here to torture me. It’s what you always do. It’s what you live for. Here I was dreaming of fresh baked cookies, fancy iced cakes, Witch choirs singing all my favorite show tunes, and….”

"And one very sexy man who just happens to Shift into a Dragon that your Auntie Sorcha said you would meet before the stroke of midnight on January twenty-fifth. The one you think might be the little boy who gave you the dandelions all those years ago that you keep in your grimoire?"

“No," I huffed with such force that the blankets still covering my head rose and fell. "I most certainly was…."

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Ginger sang and danced, getting louder with every syllable. "You know you were. I know you were. I know it’s all you’ve been thinking about since….”

BOOM!

Whatever my fanatical Familiar was about to say was cut off by an explosion that rocked every timber of the historical Brown Mansion I'd inherited from Auntie Liberty Brown when she packed up her cauldron and headed to parts unknown. (No, not the Heavens or the Happily-Ever-After or even CopacaBlissfulEndings. She didn't die. She Conjured an island in middle of the Dead Sea and Mysticked up a brand-new sea creature she calls the Salt Shark to guard the borders. She lives there in what her postcards say is a 'blissful hermitage.' Maybe I should try it.)

Going from laying down to standing up so fast it could have been classified as exercise – which I never ever never engage in - I stood in the middle of my bed with my hands out like I knew jujitsu. Unable to see through the long, dark curls falling into my face, I Spelled them into a messy bun atop my head, grabbed Ginger before she was burnt to a crisp because I knew I would be blamed for her demise, and got as far as screaming, "Time to fly. Time to get the...."

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