Introducing The Worst Witches of Westerville, a new world featuring three less than adept witches. This is part of a project I’m working on in addition to my regular writing schedule, not in place of it. Agnes is a serialized fiction work, and the following is the first episode =)
Raw and unedited, just for you!
***Snip begins here.***
A Blundered Brew
I’d flubbed a spell.
It was a little spell but sadly a rather large flub.
A simple potion gone terribly—tragically, some might say—awry. Perhaps I’d allowed my attention to wander during the brewing process. Or added too much unicorn hair. Or too little white stag horn dust.
Or perhaps I’d overcooked it? There was the faintest hint of burnt hair and unhappy magick in the air of my small kitchen.
Whatever the cause of my error, I was left with the mess of my mistake. All eighty-plus pounds of drooling, shedding, mud-tracking mess.
A knock on my back door preceded the entry of my friend Clara. I’d texted her a 911 without going into the embarrassing and possibly criminal details.
Petite, freckled, and possessing both bright orange hair and a love of colorful clothing, Clara was my opposite in almost all things. My wardrobe was full of navies, greys, and blacks, my dark brown hair would never catch a second glance, and I was half a head taller.
We shared one important, unseen trait, however. One that had helped bring us and a third friend, Hattie, together through our school years, into college, and beyond. We were witches. Not particularly competent, not especially talented, but blessed with just the smallest touch of witch magick.
Her chin disappeared into her teal and purple infinity scarf as she stared at the beast reclining in the middle of my kitchen floor. “Agnes, why is there a huge yellow dog in your kitchen?”
“I believe he’s a Labrador. That’s what Google says.”
“Sure, if Google says so.” She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
I had just a little. I’d experimented with magick that was well beyond my skill level. I’d known it as I’d added the ingredients to the pot, as I’d brought them to a bubbling boil, as I’d infused the resulting concoction with my magick, and finally, as I’d let the resulting potion cool.
And still I’d dosed Mr. Matthews with it.
“You haven’t answered my question. Why do you have a dog in your kitchen? You don’t own a dog.” She frowned as she registered the untidy display of ingredients on my counter. And my mother’s book of magicks. She pointed at the checkered binder labeled recipes. “You didn’t.”
My gaze fell to the solidly built dog sprawled across the tile floor of my small kitchen. I did. I shouldn’t have—I wasn’t exactly adept at potions or any of the other witchy arts—but I did.
The dog’s tail beat against the tile with a soft, rhythmic thud. He was still a little overweight and definitely just as lazy, but he seemed much happier than…before. And friendlier. His tail thwacked the floor every time I looked at him.
“I did, and I’m planning to again.”
“Uh, no.”
“Well, I can’t leave him that way.”
“What do you mean? Leave him what way?” Clara scooted around the dog, giving him a wide berth as she made her way to my retro pink fridge. She retrieved a bottle of beer, immediately opened it, and gulped a third of its contents.
“He doesn’t bite. He seems to be quite friendly like this.”
“Like this?” Her eyes widened then darted to the array of potion-making supplies she’d spotted earlier. “Did you drug a stray dog?”
As if I’d harm some poor helpless animal. “I drugged Mr. Matthews.”
She squinted at me, then chugged the rest of her beer.
I sighed quietly. She was judging me.
Then again, I had turned my neighbor into a dog. I hadn’t meant to. The plan was to improve his temperament. The potion was intended to create a window of opportunity. To make him amiable and receptive to my argument that he attend the fall block party. It was happening in a week, and if someone couldn’t convince him to go, he’d likely call the cops on us, same as every other year.
I’d hadn’t been officially appointed, but it had been suggested by the planning committee (strongly) that I take on the task of persuading him, since I wasn’t helping with refreshments. I’d been barred from the potluck table after serving underdone sausages last year. Not my finest moment.
It had occurred to me that I could use my chat with Mr. Matthews as an opportunity to test out one of my mother’s potions. I’d been spending a lot of time over the last few months studying her book of magicks, using it to tap into my childhood memories. Perfecting Mom’s potions had become my way of grabbing hold of those memories before they faded away.
Mom’s mood-altering potion had been the last she’d developed. Sitting in the kitchen, doodling in my sketch pad, and singing along to the radio while she’d brewed at least ten different batches of the stuff was one of my last memories of her. I’d been twelve and already well on my way to becoming a less than stellar witch.
I’d wanted to get this potion right.
Instead, I’d gotten drool on my kitchen tile and a hint of a doggy odor in the air.
On the bright side, turning Mr. Matthews into a Labrador retriever had made him much more agreeable. The dog once again wagged his tail when he saw I was looking at him.
“That’s Mr. Matthews, your grumpy neighbor. The guy who blows his leaves in his neighbors’ yards.” Clara tipped the neck of the bottle at the dog. “You turned him into…that.”
Obviously, but I nodded for the sake of clarity.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “No wonder it smells like magick gone wrong in here. Agnes, how could you?”
And I thought that odor was the dog.
“I didn’t do it on purpose.” I nibbled the corner of my lip, because that was no excuse. Any magick I practiced was more than a bit of a gamble, or so the elders on the council claimed. “And I’m going to try to fix it. That’s why I’ve got Mom’s book of magicks and my entire supply closet emptied on my kitchen counters.”
“Seriously? I need another beer.”
Sounded good to me, but given how my last potion had ended up and the fact it was only about two in the afternoon, it was probably a bad idea. If I ended up with a fat, excessively furry canine while sober, then who knew what I’d get under the influence.
Now armed with her second drink, Clara looked calmer. “You can’t feed him some random potion and hope you’ll poof him back to his old grumpy self.”
I couldn’t leave him as a dog, however happy he seemed to be, and the other alternative… “I can’t go to the council. Those old ladies are mean. They’ll probably turn me into a bat or a toad or something and think that’s justice.”
Technically, mood altering spells weren’t forbidden; they were simply out of fashion. But I’d have to convince the council it had been a legitimate accident, and even then, I’d still be in trouble for my poorly executed magick.
Letitia Pearl, a witch with slightly higher standing than Clara, Hattie and me, accidentally cast a twenty-four-hour bad luck spell on one of the elders, and the council had levied a huge fine against her: five hundred and twenty hours of community service to be served within one year entirely at the Home for Genteel Ladies. Located just outside the Westerville city limits, The Home was an independent living community for women (witches, but the townspeople of Westerville didn’t know that) fifty-five years and older. In theory, not so terrible, but the Home was where all of Westerville’s most ill-tempered witches landed. Poor Letitia had moved not long after completing her community service. Westerville’s meanest witches were too much for her.
The council would not look lightly on my infraction.
One should know one’s limits, or so they’d told me in the past. Me, Clara, and Hattie. We’d all been given the same line.
Clara looked at me like she thought maybe a council-imposed stint as a small wild animal was exactly what I deserved.
“Do you really think I’d turn my neighbor into a dog?” When she hesitated, I added, “On purpose, Clara.”
“No, of course not.” She leaned against the fridge and squinted at me. “We should call Hattie. I bet she’ll know what to do.”
Great. That was just what we needed, the second and third worst witches in Westerville trying to crack the problem I—the absolute worst witch in town—had created.
Then again, my only alternative was to seek the council’s help. I didn’t want to live the next few months as a rodent or amphibian, and I sure didn’t want to end up at The Home, acting as personal servant to thirteen cantankerous witches. “Call her.”
Today was Saturday. Mr. Matthews didn’t have any close friends or family in town that I’d ever seen, and I’d know. He lived kitty-corner to me. It was possible, if we fixed him before Monday and managed a decent memory potion that he’d never remember he’d been a dog. Or that he’d camped out on my kitchen floor. Or that he’d had a run in with a witch at all.
All good things, since the witchy townsfolk would levy a hefty penalty on me if they had to mop up a leak of this size. Thus far, Westerville’s non-witchy residents had lived in ignorance of the town’s magick-wielding inhabitants, and the witchy folk had been here as long as the town.
#
Hattie had a few ideas. She’d been studying with her younger cousin recently and had learned, among other witchy things, about animal transformation.
Clara, Hattie, and I weren’t intrinsically bad at witchcraft. I hadn’t been a motivated student and had frequently been distracted from my studies. Clara hadn’t ever had much interest. And Hattie had been a late bloomer, hence her studies with her younger cousin. She was trying to catch up now that she was exhibiting greater inherent ability.
We’d all attended the minimum once weekly witch class through junior high up into high school but had each quit when we’d turned fifteen. At the time, we’d all questioned the value of those weekly classes, since we’d been convinced we’d never become actively practicing witches.
Hattie had been the first to reconsider as her witch powers had gained in strength after college. She bribed her twelve-year-old cousin to repeat her weekly witch lessons, since adult witches weren’t welcome in the classes. Chocolate had done the trick, and Hattie had been learning on the sly ever since.
I followed in Hattie’s footsteps when I woke one morning in a panic. I’d dreamt I’d forgotten my mother’s voice, her scent, the way wisps of her hair would escape the bun atop her head when she became intent on perfecting a potion. How the steam from her bubbling brew curled those wisps as she hovered over the pot, watching, waiting, testing her newest concoction.
Lacking a twelve-year-old cousin who was easily bribed by chocolate, I’d fetched my mother’s book of magicks from high in the kitchen cupboard, wiped away the dust, and begun to study the contents.
There was hope that we’d eventually become, well, realistically, moderately competent witches. We were never going to master the ultimate secrets of the universe. We probably weren’t up for the more sophisticated magicks, like energy balls and weather alterations, or the more nuanced, like love potions. Someday, though, I had faith that we’d all three graduate from terrible to mediocre, contrary to the council’s predictions.
Today was not that day.
Hattie crossed her arms as I explained for the third time the exact steps I’d followed to make my mood altering potion.
She’d shown up about forty minutes after I’d called. Westerville wasn’t very large, our population never quite hitting the ten thousand mark, and since we were far enough west of Austin not to be included in that city’s commuter growth, we’d remained a small Texas town. Ten minutes was more than enough to cross the city corner to corner, so I’d guess that Hattie had been holed up in her house for the last few days working on some project and hadn’t been “society-ready,” as she termed it. In other words, our girl hadn’t showered today and likely hadn’t washed her hair in a few days. Such was the life of a writer, or so she claimed.
I wouldn’t know, since my job was much more prosaic. As scattered as my magickal life might be, I’d settled incongruously into a work position that required focus and attention to detail. As an administrative assistant in a neighboring town, my workdays were neatly ordered and highly organized. I was the rock upon which my small office relied. It had taken several months for me to reconcile my magical and work lives, but now I simply accepted that magic made me scatterbrained, and I’d simply have to work harder at it than other aspects of my life.
Hattie’s relationship with work and magic couldn’t be more different. And her relationship with her hair, as well. No emergency was so great that there wasn’t enough time for Hattie to shower and wash her mass of pastel pink hair. If I had her porcelain skin, perhaps I’d consider a pastel color. Though… no. I liked my dark brown hair, even if wasn’t nearly as colorful and fun as my friends’.
“You’re not paying attention.” Hattie eyed me like she was trying to reach inside my head and pull out whatever distraction had led me astray.
“I was having hair envy.”
“Oh, well, normally I’d be okay with that.” She quirked an eyebrow. “Not today. If you’d been paying attention, you’d have heard me say that I think you got your potion right.”
“But…” I considered the dog on the floor. “Pretty sure I didn’t.”
Hattie frowned at Mr. Matthews, then knelt and scratched behind his right ear. Unlike Clara, she wasn’t afraid of dogs. “He’s awfully sweet. So, technically, the potion did work.”
“What about the magick-gone-wrong smell?” Clara asked from several feet away.
“Oh, no, that’s just overcooked unicorn hair.” Hattie sounded certain.
And yet—“If it’s overcooked, doesn’t it change the magick?” I should know the answer to that question. Should.
Hattie proceeded to share the wealth of knowledge she’d accumulated from her studious, chocolate-loving cousin. That certain ingredients, including those in my potion, enhanced each other. Adding magick bound and activated the constituent parts, but there was no alchemic changing of properties that occurred with the addition of either heat or magic or through interaction of the ingredients.
All information Hattie’s twelve-year-old cousin possessed, and now Hattie, and with any luck, me. I grabbed Mom’s book of magicks and a pencil and scribbled in the margins before the information escaped me.
“I don’t suppose you kept any of the original potion,” Hattie asked when I’d finished my notations.
“Uh…” Dang it. Only after Hattie mentioned it did I vaguely remember learning that all potions should be stored after their creation for some set amount of time. Something to do with making the antidote.
“Agnes.” Hattie’s eyes were kind, but I could see the frustration lurking. “If you’re going to experiment with potions, then be sure to store some of it when you’re done. Most mood-altering potions only last a few days at most, so you’d want to keep the original potion for about a week, just in case you needed—”
“To make a cure!” Clara pumped her fist. “I remember that lesson.”
“Too bad I didn’t.” I’d likely been daydreaming. “Can’t I just remake the potion and use that for the antidote?”
Turned out…sort of.
No two potions were alike. Even if created using the same ingredients from the same sources with the same recipe, and even if the same witch bound and activated the ingredients.
Welcome to the fun of magick.
Truly. I found that part fascinating. The inevitable unpredictability of magick, even when wielded by the most competent of witches, was where I found wonder and joy in it. It was a living thing, capable of changing and altering in ways we witches couldn’t always predict.
Not that a competent witch would turn a man into a dog using a temporary mood-altering potion. Only someone like me would do that.
Clara, Hattie, and I went through the recipe I’d used and recreated it. I erred on the side of generous with the unicorn hair and skimpy with the white stag horn dust. Clara, who had a fabulous nose, told me when it was time to add my magick based on the smell of the brewing potion. (I’d most definitely overcooked it.)
When we were finally done, I pulled out the spray bottle I’d used earlier—and that’s when Hattie put a stop to our reenactment.
She held up a hand, closed her eyes and took a breath. When she opened them, she said, “You sprayed Mr. Matthews with the potion.”
“Yes. It says clearly in the notes that it can be applied topically as well as ingested. The delivery method only affects dosage.” That’s why I didn’t have any left. Topical applications require a much higher dose. Otherwise every little spill or accidental dribble would have us all magicking ourselves.
They both looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“What? What did I miss?”
Instead of answering that question, Hattie once again knelt next to the dog. “Are you absolutely certain this is Mr. Matthews?”
She had to be kidding. Like I’d bring some strange dog into my house, assume he was my neighbor, and start texting and calling my friends in a tizzy if I wasn’t sure the dog was my grumpy neighbor.
“I sprayed him. I blinked. I opened my eyes, and there was this sweetheart trying to crawl out of Mr. Matthews clothes.”
Hattie stood up after a last scratch and crossed her arms. “You blinked.”
“I did.” I flashed a weak smile. “It’s been a while. My last potion was maybe six or seven months ago.”
Magick flashed and banged. It wasn’t a big flash, and it wasn’t a loud bang, but much like learning not to flinch in anticipation when shooting a gun, witches were taught not to blink…lest we miss something important.
I was out of practice.
I blinked.
Had I missed something important?
No. The dog currently shedding on my tile was Mr. Matthews. I was sure of it. “Come on. It was a split second.”
Hattie narrowed her eyes at the dog and finally conceded, “You’re right. If the dog crawled out of a pile of Mr. Matthews clothes, then the dog is probably Mr. Matthews.”
“Probably?” Clara stared at the dog.
Hattie sighed. “Fine. The dog is Mr. Matthews, but Agnes, don’t blink. If you’re going to do magick, just, don’t blink.”
“Fine, we’ve established that the chunky yellow Labrador retriever occupying the center of my kitchen floor is indeed my neighbor. What has you both so freaked out?” I rethought my question, and added, “Besides my likely incarceration in the body of a bat or, worse, a lengthy stint as The Home’s new fetch-and-carry girl.”
Clara reached into the fridge for another beer, but this time she handed it to me.
“Cheers.” She clinked her glass with mine. “Mr. Matthews wasn’t transformed into a dog by your overcooked mood-altering potion.”
“I sprayed him. He turned into a dog. And yet you’re telling me it wasn’t my potion that did it. How does that work exactly?”
Magick could be weird, but this seemed like a Djinn wish gone wrong weird. I wanted a friendlier neighbor; my neighbor became one of the friendliest breeds of dog. Maybe guilt—and timing, I did literally just spray him when he transformed—had colored my perception, but it seemed clear to me that my spraying of the potion triggered the transformation.
Hattie replied, “Transformation can’t be accomplished through topical application of a potion.”
I didn’t know that. At all. As in, her telling me didn’t refresh any long-buried memory or half-learned lesson. “Are you sure?”
Clara and Hattie exchanged glances, and then they both nodded. From their behavior, this was one of those witch 101 lessons learned very early in childhood. Yet another foundation lesson I’d slept through, dreamt through, or flat out ignored.
I really was a terrible witch. My recent efforts had been heartfelt, but I’d missed so much of my early training. Their comments were a harsh reminder of all the lost opportunity behind me.
But witches hadn’t yet discovered a magick strong enough to combat or manipulate time, so I could only move forward from here. Studying, practicing, and always seeking to remember what I could, of my mother and magick.
One thing I’d learned through this transformation fiasco: the importance of continuing my studies, broadening both my understanding of the principles of magick and improving upon its practical applications. It was either that or abandon the last connection I had with my mother, and I wasn’t willing to cut that tie.
Still not fully able to embrace my good fortune, I said, “I didn’t turn Mr. Matthews into a dog.”
“Definitely not,” Hattie confirmed and then she wrapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed.
My shoulders loosened, and for the first time in hours felt like I could breathe.
“We should celebrate.” Clara started to dig in my cupboards for the good stuff. Beer was all well and good for social sipping, but a proper party required liquor. Or so Clara believed.
As Clara retrieved my blender and a few bottles of liquor from the depths of my cabinets, Hattie continued to eye Mr. Matthews.
Oh, hell. Mr. Matthews.
I didn’t turn him into a dog, and yet here he was, in my kitchen. “What am I going to do with him?”
“Not your monkey, not your circus?” Clara said in a hopeful tone, her hand firmly fisted around a bottle of Titos.
Hattie glared at her. Pretty clear to see where the animal lover lines were drawn with those two.
Also, Clara had a screw loose if she thought I was going to just turn Mr. Matthews loose to run free in the world and play in traffic.
Which left one other alternative.
“I guess I have a dog?” I scratched his head, and the quiet thump of his tail on my tile floor became a hard smack as his joy over the attention I paid him escalated. “Yeah, seems like that’s what’s happening. I’ve got a dog. You good with that, Mattie?” His tail thumped even harder. Seemed like he was good with staying in my kitchen, surrounded by the scents of magick—gone wrong and otherwise—and also with his newly acquired name.
I didn’t know Mr. Matthews first name, so it would have to do.
Hattie eyed the two of us with an odd glint in her eye. “So that makes him your familiar, right?”
Hell, did it? I wasn’t sure if a pet immediately became a familiar or if it happened over time or if there was a ritual or a process. And Mattie was hardly a pet in the traditional witchy sense.
Looked like potions and spells weren’t my only weaknesses. “Guess I’ll be reading up on familiars, Mattie.”
His ears perked up and his tail continued to thump happily.
***End of Snip***
Keep an eye out for the continuing adventures of Agnes!
