The Accidental Witch (32 page)
Read The Accidental Witch Online
Authors: Jessica Penot
I sank down to the floor and sat on my knees. Fred sat next to me. I put my head on his shoulder and he stroked my hair. I knew we had an audience, but I didn’t care. Everyone watched. Everyone waited. They waited for the conclusion to my tragedy.
Emilie stood up. She walked over to the bloodied body that had once been the most powerful witch in the world. She spat on her.
“She enslaved and killed my mother,” Emilie said. “Good riddance. We owe you nothing but gratitude,” Emilie said to me. “The Guild welcomes you to our numbers with gratitude.”
Slowly, the others came. All the necromancers and all the oracles. They came and spat on Nineveh’s body. They spat and walked away. As I watched them, I knew the trial had been a play. It had been put on to give the image of civility, but no one had ever intended to do anything but kill the old witch. She was evil, a reminder of a past The Guild wanted nothing to do with. I went to the back of the line and waited my turn and then I spat on Nineveh. Good Riddance.
* * *
“She’s stronger than all of us now,” Morgause said. “She has her own strength and Nineveh’s.”
“I know,” Fred said.
“You can’t cut any corners. You can’t take any short cuts. You must see her training through to the end. You must make sure she is secure in her abilities and her limitations. She must understand the consequences of every spell she casts. There can be no running off on any damn crusades. There can be no other job The Guild gives you that is more important. She must be fully and completely trained. Even if it takes a lifetime. Are you prepared to do this, Frederick?”
“I am,” Frederick answered.
“You are the oldest and wisest of us, except for me of course, so you are the obvious choice to train Phaedra, but you are notoriously unpredictable, Frederick. If you let me down here, I will never forgive you and I will take over her training myself.”
“I know,” Fred said.
I could hear their voices. I didn’t entirely understand why. I didn’t know what power I had inherited from Nineveh that gave me this skill, but I could hear better than anyone should. I could sit in one room and hear the conversation in the next with perfect clarity. What child had been sacrificed for Nineveh to gain this rare gift? It felt evil having any of her power. I looked down at my arm. Damn. I hated tattoos. I looked like a biker chick. I had a full sleeve. There was no hiding it. My flesh crawled with tattoos. I was the painted lady.
“He won’t follow through. He never follows through,” Crowley said.
“Do you still want her?” Morgause asked Crowley.
“I’m no fool. She frightens me. I’ll stay as far away from her as I can, thank you very much. Honestly, we all should. No matter what we do, some day she’s going to figure out that with one whisper of Abaddon’s name, she can take all our powers. She’s going to realize that she’s become more than human. She’s going to crave more power. Absolute power …”
“Corrupts absolutely,” Al filled in.
“She’s deadly. She’s the Phoenix. She’ll be the death of us all,” Crowley continued.
“We could try to kill her,” Morgause said.
Al laughed. “You saw what happened to Nineveh when she tried to kill her and Phaedra was a hundred times weaker then.”
“Shut up,” Fred said. “You aren’t touching her. I will train her. She’s my responsibility.”
“Love is blind,” Crowley said.
“Maybe,” Fred said. “But she is just a woman. She is a good woman and all she wants is to go home and help her little town. If anyone can be trusted with this power, it’s her.”
“You are blind,” Crowley said. “She’s a drunk and a drug user. She can’t even control her most basic emotion. I would rather Nineveh had the power. At least we knew she could control herself. Do you really think that volatile child can control herself?”
“We need an oracle,” Morgause said.
“No,” Fred said. “Diane already told me. Oracles are blind to her. She’s blinding.”
“We have no choice,” Morgause said. “Fred will go with the girl back to whatever backwater town she comes from and teach her as best as he can.”
“Does she even understand she’s immortal now?” Al asked with a little pity in his voice.
I hadn’t thought of that. I didn’t understand that. I looked at the tattoos on my arms and wondered which marking cursed me with eternal life. I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to live forever. One lifetime seemed hard enough. Why would I want more than one? Just making it into my thirties without going crazy had seemed like a challenge. How on earth would I go on forever? I wiped the tears from my eyes. I wondered if any of my tattoos gave me the power to turn back time. It seemed doubtful. Nineveh certainly would have done that if she’d had that power.
The door opened and Fred came out.
“We are ready for you,” Fred said.
I walked in the room. The four immortals stared at me with a mixture of emotions. I looked at them all.
“We think … ” Crowley began
“I know what you think,” I said. “I could hear everything. I’m fine with Fred teaching me.”
More silence. More fear. They all feared me. Except Fred.
“So be it,” Morgause said.
* * *
Most days I tried to pretend things were the way they used to be. I walked on the psychiatric floor like I always had. I complained about the supervisors and bitched about the staff shortage and lack of hospital support for the psych. I smiled. I did groups. I tried not to think that I could bend almost everyone to my will if I wanted to. I didn’t want that kind of power. Honestly, I really didn’t even understand that kind of power and the learning process was much slower than I expected. I went home to Fred at the end of the day and we studied together and made love. He cooked me dinner. I was happy. I tried to forget about Nineveh and Abaddon. I wore long sleeves. I cast simple spells and I only cast them for my patients. I tried to heal the wounds that had been inflicted on my little town by the bitter witch that was my mother.
It had been several months. Diane was seeing a new man. I was working my two jobs and was as happy as I had ever been. Love can erase a lot of pain and Fred’s kisses washed away much of my pain. It was a beautiful winter day and I was rounding up the patients for group like I always had. The floor was full again. Seven major depressive disorders, four alcoholics, and one with schizoaffective disorder.
I sat down in my chair and looked out at all their sorrowful faces. I smiled. I did one of my favorite groups that day. We built a shield. The shield was simple. The patients answered seven questions and put it in different sections of the shield. What is your best memory? What do you value most? What are two things you want to do when you leave here? What are two things you’ve done that you are proud of? What are two things you have yet to do? List your top three strengths. What is your personal motto?
We went around the group and they answered their questions and held up their shields. They all had different mottos. Trust in God. Live life for the day. Pray every day. Finally, the group circled around to a pretty blonde in her forties. She was doing better. She had made it through the worst of her stay at the hospital.
“My motto is ‘love every day’,” she said. “But I want to know what your motto is. I mean, you are the one showing us how to live. You’re supposed to be our role model, right? What’s your personal motto?”
I looked out at the group. I should have some wisdom to convey. I should have the answers. I should have learned something along the way. Magic is bad? Magic is good? God is good? Fear the Devil? There should be a moral to my story. But part of me was gone. The part of me that wanted to learn or understand what had happened to me and grow from it, was gone. There should be some deep message I could pass on to others. I should know something more now, than when I began this journey, but as I looked out at all those faces with all their meaningful mottos, I knew I really hadn’t learned as much as I should have. The only thing that had really changed was my diet and my love life. I smiled. That was enough. Sometimes the little things were enough and when that was all you had, you learned that life was the little things.
“Eat, drink, and be merry,” I said. “For tomorrow you may die.”
Of course, I would never die. But I would have to deal with that later.
A
BOUT
THE
A
UTHOR
Jessica Penot lives in Alabama with her 2 corgis, cat, sons, husband and other strange creatures. She is the author of
Haunted North Alabama
,
Haunted Chattanooga
, and
Circe
.
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