Witch Is The New Black (2 page)

Bernie made her eyes round and Thumper-like when she gazed into Baba’s beautiful face. “I’m sorry, Baba. It’s my nerves. I promise to try to curb my tongue. Sometimes I speak out of turn when I’m frazzled.”

Baba adjusted the torn shoulder of her pink sweatshirt and gave Bernie that stern expression she dreaded. “Sometimes you magic out of turn, too, Bernice, which is why you’re here in the first place, isn’t it?”

Bernie fought a hard roll of her eyes. If she ever forgot she’d done something heinous, Baba Yaga was always two steps behind, reminding her she was a shitty witch. But she was determined to get the hell out of here at all costs.

She didn’t know what she was going to do once she sampled the sweet taste of freedom, but anything had to be better than being in here.

Swallowing her pride, something else she’d done more times than she cared to count since her incarceration, Bernie let her eyes fall to her cell floor in contrition. “You’re right. I did do that. I’m sorry.”

Baba snapped her fingers, making the cell doors grind open until they clanked against the walls. “Good to hear, inmate. Now, for your parole hearing.”

“But—”

“But! First Bernie’d like to thank you for her stay here. It’s been beyond fabulous, right, Bernie? She’s learned sooo much about being a good, unselfish witch. So much, her pretty blonde head’s spinnin’ like the teacup ride at the fair,” Fee said, jumping from the bed to the floor to wind his tail around Bernie’s calves.

If a cat could give side eye, Fee was giving it to her. Which meant shut up. In true applying-for-the-job-of-familiar fashion, in the time since she’d been sentenced, Fee had doled out more than his fair share of witchly advice. Whether she wanted it or not. Though, in all honesty, he was usually right.

Squaring her shoulders, Bernie nodded in silent agreement. Some freedom was better than no freedom.

Instead of railing against parole, she turned off her thoughts about how unfair this all was and followed up with, “What Fee said.”

Baba’s face wreathed in a smile—but it wasn’t the kind of smile that said, “Good inmate.” It was the kind that said, “Nice ass-kissing.”

Baba crossed her arms over her chest, thinning her lips. “Are you ready for your sentencing, inmate?”

Bernie cocked her head. Like right here, right now? “What? No flickering lights and a circle of candles while the wind howls outside and all those old dudes without faces wearing rank-smelling robes mumble to each other?”

“They’re napping,” Baba provided with an almost smile. Then she caught herself. “Those old dudes without faces are your elders, Bernice. You’d do well to pay them some respect, especially on the day of your parole hearing, inmate!”

Fee swished his tail against Baba’s legs, circling her. “She just meant she was missing the ambiance of the old-school hearings at Council. You remember I told you about those, right, Bernie? You know, the hangings. The beheadings. The
death
by drop from atop Kilimanjaro into a pit of writhing snakes.”

Oh, yeah. Those.

Bernie gulped, tugging at the sleeves of her orange jumpsuit. “I do, and yes, that’s what I was referring to. I guess I just expected…”

More.

More pomp and circumstance, maybe? Like the “more” she’d encountered when she’d first been dragged to this place that, from the outside, was glamoured to look like a quaint bed and breakfast, but was really protected by thick walls of magic.

Like that big, long podium thingy and all those faceless dudes who sat behind it as she looked up at them, their long, musty robes covering their bony limbs, as she stood terrified before them.

She was expecting the ominous but invisible hum of something electric, that strange noise that, out of fear, she’d jokingly asked if it belonged to one of the Council’s life-support machines. Expecting the final sound of the gavel as it cracked on the top of the tall podium thingy when she was sentenced.

That was what she expected now.

Instead, there was nothing but the gloom of her dark prison cell with its sparse furnishings, and Baba, glaring at her.

Baba Yaga’s eyes narrowed. “You know, I can always wait until the elders are up from their nap, Bernice. We can put on the show you appear to crave, if you’d like. Spooky ambiance, smelly robes and all.”

“No!” she shouted then bit her lip and lowered her voice. “I mean, no thank you, Baba Yaga. That’s very kind, but I don’t want to wake anyone. The Council works hard. So hard. They need their rest.” And deodorant.

Baba Yaga sighed her irritation. “You’re a stubborn one, Bernice. And BTW, you’re not fooling me. I know you haven’t come to terms with the magnitude of what you’ve done yet. Not totally. But that’s because you’ve run wild for far too long, like the word is hyphened on your name. How you slipped under the radar for all these years is beyond me. But we’re going to fix that as of now. These are the conditions of your parole, Bernice—heed them. Condition one…”

As Baba Yaga rambled on about the circumstances of her parole, Bernie pondered the word
wild
.

Wild? God, that was so much bull and shit. She didn’t even know she’d been out of control. In order to claim control, you had to know what you were controlling. Stuff just happened to her. Like things falling from the ceiling without warning whenever she was in a room full of people she felt uncomfortable with.

Just a thought, and ugly rashes were known to break out on someone who’d angered her. Sometimes the rash turned into hives or big boils the size of quarters. Items moved without her saying a word, catapulting at the speed of light, aimed directly for her mental victims.

Those were just a few of the smaller incidents she’d experienced since she’d hit the age of thirteen. Unexplained occurrences that left her in a pile of shit at home, at school, at every job she’d ever had.

But this last time? Phew. It had been the mother of all occurrences, and was exactly what had landed her here.

As many times as she’d tried to explain she didn’t even understand what was going on or how she made these things happen was the same number of times Baba Yaga and Bernie’s fellow cellmates had cackled hysterically and mocked her thespian skills.

The witches in cellblock D had actually crafted a makeshift Academy Award out of a toilet paper roll, Q-Tips, and glitter-glue, handing it to her with much flourish in the cafeteria to gales of laughter on SpaghettiOs night.

After that, she’d learned to shut up—quit protesting her witchiness out loud, quit denying she didn’t know thing one about being a witch, and slowed her roll entirely.

She’d gone along with all of it as if she were a secret agent, infiltrating the coven. Like some supernatural Sydney Bristow, pretending, listening, learning.

And still, she was baffled. How could she be a witch if neither of her parents were magically inclined? She certainly wasn’t adopted—a theory she’d toyed with, but only momentarily. Both her parents were gone now, but there was no denying she was the spitting image of her mother, right down to her wide green eyes and strawberry-blonde hair.

Baba Yaga’s voice droned back into earshot, making Bernie stand up straighter when she heard the word “Paris”.

She was going to Paris to do her parole? She didn’t know anyone in Paris. She didn’t know anyone anywhere except in Boston.

And she sure as hell didn’t know French. As if it wasn’t bad enough she was a witch who didn’t know how to be a witch, now Baba and the Council of spooky goons were sending her to a foreign country?

She’d better find her Sydney Bristow pants if she hoped to pull this one off.

“…Texas,” Baba finished with a smirk, her eyes gleaming.

What did Paris have to do with Texas? If ever two words warred with each other…

Bernie squeezed her temples, and asked, “Texas? Like y’all and George Strait?” The connection between the two places just wasn’t becoming clear.

“Yee and haw, motherfluffer!” Baba Yaga shouted before she let her head fall back on her creamy shoulders and cackled.

Wait!
her mind said without aide of her mouth. She needed to clear up some things before she was sent off to Paris. Like, how long did parole last? Where would she live?

Most importantly, who was going to keep her from robbing another bank?

But Baba was clearly done talking.

Lifting her arm high, as a wind out of nowhere whipped her hair and the lights flickered, Baba snapped her fingers…

Chapter 2

T
esticles.

Big and sprinkled with sparse hair, testicles were swaying near her left eyeball.

They were the first things Bernie saw when she opened her eyes.

She’d landed flat on her ass and fallen backward, hitting the hard ground with a bone-rattling dump of limbs and pieces of cat hair she had to spit off her tongue.

She flattened her palms against the surface she’d landed on to find it felt like grass. “Sweet Susan! What the hell?”

A rush of oppressive heat wrapped around her face like a blanket as she lie there, too stunned to move. It coated her, swarming her skin, leaving beads of perspiration forming on her upper lip and forehead.

“Incoooomiiing!”

Fee fell smack on top of her with a yowl, right out of the sky and onto her face.

Bernie spit out a wad of pink tulle and clenched her eyes shut then popped them open again with a grunt. She moved her head to the side to dislodge Fee and looked up at the shadow hovering over her.

The shadow with testicles
. How did a set of testicles the size of oranges get in the middle of Paris? Paris had testicles just all out in the open like that?

Of course Paris has testicles, nitwit. They have testicles galore. Testicles belong on men and there are gobs of men in Paris.

Yeah, but those don’t look like testicles from a man. Furthermore, why are they hanging in my face in Paris? I know it’s a pretty progressive place, but I didn’t know everyone went rogue.

There was no way to rationally reason this in her head. Instead, she opted for the if-you-can’t-see-it, it-doesn’t-exist mantra.

“Maybe if I don’t open my eyes, none of this is real.”

“Bernie girl, you’ve spent your entire sentence with your eyes closed. Open them and face the music, Sugarlumps.” Fee tickled her nose with his tail, using his paws to knead her hair.

“Mawnin’, y’all,” a soft voice murmured from above, the timbre deep and rich with southern tinges. A voice that sounded just like Lou Rawls.

Holy shitballs of fire. Lou Rawls was here, too?

Bernie rolled to her side, her eyes wide open now. She grabbed Fee and pulled him close to her chest, her heart pounding so violently, she heard it in her ears. “
Who
was that, Fee?”

“It was just me, ma’am.”

Bernie’s breathing quickened, but no way was she looking up. “Are the testicles talking, Fee? Please tell me the testicles don’t sound like Lou Rawls and they aren’t talking.”

Fee made a clucking noise while he struggled out of her grip. “Can’t do that.”

“Where the hell are we and why are there talking testicles involved?” Her panic was taking on a new but familiar feel. Much like the panic she’d experienced when the Boston PD had first arrested her after finding her in the bank vault of Boston First Mutual.

Still, the Boston PD didn’t have talking testicles. Well, not technically—maybe metaphorically. This created a whole other level of panic in the pit of her stomach.

“Bernie baby, didn’t you listen to anything Baba Yaga said?”

Fee finally came into focus, his dark fur sitting against a grassy backdrop, with nothing but puffy white clouds above his head and the glare of the angry sun on his glittering tiara beneath.

“I heard ‘you flew too long under the radar, Bernice’ and something about Paris blah, blah, blah and then Texas.” Yep, that was about the gist of it.

Fee fell back on his haunches and blinked at her. “Aw, hell, Bernie. You hafta stop escapin’ to that place in your mind where this isn’t all happening. Because, newsflash, it’s happening. Right here in
Children of The Corn
country. And the testicles belong to a bull in a pasture that goes on for miles and miles with no freakin’ end in sight.”

A pasture. Okay. That connected with Texas, for sure. “And the bull talks?” She winced at her question.

Of course he talked.
Cats talk and wear tutus, and witches exist, Bernie Sutton.

“He does, ma’am,” the quote-end quote
bull
said, a hint of amusement in his tone.

“Why do the testicles, er…I mean, bull, sound like Lou Rawls?”

The bull chuckled, deep and resonant. “That’s a mighty fine compliment, pretty lady, but most folks just call me Bitty. Good to meet ya. I’d offer ya a hand up, but well, you know, I’m all two left testicles.”

“Hah!” Fee squawked, jumping in the air and rolling to his back. “The testicles made a funny. You know, left feet—testicles? I love it here already!”

Bernie shook her head, using the heels of her feet and hands to scoot backward. “Talking bulls? Not funny, Fee.”

Fee rolled upright to rub up against her side. “Okay, cool your jets. I hear hysteria in your voice and it reminds me that I forget sometimes you’re still not used to our world, where crazy shit happens every day. So let’s talk this out.”

She sucked in air that felt as though it had just escaped an oven. “Talk me down, Fee. Hurry. Before I pass out.”

“Did you even hear the terms of your parole, Bernie girl?”

She pulled her legs close to her chest and let her chin rest on her knees with a sheepish gaze focused solely on Fee. She wasn’t ready to look at Bitty just yet. “Well, not all of it.”

“You heard none of it,” Fee admonished.

Bernie let her head hang in shame. “Guilt be my name. You’re right. I heard none of it. So what happens next?”

Fee turned his back on her and began weaving in and out of Bitty’s legs. “So here’s the deal. I am
so
your familiar. Whether you like it or not. So sayeth that lunatic with a scrunchie and a ‘Total Eclipse of The Heart’ fetish. No one else applied for the job, so suck it.”