Suddenly Sorceress (3 page)

She brushed past me to come inside. “Are you actually sick this time?”

“Well, I’ve felt better, I suppose—”

“Ivie, don’t take this the wrong way, but you
stink
. Really bad.” She pinched her nose and moved two steps away from me. “It smells like you got sprayed by a skunk.”

With her nose plugged, it sounded more like, “It spels like you got sprayed by a skuk.”

I let out a quick laugh. “Yeah, well… it’s a long story.”

She tilted her head, a sympathetic smile on her lips, and regarded me as if I was one of those blue-haired shopping-cart ladies at the thrift store. “The farm field trip?” She patted my hand when I nodded. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive. That’s two years in a row. You’d better tell them you aren’t going next year. I shudder to think what more could happen to you. And you wanted me to go with you. Blech.” She shook her head, still holding her nose, and her face puckered as if she’d tasted something sour.

Chloe had, of course, refused my ridiculous attempt to drag her with me to the farm. “There is absolutely nothing in my wardrobe suitable for farm animals,” she’d argued.

She flashed her perfect smile again. “So, other than your new Eau du

Pepé Le Pew perfume, you seem to have survived. No casualties this year?”

The words “goat semen” flashed through my mind, and I covered my face with my hands.

Chloe laughed. “Oh, no. You’re not getting out of it this easily. Spill.”

“It’s too horrible to go into this early in the morning.” I stole a glance at her from between my fingers. “I haven’t even had coffee yet.” My teeth caught my bottom lip. I was afraid if I started talking, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Chloe was my best friend, I wanted to tell her everything, but I wasn’t sure our friendship was strong enough to weather witchcraft. I mean, it wasn’t as if Gucci made a broomstick.

“Is something wrong? You’re acting strange. Stranger than normal, I mean.” She gave a cursory look around my foyer then turned her attention to the front door. “Why is Dr. Doolittle’s car in the driveway?”

I blinked but said nothing. Chloe would have enjoyed the irony. She hated Matt—absolutely despised him—which was why I took almost every opportunity to remind her she was the one who had introduced us.

She arched an eyebrow. “So? What’s he doing home on a Friday?”

My lips curved into a forced smile. “Oh, you know, just a bad morning.” I hoped she didn’t see through my inane attempt at deflection. “He’s still in the bathroom. I’m trying to get him out of here as soon as possible.” All true statements.

“Hmm. If you say so.”

“I do. It’s fine.” My fake smile threatened to shatter.

She poked out her cherry-red bottom lip. “So no Coach?”

“I don’t think so.” My resolve had all but slipped. If I didn’t get her out of there, I’d spill my guts at any moment. “They probably wouldn’t let me in smelling like this. I think I might have to take a bath in tomato juice before I can go anywhere.”

“Oh, that never works.” Chloe shrugged and flipped her blond hair behind her back. “Too bad. It would have been fun. We could have stopped for lunch at Capers. They have the absolute best
bruschetta. It’s to die for, I swear.” She grinned. “Next time. Now, go wash off the smell of the wild and call me later. We can have drinks before Dr. Doolittle gets home. My treat.”

I opened my mouth to say something about what had happened
before
Matt turned into a skunk but closed it without saying a word. Chloe may not have blinked an eye over Matt’s predicament, but she would be horrified to learn the fate of my Ralph Lauren boots. “Sounds like a plan.”

She leaned halfway in, her nose twitching, and kissed the air to each side. “Don’t forget to call me!”

“I won’t,” I promised.

Chloe turned to leave but paused with her hand on the doorknob. She tipped her head to one side as a slow smile spread across her glossy lips. “You did something different with your hair.”

I combed my fingers through my tangled locks. “No, it’s the same boring hair as always.”

“No, it’s definitely different. Maybe a little red?” Her eyes narrowed slightly. Then she nodded and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “But don’t worry. I like it.”

I laughed. “It must be the light in here.”

“If you say so.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Well, I’m off to shop. Wish me luck.” She was out the door before I could respond.

With Chloe gone, the house was too quiet, and I had no choice but to face the task at hand. Jerk or not, I had to find a way to change Matt back. I continued to rack my brain for a single shred of a clue—anything from my past that even remotely resembled a real spell. I knew what I had to do. I had to call the only person who could possibly solve the mystery.

My mother.

Three

“H
i, Mom.” I tried to
sound chipper but only succeeded in sounding hysterical.

“Who is this?” she asked, her voice laced with suspicion.

“It’s me… Ivie.” I took a slow, cleansing breath to rein in my frustration. “Your only child?”

My mother chuckled. “Oh, Ivie, I didn’t recognize your voice, dear.”

“How many people call you and say, ‘Hi, Mom’?” I paced over the plush carpet, cataloguing all the reasons why turning my mother into an elephant—or anything with a better memory—would be a bad idea.

I imagined her tilting her head like a golden retriever. “Just you, dear.”

“Then why do you always ask, ‘Who is this?’”

“Well, it could be anyone.” Her voice became serious. “There are scammers everywhere. You really should be more careful.”

“Don’t you have caller ID? You could check the number, and then you’d know it was me.”

I could almost hear her rolling her eyes. “You should just say, ‘This is Ivie.’ Then I’ll know it’s you.” Mom always had a way of twisting things until it seemed as if
I
was the one making things more difficult.

“Never mind.” I blew out a breath, summoning every ounce of courage. “Mom, I need to ask you something.”

“What is it?” she chimed.

I chose my words carefully, hoping she would answer the question I was trying not to ask. “Has anything
strange
ever happened to you?”

She was silent for so long I thought I might have lost the call. Then I heard her clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She did that when she was thinking. “What do you mean by
strange
, dear?” Her voice had a suspicious edge again.

I barked out what was supposed to be casual laughter but sounded more like a dry cough. “You know…
strange.
Weird, unusual, out of the ordinary… something that made you wonder.” I tried to keep it light. Obscure.
Safe
.

“Well, I do wonder how your aunt Janice manages to eat like a horse and keep her figure when I eat like a bird and struggle with mine.” Mom had lowered her voice to just above a whisper as if she was sharing a state secret. She let out an exasperated sigh. “You would think I ate cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“No, Mom.” I took a slow, steadying breath. “Stranger than that. Something like…
magic
.” I tossed out that word as if I might have selected “alien abductions” or “astral projection” and decided at the last moment to go a different way. The line went quiet for a full minute. “Mom? Did you hear me?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised if Janice has been performing some kind of magic to keep a figure like that at her age. It just doesn’t seem right. She eats whatever she wants: pastry, pasta, bread…” Her voice drifted off as if she wasn’t really talking to me but to the air.

I felt the crease in my forehead deepen. “No, seriously. Have you ever
done
anything strange?”

She gasped. “Ivie, dear, you shouldn’t ask your mother questions like that. It’s rude.”

I tamped down my irritation, barely keeping it from my voice. “I mean with your mind. Have you ever thought really hard about something and then it happened?”

“That’s what I’m talking about! I just
think
about cake, and I gain five pounds. Like magic!”

“Never mind,” I said.

“So…” Her tone perked up. “How is my soon to be son-in-law, the doctor, doing? You should bring him by to see me. You haven’t been for Sunday dinner in ages.”

“He’s fine.”

The silence hung between us for a while, and I figured what the heck. She might know.

“Do you know how to get skunk spray out of carpet?”

My entire life lay in ruins, and I was officially Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.

My best friend was an obsessive shopaholic. My mother was clueless. And I was a witch without a spellbook. Time to resort to Google.

The cat remained oblivious to all the chaos around him, and I scooped him up. “Some watch cat you are, Karma.” I stroked his silky fur and his motoring purr lulled me into a state of relative calm.

I’m taking this way too well.
But I simply chalked that up to my obvious state of shock.

After grabbing my laptop from the bed while balancing the cat in one arm, I closed the bedroom door and headed down to the kitchen. I settled into the window seat with Karma curled up on my lap and did a quick search on witchcraft. A vintage pencil drawing of a cat arching its back caught my attention on the main page of www.witchesRus.com.

“Oh, look, Karma. It says witches are supposed to have black cats.” He opened his mouth in a jaw-cracking yawn. “In case you haven’t noticed”—I leaned down and lowered my voice to a whisper—“y
ou
are a black cat.”

I wondered if that was why I’d been so drawn to him the moment I saw him eating trash from a dumpster behind the school. He had been nearly skin and bones—a mere shadow of the plump cat in my lap—and in desperate need of a bath. The little voice in my head, assuring me good deeds were rewarded, compelled me to take him in. That’s why I’d named him Karma. He was hired on, and paid in room, board, and scratches behind the ears, to bring me good fortune. Yet Matt lingered in the locked bathroom.
So much for good fortune.

Karma reminded me of myself in many ways. His inky black coat was nearly the same shade as my hair, and our eyes were the same emerald green. The similarity was striking. A match made in witchy heaven.

“Look here, Karma Chameleon. According to WitchesRus, witches use their cats, or familiars as they’re called, to draw on extra power to work spells.” He tipped his face up to mine as if paying rapt attention. “Familiars are almost like a magical mirror, reflecting power back into the spell. Some people believed cats were actually powerful witches in disguise.” Karma stretched out across my lap, his purr-motor revving as I stroked his fur. “Could it be you, not me?”

Matt hated my cat. The feeling seemed mutual. Could Karma have transformed Matt into a skunk? I lifted the lazy cat until our noses were inches apart, green eyes peering into green eyes. “Have you been doing magic, Karma?”

He jumped down and darted from the room.
Guess not.
The fact that he managed to remember where his litter box was most days was pure luck. The idea of him holding secret midnight meetings with a group of other witches in cat suits seemed unlikely.

Matt’s cell phone rang for the fifth time in a matter of minutes. I should have left it upstairs but felt compelled to drag it around with me. At least it wasn’t Ginger. I’d already spoken with
her
one time too many. I hadn’t bothered to write down any of her messages. I just shouted them through the bathroom door even though I wasn’t entirely sure Matt understood anything I said to him, other than his name. Then again, I never promised he would understand the messages—only that I would pass them along.

Somebody
wasn’t happy about being ignored.
Well, isn’t that too bad.
I tossed the phone into my purse and zipped it shut. That at least muffled the sound.

My internet search took me through every website I could find referencing magic. I waded through a veritable smorgasbord of information, but most of the sites were no help at all, unless I wanted to order magical paraphernalia. For scented candles or ancient runes—made in China—the internet was the place to shop. Most accepted MasterCard and Visa, Blessed Be. But not a peep about how to transform your fiancé into a skunk… and definitely nothing about changing him back.

A hysterical laugh forced out of me. I couldn’t be a witch. What did I know about witchcraft? Outside of
The Craft, The Wizard of Oz,
and
Bewitched,
I was clueless. Sure, I’d dressed up in a pointed hat and striped tights for Halloween once or twice, and I’d been known to have pretty wicked PMS. But as for the cauldron, the broomstick, or the required complexion? Hardly. Green wasn’t my color… or my future last name anymore.

According to several websites, the night before fell within three days of the new moon, when it was in the final stage of waning—the last days the crescent would be visible before going dark. That was news to me. I rarely paid much attention to lunar cycles. A waning moon was evidently the best time for banishing spells and rejecting all undesirable things—like negative influences, emotional weaknesses, and bad habits. In other words, all things Matt. The new moon was also a time for purification and performing cleansings, although how conjuring a skunk could fall under that category was beyond me. I would never get the stench out of… anything.

Apparently, I also had to factor in my individual lunar month cycle—which was greatly influenced and magnified by the power of the moon—and factor in the presence of a familiar. In other words, take one part waning moon, add a black cat and one wicked case of PMS, and…

I had purified and cleansed myself of Matt.