Mathilda, SuperWitch (3 page)

He says velvet couches and curvy, hidden booths in back may be bad when coupled with significantly caffeinated beverages and teenagers.

He fears no span of the generation gap.

He doesn’t understand essence of coffee house culture!

I told him there were places all over America filled with black-haired, scarily-made-up goths or grunged-out neo-hippies drinking copious amounts of coffee and scarfing down lemon scones beside power-brokers, soccer moms and trendy senior citizens who prove him wrong.

He says maybe so but this isn’t America.

Duh! Like I’m not (somewhat painfully) reminded of that
every freakin’ day!

Nearly mentioned that it has been working pretty well for some time in France too but find that English have weird thing about France and figured this would not help my cause.

Feel that Wesley is trying to turn Mavis against me.

Stupid Wesley.

Then Mavis made me spend hours with Aidan (the plumber!) going over tile samples to try to find a happy medium.

Found out through Mavis being huge, embarrassingly obvious busybody that Aidan went to Cambridge and studied history to ultimately be professor (which explains posh accent) but quit because was getting bored of history and didn’t like academia (but apparently does like pipes and toilets, hmm).

Spending the afternoon with Posh English Sawyer from
Lost
looking through tiles is some kind of agony as constantly should appear witty and vivacious or subdued and mysterious and was too tired to be either so was just myself which I try never to be.

And then Auntie came up with idea of “tasting party” to “get a lock on the menu”. (Ack!)

So I spent ages preparing and baking for tasting party as whole coven and, as Mavis put it, “a few friends” (over forty people!) were coming to taste test my cooking!

All of this with magical training and study (books, books and more freaking books). There is much pressure to learn and realize full potential (Mom and Gran calling requesting progress reports, Viv and Su e-mailing constantly. Ack!)

Then, faerie has been visiting me at night and talking to me… but she doesn’t speak English, instead she talks like a dolphin on speed and whizzes around the room (and me) while I get ready for bed or when I’m trying to read
The Witch Familiar
by Balthazar Muldoon (over three hundred pages on cats!).

I think my faerie’s name is BecBec because she keeps pointing to herself and saying that and then pointing to me and saying something that sounds (a little bit) like Mathilda.

Taste testing day today and I laid out three different types of brownies, six different cookies, five cakes, three scones and four muffins ready for people to consume and then cast judgment (ack!).

Mavis said it is good practice as will be doing it every day in the café but still.

The “friends” included Aidan (the plumber) who was only other young person there except me and only man there at all (as Sebastian, at this point, suspiciously absent).

Aidan seemed to be trying really hard to be nice while figuring out why he was there and who all these alarmingly-dressed women were (Mental note: must suggest a coven-meeting-makeover and soon!).

He didn’t stay long but did stop and say he would definitely come to coffee house and sit on a velvet couch (ha!) and drink espresso with one of my “very nice” oatmeal cookies.

I thought that was sweet of him.

Near end Sebastian deigned to honor us with his presence. I do not know why he was so late but hope it was not because he was keeping baddies at bay but instead hanging in his lair and working out with free weights while wearing only shorts and sweating a lot.

He had a word with Mavis and then started to leave and grabbed a blond brownie with chocolate chips almost like it was a handful of peanuts from a bowl. I was about to get angry at how nonchalant he was with my brownie but then he took a bite and stopped and started to look around.

I feared he was trying to find a place to vomit as I figure he normally eats only skinless chicken and power bars and impurities in brownies were going to put him in anaphylactic shock.

Instead he saw me and I think that he may have looked at me for first time with a smidgen of respect.

Very pleased with that, to be honest, but would only ever admit that to journal.

In the end, everyone liked everything so taste testing was huge waste of time and energy (except, of course, found way to Sebastian may be through stomach… mm… but thinking (trying to convince myself?) that may not (shouldn’t) care).

19 November

Feel very witchy at the moment.

Last night I was sleeping when felt someone shaking me gently. When I opened my eyes, the room was filled with candlelight as entire coven was surrounding my bed holding candles.

Mavis was the one shaking me and told me to be quiet and just do as I was told.

They gave me some clothes and this rather gorgeous, hooded, heavy, black cloak to throw on (lined in
real
black satin – fab!).

We walked together, single file, out of the house. The witches blew out their candles when they walked out the door and we wandered along Poet’s Walk, up and around, then down and through the wood. All of a sudden, I felt tugged away from the footpath and Mavis saw and told me to go with it.

I stopped at a tree, big and dark and scary at night but I felt like it was something else, like it was human, breathing, warm. I can’t explain it except that it seemed to be speaking to me without talking. (Spooky.)

I touched it and could swear it was vibrating.

Auntie Mavis gave me a knife and told me to cut a branch about a foot long but not until I asked the tree if it was okay. (Very weird, talking to trees.)

I stood there in front of the coven (who were eerie silent) and felt like a total idiot but said out loud, ‘Tree, would you mind terribly if I took a bit of your branch?”

I kid you not, at that very moment the wind started blowing and the tree branches rustled and a few leaves fell off, floating down gently and scattered around me.

This seemed like a yes to me but I looked at Mavis to be sure and she smiled and nodded her head.

So I carefully took hold of the branch and felt like I should take my time so I stroked it a bit and then when it felt right, I took a deep breath and quickly cut the bit loose.

I don’t know what happened then but it felt wild, a sensation like a mild electrical shock coursed through my body quickly and then was gone.

When I looked around, the coven was surrounding me – all in their cloaks like mine, silent and watching.

Mavis gave me a tea towel and told me to put its contents at the foot of the tree as an offering.

In the tea towel was a leftover scone from the taste testing. I set it down at the tree, put my hand on the trunk and whispered my thanks.

Later, Mavis told me I had my wand.

And it was a powerful one too.

Current state of mind (FYI): Don’t know how to feel about the wand, unannounced midnight coven meetings and trees talking to me.

28 November

Very pissed off and very sad and very freaked out and do not want to be a witch anymore because what is the fucking point?

Don’t know what to do.

Last night, was sleeping (feel I am destined never to sleep full eight hours again in lifetime) and felt something strange happening to my hair and then heard BecBec’s mile a minute babble speech.

Opened my eyes to see BecBec pulling my hair and seeming excited about something (BecBec always seemed excited about something). Most annoyed, could not believe faerie wouldn’t let me sleep.

I told her to go away, turned around and buried my head in the pillow.

Next thing I knew, covers were pulled slightly back and hair was being tugged!

Wasn’t just BecBec but about five other faeries with BecBec! All were babbling in faerie-speak and seeming very excited and pointing to the door.

Thought maybe baddies were coming but decided definitely I should wait to make sure before I thought of the black dragon as I didn’t want a repeat of last time. (Mm.)

Faeries (these were both boy and girl faeries, all with diaphanous wings and pointy ears – and one looked kinda not faerie-esque but more like a cute, bald alien with long fingers with knobs on end) were pointing at my closet and at the door and seemed very anxious.

Thought I’d go with my intuition (witchy thing to do, right?) which was telling me to follow them so I got dressed and put on witch cloak and grabbed my wand (at BecBec’s worried motioning) and followed them out of my rooms, out of the house and onto Poet’s Walk.

Then went round and down the side of hill, through woods, I couldn’t believe my eyes – there were faeries and alien faeries and then other tiny weird creatures all over the place (!) with wings, without wings, hopping along or jumping from tree to tree. All of them gave off little lights, mostly white but some green, orange or yellow (pretty).

We got into town and faeries guided me down a path behind a house where BecBec stopped and pointed impatiently at a window.

I wondered what would happen if anyone saw us but no one was about as was very, very early in the morning.

Light was coming through the window so even though it was late, someone other than me was awake.

I looked through the window into a kitchen. In the room was a woman of about my age, a boy of about six or seven and the sweetest little chocolate lab puppy.

“Cute puppy,” I whispered to BecBec.

She put her finger to her lips and shook her head for me to be quiet.

When I looked back, the woman was shaking the boy so much his head snapped back and forth.

Ack!!!

I was frozen in horror, it all happened quickly as woman pointed at puppy wee on floor, grabbed boy and puppy and practically threw the both of them out the backdoor.

Ackity Ack Ack!

The boy was crying uncontrollably and the puppy was whining. It had to be near freezing, way past midnight and the child was wearing nothing but pajamas – no shoes, no coat, nothing.

What a fucking bitch!

What was she thinking?

“Come on, Cosmo, go pee, go pee, Cosmo,” the boy pleaded through chattering teeth to the dog and started to pick his way through the yard, guiding the confused puppy around on his leash.

I didn’t think about it except that I realized I had no time for opening sacred circles, etcetera I had to work fast so I turned round once, twice, three times (my favorite number, figured it would do) and stopped at what I hoped was North.

Then whispered,

Banish the cold, take fear from the night.

Bring on warmth, give a feel of the light.

Protect the child against chill and shudder,

Keep him warm with no heart aflutter.

In no way will this spell reverse,

Or place on the boy any curse.

Calling on the power of my blessed tree,

As I will, so mote it be!

(Hard to rhyme when flipped out.)

And then I pointed my wand at the child and to my shock out flew pink pixie dust making a beeline to the boy, slamming him straight in the back, it exploded up and over him and the puppy in a shower of fuchsia light.

Then, nothing.

The boy didn’t react at all; it was like he didn’t even see the pixie dust. (Bah!)

But as I watched, he stopped shivering and quieted his tears and the puppy quit whining altogether so I had a feeling that maybe it worked. (Yay!)

I didn’t have a lot of time to feel pleased with myself before the door opened and the bitch started shrieking at him to get inside.

(What? The neighbors can’t hear this? Whatever happened to “it takes a village”?)

He hurried in and I turned again to watch through the window and saw her draw her hand back and…

Ack!

I’d had enough.

I lifted arm, fury surging through me, and I brought my wand down to whack the woman with all I had…

And
slam
, my wrist ran into something solid that forced my wand straight into the air and my magic shot out of the wand and flew up high over the house like a firework.

“Banish it!”

It was Sebastian behind me, holding my arm and hissing at me in my ear.

“Banish it, now!” he ordered again as the pixie dust started to come down but it wasn’t pink, it was blazing blue. “Mathilda!” he clipped.

I snapped out of it and said quickly,

“
Back to my wand, dark magic flee,

As I will, so mote it be!”