nancy werlocks diary s02e14 (2 page)

“How much is the figure, Nancy?” says Darlene as she reaches into her purse.

I wave a hand. “Don’t you dare. I can order her one with red hair. Someone has a birthday coming up, after all.”

“That’s me!” exclaims Megan. “I’m going to be seven!”

“Do you want to wait for Aunt Nancy to order you a red haired one, or do you want to take that one?”

Megan bites her lower lip and her little face focuses intently as she ponders this as only a child would. “I think this one wants to come home with me to be honest,” she finally says and gingerly picks up the figure.

“Deal, but that’s your birthday present. Don’t look at me with those doe eyes next week expecting another one.”

“Thank you, Aunt Nancy!”

“I’ll get a box and some packing material so you can get it home in one piece.” I go behind the counter and retrieve a box.

I hear Darlene whisper to Megan, “You know, if you want your fairy to be red-haired, Nanna Darlene can do that for you right now.”

“Yes, please!”

Darlene takes the figure and transmutes it so that the hair is bright red.

What is it about grandparents sabotaging their kids’ plans for their own children?

“Wow, look at that. Won’t your parents be surprised?!” I say as I give Darlene a concerned look. Darlene responds with a knowing smirk.

Both Darlene and her husband are Rank Three Transmuters. Both come from well-established hereditary magic families. Neither was happy when Laurie decided to not take her Rank Three trials and instead walk away from the Craft; particularly because Laurie has a unique gift for fleshcrafting; the art of transmuting living flesh. But while she still practicing a bit at her day spa (removing wrinkles, cellulite, and varicose veins with “massage therapy”), she has no interest in expanding her knowledge or passing it on to her children.

Laurie’s parents were thrilled when they realized she was marrying into the Werlock family. They both thought that would mean Laurie would take the craft seriously again. And I’m sure Darlene has been applying pressure on her ever since I took over the shop.

So now her mother is going behind her back and encouraging Megan to explore magic.

“You know I’m going to get a call from Scott because of this, right?” Darlene shrugs. “He’s going to blame me.”

“Knowing my son-in-law, probably.”

* * *

Once Anastasia arrives, I go into the office and try to work up the gumption to call my brother. We’re supposed to have lunch together in a few days and I was going to broach the subject then. But Darlene’s sort of forced my hand. I need to talk to Scott before he decides to blame me for Darlene willfully exposing Megan to magic without his consent.

“Hey, sis,” says Scott. “What’s up? I’m getting ready to go into a staff meeting.”

“Oh…um…I can…call you later.”

“What happened?”

“What makes you think something happened?”

“You suck at lying.”

“I’m not lying, Scott. Technically, that was a poor attempt at deflection. Not lying.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing! Ye gods, I just wanted to touch base about Thanksgiving!”

“Okay! You just don’t normally call me in the middle of the day. That’s all. I got a few minutes. What was the question.”

“Well, I was just thinking that with Laurie due next month, it might be too much on her to have to host Thanksgiving. Maybe I should host this year.”

“
You
are going to host Thanksgiving?”

“I have that huge dining room table that I never use. And I make a mean turkey.”

“Uh huh.”

“I just figure I’ll have more time than the two of you. Things don’t start picking up again at the shop until December anyway. I don’t have the practice anymore so I won’t be inundated with clients who have in-laws trying to kill each other. It will give me something to do.”

“Uh huh.”

“That way Laurie doesn’t have to be rushing around worrying about cooking for a bunch of people so close to her due date.”

“Uh huh.”

“Are you going to say something other than ‘uh huh’?”

“What about your apprentice?”

“Houston will be at his aunt and uncle’s. And before you ask, Lee will be with his parents. So you don’t have to worry about them.”

“And Mom?”

“She’ll…not be eating with us!”

“She put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“Why would you think—”

“You’re like her little evil minion doing her bidding!”

“That’s a little harsh!”

“She put you up to this.”

“Scott, I don’t understand why—”

“You understand perfectly well, Nancy. We’re trying to protect Megan from exposure to magic.”

“Protect her? You say that like she’s going to catch a disease if some magic rubs off on her.”

“We are trying to have as much of a normal life as we can. Nancy. You chose to jump back into that mess. Not us.”

“Scott?”

“Why can’t everyone just respect our decision?”

“Scott, this has nothing to do with your decision with Megan. Yes, Mom brought up the subject. But there is no diabolical plot. I thought the offer was being helpful. You guys could just show up and not have to worry about anything.”

“Not worry about anything except Mom manifesting in front of Megan, right?”

“I’ll talk to her so she doesn’t do that.”

“Because she’s always been so good about listening to you, right?”

“WOW, there is a lot of unnecessary hostility here.”

“I have a staff meeting I’m late for.” He hangs up without saying goodbye.

That went a lot worse than expected. Scott has always been a little weird about magic, but never quite so aggressively
anti
-magic. I think back to Darlene’s stunt earlier in the day.

This is going to be a long, painful holiday season.

* * *

Flugalmorph sent me a bill for Harlan’s medical expenses?

The bright purple envelope came with the weekly junk mail. I almost threw it out with the rest until I noticed the return address. They don’t send me paper bills. They bill my credit card for the shop service and send the receipt via email. So it was weird getting actual real mail from them.

I hadn’t heard much from the Flugalmorph Agency since poor Harlan, our house brownie, had been almost killed by the Itos’ cat. Harlan had apparently stumbled across evidence of Vivika’s plot before we had realized what was going on, and she had tried to dispose of him by having the neighbor’s cat attack the brownie.

Emergency Medical Responders:

Billable rate: $250/hr.

Billable time: .5 hrs. x 3 responders

Item Total: $375.00

Emergency Care Treatment:

Equipment fees: $750/hr.

Billable time: 2 hrs.

Item Total: $1500.00

Primary Care:

Billable rate: $400/hr.

Billable time: 2 hrs.

Item Total: $800.00

Consumable fees:

Blood transfusion: 12 units @ $100/unit

Comfrey Immersion Therapy: 8 units @ $75/unit

Bee pollen Topical Treatment: 19 units @ $50/unit

Item total: $2750.00

Hospital Room Fee:

Billable rate: $600/day

Number of days: 4

Item Total: $2400.00

In-Home Care:

Billable rate: A$50/hr.

Total number of hours: 18

Item Total: $900

Total Medical Charges: $8725.00

Portion of this bill covered by your insurance: 0.00

Balance Due: $8725.00

Wait…WHAT!?

My fees to Flugalmorph include mandatory health and liability insurance. This is precisely the sort of thing insurance is supposed to cover! I call Flugalmorph and, after twenty minutes getting transferred between different departments, finally get a claims officer. She cheerfully explains to me that the insurance denied the coverage because the incident involved a cat, and I had signed a declaration that I did not own any cats.

“I don’t own a cat!” I exclaim.

“The injuries were caused by a cat,” says the claims officer.

“But it wasn’t
my
cat. It was the neighbor’s cat!”

“The incident occurred on your property and involved a cat. The insurance won’t cover it.”

“But it wasn’t my cat!”

“Section fourteen-point-three of your service contract clearly states that you are responsible for securing the servicing area from all felines. Your yard was left insecure and a cat entered it. So the insurance is declined. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Where am I supposed to come up with over eight-thousand dollars in thirty days?”

“I’d be happy to help you set up a convenient payment plan if you’d like.”

“Let me check with my homeowner’s policy.”

“Of course. Please have them reference your case number and contact us directly if they are going to handle the claim. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Nope. I’m done.”

“Thank you for using the Flugalmorph Agency for all of your cleaning and maintenance needs!”

As I hang up, I hear Mom’s voice behind me. “
This is why I just made you kids clean instead of a service.”

“Is this going to turn into one of those ‘Where are my grandchildren?’ conversations?”

“
Nancy, realistically I can’t start pestering you for grandchildren until you have a husband
.”

I toss the bill on the counter and collapse onto the sofa. “I talked to Scott today.”

“
I take it the conversation didn’t go well
?”

I tell Mom about what transpired with Darlene and my suspicions that she has been going behind Scott and Laurie’s back.

“
Darlene and Fred Ellison are both proud Transmuters and Laurie is an only child, so you have to realize this is an issue for them.”

“Yes, yes. Bloodlines and all. I get it. But that doesn’t excuse them deliberately circumventing Laurie and Scott’s wishes.”

“I’m not excusing it, honey. I just understand it. Parents always want what they think is best for their children, even when their children disagree with what is best.”

“Parents aren’t automatically right, Mom.”

“We aren’t automatically wrong, either.”

“Scott…doesn’t trust you. He thinks if they come here for Thanksgiving you’ll manifest in front of Megan.”

“I wouldn’t do such a thing!”

“You wouldn’t?” Mom doesn’t reply immediately. Her presence just floats around the room as if she is pacing.  “Mother?”

“
You know, Scott gets it from his father,”
Mom finally says. “
Mark hated everything about the craft. Said magic made people prideful. He wasn’t entirely wrong about that.”

“Dad always supported my studies.”

“
He would have supported anything you two chose to do. He wanted you to feel free to make your own choices. But he would have been thrilled that you left the craft to study psychology. You were too young to remember, but he and your Nanna Morri got into some terrible fights. For the longest time, I was afraid your grandmother was going to send a fiend after him and make me a widow."

“No, I don’t remember any of that. Though now that I think of it, Nanna never did talk directly to Dad.”

Mom laughs. “
Oh, it drove him nuts, too. I remember one Solstice dinner. I thought he was going to throw something at her. She kept asking you kids to ask your father if he wanted seconds or if he wanted more to drink instead of asking him herself.”

“But Dad helped with the shop. He helped me with arcane homework. He attended Guild events. What did he do that earned Nanna’s ire?”

“It’s what he didn’t do. He didn’t hold his tongue. He would never challenge anything directly in front of you kids. But after the two of you went to school or would go to bed…he would make his opinions known. He never supported lying to you about magic, but he was very adamant that the Colleges were too quick to teach magic to children before they were emotionally capable of understanding the consequences. He likened it to giving a toddler an assault rifle and then being surprised when someone got shot. He felt the obsession with rank and magical power was just as dangerous as being obsessed with money and mundane power. Hmm, he hated the word ‘mundane,’ too. Said it implied witches were superior.”

“And yet he married a Werlock woman anyway.”

“I never told you how your father and I met, did I?”

“You met in college at a homecoming game.”

“Well, that is when we met. But I never told you the how.”

“So it wasn’t just an ‘I saw this stud across a crowded stadium'?"

“
Not exactly. Your father had a roommate in college, Ted Volker. They had been friends since sixth grade. Like brothers. Senior year of high school, Ted’s father had died from a heart attack. He didn’t take it well and fell into a depression. Eventually got hooked on drugs. Mark managed to get him cleaned up before it was too late to save him, or so he thought. But during that time, Ted had started to dabble in magic. Got his hands on an actual grimoire some mundane who didn’t know what they had sold at a flea market.”

“By Hecate, that was never going to end well.”

“No. Ted actually managed to summon an imp, but he lacked the will to control it. The imp, however, strung Ted along and would pretend to follow his commands. Ted got emboldened. Had the imp steal money for him, test answers, all sorts of nonsense. Eventually decided what he really wanted was the quarterback’s girlfriend, who was the head cheerleader. I noticed the thing sneaking around and put a stop to it quick enough, but not before it fled back to Ted’s dorm room. So I tracked it down to exorcise the little pest, but by then it had convinced Ted to let it ‘temporarily’ take control of his body to fight me off.”

I just shake my head. “Stupid and greedy is never a good combination.”

“So I get to the dorm room and instead of confronting an imp, I’ve got a full-blown possession on my hands. And while I’m dealing with that, your father comes walking into the room, me straddled over Ted trying to perform an invocation while keeping him pinned down. You can imagine what it looked like.”