Sure enough, my hair is growing just as rapidly, billowing and tangling around me. Connor jerks back before he can get tangled in my monstrous tresses.
Panic builds up inside me, cutting through the fog the spell left my mind in, and all I can manage is a strangled, “Help.”
“I need the nail clippers and a comb from the hall lavatory, scissors, and a length of ribbon from my office, and,” Mildred gently pulls up the blanket wrapped around me, “a bowl of warm water and a soft cloth.”
The guys scramble to retrieve what she’s asked for, thundering through the hall and down the stairs. Felix stands in the corner with a wobbled smile and concern in his gaze, helplessly watching it all unfold.
“Everything is going to be fine,” my aunt assures, putting the blanket back down, her calm certainty soothing my rising fear.
“Do you know what’s wrong?” I whisper, too afraid that my hair will get caught in my disgusting new talons to push it out of my eyes.
“I have some ideas, yes,” she answers, followed by a heavy sigh. “Darling, do you remember the last time you had a haircut? Or perhaps when you last menstruated?”
“Because those two things go together,” Felix quips, his voice strained as his eyes seem to bounce around the room. I give him credit for not poofing away as soon as periods are mentioned.
My lips quirk in a kind of humored apology before I reply, “I can’t really remember my last haircut, but it’s been a few years since the, uh, other thing.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” my aunt assures me, unaware that Felix is still in the room. “Menstruation is completely natural.”
I groan in reply while watching my fingernails surpass at least a foot in length, delicately curving into an arc.
The thunder of feet return, and the guys file back into the room, each carrying one of the requested items.
“Good news,” I rasp, as they place the items near Mildred one by one and back away. “My aunt thinks she knows what’s wrong with me.”
“Great. What?” Donovan demands in his usual blunt manner, earning a side-eye from Kaleb.
Nolan and Connor stand shoulder to shoulder near the door with carefully blank expressions that would be hilarious in any other circumstance.
Mildred takes my right hand and carefully starts trimming down my monster claws. “Magic both lives inside us and is separate from us,” she explains. “It has a will of its own. A desire to serve and please, like a child who wants to impress their mother by showing her they can tie their shoes just like she taught them. It can also be temperamental, its will only bent by those that know how to ask.”
Felix puts a finger in the air. “Anyone else confused? Or at least weirded out? Wait… does that mean when Callie was exploding trees, it was magic throwing a temper tantrum?”
Kaleb sighs, ignoring Felix, and concludes, “So magic is like a toddler and witches are like its parent?”
“What does this have to do with what’s happening to Callie?” Donovan grumbles, already tired with story time.
“Everything,” Mildred states briskly, setting the monster clippings on my nightstand, then switching to work on my left hand. “Children need clear instructions. Without them, mistakes are made.”
“Monkey’s Paw,” I add, watching my right hand to see if the growing has stopped. No such luck. My fingernails have already reached a few millimeters past my nail bed.At least it’s slower. I think.
“Careful what you ask for. Might not like how you get it. Now that makes sense,” Donovan mumbles, and the rest collectively nod.
My aunt sighs with her ‘save me from teenagers’expression. “My point is, for the past several years, Callie’s magic hasn’t had the luxury of instructions. Just a blind need to save her.”
Nolan clears his throat, wraps his arms around his middle, and asks, “And now that the binding spell is broken?”
“She has control of her magic,” Kaleb answers, then gets a distant look in his eye, like he’s almost pieced together a bizarre jigsaw puzzle. Slowly, he continues, “So her magic is now waiting for instructions?”
“The fuck does that have to do with this?” Donovan barks, his hand making a sweeping gesture at my body.
Connor growls.
“Shut up. You know what I mean,” Donovan argues.
I roll onto my back, feeling both exhausted and extremely gross. Needing a shower desperately and knowing I won’t get one until everyone has some semblance of understanding, I stare at the ceiling and inquire, “So what did my magic do that it’s no longer doing?”
Mildred pats me on my shoulder, like she’s pleased someone finally asked the right question. She peels back the blankets over my feet, and starts on my toenails, which, for whatever reason, seem to be even more humiliating than massive out of control fingernails.
