I sighed as I closed the top of the chip bag and tossed the controller onto the folding dinner tray I used as a coffee table. “I have to study this weekend. Midterms are coming up. Also, stop calling it that. The game is a simulation, not real training. It’s just something the council throws our way so they can check a box and appear as if they’re prepared for any eventuality. It’s kids’ stuff. Not to break your heart, but we’re the B team. Always have been, always will be. None of our pseudo training actually matters.”
Which was fine by me!Let’s keep those demon-hunting expectations low.I was a year away from earning my business degree and becoming the first witch in my family to graduate college. The plan was to turn my mother’s hometown apothecary and tarot shop around, make a profit, and get us out of our dilapidated rental with lead paint and a leaking roof.
Then there was the dream. Grow the business, expand into the city, and never have to worry about eviction or the electricity bill ever again. It was a lot for a witch from a poor family who’d grown up on the wrong side of town while her wealthier relatives had flourished in suburbia, but I’d studied hard and even gotten myself a partial scholarship to a good university.
“That’s right. I forgot I was talking to Elle Graves, the Magical Entrepreneur.”
I grinned at the nickname, taking an absurd amount of pleasure in it. “Exactly. You know as well as I do, not a single witch from the Graves side of the family has ever been called to serve the council, and with my cousin as the current chosen one it won’t happen this generation either.” I shrugged and wiggled my toes in the thick carpet beneath my feet. “Which means I’m free to live my life the way I choose.”
“Ah, yes. Let’s all give thanks to your cousin, the supreme Ivy Jennings. While you were buried in books, she was busy breaking council records. Didn’t she outrank her mother in supernatural ability before she was thirteen? No wonder they always pick candidates from the Jennings’ side of the family.”
Tanya continued, listing my cousin’s feats. “Ivy’s got magic for days, flips like an Olympic gymnast, and has the nerve to look as if she just walked out of a shampoo commercial. Seriously, who has hair like that?”
“No one has hair like that,” I deadpanned. “I’d bet my spells somewhere along the line she sold her soul.”
Tanya snorted into her headset. “Yeah, well, if you see him, feel free to send the devil my way.”
No kidding.
Speaking of hair, my frizzy blonde locks needed taming before my shift, and I still had to find my catering vest. “I have to go, T. I’ll text you later.”
I yanked the headset off before she could respond and crossed the postage stamp-sized dorm room in search of my uniform. Thankfully, I’d scored a single dorm in last year’s housing lottery, so all the clutter was mine. It also made practicing spells a breeze without a roommate as a witness.
Thornbridge University was home to only a few supernatural students. We were the school’s best-kept secret. Us and the coffee they served in the library café—the stuff was legendary. Who knew coffee could taste so good surrounded by mid-century authors? Apparently, the secret was cinnamon and maybe a little mold.
After locating my missing vest and pairing it with trim black pants, a white button-down shirt, and very sensible rubber-soled shoes, I wound my hair into a tight bun. A few strands down the sides perfected the look. I easily morphed from laid-back witch to waitress in a matter of minutes—which was about all the time I had left before I needed to be on my way.
My catering job was located a few miles outside of town at the Thornbridge Country Club. The stone and glass structure built on beautifully manicured grounds was a far cry from the ancient diner where I’d worked growing up in my rural hometown. Tonight’s event was an award celebration for one of the university’s professors, guaranteed to be a stuffy, prolonged experience. I didn’t envision any of the tenured instructors out on the dance floor doing a conga line, but at least I wouldn’t be sweeping up broken beer bottles and peanut shells from the floor, so . . . progress!
I drove through the town’s center. The streets were flooded with college kids out for a night of entertainment. Thornbridge was the quintessential college town with the polished veneer one would expect—the kind you see in glossy magazines, with an attractive downtown lined with quaint coffee shops and trendy bars. Tree-covered bike paths circled a tranquil park, and farther out, hiking trails weaved through dense forest for the more adventurous.
Hitting the gas, I picked up speed when the congested buildings faded into the secluded countryside. Without streetlamps, the car’s headlights were two beacons barely illuminating the sides of the road. I checked my mirror. Nothing but darkness behind me.
Even with the heater blasting and the radio churning out my favorite podcast, a chill wormed its way down my back. My mother called it a Graves Warning: a little play on our last name coupled with the always present thread of awareness that came with our family’s history. The Graves may not play an active role in keeping supernatural villains at bay, but we still knew they existed. In the same way women walked to their cars at night with a key protruding between their knuckles, we walked with spells ready, searching the shadows.
I searched the shadows now, shaking off the chill. I was being ridiculous, and I had been for weeks. It wasn’t normal for a superstitious warning to leave me so unsettled. Nothing in my life had changed. School was school. The lectures were long and tedious, the evenings a mix of homework and binge-watching foreign dramas, and the mornings fueled by caffeine. I was living a normal college existence, minus the spell casting, and yet . . . something felt off.
And no—it didn’t stem from my fear of being cut off from the taco stand. There was something in the air. An invisible ticking clock that had me constantly looking over my shoulder. When I’d tried to explain it to my mother over the phone, she immediately performed a tarot reading. Nothing ominous appeared, so she chalked it up to the stress of midterms, and a few days later I received a package of magic-infused candles to help clear my aura of negative energy. It was a sweet gesture, but there was a strict “no candle burning” policy in the dorms.
The chill had settled in my spine, and I gripped the steering wheel tighter, trying to let the narrator’s soothing voice shift my mood. It was bad enough my night would likely consist of schlepping coconut shrimp to the same four people before they emptied the tray, followed by dirty looks from the rest of the party who weren’t fast enough and would have to settle for the cheese and cracker display. No use adding a bout of supernatural foreboding to the mix.
I inhaled a deep chemical pine-scented breath, courtesy of the air freshener clipped to the vent.
Breathe in . . . You’re being paranoid.
Breathe out . . . Paranoia leads to a padded cell with mystical reinforcements.
Breathe in . . .
A glowing figure dashed into the road.
I slammed on the brakes, and the car jerked to a stop. A burst of adrenaline masked the sharp pain from the bruising force of the seat belt strapped across my chest. The radio blared in my ears as my gaze landed on the old man standing inches from my bumper. He was tall and wore a suit that appeared a couple of decades out of style. A bushy mustache covered his upper lip, and it took me a moment to realize he was speaking.
Except that was impossible! The man was translucent. An ethereal shimmer covered his entire form. And yet he spoke crisp and clear into the night air.
“Excuse me, young lady, but have you seen my dog?”
My brow creased, and my mouth formed an oval shape of silence brought on by his casual question in the face of a near accident. When my silence lengthened, the man tossed up his hands and finished crossing the road. He disappeared into the tree line.
