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But I couldn't stop, no matter how hard I tried.
It was as if one of the Winged Whining Weevils from the Westerville Winterlands had bitten me, injected me with their venom, and was slowly taking over my brain. The fusing just kept falling from my lips. It was the worst case of verbal diarrhea in my extensive history. I swear. It really was. But I just could not stop. "I don't wanna get up. I don't wanna use Magic. I don't wanna see who's bothering me. I just wanna sleep. Please let me sleep."
Goddess, I was so annoying.
Then I remembered something. I didn't know if it had anything to do with my current predicament, but I had to reason it out and get an answer, or I would never return to Dreamland.
“Why did Auntie S call so late last night? I usually hear from her at seven pm sharp. And why did she have to remind me of what - or who - is coming? It wasn’t like I could forget – or stop wondering if she was talking abouthim." I huffed out an exasperated breath, tried not to shake with frustration, and earnestly attempted to stop whining. It didn't work, but I gave myself an A for effort. "I was working on a new recipe and didn't know what time it was until after we hung up. Yeah, that's right. When the phone rang, I was trying to decide if I should add brown sugar, granulated sugar, or a combination of both. After we talked, I hardly remembered my own name. She was doing that blasted riddle thing she always did when the Mysticism of her Gift was most potent, and she thought I could decode the message. As if. I can't decode my iPhone. Let alone her puzzles."
Blowing out yet another infuriated breath, I bit the corner of my lip and glared at the ceiling fan that wasn't doing its job. As soon as I completed my yearly assignment, I would pop my happy heiney down to The Warden Warlock Brother's Workshop and get new one. Those Warden boys knew how to Spell almost anything. Theabramay have gone out of thecadabrain mine. It was a hundred years old, after all.
“Damn, I hope I’m not losing my mind. I really need it to get through the next couple of days. But then again, who would blame me if I went totally insane? No one. That's who. Not a single soul who ever met me – or more to the point, met my Family or my Familiar - would fault me, and they damned sure wouldn't be surprised.”
Yes, I was talking to myself. Are you just catching up? I’ve been doing that since you started reading.
Oh, well, it doesn't matter. What's important is that I whispered through gritted teeth into the pillow I’d thrown over my head while trying to go back to sleep. No, I wasn't crazy. At least, not yet. One of my Grannies used to always say, ‘It’s not bad to talk to yourself. You can even answer yourself. But if you say, ‘huh?’ That’s when Dr. Bombay puts you in an Enchanted straitjacket and sends you straight to Bailmore Hall over in Tallulu Parish, Louisiana. And do you really want to hang out with Dr. Maxine and her Flock? I mean, she’s a really cool Pink Flamingo, but the crap that happens to her and her people is weird – even for us Brown Witches.’
But…. Maybe it was just what I needed. A lovely vacation in the world-renowned Home for the Shifterly Insane might be good.
However, I was a Witch, not a Shifter - not even a little bit. Sure, I had many, many, many multi-natured friends. Some I even considered part of my chosen Family, but I didn’t have any of that specialness mixed into my gene pool.
So, the real question was - would Maxine even let me in? Oh, crap, why was I even contemplating the subject? I was not crazy. I wasn't that lucky. And I had things to do. Oh, Great Goddess in a mistletoe bikini. I might not be cracking up, but I was spinning out of control. Sadly, my newest crisis would have to wait. I was about to be busier than Zsa Zsa Gabor in divorce court, and the whole wide world was depending on me. It was the way of the Brown Witches, and I was no exception.
But enough of that.
Now, where was I? Oh, yeah… I had jumped off the whining track and charged onto the reassurance train. I was trying to figure out….
“Oh, yeah, I know why she called. Auntie S loves me and wants what’s best for me. She always calls onthisnight every year to give me one last pep talk. Sure, it's usually earlier, and yes, I forgot what day it was, which is why I was shocked when I picked up the phone."
Thinking back over our conversation, I continued to talk to myself. "What I find so weird is that Auntie Sorcha told me about her vision almost a year ago, and never once has she called to remind me that I’ll be meeting the man made for me by the Universe, my Mate, the one dude who completes me like no other ever can before the stroke of midnight on the Brown Family Coven's most special day. I mean, she already shook all the mystique out of the whole crazy hubby affair. But I guess when you live as long as a Brown Witch, you sometimes need things shaken up – even if it’s in an ‘unshook’ way. And I was just working on that new recipe and forgot the date. I was trying to shove forty-eight hours’ worth of work in twelve. But still…”
Tip-tap… Tip-tap… Tip-tap…
“Son of a Bat-Winged Banshee on the back of a Blue Whale,” I spat. "It's back! Those freaky footsteps and back. They are tapdancing on the one frazzled nerve I have left, and I am... Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit, Oh shiiiiiiiiiittttt!"
Dadgummit, I’d been wrong - like seriously wrong.
Instantly and suddenly, I knew what was happening. Shewascoming. I'd misjudged, misconstrued, and utterly misunderstood what was happening. Remember when I said that because Brown Witches lived a long time, we needed things shaken up sometimes. Well, I meant it in a good way. I was definitely, and without a doubt, not talking about her. Never her. I was stuck with her, but I didn't have to like it, and I most assuredly did not have to enjoy her stupid practical jokes. Talk about being stuck like a rat in a trap. I was stuck like Ursula, the Sea Witch, on the splintered bowsprit of a wrecked ship.
(No, she wasn't a Brown Witch but a distant friend of the Family. I was sad to see her go, but some people just don't want to be saved. Ya' know what I mean? Good.)
Oh, well, what's done was done. I had bigger problems – like the fact that I was freaking out worse than an Elephant Shifter on a tightrope with her spandex leotard sliding off her ass. The pitter-pat or tip-tap - or whatever the hell Doom sounded like when it was coming towards me on tiny cookie feet across perfectly polished hardwood floors - was getting louder. Sadly, no matter what it was called, it was confirmation enough for me to know that I was in trouble with a capital T. Then a whiff of warm spices and sweet confectioners' sugar icing kicked my adrenaline up to twenty-seven on a ten-point scale.
It wasn't fair. Those amazing aromas should have made my heart sing. Goddess knew how much I loved everything sweet and delicious. Instead, those wonderful scents made sweat dot my upper lip as it crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s of my worst fears. There was no denying it. The little bugger was coming. I had been wrong – really, really,reallywrong. And because of my miscalculation, I was trapped like a frog in Auntie Myrtle Brown's nets.
(Just so you know, I haven't lost the plot. Myrtle Brown is a Swamp Witch and part of our illustrious Coven Family. No, she is not ugly, haggish, or anything any fairy tale has ever said about Swamp Witches. Myrtle is tall, blond, and gorgeous, albeit a tad standoffish, But who can blame her? She simply loves nature and every form of life that thrives in the hot, humid environment of the Swamp. She would die before even swatting a mosquito. Hence, I likened myself to a frog caught in her nets. I wasn't gonna die, but I might feel like before my present ordeal came to an end.)
All this was to say - I had no one to blame but myself.
There would be no escape. I had tried and failed more times than I cared to remember. Somehow, she always got over on me this time of year.
Sure, I had been done being her patsy after being in her company for an hour and a half. Absolutely, I wanted to put that little maniac in her place and show her who was Boss. Goddess knew I did it every other day of the year and sometimes twice on Sunday.
But it was always different on this night.
And… this year, I just wasn’t up for another round.
So, what was I to do?
