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If I hit her with an extra special Lucywhop bop b-luma b-lop bam boom,I would get slapped right back with the same Magical wallop times ten. It was the way of the Witchy world. We couldn't use our Magic against our Familiar without serious repercussions.
Oh! Don’t get me wrong. The reverse was also true. When the Cookie That Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest delivered her dastardly deed, sheshouldhave gotten her comeuppance, but the psychotic sweet treat I was stuck with had somehow found a way around the rules.
The day would come when I would figure out how she did it, but this was not that day. I simply didn’t have the time or the hutzpah to launch an investigation into the unpleasant and unwanted deeds of my Familiar. There was no doubt one or both of us might just end up in the TGGH – The Great Goddess's Hoosegow – and that would be a very, very,verybad thing - at least for me.
(Yes, there are quite a few jails, prisons, stockades, and lockups designed for Witches. But let me assure you that TGGH is by far the worst – and it's the only one that will hold a Brown Witch. Trust and believe, my friend. Trust and believe. There are skeletons in the Brown Family Coven closet that would turn your hair white. I promise to have someone tell you ASAP, but now I need to return to my story.)
All of this was to say, there was no way I would risk spending my seven-hundred-and-fiftieth Founding Day in my illustrious position within the Brown Family Coven chained to a gooped-up Goblin, picking pieces of rotting flesh from between Cerberus’s back teeth while the worms crawled in, the worms crawled out, the worms played pinochle on my snout. Oh, hell, no, that shit was not going to happen.
As if the threat of eternity in TGGH wasn't enough, it had been prophesied that I would meet my Mate by the stroke of midnight on January twenty-fifth. Talk about jamming a whole lot of hoopla into one day –oy vey.
Now, you are asking yourself what is so special about that day, and what do I have to do with it? Well, I am happy to tell you that January twenty-fifth was the day Martha, Mary, and Maybelle Brown were Magicked into existence by none other than Cerridwen, the Celtic Goddess of Magic, Brigid, the Celtic Goddess of Life, the Great Goddess Herself, and all The Powers Be. These amazing, wonderful, and fantastical Witches came into existence to be the Founders of the Brown Family Coven. Therefore, Januarytwenty-fifthis called The Brown Family Coven Birth-Founding-Becoming Day Party-stravaganza and the Reason We Are All Here Festival.
(Yes, it's a mouthful. But baby, it's worth it. It's how we - the Brown Witches - all came into being, and that is truly a day to celebrate if I do say so myself.)
One of the best parts of the Celebration was that we Brown Witches just let the World Religious and Cultural Holiday Season roll into our very special day. We love a party, and letting Yule, Christmas, and the New Year get the ball rolling forourFounders Day Festival made everything the best it could be. It was also when I showcased all of my wonderful baked creations - the newest of which I created every year, from scratch, never to be repeated by anyone but me because all my recipes were in my head and would only be passed on to a deserving Brown Witch when I was no longer able to perform my duties. So, as you can imagine, being told that I would meet my Mate by midnight on that very special day had me more distracted than usual.
Of course, it all depended on whether Auntie S - aka Sorcha Maria Elizabeth Baba Cailleach Feasa Brown – the Elder Third Degree Brown Witch and Holder of the Spark of Foresight, Premonition, and Intuition was to be believed. Yes, she was old enough to have played on the playground with Methuselah, and no, she hadn’t been wrong even once in her very long life. Still, I remained hopeful that wires somewhere in the Magic that was the Universe were crossed, had surged, or were just plain taking the day off. Or that Fate, Destiny, and all the other Powers That Be had taken their eyes off the ball on this one occasion.
Nobody - human, Witchy, Paranormal, Supernatural, or Other – could always be right, right? Of course, I was right. I had to be right. I was praying I was right.
However, it was neither here nor there whether Auntie S or I were correct. I was too busy to have a man underfoot – even if he was supposedly one of the famed and magnanimous Dragon Guardsman and might just be the one boy, well now a man, who had captured my heart when we were knee-high to a Black Widow Spider.
Yes, that was also part of Auntie Sorcha’s prediction – that my Mate was a Dragon Shifter – one of the really cool ones. But what did that matter? Like I needed a Shifter for a Mate. And one who breathes fire, at that. What if he missed and set my kitchen ablaze? Or worse yet, my collection of antique wooden spoons.
I would be devastated.
But then again, maybe he had a quicker way of baking cookies, cakes, and sweet treats of all shapes, sizes, and varieties. Perhaps he would come in handy if...
No, that was just silly. I was letting my heart do the thinking, which never worked well for me. I did it once when I was six years old, and, let's say, that went down like the Titanic.
Then again, I had it on good authority that every single one of the Universe's Chosen Warriors was honest, loyal, trustworthy, and sexy as homemade sin with a heart of gold and a penchant for being a hero.
No, no, no, I had to stop my crazy brain. I did not have time for fantasies. I was just too busy for a Mate, no matter how good-looking he was, that he was made for me by the Universe, or that he made the butterflies in my stomach dance like nobody's business. I simply hadno time.
But I digress. And you better get used to that. I do it a lot, even when I'm talking to myself.
Of course, four of my cousins were already Mated to said Winged Warriors, and they seemed happy enough. Well, actually, they were sickeningly blissful. I mean, over-the-moon, lovey-dovey, could give you a toothache from just being around them in L-O-V-E – LOVE.
However, I was different. I was independent. I was self-sufficient. I was… I was… Oh, hell, I was a hermit stuck in her ways who did not like change.
Well, unless change meant that the icing-faced, overbaked, crumbling mess of a Familiar of mine would stop planning her yearly attacks on my sanity. That was a change I could get behind. It was one I would welcome with open arms, a happy heart, and a tray of my famous peanut butter chocolate chip extra special cookies for which no one but me knew the recipe or secret ingredient – and never would.
However, that shit was never gonna happen. My Familiar was never ever never going to stop. I knew it. She knew it. Hell, the Great Goddess knew it, and that was that.
Now, where was I? Oh, yeah…
I was pretending to be asleep to avoid the inevitable sneak attack coming from the most obnoxious Familiar to ever walk the face of the Earth. I know you're asking yourself why I just didn't tell her to buzz off. I am, after all, a Brown Witch and should have no problem putting said Pain-in-the-Posterior in her place.
Okay, I explained why I couldn't just Magick her ass to somewhere over the rainbow and beyond. But there was another problem. If I thwarted, stopped, blocked, or foiled her plans in any way, the next three-hundred-and-sixty-four days of my life would be nothing short of horribly, miserably unbearable. She would be crankier than usual – which, no matter how much I believed the opposite, wasabsolutely possible. She would do whatever possible whenever she liked to sabotage anything andeverythingI tried to do – and it would be Magical, which meant I could not just change it back without risking Karmic Retribution that could jeopardize The Brown Family Coven Birth-Founding-Becoming Day Party-stravaganza and the Reason We Are All Here Festival for the foreseeable future.
But still…
No, I shouldn’t even think about it. I had done more than that once a very, very long time ago, and well, let’s just say it took three years for my hair to grow back and an entire Blessing – (aka Group) -of Unicorns to rebuild my kitchen for the next Brown Witch Anniversary of our Birth as a Family Coven season. There was also a worldwide shortage of peanut butter, chocolate chips, and my super-secret special ingredient that shesworewas not her fault. However, I had it on good authority – Auntie Della – Brown Witch of Justice, Oath Keeping, and Nobility - that it happened because Mrs. Cookie No-Brain lost her temperandcontrol of her Magic for four-and-a-half seconds. If I have time, and you're not bored of me, I'll tell you about it someday.
So, now you see why the best I could do was pretend to be asleep and wait forherto give up and go away. It had made the inevitable less painful before and would do it again. She would do what she had to do when I was in the right frame of mind, and I would get over it sooner or later. Let's face it, not even that little lump of Mystically animated dough filled with piss and vinegar and the Great Goddess's Magic would dare to mess with me when I was un-caffeinated. It was the one rule she had where I was concerned because bigger and badder than she had tried when I was fully hopped up on my favorite drink, and those suckers had failed –utterly and ultimately failed. To say I was lethal when caffeinated was an understatement, but at least I was civil. Without my coffee, I played dirty. It was a well-known fact.
So, why was she playing Secret Agent double-0-cookie-dough at that moment? Had the world gone mad? She'd never been so careless in all the years we'd been stuck together. She usually planned so much better.
