The Writer and the Designated Sorcerer

Chapter 1. Beith

"Willa, meet your six o'clock."

The two young women stared each other down in an eerie silence. The third woman in the room just chuckled as Willa, the one on her left, looked flabbergasted. Quite visibly and utterly shaken. As if the absurdity of life hadn't prepared her for this very moment — and perhaps it hadn't.

Willa prided herself on being very go-with-the-flow when it came to certain oddities life had to offer. After all, despite being an admitted creature of habit, how bad could life be if you had a roof over your head, a coffee in your hand, and Spotify playing in the background? Life could be a karmic bitch, yes, there was no doubting that, but the law of equivalent exchange and all that — you get what you give.

Still, this was fucking creepy.

"Uh, Willow," Willa started as she inspected the silent woman who was, indeed, their six o'clock. "Who is this?"

"I'd ask you the same thing," the silent woman sitting in the leather chair on the other side of Willa's desk began neutrally, "but it is rude to talk about someone as if they're not right in front of you when they, in fact, are right here."

Willa felt the flush heat in her cheeks. She set her eyes downward to the crochet carpet made with the softest, fuzziest yarn her sister found. "My bad."

"Who are you guys?" The young woman with an eerie resemblance to Willa asked. She played with a small, blue-tinted moonstone ring on her left hand. Willa watched in an odd fascination as a calloused version of her own hand twisted the ring this way and that. She felt mesmerized — too close to a cat chasing a laser pointer's light for her own liking.

"Well," Willa continued after clearing her voice to stop the growing awkwardness from setting in. "I'm Willa, the Writer, and that's Willow, the Assistant." Willa jabbed her thumb quite quickly to Willow as the Assistant dusted off her bohemian skirt.

"The best Assistant," Willow emphasized the word "best" with a sense of pride anyone could see emanating through her deep green bohemian gown from her pale form.

"Who must prepare for the next round of interviews, mind you. So good luck guys!" Willow gave a friendly and encouraging wave as she tried to multitask putting her long, curly hair up into a bun while exiting the office through the birch door. Willa gave the long-haired woman an uneasy smile just as the door closed behind her.

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The young woman with shoulder length hair took a deep breath and muttered a little prayer to any deity listening. Willa and her eerie almost-doppelganger sat there in silence for an unknown amount of time, interspersing small talk into the void of the office in failed attempts to start conversation. The awkward silence pressed against the writer. Her chest contracted or tightened or constricted — whatever happened caused her to be quite uncomfortable when breathing.

And the person sitting across from her just looked so unfazed at this whole thing!

As if seeing your very self carbon copied was no big fucking deal!

What the hell?

The writer, after taking a few deep breaths (and maybe saying a few Hail Marys that she would never confirm or deny), cleared her throat. She then tried to school her expressive bluish-green eyes and freckled nose into a more professional expression. Finally she turned to her leather-jacket-wearing counterpart and asked, "What would your name be?"

"Wynona Meyer," the young woman — Wynona — answered succinctly with a singular raised deep red eyebrow. Willa could have guessed that it began with a "W", it was a common thread across any attempts at naming, if the author found herself stuck.