Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA
My hands were on the steering wheel to give myself the illusion that I still had control, but my car was on a mission, and I was just along for the ride. I...we?...drove for three hours and just when I was afraid I was going to have to wrestle control from who- or whatever to fill up the tank, the right turn signal came on and we exited the highway.
Looking around there was...nothing. Cornfields. The occasional house but not much else. The downtown didn't even have a stop light. Just one four-way stop.
The car drove for five more minutes, taking all sorts of turns on dirt roads until we came to a lone house, set back about two hundred yards from the road. The car slowed and came to a halt right beside the house.
Some time during the drive, I'd come to terms with being in a car that I wasn't driving. I'd been doing some math on the way here, adding things up.
The power surge inside of me that I'd felt when my heart cracked open.
Magnus not being able to get out of his room after I told him he'd better not follow me.
His motorcycle falling to pieces when I'd flipped it off.
The self-driving car.
My phone going silent after I'd screamed SHUT UP, ALREADY! the twenty-fifth time it rang in seven minutes.
Magnus had been calling and texting non-stop, and I refused to answer him. Why, oh why, hadn't I yelled I hope your dick falls off to him as I'd run out of his room? Life is full of missed opportunities, I guess.
Gathering my courage, I opened the car door and came face to face with a middle-aged woman who had pale purple hair. She was so close I gave a yelp and jumped back in the car.
"Welcome," she said. "Didn't mean to scare you. I'm Rosemary."
"I'm a little jumpy," I admitted. "I'm Magnolia. I'm sorry I'm so scattered. It's been a crazy night."
"These nights usually are," she said serenely. "Do you want to come in for some tea?"
I grabbed my phone...then hesitated. "You're not going to kill me or anything, are you?"
She looked at me and rolled her eyes. "Dammit. Yes, I was planning on it, but now that you're on to me, I'm going to have to wait for my next victim."
"OK, now you're not just making a joke to throw me off, are you? Because after the night I've had, I have no trust in my ability to gage a person. You seem nice and all, but I thought that about my two-timing, skank-fucking boyfriend."
"Those redheaded ones get you every time."
"How did you know?" I gasped.
She smiled. "It's the one clue we're given until it becomes really obvious."
"Clue?"
"This will go down better over tea...you know, before I kill you."
"You aren't helping," I grumbled as I got out of my car and followed her into the house.
Strangely enough, I instinctively trusted this woman, and her warm, cozy house only reinforced that feeling. She pointed to a chair at her kitchen table, and I sat as I watched her brew a pot of tea. A few minutes later, she poured me a mug that had a picture of Glinda on it in all her pink, fluffy glory.
A ginormous dog wandered into the kitchen, came over to me, sniffed my leg and threw himself down at my feet with a deep groan, as if to let me know just how difficult his life was.
"That's Twitch," she said. "He's part Great Dane, part Cane Corso, part elephant. He's fiercely protective of me and only likes my husband and others who are like me. He can tell with that gift that animals possess."
"Others...like you?"
She sat down and stared at me over her mug for a long time. "Others like me...witches."
She may as well have shouted the word at the top of her lungs because it echoed through my head, bouncing around and up and down until it settled down, and I accepted the truth of it. It honestly wasn't a surprise since I'd been adding things up, but it was still unnerving to have my crazy, impossible suspicions confirmed.
"Witches," I said softly. "I'm a witch."
It was like trying on shoes to see how they fit. Only, I was trying on a label that I had never considered for myself.
"You are, as am I."
"So I just suddenly became one today because...?"
"You've been one since birth. Since conception, really, since the fae were involved."
"The fae. Fairies."
"Yes," she nodded encouragingly, like I was a bright child learning a new concept.
"Of course. The fairies," I said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Clearly. Of course."
And then I remembered my mother calling me her miracle child because her husband -- the man I always assumed was my father -- had died two months prior to her discovering she was pregnant.
"I guess I just never recognized the symptoms because I was lost in my grief, Magnolia. You were a very welcome miracle, the last gift your father gave me."
"But the fae's part is for a later discussion. Right now we need to focus on the how. Your powers came to you today because your heart was broken this evening. Tell me how it happened."
I didn't know this woman and I was about to spill my guts to her. Funny thing was, I wasn't a gut spiller. I kept to myself and kept my emotions tight. Had I not become a witch...and there was a phrase I never in a million years imagined myself saying...I no doubt would have gone home and locked myself in my apartment for about a week, turned off my phone and single handedly supported Groceries to Go with my daily deliveries of ice cream and chocolate. Possibly some chips and dip.
"Magnolia?" Rosemary prompted.
"Sorry. So, I didn't have class tonight because it got canceled. With an unexpected free night, I thought I'd run over to the clubhouse and surprise my...surprise Magnus. He's...he was my boyfriend until about three hours ago."
"And why did you break up?"
"Because I just lived the most clichéd moment ever: I walked in on my boyfriend having sex with some horrible redhead."
"Your anti-witch."
"She's a witch, too?"
"No, she has no powers whatsoever. They usually are very beautiful, very seductive and extremely manipulative, but they are not witches."
"Oh."
That meant she hadn't put a spell on Magnus, which meant he had been fucking her because he wanted to. It was a little hard to breathe again, and maybe my heart was still cracking.
"But the good news is that with the breaking of your heart, you gained your powers."
"Can I use them to make his dick fall off?"
"Unfortunately, no," she said. "But he will suffer. That I can guarantee."
Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA
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WORK IN PROGRESS: Three Witches #1: Magnus and Magnolia
RomanceI fell in love with Magnus, and I thought he fell just as hard for me. Then my class got canceled and I went to the club house so we could spend an unexpected evening together. Unfortunately, someone else was already there keeping him company. My he...
