Malefica

Chapter 3

Love me love me love me

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My mind was over worked and I couldn't shut it off long enough for me to fall asleep. Every time I had closed my eyes, I'd been thinking of random concoctions made from random ingredients. When I woke up the next day my mind was so exhausted that I decided a long bubble bath was exactly what I needed.

I held my breath and sunk down deeper in my tub until my entire body and face was submerged. With my eyes open, I counted in my head how long it took before my lungs began to hurt and my vision clouded. I got up to two hundred and thirty seconds, my best so far, before I completely blacked out. I woke up not long after, the bubbles in my tub had burst until there was nothing but a milky residue floating above the water. I decided that I had been in there long enough and needed to get ready for work.

I wrapped a soft, pink towel around my body, twisting my hair into another one as I made my way to my bedroom. Pulling open my wardrobe, I tapped a pruned finger against my chin as I figured out what eccentric look I should go for today.

I tried on a metallic jumpsuit with a drop crotch with white Doc Martin boots. When I looked at my reflection I cringed, this was too much, even for me. I looked like I had been wrapped in aluminum foil and then pooped my pants.

With a quick shudder, I stripped off my clothes and opted for a white off the shoulder dress with fluted sleeves and my favourite pair of chunky heeled boots that I had bought in the 90s. I hadn't had the time to take out any of the beads or feathers that were woven into my hair so I grabbed the biggest hat that I could find and hid my hair under it.

Work that morning was uneventful. I had a few witches needing supplies, some needed help figuring out how to work spells, must most customers were mortal.

I was about to close up when a group of teenage girl came in, asking about various crystal pendants that they looked the look of.

"But like, do they actually do anything?" one of the girls asked me as she held up different crystals before putting them back down.

"People believe that each crystal has a different use, the one you're holding is for protection and courage," I answered, lowering my voice so that I sounded quiet and peaceful. Hey, it always worked.

I continued to answer the bombardment of questions that soon followed, somehow making a combines sale of over two hundred to these girls. They left the store and I began to clean, dusting and sweeping every area as fast as I could.

The wind chimes above the door suddenly made a noise alerting me that someone had opened the door to come in.

"Hey girls," I put my broom down with a smile as I looked up, thinking it was the teens from earlier. "Did you forget-" I stopped mid sentence as I saw my eyes landed on who had come in.

No words would come out, I couldn't speak. It was him.

"Hi, are you still open?" He asked me with a smile.

It can't be him. He had to be dead by now. My mind was racing with questions while my body was frozen, unable to respond to his simple question.

"Are you ok? Should I come back some other time?" He asked with an awkward laugh as he ran his hands through his honey coloured hair.

Did he not remember me?

"I can come back tomorrow, it's no problem," the man continued.

It has to be him. No, It can't be him. How was he alive?

"You," was all that come out of my mouth as I stared at him. He was tall just like him, had the same blue-green eyes and shortly cut hair just like him, even his smile was the same. Man, did that smile make me livid.

"Excuse me?" He asked, darting his eyes back and forth between me and the wall to my right.

"You... can come in, what's your name?" I asked as I leaned on the broom, trying to keep my anger in check. God, if I was wrong about who he was, this was going to be embarrassing.

"Uh, Jason. Yours?"

"Allison. I'm sorry for acting strange! " I laughed uncomfortably. "You just look a lot like someone I haven't seen in a very long time and it caught me off guard." The fucking Angel that made me immortal, I thought in my head.

"All good, so is this a bad time?" he asked again.

"No, not at all. What can I help you with?"

I waited quietly as he walked around my store, he's eyes roaming around in search of something specific before he turned back around to stand in front of me. He pulled out a brown wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and handed me a neatly folded piece of paper that had been placed inside of it.

"Do you have any of the items on the list? I know they're a bit weird so I don't expect you to have them all," Jason flashed me a bright smile showing his slightly chipped front tooth.

I didn't smile back as I opened the paper and took a few seconds to read the list before laughing at all everything that had been clearly written down in a rush. "No, I have evertyhing."

"Great! Can I buy them all then?"

"No," I laughed again as I refolded the paper and handed it back to him, resuming my sweeping.

"What?" His voice sounded confused, clearly not expecting that response.

"I'm not selling you those," I shook my head in amusement.

"Yea? Why is that?"

"That list is weird. Burdock Root? Cardamom? Toadflax?" I said listing off a few of the ingredients on my fingers with a cheeky grin. " Did you just Google cool sounding potion ingredients?"

"No, I used Bing," he responded sarcastically. Or at least, I thought he was being sarcastic.

Was he joking?

" I don't sell any of that to people that don't know what they're doing." There was no way that this guy wasn't human, I could bet on it.

His eyes lowered as he did an obvious reexamination of me, getting suspicious at what I had said. "Why are you so hesitant? Do you actually believe in witches and magic?" He took a few slow steps closer.

I knew what he was trying to do, he was trying to intimidate me. I just couldn't figure out why, it was weird.

"No," I replied without batting an eye.

"You're a witch."

"Busted," I raised my hands letting the broom drop to the floor. "Oh no my car!" I said as seriously as I could, picking the broom up again. "My makeup has gotten pretty good though right? I bet you can't even tell that I have warts on my nose or that my skin is green," I said with a wink, trying to act as casual as I could around this human.

"Don't be a smart ass," he rolled his eyes.

"Excuse me?" I said slowly, my whole demeanor changing. "Look, I'm not selling you that stuff. Whatever potion you found on the internet isn't going to work and the stuff you want could potentially poison you so I'm not selling you them. End of story."

"How do you know it's not going to work if you're not a witch?"

"Hate to break it to you Mason but magic doesn't exist."

"It's Jason and I know you're a witch, that glass cabinet over there has a spell on it that I'm pretty sure you cast. I know it's broken and you just made it look like it wasn't. You could have at least cleaned the glass at the bottom instead of trying to hide that aswell," he pointed behind him to the cabinet that I had thrown Raul against.

I clicked my fingers and in a snap all the doors and windows to my store were closed and locked. "Ok, what the fuck are you?"