The Misadventures of Anna Cabbot

The Night School

"Remind me when we finally get rid of these little shits?"

Jamie looked up from the pile of packing slips in his hand and in the general direction of Hudson's voice. "Sometime next week. They're going to Albany and then on to Boston. Aren't you supposed to be sitting? Like you said you would?"

Hudson shuffled guiltily out from behind a stack of boxes, still favoring his right leg. "I'm fine, mom."

"Thom will literally sit on you, and Bess will yell." He used the pen hovering next to his ear to put an x in the top corner of the packing slip. Everything in the shipment was not only accounted for, it was in good condition, too. Payroll, when they received the packing slips, would see Jamie's x and authorize payment for that specific lot of homegrown ground spices.

The Bookkeeper, in turn, would sell said spices for exactly the price they'd been bought for to independent local suppliers who would then sell to the wider magical Community for a fair and flexible profit margin.

If a store decided they'd try to circumvent the system — and price gouge the hell out of their customers — the Bookkeeper handed down a hefty fine. If it happened again the store in question was bumped from the list of approved businesses. They didn't last long after that.

Jamie had only seen one business try it in the five years he'd worked fulltime for the Bookkeeper, and they were currently on probation, license pending.

"Thom's gotta catch me first, and Bess won't find out." Hudson sank onto the handily placed padded folding chair.

"Bess has Mom Sense. She knows everything." Jamie let go of the pen; it floated back to its original position. "So good luck with that."

Hudson muttered something that sounded suspiciously like I ain't afraid of Bess, and Jamie choked on a laugh. His phone buzzed in his back pocket.

[Anna Elizabeth]
Saw this. Thought of you. :)

She'd sent him a funny Daredevil meme. He guffawed loudly.

[Jamie]
THAT'S AWESOME!!

[Anna Elizabeth]
Isn't it? :D

"That Anna?" Hudson asked.

"Yeah." Jamie showed him the meme.

[Jamie]
It is.

[Jamie]
Wanna get coffee in the morning?

"Pretty sure she's your nerd soulmate."

"Pretty sure it doesn't work like that."

Hudson was twenty-five to Jamie's twenty-seven, but he knew as well as anyone in the family about Jamie's misfortunate with relationships. Jamie's last one had ended messy and more publicly than he cared to conduct his private business.

Kevin, his ex, hadn't liked that he burned the candle at both ends. He hadn't liked the time Jamie spent at the warehouse, and hadn't ever wanted to meet for coffee or breakfast in the mornings.

Their first holiday season together had been their last. They'd been in the kitchen at Kevin's parents' house for an after-Christmas party.

"I feel like you're not even meeting me halfway here," Jamie had said. "It's like I'm going three-quarters and you don't like what I do anyway so you're not going to support me doing it."

"Because I want you to get a real job. So we can have some consistent and some goddamn stability."

Jamie bristled. There was little honor in warehouse work to them, and being a paramedic was only noble enough to bandy around to shut down talk of a living wage for fast food workers.

"These are real jobs, Kev. They're just not glamorous enough for you." His magic burned cold in his chest.

"You have so much potential, and you're wasting it." Kevin ran his fingers through his blond hair. "You could be a top dollar executive private chef. You'd make so much money."

He curled his hands into fists to hide the static crackling at his fingertips. "You shallow piece of shit."

"What did you just say to me?"

"You heard me. Go to hell, Kevin. Find a better boyfriend there." Jamie slapped his palm against the wall.

Kevin, his face a ruddy mess of rage and embarrassment, searched blindly for something to throw. His fingers wrapped around a dirty rocks glass on the counter. Jamie's hold on his magic snapped; it seeped into the wall and fried any circuits it found. Almost instantaneously the transformer at the pole outside blew apart in a burst of light and sound. Every lightbulb in the house exploded. Several people screamed; Kevin heaved the glass at the space where he'd last seen Jamie's head.

Jamie caught it with his free hand. He took a breath, his magic still simmering dangerously in his chest. "Have a nice goddamn life. I'm done." He set the glass on the floor and rolled it toward Kevin's feet.

For a moment, the only sound in the kitchen was Kevin's ragged breathing and the muffled chaos of the rest of the house from the front rooms. The glass bumped gently against a genuine leather shoe. Kevin inhaled sharply.

"Get out of my house."

"Gladly."

Jamie popped a soft witchlight over his head as he went to collect his coat and scarf from the coat rack in the hallway. Everyone else was too busy searching for candles and making rumblings of backup generators to pay him any attention.

He was three blocks away in the pitch black of a neighborhood-wide power outage and ankle deep in snow when he found an even keel. Thom, on the other end of Jamie's call for a ride, probalby had a dozen or more questions. All he'd said before he hung up the phone was that he'd be there shortly and Jamie was bound to run into a Tim Horton's to stay warm at if he walked long enough.

"Jamie? James? James."