No Nicer Witch Than You

Honestly...what was he thinking, making a black cat angry?

Phil was a witch, he knew better! And yet...

In his defense, he had been having a rough day, it was no wonder he had gotten a bit moody! And his clumsiness - which made him drop a vial he really didn't want to drop - was getting the better of him. So, yes, Phil had made a black cat angry by being mean to it, and now he was cursed to hell and back because, of course, on that specific day, that specific cat just had to be magic.

The curse came in the form of even more bad luck and, curiously, the black cat following him around. As Phil was pretty allergic to cats, this seemed to come hand in hand with the bad luck, which he had tried everything in order to get rid of, every charm and spell he could think of...but this was a stubborn one. He had pissed off a bloody cat and now he was stuck with a permanently stuffy nose and swollen eyes (he had accidentally made the remedy wrong and now didn't have enough ingredients for a new one until he made a trip downtown...it figures).

Weeks passed, and the cat didn't seem to want to leave any time soon. One day, in a new bout of frustration after having burned himself for the thousandth time in the last two hours alone, Phil let out a muffled scream, "Okay, look, I'm sorry I shooed you away and called you a nuisance, I was just having a bad day! But now you're just being over-dramatic, it's been weeks, aren't you sick of following me around?!"

But the cat remained impassive, not even a meow of acknowledgment, it just kept staring up at Phil with its hazel eyes.

"Okay, look! Can we please at least try being friends? Who knows, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship! I'll call you...Layla."

At this, the cat hissed fiercely at Phil and turned tail out of the room. Maybe it didn't like the name? Either way, this gave Phil's nose, eyes, and lungs a break.

An hour went by, Phil could actually breathe! But then...

A day went by.

Two days went by.

And...okay, that was weird. Not that Phil wasn't glad that his allergies had mostly stopped, but he found himself worried about - well - Layla. Even his bad luck had dwindled to an all-time low which was honestly just suspicious. Layla didn't seem like the type to give up so easily, to just up and leave. If anything, it should have made his life harder after that blunder. Besides, Phil couldn't be sure that his curse really was lifted if the cat never let him know so, he reasoned. So, Phil, being the well-meaning and not at all attached witch that he is, decided to go looking for it.

That's how he found himself in the middle of the forest surrounding his house. To be fair, he knew it pretty well. He'd been running around in it since he was a child, really. And he figured Layla couldn't be that far away, it was probably just annoying the elder tree and had forgotten about him for two whole days or something.

Or maybe it had abandoned him, like everyone else seemed to do when they realized he was too much to handle.

"Layla!" He screamed, "Honestly, if you just show up and tell me you're alive I'll give you whatever food you want, I'll- I'll give you my best fish! I'll even find you some cheese or something!"

A frustrated sigh left him, "You know! It's really rude to leave people hanging like that! Layla!"

But he never got a sassy meow back.

What he did get, later in the day, was the unexpected view of a butt. Quite a nice one too. Said butt found itself attached to a person laying unconscious on a patch of grass.