Poor Little Witch Girl Read online

  "No."

  "Have I ever killed a man?"

  The unexpected question startled me, but I knew, I absolutely knew the answer. "Yes," I said in a very small voice.

  "Does the answer frighten you?"

  "Yes," I admitted. "Why?"

  "That's complicated," she said.

  "You just admitted murder to me. You don't know me. I could go to the cops-"

  "And tell them what?" she asked. "You don't know whom, when, where, or why. You won't guess those from my aura, but if you were to learn enough to answer those questions, you would also know I made the world a better place. You aren't going to report me to anyone, except possibly your friends upstairs."

  She was absolutely right.

  She continued to lean forward for a little longer then relaxed backwards in her chair. "You've earned half of that," she said, gesturing to the money.

  "For answering questions when you already know the answers? We've been talking for maybe ten minutes."

  "Now we're going to play the other half of my game," she said, not explaining why she was paying me so much to answer her questions. "I'm going to ask you questions about yourself, and you're going to answer."

  I folded my arms. "We'll see."

  "Do you believe in magic?"

  "No."

  She raised an eyebrow.

  "Oh please," I said. "You expect me to wave a wand around and say 'wingardium leviosa' in a commanding tone?"

  "Perhaps not, but you have evidence the world is not as simple as science tries to suggest."

  "Science doesn't suggest the world is simple."

  "I'd rather we didn't devolve into word games."

  "You asked. I answered. No, I do not believe in magic."

  "To a primitive society, advanced technology will appear as magic."

  "That's not what you asked."

  "Perhaps not. But perhaps magic is just a word that describes use of power that others can't readily explain."

  "I don't believe that's what you meant, either."

  "Perhaps not." She paused. "Earlier you mentioned vampires. Do you believe they exist?"

  "Are you going to ask about angels, too?"

  "Perhaps. Perhaps I'll ask about ghosts and ghouls, werewolves and witches."

  "If I've ever met any of those, I don't know it," I told her. "I find the list unlikely."

  "Gut feel?"

  "My gut feel? I admit I don't know everything. If someone introduced someone and said, 'This is Count Dracula', I'd assume there was a joke somewhere."

  "Last week you said everyone had an aura. Have you ever met anyone who didn't?"

  "Only the dead."

  "Undead?"

  "No, dead-dead. My grandfather died when I was young. His body had no aura."

  "Have you ever met anyone with an aura similar to mine?"

  "No. Yours is quite unique."

  She shifted in her chair and pursed her lips. "How can you believe in auras but not believe in the rest of these?"

  "I can see auras. I can see the effects of the modern scientific method, too. I haven't seen someone turn into a wolf under the full moon. I haven't seen anyone drink blood or cast what I would recognize as a magical spell."

  "So..."

  "I believe based on evidence." I shook my head. "Ms. Patrick, you yourself said most of the occult books we have are rubbish. I've come to my own conclusion on that based on what they say about auras. Some books get some things right, but I've never read a book that got everything right about auras. I think the authors were all guessing. And that leads me to believe, barring opposing evidence, the same about the other books."

  "But you carry them anyway."

  "And when anyone asks me about them, I offer an honest opinion. We don't label them as non-fiction."

  She laughed for a moment.

  "Besides," I said, "No one buys them expecting them to be true. They buy them on a lark." I shook my head. "I used to think I could become a wiccan."

  "What changed your mind?"

  "I discovered it was invented less than a hundred years ago. The few books I read talked about 'the old gods', but it was all new. Made up."

  "Made up?"

  "If it was based on the old gods, then wouldn't it be based on the old gods?"

  "So you have more faith in Christianity?"

  "No."

  "But-"

  "It has the same problem. The Old Testament supposedly dates back thousands of years, but the oldest copies are from four hundred years after Christ. I have a pretty good idea what record keeping was like two thousand years ago. Go try to find a copy of any books that are four hundred years old. They're hard to find. But I am supposed to believe the monks in four hundred AD had copies of words written by Moses two thousand years before that? I don't buy it."

  "So you're an atheist."

  "No. I am saying I don't know what the truth is. Wiccan tradition borrows from older traditions; maybe the people who did the borrowing knew things the same way I have learned about auras. Maybe the early Christian monks had copies of much older documents that are now lost to us. Maybe God spoke directly to them and guided them. But no gods have spoken to me." I shrugged. "If there are gods who don't like my attitude, they can come have a chat with me. I imagine it would be quite intriguing."

  "Just so," Ms. Patrick said. "You'll believe it when you see it."

  "Exactly."

  "But you expect your clientele to believe you when they do not see auras."

  "No I don't.

  "Excuse me?"

  "I don't expect them to believe me. If they believed me, more of them would actually take my advice."

  She laughed. "You didn't keep the book I asked you to keep."

  "I hope you're not too offended by that."

  She shrugged. "The world is filled with charlatans who expect you to believe the most outrageous things. It is difficult to distinguish between who can be trusted and those who cannot."

  "It's not always about trust. Someone could be telling what she honestly believes. That doesn't mean she's right."

  I nodded. Ms. Patrick leaned forward. "And yet, you expect me to believe you are no charlatan."

  "No I don't. I have no expectations, Ms. Patrick. You may choose to believe or not believe. Of course, I would hope you wouldn't engage in slander." I shrugged. "From time to time, someone severely dislikes what I have told her, declares me to be a charlatan, and refuses to pay me. They leave without paying. Sometimes they come back and apologize and tell me I was right. Sometimes I find out I was right, but they were too embarrassed to admit it." I shrugged again. "And I can always be wrong. It's not an exact science, after all, and I am self-taught besides."

  She looked at me through her incredibly blue eyes. "You are a remarkable woman, Lyra Lane." She slid the bill across the table to me and stood up. I hastily scrambled to my own feet to show her out. She reached the door first and had her hand upon it before turning around.

  "You are curious."

  "Yes."

  "I am going to give you something to think about. I will be back next week, and we may discuss it. Perhaps I will offer some proof."

  "All right," I said cautiously.

  "You wonder why I have paid you so much. And you wonder why, perhaps, I believe you."

  "Yes."

  She smiled. "There are two people in this room who see auras."

  My jaw dropped, and her smile widened.

  "Furthermore," she added, "when you described my aura, you could have been describing your own."

  She turned to go but then said over her shoulder, "Walk me to the exit, please."

  I didn't get ahead of her, and so I followed in her wake all the way out of the back rooms, through the shop, and to the front door. There she turned suddenly, and I nearly ran into her. In response, she gathered me into her arms, hugging me. I was deeply surprised, but I found my own arms wrapping around her.

  She felt good, very, very good.

  "I will te
ll you something else," she whispered into my ear. "Perhaps you will believe me; perhaps you will not. I asked earlier if you believe in various supernatural creatures. You never gave a full answer. And so I will say simply: you should believe in witches."

  And then she released me, but her hands slid along my arms until we were standing, hooked together only by our fingers. She was smiling.

  "And that reaction you said you had for me?" I nodded understanding. "It's mutual."

  Before I could say a word, she was out the door and gone. I stared after her.

  Friendships

  Jaime stared at me intently. "You're not telling us everything."

  "Of course I am," I declared, turning away.

  "Shit," said Felicity. "She's not. 'Fess up, Lyra."

  "There's nothing else to tell. She's a wacko."

  "Is she a bigger wacko than you?" Felicity replied.

  "Of course not," Jaime said. "Our Lyra excels at everything she does."

  "You two suck." I got up from the table, carrying my plate to the kitchen. Jaime and Felicity were right behind me. They set their plates on the counter then flanked me, an arm from each of them around my back.

  "You know we love you," Felicity said.

  "I'd totally want you," Jaime said. "If you were a guy."

  "We'd be fighting over you," Felicity said. "I saw her first, Jaime. She's mine."

  "Knock it off," I said. But I couldn't help smile. They were sweet.

  "Tell us the rest," Jaime said. "And we won't be forced to take Extreme Measures."

  "Oh god," I said. I hated it when they took Extreme Measures. "There's nothing else to tell."

  "Since when do you lie to us?" Felicity asked. "Jaime, are we going to have to tie her to her bed and subject her to a continuous cycle of the Maury show?" I looked over at her, and she was grinning at me. "We haven't done that in a while." She adjusted her grip until she had my arm in a firm hold, and Jaime grabbed me on the other side. Together, they began walking me backwards.

  I immediately began struggling with them. It wouldn't do me any good. It wasn't the first time in our years together we had tussled. I knew from past experience they could tie me to my bed if they decided to.

  I really, really hadn't wanted that birthday spanking.

  "You wouldn't," I stated.

  "Of course we would," Jaime said from my left.

  "And laugh doing it," Felicity added. They dragged me another five feet and were about to navigate the kitchen doorway with me.

  "Knock it off." I tried shrugging them off. "It's private."

  They froze. Then Jaime said, "So there is something you're not telling us."

  "Yes," I said. I tried shaking them off. While they were no longer dragging me off to my torment of bad television, they weren't letting go either. "And it's private."

  "When I didn't want to talk about my fight with Dyson three months ago, did you stop pestering me when I said it was private?"

  "That's different!" I protested. "You wanted to tell me about it."

  "She's got a point," Jaime said. "So it is your argument that all is fair if you're doing it for Felicity's good."

  "Exactly."

  Immediately they began dragging me further towards my bedroom, Jaime slipping out the kitchen door first. They got me another ten steps before I yelled, "Stop it!"

  "Spill," Felicity said, but they didn't stop tugging me to the bedroom.

  I began to struggle in earnest, but they just tugged harder, and it was only a few seconds more before my legs hit the foot of my own bed. I fell over backwards, and together they dragged me up the bed until my head was amongst my pillows and my arms pinned to the mattress beside my head. It took a little doing, but Jaime pushed the bed away from the wall and slipped into the available space, all while continuing to hold one wrist. Then he grabbed my other arm from Felicity. I looked up at him as he leaned over, holding me pinned in place.

  Have I mentioned Jaime is a big guy, and athletic besides.

  I never stopped struggling and telling them to knock it off.

  But I wasn't yelling, and I wasn't mad. They wouldn't really make me watch Maury.

  Felicity ran to her room and was back only moments later with -- I swear -- her entire scarf collection.

  "No!" I screamed. "Stop it!"

  By now they were both laughing. I put renewed energy into escaping from Jaime. Then I found myself struggling to avoid Felicity as she tried wrapping a scarf around one wrist.

  "Hold still!" she ordered. "Or I'll make a slip knot instead, and you know it'll just get tighter when you pull on it."

  "This isn't funny." I tried pulling my arm away from her.

  Felicity shrugged, and I watched her tie a slip knot in the scarf.

  "No!" I screamed as she slipped it over my wrist. "Fine! I'll let you tie me."

  She froze. "You'll let us tie you, but you won't just tell us?"

  I didn't say a word. But she took me at face value. She pulled the scarf from my wrist, got rid of the slip knot, and then I watched as she tied a square knot around my wrist before pulling my arm far from my side and bending down to tie the other end of the scarf to the bedframe. Two minutes later found me completely trussed on my bed.

  But then Jaime helped me sit up, partially, and Felicity adjusted the pillows underneath my head and shoulders.

  "Too bad there's no television in here," I said.

  Jaime didn't say a word. Instead, he stepped from the room. Felicity sat down on the bed next to me and looked at me.

  "Why did you let us do this?" She gestured to me. "You know you're going to tell us eventually."

  "Why is this so important to you?"

  "Because we love you, and because it's important to you." She paused. "And you would have gotten mad if you didn't really want to tell us."

  I heard noise from the living room. It sounded like Jaime was moving furniture.

  "He wouldn't," I said.

  "We just dragged you in here and tied you to the bed," Felicity said. "Do you really think we're going to stop at that?" She looked down at me. "You didn't answer my question. Why did you let us do this? Why aren't you yelling at us?"

  Pride got in the way of answering. Instead I looked away and stared at the knot around my other wrist. I tugged, but it was a strong scarf, and she had done a good job.

  "We don't have this kind of relationship."

  "Of course we do," she said. "Don't you remember when you and Jaime pinned me to the couch and tickled me until I was ready to piddle?"

  We'd done that more than once.

  "You were being a butthead."

  "I was not."

  I looked back at her. "You were giggling."

  "You were tickling me! Of course I was giggling."

  Just then Jaime appeared, lugging an end table. He set it down at the foot of the bed. Then he looked at me. "Has she told you yet?"

  "She's being stubborn," Felicity said.

  "You know we don't bluff, Lyra." He turned his back and headed back to the living room.

  "This is ridiculous!" I yelled at his back. I struggled with the bonds, but it didn't get me anywhere. Felicity watched me for a while, her lips pursed. Then she moved down to one of my feet. I knew I was in trouble when she began removing my shoes.

  "What are you doing?" I asked, putting as much suspicion into my voice as I could. She didn't answer, but soon I lay with two bare feet. She climbed onto the bed, sitting down on my spread legs with her back towards me. She leaned forward until one hand was clutching each foot, her fingers reaching around so her fingernails dug into the bottoms of my feet.

  "Stop it! Felicity! No!"

  In response, she looked over her shoulder at me. "You're eventually going to try to bribe your way out of this conundrum. And you're going to choose to lie."

  Of course I was going to lie.

  "But you don't want us to let you lie, Lyra. You feel horrible every time you lie to us, especially if you get away with it." She scratched
her nails across the bottoms of my feet, causing me to jerk. "So you're going to make a promise."

  That was when Jaime appeared, lugging the television. He set it down. "I thought we were making her watch something horrible until she spills," he said. "But I'm down for tickling her into submission."

  "Finish setting up," Felicity directed. Then she looked back over her shoulder at me. "You are going to promise to not lie."

  I clamped my lips shut.

  "You are," she said. "Or I start tickling."

  "An agreement made under duress isn't binding!"

  She began tickling. I actually don't mind being tickled. Sometimes I ask my lovers to tickle me. But not the bottoms of my feet, and Felicity knew it.

  "Stop it!" I screamed. I tried to buck her off me. "Stop it!"

  Jaime stood, watching all this, a big grin on his face. I was surprised he didn't try to help.

  Felicity continued to tickle, periodically altering her technique so I didn't grow inured. I screeched and squirmed and, finally, threatened to wet the bed. At that, Felicity stopped, but she didn't take her hands from my feet. She looked over her shoulder at me.

  "Promise, and mean it," she said. And I could tell she was serious. "Or I swear, I'm tickling you until the bed is wet." She flicked the bottoms of my feet in emphasis. "Lyra, I am not bluffing."

  "Fine!" I said. "Fine! Just stop. Stop."

  Slowly, she removed her hands from my feet then turned around, still sitting on my legs, but watching me. "Promise, and mean it."

  "Not Maury," I said. "Don't make me watch Maury."

  "We'll have a little party in here with you," she said. "But we're not untying you until you tell us the rest of the story. But you're promising no more lies tonight. Or you get Maury or whatever other drivel we can find. Maybe Westboro Baptist has a broadcast."

  "I won't lie," I said sullenly. "And I want popcorn. And wine."

  "There's a combination," Jaime said.

  But Felicity bent over, kissed my cheek, and whispered, "Thank you. You know we love you. And you know you want to tell us."