Mathilda, SuperWitch (16 page)

This was our conversation:

“Yes?” (Ash answering the phone.)

(Who answers the phone like that?)

“It’s me.” (Me)

(I think I detected a sigh over the line.)

“Mathilda!” (Me)

“I know.” (Ash)

“Agatha Darling is here!” (Me)

Silence.

“With Douglas Addison!” (Me again)

More silence.

“Well?” (Me)

“Yes?” (Ash)

“Here, now, in the restaurant.” (Me)

Silence.

“Well!?” (Me, getting impatient)

“And?”

“And what? She’s the bad guy! Aren’t you going to do something?”

“Did she cast an evil spell on you?”

“No.”

“Shoot at you with a gun?”

“No.”

“Throw food at you in a menacing way?”

“You aren’t taking me seriously,” I noted irritably.

No answer.

“Ash?” I called.

“It’s very American of you to ask for a pre-emptive strike.”

Ack! How mean!

“Keep an eye on her and get back to me,” he ordered and then he hung up.

Can you believe?

I went back to dinner.

“You okay with Darling being here?” Aidan asked.

“Sure, yeah, no problem,” I lied.

No way was I okay.

I was freaking
out.

Not freaking out enough not to enjoy my fab halibut.

But still freaking.

Freaking so much I didn’t even process it when Aidan told me his family held a title (Earl of something-or-other, it’ll go to his older brother).

Freaking so much I didn’t react at all when he told me about the house he’ll inherit from his mother and how, “We let the National Trust open it to the public but… ”

Freaking so much I didn’t pay a lot of attention when he mentioned Eton, as in, “My years at…”

Too preoccupied to grill Aidan about The Prophesies.

Too preoccupied to think about what came next.

So when he walked me to the door of The Gables and we stopped and, with a gentle hand, he lifted up my chin, just like they do in the movies, I blinked.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

It all came rushing back to me. It was end-of-date-would-you-like-to-come-up-for-a-drink-time.

“Hi,” I said back.

And I knew he was going to kiss me.

Yay!

As his head descended, I whispered, “About those Prophesies and you and me and…” (I was teasing, I am Glamour Girl and we’re allowed to be a little coquettish).

Then his lips hit mine and I leaned forward while Aidan leaned into me, putting one arm around me to pull me closer and the other out bracing us against the doorjamb.

It was a nice kiss, a professorial kiss, a kiss one might expect from, say, Stephen Hawkings (before he got really sick, of course).

I was standing there, slightly disappointed, expecting something more…

Then his lips opened, my lips opened, his tongue touched mine and…

Yowza!

Super-shivers!

Yay!

Then he really leaned into me and…

Yayayayayay!

Yay!

“Wow,” I breathed after he lifted his head.

He grinned.

“Wow,” I breathed, this time for the sexy grin.

Then the door opened.

It was, of course, Ash.

Aidan didn’t move, didn’t let me go, just looked over his shoulder at Ash.

I didn’t move either, just peeked over Aidan’s arm at Ash.

“Curfew?” Aidan asked.

Ash didn’t respond.

He also didn’t move.

Thus began a weird display of testosterone as both men held their positions.

One beat.

Two beats.

Yikes!

I held my breath.

Then Aidan looked at me. “I’ll be in touch,” he said softly then he kissed my nose and then he was gone.

That was it. He got in his Roadster and took off.

Dinner and a kiss.

Okay, so it was halibut in lobster, brandy cream sauce and a fucking great kiss but still!

Ash grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, closing the door behind me. Then he started walking away, brushing past me.

Uh, what?

Interrupt a kiss like that and then walk away?

I don’t think so!

“Hey!” I snapped at his back.

He turned. “Yes?”

Erm.

“Uh… nothing,” I muttered.

Okay, maybe he scares me. Just a little.

I started to walk forward.

“You smell…” he muttered when I came abreast of him and I stopped, “good.”

“Good?”

Wha?

“Yes, good.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, hands on hips.

He just looked down at me.

“Well?” I pressed.

“You smell like sex,” he answered.

Ack!

What does sex smell like?

And, is that good?

Yikes.

I mean, I know what sex smells like but how did I smell like that?

Maybe I shouldn’t ask.

He was walking away.

“What does that mean, I smell like sex? I didn’t have sex,” I informed him.

Okay, perhaps I should have let it alone.

He turned, his lips were twitching now.

He didn’t spend the night running his frustrations off on the treadmill.

He didn’t spend it slowly getting drunk and pining after me.

He found me amusing.

I amused him.

Now I know how Joe Pesci felt!

“You don’t smell like you’ve had it, you smell like you want it.”

My mouth dropped open.

“Don’t worry,” his voice had dipped low, “that’s a good thing,” he assured me.

Then he fucking winked at me.

Fucking,
fucking
Sebastian!

And I still didn’t know a thing about The Prophesies.

22 March

Had to sort Rory out.

I was up in the Tower Room, cleansing my magickal implements as Nerissa taught me to when the phone rang.

And rang.

And rang.

A house full of people and nobody answers the phone.

I grabbed it and it was Rory’s headmaster.

Rory had been suspended for three days, fighting in school.

Our little Rory, fighting!

Thank goddess Josie was holed up somewhere joining the Labour Party or Rory would have been in for it.

As I was on Josie’s list to pick up Rory when she was unavailable, they told me to come and get him.

He had a busted lip and a face like thunder and said nothing throughout the entire meeting with the headmaster.

On the way home, I tried to get it out of him but he was having none of it. The minute we got back to The Gables, he thumped through the house toward the Trunk Room like he’d been taking Snotty Kid Lessons from a Disney movie.

Problem is, as he was thumping, he hit one of Mavis’s tables and knocked over and broke a Waterford vase.

Mm.

Not good.

“Best pick that up and then go tell Mavis,” I advised and Rory turned on me, little kid face in full scowl.

Then he grunted with feeling, “Nuh!”

“Nuh?” I asked.

“Yeah! Nuh!”

I know this seems like a weird conversation but I figure it’s normal going with a moody eight year old.

“What’s your problem?” I asked. I could go snotty with the best of them.

“I don’t have a problem.” Rory trying to out-snot me (no way, I was a master).

“You do have a problem and a busted lip to prove it,” I told him.

“Nuh.”

“Nuh right back at ‘cha!” I snapped.

This is when Su walked in.

“What gives?” she asked.

“You’re a hippy,” Rory said it like he would say, “You’re a loser,” to someone he actually thought was a loser.

Su looked at me and then walked out.

I guess I was on my own.

“You better tell me what’s going on,” I said to Rory.

“And you’re a witch.”

And he said the word “witch” like it started with a different letter.

Uh-oh.

Then Rory thumped away.

I gave him awhile to sulk, it’s always good to have awhile to sulk, and cleaned up the vase. Then I knocked on the door to the Trunk Room and ignored the “Go away!”

Rory was bouncing a soccer ball against the wall. Mavis would have a conniption.

I caught the ball.

“Rory, honey –”

“I said, go away!”

“Let’s talk.”

“Doan wanna.”

“Well, I don’t care if you ‘doan wanna’, we’re gonna talk.”

Rory glared at me with arms crossed on his chest.

Okay… here goes.

“Rory, I’m a witch,” I announced.

His glare didn’t waiver.

I kept going. “And Mavis is a witch, so is Su, Viv, Mom, Gran… we’re all witches.”

No response.

I continued, “And so are most of the ladies at the café, except Lucy.”

Not even a blink of an eye.

I kept speaking. “Real, honest-to-goodness Sabrinas.”

Still no reaction.

I took my wand out of my back pocket, centered myself, focused, took a deep breath and threw up the football.

Then I let fly my magic.

Hot pink pixie dust shot out and shattered against the ball with sparks flying here, there and everywhere, changing the ball to a frog which fell – splat (ack!) – onto the floor and started croaking and jumping around.

I flipped out my wand again – and
bam!
– the frog was a ball again.

That got a response.

And that response was, “Crickey!”

He jumped up and plastered himself against the wall and stared at me like he’d never seen me before.

“This is the story,” I said. “I’m a witch and I have power. I use it carefully, for good only and only for people who ask me to help them. Your Mom needed my help and asked for it. I’m bound to her by her request, bound to help her and keep her… and you… safe through magic and anything else I dream up. You got that?”

He nodded.

“You got a problem with that?” I asked.

“They say at school you’re all lesbians.”

“They’re all stupid at school. No one’s a lesbian and who cares if they are? What’s wrong with lesbians?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, this is my advice, instead of hitting someone who says something stupid like that, just say, ‘So?’ or adopt the Pee Wee Defense and say, ‘I know you are but what am I?’”

This cracked the snotty-kid-guard and he started to smile.

“‘I know you are but what am I?’” he repeated then asked, “Who’s Pee Wee?”

He didn’t know Pee Wee!?

“Oh Dude, you don’t know Pee Wee? Well, we’ll have to rectify that,” I announced.

And that was me sorting Rory out.

Of course later, Josie sorted him out more.

And even later, I smuggled in
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure
. I know I shouldn’t have but I’m Cool Mathilda and I have to keep that up.

The Month of April

April 2

It started out as the perfect day.

I should have known it wouldn’t last.

* * * * *

I woke up early and got on eBay right away and, sometime in the night, I won those Jimmy Choo shoes I’d been bidding on.

(Yay!).

I never, ever win.

(Yay! Yay!)

Since I was so excited to find out about my Jimmy Choos, I had time to do yoga before breakie… so after yoga I felt relaxed and energetic and ready to face the day.

Lunchtime proved my new pizza offering at the Café was a hit.

(Take that Lucy.)

Side note: Sun-dried tomatoes may just be the ambrosia of the gods and if you put them in the crust
and
in the sauce
and
on the pizza, it can’t be beat.