A New Witch in Town (Not to Mention the Cat) (A Modern Tale about the Witches of Springsville Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title and Copyright

  Dedication and Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  A New Witch in Town (Not to Mention the Cat)

  (A Modern Tale about the Witches of Springsville)

  Book 2

  Dani Corlee

  ♥♥♥♥

  Copyright © 2015 Dani Corlee

  http://www.danicorlee.com

  [email protected]

  All rights reserved

  Cover Design by StunningBookCovers.com

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior written permission from the author and publisher, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, places and situations are products of the writers imagination or have been used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Aurora, this is for you.

  CHAPTER 1

  Kim opened the window and breathed deeply, smelling the flowers' delicate perfume in the fresh morning air. It was a beautiful September morning, her favorite month. The sky's color was still faintly light, barely lit by the rising sun, but hundreds of birds were already singing along the road, merrily flying from one tree to another. No other sound was audible, and Kim leaned on the windowsill, resting her chin in her hand, daydreaming about her future.

  Her life had changed immensely in the last two months. If a separation and the move to a totally new town was not enough, destiny had prepared a huge surprise for her, which would affect her whole life, and her daughter's, too. It seemed there was no way to go back. Yes, they could return to their home town. But nothing would be as before. Not after they’d turned into witches.

  She smiled, shaking her head. Only two months before, she would have laughed at people talking about magic and spells. Witches? Really? No, she had always believed there was much more to reality than what we saw, but witches... Please!

  She had to change her mind since arriving in Springsville. And what was worse, or better—depending on your point of view—Springsville wasn't special because of its witches, because every city and town in the country, even small villages, had their own witches' community. Hard to believe, until you started doing magic yourself and kept on seeing it around you the whole day.

  How was all this going to work out with the new job, hopefully a new love in the not-so-near future, and with Aurora's development?

  She stretched and, yawning, headed to Aurora's room to wake her up. As usual, she caressed her daughter gently, promising her a few more minutes to idle away in her warm bed.

  Her morning routine was quicker, now that she could count on her magical abilities. Turning on the shower with the water at the right temperature while preparing the coffee, pancakes, and donuts, and setting out dresses for Aurora and herself on their beds took a matter of a second. Magic had its pros, and Kimberly was glad for them, but she was still trying to detect and analyze the cons. She thought there must be a lot, but as yet she couldn't find any, apart from the fear of them being labeled as freaks.

  But that day was very important: it was her first day at her new job and Aurora's first day at her new preschool class. The only thing that could go wrong was Aurora showing her powers, but she had been properly trained so that she wouldn't do any magic in front of non-witches.

  “She keeps on spying on me. I know it. Ah! Right now, she's hiding behind the curtains of her kitchen and keeps on looking at my house. I think she knows there's something wrong here.”

  “Something wrong, you say? There's nothing wrong with you and your house,” Lucille commented, noisily chewing her gum.

  “For God sake, Lucille. Don't act as if everything is perfectly normal here. I'm talking to you, and you are not here,” Kim exclaimed. “And we are not on the phone!” she added, exasperated.

  “Oh, well, if you put it that way...” was the uncaring comment.

  “She often has friends to her house and I can see them all peeping from the window looking at my house. I don't know what they might think of me, and, honestly, I don't think I gave them any reason to think I'm weird...”

  “Did you say she's the woman living in the house in front of you?”

  “Yes, that one. Michelle is her name.”

  Lucille giggled. “I remember her. Don't worry, Kim. She talks a lot, but she's quite inoffensive. Instead, I called you to find out about your first day's work. How was that?”

  “It was great. People are nice and friendly, and the hospital itself and its equipment is modern and tidy. I believe I will love my job.”

  “That's pretty good. What about men? Anybody hot there?”

  “Lucille! I'm not looking for men, and I didn't even notice how they were!” Kim exclaimed, eyes widening in disbelief. After few seconds, when all she could hear was a loud and quick chomp, Lucille replied.

  “Oh, well, you should please the eye, time to time... Changing the subject, I know Aurora enjoyed her first school day and behaved very well. She deserves a treat!” and a cup of yellow jelly topped with a chopped peach appeared in front of Kim.

  “Oh, I forgot. Isidora needs to talk to you. I'm sure today you are quite tired. Maybe when you come for the weekly meeting?”

  “Sure, I will see you both on Wednesday at the club. Bye!”

  Kim realized that chatting with a witch who was in a different place, without using a phone, was becoming quite a normal act for her. This struck her as even more bizarre than the act itself. She remembered she had some housework to do, and despite the fact she could use her magical powers, she decided to do it in the “old” way. After all, she liked to take care of her things and to feel “necessary,” at least for her little family. But first she needed to cuddle her love. The laundry and the other things could wait.

  “Aurora!” she called running upstairs. “Where are you?” Aurora wasn't in her room, and after checking in her castle tent, she went downstairs. “Aurora?”

  “I'm here, Mom,” she replied, her squeaky voice barely audible.

  “Here, where?” Kim said heading to the kitchen.

  “Backyard! I'm playing with the cat.”

  “We don't have a cat!” Kim stepped outside, into the backyard, where Aurora was sitting in her little rattan armchair, caressing a big, black cat on her lap, Mrs. Daisy sitting on a chair next to her.

  “Agh!” Kim screamed. “Where did you find it? We don't know who it belongs to, or if it is healthy or not. And it is so huge you could easily ride it. Cats can be crazy, he might bite or scratch you.”

  “He is healthy, I know. Can I keep him, Mom? He is so cute and soft. I will take care of him. Please, please?” and she joined her h
ands in prayer, mimicking a sad expression in a plea.

  Kim slowly put out her hand to the cat and rubbed its head. It replied with a low purr of satisfaction. “Oh, well. I suppose we should have a pet, shouldn't we? But first we have to check if it has an owner and to take it to the vet. Afterward, I'll decide.”

  “Did you hear that, Mr. Stevenson? We'll take you to the doctor.”

  “Mr. Stevenson? Quite a weird name for a cat. And you'd better not name it or grow fond of it until we know we can keep it.”

  “Him. What can I do if that is his name?” she replied and hugged him in a way that nearly strangled him.

  “Be careful, I told you already. Cats aren't very patient with careless people and might bite you or claw at you.”

  Aurora shook her head. “No, he won't,” she replied determinedly.

  CHAPTER 2

  “What's the matter with you, Isidora? You look so worried.” Lucille couldn't help asking the witches' master. Usually, Isidora didn't show her emotions, but in the last few days she had looked tired and nervous.

  “Things might turn difficult,” she replied, pulling back her hair.

  “Are you talking about the new antenna?” Lucille asked.

  Isidora gestured with her hand as if to say forget it, but replied, “The antenna, yes... What shall we do? I wanted to concentrate on Kim's coronation, but this problem needs attention too.”

  Lucille sighed and spat her chewing gum in the air. The gum exploded in tiny colored shiny pieces like a small firework with a loud pop. Carelessly, she popped another piece of chewing gum into her mouth and started chewing fast. When she looked at Isidora, she saw the old witch was staring at her over her glasses with a straight face, her hands clenched in fists against her chin.

  “Lucille, my dear. I would be glad if you could avoid these demonstrations of skill with your chewing gum. At least in my presence.”

  Lucille replied “Yes” like nothing had happened. At other times, Isidora thought, a master witch would have spread fire from her eyes and would have incinerated the person for less. In the literal meaning of the word. Such a lack of good manners was not acceptable, but Lucille was precious to her. She had a witty mind and was extremely powerful. Not to mention, most of the time she was funny and a great companion. Isidora could always count on her. Yet sometimes she was quite difficult to manage...

  “The newspaper didn't say much about the antenna, and I haven't looked for information yet,” Lucille commented.

  “This new phone company is opening offices in many towns. They rented the last store of one of the buildings in the center and asked for permission to put their antenna on the roof. They obtained the approval both of the building's owner and by the Town Council. There's little we can do at this point in terms of magic. Unfortunately we all were concentrated on the Queen's arrival and didn't realize what was happening. Now it's too late to use our power. What we can do is to join the local group of people who wants to fight against the installation, regardless of their motives. They have already presented their request to the Town Council and have organized a peaceful protest for tomorrow. I suggest we all participate in the demonstration: hopefully the Mayor will change his mind and find a way to withdraw the permit. Our lack of early information is not acceptable, though. We should make sure that such a situation doesn't happen again. Please, go and organize everything for tomorrow. Then we must organize the Queen's coronation.”

  Lucille left and Isidora remained still, thoughtful. Things were happening too quickly, and she felt she was starting to fail. Doll wouldn't have lost such an important piece of information. Isidora had always been self-confident, but now she was starting to doubt her abilities.

  A light knock on the door diverted her attention from her thoughts.

  “Grandma, may I come in?”

  “Ravyn, my dear, of course you can.”

  “Here is a plan for the coronation. It covers the whole organization from the invites to the setting, the catering, the speech, etc... It should cover everything I could think of. I read many ancient books and,” she blushed, “I even got some inspiration from fairy tales. But I needed some help!” She tried to excuse herself and giggled.

  Isidora couldn't help laughing.

  “Oh, my dear! Fairy tales? Well, that was a good idea.” Ravyn was a practical person with a great enterprising spirit and at 25 years old was becoming more and more important to Isidora, who often relied on her help. Isidora had believed for a long time her elder granddaughter would take her place once she wasn't able to make the right decisions for her community anymore. Many masters had decided to leave when they hadn't enough strength to govern their communities; others had held their position till their deaths. Doll instead had simply left when very old. Not totally surprising, due to her Native American origins. Isidora wondered when she would have to leave her role to Ravyn.

  “Celeste, my dear, hurry up! You are late as usual. The president should always arrive earlier than the attendees. I wonder where you get that from!”

  The weekly meeting should have already started when Celeste entered the conference room where a big group of witches were waiting for the weekly discussion.

  “Sorry, I'm so sorry,” she panted as usual while approaching the dais.

  “Well,” she breathed heavily and continued. “Once again, we aren't going to discuss light subjects just for the joy of meeting and chatting. As in the past two months, we have vital issues to talk about. As you know, there's a new phone company that is trying to expand rapidly throughout the country. Their marketing is very aggressive and mainly relies on cheap initial rates and massive advertising. That is, many people will change telephone companies to adhere to their contract. It is good if we all can save some money, isn't it? The problem is, it means many more antennas all over the States. And we know this is bad. Very bad.” She paused, trying to gently dab her face with her open palm from the sweat.

  “There's a group of non-witches that are against the antenna and have planned a protest march for tomorrow. We could join the march, but we all know the mayor is not the kind of person to get influenced by such a thing. If anyone has an idea, please let me know.”

  A young witch raised her hand. “Yes?” Celeste nodded to her.

  “Can we make it disappear?”

  Celeste raised her eyes. “No, we can't. Think about the consequences. It would be a theft, and the police would start investigating. The antenna is very tall and heavy; it would be impossible to steal it without scattering it and being noticed. We don't want anyone to start thinking the fact is so strange that magic must have been used.”

  “Rubbish!” Aunt Adeline screamed.

  “What?” Celeste asked, turning to her with an incredulous stare.

  Aunt Adeline widened her eyes and mumbled, “What, what?”

  “What did you say? Let us know what you think. Have you any ideas to solve the antenna problem?”

  Aunt Adeline turned her head to one side, looking at Isidora, who was sitting next to her and then to Lucille, who was on her other side and whispered, “What the hell is she talking about?” She crossed her arms and gave Celeste a glassy stare.

  Celeste's shoulders lowered. Aunt Adeline's memory was getting worse and worse every day, and the lack of ideas from the community was depressing.

  “Can we offer them money?” A witch broke the silence.

  “They’ve invested a huge sum of money, and surely would consider what we could collect a little tip.”

  “What about the other communities? Any ideas from them?” another witch intervened.

  “Nothing doable, really. It seems they are waiting for us to decide the strategy.” She couldn't help looking at Kim because, in reality, all the communities thought she would resolve the problem. Kim blushed, not having the slightest idea what to say or to do.

  “OK, the meeting is adjourned,” Celeste said and left with a quick movement.

  CHAPTER 3

  Kim followed Isidora t
o her office in silence. Isidora felt the pressure the other communities were putting on her, believing the Queen was going to solve everything. Kim felt embarrassed not having the slightest idea about what to do about the problem. She liked her new friends a lot but at the same time felt like rebelling against them all. She hadn't asked to be considered a queen and wanted no responsibility for their lives. What was worse was that they were surely expecting her to find the solution, but they didn't ask for anything.

  “Listen, I know you want me to consider the problem and find a solution, but really...”

  Isidora interrupted her.

  “What? No, I wanted to know about your job and talk to you about the coronation. We decided to do it during the Harvest Moon, which seemed to be the best period, but we must hurry with the preparations because there are too many things to think about and decide.”