Page 57 of Spring L.A.W.
Katie trailed behind them, her floating goldfish bubble bobbing slightly too close to her head. Joell’s black cat familiar prowled the outer boundary.
“Please tell me I don’t have to chant anything tonight,” she muttered.
“Youwillhave to officially name your familiar by holding it up to the moon and chanting its name three times,” Rayna said, eyeing the goldfish as it swam a lazy loop.
“I was hoping we could just… not do that.”
Joell shook her head. “Every familiar picks its witch. And every witch has to name what she’s claimed.”
“Even if it’s a weird psychic fish who forgets its own name every eleven seconds?”
The goldfish perked up. It did a barrel roll that might’ve been excitement. “Did you say eleven? Eleven is a sacred number. So is seven. So is lavender. Beware the lavender.”
Katie squinted at it. “Can I name him ‘Brain Damage’?”
“No,” said all the witches in unison.
She sighed and plopped onto the inflatable couch, which made a sound between a whoopee cushion and a duck. The fish floated in a gentle orbit above Katie’s head, blowing bubbles of glowing prophecy that no one could interpret.
They set up the altar with candles, runes, spring flowers, crystals, and eggs. Crystal added a woven nest of feathers and twigs, then stood back to admire her arrangement like a pagan Martha Stewart.
Then came dinner: picnic blankets, charcuterie, berry salad, vegan wraps, spicy stuffed mushrooms, and an entire board of deviled eggs in honor of Ostara’s fertility magic. Someone conjured chocolate bars. Someone else summoned marshmallows. It was all very Pinterest-meets-pagan-revivaluntil Lioness dropped a graham cracker into the fire and declared it a burnt offering to the gods of PMS. She declared a male had to have invented that curse. Probably just for laughs.
Katie didn’t say much. She watched the witches laugh and tease each other, and observed the goldfish bob in its dream-bubble like a soft lantern, even smiling once when it smacked its face into the side of the bubble and then immediately forgot and resumed its merry hum.
As the last light drained from the sky and the moon began its slow rise over the ridge, the air thickened. Soft winds whispered through the branches. The magic shifted, like the earth was exhaling.
Rayna stood, brushing crumbs from her robe. “All right, witches. Let’s get weird.”
“Hold up.” Joell’s clipboard thunked against her thigh. “We forgot the kid.”
Everyone blinked at her.
“The graffiti-marked boy,” she clarified. “We parked him in the VR lounge and never told him dinner was happening.”
Lioness winced. “We areverybad foster witches.”
Victoria tapped her crystal watch. “How long has he been in there?”
“A couple of hours,” Sahara guessed. “Long enough to beat the tutorial, overthrow the pixel monarchy, and develop carpal tunnel.”
Rayna blew out a breath. “Okay, that’s on us. Someone go fetch him before he thinks we’ve abandoned him to the metaverse.”
All eyes drifted to Katie.
“Oh, great,” she muttered. “Send the new girl, who’s still processing the fact that her emotional-support fish doubles as a fortune-cookie.”
Bubbles twirled. “The boy sees shapes in shadows. Offer him chocolate.”
“See?” Katie pushed off the inflatable couch. “Fine. Any advice before I go trudging through a magically relocated mansion in the dark?”
“Take a lantern,” Victoria said, handing her one that glowed blue and white. “Avoid the west staircase. It might be haunted. And if you hear chanting from the attic, shut the door and walk away.”
“She’s just messing with you,” Magda said.
“Comforting.” Katie lifted the lantern. “Be back with our lost pup.”
She headed up the path toward the mansion’s porch, Bubbles floating beside her like a glowing balloon. The rest of the witches shuffled awkwardly.
