Page 14 of Witchy Woman

“Can you two unglue yourselves for five minutes so I can get to the plates? I’m fucking starving,” I say, hand on my hip. Deflecting my emotions with borderline bitchy humor. How on brand for me.

Despite my words, Noah just smiles at me and leans his chin on top of Hazel’s head. “Plates are right there.”

How dare he not find me scary. I am bitch, hear me roar.

“Want to watch a movie while we eat? Might be a nice way to relax before training,” Hazel says, watching as I plate up dinner.

Sisterly bonding, how fun. As if I’m not still salty as fuck over her telling me her life with me was nothing. She was unconscious for days after that stupid fucking daemon attack and when she woke up, something changed in her. She finally told me exactly how she felt about me, after years of hiding behind a filter.

I only held her back. Everything she’d done for me meant nothing to her.

I left with her dried blood still lingering under my fingernails.

We haven’t processed that conversation or the fallout that followed, and I’m very much not ready to do so. Although a movie doesn’t require conversation, and do I really want to sit in my bedroom by myself?

Again?

Like I do every night?

“Fine, but if the movie sucks, I’m leaving.”

“Laura,why don’t you place a warming spell on the backyard?” Grandma asks. She set up the space in exactly the same way as she did for the first lesson while Hazel and I were finishing our movie, and this time there was no mention of setting foot in the shop. Thankfully.

I snort. “Right, because I know how to do that.”

“The entire point is that you will learn. And we learn by doing. Come here.” She holds her hand out to me, and I step forward to grab it. “Feel my magic reacting to yours. Take from my strength to strengthen yourself.”

Mom touched each of us right before she...Is this what she was doing?

Whatever. I close my eyes and take a breath. Warmth floods my body, rippling and sliding along my skin like a warm blanket or a favorite fuzzy sweater. A smile slowly stretches across my face. The sensation would be unsettling if it weren’t altogether comforting.

“Visualize,” Grandma says. “See in your mind’s eye what you want and manifest it.”

“Oh, we’re manifesting now, are we?” I snark.

“You would be if you would stop sassing me.”

Hazel’s snicker floats over from the porch.

As if I’m not already hyper-aware of what a failure at magic I am compared to Hazel. What a failure in everything. My anger flares to life, a bonfire blazing in my mind’s eye. I imagine the space filling with magic, with pure heat.

Warmth builds in my chest; a glow grows and grows until it reaches the far edges of the backyard. I don’t have to look, or check—I know I did it.

“Beautifully done, Laura. I had a feeling your magic would come naturally once you started lessons,” Grandma says, pride evident on her face.

Maybe I’m not a complete failure after all.

“Laura has a lot of natural talent at pretty much everything she tries.” Hazel approaches us, sitting on her pillow.

I roll my eyes. Does she even mean that? “No one likes a kiss-ass.”

Her face falls. I guess she genuinely meant it, but God I just cannot hear anything out of her mouth without wanting to snap at her.

We need so much fucking therapy.

“I’m a little hesitant to try meditation today after what happened last time,” Grandma admits as she and I join Hazel on our respective pillows.

The memory of the heat, the dehydration, tickles at my senses. I’d really rather not repeat that myself if possible.