Magical Influence Book One (10 page)

That little fantasy came crumbling
down as she stared right into my eyes.

“I warned you,” she said
softly.

I yanked my hand back, crumpling it
underneath my arms as I tugged the covers over my head further. It
was churlish, it was childish, but I couldn't help it.

“You must stay in here tonight. I will
deal with the branch, and I will ensure this house cannot be broken
into. Tomorrow we will work hard. We will prepare the defenses of
this property. We will find you a job, we will buy you a car, we
will fix what is broken. We will take the pieces of the life that
just crumbled, and we will build you a new one. We will do it
quickly. Before anyone can sense your wound, before anyone can take
advantage of you.” She stood up. “There is nothing to worry
about.”

There was a fantastic amount of things
to worry about, but I understood what she was implying.

Worry would not lead to
anything but danger. I was an influence witch; I understood the
ability of my own thoughts and
behavior to affect the world around me. If
I wanted lasting change, if I wanted magic, I had to control myself
first of all.

“Sleep tight, dream of sweet dreams, and
tomorrow we will rebuild your identity.”

With that she left the room. Though I
had my head firmly tucked under the covers, I swear that I never
heard her shift the books from the door and open it.

She would have walked straight
through. It underlined the fact that she had a power I did not.
That she was strong and I was vulnerable.

Chapter 9

I didn't so much as wake up the next
morning, as open my eyes from a sleepless, tumultuous
night.

Needless to say I hadn't slept a wink.
Between the wind, the rain, the lightning, and my own thoughts,
there was no peace to be had.

Though I fancied lying in bed for the
rest of the day, I didn't get the chance; at 7 o'clock sharp there
was a knock on my bedroom door.

“It's a new day, time to make a new you,”
my grandmother called out, her tone and voice at odds with what
they usually were. Gone was the crazy woman, in its place the one I
had known from childhood.

“There's a lot to do today, a lot of you
to rebuild,” she added through a light cough.

I brought my arm out from the covers,
even though my room was cold and my skin quickly prickled, and I
reached it behind my head.

She sounded like an infomercial. Hell,
this entire thing sounded like a bad new age spiritual quest. But
the problem was, it was real.

I could also appreciate what would
happen if I didn't manage to go through with what my grandmother
suggested.

We had to shore up my
defenses, and those
of the house, before we both were attacked.

Wincing, I climbed out of bed, grabbed
my dressing gown, gently pushed the stack of magical tomes that had
been protecting my door all night away, and opened it to see my
grandmother.

She was dressed not in her
usual garb of fisherman pants and a tie-dyed top. Rather she was in
a pencil
woolen skirt, a white blouse, and pearls. Yes, you heard me
correctly,
pearls
.

She looked completely at odds with the
woman I had been living with for the past five years.

She obviously saw me checking
out her appearance and she raised an eyebrow as she patted down her
hair
. “It's
serious business ensuring that your granddaughter is not attacked
and that your house is not assailed by magical vigilantes,” she
assured me.

I believed her.

Pouting to myself I walked downstairs
to the kitchen expecting to find the mess I had left last
night.

I did not.

The tree branch was gone, and leaning
to the side I could see what had happened to it out the view from
the French doors. It had been chopped up into neat piles and the
chainsaw was sitting on top like a cherry on the cake.

As for the wall, some hasty boards had
been nailed over the top, and a little bit of plastic taped over
them to ensure that no more rain made its way in to ruin my
rug.

I knew enough about my grandmother not
to ask whether she had gotten up at 4 o'clock in the morning to
chainsaw a tree in her dotage.

She was a witch. I understood what had
happened here. I also understood what was happening to the wall.
Taking several steps towards it, squinting my eyes, I could see the
various objects crowded behind the wooden boards. Mud, leaves, some
of the shards from the oak tree, some of the dirt from the
dishwasher, some food pellets for pot plants. All tied together in
a jar.

A growth spell.

“I thought you didn't like using magic to
fix the house, I thought you said it gave it a life of its own and
we couldn't afford to have this old place getting any more cheeky
than it already is?” I turned to ask my grandmother, gazing
pointedly at the dishwasher after I did. The dishwasher was a prime
example of what happened when you used magic too often on ordinary
objects.

“We don't really have the option at the
moment, dear. We are on the cusp. On the precipice. Standing over a
cliff with hands pressing into our backs,” her words were lyrical,
and her pearls glinted as she spoke, even though the sun was still
tucked firmly behind the clouds and the light was not on in the
kitchen.

I frowned at her description. Very
comforting.

“Yes, this may give the house more license
to act like a loon, but we will deal with it. If it is whole, it
can help us, if it has a wound in its side, it may let the night
and its shadows in.”

Nodding, I wrapped my dressing gown
tighter around myself and made my way over to the fridge. Before I
could rummage around and grab something suitable for a young witch
about to lose her life and everything in it, my grandmother grabbed
my wrist.

“Not today, today you must have a proper
breakfast, one fitting for a witch, a powerful witch.”

I just looked
nonplussed
.
“I'm hungry,” my stomach chose that exact moment to give a
growl.

“Today is a new day, the beginning of the
new you,” she let go of my wrist and pushed me out of the way as
she started to rummage through the fridge on her own.

Seriously, she sounded like an
infomercial, it felt like she was about to start selling me some
revolutionary face cream, or a self-help book that would change my
perspective, change my figure, and change my bank
balance.

“Have you forgotten everything about
magic, Esme, that you do not understand what I am doing?” She
grabbed at some watercress I swear we had never had in the fridge,
some herbs, an orange from the fruit bowl, and several other
ingredients I didn't recognize.

“No, grandmother, I haven't slept so
soundly that I have forgotten I'm a witch,” I grumbled, heading
over to the kitchen table.

It wasn't covered in dishes. It was
the first time I had paused to notice that fact. Narrowing my eyes,
I actually leaned down and checked under the table just to ensure
that the dirty plates and pots and pans hadn't been nailed to the
underside of it.

Nothing. It was clean. I sat down,
crossed my arms, brought my legs up, and stared glumly out of the
French doors.

“If you want to be a powerful witch, you
must start acting like one. You must do all of the things that a
powerful witch would do. All of the things a witch who could never
be threatened, who could never have her life broken and turned
upside down, all the things such a wonderful woman would fill her
life with.”

I understood what she was talking
about. Seriously, I wasn't a kid here. I'd read my fair share of
magical tomes, I’d even been to magical high school. But eating the
type of breakfast a powerful witch would eat surely wouldn't be
enough to fix my problems.

“Don't frown at me like that; don't
challenge the magic, just go with it. We will fill your life with
everything we need to transform you into something new,” she began
to peel the rind off the orange, chopping the watercress, and
ripping the other herbs as she set them in a bowl. The fragrance
was startlingly pleasing; I wasn’t usually a girl who ate greenery,
I was more of your eggs and cheese kind. I liked my fare to be
fatty, rich, and luxurious.

Still, the scent of those herbs and
that orange rind reached in and made my belly grumble.

“After breakfast, we will visit your
uncle, Vincent. He will give us a new car. Something fitting for a
powerful witch.”

I snapped my head around, no
longer letting my gaze be drawn in by the glum view of the grey sky
above
.
“Vinnie? Are you serious?” A light but scared lilt of laughter
filtered through my voice.

Uncle Vinnie was the black sheep of
the family. Which was frankly incredible considering who our family
consisted of.

Vinnie was a car dealer. Not a
witch, not a wizard, not any kind of magical creature, just a car
salesman. A
used
car salesman.

He always wore beige suits with these
horrendously vivid blue bow ties. In his front pocket would be a
scrunched, dirty, handkerchief. He had a single gold tooth that
always glinted, no matter what light he was under. And his black
hair was so slicked back it could be used as a grease
mine.

“He is a good boy, he’ll give us a good
deal,” my grandmother assured me.

A good deal? All of his cars were
trash. Complete and utter junk. And yet somehow he managed to sell
them. I drove past his car dealership on the way to work, and
everything I saw always made my stomach turn. Old cars, dents in
the fenders, actual junk on the front seat. Somehow the man kept up
a living though, somehow he kept on selling his wares.

I say somehow, I actually knew exactly
why. Despite the fact he wasn't a witch or wizard technically, he
still came from a magical family, and it gave him certain
advantages where persuasion was involved.

Woe betide if you were a careful
shopper who frequented Vinnie’s used car dealership. Despite the
fact you had very much wanted a nice, compact, new, affordable
hatchback, you would be driving away in a 1970s low-slung thing
with a dent in the back, rips in the front seat, and a ridiculous
noise emanating from the engine.

But somehow you would be smiling as if
you’d just won the lottery.

“Isn't there some other way?” I tried
desperately.

My grandmother didn't bother to
answer.

Because there was no other way.
Neither of us had any money, I no longer had a job, and the only
people who were going to sell us a car were going to be
family.

“Okay, now eat up, and straighten up while
you're doing it. Do you think a powerful witch sits at the table
playing with her knees and staring with a depressed look on her
face out at the grey clouds above?”

I didn't answer.

“Of course she doesn't. Take it from me,”
Granny thumbed her pearls one after the other, “you sit straight,
you have a mean look in your eye, you have brushed hair, you have a
silk, not flannelette, dressing gown,” she said with a growl. “In
short, you look like a regal queen.”

Rolling my eyes, I plucked up my fork
and started my salad. Salad. Yes, that's right, it was breakfast,
my life was breaking down, and I was eating something
green.

I would never get used to
this.

But unless I fixed my life,
shored up the
defense of this house, and managed to stay away from the
trouble that would inevitably follow a witch down on her times, I
wouldn't have to get used to it; I wouldn't live through the
week.

After breakfast I got dressed,
though, I say
I
got dressed; Granny picked the clothes.

I was usually a sensible girl.
Not stylish, but very practical. An ordinary black skirt, a white
shirt, maybe a splash of
color if I felt like wearing a necklace.
Everything fit, everything was comfortable, and nothing made me
stand out.

Well now, as I looked at myself in the
bathroom mirror, one of my eyes twitching, I didn't know what to
say.

Somehow Granny had conjured up clothes
that I was damn sure hadn't been in the house previously. I was
wearing a dress. I hardly ever wore dresses, especially not in
weather like this.

“Stop looking at yourself like that, and
don't play with the hem.” Granny leaned on the bathroom door,
crossed her arms, and shook her head.

“How exactly am I going to wear a summer
dress today? It's almost winter,” I locked my hands on my hips and
turned to face her. “And this dress has such a big skirt, the first
breath of wind is going to send it flapping over my face and
everybody is going to see my knickers.”

At the word knickers, one of
her perfectly arched eyebrows twitched up
. “Do you think a powerful witch says
the word knickers?”