Authors: Heather Topham Wood
An abrupt knock on my door pulled me out of a restless sleep. I had tossed and turned for most of the night in my new bed. The house was eerily quiet—I kept hearing every creak of the structure settling and every small animal noise from outside. I was used to sleeping with a radio or TV on through the night. My room was without either, and it would take some getting used to.
Mason’s little joke about the dead witches also hadn’t helped. My nightmares were a collection of my deepest fears. I saw haggard faces with blood dripping from their fingertips, watching me as I slept. They uttered curses and spat at me, as I stayed motionless on the bed. In the middle of the night, I sat up terrified as the remnants of the nightmare drifted away.
I had no idea how a witch in training should dress, so I simple put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. After I slipped into a pair of flip-flops and tied back my long hair into a ponytail, I went into the hallway to search for Stella. Cooking smells drifted up from the floor below which made me guess she had already started breakfast.
Finding the kitchen was like making my way through a maze. The house had more twists and turns than I could keep up with. If the house was built in the nineteenth century, I guessed the complexity of the layout came from several additions made over the years. As I passed through the rooms, I saw a living room, gathering room, pantry, laundry room, and two bathrooms. When I entered the kitchen, I suspected that there were several other rooms that I have yet to come across.
The house seemed much less intimidating during the light of day. Although the décor was ancient, everything appeared well taken care of. The furniture was a hodge podge of styles from the past five decades. I guessed Stella was a pack rack by the amount of things that littered her home. I seriously doubted anyone needed that many afghan throws decorating the pieces of furniture.
The kitchen looked straight out of the 1970s. White linoleum countertops and floors were set against the bright yellow paint. A polka dot border was hung over top of the white cabinets. The stove must have been a recent replacement since it had an electric stovetop with digital controls. Stella stood in front of a frying pan with her back to me. She made no acknowledgment of my presence.
If I was going to be here for a year, I had to encourage a level of civility with my instructor. If I had to venture a guess, it would be that staying on the witch’s good side was vital to my survival. “Smells good.” When she didn’t answer, I asked, “Do you need help with anything?”
“No, just sit.”
I sat down at the round table in the center of the kitchen. Pulling out one of the wooden chairs, I noted only two settings at the table. I guessed Mason wasn’t eating with us. I was surprised over my line of thinking. However, I had to admit his presence was soothing. His aunt treated me with disdain, and the idea of being alone with her for a year was unappealing. Mason was close to my age and seemed nice enough. The fact that he was breathtakingly gorgeous was a moot point.
A plate of eggs and bacon appeared before me. I was starving and realized I had nothing to eat since the burger at Tanner’s house yesterday afternoon. It was funny to reflect on my birthday party yesterday. It was already starting to seem like a lifetime ago.
We ate in silence. Once the meal was over, Stella allowed me to clear the plates and do the dishes. After I finished, she gestured for me to follow her down a corridor off of the kitchen. We came to a door with a padlock in place. Stella pulled a key out of her pocket and unlocked the door. I followed her into the room and gazed around in amazement.
The workshop resembled a new age shop. In the center of the room was a large wooden table with several stools arranged around it. The surface was covered with empty bottles, droppers, scissors, knives, and a half dozen mortar and pestles. To my tremendous relief, there was nary a bubbling cauldron in sight.
The walls were covered with top to bottom shelving. The shelves were stock full of bottles and jars that contained different liquids and plant cuttings. There was also an immense collection of candles in all colors and sizes. Stella must have used this room to prepare all of her concoctions for use with her spells.
She pointed to a door in the back of the room. “That door leads to my greenhouse. I found it’s easier and less expensive to grow most of the herbs I need on my own.”
Stella walked over to a handmade bookcase that was erected on the far wall. The bindings of the tomes were gray and torn in spots. I could feel the power that radiated from them and I wondered at the age of the volumes.
After perusing the spines, she pulled out an encyclopedia size book and set it on the worktable. Dragging out a stool from beneath the table, she then motioned me over. I sat and gazed down at the leather bound book. A few roman numerals were inked on the front, but it had no other distinguishing marks.
“This is my family’s book of herbology. It has a listing of every herb we use in our craft. Each listing will have the properties of the plant and the potential uses. We’ll start off by having you memorize the contents of this book,” she instructed.
I swallowed hard. As I opened the book, I saw each entry was handwritten in tiny script. The thought of having to memorize all of the plants found listed was intimidating. My grades were solid, but the idea of sitting for hours and reading encyclopedia entries on plants was mind numbing.
Stella’s hawk eyes noticed my tentative expression. “I will be testing you to make sure you’re learning the plants.”
“This is going to take me a long time to memorize,” I said uncertainly.
“I realize that,” she said with exasperation. “But you can’t just jump into spell casting. In most cases, the herbs are the catalyst for each spell. Using the wrong herb during a cast can have treacherous results. Once you have the herbs memorized, we can move onto learning the chants to give them the power they need to perform the desired acts.”
“I better get to work then,” I stated with determination and started to read.
***
After a full eight hours in the workshop and only a short break for lunch, I had trudged through no more than a tenth of the way through the book. The listings were arranged in no particular order and this made it more challenging to memorize the contents. Plus, there were typically at least four to five uses for an individual herb. For instance, rose oil was used in love potions, but also in spells to cure heart and digestive ailments. Once the extracts were combined with other herbs, their uses compounded.
Stella said I could take the book up to my room to study before I went to bed at night. After several hours of reading in bed, I rubbed at my tired eyes. The fine print and handmade drawings were indecipherable in spots and I found myself squinting to construe words on the page.
Hearing a sound outside of my window prompted me to place the book on my nightstand and investigate the noise. I pulled apart the curtains and saw the headlights of Mason’s pickup truck. I sighed as I saw his taillights move down the driveway and away from the estate. At least someone was able to escape. I wondered if I could devise a plan to hide in the bed of the pickup and hitch a ride back home once I got in town.
I set the curtains back in place and returned to my bed. As much as a part of me revolted over the thought of staying here, I had to admit it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Stella was a good cook and she was almost pleasant with me at dinner. She asked me a few polite questions about my studies in school and my interests. I think she suspected I would fall asleep at the table reading instead of trying my best to absorb all of the information.
At first, the herbology encyclopedia was dry reading. However, the more I perused the contents of the book, the more intrigued I became. This wasn’t a traditional book with the suggested uses of herbs for only medicinal purposes. Some of the indications for the ingredients were chilling. When I came across sea salt, I read the mineral was used to help banish demons back to hell.
My world had completely transformed in two days. Before, I was worried about sleeping with my boyfriend for the first time. Now, I had witches, demons, and curses to contend with. Normal had disappeared to parts unknown.
Each day during my first week at Stella’s home was mirror images. We would wake up and have breakfast before heading to her workshop. I would normally sit and read while she worked on mixing different herbs, oils, and minerals together to create her magical concoctions. From time to time, she would leave me alone in the workshop while she entertained clients who would come to see her.
Stella took each person that darkened her door to a private room off of the first floor foyer. When I would spy one of her visitors, I attempted to guess their reasons for coming to see the witch. Were they unlucky in love? Were they facing financial ruin? It was hard to speculate from the glimpses, and I was eager to discover more about Stella’s powers.
The monotony was broken up a bit on my fourth day at the house. Stella toured her greenhouse with me. She wanted me to start working with the plants in order to gain a better familiarity with them. Although the air was stifling in the greenhouse, it was preferable to walk around instead of sitting on a hard stool for hours at a time. I brought the encyclopedia along with my own journal to jot down notes on the different species Stella cultivated in the greenhouse.
Stella must have guessed the sameness of each day was starting to wear on me. On the Saturday of my first week, she sent me to the greenhouse with a task. Handing me a pair of gardening shears, several plastic bags, and a list, I was told to gather up the clippings required by her.
The July sun made the temperatures inside the greenhouse unbearable by mid-day. I had opted for a tank top and a pair of lightweight khaki shorts to remain as cool as possible. Perspiration had made my hair start to stick to the back of my neck. Even as I pulled my hair up into a ponytail, I still felt overheated. I took another greedy gulp of my bottled water before peering closely at a plant with prickly leaves. Crouching down, I tried to see if I could find any flowering buds.
I heard the opening of the door that led into the greenhouse from outdoors. Expecting to see Stella, I was surprised to see Mason enter. He didn’t notice me at first and proceeded to grab one of the shovels lined against the wall. His eyes locked on mine as I clamored to my feet.
“Hi,” I called.
He made his way over to where I stood and offered a tentative smile. “Hi, I see she has you working the greenhouse,” he remarked looking over at my piles of clippings. “How’s the training going?”
“Okay, I guess,” I shrugged. “Stella isn’t one to provide positive feedback, but she hasn’t threatened to turn me into a cockroach in the past two days, so I guess I’m doing well enough.”
Mason laughed. After his laughter died away, I shuffled awkwardly from side to side. To break the silence, I blurted, “I haven’t seen you this week.”
His smile was curious and I looked away embarrassed. The truth was I had wanted to see Mason this week. It was lonely studying by myself for hours and not being permitted to use my phone or laptop. Since Mason was nice to me on my arrival, I was hoping he would be around more.
“I kind of do my own thing,” he answered. “My aunt usually gives me a list a mile long of stuff to do around the property.”
“Oh,” I said. Trying to get rid of the awkwardness, I joked, “Well, maybe when she teaches me to make mops and buckets dance around, I can help with the chores here.”
“
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
,” he said and nodded in approval. “That’s funny.”
I continued, “It’s weird to imagine being able to do anything magical. I don’t sense anything different inside of me.”
“My aunt is a very deliberate person. She wouldn’t put the time into training you if she didn’t think you would turn out to be as skilled a spellcaster as she is.”
I gave him a wry grin. “It’s very surreal to have a seemingly normal conversation about magic and witches.”
He made a non-committal sound in the back of his throat. “I guess it’s normal to me since I grew up around it.”
“You were raised knowing your aunt was a witch?” I formed the statement as a question.
“She’s actually my great aunt. She and my grandmother were sisters. My grandmother was also a witch and died when I was in third grade.” He hesitated before adding, “My mother was a witch, but she died when I was a baby.”
I choked out, “I’m so sorry.”
His blue eyes darkened. “You don’t have to apologize. You weren’t the one to kill her.” He wiped his forearm to remove the perspiration from his brow. “Aren’t you overheated in here? How long have you been working?”
“It’s taken me four hours to find three of the plants,” I admitted softly. “I have one more to go.”
Mason pursued his full lips and whistled. “What’s the hold up? Aren’t the plants all labeled?”
“Stella took them off.” During my first tour of the greenhouse, handwritten labels identified each plant. To force me to memorize the greenery, Stella had taken them all down.
“Well, what are you looking for?”
“Prickly poppy,” I recited. “I think they should be flowering by now, but I can’t find any plants that match the description from the book.” I held up Stella’s book to show the drawing of the plant to further illustrate my point.
“Wait a sec,” he instructed and disappeared into the storage closet. A second later, he emerged with a pair of gardening gloves. “The plant is poisonous so you have to be careful when handling it.”
I put on the gloves and he gestured for me to follow him. Two rows over, there was a group of flowering plants that had already bloomed. I had already checked these plants and was about to protest until Mason pushed a few of the other pots aside. There in the midst of dozens of flower was a single flowerpot containing the prickly poppy.
“The poppy is easy to remember because the fruit of the flower is in the center and surrounded by prickles,” he explained.
“Thank you so much,” I said and shook my head in wonder. “I would’ve been here for hours trying to find it.”
“No problem. Just don’t tell Aunt Stella I showed you,” he laughed with a wink.
Okay, this is not good, I thought, because for a moment, I had the distinct sense of butterflies in my belly. I forced Tanner’s perfect face and body in my head. Yes, Mason was extremely attractive, but I couldn’t latch onto the only guy in my vicinity. Mason was beautiful in the way of a renaissance painting. Nice to look at, but keep your hands off of it. I loved Tanner and a guy with a mysterious smile and gorgeous blue eyes couldn’t mess that up for me.
“Looking forward to your day off tomorrow?”
“Yes,” I enthused. “I can’t wait to call Tanner…” I stumbled momentarily, “my boyfriend.”
Mason looked amused over my fumbling and only nodded. “Well, it’s going to be scorching hot for the next few days. You should go swimming if you can pry the phone away from your ear tomorrow.”
“Swimming?” I couldn’t recall seeing a pool. Not that I had a chance to tour much of the property. I figured if I ever had any time on my own, I would get to wander around and explore.
“You can swim in the pond. The water feels great this time of year,” he elaborated.
“Thanks, maybe I will,” I replied. “Well, I better get these plants back to your aunt in case she needs them.”
Mason nodded and sent a wave my way as he retrieved the shovel. I watched him leave out of the corner of my eye. Once the door closed behind him, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough. I needed to hear the reassuring tenor of Tanner’s voice and forget about anything or anybody else.