Page 44 of Strike It Witch

“Cecil, if you swear to cease whatever havoc you’re about to wreak, I’ll share the jar of boozy jam I got from Trini with you.”

He snick-chittered his disapproval.

“No, you can’t have it all.” I peered over my shoulder at him. “What if I throw in a sour apple Four Loko?”

That did the trick. He pushed all the ingredients he’d been assembling into a pile, chanted a few hums and clicks, and the pile turned to ash. It smelled vile.

I propped open the door to the garden room with a rock. “That was a death potion.No death potions.” I shook my finger at him. “I’m already dealing with a lot. Don’t get me on the bad side of the goddesses for crafting dark magic, too.”

He squeak-tweeted back at me, his bulbous nose bright pink. The picture of innocence. Right.

“Fine. It wasn’t a death potion. It was something close, though. I recognized that combination of hemlock and nettle. You aren’t dealing with a newb here, gnome.”

He faced me for a moment longer then dashed down the leg of his workstation, across the clay tiles, and into a planter of wildflowers.

“There’d better be enough horehound left for my spell tonight,” I yelled after him.

The protection spell wasn’t complicated, but because I always went over it two times—measure twice, cast once—it took a lot out of me. And, of course, there was the soil issue. If the earth under the park had been cooperative, it would’ve been a breeze. Then again, if the soil had been cooperative, the saguaros would still be alive and we wouldn’t have needed the spell.

I went home after checking everything a second time. I needed rest to restore my energy and my magic.

Though the trailer was small, I’d managed to find places to stick plants. Succulents, ferns, and herbs grew in tiny pots tucked onto shelves and on precious counter space. I needed green things, growing things, living things around me as much as possible. It was important to my magic and my peace of mind.

My oldest plant, a cutting from aCrassula ovataI’d inherited from my mom, sat on a wall ledge above my flatscreen TV. Jade plants symbolized wealth and renewal, and Mom had always been partial to them.

Mom.

Gods, I wished she was here. And from my run-ins today, everyone else did, too.

“What were you thinking?” I asked the ceiling. “You call me because you need help with a spell then don’t wait for me to get here? I left the minute you called.” My throat burned and my eyes glazed with tears. “No matter how much you pissed me offat times, Ialwayscame when you called.” I sucked back a sob and burrowed into my pillow.

A familiar twinge of guilt bit me, a reminder that when she’d needed me most, I’d been hours away. Mom had taught me nearly everything I knew about magic. Though it had been—and still was—hard to live in her shadow, I would’ve given anything to have her back.

And not only so I could leave this place and start my real life, either.

I put on the radio, and easy-listening seventies songs played softly through the speakers. The final strains of Andy Kim’s “Rock Me Gently” were followed by “Moonlight Feels Right” by Starbuck. The band, not the coffee place.

Comforted, I snuggled back under my bedcovers, humming along until my brain stopped whirring. The music, my warm blanket, and the plants soothed me, and I dropped into sleep like I had a cement block chained to my leg.

Fennel woke me with a paw swipe straight to the face.

“Me. Ow.”

I awoke with a gasp, the heaviness of deep sleep clinging to me. “I’m up. What time is it?”

A glance at my phone told me it was nearly midnight. Time to get the spell started.

“How the heck do you get in here? This time I locked the doorandspelled it.”

“Meow,” he replied insouciantly and stalked into the kitchen.

“I’m going to figure it out someday, cat.”

I rolled to my feet and shuffled into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. I gave Fennel the last of the salmon from this weekend and threw a black sweatshirt over my head withLurk Laugh Loathewritten across it in macabre, gray letters.

When it was ready, I poured the entire pot into a thermos and added half a pint of whipping cream. I needed both the calories and the stimulant.

Cecil met Fennel and me at Orange’s grave by Maria Cervantés’s trailer. I knelt in front of the stones ringing the soil where its roots lay and dug a shallow hole. Cecil came up beside me, a burlap bundle in his arms. There were seven bundles total—one for each dead saguaro. I’d brought them with me, along with the coffee and a jug of water.

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