Mathilda, SuperWitch (Mathilda's Book of Shadows #1)(66)

“You are powerful. You’ve no idea what powers you command. You are not a storm, you are a hurricane. You are not a wave, you are a tsunami. You are not a wind, you are a tornado. You are dangerous because you are foolish, stupid, unprepared. You think you’re taking this seriously but you walk up the footpath in high-heeled shoes worried about lettuce leaves. You worry about which man’s seed will create your children. You will be the end of the witch world as we know it and you will be the end of your Spellbounds. The gods and goddesses themselves fear your foolhardiness.”

Ack!

Drama, anyone?

I think I preferred her drunk and slurring.

But, she wasn’t done.

“You want to know why they hide your Prophesies? Because they foretell our misfortunes. Because they tell stories of you, Mathilda, The Chosen One, as our Apocalypse. Because they know that you are Disaster. And that, you silly, little fool, is with a capital ‘D’.”

Holy shit.

She kept going.

“You don’t even attempt to read your own feelings, your thoughts. You push away the important and worry about what color to varnish your toenails. Under your roof, you harbor a traitor. A traitor who you ache to touch you, your desire for him blinds you, corrupts you.”

Er, what? Was she talking about Ash?

She didn’t elaborate but she kept talking.

“Witches fear you, man is terrified of you, the supernatural and magical worlds wait in horror as you… bake… cookies.”

Oh dear Mother Earth and all her fluffy friends.

She kept right on going.

“It might be funny if it wasn’t the End of Days.”

Oh. My. Goddess.

“Luckily, I’ll be dead before it happens. So… cheers!”

And she lifted up her glass and downed the whole thing. Took my glass and downed that too. Then burped. Again.

I left her with that and, of my own volition, went inside and made myself a mojito.

I never much liked mint juleps.

I pulled out my trusty, old recipe box that Mom bought me before I started Home Ec in seventh grade. It was beaten up and ragged around the edges. I sat at the kitchen table and I sorted through it, card by raggedy-assed card until I found what I was looking for.

Then I walked back out to the garden where Althea looked like she was asleep under the sun.

“Wake up, you old bat,” I ordered.

She opened one eye and I shoved the recipe card in her face.

“Catarina’s Homemade Bleu Cheese Dressing!” I said, triumphantly, waving the card in her face. “No goat’s cheese and dried cranberries. None of that frou frou stuff. Just romaine hearts, homemade croutons and fresh bleu cheese dressing! Maybe some real bacon bits. Voila! A salad to-die-for.”

Althea sat up straight and opened her mouth but I interrupted her.

“If you think being mean to me is going to make me scamper off home, then you… and Agatha… have another think coming.”

She harrumphed.

“And, just so you know, I can wear high heels, be boy crazy, take your abuse and bake cookies and still kick Agatha’s sorry ass all across England and back again. All without the aid of manmade appliances. Or… maybe not entirely without them but only using them in a recreational, stress-relieving capacity.”

She had both her eyes open and she was now paying lots of attention.

I kept at her.

“Until I know that no one is going to shoot at you, or me, or until I figure out why I think you should be here, you’re stuck. I can promise you, those boys didn’t seem to care who they hit with their bullets. And it’s highly likely Agatha sent them. So don’t be thinking she’s loyal to you or anyone who’s caught in the crossfire, because she’s not. And I won’t have the life of a two hundred and three year old woman on my hands.”

Then I took a big breath and finished.

“And if you say anything mean about Ash again, no more mint juleps and we’ll magically lock the liquor cabinet and put a spell on you so that any beverage you touch turns to Kool-Aid. And you can call me a stupid girl as many times as you like, I still look hot in these shoes.”

And then I walked back into the house to make a batch of homemade bleu cheese dressing.

Chapter Nine

The Month of July

5 July

Yesterday at The Witches Dozen we had a big, ole, down and dirty, cheeseburgers, homemade macaroni salad, real baked beans, ooey, gooey cream cheesy-chocolaty Better than Robert Redford pudding Fourth of July party.

We even had fireworks.

Granted, they were amateur and fell off the back of one of Mavis’s “I know someone’s” truck but they were still great!

It was kickass!

Everyone had a good time.

English folk have gotten over the War of Independence (as they call it) so no hard feelings.

Best part, when Lucy arrived she was waving a copy of the Bristol Evening Post. She slapped the paper on the counter right next to the vat of Robert Redford and pointed at an article.

“Check that out! We’re famous!” she cried.

And there it was, our first review:

Bewitched, Bothered but not Bewildered

The Witches Dozen

By Nathan Montgomery

Food Critic

Rumor has been flying about The Witches Dozen, a small “American” Coffee House right on the seafront in a town not half an hour away from Bristol’s city centre.