Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(15)
Gil holds us there for a minute, then leans in close, his voice so quiet there’s no way anyone else can hear, and says, “They never told you, did they? You have to let your mom know that she can’t hide the truth about your powers forever.”
It is like he’s dumped an entire cauldron full of water over me, extinguishing all of the zing, zap, zoom rushing through me only a second ago.
“Too late. Everyone already knows I have no power,” I say, as if his words out of left field didn’t hit like a slap in the dark. “Can you just float closer to the shelf now so I can grab my book?”
He shakes his head and sighs. “Whatever you say.”
On the next breath, the book is within reach and I grab it. Then, we are sinking downward and that sizzle is back, the scent of movie theater popcorn so clear in my nose that I’m starting to wonder if I’m having some kind of stroke or something. Then the world bobbles around us as we dip forward and back, twirling this way and that way in the air. Something jerks us apart, sending the book flying outward, and my terrified squeak escapes before I can stop it.
Gil calls out a steadying spell and grabs me and pulls me close as we float face-to-face at a slow pace, my arms wrapped around his neck and my pulse racing, but not because we almost went splat on the bookstore’s floor.
“I’ve got you,” he says, his lips so close to mine that from some angles it has to look like we’re kissing.
Don’t judge, but if he did kiss me right now at this moment, I’d be all in.
But then my feet touch the floor, and he lets me go. For a second, it feels like I’m going to face-plant without his support, but then the rest of the bookshop starts to come into focus. Vance is looking up from his book, and a handful of witches with their cell phones aimed right at us are at the end of the aisle.
My stomach sinks as I clamp my teeth together tight to distract myself from the way my nose itches—a sure sign that embarrassed tears are on their way. Great. I did it again. Keeping my head down, I quick-walk past the witches and toward the bookshop’s door.
“Hey, Tilda,” Gil calls out. “You forgot your book.”
I turn and he sends my sister’s book through the air to me.
“Oh, Gil, you’re so funny,” one of the witches says with a giggle.
And to think he could have just magically sent the book flying to me in the first place. Had he wanted to embarrass me? Did he not realize that I was more than capable of doing that on my own?
I snag the book out of the ether and clutch it to my chest, shooting a questioning look to Vance. The unicorn shifter nods in an unspoken acknowledgment that he’ll put the book on the family tab, and I head out the door, my chin high, if more than a little wobbly.
Chapter Eight
Gil . . .
There is only one way to get the answers I need about Tilda, and it involves a raccoon I grabbed out of a trash can in the park, a bag of gummy worms, and a bottle of peanut butter whiskey.
Griselda swings open her front door after the second rap and before I can hit it a third time in a quick three-tap knock. Today her long white hair is pulled back into two ponytails shot through with bright purple that matches her Nirvana shirt. She’s finished off her outfit with black Doc Martens, cutoff jean shorts that look like they’ve had a run-in with a tree mulcher, a flannel tied around her waist, and a newly acquired watercolor wrist tattoo of a parakeet flipping the bird with its middle feather.
“Finally,” Griselda says, letting out a sigh of relief. “I’m starving.”
I pull the squirmy creature wearing a polka-dot bow tie back from her grasp. “Are you going to eat the raccoon?”
She rolls her eyes and swipes the bag from the corner store. “No, the gummy worms.”
After fishing out the worms from the bag, she hands the sack back to me, turns around, and heads toward her kitchen. I don’t have a choice but to follow with the bag, a wriggling raccoon I hope like hell has had its rabies shots, and a ton of questions. We make it back to Griselda’s kitchen, which also acts as her tarot reading space and is where she dries most of the herbs she uses in her potions.
It’s also the place where we came to an agreement. As one of the Resistance’s top agents, Griselda has the power to smuggle my parents out of The Beyond. All I had to do was share what insider knowledge I have about the Council after working with them for the past three years. Saying yes to that was the easiest decision I ever made. I don’t give a fuck about the Council, the Resistance, or their shadow war. Let them fight it out. I just want to make sure my parents are safe and to go somewhere neither side can find us.
She’d also helped me come up with the “dating” plan to conduct my research about Tilda’s powers, saying the cards pointed to it being beneficial for both of us. What the hell Tilda was getting out of it I had no idea, but it saved me several months’ worth of working myself into her life so I could run the tests.
Of course, that all changed the minute I realized what Tilda really was, which is why I am at Griselda’s house with a raccoon, candy, and alcohol.
At five feet on a good day, the sprite wanders through the large space with its huge windows without even having to consider all of the drying plants hanging from the rafters. At six feet four, it’s a different story for me. I have to dodge bunches of American pokeweed, wild celery, belladonna, and wolfsbane while the raccoon tries to steal the bag with the bottle from me.