Quit Your Witchin' (Bless Your Witch Book 4) Read online

  Milly stroked its head. “I heard there was a dinner going on over here, so I thought I’d join the fun.”

  “Um. That thing’s not going to eat me, is it?”

  “Nah. It’s not hungry. Just ate a rat.”

  Sera popped up beside me. “Ah!” She shuddered. Then she slicked back her hair, regaining her composure. “Where’s Polly?”

  Milly shrugged. “I’m giving him a break.”

  “By torturing him with a snake?”

  Milly frowned. “Listen, toots, we’ve all got to do things that make us uncomfortable from time to time. It’s good for Polly. Puts some hair on his chest.”

  “He’s made of wood,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  Well, I could see this conversation wasn’t going anywhere.

  I swept the air with my hand. “Come on in. We’d be glad to add one more.” I brought my finger to my lips. “But no talk about you-know-what. Reid’s boyfriend is here.”

  “What?” Milly said.

  “Ix-nay on the agic-may.”

  She squinted. “What?”

  “Magic,” I hissed. “No talking about it.”

  Milly nodded. “You won’t get one peep out of me.”

  Sera scratched her ear. “Sure.”

  Milly sat in the extra chair I found for her. “So what’s this I hear about a body being found in the gym, Roman? We got a serial killer on the loose?”

  Roman coughed into his napkin. “Hardly. No ID on the victim, but he happened to have a picture of himself in his wallet.”

  “Like a snapshot?” I asked.

  “No, more like a wallet-sized studio pic.”

  I quirked an eyebrow. “Was there anyone else in it?”

  Roman forked a glob of dressing. “Nope.” He popped it in his mouth and pulled a wallet from his back pocket. “Here it is.”

  I stared at the image. A middle-aged man with brown hair and a bushy mustache sat in front of a background that looked like a high school picture twenty years too late, replete with a soft gray backdrop and laser beams.

  I was surprised the guy wasn’t holding his pet cat. “He has kind eyes.”

  “Let me see,” Reid said, snatching the pic. “I’ve never heard of anyone having kind eyes.”

  Rick peered over her shoulder. “If you ask me, he looks smug. Like he’s asking for someone to punch him in the face.”

  We all stared at Rick, waiting for the joke.

  Reid rubbed his arm. “Oh Rick, you’re such a kidder.”

  Rick said nothing.

  “He looks familiar,” Boo said.

  Now the conversation really died.

  “What?” Roman said.

  Boo nodded. “He does. Looks familiar.”

  Milly met my gaze. “Tell us how, Boo.”

  “Well, let me see.” He pinched the picture between two fingers and studied it. “Seems to me there’s something about those eyes. Like Dylan said, they’re kind.”

  Roman scrubbed a hand down face. “Is that all? Just the eyes?”

  “No. There’s something else, too. Can’t put a finger on it, but I guarantee that man’s a wizard.”

  You could have heard a spec of sawdust fall through the air. All eyes widened. Milly dismissed it with a wave. “Oh well, cat’s out of the bag now.”

  Rick perked up. “You mean that guy plays Dungeons & Dragons with all the other losers on Saturdays at the library? Is that how he’s a wizard?”

  “Yep,” I said quickly. “Exactly.”

  “Are you sure?” Roman asked Boo.

  Boo’s gaze flickered back to the picture. He stroked his whiskers and said, “Pretty sure.” He glanced at Milly. “Would you care to enlighten us as to why you have a boa constrictor around your neck?”

  “To liven things up. Keep people in line. Not to mention, personal protection. You never know when you might need a snake.”

  “I take it he’s magic.”

  I slapped a palm to my forehead.

  Milly shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, toots. As soon as I arrived, I knew we’d be doing some memory erasing.”

  “But we’re trying to be good. I’m trying to be good.”

  She ripped open a roll and slathered a pat of butter on it. “Then close your ears. No big deal. Besides, it’ll give me time to teach you the correct way to do the spell.”

  Grandma Hazel fluffed her hair. “That’s exactly what they need, Milly. Correct instruction.” She flashed me a triumphant grin. “Now you don’t have an excuse not to learn it.”

  “Great,” I mumbled.

  Milly wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Since that’s decided, let’s get to the juicy stuff. I heard there’s a new witch in town.”

  Rick whistled. “I don’t know about a witch, but there’s sure some hot new store owner.”

  “Bro, not the way to talk in front of your lady,” Brock chastised.

  “And you like this guy?” I added to Reid.

  She sniffled. “He’s only joking. Right, Rick? You’re only joking.”

  Rick smacked his lips. “Of course. I didn’t notice any new folks in town. Especially not a tall, leggy one who dresses like a stripper.”

  Grandma fluffed her hair. “Well, I did. Saw her putting up her sign. She’s opening a clothing shop right across the street from Dylan.” Grandma reached over and patted my hand. “Dear, I hope she isn’t competition for you, because in the looks department you don’t stand a chance.”

  “Thanks, Grandma. As a matter of fact, as Milly said, she’s going to be direct competition.”

  “Oh? What’s her power?” Grandma said.

  I glanced at Rick, who was way into the conversation. I didn’t want to talk too much about witches, but like Milly said, his memory was going to have to be wiped anyway, so who cared?

  “Claims she can seduce folks with her clothes.”

  “She can seduce me anytime,” Rick said.

  “Really?” I said to Reid. “You still want to date him?”

  “He’s not normally like this,” she whimpered.

  Grandma tsked. “Not a good power to have. At the outset it might seem all well and wonderful. But it’s dangerous. Reminds me of the time the fairies wanted to give me some pixie dust. Told me it would make me fly. But you know what?”

  “What?” Sera asked.

  Grandma jabbed the air with her finger. “It didn’t work because I wasn’t a fairy.”

  I nodded. “And the point is?”

  “Some people will buy the clothes thinking they’re love potions,” Milly snarled. “A girl buys an outfit and wears it for her boyfriend, hoping he’ll propose. What happens is that the boy falls a little in love with the girl, but he also falls in love with the witch who made it.”

  “Not good,” I said. Mental note. Do not buy any of Dewy’s clothes.

  “What’s the witch’s name?” Milly asked.

  “Dewy Dewberry,” I said.

  She arched a brow. “I know that name.”

  “You do?”

  Milly nodded.

  “Is she in the witch registry?” Sera said. There was an official Registry of Witches. I’d never seen the thing, but my sisters and I knew of its existence.

  Milly gnawed on a roll. “No, she’s not on the official registry.”

  “She’s not?” I said.

  “No. Only good witches are on that.”

  I frowned. “Then how do you know her name?”

  “Because there’s an unofficial registry.”

  Sera arched an eyebrow. “An unofficial registry? Why didn’t you tell us about this before?”

  “Because it’s classified. Not everyone knows about it,” Milly said.

  Slowly, realization dawned on me. “And let me guess—that unofficial registry holds all the bad witches.”

  Milly picked a piece of food from her teeth. “That’s right. So guess how I know Dewy’s name?”

  I gasped. “Because she’s on the unofficial registry.”

  Mi
lly winked. “You got it, toots.”

  FOUR

  “Tell me about Dewy Dewberry,” I said to Milly.

  Sera, Reid and I stood on her front porch. A wind blasted across, tinkling her wooden wind chimes. I wrapped my arms tight over my chest.

  “What do you want to know?” Milly said.

  I pushed past her. “Everything.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Sera said. “I put the BE RIGHT BACK sign up on my door, which gives me about ten minutes, tops.”

  When I stepped inside Milly’s old two-story home, the first thing I noticed was Polly Parrot. He screeched and flew over, perching on my shoulder. I tickled his chin.

  “He’s wood, you know,” Reid said.

  “I know that. But he might like to be petted,” I said. “Where’s that terrible snake of yours?”

  Milly caned across the room. “He’s in the bathroom. Polly keeps trying to peck his eyes out.”

  “Self-preservation,” I said. “Can’t blame him there.”

  Milly lowered herself onto a chair and splayed her legs on either side of her cane. She wore stereotypical old-woman clothing of a bland knee-length skirt, support hose, and black square orthopedic shoes.

  Milly scowled. “You want to look at the unofficial registry.”

  Sera yanked off her gloves. “We only want to know the dirt on Dewy.”

  Milly glared at us. “Why?”

  “Because I think she wants to steal my boyfriend.” I sighed, rubbing the worry lines from my forehead.

  Milly cackled. What a sensitive grandmother I had. “What makes you say that?”

  I crossed my arms. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that she brushed her boobs up against him and then later told me she could seduce anyone, might have had something to do with it. Plus she was super creepy, asking questions about how we’ve worked magic in front of regular people and not been punished for it.”

  Milly tipped her head from side to side. “So you want the dirt on her, eh?”

  “As much as you’ve got.”

  She rose and caned over to a bookshelf. I scanned the titles. They looked completely normal. Cookbooks, some Mark Twain, a few romance novels. Nothing out of the ordinary. Though I had to say, of all the people I knew, Milly seemed the least likely to be interested in a little bit of romance.

  But I’d been known to be wrong before.

  She washed a hand over the case. A shimmering wave buoyed outward. The bookshelves transformed from their bright and cheery colors to dark hues, thick casings and wide bindings.

  “What?” Sera said.

  “You didn’t think I actually read that stuff, did you?”

  Sera flicked a streak of hair from her face. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Ha! Had you fooled.”

  “They didn’t fool me,” Reid chirped. “Not a bit. I knew it was a fake.”

  I rolled my eyes. “No you didn’t.”

  Milly pointed to a thick black tome. “One of you grab that.”

  I hoisted the book from the case. It weighed close to five pounds. Scallop-edged yellow paper protruded from the side. I laid it on the table with a huff. Gilded script with curled letters read Registry of Witches.

  We all crouched around.

  Milly rested her cane on a chair. She spread her fingers over the book and said, “Open sesame.”

  I quirked a brow.

  “Best password on the planet. No one ever expects it,” she said.

  The book tore open, and pages flipped as if a wind were blowing it. Glittering magical dust fluttered up into the air. My sisters and I took a collective step backward.

  “What do you want to see, Milly Jones?”

  The book talked! I glanced around to make sure no one else had entered the room. That in fact the book had spoken. Yep, it was only the four of us. The ancient tome—or recent tome, or book, or whatever—had a voice and used it.

  In fact, it kinda sounded like James Earl Jones.

  “I need to know about the doings of a particular witch.”

  “And which witch would that be?” the voice boomed.

  Seriously, it was like having Darth Vader in the house. A chill raced down my spine.

  “You old jokester,” Milly said.

  The book laughed. “Like my alliteration?”

  Milly thumbed her nose. “Which witch would that be? Book, you got me there!”

  “Please, call me Reggie.”

  “Reggie?” Sera said.

  Reggie swiveled toward Sera. “Who is this?”

  “My granddaughter, Sera.”

  “Nice to meet you,” it said. “Yes, the name Reggie is a nickname for the Registry of Witches.”

  “But we’re not even looking for the official registry,” Reid said.

  “And who is this?” Reggie said.

  Milly introduced them.

  “What is it you seek, Milly Jones?” Reggie asked.

  Milly laid her palms flat on the open book and said, “I need to see the other side. The dark side of the light. The place where there is mystery and past, the place where the others rest.”

  Reggie swirled round and round, creating a tornado of sparkling magic above it. My hair lifted, and I edged back, hoping the thing didn’t explode in my face.

  Pages rippled and turned until the book was at its last page—a blank one. Then dark block letters appeared—Unofficial Registry of Witches.

  “Whoa,” Reid said. “This is serious stuff.”

  “How does it work?” Sera whispered to Milly. “Is this the real book or what?”

  Reggie shivered. “I am a copy of the official registry. The original sits in a secret place and is guarded by the council of witches. When something is added or deleted from that book, the information eventually trickles to me and my brothers. Since it was declared that only good witches could exist in that book, the unofficial registry was created.”

  “For bad witches,” Milly said.

  “Why not just add bad doings in the official registry?” Sera asked.

  Milly snorted. “Because the witch council doesn’t like to think that their own kind do bad things—and when witches do turn bad, the masses don’t need to know about it. At least that was their thought process. But with the rise of magic stealing, all that changed. Bad deeds needed to be known because the deeds themselves were, at times, hideous. That’s why your father created the unofficial registry.”

  Sera’s voice trembled. “Our father?”

  Milly nodded. “Your father created it in the hopes that it would help others. He died before it was presented to the council.”

  Reggie cleared his throat. “But his work lives on. Before he passed over, Jeffrey Apel created a spell that updates me automatically. When a witch does a bad deed, it ends up in here.”

  “How many copies of you are there? The official registry, I mean?” Sera asked.

  “A few. Most of them are in important places, like at the witch police headquarters, but some are with individuals at secret locations. In case something destroyed all the known copies, there would still be backups.”

  Milly cleared her throat. “Does that answer all the pansy-bottomed questions? ’Cause we need to get on with this.”

  No one said anything.

  Milly stared at Reggie. “I need to know about one Dewy Dewberry. What event put her on the bad registry?”

  “Let me see,” Reggie said. Pages flipped to the right. It stopped. The pages flipped back left. “Ahh. Here she is.”

  A picture of Dewy appeared on the thick vellum. Her hair was a little shorter and her boobs weren’t as big, but it was the same witch.

  Reggie cleared his throat. Or binding. Or whatever. “It’s hard to say if Dewy was ever really on the straight and narrow. She always got in trouble at school. Minor things like setting a pile of leaves on fire or even locking a teacher out of the classroom. Events that could have ironed themselves out had Miss Dewberry allowed them to.”

  “But they didn�
�t,” Milly said.

  “No. Five years ago Miss Dewberry was caught in Fairyland trying to steal a unicorn.”

  “A unicorn?” I said.

  The book pivoted toward me. Its pages pulsed as if breathing. “Who’s this?”

  “My granddaughter, Dylan.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Majesty.”

  I took it that Reggie was referring to my short stint as Queen Witch of the South. I shook my head. “I’m not queen anymore. Now, I’m just Dylan.”

  “As you say, Just Dylan.”

  “No, you don’t have to put anything in front of my name. It’s just Dylan. Not queen.”

  “Yes, Just Dylan. I understand.”

  No, you don’t. But whatever.

  Sera leaned forward. “So Dewy was caught trying to steal a unicorn? Who on earth would try that?”

  “It wasn’t any unicorn Miss Dewberry was trying to steal. It was a baby unicorn.”

  I knitted my brows together. “A baby? Why would she take one of them?”

  Milly drummed her fingers on the table. “Babies are known to be more powerful than adults in the first year or two of their lives. Their magic is strong.”

  A wave of dread spread over my body. “So do you think she wanted to skin the baby for its power?”

  “Or take its horn. Reggie?” Milly said.

  “No one knows. Miss Dewberry never admitted to the why of her crime. Luckily she was caught outside Fairyland. The unicorn was safely returned to its parents.”

  “So that put her on the bad registry,” I said.

  “It did, Just Dylan. She served three years in witch prison and was released. Her whereabouts are currently unknown.”

  “Oh they’re known all right,” Reid said. “She’s here in Silver Springs.”

  The edges of Reggie’s cover curled up. “She is?”

  “Sure is,” Reid said.

  “Mmm. Do you perchance get to see her on a regular basis?”

  I sighed. “She works across the street from us.”

  His pages flipped from side to side. “Might I come with you so that I may keep abreast of her activities?”

  I cocked a brow in Milly’s direction. “Do you think it should come with us?”