Rise of the Night Witch

Chapter 3.10 - Marissa is Tired

Recap: Marissa had some drama with her friends last time, but now she goes home.

It was three AM when I completed the sprint back home. Dad's Ford was in our garage, but before we talked, I had matters to settle in my basement.

It's hard to describe the beauty of a cauldron's subtle, simmering fumes and its delicate, bewitching smell when a potion was being brewed. I dropped the pieces of chopped-up Nuckealvee flesh into half a gallon of boiling water. A wooden frame carried my copper cauldron above my Bunsen burner while I stirred the boiling pot with a ladle and watched the flesh dissolve in black liquid. Protein powder got added for the symbolic effect. If I drank it, it'd form a sympathetic link between me and the Nuckelavee. Siris would read its spiritual essence as if it were a DNA blueprint and transfigurate my body in a way that mimicked the monster's strength and resilience. But I needed to contribute my life energy for that to work. And that required training.

A cloud of aether shimmered under the passionate light of burning candles and lifted my consenting brownie Bill into the air. My house goblin weighed sixty-to-seventy lbs; much more than the backpack I struggled to lift when Darcy tested me. My app measured 350W equivalent, all thanks to the despair of the people at the broken library. It wasn't long until I'd lift my mass into the air and fly on a piece of wood as a real witch should.

Siris gazed at me from beside the boiling kettle. "Don't you feel weird?" he asked. "You're literally doing dark magic in a black robe under a circle of candles in your basement."

I dropped Bill. "I'm not weird. You're the talking cat, not me."

"I'm serious, boss. You need rest."

"Or an insomnia potion!"

"No, you need rest. After talking to your Dad."

"Since when did you care for my beauty sleep?" I asked.

Siris strolled around the cauldron like a restless dog. He lifted his nose and smelled the fumes as if he tried to make sure I hadn't secretly added any innocent puppies to my brewage of forbidden magic. Given how he was normally even more lazy and unmotivated than me on my worst days, his concern for me was worrisome.

"Okay," I said. "I know what you're thinking. Anything that makes me as strong as a monster also makes me as evil as a monster. But it's, like, a backup, backup, backup plan. It's what I do when plans A to Y fail."

"You don't have that many plans," Siris said.

Since when did he become so humorless? "You know what that bookshelf would've done to me had you not pushed me away? I'd be flat as a pancake! What if that happens next time and I get less lucky?"

"Sounds like you're angry that you can't make Molotov cocktails anymore," Siris said. "Maybe you ask Darcy or your Dad before there is a next time?"

Yeah, just talk to Dad. You make it sound easier than it is.

"It isn't rocket science," Siris said. "You take your bathrobe off, walk up the stairs, and-"

A noisy bat call screeched through my basement. I took my Magia Phone from my bag and pressed the green pentagram to accept my WitchApp call by Wizard Cornelius – the Council's disciplinarian and executioner. Oh, what fun times waited for me.

"Carter," he spat out my name like a curse. "What took you so long to accept my call?"

"Jeez, Cornelius," I said. "You sound like you started your day with a bowl full of Angry Wizard Flakes."

"Your disrespect disgusts me, Carter. What did you hope to find in the library that Sir Magnus and his knights could not find?"

"Anything at all?" I answered. "I found a mare, a Nuckelavee, and critical information about the bad guys' plan; not bad for one night."