part0015

Clenched. My fists were ready again to cast the first defensive spell on the tip of my tongue. I turned sharply on the ground with my glasses tilted on my face from the jolt.

“Luna!” the woman screeched.

A wet sloppy tongue covered in drool collided with my cheek, while a paw pushed on a shoulder to pin me down.

I accepted the licking, screwing my eyes shut as I let out the breath held in my lungs.

“Luna!” she shouted again, snapping the lead and pulling the large dog closer. A hoarse cough came from the back of her throat as she shouted again.

He must’ve smelt Ivory on me. I stood, straightening my glasses out and dusting my clothes off at the knees and elbows. “It’s fine,” I said. The woman turned away, chasing after her dog as it left.

The more I came to Crescent Road, the stranger the place became.

On the way home, I checked my body. There was a slight tear in the back of my blouse and at an elbow. It was nothing a little magic wouldn’t fix or the sewing machine I swore I had inside the dusty spare room.

“Nora, Nora!” Greg called from his front garden as I passed.

“Hello,” I said, double checking to make sure I’d removed any signs I’d just been sat on the ground, knocked over by a dog.

He approached the fence of the garden, resting an arm on top of a rake. “I’ve just been to yours, but you weren’t in.”

I grinned, pointing at myself. “Nope, I’m right here.”

He laughed. “I see that.”

“What can I help you with?”

“More like, what can I help you with?”

I scrunched my brows together for a moment in thought. Perhaps I hadn’t cleaned myself as well as I thought my magic did. I brushed a hand through my hair. “I’m not sure,” I said.

“Well, your back garden,” he added. “I’ve been waiting to get my hands on it, wrangle the mess.”

My face blushed. “You’ve seen it?”

“I’ve seen it from the empty house beside yours,” he added. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I’d love to get in there and take a look at the situation.”

Well, that was the initiative. He had been on my mind earlier, and Ivory had mentioned the grass was now without rodents. It couldn’t hurt to have him come and look at it. “Whenever you’re free,” I said.

He dropped the rake and pulled his gloves off. “I can come by now,” he said.

“If it’s not a good time for you, then—”

I held a hand up. “Now’s great,” I said, taking a look at my wristwatch. “Perfect.”

Greg only lived a couple houses away from mine. We walked down the road, enjoying the shift in weather. The winds were gone, and the sun was out shining once again.

“I went to Maureen’s house,” I said.

He hummed. “Is she doing okay?”

“She has her own things going on,” I said. “I like the way she has decking in her garden. I’d like that. A shed, of course, perhaps a little compost heap.”

He pursed his lips into an ‘o’ shape. “Thinking of gardening?”

“Now I’ve taken on early retirement, I think it’s something I’d really like,” I said.

There weren’t many jobs witches had, most of us were entrepreneurs, starting businesses to exploit our Goddess-given gifts. I’d toyed with the idea of reading fortunes, but there were so many versions of it played on TV, I’d probably need to add a bunch of theatrics for people to think it was worth their time. Although, I knew this is what my mother was doing in Scotland.

“Well a compost heap is definitely great for fertilizing, and it’s great for recycling degradable foods for rich soil,” Greg said, explaining the benefits to me while I was away in thought.

Greg had already mapped out a mental plan of what he wanted to do with the garden. He continued to speak enthusiastically about the potential the garden had while I boiled water in a teakettle.

“Think it’s a good idea?” Greg asked.

I hummed in agreement, although I knew I hadn’t really been thinking about what he’d said. None of it had gone in. “Can you draw it out?” I asked, grabbing a blank envelope from a drawer.

“Sure, you have a—”

I handed him the paper and a pen. “Yep,” I said. “Do you want sugar or honey with your tea?”

“Honey,” he said.

He sketched out a short decking from the back door, adding in a little barbeque stand and couple deck chairs. Two small squares for planting. Toward the end of the garden was space for a shed and beside it a little compost heap.

I pulled the paper to the glass window of the back garden, comparing the vision to the complete mess it was in reality. “It looks great,” I said.

He shrugged. “Well, it’s just a plan.”

“I like it.” I turned to see him standing behind me.

He squished his lips together, biting them shut. “Can I nip outside and check out the situation?”

“I’ve been told it’s pretty clean out there,” I said. “No unwanted nibblers.”

He chuckled. “They don’t bother me.” Squeezing his hands into gloves he kept on his belt.

While Greg went out into the wilderness I’d accidentally grown, I began washing away the empty mugs of tea, watching Greg being eaten alive by the tangled green mess of grass.