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The poltergeist levitated the rattling teacups beside our café table. This marked the first time I had sat down with the head of my coven since that terrible day when she removed my powers, but I needed help. And, setting my bruised ego aside, she was our best hope.
"Forty mysterious visitors checked into my hotel and half of them did not check out," I explained to Miss Trudy. I took my cup from the poltergeist's invisible hand. "And now all of the stained glass has disappeared from our windows. I mean, the glass is still there, but it is just a regular window. What criminal comes in and swaps out windows on the third floor of a building with panes of glass?"
Miss Trudy waved her wand lazily over her drink, stirring the cream and sugar by magic. She then tentatively blew on it and took a sip. I’m sure she didn't mean to rub it in that she spent more magic on an afternoon treat than I currently held in my entire body, but I wouldn't have put it past her.
"But you didn't see anything?" she clarified, slightly uninterested.
I couldn't understand why she wasn't taking this more seriously.
"I saw plenty—" I checked to make sure no one was listening, and then leaned forward, keeping my voice low. "But the thing is, I can't remember anything. I discovered there was a spell the warlock put on his signature and it wiped my brain cells."
Miss Trudy side-eyed me like she didn't think I could blame a warlock for that. She reached out and patted my hand. "Miss Spell, I know that this is a difficult time for you, and you're probably over-exhausted. But to spin this ridiculous story about a warlock to get me to commute your sentence—"
The accusation was like a slap to the face. That I would make something like this up as a manipulation tactic? Stiffly, I cut her off. "My dwarf was the one who discovered all this."
I could see her hesitate for just a moment, but she covered it up right away. "As I said, you're exhausted."
"Just—"
She held up her hand to stop me and sighed, as if me asking her to help us survive was putting her out. "I'll make a report to the coven and we'll investigate it. Will that make you feel better?"
My ankle started itching again. I reached down to scratch it casually as a clump of pedestrians passed by. A tall man with slicked back, silver and black hair eyed me suspiciously as he walked past. I gritted my teeth and tried not to scratch.
"Bug bite?" Miss Trudy asked.
"Goblin bite."
"Ooo. Those can be nasty. I hope you disinfected it thoroughly. No telling what secondary infections might set in. Perhaps this is why your memory lapses are happening."
"I need to go to a healer." I gave it one last scratch as it started to calm down. "In fact, Ajax has been telling me to go for over a month, but I forgot the conversation every time."
"Sure, sure," she replied, picking up her wand and stirring her tea like she had been doing before. She even blew on it and sipped it exactly as she had done before.
"I should be going," I said, rising.
"But we just got here!" she exclaimed. She seemed surprised.
"I want to see about my ankle," I replied. "You'll check into the stained glass for me?"
She regarded me like she was trying to puzzle out the words coming out of my mouth. "Stained glass...? Right. Of course. I'll... learn about stained glass..."
"It disappeared?" I reminded her.
"I'm just... distracted," she tried to assure me.
I turned and walked away. I had to believe that she knew what I was talking about. We just had the conversation. But I glanced back. She looked like she didn't know why she was holding a teacup or how she ended up in a sidewalk café.
It wouldn't have bothered me so much, except it was a feeling I had experienced myself far too often recently.
My ankle started acting up again. I might not be able to get my coven to take me seriously, but by Hades, I was going to fix this goblin bite, if nothing more than to feel like the day was not a total loss.
With new determination, I hobbled over to Healers Lane. It was a small corner of town made up of a row of smart, thatched cottages. Each healer grew her own herbs. You could pick out her specialties by the size and color of the blooms. Also the most expensive. I brushed a mass of magnolias out of my hair as a showy tree dumped an armload on me, trying too hard to impress. That cottage was definitely out of my price range. I needed to find someone more middle-of-the-road. Or end of the road.
The healers didn't have office hours or appointments. You just came down and figured out which one had a good feel, and then entered her garden and waited for her to come see you when she was ready. If she didn't know you were there, you wouldn't want to work with her anyway. Intuition and calling and such.
The spicy perfume of roses drifted in the wind. It wasn't cultured flowers, but the honest smell of wild blooms that still held their natural power.
I stopped before the unpainted picket fence.
This was the place.
A ramshackle arbor arced over the front gate, groaning beneath a bower of wisteria. First impressions would say the yard was unkempt, but there was a symbiosis where the growth of one was keeping the other in check. Sage and honeysuckle and lavender... it held memories of comfort and home.
I pushed open the rough, wooden gate, and walked in.
"Can I be of assistance?" asked a voice.
It was as if she had been waiting for me, which she probably had. She leaned against the frame of her doorway, protected in the shadows. She was a petite woman. Her once fair skin was leathery and red from time in the sun. Her straw-colored hair was styled in a bowl cut with thick bangs straight across her brow. I wondered if her modest manner was actually her or just a show she put on for visitors until she figured out if she wanted you as a client or not.
"I was at work... I own a hotel... and I'm afraid I had a bit of an accident. A bite," I explained. "Anything to be done about it?"
She smiled, as if relieved that both our intuition was right. "Absolutely," she said, motioning for me to follow her into her practice.
It was cool inside the thick, plaster walls of her home. Overhead, herbs hung to dry from the oak beams. She pointed at a worn chaise lounge covered in threadbare mustard damask. "If you'll take a seat, we'll see what is going on."
I settled in and took off my shoe. "We'll?" I repeated to make sure I had heard her correctly.
She didn't answer, just smiled as she sat on a small milking stool. She pulled her eyeglasses up from a chain around her neck and squinted as she began to unwrap my dressing.
"It's so embarrassing, but I was bitten by a goblin. The goblins are gone now, but the bite keeps flaring up."
"Very interesting," she muttered. She inquired over her shoulder. "Wouldn't you say?" She then leaned forward and studied it some more. "I doubt it."
I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be saying something. "Excuse me, are you speaking to me?" I asked.
She drew away from her inspection, startled. "What was that?"
"Were you speaking to me?" I repeated
"Oh! No," she laughed, waving away my confusion. "You probably thought I was nuttier than an almond tree. I was just speaking with my consulting practitioner."
I cast my eyes around the dim room. I mean, perhaps there was a brownie or a fairy that I had missed. Finally, I pointed out, "There's no one here but you and me."
The healer pressed the flesh around my wound, "She's a ghost."
"Oh." I paused, not entirely sure what to say. I shifted uncomfortably, not sure where I should be looking. "There is a ghost? Here?"
"Want to see her?" she asked.
It is not often you get a chance to actually see a ghost in full form. "Very much so," I replied.
She took off her glasses and handed them to me. "Try them on."
I did. It took a second for my eyes to adjust. I squinted and then held my eyes open. Sure enough, a woman not much older than either of us was standing behind the healer, giving me a friendly wave.
"Well, I'll be..." I said, examining the glasses more closely. "This is quite the invention!" I reluctantly handed them back. "I own a hotel and we sometimes have ghostly clients. These would be awfully nice to have. I feel like such a ninny, getting out the Ouija board and asking them to spell things out for me. Where did you get them?"
"I'll get you a pair!" the healer replied with an encouraging smile. "I always appreciate someone inclusive of the non-abled non-bodied."
"I... this is quite... but I’m afraid..." I stammered, not sure how to tell her I didn't have the funds to cover such an expense.
She continued, not paying any attention to my hesitation. "It'll help you see the truth of anything dead or undead," she said. "Vampires, ghouls, ghosts, you name it."
I felt my mouth go dry. Should I tell her that I was not allowed to practice magic? Did this count as practicing magic? It was just a magical object that happened to fall into my lap. Would the coven feel it when they came with their random audits of my property?
"That would be lovely," I stammered. "But I don't know if I can afford them..."
"We do payment plans," she replied. She gave me a wink and walked over to her shelf. She pulled out a basket where she had a stack of glasses hidden away. She held up several pairs and stared at the space where her friend was standing to test the lenses. "I make them myself. Just a little spell I discovered. My findings don't do anyone any good if they only stay on my nose." She dug through to the bottom. "Ah! Here! I think these will be perfect!" She triumphantly held up a pair of black frames with rhinestones. It's like she had made them just for me.
She could see I was still hesitating. She wrapped my fingers around them. "If a payment plan is too much, you can comp me a room at your hotel." She paused for a moment. "You did say the goblins are gone...?"
"Gone!" I immediately confirmed. "And, yes, you have yourself DEAL!" I didn't have the willpower to tell her of all the trouble she could get in if she helped me.
She laughed at my enthusiasm. "Your future guests will be so pleased." She then sat back down on the stool. "Well, I have some good news and some bad news."
"Give it to me all at once, healer," I said, placing the glasses into my purse.
"The good news is the wound is healed and not infected."
"What?" I asked, leaning over. Sure enough, there was an angry red scar, but it was closed. "Then why has it been itching and swelling?"
"Well," she replied, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm afraid that you have what we like to call in the business a 'trick ankle.'"
"I have a what?"
"Some people, when they break a bone or the like, can tell shifts in the weather and such. I'm afraid that this wound is going to just ache whenever we get a low-pressure zone or rain is coming in."
I thought back to all the times it had bothered me. It didn't seem like there had been a weather shift, but maybe I just hadn't paid enough attention. I contemplated the scar. I suppose there were worse things, but I hated having such a lousy souvenir from those goblins.
"Will it fade?" I asked hopefully.
She shrugged. "Most likely it will. I'll get you some herbs to massage in. It may help break up the scar tissue." She went over to her cabinet and opened it up. "I'll also prepare you some herbs to create a poultice to wear at night, but it may be a case of it needing time."
I wondered if, with my old powers, I would have been able to heal it properly. Just another thing stolen from me by a vampire.
"Well, that's one thing I've got a lot of. Time," I sighed. I turned to the healer. "Listen, if anyone asks if I was here, you'll keep it between us, right?"
The healer looked at me quizzically. "Of course! Patient confidentiality is something I take very seriously!"
"As in, you have a binding around your place so you can't tell anyone I was here or you just don't like to gossip?"
The healer laughed, sharing a chuckle with her dead friend. "Both. Is there a reason you're concerned?"
I thought of all the business I could lose if a confirmed healer revealed I was being seen for this sort of injury. It was like coming down with a case of the cooties. I confessed, "You let it get out that a goblin was able to bite you, you'll find yourself on the bottom of the totem pole with every monster in the Other Side wanting to use you as a chew toy."
The healer locked her lips with an imaginary key. "This will all remain between you and us."
I stood, relieved, realizing part of my hesitation in coming to ask for help was the fear of someone else outside my circle knowing this dirty secret. "Thank you."
She handed me a linen wrapped package of medicine and then walked me to the front door. "See you soon!"
"I hope not!" I half-joked as I headed through the garden to the arbor. I then stopped. "I mean, come to the No Spell anytime you like for that free room and I will DEFINITELY be back to make my payments. But not for new injuries like this."
"I know what you mean!" she laughed and waved again. "We hope to see you under happier circumstances."
A handsome man suddenly appeared and kindly held the gate open for me. I gave him a grateful nod. The sun glinted off his silver and black hair as he returned my smile, his green eyes twinkling. He stepped forward towards the healer and then followed her into the cottage.
I had a spring in my step as I headed home to the No Spell. I put the packet in my purse and caught a glimpse of my new glasses.
I had just a little bit of magic. Not much. Nothing more than any ordinary, non-witch citizen of the Other Side would be allowed to have. But it was a tantalizing hint of my former life, and it tasted delicious.
I kept waiting for the magic police to come around the corner and snatch my bag. They are sneaky, those ones. But no one showed up.
Was I getting away with it? Was it just my own magic I was barred from? Was it okay for me to use magic created by others?
I wet my lips. I think I was actually salivating.
Glasses that would allow me to see ghosts and vampires and the undead.
I stepped in front of the iron gates to the No Spell.
Instead of it seeming like a prison, it felt like there was a chance for me to survive the next five months.