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My pointed shoes clicked on the cobblestones as I hustled down the street. I dreamed of the day when I would have a broomstick again, able to soar overhead instead of walking among the scum of the earth. Literally. Some pond monster had decided to leave his watery abode to rub elbows with the land dwellers. Taking up almost the whole sidewalk, he brushed his green, oozing mass against me as he passed. It felt like someone squeezed a moldy sponge on my dress and left a trail of musty smells no perfume could cover. I tried not to gag. One must be polite when one is fangless in a town full of jawed monsters.
Fortunately, he and I were headed in opposite directions. Thank goonness for small blessings.
Despite my urgency, the windows of several witch shops caught my eye. I could not help the little pang of longing as I passed the bookseller and the shelves of leather-bound tomes and illuminated tarot decks; the candle shops with their rows of rainbow-colored, hand-dipped sticks draped across long rods. The "little pang" was outright jealousy as I watched my fellow sisters sitting at lace-draped tables, levitating tea and biscuits as they chatted. A broom swept through the small café. It leaned against its owner for approval like a sleepy old dog. Oh, for the days when I had a broom who adored me...
I kept my eyes focused forward. This sort of wishful thinking only caused heartache. In five months, my powers would be restored, and when they were, well... watch out world. It would be tea and crumpets for everyone! With an extra side of marmalade!
I walked across the drawbridge to the court fortress. It was a large, squat building made of grey stone and spite. Up in the turrets, the silver tips of arrows followed my every move, just waiting for me to sprout claws and start ripping into folks. What? And ruin this manicure? But when going up against the sorts of creatures one finds on the Other Side, the "law" has to out nasty the nasties.
I pushed open the heavy, ironbound door. A small bell tinkled overhead. Behind the front counter, the office was a wreck. It was filled with paperwork stacked from floor to ceiling. Oak filing cabinets were jammed shut and a desk was buried beneath multicolored forms in triplicate. But when I saw who was working, it all made sense. An ogre. Of course. Just my luck. Of all the creatures found on the Other Side, I had an ogre to deal with.
His back was to me as he sorted through a folder. He was shaped like a triangle. No neck, no waist, just a mass of flesh that coalesced in a little pom-pom of hair at the top of his pointy head. He was wearing a cream-colored shirt. It might have been white at some point. The pits were ringed with yellow and somehow he managed to get unidentifiable food stains between his shoulder blades. His ill-fitting brown polyester pants were held up with uneven, frayed suspenders. The elastic was on the verge of failing from the strain.
He was making snorting, snuffling noises, mumbling things under his breath that sounded suspiciously like Should grind their bones for this report...
"Excuse me?" I called, primly.
He swung his flabby body around and stared at me with his great big eye.
I squinted at his nametag. "Hello, Mr... Frank. I am here to report an abduction. Abductions. With an 's'."
He picked up a clipboard and hauled his heavy frame over. He licked the tip of his pencil.
"Name?"
"Miss Elle Spell."
He gave me a look like he didn't believe me. I gave him a look back to tell him to get to writing and not worry about my name.
"And you said there were multiple abductions?" he growled.
"Twenty. Approximately."
His big ogre eye narrowed with a bit more interest. "Approximately?"
"Someone put the whammy on me and we're just now putting the pieces together."
"Just like that? Just discovered it?" He put down his pencil like he was done with me and the cockamamie stories I was peddling.
"Yes," I explained. "These young women have been coming to my hotel for almost a month now."
"A month? And you didn't notice?" He let out a snort of disbelief.
"As I said, I have been under a charm. We didn't discover it until my dwarf reconciled the ledger and—" I was about to tell him about the windows, but he cut me off.
"Oh," said Frank, picking up his teeny pencil in his boulder-like hand. "A dwarf was involved."
Isn't that just rich? I'm just some hysterical witch out to ruin his day, but the moment a dwarf comes up, I suddenly had credibility.
"So, how did you discover the girls?" Frank huffed, turning back to filling out the form. The stench of his breath wafted across the counter.
Eyes watering, I coughed, "I saw them."
"And where exactly did you see the girls?"
"They're caught in my stained glass windows."
He sighed and put his pencil down again. "You'd be surprised how many complaints we get about these sorts of things."
I, personally, was shocked to find out this was some sort of an epidemic. "Shouldn't there have been a public notice if some magic maker is going around trapping girls in stained glass?"
The ogre shrugged. "We sort it out eventually."
"Well, I want you to go get them out of my stained glass. It's not natural."
He folded his arms and leaned against the counter. "You're a witch, right?"
I pulled my satin jacket a little tighter around my torso primly. "Yes."
"Well, then, why don't you fix it? Save us all a lot of trouble."
"I'm not..." I lowered my voice to make sure no one would overhear. "I'm not a 'practicing' witch."
"Well, that sure is dumb."
"How dare you, sir."
"Living here on the Other Side without a lick of magic to protect yourself? You should go hop over to Earth before you get eaten."
"It is a personal choice," I protested, not wanting to get into the fact it was not a personal choice at all.
"It is an idiotic choice."
"Are you going to help me and these young women or not?"
He waved me away. "Sure, sure... I'll send someone over. You said they were caught in the glass?"
"Yes."
"Like, a glass dimension or something?"
"I have no idea. I just know at one point they were three-dimensional and now they're two-dimensional and stuck in my window."
He took the papers off the clipboard and stabbed them through a receipt spike. "We'll get right on it."
"Thank you."
He didn't even respond, just lumbered to his desk and picked up a magazine to look at whatever ogres look at when it is a slow day at work and they don't want to deal with the filing. I managed to get an eyeful as I walked toward the door and all I can say is bonemeal bread recipes are not appropriate in a workplace setting.