3 July

 

It will likely not surprise you that even with the literal fate of the world hanging in the balance, the supernatural world could not come to an agreement of where we should all posse up to form a game plan about this Dark Lord business.

The Federal Witches Agency says the US.

The British Witches Council claims jurisdiction because Darling and Bligh are both UK citizens and I was preliminarily trained in the UK.

The rest of them were bellyaching that everything always happens in the States or Europe and what was so wrong with meeting up in Christchurch or Singapore or Cape Town?

I mean…

Yeesh.

I’m this close to saying we’re gonna meet at Denny’s on Colfax and they could either pitch up and be part of the solution or go it on their own when a real-life Voldemort wearing someone else’s skin runs roughshod over the earth.

I mean, for fuck’s sake.

People.

Add on to the pile of rubbish I was coping with when Cystien lost his nut that BecBec apparently took forsaking her Fae-dom seriously and vanished.

So he (and Dad, Gabe, Aidan and Marcus) cramped Ash and my style on our chartered flight home (from Transylvania, and btw: it’ll never get old, saying I’m going to or coming from Transylvania, and it’ll totally never get old, saying I took a chartered flight).

Cystien then bestowed on Sar and Trae “wealth beyond your wildest imaginings” for their role in breaking BecBec out of prison.

Right before he ripped them both new assholes and told them to find her and bring her back “or I will strip you of your Guardianship and every last possession.”

Multiple personalities much?

Sar and Trae were now off on a different kind of hunt.

One good thing about that, it was something I didn’t have to worry about, because they’d just been given wealth beyond their wildest imaginings, only for it to be threatened to be taken away, so I had the idea they would stop at nothing to find her.

Now I was in a deep dive with Ash and Aidan about this whole Dark Lord business.

 

Just to say, in past journal entries, I may not have made it clear about the fact that I wasn’t a big fan of book-learning type of study.

But we can say even when I was in school, it wasn’t my favorite thing.

Which totally explained my GPA.

Ahem.

Scouring Denver Public Library, pagan bookshops, Mom and Gran’s personal collections, asking the coven in England to send stuff from Mavis’s library, and calling all over the world to have three (or four?) dozen books Fed Ex’ed to us so we could stick our noses in them and get intimately acquainted with all things Dark Lord, including how to make one, and the last one’s reign of terror, and the one’s before that (etc.)…

Suffice it to say: not a lot of fun.

Once this was done, I might never read another book again.

(Before I hex myself with that, I mean study-type books, not romance-novel, mystery, thriller-type books and all the books of Taylor Jenkins Reid. Just making that clear.)

 

Ash, as usual, took all this in stride.

Aidan was such a big hot geek, he was trying to hide it, but even how terrifying our subject matter was, he was having the time of his life.

 

4 July

 

I…

Can’t.

Even.

Later:

Okay, have had three hot dogs, half a hamburger, a mound of potato salad (the good kind, homemade with bacon in) and two bowls of Red, White and Blueberry Trifle, so I’m feeling a lot better about the bombshell Aidan and Josie dropped on us about two seconds after Ash fired up the grill.

And yeah, so they’re English and I could see them hijacking Independence Day.

But Josie being the woman Aidan is seeing, it’s serious, serious enough for them to come out about it during our 4th of July Cookout?

Uh.

No.

 

Everyone’s super excited about it.

I was not.

 

Why, you ask?

Because they also said it was so serious that they were returning home.

All of them.

Together.

Just so you’re super clear about what all of them means, it means Josie, Rory and Cosmo.

With Aidan.

At this point, I, of course, noted, “She’s my Spellbound.”

“I believe we now understand that you’re going to make her safe by making us all safe,” Aidan replied. “And Josie was a target, Matty. But now, it’s come clear, she no longer is one.”

“But she’s my Spellbound,” I retorted.

“Matty, you’re hardly ever in Denver,” Aidan reminded me.

“But she’s my Spellbound,” I repeated.

Aidan looked to Josie who was tucked in the curve of his arm and appeared kinda shy about being there, which was all kinds of cute, though also she looked like she belonged there, which was all kinds of sweet.

Gluh.

Right, truth be told, they were all kinds of cute and sweet together.

Ack!

How had I not seen this happening?

(Don’t answer that, because I was hardly ever in Denver, doing what I’d vowed to do…look after my Spellbound.)

“Matty—” Josie started.

“You’re not going,” I told her. “Aidan can move here so we can all be together forever.”

“I’m a professor at Cambridge.” Aidan reminded me of some more things.

“There are universities in Denver.”

Aidan started to look a little sick.

Okay, he had me there.

Cambridge was, you know, Cambridge.

“I miss home,” Josie said.

Fabulous.

At this point, Rory shouted, “I don’t miss home! I’m never going back there again. Ever!” and then he raced into the house.

Josie went after him and Aidan went after Josie.

“You couldn’t just be happy for them like the rest of us,” Su put in.

“You lose one of your best friends to most of a continent and an entire ocean,” I returned.

“With the rate you two are destroying the ozone with your private jets, Ash is probably just going to break down and buy you one soon, so you can go see her whenever you want,” Su shot back.

At that, I turned right to Ash and said, “Wedding present. Private jet. Make note.”

He shook his head but did it kinda smiling.

I was so getting a private jet for my wedding.

Tee hee.

 

After Aidan and Josie returned sans Rory, saying he needed some time, and between downing my meat and potato salad course and the hoovering of my trifle, I went to find Rory.

He was kickboxing somebody on his TV using a game controller.

I barely got in the door when he declared to his telly, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Cosmo totally wanted to talk about it and was sharing that by shoving his nose in my crotch.

I gave Cosmo a different target when I walked in and sank cross-legged to the floor next to Rory and the dog went after my neck.

“I was a total loser. I shouldn’t have reacted like that,” I admitted to Rory. “I’m just going to miss you guys.”

“You’re not gonna miss me because I’m not going back. They don’t have American football in England.”

“Yes, they do. It just comes on at two o’clock in the morning.”

“Mum’s never gonna let me stay up until two in the morning.”

He was right about that.

“And they don’t have good pizza,” he carried on. “The kind with the chewy crusts. They have bad pizza. The kind with the thin, gross crusts.”

He was right about that too.

“They have better Indian and everyone knows about custard there and they pour it all over everything.”

Score one for me.

He had no rebuttal.

Then again, custard always wins. Even when it’s frozen.

Maybe especially when it’s frozen.

“Rory, honey, I think your mum is happy,” I tried.

“Yeah, she’s happy,” he jerked the game controller at the TV, “and gooey,” another jerk, “and gross. I mean, why?” He looked to me. “It isn’t like he’s Ash. Like he’s a total badass. He’s a professor.”

Ah.

I was seeing the issue.

He was worried his mum wouldn’t be safe.

“Aidan’s pretty badass,” I said carefully. “And he can protect your mum.”

“I can protect my mum!” he snapped.

Okay.

Now ah.

I was mistaken about the issue and was now seeing the real issue.

“You both can look after your mum,” I assured. “And she needs you both to do it. She needs her Rory and she needs someone her own age to spend time with.”

“And be gooey with, and you’re wrong. She doesn’t need that.”

When did this kid get so smart?

Probably when I was somewhere else, not in Denver, doing what I vowed to do and protecting them.

“No, you’re right,” I agreed. “She’s an independent lady. She doesn’t need it. But she wants it, and don’t you want her to have what she wants?”

“What I don’t want is to leave Su or Mack or Viv, even if Viv’s kinda got a stick up her butt.”

I hid a smirk.

Viv more than kinda had a stick up her butt.

And I was so going to tell her Rory thought that.

He kept talking.

“Or your mum because she’s all granny-like and makes me sundaes out of thin air, or you, even though you’re never around anymore.”

“Don’t you miss footie and Morris dancing and spotted dick?”

That got him.

His mouth quirked.

“No one likes Morris dancing,” he said. “And spotted dick is rubbish.”

After he said that, I wasn’t going to admit that I liked Morris dancing.

“Well, Sunday roasts and sticky toffee pudding then,” I pushed.

Score two for me because anyone who’d had a Sunday roast or sticky toffee pudding then couldn’t have it anymore would miss it.

Suddenly, his face got all crumbly and he muttered, “But I’m her guy.”

And there you go.

“Aw, honey,” I whispered. “You’ll always be her guy.”

He looked away.

I gave him time.

He looked back at me. “Are we safe without your magic?”

“You’ll never be without magic. Not ever, honey. Before you go, I’ll put spells on you both that will last a lifetime, so I’ll always be with you. And if Aidan thought for a second you weren’t safe not being under my roof, he wouldn’t take you home.”

Rory thought about that.

Then he finished thinking about that.

“I suppose I gotta like him,” he mumbled.

“You don’t have to like him. But if you give him a chance, you won’t be able to help it.”

Rory wasn’t ready to commit to that.

So I said, “Come on. There’s barely any hot dogs left.”

Rory was ready to commit to that.

So he returned with me to the cookout.

Josie looked relieved and Aidan looked worried when we returned.

Okay, right.

Serious.

That man was a glutton for punishment.

First, he had to compete for me and now he had to win over Rory to truly win Josie.

I figured it’d be a job.

But even so…

Aidan would best it.

Of course, I managed to coax Rory back to the party and explain how hilarious it was that most of the people at our 4th of July cookout were English, and our dessert was a trifle (made by Lucy, an Englishwoman), which was the quintessential English dessert, things Rory thought were as uproariously funny as I did.

But as ever, I couldn’t rest on my laurels.

I saw immediately I had a couple more crises on my hands.

Because Aidan looked worried, and the way he was glancing at me, it seemed it wasn’t just Rory he was worried about.

Also, it appeared Ash had regressed to broody.

I hadn’t seen him broody since…

Well, since he came to America after the Battle of The Tor.

I kinda wanted to drink bad American beer and break out a Frisbee or something and not tackle a new crisis.

But since it seemed I’d never again in my life have that luxury, instead I had to take my man’s advice, break shit down to tackle things one by one.

I started with Aidan, not because he was the priority (Ash totally was), but because I figured I might need more time to deal with whatever was up with my man.

“You cool?” I asked Aidan when we were away from the others.

“This would be my question to you.”

Since he asked…

“Well, my answer is, no. I’m not cool. I love Josie. I love Rory. I love Cosmo. I love you. And I don’t want any of you four thousand, six hundred and sixty-two miles away.”

His brows inched together. “Four thousand, six hundred and sixty-two miles?”

“I looked it up,” I mumbled.

“Matty, I’ve started a serious relationship with one of your dearest friends,” he said cautiously. “And you and I used to…be close.”

Oh.

Yeah.

He had.

And we had.

He used to be mine (of a sort).

And now he was Josie’s.

I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.

“If I throw a fit about this, to prove to me you’re right for each other, will you find a job you love in a university in Denver and live close to us forever and ever and ever?” I tried.

“No,” he denied.

Bummer.

Well, I gave it a shot.

“Aidan, if you guys are happy, I’m happy for you. For both of you.”

He looked relieved. At least about that.

Then he gave me a hug.

 

Right, Aidan done.

Onward.

Now I had to see to my man.

I walked to where Ash was brooding in an Adirondack chair (not with a bad American bear, with a good one, an 805).

“What gives?” I asked after I sat on the arm of his chair, backwards, in other words, facing him.

He tipped his head to look up at me.

“Assure me your reaction to Josie and Aidan was about Josie and not Aidan,” he demanded.

I blinked.

Rapidly.

Then I breathed, “Oh my Goddess, are you jealous again?”

“That was not the assurance I asked for.”

Seriously, sometimes Ash could be cute too.

“Dude, you’re perfect,” I reminded him.

He scowled up at me.

“I mean, you even cook hot dogs perfectly, with the grill lines all on a diagonal and everything.”

Apparently, he didn’t find hot dog grilling skills high up on the list of cool dude things (when they absolutely were) seeing as he continued to scowl up at me, though his scowl grew a tad bit scarier.

Time to offer assurances.

“Ash, it was always you and it always will be. So yes. I can assure you, that was about Josie and not Aidan.”

He got that from me.

And he gave in return hooking the back of my neck in his hand and yanking me to him before he pressed a hard kiss to my mouth.

He didn’t let my neck go when he let my mouth go.

So I said, “Love you.”

“And I you, darling.”

Now Ash and I were being gooey.

Rory was right.

Gross.

Later:

Oooo, I so love my girlie-friends.

The boys went to bed after fireworks, but we girls all laid in the grass, staring up at the stars (after Viv did a spell to block out the city lights so we could see them).

Josie was all worried I was mad that she took up with Aidan.

I assured her I wasn’t.

Su and Viv were all worried that I had to battle the Dark Lord.

And I couldn’t make them feel better about that, but it was sweet they cared.

Last, Lucy was all over getting Paul Hollywood to provide a blurb for our cookbook.

So all over it, she’d had our agent reach out to his agent sharing Lucy was more than happy to go wherever he was so she could listen to said blurb personally (while staring into his eyes) and take it down herself (if she could concentrate after staring into his eyes).

Which meant we all rolled around on the grass giggling.

I ended up attached to Josie.

“Happy?” I whispered.

“Yeah, you?” she whispered back.

“Yeah. He’s the bomb, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Matty, he is.”

Okay, so there it was. I was totally down with Aidan and Josie together.

We let go of each other in a way, because we laid close, but did it holding hands as we gazed at the stars.

 

6 July

 

Independence Day might have been a mixed bag of good and bad.

But my sit down with Agents Elizabeth Perry and Anita Ramirez was just all bad.

I asked for a sit down with the local agents because, as all know, I’m no expert.

But I’d seen a ton of movies and sure, there was some artistic license there.

Still, we were at war and anyone not on the side of the Dark Lord was on my side (this being all but Agatha Darling, his now sole creator, and maybe she thought she could control him after she made him (though, that didn’t work the last time the Dark Lord shadowed the earth)…to what end, I did not know or care, but I digress).

And I’d learned from my copious movie watching that when you’re at war, your side needs intel.

Who best to get intel?

The FWA in cahoots with others of their ilk.

Am I wrong?

 

Apparently, I am.

According to Agent Elizabeth Perry.

(Talk about having a stick up your butt.)

This is how it went down:

We sat down.

I explained the Dark Lord business.

I then explained it’d be good if the FWA worked with the BWC and all the other agencies like them, doing so to gather leads, and then follow them, so we could find Darling and stop her before she made Bligh into a full-blown baddie.

I expected their answer to be, “Hey, what an awesome idea. Well get on that sharp-like.”

 

Their answer was not that.

Their answer (no, Agent Perry’s answer) was, “The resources of the FWA are not at the personal disposal of Mathilda Honeycutt.”

When she said that, Ash did that buzzing noise again. It was sexy again. But I didn’t need him wiping the floor with Agent Perry.

I needed the cooperation of the FWA.

So, before he could go all Fae on their asses, I intervened.

“Okay, if someone’s collecting large amounts of bat guano from a cave in Venezuela…”

As an aside:

Yes, this was part of the many rituals to becoming a Dark Lord.

Being packed in bat guano mixed with a bunch of other stuff, none of which was quite as nasty as bat poo, but it wasn’t a Tatcha radiance mask either.

Again, I digress.

“…our Venezuelan supernaturals confirm this information, they tell you, you tell me, and I take my team,” (FYI: I didn’t have a team…yet) “and handle the situation.”

“You can’t just waltz into Venezuela,” Agent Perry replied. “The United States has a very sensitive relationship with the government of Venezuela. Knowing you, you’d get down there and do something that would spark an international incident.”

Right.

Was this bitch for real?

I mean, what wasn’t she getting about the concept of the Dark Lord shadowing the earth with his malevolence?

“Better to cause some diplomatic hullabaloo than not take the measures needed to eradicate the creation of a being who can end the world as we know it,” I shot back.

“What Lizzie’s trying to say is, it isn’t as easy as you think,” Agent Ramirez cut in. “This kind of stuff is complicated and involves not only the magickal and supernatural worlds, but the normal one too.”

“And what Mathilda is saying is, there won’t be magickal, supernatural or normal worlds, not as we now understand them, if we all don’t cooperate and do it immediately,” Ash stated impatiently.

“We understand, Mr. Wilding,” Agent Perry said, all respectful to Ash (gag). “What we’re saying is, what you ask is not going to be easy.”

“When Mathilda got electrocuted in the midst of attempting to rescue a Spellbound, that wasn’t easy. When she watched a friend of hers die in battle, that wasn’t easy. When she held her man in her arms while he died, that wasn’t easy. When she watched a Fae lose her wings, that wasn’t easy. But she did it. She did all of that. And she didn’t whinge about it. She also didn’t equivocate about it. She simply got on with it.”

Wow.

He made me sound pretty awesome.

With that, he stood, stared down his nose at them and finished.

“You do what you have to do, or don’t. It’s your play. We’ve explained the situation. We’ve made our request. It’s now in your hands.”

He then took my hand and dragged me out of the Denver FWC offices (which, by the by, needed some design help, they didn’t look like movie FBI offices at all, not the dingy ones, not the ultra-modern, state-of-the-art ones, they were just…blah).

I waited until we got in the car and were on our way home before I shared, “I kinda whinged about it.”

He said nothing.

I kept talking.

“All of it.”

He still said nothing.

So yeah.

I kept talking.

“And I totally equivocated about it.”

More nothing from Ash.

“All of it.”

“Mathilda?”

“Right here, babe.”

“Be quiet.”

I shut up.

So, you know, we might not get a tip that someone was collecting bat guano (or other).

But we’d figure something else out.

Or at least I hoped so.

 

12 July

 

Okay, so this is what I know:

Saying goodbye to one of the two men I was in love with outside the security area of Denver International Airport had totally sucked.

Saying goodbye to my friend, a kid I adored, and the man I used to love who was now falling in love with my friend, plus giving the care of the former two over to the latter nearly was the death of me.

Once they went through security, I wouldn’t let Ash draw me away until I couldn’t see them anymore and I wouldn’t let Ash leave the parking lot until Josie texted to share that they were at the gate, the plane was waiting for them, and she was going to Duty Free shop.

So much for my vow not to cry anymore.

I bawled the whole length of Peña Boulevard.

When we hit I-70 and Ash called my name, I cut him off, snapping, “If you ask if that was about Aidan again, I’m gonna punch you.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to grab some Mexican before we went home.”

“Oh. Well then, yeah.”

He ignored my outburst, took my hand and held it all the way to Las Delicias.

Yup.

The dude was totally perfect.

It was a lot later, when we were in bed, no hanky-panky, Ash just holding me, when I asked, “Do you think they’re gonna be all right?”

His answer?

“Seymour was willing to die for you.”

So okay.

That said it all.

He thought they were going to be all right.

 

13 July

 

You know, I’ll own it.

Sometimes I’m slow.

But this morning, it hit me.

I’m Mathilda, SuperWitch.

Destined Savior of the World.

So it was me who got to say where the International Dark Lord Crisis Intervention Gathering was going to be held (IDLCIG for short, and yeah, I get that was a mouthful, but if you ran it all together and called it Idlesig, it had a ring to it).

Therefore, I decided where it was going to be, looked up the schedule, picked an open night, got in touch with Su to get her coven on an invisibility spell along with some protection mojo and then got Viv, Su, Gran, Mom, Mavis and everybody I knew to get the word out.

I mean, it was so obvious, so perfect, when it came to me, I couldn’t believe how long it took to come to me.

The Gathering would happen at Red Rock Amphitheater.

 

15 July

 

So Ash is officially not the most perfect boyfriend in the world anymore.

He’s the most frustrating, bossy, stubborn, jerky boyfriend in the world.

This is what happened:

Obviously, I needed to form a team. Kind of a SEAL squad of kickass supernaturals.

And seeing as the best kind of leader (imo) is a leader who knows their strengths and weaknesses, my decision was that I wasn’t going to lead this team because being a leader was so not one of my strengths.

You see, we didn’t need the FWA and the BWC to give us intel.

We had a vast network of folks from witches to vampires to Fae to practically everyone who didn’t want to see Agatha Darling succeed in her quest.

It wasn’t only the official entities who could keep their ears to the ground.

So we got the word out for everyone to keep their ear to the ground.

But if someone heard something or saw something, we had to be prepared.

Enter The Team.

And seeing as I was the Big Kahuna, I not only had to create said team, I had to give everyone their role.

And I decided Mack would be the leader of the team.

He wanted to be a general?

There you go.

General that, Mack!

 

I shared this decision with Ash, and we could just say, this decision did not go over well with Ash.

At all.

In fact, he lost his mind.

Partly because I made Mack the leader.

But mostly because I made Ash the stay-at-home dude who oversaw things from Command Central.

 

Ash didn’t see it as losing his mind.

He saw it as me losing mine.

Which was how this all started, when I told him he was Command Control, and he asked (kinda loud), “Have you lost your mind?”

I stated the obvious.

“No.”

Then Ash stated the obvious.

“Mack’s a graphic designer.”

“Yes.”

“I’m a trained soldier.”

Hmm.

“You’re also my boyfriend and destined father of my three children,” I pointed out.

“And?”

“And I’d like to have those three children at some point.”

“Well, you won’t, if some lunatic turns the world dark.”

This was regrettably true.

But no way was I going to be swayed.

And I shared this by stating, “You’re not going in the field.”

“Are you?”

“Well, yeah, seeing as I’m SuperWitch and everything.”

Ash’s face got scary hard before he said, “So you expect me to stay home while you go off and fight bad guys?”

I ignored the squishy feeling him calling my childhood home his home gave me (I mean, man, Ash and I were totally becoming gooey—when we weren’t fighting with each other that was).

I again pointed out the obvious when I answered his question.

“Yes.”

“Mathilda, that is not fucking happening.”

“Ash, it totally is. You’re Command Control. And I’m the Big Kahuna so you have to do what I say.”

“I don’t have to do shit.”

It was at that point I started getting mad.

“Sebastian Wilding, you’re not going into danger.”

“Neither are you, if I’m not at your side.”

“I am.”

“No, Mathilda, you are not.”

By the by, he said those five words like his voice could etch them in stone.

I ignored his tone and returned, “Am so.”

He didn’t descend into my normal immature back and forth (he never did, which was annoying).

He got close, bent his neck so his nose was nearly brushing mine, and said low, “I go where you go. End of discussion.”

And then, like he was the sole being on the planet who could end a discussion, he strolled away!

Strolled away!

So, obviously, not most perfect boyfriend in the world anymore.

Most frustrating, bossy, stubborn, jerky boyfriend in the world.

Because one thing in all that was swirling around me I knew.

The love of my life was not going to get dead, again, on my watch.

No way.

No how.

 

16 July

 

Stupid Ash.

He got to Mack before I could.

So when I asked Mack to lead my elite squad of magickal badasses, he said, “As much as I’m ready to do my part to save the world, Ash is right. I don’t have the experience to lead an operation. Any operation.”

He finished with:

“But I’d follow him.”

See?

Stupid Ash.

 

17 July

 

Convo with Su about situation with stubborn boyfriend (who wasn’t talking to me, so I wasn’t talking to him, which meant we were sleeping together, backs pointed at each other, and there was no sex or cuddling, which made me way, way madder at my stubborn boyfriend):

Su: I don’t get why you think Mack could lead an operation like that.

Me: Trust me, he’s got the spiritual chops.

Su: I get that. But Ash could single-handedly invade Nicaragua.

Me: Do we need to invade Nicaragua?

Su: Did we before? We still did it.

Stopped talking to Su.

 

Convo with Viv about situation with stubborn boyfriend:

Viv: It’s not Ash that’s being stubborn, it’s you.

Me: Am not.

Viv: Are to.

Me. Am not!

Viv: Totally are to.

Thus endeth the convo with Viv.

 

Convo with my dad about situation with stubborn boyfriend:

Dad: I cannot possibly convey the strength of my determination that you will go nowhere without Sebastian Wilding at your back. And before you say a word, Mathilda, I will do all in my power to make sure you go nowhere without Sebastian Wilding at your back. Now, you may have a good deal of magical ability. But trust me when I say, you cross me on this, it’ll be a decision you regret.

And that was the entirety of the conversation with my dad about Ash.

 

Convo with Lucy about situation with stubborn boyfriend:

Lucy: I’d ask if you’re high, thinking you’d do anything without that man at your side. Especially anything dangerous. But I’m sensing it’s something else that’s blocking your logic to the point you’re being irrational. So what is it?

Pretended I was insulted by the irrational comment so I didn’t have to say out loud the words that were making me (okay, maybe I was getting the gist) irrational.

 

Convo with Cystien about situation with stubborn boyfriend (beware, during this conversation, I was slightly (okay, highly) inebriated):

Cystien: If I was that male, I would make a request of myself to spirit you to the Realm, leave you there and take care of this situation on my own without your involvement at all. So perhaps you should not ask me.

Me: Are all supernaturals total male chauvinists? (These words, by the by, were slurred so chauvinists came out chauvashits which I kinda like better.)

Cystien: No. We are beings that can sense a love that is one of the greatest of all time, as your male senses the love is that he has with you and wishes to protect it at all costs. I had a love like that once. And the love I felt for her caused me to give her her way, even when it went against my better judgement. You were witness to the results. Learn from that, beautiful Mathilda.

Gluh.

I didn’t learn from that.

I got up and fixed myself another G&T.

By the way, Cystien was hanging with us.

I didn’t know why, and I didn’t ask.

I just knew he’d taken up residence in the Carriage House, but he wasn’t forming a sex cult.

I should probably have a chat with him about how long he was going to stay and why he was staying so long without forming a sex cult.

But I’d do that later.

When I was not shnockered.

Of course, all this led to me being drunk and forcing another convo, this one with Ash, this one less a convo and more a confrontation, this happening over the expanse of our bed.

Him on his side.

Me on mine.

There was shouting (both of us).

There were accusations of being drunk (Ash) and suggestions we speak of this when neither of us (read: me) was drunk (this also from Ash).

There was some blathering about how I, too, could protect the greatest love of all time (obvs me).

There were more suggestions we speak of this when neither of us were drunk so the other one who wasn’t drunk could understand what was being said by the one who was (Ash).

And there was a demand (me) that we were going to sort things out right then so we could go back to having sex.

Which ended with Ash declaring coldly, “I’m not your prize stud, Mathilda. I’m the man who bought you this.”

He then opened his nightstand drawer, took out a little box and tossed it toward me over the bed.

I bobbled it, but I caught it.

“And I’m also the man who’s going to see to it that you’re buried wearing that, but that will happen many, many fucking years from now,” he finished.

With that, he turned on his foot and stalked off.

And that night, he slept somewhere else.

And by the by, in that box was a cushion-cut Harry Winston diamond engagement ring that was four carats (at least).

It was completely ostentatious.

And divinely elegant.

I loved every carbon atom that made it.

As I loved every atom that made the man who tossed it across a bed to me.

Ugh.

 

19 July

 

Telephone convo with Josie about how to make up with the love of my life and one half of the one of the greatest loves of all times after I’d been a complete idiot:

Josie: I don’t think it’s escaped him that he died in your arms, Matty. That kind of thing would mark anybody. He’ll understand if you explain your feelings and do it calmly, not heatedly.

Me: It’s not just that.

Josie: Then what is it?

Me: What if I fail?

Josie: Fail?

Me: At the mission.

Josie: Stopping the Dark Lord?

Me: Yeah, that mission.

Josie: You’re not going to fail, Matty.

Me: Yeah, but what if I do?

Josie: (Nothing)

Me: (whispering) His mom died for him. And he died for me. Don’t you think he’s been through enough? He doesn’t need to see me fail. He’ll survive. He’s a badass. He’ll make it out and probably lead the rebellion against the dark forces that form, should they prevail, and in a hundred years when all is said and done, there’ll be statues erected of him. But if I fuck things up—

Josie: You’re not going to fuck anything up.

Me: I think I’ve been good at hiding this, but honestly, I have utterly no clue what I’m doing.

Josie: You know right from wrong. You know you have great power, but you only use it for good. You know you face great danger, and you don’t turn away from it. The last Dark Lord who walked the earth did it almost seven hundred years ago. No one knows what they’re doing. But something must be done. And from what I can see, you’re the only one doing anything.

Do you see why it sucks Josie is now so far away from me?

Me: I miss you.

Josie: I miss you. Now go talk to Ash.

She was right.

I should just go talk to Ash.

But, straight up, that kind of shizzle is easier said than done.

Especially after you’ve been a complete idiot.

 

22 July

 

Yes, seeing as, until today we had not spoken to each other, you can see from the date that I did not get up the courage to go to my boyfriend (fiancé? I mean, does one get engaged when one’s boyfriend throws an engagement ring at them to end a fight? I didn’t know the etiquette).

But I’ll get into that in a second.

First up, I had my first clairvoyant vision in months.

And it was not a good one.

You see, I was at Bewitched, selling lotions and potions (okay, yeah, I was there avoiding apologizing and having a heart to heart with Ash) when I had the usual brain freeze and then I was listing this way and that and vaguely hearing people gasp and suggest someone call 911 when I saw it.

Or didn’t see it.

Because I was in black.

Completely incased in black.

It was cold.

Very cold.

I was alone.

And he was there.

Or was it she?

So I was also terrified.

I didn’t have my wand.

And he was going to get me.

Or she was.

And I was going to fail.

Fail, fail…

Fail.

Now, there is no way to describe through words precisely how colossal it was, not only the terror of pre-experiencing the experience of your imminent death, but more (much more).

Understanding in that terror that your death meant very bad things for probably every being on the planet.

In other words, when I finally struggled out of the vision, I was a complete wreck.

This led to Mom driving me home, putting me to bed and calling Ash.

Who, even ticked at me and sleeping somewhere else (huh), came right away.

 

This did not surprise me.

That was my guy.

 

Mom hovered in the corner while Ash sat on the side of the bed, leaned into me, one hand wrapped comfortingly around the side of my neck, one hand in the bed by my hip, and he did this gently interrogating me.

This was gentle because I was the other half of one of the greatest loves of all time (ours).

And also, as I said, I was a total wreck, shivering, glassy-eyed (I could even feel being glassy-eyed) and freaked way the fuck out.

“Anything, sweetheart, anything you remember could help,” he said.

“Just black. Cold and black. And scary.”

“Were you inside or outside?”

“Cold.”

“Cold inside or outside?”

“Inside. Somewhere inside.”

“Were your feet on the ground?’

“Unh-hunh.”

“Was it dirt? Stone? Wood. Carpet?”

“Stone.”

“Did you touch a wall? See a door? A window?”

“No, just black. Though yes. I was…trying to get away. I touched a wall. It was stone.”

“Cold. Stone. Dark. Does this mean you were underground?”

“Yes…yes…yes, I was…was, underground. It was underground, Ash.”

“Castle Noapte?”

I shook my head. “No. Somewhere else. I’ve never been there before.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“But I have,” I told him.

“What?”

“I’ve been there, but I haven’t.”

Ash looked bemused. “You’ve been there, but you haven’t.”

It sounded crazy.

And it was.

It was also hopeless, because in order to do something about it, I had to know everything about it, so I could fucking avoid it.

“I know, it doesn’t make sense,” I admitted. “But that’s what it felt like. Like I knew the place, but I’d never been there before. I definitely didn’t know how to get out because I didn’t know which direction to go to get out.”

“So it was a building, made of stone. Stone under your feet. Stone walls. But no lights.”

I nodded.

“Were the lights off? Or just that there was no light?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. The vision started in the dark and I knew he was there, stalking me. Or she was, but whoever it was, they were stalking me. I was alone. No one with me. I didn’t have my wand. And I was trying to get away from him. It was cold. And I didn’t know where I was, so I didn’t know how to get away. But I still had a destination in mind. I just don’t know what that was.”

It was then it hit me.

So I cried, “Up!”

“Up?”

“I needed to go up.”

“To the light?”

I shook my head. “Just up. He or she was blocking me from getting where I needed to go. Which was up.”

Ash stroked my jaw with his thumb and murmured, “What did you need to get to that was up, darling?”

“I don’t know, but that was my only hope. I just had to get past them, without my wand, go up, and with them in my way, or…or, confusing me because I didn’t know where I was going, that wasn’t going to happen.”

“What was the cold like?”

His question confused me. “What was it like?”

“Was it like the heating wasn’t on? Or like there was no heating? Winter? Rain?”

By the Goddess and all things magical, my man was a genius.

“It was England.”

His brows shot together. “England?”

“The cold of England. That kind of cold, the wet kind that gets in your bones. I’ve never felt it before. Except in England.”

His face cleared. “The Dungeons.”

Oh shit.

He was right.

“You were in The Dungeons at The Gables,” he proclaimed.

Oh shit!

He was right!

“I don’t know, I’ve never been down there before. Well, at least, not fully down there. But, it could be.”

I only said “it could be” because I didn’t want it to be because I never, ever, ever wanted to go down to The Dungeons.

Case in point, Ash lived down there with me in the same house for a year, and I never went down there even if he was down there, and I might not have realized he was the love of my life back then, but he was still the love of my life.

“I’m screwed,” I muttered.

“You aren’t, my love, because now we know, we’ll avoid The Gables, and to assure you’re not ever in this fucking situation, we’ll avoid England altogether.”

That sucked because England was where the BBC wanted to film my program (yes, that was still on, by some miracle I was not questioning), and Josie, Rory, Aidan and a ton of my friends were there, not to mention custard and Sunday roasts (yes, I could make these things in America, yes, I did make these things in America, no, they weren’t the same).

Right, so we’d sussed that out, and Ash was right there, time to move on to an only slightly more comfortable topic.

“You’re being nice to me,” I pointed out.

“Of course I’m being nice to you,” he replied.

“I mean, you’re being nice to me when I was a complete idiot and because I was, you had every right to be mad at me. So you were.” I hesitated and finished, “For days.”

“I’ll just…head back to the store,” Mom mumbled before she scooched out.

“Thanks, Mom, and love you!” I shouted to her back.

She raised a hand, waved it, all this while still beating her retreat, and yelling, “Love you too. The both of you.”

“Mathilda.”

At his call, I looked to Ash.

And it was then, I blurted, “I don’t want you hurt. And I don’t want you around in case I get hurt, which will hurt you, and as I said, I don’t want you hurt.”

He bent closer to me, murmuring, “Darling.”

“I so didn’t want that, it made me act like a complete idiot because you should lead our team.”

“Have you pulled together a team?”

“Well, right now it stands at you and me, but only because this is our lot. Also Mack, but I’m having second thoughts about Mack because it isn’t his lot and I don’t want him hurt either so I think we’ll just stick with you and me.”

“I would suggest Gabe and Sar and Trae, if the latter two ever find BeBec.”

I gave that some thought.

Then I said, “Since Gabe is hard to kill, and Sar and Trae are impossible to kill, I accept those suggestions.”

Ash’s lips quirked.

“Mack’s gonna be ticked. I finally give him a job and now I’m going to take it away,” I noted.

“Mack would also be a good addition because he shared with me that he has an arrangement with the school that every summer he takes a three-month sabbatical, and during that time, he acts as a wilderness guide.”

“Although identifying the different flora and fauna in any given area is a useful skill, I’m not sure that’d be a lot of help against the crazy of Agatha Darling and the unknown of the hopefully-not-yet-fully-realized Dark Lord.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t thorough in what Mack shared with me. He’s a wilderness guide to trainee survivalists.”

Well, that was different.

“Then I accept that suggestion too.”

That made Ash out-and-out smile.

“Are you mad at me anymore?” I asked.

“No,” he answered.

“Good. Can I wear my ring now?” I asked.

“No,” he answered.

I couldn’t?

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I haven’t given it to you.”

“Yes, you have, rather dramatically, when you threw it at me.”

“Throwing it at you and giving it to you are two different things.”

They sure were.

“But now I know it exists and as such, I can’t exist without wearing it.”

“You’ve known it exists for days and you haven’t worn it and you’ve been fine.”

He was so wrong.

“I haven’t. I’m going crazy knowing it’s right there, and I can’t put it on.”

His face got scary. “Did you try it on?”

I suspected my face got scary too.

With affront.

“How can you ask that?” I snapped. “Of course not. It goes…you get on bended knee. Ask sweetly for my hand in marriage. Then I pretend to consider this when I’m oh-so-totally going to say yes. I take too long in doing that, which peeves you, as is our way. Then I accept, you slide the ring on, we kiss hard, then we open a bottle of champagne, drink two sips, and have wild, passionate sex. Anything else is bad luck, or at least, not dreamy and a good story to share with everyone who asks how you proposed. I can’t say, ‘He threw it at me over the bed while we were fighting, I tried it on when he wasn’t around, it was so glorious, I couldn’t take it off, and then I just started wearing it.’”

“I have a different idea about how I’m going to propose.”

“Does it include bended knee?”

“No.”

“Ash! That’s traditional!”

“Have I done a single thing since you’ve known me that makes you think I’m traditional?”

I wracked my brain.

He started chuckling.

“It’ll be how it is, and you’ll like it,” he announced.

“I better,” I muttered.

“Matty.”

I focused on him.

“You’ll like it,” he said firmly.

I suspected I would.

A whole lot.

So there you go.

I had my first vision in a while.

As usual, it wasn’t a good one.

Ash and I had made up.

And we had our team.

Now Sar and Trae had to find BecBec. I had to ask Cystien to borrow them after they did, call Gabe and see how he felt about coming onboard, and confirm with Mack he was in.

I suspected all of that was going to be the easiest part of all this mess.

And I was going to check that off my to-do list tomorrow, after I fully made up with Ash.

And no, I didn’t intend to do that like you’re thinking (at first).

I was going to spoil him by making his favorite dinner (and dessert).

So that was what I did.

 

23 July

 

I suspected wrong that pulling together my team was going to be the easiest part of this mess.

It was not.

I learned this tonight, when Ash and I were cuddling in front of the telly watching The Great British Bake Off.

And I was multi-tasking by daydreaming that not only would Paul Hollywood give a blurb for Lucy and my cookbook, he’d be a guest star on our cookery program.

And this guest-starring bit would include lots and lots of Paul Hollywood Handshakes.

We were interrupted in this when there came a pounding on the door.

“I swear to fuck, if that’s that woman from the FWA, I’m going to wring her tight-assed neck,” Ash threatened as he pushed off the couch.

He opened the door and we discovered it was not Agent Perry (or the non-tight-assed one, Agent Ramirez).

It was Su and Viv.

Both of whom pushed through Ash, coming direct at me.

But it was only Su who jabbed a finger at me.

“What’s this sexist bullshit?” she demanded to know.

“What’s what sexist bullshit?” I demanded to know.

“Your entire team is men, Matty,” Viv declared (irately). “That is sexist bullshit.”

“None of them even have magic,” Su stated (wrongly). “I mean, what the fuck?”

“Sar and Trae have magic,” I reminded her.

“BecBec has magic too, and if she knew you needed her, she’d return to help you,” Viv said to me.

“I think BecBec’s sacrificed enough for me, thankyouverymuch,” I said to her.

“All right then, why aren’t your very own flesh and blood sisters on your team?” Su practically shouted at me.

I jumped off the couch and answered (also shouting), “Because I love you, and Viv, and incidentally Mom and Gran, and I don’t want them in some heinous Saving Private Ryan sitch with all their girls off together fighting baddies.”

“Shit, I hadn’t thought of that,” Viv mumbled to Su.

“Huh!” I did not mumble to both of them.

“It’s still bullshit your team is all men. And newsflash, you could take one of us,” Su did not mumble to me.

“Okay, so you’re in, and Viv’s Command Central,” I decided on the fly.

“Great,” Su spat.

“I could do that,” Viv said.

“Are you guys done with ruining our night?” I asked. “We were about to re-witness the Great Baked Alaska Scandal.”

“Ooo, that’s a good one,” Viv said.

“Iain was hot when he got all ticked and threw away his bake,” Su said, sitting in my place on the couch.

“And poor Diana. She’d only had it out for a few minutes. But no one knew that,” Viv said, sitting in Ash’s place on the couch.

Su picked up the remote and restarted the show.

Before I could blow my stack that they were cramping my style and took the best viewing-Paul-Hollywood spots, Ash grabbed my hand and pulled me to the bedroom.

There, we finished watching the program in bed, and he only got up in order to lock up after my sisters when they shouted their goodnights.

He came back and got under the covers with me, turned out his light, plunging the room into darkness, then he pulled me into his arms.

“So I guess we have our team,” I said.

“Yes,” he affirmed.

“Now we just need to find them to stop them.”

“Yes,” he repeated.

I sighed.

Ash pulled me closer.

After a bit, Ash whispered, “I’ll keep Su safe too, sweetheart.”

That was when I relaxed.

And after that, fell asleep.

 

31 July

 

Tomorrow is the IDLCIG.

I suspect pretty much anything could happen.

 

1 August

Post-Dated Additional Note, written 29 August:

It did.