Chapter 6

  Meredith And The Bat-Man

  A week passed. Meredith ran her Grandma’s shop with great enthusiasm and efficiency. She met many magical people and entities, but Victor had yet to return. The townsfolk became ever ingratiated towards the young witch as she flitted through the village conducting house calls. She utilized her magical acumen to invigorate the downtrodden and tend the unwell. Thankfully, nothing major had proven too daunting a task for Meredith so long as she had Grandma’s medical spell and potion book for reference. Over time, the young witch slowly developed a rapport with the townsfolk and was sufficiently rewarded for her time and efforts.

  “Thank you again, darling,” Sarah, the town baker, told Meredith after the witch magically mended her warped trays. “Take some blueberry muffins with you!”

  “Thank you, young witch!” David, a huntsman, exclaimed after Meredith fixed his broken arrows. “I’ll send a buck your way tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you so much,” Jenny, the newest mother in Greenwood, sighed after Meredith soothed her newborn babe to sleep. “I can finally get some rest. Here, take some honey. My husband just harvested it.”

  Meredith would chat with the townsfolk in the street. They were particularly curious about her, though the young witch considered her past rather boring. Despite her wariness, Meredith was always captured by Patricia, a jolly, jubilant, tan woman with curly brown locks, also known as the town gossip.

  “Oh! Meredith! Come here; I’ve got something to tell you!” Patricia, clad in a jumble of necklaces, beads, shawls, bracelets, and earrings, hiked her velvet dress with bejeweled hands and trotted over to Meredith.

  “I heard that Evelyn’s cousin, Francene, was walking alongside the edge of the forest on the outskirts of town, over there by Steve’s butcher shop—you know, we put him over there because he was stinking up the whole place—and she felt a dark magical energy! His son is your age, you know, and very cute!”

  “What do you mean?” Meredith’s interest was piqued. Usually, she didn’t ask Patricia questions because her answers would lead to incredibly long stories and anecdotes. A passerby would shake their head in sorrow for the poor captured girl.

  “Sammy is his name, short dark hair, tall—”

  “No, the dark energy.”

  “Oh!” Patricia replied, disappointed. “She said it felt different from yours and Ethel’s. Yours is nice and warm, but she said this was hot, cold, uncomfortable, and just felt wrong. It was like an aura! She felt it and booked it out of there!”

  “You can feel my magic?”

  “Oh yeah, all the time.” Patricia waved her hand incredulously. “Everywhere you go. That’s how Francene knew it was magic. She said it felt like yours except…bad!”

  “Huh…” Meredith thought for a moment. Patricia and her informants were known for…stretching the truth, but if Meredith could feel Wallace’s tainted presence, maybe non-magical people could too. She was skeptical but decided to check out the alleged dark magic. She’d have to remember to ask other villagers if they could somehow sense hers.

  Meredith left Patricia and went directly to the spot. She crept around behind Steve’s butchery, which reeked, but she didn’t feel anything. Slightly miffed, Meredith returned to her tasks.

  The following afternoon, after a hectic day that required her to extend shop hours, the young witch stepped outside to turn the sign, check the mailbox, and sweep the doormat and the immediate dirt path before the shop. The patron’s teleportation magic frequently left behind soot or glitter, depending on their preferred way of apparating, and the flyers sometimes scattered the contents of their broom heads.

  Meredith swept with the sun at her back, warming her black-robed shoulders. The sun enveloped the shop in soft orange. Above lay a cloudless, slowly darkening purple sky, giving way to the soft twinkling of the first emerging stars. But Meredith overlooked that. To her frustration, the swept particles floated upwards and settled upon the hem of her robe and black boots.

  A long shadow crept up the shop wall beside her own as she knelt to sweep her hand across her dusty clothes. Surprised, Meredith turned to see a cloaked and hooded figure approaching. The sun was at the person’s back, silhouetting and hiding their face. If it even was a person. After a scolding from Cici, Meredith made sure not to be presumptuous. It could be a sentient, floating brick for all she knew.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Excuse me, miss,” a terse man’s voice emanated from the shrouded hood. He stepped before her. “I have an emergency; my sister is ill, and I desperately need echinacea. I’ve come from upriver, and I’m terribly exhausted. I see your shop is closed, but perhaps you would be so kind as to make a small exception? May I come in? I’ll only be a short while.”

  As the man neared, Meredith could just make out the man’s stressed, pale face as the sun crouched behind the surrounding mountains. She could see snippets of gray and silver swept-back hair and a bare and gaunt chin. He looked ghastly. Meredith wondered if she should prescribe him some medicine as well. She couldn’t let the poor man leave as sickly as he came. That just wouldn’t do.

  “Certainly! Come on in.” Meredith turned to the door and stepped through. The shop was barely illuminated by the setting sun; Meredith had already deactivated the glow orbs above. The man followed her in as she threw the door open wide.

  “You said echinacea, right?” Meredith made for a display table by the side of the counter, then stopped. As the doorbell tinkled and the door softly shut, she felt a strange prickling run up her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. A peculiar feeling smashed into her. She felt hot, cold, uncomfortable, and altogether wrong. Meredith jerked around.

  The man’s unhooded face was mere inches away from Meredith’s. His eyes burned amber, and his face contorted in sickening glee. A ravenous smile stretched across his face, revealing particularly long, sharp canine teeth. He reached for Meredith.

  “What are you doing?!” Meredith screamed as she reeled back, away from the man’s clutches. A black, furry missile streaked past her shoulder and attached to the man’s face.

  “Yargh!” The man bellowed as he scrambled to remove the clawing cat from his skin. Meredith panicked and fumbled her wand out of her pocket. The flailing, snarling man tumbled into Meredith and knocked them both onto the floor.

  “Oof!” Meredith landed flat on her back. Her wand fell out of her hand and skittered across the wood planks. Meredith scrambled on her hands and knees to find it in the dim light. The man rolled away and then crashed into her again, sending her sprawling awkwardly onto her side. She kicked and struck at the man as Cici clawed at his face. Meredith was shoved aside, knocking over a display table, its contents spilling everywhere. She desperately felt around for her wand. Her fingers clasped around a thin object. She snatched it up. A limp holly bramble! It would have to do. Meredith whipped around in a low crouch, her makeshift wand held aloft. The man ripped Cici from his tattered face and flung the cat across the dark shop.

  “Sylis Tarna!” Meredith cried out. An invisible force erupted from the holly and smashed into the trespasser. He was knocked sideways into a table, then scrambled onto his feet and lunged towards Meredith, fangs bared.

  “Sylis Tarna!” She blasted him backward. He recovered and scrambled to the young witch.

  “Tell him he is no longer welcome,” a familiar voice intruded into Meredith’s mind, permeating every inch of her skull. She winced in pain.

  “What?” Meredith mumbled, slightly dazed.

  “Do it now!” The voice bellowed in her mind.

  “You’re not welcome here!” Meredith screamed.

  The man instantly froze, mere inches away from the young witch. His eyes turned from a disgusting hunger to shock as he grunted from unseen pain. His acrid breath roiled across Meredith’s face as she crouched, frozen in place. Then, he was ripped out of the shop as if yanked by an invisible rope. The door somehow slammed open, then shut as he passed through.

  Meredith sat panting on the floor, the pain in her skull receding to a dull ache. She heard the man tumble outside and curse. Bramble in hand, Meredith crawled to peek out the window and watched the man stand, transform into a bat, and fly away into the night.

  Meredith remained crouched. She paused momentarily to ensure he was gone, then turned back to the darkened shop.

  “Cici?” Meredith called out weakly, huffing. “Are you okay?”

  A pair of yellow eyes gleamed in the shadows.

  “Just a little dazed.” Cici sauntered out of the darkness and leaped into her outstretched arms. “You?”

  “I’m fine, just worked up.” Meredith kicked her legs out in front of her and pressed her back into the wall beneath the window. “Thank you for protecting me.” She cuddled Cici, stroking his fur. He purred in response.

  “I was so shocked; I could barely do anything!” Meredith continued, breathless. “Everything happened so fast! Was that a vampire?”

  “Mhm.” Cici nuzzled into Meredith and leaned into her pets. “How’d you get him out of here? I heard you say something, but it didn’t sound like a spell.”

  “It wasn’t. At least, I don’t think it was. I heard a voice in my head tell me to tell the vampire that he wasn’t welcome anymore.”

  “How strange,” Cici purred matter of factly. “I thought you were boy crazy, but it turns out you’re just regular crazy.”

  “No, seriously!” Meredith exclaimed. “I heard it once before! It told me to close the apothecary drawer!”

  “What is that you’re holding?”

  “I couldn’t find my wand,” Meredith softly chuckled as she held up the holly bramble.

  Cici gave her a sideways glance.

  “I’m not crazy!”

  She rested her head against the wall and released her pent-up stress. They sat in the dark together for a long while, slowly calming down.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to fall asleep tonight after all this,” Meredith sighed.

  “I can assist you, child,” a voice said.

  Meredith and Cici leaped to their feet, claws, and make-shift wand at the ready.

  “Did you hear that?” Cici hissed.

  “That’s the voice!” She exclaimed.

  “Turn on the lights!”

  Meredith activated the glow orbs with a flick of her bramble, and the shop became illuminated in soft white. They glanced around, but no one was there.

  “Find your actual wand!” Cici hissed. Meredith quickly snatched it up.

  “Calm yourselves,” the voice reverberated. “I mean you no harm.”

  “Where are you?” Meredith cried out, waving her wand back across the empty shop. “Who are you?”

  “I am Thomas,” the voice replied.

  Thomas sat in his glass enclosure on the counter; all three eyes peered at the young pair.

  “The toad?!?” Meredith and Cici exclaimed simultaneously.