Witch, Please
I smiled and pointed a finger in the direction of the back room. “I’ll just…” I said, and trailed off. She gave me a
mocking sneer, so I winked at her wolfishly. Her shock was so pure and innocent that I almost laughed out loud.
Past the string bead door a woman well into her sixties was sitting at a faded blue metal desk collecting receipts.
She waved me over. “Thank you for coming,” said Englida (no, that isn’t her birth name, and no I’m not telling you
what that is. She’s been Engilda for decades).
I sat down in a plastic chair on the side of her desk. It was surprisingly comfortable. I smiled.
“So,” I said.
“So,” she said, and looked away. She appeared to be deep in thought. “Connie,” she says. The girl
came back past the string beads and stood in the doorway, struggling not to pout.
from the front
“I need to have privacy,” Engilda said. “Close the shop up and take a 15-minute coffee break.”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon,” said Connie.
“I do not wish to repeat my instructions,” said Engilda. Connie froze like a frightened deer, and then with an almost
reverent manner, retreated, making no sound until closing the door and locking it behind her.
“She thinks I have The Voice,” said Engilda, with a grin.
“An impression you’ve carefully sewn, no doubt,” I replied.
“Most Carefully.”
“And so long as she thinks it, you kind of do.”
“Only up to a point, unfortunately,” she replied, and briefly closing her eyes, pushed her palms into her desk, and
took a very deep breath. She snapped her eyes open and looked directly at me, as though she were in a very deep
pain. I waited.
“We have a Rogue,” she said.
I folded my hands together and considered the gravity of this. “Who?” I said.
“This pains me, you understand?”
“I understand.”
“It’s one of our most promising.. Well, she’s been with us for a while. I had faith in her skill, her wisdom. I thought
that one day, she would take over the coven…”
“Her name?”