Bitch Witch Read Free

easier.
    Cowboy waited, patiently holding his insurance card out. “I thought you were going to hit and run on me,” he teased.
    Sarah leaned back against the seat and took a deep breath. His essence came with it. He smelled—Sarah considered a moment, inhaling again, trying to place it— good. Not good as in attractive, although he had that, too—body wash, deodorant, and just a slight hint of sweat or anxiety. No, he smelled good.
    Honest.
    Physical, but has a penchant for history.
    Soldier.
    Fuck.
    “I am going to hit and run on you. I’ve got to go. Here.” Sarah tossed her insurance card out the window. It fluttered to the ground.
    He tried to hand over his card, but Sarah put the window up so quickly that his hand bumped against the glass. She looked away from him, glanced into the rearview mirror for show—she could already sense the momentary break in activity behind her Jeep—and shoved the gear into reverse.
    “Hey! Wait!” Cowboy hollered as she backed out.
    His yell came faintly through the glass, but Sarah didn’t pause, instead stepping on the clutch and moving into first gear. She needed to put as much distance between them as possible, and do penance for casting the damn spell that tore out the driveshaft of that pickup and bloodied half a dozen people. After that she’d figure out how the hell to break a love spell without casting again to do it.

 

     
     
    S arah arrived at work a half hour early Monday morning. She hadn’t slept last night—not that she ever really did. Witches couldn’t sleep long or deeply. Her aunt used to say it gave them more time to play.
    Mondays were Sarah’s idea of play, and her favorite day of the week. With a box of Dunkin Donuts in hand she swung by the coffee machine in the breakroom on the way to her cubicle. Despite the stigma attached to being female and making coffee for the department, Sarah liked good coffee and didn’t mind the stereotype. She made coffee almost every morning, and often brought treats. At lunch she regularly picked up as much takeout as she could carry. Most days she even wore a dress—they hid her penchant for sweets—and she always agreed to work late when asked. She didn’t mind being the poster child office worker from the fifties. She enjoyed every minute of mindless drudgery at Mass Power and Light.
    Sarah placed an éclair, arranged artfully on a real plate, in exactly the right spot on her desk and slid into her chair. This was what normal people did. People with souls not pledged to darkness.
    Sipping coffee with real cream, she gazed at the pale blue fabric of her cubical walls and the muscles in her neck relaxed. Pushing last night’s fiasco out of her mind came easy now. A calendar with pictures of New England beaches hung next to a framed poster of inspirational quotes. A fresh flower arrangement sat next to a silver frame with a smiling older couple. An assortment of highlighters lay beside colorful sticky notes, and a huge computer monitor sat smack in the middle of her desk. Normalcy.
    Lies.
    Sarah grimaced and glanced at one of the quotes on her poster.
    Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be. ~ Grandma Moses
    So what if she sent herself the flowers every week? So what if hours shopping for stationery and pens replaced growing herbs and manipulating dark matter? And so what if the couple in the photograph were actually the parents of a college roommate? Sarah had created a normal life for herself, and these props helped enforce that image. What happened to the women in her family wouldn’t happen to her, because she had chosen a life without magic.
    Mostly, liar.
    “If I smell coffee when I get off the elevator I know Sarah’s here,” a voice bellowed over the cubicle wall. “You’re the only clerk who makes it! You have a great work ethic. Don’t think we don’t notice!”
    Didn’t do it for you, Mr. Management. “Good morning, Avery.”
    “Good morning, Sarah. Did you have a good