Witch Time—An Aunt Lily Vignette by S.R. Karfelt

TheGlitterGlobe/S.R. Karfelt.com

Looking into a mirror is never a good idea.

The Archer house didn’t have any, hadn’t in the two hundred fifty years it had been standing.

Vegas hotels were a different matter.

Lily risked a glance, hoping to check out her new Vera Wang. She froze.

“Are you coming?” Sissy shouted back at her, not waiting for an answer. She hurried into the casino with the bellboy dragging their luggage behind her. Lily sensed her sister’s spell ripple throughout the hotel. That was Sissy. Excess. Too much luggage. Too much wasted energy on a simple spell. Too much mean.

Dozens of slot machines lit up and clanged. The deafening sound of excited voices rose with the promise of hit jackpots. But of course no money came out. Within seconds the excited voices turned to shouts and protests. That was Sissy’s specialty. F*cking with people. Even as a child she’d been a mean-ass witch. In Lily’s experience time didn’t make anything better.

Most especially witches.

“Aunt Lily?” Her niece came up behind her to warn, “Be careful. There are mirrors along the right wall all the way to the elevators.”

“No shit?” Lily pulled her eyes away from them and hurried down the corridor. “You had one job. All you had to do was find a hotel without mirrors!” Her heels clicked over the marble floor and men stopped to watch, as always answering the question of how she looked. She didn’t need mirrors to answer that. Normally she’d wallow in the reaction a bit, but the mirror’s vision had ruined that. Maybe she’d never enjoy it again—at least not for much longer. How long did she have before it came true? Ten years maybe. She and Sissy would be dead, and that meant that the world’s worst witch—her niece—would be alone to carry on the Archer legacy.

The girl wasn’t ready. Despite what she’d already seen in the mirror, Lily couldn’t resist another glance. This time all she saw was herself, and she did look fabulous, like a European model. Tossing her head back, she rubbed her lips together to more evenly distribute the red lipstick. She could see her niece hurrying along in her wake, shoulders hunched, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and nearly stumbling in dollar store flip-flops. Hell’s bells that kid is pathetic. The chaos in the casino made it hard to get through to the elevators. A faint cast of pheromones took care of that. Even the handful of security guards, in the midst of trying to figure out what had happened, ushered people out of her way.

Lily let the aftershock of the spell hit Sarah. This time she did trip over her own feet and hit the well-polished floor. No one paid her the least bit of attention. The kid scrambled up and hurried to catch up. She had to know that had been payment for the spell, but she didn’t say a word. Didn’t even point out that there were no Vegas hotels without mirrors for bat-frek sakes. Without a doubt she was the worst witch Lily had ever seen. She’d scratch another witch’s eyes out for talking to her or using her like that.

But Sarah was a softie. She cried if they so much as killed a freaking cat. They clambered into the elevator together. At least the girl clambered. Lily positioned herself in the middle and lifted her chin, the better to give the security camera a great view of her cleavage. They were watching. Lily could sense it as easily as if they were doing it beside her. She’d make sure to run into them later. If she only had ten more years, she wasn’t going to waste a day.

“Are you going to hit the button, or are we going to stand here and play floor roulette?” Sarah reached toward the control panel but Lily grabbed her hand. “Not with your hand.”

Sarah widened her blue eyes. At sixteen she still wore no makeup, and she definitely hadn’t discovered tweezers. The kids was well on her way to a uni-brow. “There’s cameras,” she whispered it as though there were microphones too.

“That’s half the fun, numbnuts. Do it. And try to direct the aftershock at me. I dare you. Let’s give them an urban legend to play with.”

***

This little bit of pre-Bitch Witch came out during a writing workshop this summer.

Even while writing the book, the history of Aunt Lily kept taking shape in my mind. She influenced Sarah Archer, and there’s a delicious story about Lily hidden within the pages of that book. Did you notice? Do you wonder about her? Do you love a good bad guy as much as I do? Since this is October, and I’ve been on the blog lam quite a while lately, this is a little treat for my readers. I like Lily better than dark chocolate, and that’s saying something.

If you haven't read Bitch Witch yet, tis the season. It's available at bookstores, and on Kindle HERE RIGHT HERE WITCHY BOOK LINK HERE. And if you'd like to leave me a Halloween treat, leave a review. That way I know which book to focus my energy on next.