Awaken, Witch!: Lightbeard's School for the Broken by Grotepas N.A

Author:Grotepas, N.A.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: N.A. Grotepas
Published: 2024-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

I didn’t necessarily want to go there again.

But… it was Christmas Day and I had no where else to go—as a working mother and with several years of a crumbling marriage on my hands, the few friendships I had forged had all but faded. Lori and her family—whose kids were the same age as mine—had moved back to Israel a year prior. And the two colleagues I’d shared an office space with moved on when I’d had to withdraw from the contract to homeschool the kids during the pandemic.

I had checked before leaving the house: a sudden flight home to Connecticut today was only $600. Sort of affordable…

And yet, why spend that when I had this perfectly fabulous alternative? Instead of running home to my parents, crying, I could pop into Books and Broomsticks 2 and experience the morning-after glow that I was sure both Amanita and Lightbeard would be exuding.

I took a breath to drum up the willpower to endure their postcoital good moods. I prepared myself to hear references to it that I would then ignore and feign naivete so that I didn’t have to hear about how it was or who did what to whom or anything like that. I wasn’t sure how loose they got with their tongues. Hopefully they kept them bolted to the roofs of their mouths.

The front doors were unlocked though the sign said “Closed,” but the lights of the shop were off. I’d known to expect that.

Everything was dark inside. The only light came from a few emergency bulbs under the coffee counter and what poured in through the windows, which wasn’t much. The day was gray and overcast, though the forecasted snow hadn’t yet started.

Pie squawked at me as I crossed the rug to the back door.

“Yeah? Did they actually remember to feed you?”

His long, multicolored tail bounced up and down as he turned on his perch. His black-eyed gaze was fixed on me.

“Yoga, yoga, yoga,” the magpie said.

I stopped.

“OK?” I would have sworn the bird said yoga. “Please bless that that means they’re somewhere doing actual yoga and not… I don’t know… the kama sutra or something,” I whispered, continuing on.

As I reached the back door, which was cracked open, I remembered another time the back door had been cracked open like that. I shivered.

Did I want to see that again?

I went through the doorway. The mausoleum-like silence inspired me to want to tiptoe, but that would be strange. If they were doing something odd—which wouldn’t be crazy of me to expect, their professions being what they were—I wanted to announce myself. As I strolled through the tiled hallways, I scuffed my shoes loudly and began to hum. The noises echoed against the brick walls.

The building, one of the oldest structures in the city, had been a school at one point. I climbed the stairs to the floor where Lightbeard’s office was. Music began to call to me like the pied piper. I followed it. It had a distinct Asian flare to it, what little I could hear.

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