It wasn’t like I knew that. I just liked that stuff.
It seemed like everything I liked was considered bad news. Ruins. Bonfires. Cemeteries. The history of witch burnings. Spending hours reading about arcane spells that were no longer practiced.
I was a little goth witch, but I didn’t know it. In the magical world, goth kids weren’t just a harmless embarrassment to parents trying to beg their daughter to put on a nice dress and take out the lip piercing to have dinner with Grandma at a steakhouse. It could actually lead you to dark magic, or so they said.
I didn’t want to cast dark magic, though. I just wanted to understand it, and then I was happy to get rid of it. That was what I did to every house I’d bought. I liked to know what had happened there, and then I wiped all the bad vibes away.
I sighed at the state of the parlor. Not only had it been ransacked by Graham, but the old man had tried to update it in the 1970s. Gross moss green shag carpet covered the floor and the plaster walls had been covered by dark wood paneling. The furniture looked like a Brady Bunch set except everything was threadbare and sagging. And the decor was all rapier swords and coats of arms. A zillion candles had dripped wax on the tables and the icky carpet.
“Well, this is a total gut job,” I said. “So…we’ve got to redo the parlor completely, fix the dining room ceiling, plus some more plaster cracks, and…well, some people will hate that range in the kitchen, but I think she’s a beauty.” Some wizards would love that old range, while others would expect a gas oven.
“You certainly will not have the budget to update the range,” Bevan said. “This is a very rural house. No one will expect a modern stove.”
“Good. That’s what I was thinking. So far this isn’t bad at all,” I said. “Graham made it sound awful, but what does a guy like that know? He probably lives in some fancy new townhouse with cable TV and a lawn service!” I laughed, slightly maniacally, because I had been so scared of what I’d find in here. Instead, the magical power of the herbal garden outside was translating to treasures inside. A gorgeous old wood-fired range, magical wallpaper…did I mention the built in bookcases in the hall, and the apothecary room lined with cabinets and plenty of workspace for making potions and tinctures?
“I doubt any of the chimneys have a lining,” Bevan said. “You’ll need to repoint them all too.”
“That’s fine. I can even call a mundane company to do that part.” I started making notes. “This orange carpet on the stairs is the first thing I’ll rip up, I’ll tell you that much…”
I was going up the stairs now, my eyes immediately gravitating to a beautiful silver chandelier at the top of the stairs, where a hall wrapped around to the bedroom doors, and the original “familiar doors”. I hardly ever saw those! They were mostly out of fashion even by the time this house was built, but some 18th century magical houses had tiny cut outs at the tops and bottoms of doors for familiar to crawl or fly out of rooms. If a witch or wizard was attacked by a rival or demon, their familiar could slip out to warn other members of the household.
“Oh—wow!” I said, trying to open one of the bedroom doors. It was stuck. The house must have settled over the years so that the door didn’t sit in the frame correctly. I slammed my shoulder into it and only hurt myself. Or was it locked? I tried the keys on my ring. Ah. That was it. As soon as the door unlocked, it flew open hard, probably thanks to the fact that I had been shoving on it so much. I tumbled forward—and my feet encountered rotten wood.
Really rotten wood. There was serious damage to the floor in this room. It seemed both scorched and water damaged. Was there a magical fight in here at some point? My foot plunged right through the boards. I lost my balance and flung myself toward a sturdy chair near the window. The arm of the chair was solid. One of my feet found a precarious balance on sturdier ground and I managed to yank my foot out of the hole.
There goes more plaster. Into the kitchen this time. Ugh.
Graham did warn me about termites, I thought.
But he could have warned me there was a whole room about to cave in.
Suddenly the door slammed shut so hard that I screamed and jumped—and stepped right back into the hole. Which completely gave out under my feet.
Along with more plaster and dirt and rotten wood, I fell eight feet onto the old flooring of the kitchen.
A pain shot up my leg immediately.
“Not bad at all, eh? What does that guy know?” Bevan said, flying down after me as I let out a moan. The pain was getting sharper and it was clear I couldn’t put weight on my leg. Not to mention all the other bruises and scratches.
“Get help, Bevan,” I said.
“I hate to leave you…here,” he said, his little bat face glancing around. “That door slammed without any windows open.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, putting my hands on my swelling leg to try and stop the terrible pain. “But hurry. Please, hurry.”
“All right,” he said. “Be on guard. This house has been nothing but bad luck.”
He vanished, and as soon as he
