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Witch's Brew

Berry Kercheval

For nearly 30 years Berry Kercheval has been herding computers in the Bay Area for LLNL, Xerox PARC, and numerous startups and has published two technical books. Having recently discovered that when writing fiction you can MAKE IT ALL UP he has started selling short stories and is working on a novel.

 

Mo flicked her black bangs from her eyes as she glanced up from her notebook to check on the mall coffee shop. All the patrons were happily slurping their cappuccinos and lattes and decaf soy-milk mochas. OK, duty done, back to work.

It was bad enough that she had to go to regular school, which sucked big-time. Witch School on top, two afternoons a week, totally cut into her social life, and to have to have a job besides was beyond tedious. At least her boss at the Coffee Spot didn't mind if she studied when it was slow, and while studying was boring, it kept Mater Ruth off her back. And it wasn't like there was a whole lot to do in the shop in the middle of the afternoon. As long as no one actually read her spell notebook over her shoulder it was safe.

The bell on the door jangled as Justin walked in, just the hottest boy in the class. He was with Heather. Mo grimaced. The cute ones always went for the cheerleader types.

Justin came up to the counter. "Hi, can I have two large mochas, please?"

Mo stared at him. Her stomach tingled, then she blinked and remembered her job.

"Sure, Justin, two large caffé mochas coming up, Justin." Ohmigod, I said his name twice! She turned to the espresso machine to hide the blush that rose from the collar of her black t-shirt. The routine of tamping the ground coffee, pulling the shots and steaming the milk calmed her. She assembled the drinks and put them on the counter.

"That's six dollars. Thanks!"

Justin took the drinks and sat at the table Heather had found for them. Mo sighed and went back to her notebook behind the counter. She turned the page and read about the summoning spell they were working on this week. The incantation was written next to the diagram.

"By my will and by thy true name . . ." she muttered under her breath to set the words in her mind. Mater insists everyone memorize the spells, can you believe it? she thought. It's like, hello, we have PDAs and computers now, that's what they're for. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingle with the magic. Since she had deliberately not set out the herbs and stuff, the spell wouldn't fully activate with just the diagram and incantation, so no wards were needed. The first level wards she could do were a pain in the ass anyway. It would be easy to explain the candles to her boss as part of the cross-promotion with Kandle-Kwik across the mall, but the salt circle? No way. She could hardly wait for the advanced wards, which were harder to set but needed less junk scattered around.

"Excuse me, I just need the cinnamon." Justin had come back and set his mocha on the counter. Mo handed him the cinnamon shaker without looking up from her notebook. Why fool herself? There was no chance with him.

She restarted her incantation. As Justin reached for the cinnamon shaker his elbow knocked over the drink. The hot milk, coffee, and chocolate spilled onto the counter top, off the back edge and dripped onto the book.

"Whoops!" said Justin, reaching for the spilled drink and knocking over the cinnamon as well. "Sorry . . ."

"—I summon thee! Oh shit!" cried Mo as the spell diagram on the drenched page began to glow. Clouds of yellowish smoke gathered over the book and a twisting maelstrom of chaos grew in the middle of the page. A taloned hand poked through the portal. A scaly arm followed it and a small, plump imp crawled through. It looked just like a standard demon: smell of rotten eggs, check; razor-sharp talons to flay the skin from your flesh, check; barbed tail to whip your back into bloody shreds, horns to disembowel you, check and check. The only unusual feature was, it was eighteen inches tall and cute as, well, the devil.

"Khresk smaz fthagn!" it shouted. While everyone in the coffee shop turned and stared, it jumped down from the counter, wove through the legs of the crowd and scooted out into the mall before anyone could even realize it was time to scream.

"Whoa!" said Justin. "That was, like, cool! Do another!"

Mo burst into tears.

* * *

"All right, Maureen Imogen Sanderson, tell me what happened here." Mater Ruth had no patience with pretensions and always used Mo's real name. She had apparated into the back room and swept out into the shop seconds after the imp disappeared. "Your safety amulet signaled an unwarded spell. From the page open in your notebook it appears to have been the lesser summoning we've been studying. Did something escape?"

"I didn't mean to, it just—Justin spilled the—and then—" Mo was just starting to get her tears under control.

"You were reading aloud again, weren't you? And without wards! Didn't I warn you about that?"

"But none of the physical items were present, just the diagram." Mo was near whining.

"Hey? Like, what the heck? I mean . . ." Justin was trying to get Mater Ruth's attention.

"Pish," said Ruth. She took a pinch of powder from her purse and blew it into the air. "Congenium frigident!"

The folks in the coffee shop ceased all motion, except Mo, Mater Ruth . . . and Justin.

"Achoo! What was that?" he asked.

Mater frowned at him. "You're immune to the spell. Do you have the Talent?"

"Spell, you mean like witches and wizards and stuff? Cool! Where's the camera? What show is this?"

"Oh dear. Well, stand over there and remain silent, there's a good lad."

Justin rested his elbows on the counter, watching in fascination.

"Now, let's close this rift and see if we can clean up the mess." She extracted a wand from her purse and passed it over the roiling vortex still churning in Mo's notebook. A tentacle protruded from the portal and started feeling around on the counter. She poked it sharply with the wand. It jerked back as if stung before retreating.

"Got it," Mater said. "Now, my dear, kindly close it off."

"Me?" Mo wailed. "Why me?"

"Your spell, young lady, you clean it up." Her voice took on the tone of an exasperated but patient teacher. "How do we shut down spells?"

"Um, normally we brush the salt out of the spell diagram but there's no salt here, just . . . uh . . ."

Mater tapped her wand on the other hand, waiting. Mo looked at the portal, swirling mist embedded in a page of her notebook. "We need to, um, disrupt the geometry another way, so, maybe this will work."

She reached out and took a corner in both hands and tore sharply across the page. The vortex closed with a greasy plop that left a strong smell of raisin-nut cookies in the air. Mater sniffed. "That would be the cinnamon. Nicely done, young lady, but you're still in a lot of trouble, you know that?"

"Well, I thought it would be OK . . ." Mo started.

"And now you've learned better. Again. Time to clean up this mess, Maureen, dear. Better get started."

"Get started? Where? How?"

"Come now, my dear, I've taught you all you need to deal with this. Think it through logically."

Mo pondered. "Well, I guess I . . . I need to, like . . .
find the imp, bring it back here, and return it to . . .
wherever."

"Excellent!" said Mater. "Go ahead."

"Well, track the imp . . . the spell of finding seems obvious. We need something related to the imp."

Justin had been watching raptly as this interchange went on. His elbow slipped in something wet and slimy. "Eeeeuw!" he said.

"Imp slime! Perfect!" said Mo. "Now a focus, preferably organic." She plucked a wooden coffee stirrer from a container on the counter.

"I'll do the wards," said Mater Ruth. A quick mutter, a sprinkle of salt for protection, a few gestures, and a sparkle settled on the walls of the shop.

Mo rummaged in her schoolbag, took out a few items and set to work. She quickly tied a length of string to the stick, rubbed it in the slime, sprinkled some powdered herb—cowslip for finding—and paused.

"Go on, dear, you've done this before."

Mo squared her shoulders and repeated the familiar incantation. Another sparkle condensed on the stick.

"Hey, that was a neat effect. I thought you added those later with CGI? Or is this just glitter and a laser pointer?" said Justin.

Mater was surprised. "You can see that? Very interesting, very interesting indeed." Mo could almost see the facts dropping onto Mater's mental notebook, adding to a neat "To-Do list."

Mo held the string up, and the stick dangled below, spun, and swung toward the doorway.

"It went thataway!" cried Justin. "Let's go, pardner."

Unsure whether Justin was being ironic or just goofy, Mo looked at Mater. "Go on, dear, it's just a minor imp and should be no problem for you to handle. I'll—what is the phrase?—hold down the fort and keep the powder dry."

As the two teens left the shop, the stick pulled to the left. They followed it briskly out into the mall.

They set off down the corridor, passing the Pottery Hut. They saw the imp perched on top of a cell phone kiosk, bouncing up and down. The phones started ringing. The imp had set them all to use "The Macarena" as their ringtone. Forty tinny versions, all slightly out of step, blared from the display.

"Oh, shoot me now!" said Mo, "One Macarena is bad enough."

The imp jumped down and scampered along the corridor. Justin and Mo followed close behind, leaving the kiosk attendant trying to shut down all the phones.

They passed a Beach, Bar and Bed store and emerged into the open atrium where the mall corridors crossed. There they saw the imp climbing onto the gazebo in the Tot Shot children's photography stand in the middle of the atrium. During the holidays this was where Santa or the Easter Bunny posed with the kids, but the rest of the year it was where doting parents took their kids for pictures to send to Grandma.

As the imp capered on the top of the kiosk, Justin asked "How come no one's screaming?"

Mo looked from the parents and photographer behind the camera to the young boy sitting on a chair under the gazebo. "I guess the imp can control his visibility. I can see him all the time because I'm a witch."

"So if I can see him, what does that make me?" asked Justin.

"Good question, but we can ask Mater about it later."

The imp screwed up its face as if it were making a great effort and leaned over the edge of the gazebo. The young boy looked up and screamed just as the flash went off.

Justin laughed. "Oh, what a great shot!"

Mo punched him in the arm. "Come on, this is serious." Then she giggled too. "But it will be a great shot." They approached the gazebo and the imp spotted them, jumped down and ran off down a service corridor.

Following him into the passage, they could see the tiny imp at the end, leaping frantically, trying to reach the doorknob.

"There he is!" Justin shouted.

They stepped into the passage blocking the imp's exit. "Come on, little fellow," crooned Mo. "Come to mama . . ."

The imp turned, looked around and scooted up the side of the passage toward them. "Don't let it get past you!" shouted Mo.

"How?" cried Justin.

"I don't know, just do something!"

Justin took out a pencil, pointed it at the imp with a flick of his wrist and shouted "Stupefy!"

"You idiot!" Mo said, "That only works in Harry Potter."

Justin pointed. The imp, frozen in a running position, slowly toppled over and fell onto its nose. "Ooooh, that's gotta hurt."

"How did you do that?"

"I dunno. It just seemed like the right thing. And it worked when Hermione did it to what's-is-name," said Justin.

"But . . . but . . . but we can work that out later. Let's get this little guy back to the Coffee Spot so Mater Ruth can deal with him." She pulled a Pottery Hut shopping bag from a trash bin and scooped up the imp.

 

Mo dumped the still-frozen imp onto a table in the Coffee Spot. "There! Now you can send him back. Send it. Whatever."

Ruth laughed. "Oh no, this is your mess, dear. Think of it as a learning experience." Mo rolled her eyes; she'd gone through some of Mater Ruth's "learning experiences" before.

"But let's see what you've got here." She held her hands over the rigid imp and concentrated. "Interesting. Did you use Gellman's Petrifaction? I didn't think we'd worked with spells that advanced."

Mo blushed. "Um . . ."

Justin spoke up. "I did it. I think. Probably."

"Did you?" said Mater Ruth, raising one eyebrow. "What a talented young man you're turning out to be. Now, Maureen, send this little fellow back to where he came from. May I suggest that a standard 'dispel evil' should do the trick?"

Justin looked at Mo. "Maureen?"

Mo blushed deeper. "It's the name my parents gave me. Mater Ruth insists on using it."

"I kinda like it."

Ruth tapped her fingers on the table and inclined her head toward the diminutive imp, which was starting to twitch. Mo said "Oh, right. Let's see." She took some chalk from her schoolbag and quickly drew a pentagram around the imp, saying a containment spell as she did so. Sparkling motes condensed from the air and swirled around it. Then she pulled out a small sack and removed a pinch of sweet-smelling cloves and sprinkled it on the imp, saying "By my will and with thy name, I conjure thee, uh, I conjure thee—Shoot, I don't know its name!" The sparkle faded out.

"Name?" asked Justin. "Why do you need its name?"

Mater Ruth stepped in. "Magic works best if you know a thing's true name. The easiest way to get rid of this imp is to use its true name to compel it to return home."

"But I don't know its name!" wailed Mo.

The imp twitched again and started to move its arms.

"How did you get it here?" asked Ruth.

"Justin spilled his coffee when I was practicing."

"Hey," said Justin, "if you need its true name to send it back, don't you need it to get it here too? What exactly did you say in the incantation?"

Mo sniffed. "Well, I was going to use a place holder. You know, 'I summon thee, insert name here', but then you spilled the coffee and ruined everything!"

"Calm down. Remember what you actually said," said Justin.

"Insert name here?"

"No, what you actually said was 'I summon thee— Oh shit!' so try that. What could it hurt?"

"Talented and clever," Ruth said. "Give it a try, Maureen, dear. After all, now that he's properly contained the worst that could happen is the little fellow will laugh at us."

"Well, OK," Mo said. The imp moved its arm and rolled over onto its back. She got out another pinch of cloves and sprinkled it onto the imp. It sneezed, and she started again. "By my will and by thy true name, Oh Shit, I conjure thee—"

The imp sat up suddenly and stared directly at Mo.

"—take thyself back to the place whence thou came, and return not an ye not be summoned." Mo raised her arms and shouted, "BEGONE!"

"Bye-eep!" The little imp grinned, waved and vanished in a puff of greasy black smoke.

Mo sat down in a chair abruptly.

"Wow!" said Justin. "Maureen, that was cool! Can you teach me?"

"No," said Ruth, "but I can. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons after school, don't be late, and bring a blank notebook."

"What?"

"Well, you have the talent, that's clear. You need training if for no other reason than to enable you to control it. Come by and we'll make sure you get that. You can escort Maureen; she'll show you the way. Now let me release these poor folks. Luckily that spell has a ten minute amnesia built in."

Ruth snapped her fingers and the patrons of the shop resumed their activities, oblivious to the near disaster that had unfolded under their noses. She swept out of the shop before Justin could frame a reply.

"Justin?" Heather called from her table, "What's going on?"

"Later!" Justin said without looking away from Mo.

"Justin!" Heather stood and actually stamped her foot.

"I said, later."

Offended, Heather picked up her bag and stormed out of the shop.

"Your girlfriend left."

"Oh, she's not my girlfriend, really. But what about this spell class? Do I have to come? Don't I get a choice? And what's with the 'Mater' stuff."

"No, you don't really get a choice," Mo said. "Mater's just like that. It means 'mother' in Latin, which is what we call the leader of a group of witches. She's a bit sharp and bossy, but she's a really good teacher and mostly patient as long as you're trying."

"Yeah, I can see that. Like how she let you figure out how to do this without yelling. I wish Mr. Farnsworth was like that in Algebra."

"Um, well, you know, I could help you with the Algebra. I mean, if you like."

"That would be nice." Justin looked at Mo. "Hey, you know what? I thought you were just a weird nerd, like everyone says at school. Well, you are weird, but it's cool-weird!"

Mo laughed. "Cool-weird, huh? I can live with that. Here, let me get you a fresh coffee."

 

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