Un-Familiar Magic (Accidental Familiar Book 3) Read online

  Un-Familiar Magic

  Accidental Familiar 3

  By Belinda White

  Copyright 2019 Belinda White

  Kindle Edition

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  A Note From Belinda

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  Chapter 1

  SO, AS IT TURNS OUT, I’m a Light Witch.

  You know all those years growing up thinking that my family’s magical legacy had passed me by? Well, all those years past I’d been wrong. Dead wrong. Now, if I’m not careful, I’ll just be plain dead too.

  When I asked my family why they were so adamant about the witches’ council not knowing my new status, I didn’t much care for their answers. It seems that on the rare occasion when a Light Witch is unearthed, the council only has two ways to go about dealing with them. According to Lily, the first way is to put the witch, innocent or no, into a magic draining box for life. Oh, they might try to make it a fairly comfortable box, but it would be a box all the same.

  Any sane person might ask why they would take such drastic measures against a witch that might have been living her life within the letter and spirit of the witches’ creed, like me. The short answer is that Light Witches have an enormous amount of power. We already knew that. Some of the things I’d done since coming into my power had been nothing less than miracles. But according to the council and all their vast wisdom, that much power left to the designs of a single person is a menace to society.

  Plus, and I’m sure the council portrays this as merely a side benefit to keeping society at large safe from the Light Witch, all that magic that is drained from the witch can then be put to better use by those in charge. Namely, of course, the council.

  Seems awfully coincidental to me. But, of course, the council has the best interests of all witches at large. Yeah, right. Not if you happen to be a Light Witch.

  So, what happens when the Light Witch protests her life sentence? Well, that’s when the second way the council has of dealing with them comes into play.

  They kill them.

  Some choice, huh? Either live out the rest of your life in a box serving as a battery for the council’s purposes or... die.

  My plan? I would do just what Opal and the rest of my family advised me to do. Keep my head down, keep my emotions in check, and learn how to control this incredible power the Goddess had decided to bestow upon me.

  Personally, I wish she’d chosen some other witch.

  But I’ve been told we have to live by the cards we are dealt in life. If my life’s magical card was a possible death sentence, there wasn’t much I could do to change that. But I could try with all my might to keep that fact out of the hands of the witches’ council.

  My family and friends are trying to help.

  They’re also driving me more than a little crazy.

  “Amie, you’re tensing up. You’re thinking about the council again, aren’t you?” Mom’s voice sounded a tad bit annoyed. With good reason, most likely. I wasn’t the best of students when it came to this meditation thing.

  I doubled down and forced my shoulders to drop and really tried to clear my mind. It’s hard to do with the whole possible death sentence hanging over my head, but I tried. Even Mom admits, grudgingly, that I am getting better at this. It’s just taking me longer than most to master it.

  “That’s better. Let your mind empty and just concentrate on your breathing. Breathe in one-two-three, hold one-two-three, and breathe out one-two-three.” She repeated that last part until she was satisfied that I was where I needed to be. In a relaxed state. Then she went on to the next part.

  “See your sanctuary up ahead. It’s waiting for you. Take the two remaining steps up to it and cross the strength-giving threshold. As you do so, a soft white light surrounds you, cleansing your aura and giving you peace of mind. You are safe here. Safer than anywhere else in the universe.”

  I tried to push the thought out of my head that her words weren’t actually true, as the place only existed in my mind. Maybe that was enough. I took the two mental steps and was a little surprised when the sensation of the light hitting my skin covered me with a gentle heat. That was... nice.

  I’d put a lot of work into my sanctuary, just as Mom had instructed me to. I felt comfortable here. And yes, even safe.

  It was a small glass room in the middle of the forest. With the sunlight filtering in through the leaves outside and through the glass, it would be warm in here even in the coldest of weather. I tried not to think about how hot it would be in the summer, if the little domed room actually existed. That didn’t really matter, anyway, as my sanctuary was stuck in time as well as place. Perpetual spring.

  Crossing the small, peaceful space, I sat on the big, fluffy bean bag chair of my youth. The one that Yorkie Doodle had destroyed during her puppy stage in real life. I loved that chair.

  As I settled into its deep, soft fluffiness, the last of the tension faded away.

  “Amie, wake up.” Mom wasn’t amused.

  I’d fallen asleep again. Apparently, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Unfortunately, when my body reaches that stage of almost perfect relaxation, that’s what it does. Sleeps.

  I sighed and opened my eyes. “Sorry, Mom. I’m not sure I’ll ever get the hang of this, but I am trying.”

  She blew out a breath. “I know you are.” She shook her head. “We’ll try again tomorrow. Practice. This is important. It just might save your life one day.”

  How many people could say that? That meditation might save their life? It was true with me though. If what Mom said was true, anyway. Meditation strengthened the mental muscles and allowed us to call on peace of mind even in the darkest of times. Peace of mind should help me combat the magic when it came flooding in when crisis struck. Which, here lately in my life, had seemed to happen more frequently.

  Hopefully, fate would give me a few years to recuperate and get my magic under control before throwing me and my family another curveball. One could only hope.

  I followed Mom to the top of the inside stairs and watched as she walked down them. All of this was weighing heavily on her, I knew. She wasn’t normally the hard taskmaster she’d been of late. Usually, she was as happy and carefree as anyone I’d ever known. An eternal optimist, that’s my mom. The current situation had changed that.

  That, in part, was the reason I was trying so dang hard to do this.

  When Mom reached the bottom of the stairs, I took a deep breath and turned back into my apartment. And almost had a heart attack when I saw Ruby standing right behind me.

  Sometimes I really wished Arc had never taught her that quiet shoes spell. She really took advantage of it to sneak up on me now. Maybe I should put a bell on her or something.

  But then, knowing Ruby, she’d put a quiet spell on th
at too. It wasn’t good on my already stressed out nerves.

  “How’d it go today?”

  I stuck my tongue out at her. Within reason, she already knew. Why should today be any different from the past week? She knew I had a long way to go on my journey to peace of mind and personal transformation.

  “That good, huh?” Her smile brightened. “Well, I’ve got something that might help you relax a bit with all the goings on of late.”

  All I could do was stare at her. Like the others, she really didn’t get it. Part of the reason I was so tense all the time was that everyone around me was trying to get me to relax. Kind of hard to put something out of your mind when people kept referring to it in an around about way.

  “Oh, goodie.”

  Ruby didn’t even bat a single eyelash at my bland remark. Instead, her smile turned into an outright grin. “Oh, you’re gonna like this one, I think. Close your eyes.”

  Surprises? What was she thinking?

  She gave me a not-so-light fist jab to the shoulder. “Just trust me, okay? Now, close those peepers.”

  Why not? After all, it was Ruby. If I couldn’t trust her, who could I trust?

  I felt myself being led into my living room area. I was kind of surprised when she stopped there. I’d just been in there two minutes ago. That actually kind of relieved me. It must be a small surprise. I could handle those better.

  “Okay, you can open them now.”

  I did. And then I blinked.

  “How... where...?”

  The problem was that I couldn’t believe what was now sitting where my old easy chair had been. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn it was the very same tie-dye looking fluffy beanbag chair that I’d loved so much, so very many years ago. That wasn’t possible, though, as this chair looked like it had its stuffing intact.

  In fact, it looked brand new.

  “Do you like it?” Ruby was bouncing on the balls of her quiet feet.

  I had to swallow the lump out of my throat. Part of the deal with sanctuaries is that they are different for every single person. They are extremely personal places for you, and maybe some figment of your imagination that you might ask to drop by for a chat. The point being, no one knew that I had this chair in my sanctuary.

  How could she have possibly known? This had to be Goddess-driven. But none of that mattered, anyway.

  Crossing the room only took a few steps, and I ran a hand lovingly over the soft fluff that covered the chair. “Like it? No,” I said. “I love it! How did you find this?”

  She grimaced. “It wasn’t easy, believe me. But it was worth it.” Then the color rose in her cheeks. “Don’t feel too special, though. I got me one too.”

  I could feel the tears blurring my vision. “Thank you, Ruby. This... helps.” How awesome would it be to meditate and visit my sanctuary while sitting in the same chair? Kind of a bridge from my mental state to my physical one. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow’s session to try it out.

  Chapter 2

  AFTER SPENDING A FEW minutes wallowing in my awesome new chair, I decided a trip to the library was in order. Right now, I had a lot of time on my hands, as my family was pretty adamant about me not taking on any bounty hunting jobs until we got this under control.

  Not that I doubted their wisdom on that point. Sounded like a smart plan to me.

  With my new chair and unusually abundant free time, I could use a few books to read. It was definitely time to visit my good friend Mabel at the Wind’s Crossing Public Library.

  As long as I was back by three, I was golden. I was trying really hard to not think about that three o’clock deadline and what it meant. But the thoughts crept in as I rode my bike into town, anyway.

  Opal had decided to keep the store closed for a couple more weeks and to join in on my training. Mom was in charge of the meditation part—no way could I relax that much with Opal in the same room. Plus, it was kind of Mom’s specialty. Opal’s specialty was potions and spell casting.

  That’s what we were doing this afternoon. Making a potion. Opal, in her infinite wisdom, had decided that if I had this kind of power, it would be a waste not to put it to good use. Personally, I think this whole idea stemmed from the fact that there were potions and spells that had befuddled even her magic before now. She was hoping to draw on my power to change that.

  I was okay with that for the most part. It was all part of leveling up as a witch. The only odd thing about it all was the fact that I’d be helping her as much as she was helping me. No easy spells like free-lock or find. Not today, anyway. Hopefully, I could get Ruby to teach me those in some of our spare time. They could be really useful once I got back to work.

  As I got closer to my destination, the shouting started to register in my brain. Oh, Goddess. Crazy Al was back at it again. Sure enough, as I turned down the little side road to the library’s main entrance, I saw him standing on his milk carton across the street.

  He’d tried to take up residence on the steps of the library a time or two, but Clarence had put an end to that pretty quickly. At least this way, patrons didn’t have to get within arm’s reach of the man. Not that he was dangerous.

  More... dedicated, I guess you’d say.

  “We have to take back our town,” he yelled. “Drive out the wife beaters, drug dealers, and child molesters. It’s time for the good men to show themselves and come forth to do God’s work...” He rambled on, but I lost interest pretty fast. It was the same thing every day he showed up to preach. He was trying to raise an army of men to right the wrongs of Wind’s Crossing.

  Funny, but I thought we already had one. It was called the Sheriff’s Department.

  The library didn’t seem to be all that busy, but I still hesitated to go in. Even if it would get me out the vocal range of Crazy Al.

  Most of that hesitation came from the fact that Tommy Hill’s motorbike was parked at the curb out front. He and I were at that awkward stage right now, seeing as how his mom had tried to kill all us Ravenswinds. And how he’d confessed his crush on me too.

  We’d both decided that wouldn’t work out. It would break whatever tiny little thread was still holding Naomi Hill together. Hence, the awkward part.

  In the end, I just sucked it up, took a deep breath, and went in.

  He was standing at the circulation desk deep in conversation with Mabel. I took note when I heard her giggle. Mabel wasn’t generally the giggling schoolgirl type. But then maybe she didn’t normally have a hot geek leaning on her counter talking her up.

  I strode over to them. “Hey, guys, what’s so funny? I could use a good laugh right about now.”

  Instead of an immediate answer, my friends blushed. Both of them. That was odd.

  “Nothing really, just a funny thought I had about books,” Tommy said after the brief silence. He looked over at Mabel and gave his little lopsided smile. “I’d better get back to work. See you later.” Then he nodded at me and left.

  I tilted my head at Mabel. We’d been friends for a while. “Spill.”

  She lifted a shoulder and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Nothing to spill. I’m going through a hard time with Ralph, and Tommy was just trying to cheer me up.”

  Sounded like it was working too. But I hated to hear about the Ralph part.

  “What’s Ralph up to now?” When she didn’t answer right away, I continued. “You know there’s plenty of room at the farmhouse if you need it.”

  She nodded, still avoiding my eyes. I didn’t like that one bit. Maybe I should take the time out of my schedule to go and have a little talk with Ralph. Then I thought about my new, emotion controlled—or rather uncontrolled—magic and decided that might not be such a good idea after all.

  “So, what do you recommend I read until the next Stephanie Plum book comes out?” If she wasn’t ready to talk, then changing the subject would do us both a favor.

  Mabel swallowed, then smiled at me. “How do you feel about witch mysteries?”

  I blinked at
her. “You have those?” I mean, where’d they been all my life?

  She laughed, not a giggle, but it was still good to hear from her. “Yes. They’re quite popular these days. Taking over the online book stores right now.” She glanced over her shoulder, but her single co-worker was far enough away to not have heard her. “Not that I’m recommending you get an eReader or anything like that. I like you coming in here.”

  So did I. Besides, I loved the feel of a book of my hand. Still, the thought of not having to ride my bike a few miles to get reading material had its pluses. Might be something to look into.

  Mabel jotted a few names down for me to check out, and I headed off into the stacks in search of them. The next hour went by fast. The witch mysteries sounded hilariously fun. It was entertaining to read what the ordinary human world thought of us. If a single one of these authors was an actual witch, I’d be surprised. They probably still thought we were mythical creatures or something.

  Not the human variety of witch, of course. Everyone knew those existed. But the magical kind, like my family? Yeah, people didn’t really want to think about us being in the same world as them. Power is scary when it’s in someone else’s hands.

  I got that. That was part of the reason I found Aunt Opal so scary. Now that I had power of my own... well, okay, so that really hadn’t changed things. Opal was still scary.

  When I had all the books I thought it safe to put in my bike’s basket, I made my way to the checkout. Mabel was busy checking in the books from the outside drop, so I waited. It wasn’t as if I was in any hurry. If I got home too soon, Opal might decide to start the spell lesson a bit earlier. The longer I could put that off, the better.

  With Mom back in residence, at least temporarily, dinner times were back to being extremely punctual. That meant the lesson would be over no later than six o’clock. Surely, I could handle three hours.

  When Mabel finally turned to me, I gave her a bright smile. I wasn’t about to bring up the subject of Ralph again. If she wanted to talk about it, she knew I would be willing to listen. That’s what good friends did.