Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(10)

While from the outside our house looks like a big, rambling, purple Victorian with an indigo roof, sitting in the middle of a grove of cherry trees on top of the highest hill in the Charmstone neighborhood, it is so much more. In one sense, the house is one physical building, but as soon as you walk inside, the space transforms via magic into separate homes for myself, my parents, and each of my four sisters. Yes, there are five of us—it’s the Sherwood lucky number. Everyone else in the family can negotiate the magical byways connecting one house to the other, including cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and anyone else with the Sherwood DNA because all of the Sherwood houses are connected.

I, however, have to follow the nonmagical links, just like Barkley.

Yes. I’m on the same magical level as a rooster.

That should explain a lot about the state of my self-esteem.

I stop in front of Mom’s closed office door and take a second to pull myself together. It’s just my mom. I can do this. I raise my hand to knock, and the door opens before my knuckles hit the wood.

My dad takes up most of the open doorway, his broad shoulders spanning it from one side to the other and his bald head nearly hitting the top of it. I don’t know if he can sense the anxiety making my gut twist or if it’s just my dad being his normal sweet self, but he takes one look at me and pulls me in for a bear hug—literally. Dad is half bear shifter and likes to say it shows everywhere but his hairline.

“Hey, pudding,” he whispers before dropping a kiss on the top of my head. “Mom’s almost done with a work call.”

“Work” in this case means heading up the Committee, which advises the president and helps with some of the behind-the-scenes work to get all of the different factions in the Witchingdom to come together. Factions all have a base family, but then there are others who join—sorta like the mob. But with magic. And less discovering of TVs that happen to fall off a truck. Each of the factions work together—or against each other—according to age-old alliances and feuds.

Dad and I cross to the sitting area, where afternoon tea is already waiting. While I pour the elderberry tea for all of us, he adds a dollop of my favorite clotted cream to a scone on a plate that looks minuscule in his large hands and passes it to me before loading his own plate with a mountain of assorted tea sandwiches.

My mom sits at her desk, a pleasant smile on her face, but her hands are clasped together so tight on her lap that I’m surprised the wand she’s holding doesn’t snap. She’s facing a two-foot-high astral projection of Hazel Dray, one of the representatives of the Stinger faction. They are still stuck back in the 1700s and would have all of us wearing pointy hats and buckles on our shoes if they got their way.

“Hazel,” Mom says in the tone that promises she is exactly thirty-five seconds away from I’ve-had-enough fireworks, “we’ve discussed this before. The Beyond is not there for those with witching ways you don’t agree with. It is for hardened criminals who are a danger to the entire Witchingdom.”

The brittle-looking woman with the lemon-puckered mouth harrumphs. “Well, if we don’t get a hold on all of these witches that want to change everything, then our entire way of life will be lost, and that is a danger to Witchingdom. I don’t like it.”

“So you’ve made clear.” Mom sighs. “The answer is still—and will always be as long as I am on the Committee—no.”

“This isn’t over,” Hazel says, her tone as sour as old vinegar.

Dad and I exchange raised eyebrows. No one threatens Mom. She’s not just kind of a badass, she is one of the biggest badasses in the entire Witchingdom. She’s headed the Committee for ten years and has been known to quiet a bridge troll with only a glance.

“Actually, it is. Goodbye, Hazel.” Mom waves her hand and severs the connection before the other woman can continue her complaints. “Please tell me you’ve got gin to put in my tea, because I need it after that.”

I add a splash to her tea as she makes her way over to the sitting area.

“Matilda, darling.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek before taking her cup and saucer, then sitting down in the chair next to Dad. “How are you holding up?”

Ouch.

The disappointment or disapproval I could take; I am used to it. The pity, though, is like sandpaper against a soap bubble.

“We saw the video,” Dad says and then eats two sandwiches in one bite.

“Tate.” Mom lays her hand on Dad’s thigh. “We discussed how we would approach this.”

Great. Yesterday rose to the level of a pre-sit-down discussion. That is never good.

“It’s okay.” I offer up a self-deprecating chuckle that sounds pretty close to genuine. “I saw it too.”

It is now everywhere on social media because that’s the way things go. Forget Mom’s mid-spell funny face post being the most viral Sherwood content ever. It’s now me wound up in the sticky arms of the dragon’s blood tree, pressed against Gil and looking up at him with total let-me-love-you goo-goo eyes.

“Is everything okay?” Mom asks.

“Just a freak interaction with a dragon’s blood tree.” One that left me hot, bothered, and desperate for answers.

My parents exchange a look. I know that look. It’s the where-did-we-go-wrong look.

“As long as you’re okay.” Mom sets down her tea and glues me to the spot with her this-is-important look. “We just want to make sure you’re happy.”