Page 48 of A Spark of Something (A Librarian’s Guide to Witchery #1)

“ F reedom!” Ollie giggled happily, as he walked out of the library for the first time in a week—and without a limp too!

“Happy?” Noble asked with a chuckle, the man walking beside him.

“Yes! I am free to roam again!” he beamed, before pursing his lips and admitting, “I have to say, I thought it would have taken longer. I’ve sprained my ankle before, and this felt much worse than the first time I did it. Though, early last week, I oddly didn’t feel much of anything at all, and the swelling had mostly gone away.”

Not to mention, Noble had removed the stitches on Tuesday, after only five days of them being in. With how deep the wound had been, that sounded as if it would be way too soon. But it had seemed pretty healed at the time, and was even more so now—odd.

As they reached his truck, Noble hesitated instead of going straight around to the driver’s side.

“What?” he asked.

“Ah, well, witches tend to heal…faster than normal humans.”

Ollie stared, his face scrunching slowly. “You know, one day, I’m going to kick my cat’s ass. I was literally wondering about this all week and he said NOTHING!”

“I should have mentioned it, sorry.”

“I’m guessing you assumed I knew.”

“I shouldn’t have, though. You are still new at this.”

He huffed. “New and still pretty clueless, plus actively avoiding learning more. But I’ll change that soon. And you know what, speaking of my ass kicking list, my godfather—the jerk who still hasn’t gotten back to me—is at the top of that list. Him and then my cat. He takes the top spot, mainly because he was the only one who could have actually talked to me about this over the past thirty years.”

“He hasn’t called?” Noble’s brow pulled in clear concern. “And what do you mean, the only one?”

“Ah…well… First, don’t look so worried, him taking a while to get back to me is normal. And the other, well…if you know about witches, you probably know about witch hunters, right?”

Ollie winced as the other man tensed, and quickly continued. “Okay, maybe you don’t. Ah, well…I’m positive my godfather is fine, and not laying dead somewhere. But apparently, my family is rather well known, and due to the whole witch hunter thing, he sort of bound my cat and me. While it delayed my powers, it sort of stopped my cat from being able to talk until my magic started to manifest, or rather, break free. Anyway, witch hunters are a thing. But, my godfather...who I usually just refer to as that, or by his first name, as he doesn’t like me calling him anything else.

“Though that doesn’t really matter in terms of this explanation, but um, he is rather eccentric and, like I mentioned before, he’s bad with phones. He hates them, hates answering them. I barely managed to get him to agree to buy one. And Rowden hates texting, so he adamantly refuses to read those.

“It sometimes takes weeks, or even months, for him to listen to his voicemails. Mainly it’s because he will delete the notification, intending to listen to it that day, and then proceed to forget that he meant to listen, or that he even had a voicemail at all… So…” Ollie sighed. “No need to be worried. I’ll start worrying if he doesn’t get back to me by next year… Um, let’s head to lunch, shall we?” He waved at the truck.

Noble sat down at the table across from Ollie, his smile slightly forced. He hadn’t meant to tense before, but he had. At least his little witch had mistaken it as him just being worried.

And well, he was worried, just not for the reasons Ollie assumed. Though, he supposed, he didn’t want the man’s godfather to have been killed by witch hunters either. Maybe…

To be honest, while he hadn’t met the man yet, Noble was already sure that he didn’t like him.

At least he now had an explanation for Ollie’s awakening coming so late, even if he didn’t agree with them keeping the man in the dark for so long. He couldn’t really blame Red anymore though…since he doubted the familiar had much of a choice in the matter, not with how strong Rowden must be. And the man had to be powerful to be able to bind the two of them.

“So, do you come here often?” Noble asked.

“Yes!” Ollie smiled. “Well, anytime I go out.”

He blinked in surprise. “Every time?”

“Ah, well, I mean, I don’t tend to go out too much. Well, at least I didn’t…until you, that is.”

Noble chuckled. “Yet you were happy to be walking free again, to roam, was it?”

The man pouted. “No one said I had to be consistent. Also, there is a difference between choosing to stay in the library, and having to stay.”

“True.”

His brow pulled when he noticed they were being started at. The waitress who had seated them kept looking over. The woman—who was possibly in her mid-to-late fifties—seemed oddly excited to see them.

“Is she a friend of yours?”

Ollie looked back, only for his head to snap around an instant later, his face now bright red. “Oh, my God. To clarify, as much as I’ve come here, I think this is the first time I’ve brought anyone with me that wasn’t my godfather. That’s, um, Sammy Brecker. She’s known me since I was like five. Which, I suppose, tells you how long I’ve been coming here to eat.”

Noble laughed. “Ah, well then, I now feel less awkward about her apparent interest in us, as it just means she is fond of the same person I am.”

Ollie giggled. “Fond of me, huh?”

“Mmhmm.”

Slowly, the man’s eyes turned a bit hazy, his smile dropping as he stared off.

“Ollie?” The man didn’t answer, so he tried again a little louder. “Ollie?!”

The little witch blinked, his eyes snapping back to him. “Ah…it’s…”

“It’s…?”

“The ghost from before.”

“Ah, the waitress one, right?”

He was pretty sure the man had mentioned a waitress ghost before.

“Yes. I haven’t been here since that day I ran into you when I had freaked out,” he explained, before happily adding, “As now when I go out, I’m normally with you. I just haven’t had the time to come back.”

“Right, I can be very distracting,” Noble teased.

“You can be.” Ollie giggled.

“What does she look like?”

“Look like… Well, I think she’s petite, with pale skin, likely white. She has short styled blonde hair, that’s making me think 50s, though the color is a guess, as ghosts are pretty much black, white, and gray.

“It's kind of like someone plucked a character out of a black and white movie and just dropped them into my vision. It’s a bit startling, not going to lie.

“Anyway, she looks to be shorter than I am, and has a beauty mark by her left eye. She's definitely wearing makeup, and one of those old waitress outfits, with the button-up dress, collar, and apron.”

“That uniform dates her a bit.”

“The makeup does too. But does it mean she died while wearing a costume, or that she was here when this place first opened?”

“Does it look like a costume?”

“Not really. If it was a costume, I feel like it would be way shorter than it is. So I suppose that means she’s probably been here for years…”

He smiled as he watched a sad little frown slip onto the man’s face. “You want to help her, don’t you?”

Ollie met his gaze sheepishly. “Would it be bad if I tried to?”

“No, it wouldn’t. As long as you aren’t trying to do it alone.”

A bright, hopeful smile spread quickly across his baby’s face while he asked, “You’ll help me?”

Noble snorted. “Just try to do it without me and see what happens.”

Ollie clapped. “Yay!” he cheered, before musing, “You know, it’s odd. With that one in the car, I believe I got a glimpse of the injury that killed him. But only once, and I didn’t really get to see all of it. The rest of the time, he looked normal, even though I kept trying to make it happen again. I wonder if there is a way to purposely see it?”

“I know it’s possible, but I don’t really know how.” His brow pulled. “But your grimoire may know.”

Ollie huffed. “I doubt it will help me.”

“Couldn’t hurt to try?” he mused, before quickly adding, “As long as you don’t follow any of its vague advice anymore.”

“Right. Yep, no vague advice shall I take.” He sighed, twisting his hands together on the table before hesitantly admitting, “I’m starting to worry I might end up monopolising your time if you try to help me with every ghost I run across.”

“My time is yours.”

Ollie’s mouth pursed into a cute little pout. “Okay, but tell me if a job comes up and you are busy! Like, while it is mean, and possibly a bit cruel to say, they have waited this long, they can wait a bit more.”

“Ah,” he rasped as he remembered Mikael. Not that he had ever really forgotten about the hunter.

“You thought of something?”

Yep, he'd thought of the man he had to kill. And he should really hurry up and do that, like this week. It wasn’t like Mikael would leave. The man thought he was here to work, not knowing that he was really here so Noble could kill him.

“This coming week, I have a short job to take care of that may take all week, but I’m not sure.”

“Oh, okay! Then I will hold off, and relax a bit. I should probably do a bit of research, learn more about what I am, while attempting to get my mean, supposed to guide me, grimoire to answer me. And then, next week we can try to use what I found out to help her!”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Ollie eyed him cutely. “That doesn’t mean we can’t still go on another date this week, does it?”

Noble chuckled. “Baby, work couldn’t keep me that busy.”

“Yay!” The man wiggled happily in his seat.

“Hello there, what’s this I see? Is my freckled librarian here to break my heart?” Sammy, the waitress, said with an amused smile. “Who might this handsome man be, Ollie Cross? And where have you been hiding him, hmm?”

Ollie slowly looked at her with a hesitant smile. “Sammy, you really wouldn’t try to embarrass me in front of my date, would you?”

“Now who said anything about embarrassing you? It’s not like I’ve known you most of your life, and have a closet full of stories or anything.” She cackled. “Now, who are you, young man?”

“Noble Vincent, Ollie’s boyfriend.”

While it wasn’t necessarily true, he wanted it to be, and he certainly wasn’t going to call himself Ollie’s lover in front of someone who had known the man since he was a child. Though he had no right to be anything to the man who he was eventually planning to walk away from. As he had to…

Ollie let out a squeal. “Are you really?!”

He barked out a laugh. “I suppose we never defined it, did we? But I’d like to be, if you’d have me.”

“YES!” Ollie cried.

“Aww, aren’t you two just the sweetest.” Sammy beamed. “Meals on me today!”

“Oh! You don’t have to do that!” Ollie gasped.

“Well, to be clear, it’s on the boss’ account. Georgie is as excited as I am to finally see you with someone.”

“Ha…” Ollie swallowed audibly. “Just how many people have you t-told about this, Sammy?”

She smiled, and for some reason, Noble found it slightly evil looking. “Oh, just the diner group chat, and a few other regulars.”

“Why?!” Ollie cried, his face once again was as red as can be.