Page 78 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
He checks his phone. Nothing new from Ophelia. The last text reported that Topher had landed but SeaTac is an annoying distance away, even with a paid car. Why exactly Topher’s coming in person, Mateo’s not sure. Ophelia had seemed excited, so Mateo hadn’t questioned it, and it’s not like he doesn’t want to see Topher—except in an existentially confusing and horrified way where he doesn’t know what seeing Topher will feel like so deeply dreads it. Still, he’d closed up early to try to beat Topher to the house.
Despite his best efforts at getting fired with seven days of no-call no-show, Mateo is still gainlessly employed. Angelica was his unlikely hero. She’d covered for him, worked his shifts, and said he was super ill—which is also how he explained it to her. It’s not like he can tell her that he’d been a demon and it took a while to feel something resembling human again. Now he owes her a life-work debt—the most sacred kind.
Though Mateo’s had no direct contact with Topher since fleeing his state, he’s been kept abreast of him by Ophelia, who’s better at texting than him.
Which is a cop-out.
Mateo’s not bad at texting so much as he never knows what to say to Topher, and adding a funeral and weird powers to themix doesn’t help. It’s not like he can say, “Sorry your dad I kind of hated whose finger I super ate—did I even tell you that?—died. That sucks for you. Also, how are those wacky powers going? Kill anyone else trying to kill you? I think about the way your blood tastes a lot.”
Total dick move on Mateo’s part, he knows, but trying to study baby’s first extremely evil magic book while also trying to re-form himself into something like a human being is taking a lot, and he hadn’t trusted himself not to make it weird. Topher had enough to deal with.
Which is why his teeth are sharp and he’d had to put on his shades—his eyes leak black when he gets worked up now—by the time he unlocks the front door. He’s unreasonably nervous as he kicks his boots off and yells into the house. “He here?”
“Almost,” Ophelia calls back, emerging from the kitchen with a tray of atrocities. Not just because food is gross to him now but because she is gross. It’s an array of fruits left out in the sun to die, cardboard that’s meant to be crackers, a cheese that smells like absolute ass.
“What the hell?” he says, shucking off his backpack and hoodie.
“It’s charcuterie, you swine,” she says with no bite, setting it on the table along with a bottle of wine.
“Why are we having charcuterie?” he asks, but honestly, he’s delighted. She, without anyone asking, made a horrible food thing. Like civilized people do. It’s Ulla’s influence, which is an insane concept because Ulla’s the only person more unpleasant than Ophelia—thought affectionately. Ophelia hadn’t just been keeping in touch with Topher, but specifically Ulla, who knew a thing or two about astral projection. She’s been helping Opheliapractice possessions, and just like Mateo, having some actual forward progress has done wonders for her general mood.
“Because Topher’s fancy and I’ve missed him,” she says and gives Mateo a cutting look that says things likeand you do too, you jackass, but you won’t say it because you’ve been avoiding him, but you can’t do that today because he’s coming over. She says all that with one shitty smirk and he hates it, so he retreats to the bathroom to wash up.
He doesn’t hear the knock—of course—but he hears the front door open, and hurriedly dries off, checking himself in the mirror. If he doesn’t linger, he can see his face enough to make sure his lipstick is still crisp before his face becomes a voided-out silhouette. Good enough.
Stepping into the living room, Topher’s just, like, there. Scrawny, anemic, and recently through a wind storm. The black eye lingers, a yellowed splotch on his pale skin and only a touch of red at the outside edge of his eye.
Topher just stands there, so Mateo just stands there, and they might have done that all night, but Ophelia directs Topher to the couch. Topher has the demeanor of a small bird that’s recently flown into a window, only barely managing to avoid breaking its neck, and is now afraid of all large surfaces. Impossible to tell if that’s the normal look or some extra special more-bad kind and is secretly the reason Ophelia wanted him to fly up.
Having never worked out what he’d say to Topher if he was ever in the same room with him again, the myriad of conceptually correct greetings flee his vicinity. But this is Mateo’s chance to say something reassuring. Apologize for the radio silence.
Assuming Topher hadn’t wanted that.
Which he probably had.
Topher hadn’t texted either.
“How’s your mom?” is somehow what Mateo goes with. Cool. Spot on. Absolutely what you say to a guy who just came from a funeral.
“Good. Really good,” Topher says, seeing the charcuterie tray on the table and picking up a shriveled apple slice.
Mateo takes a seat on the couch—not too close—and Ophelia hovers just behind the couch, between him and the kitchen as if to block a means of escape. She puts a hand on Topher’s shoulder and squeezes.
The frantic expression smooths off Topher’s face and his lips form an alarming and unhappy line. “No. That’s not right. She’s onlyokay. Making it work. I think. With dad, um, dead, there’s been a lot to do. Aunt Ulla’s helping. Mom was still in the will. So, that’s good. We have an offer on the house. Mom’s house too. She’s thinking about going to Sweden to scatter dad’s ashes. Maybe stay a while. I can get work from anywhere, but I don’t know if I wanna go with. That was their place.” A sad little smile sits on his lips at that.
“Makes sense,” Mateo says weakly, reaching desperately for something to say to shift them away from the dead-dad talk. Unless he should be talking about the dead dad. Is that cathartic for Topher? Is that insensitive of him? “How’s the magic going?” He can feel Ophelia’s gaze on him, and he wishes she had the power to kill him with her mind.
“Really good,” Topher says more easily, nodding too much. “Mom’s been teaching me how to deal with my powers. To be intentional with them. How to tell when they’re happening. How to make them happen on purpose. I’m still not very good at it, but she says that just takes practice. It feels weird to call them powers … mostly I just don’t want to accidentally killpeople. That feels bad. I mean. Of course, you know. We all know. Everyone knows that. Not that there’s anything wrong if we do accidentally—” He has the sense to stop himself midsentence, the sticky moral issue ofis murder okay sometimes if you super didn’t mean itstill too raw for all of them.
“Right. Cool.” It’s all good stuff. Or as good as things can be given the circumstances. Sounds like Topher’s figuring it out with a nice mom-based support structure. Thriving. About to set out on a new life adventure. And now Mateo knows. So he can close that chapter. Go back to his own shit and Topher can go do his own thing. Which is fine. Best, really. For everyone.
Except the weight of Ophelia’s eyes are still on Mateo, and when he glances back at her, she’s looking at him in that special way that means he’s being extra dim.
She wants him to say something civil, probably. Like a supportive friend, right? Like, this must be “friends”? If you help a guy not be sacrificed and he watches you eat another guy and still comes to your house? That’s gotta be friendship at least.
He can do this.
He can say normal friend words to this guy who’s looking at him with forlorn loris eyes. And yes, he’d looked that one up.
Mateo opens his mouth. Condolences would make the most sense. Sorry his dad died. Sorry it’s been rough. Sorry for not texting. He could ask about Quincy, double-check he’s doing alright—though Ophelia had confirmed that a week ago. There’s the small-talk thing. Ask how the flight was? How long is he in town? Is he staying nearby? Hell, he could just admit that he’d wanted to see him, talk to him, might have even missed him. That Topher sitting here right now, staring in his way too intense but also sort of charming way, makes the thing that’s inside of Mateo—that’s just Mateo—sort of happy.
There’s half a million things Mateo should say, stacked neatly on top of whatever it is he actually wants here. Which he’s absolutely not going to verbalize, so instead he says, “There’s an empty room here. Rent’s $700 a month plus a third of utilities. Want it?”
Topher’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t stumble over the reply. “Yes.”
End