Page 6 of How Not to Hex a Gentleman (Witches of Edinburgh)

Chapter Six

KENNEDY

S urprisingly, I sleep. I'm not exactly sure how I managed that, but somehow the comfortable bed and the hundred pillows on it lulled me into a false sense of safety. I honestly can't believe that actually happened. Maybe I made it up? Maybe it was simply a bad dream?

But when I lift my hand, the thistle tattoo is there, and so is the insistent buzz of magic right under my skin. I stare at the incriminating thistle tattoo like it can provide me with all the answers I need before I sigh, resigned, and get out of bed. I can't hide out here forever.

My phone is on my small nightstand—whoever furnished this room thought of everything. Now that I'm a little calmer, I study the room a little more carefully. The furniture is white and modern. The bedding is also white, coupled with four large pillows and three decorative ones. The pattern on the decorative pillows is geometrical, in shades of gray, green, and gold. Across from the bed are two windows, with a small pothos plant hanging on the right near the edge of the window frame and another plant on the desk between the windows. The lamp on the nightstand is gold, matching the lines on the pillows. Right above the nightstand is a small vertical decoration: a collection of metal moon phases, connected by a delicate chain. It's beautiful and there's a prickle of tears in my eyes as I think about the one time I dared to ask my aunt for one just like it.

As I glance around trying to control my rising emotions, I realize all I need are a few throw blankets and more plants and this will be the perfect room. The strangeness of it all does not escape me, even though I'm actively working on ignoring everything that could be magical.

I stare at my phone for a full minute before I reach for it. I need answers, but I can't call my aunt. One, she might not even answer after exiling me, but two, if she does, she will spiral into terror and that will send me into worse levels of fear and then I will definitely do something with my magic that I'm not supposed to do.

Getting dressed quickly in my trusty blue jeans and oversized black sweater, I keep my hair down. I had a proper outfit picked out for today—a dark red mid-thigh skirt and black sweater, with black tights, but for some reason, I feel like I need the extra protection and comfort. So, oversized clothes it is. Last night, I put a chair under the doorknob, just in case. I would laugh at the absurdity of it all if I could, but none of this is funny. I pull the chair from under the doorknob and open the door.

At the same time, the other two doors open, and we all stare at each other as if we're seeing each other for the first time.

"Weird, right?" Lily asks, stepping out of her room first. She's dressed in another dress, this one a shade of burnt orange, with long sleeves and a thin belt around her waist. Her long hair is braided to the side and she looks adorably put together.

Parker is dressed much like she was last night, except she's wearing baggier black jeans and a different crop top, this one with long sleeves. Her necklaces and bracelets clink together as she nearly bounces in her step.

"I learned so much," she says, as I raise my hand and step out of my room.

"Please, coffee first," I say, heading for the kitchen. Lily shrugs as she follows. Parker rolls her eyes but she follows as well.

Thankfully the kitchen seems to come stocked with a coffee pod coffee brewer because I don't think I have the patience for a French press right now. I make myself a cup before adding a splash of oat milk and caramel syrup to taste. I'm stirring it all together before it dawns on me.

"Is this kitchen stocked with all of our favorite foods?" I ask, turning to face the girls.

Parker is eating out of a bowl, sitting at the table, while Lily sips orange juice out of a cup and stares at the shelf of cereal.

"Of course it is. It's our home base! It makes sense why we all ended up here together. We were meant to be here, and this is our safe haven. Oh! I bet that the realtor's office isn't even real, but this place, it's welcoming us with open arms. We'll have to restock manually, of course, but this is a gift."

"Please tell me you understand her," I say and watch Lily shake her head.

Parker puts her bowl down and stands. The small table near the window is perfectly positioned with three chairs for the three of us, and I tuck that piece of information away for later. I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed.

"I'm telling you, this is how it is. When a witch discovers her greater powers the universe itself gives her a gift. Granted, we already had our powers, but my grandma told me they weren't fully awakened. So I'm assuming they're finally awaked in me. In us! Grandma always talked about "the main event" and this must be ours! Oh! It's usually always women, by the way. Male witches are super rare." Parker barely even pauses for a breath. "Although I would think a lot of that is written by humans so it can be wrong considering they're not typically privy to the magical information, so who knows how reliable that is."

"We're humans!" I snap, even as my eyes are drawn to my wrist.

"No, we're witches," Parker replies. I think I might actually be losing my mind…in real-time. "Kennedy," Parker takes a step forward, her voice taking on a calming tone, "witches are led to places all the time to discover their magic, and if they're lucky enough to follow the signs, they are blessed on the other side of it. Some witches are destined for great things, and by the looks of it, we might be too. Just look at us! We're in Scotland and the fountain of all fountains opened up the magic in us. How wild is that?"

"Did you do this to us?" I ask, narrowing my eyes.

"What?" Lily and Parker exclaim together.

"You have all this knowledge and apparently your grandmother taught you a bunch. And you said you're studying it. Did you do something? Was it a setup? A joke? Did you dust us with some odorless powder?"

I know I sound completely crazy, but at this point, crazy is all I've got. My body is starting that shaking thing it does when I'm trying hard to stay in control. Parker just expects me to swallow this huge truth, but I was taught not to trust anyone, and all of this sounds more like a trap than anything else.

"Kennedy, I'm going to say this now and as kindly as possible but you are paranoid, my friend."

"I am not paranoid, I'm practical," I say, squaring off against Parker. Almost automatically my hands are on my hips and I stand a little taller. "Isn't it way more plausible to believe that we were drugged than that…magic…is real?" I'm terrified even saying the term out loud.

"Actually—" Lily begins, but Parker cuts her off.

"Don't encourage her."

I throw my hands up in the air. "Why? Because it doesn't fit with your agenda? What is the plan here exactly? To manipulate us for some ill intent? Are you writing a paper on this? Trying to get published? Is this an experiment?"

"Okay, you're officially giving me a headache." Parker waves a hand in my direction before turning on her heels and heading back to the common room.

"What, you can't just magic it away?" I say as I stalk after her.

"That's not how this works!"

"And how would you know?"

Lily has followed us as well. I can feel her behind me as Parker rounds on me. "It is not my fault, Miss Uptight, that you lack the imagination that there might be something incredible out there and we are part of it. You know the truth, it's staring you right in the face—I know you can feel it—and you're denying it anyway."

"Well, excuse me if I'm being a normal person here and freaking out about the possibility that something is wrong with me!" I didn't mean to say it out loud, but I couldn't help it. It's the fear I've been carrying inside of me my whole life.

What is inside of you is dangerous; it will destroy you. If you ever want to become part of normal society, you must fix yourself.

Fix myself. The one thing I could never accomplish in my aunt's eyes. Now I'm around people who are accepting this thing as normal? I can't…I can't deal with that. If I admit that Parker is right, if I actually accept the fact that I'm not the only "freak" out there, then everything I've been taught by my aunt is wrong. Everything about my childhood becomes shrouded in wrongness and I can't deal with that.

Parker is not backing down though. "Nothing is wrong with you!" she nearly shouts, "and you're not a normal person! You're a witch! I'm a witch!"

"And I can think of another itch word that would fit here as well," I snap.

"Oh really? I see we've taken the mature route of calling each other names. In that case, I have one for you. You are a?—"

"Girls!" Lily steps between us, "I don't think this is helping anyone."

"She's not trying to help anyone!" I snap, staring daggers at Parker. "What if I don't want this? What if I just want to be normal?"

It's the only thing I've ever wanted, the reason I escaped from my aunt, but Parker is shattering all of those notions with every word she says. "Tough luck, sister. Normal was never in your destiny and you know it."

"You know this after spending one day with me?"

"I knew that the moment I nearly stabbed you with that knife. There was something about you. And now? Now I can feel it, and if you would stop being so stubborn you'd feel it too."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, don't you? You can lie all you want to us but you can't lie to yourself."

"Just stop," I say, something uncomfortable settling in my chest. The magic is there, right under the surface, brewing as hard as my emotions.

"You don't want to hear it but you know it's true. Maybe your magic has been more dormant than mine, but you feel it, I know you do. You've always known you've been looking for something and you came to Scotland thinking the answers were here."

"Stop."

"And now that you have them and you don't like them, all of a sudden boohoo you want to be normal. You want?—"

"I said stop!"

I throw my hands in a downward motion in frustration, my voice echoing around me. In the same breath, all of the furniture is lifted and slammed against the wall around us. The three of us are left standing in the middle of the room, with a clear circle of space around us where the couch, chairs, and table once were, as I try to calm my racing heart.

"Kennedy—" Lily says, staring up at me in shock as Parker smirks.

I don't pause to think. I turn and run for the door, only stopping long enough to grab my coat and keys before I'm down the stairs and racing into the morning Edinburgh light.

I have no idea where I'm going, only that I need to be away from that place and whatever it was that I did there. I've never showcased so much active magic before. Even now, I can feel it hovering right under my skin, as if it's just waiting for me to have another outburst. The confusion comes in where I also feel a sense of—happiness, as if it finally has a chance to come out and play.

There's definitely something very wrong with me. My aunt was right, wasn't she?

The Edinburgh trip of my dreams is off to a rocky start. It's not at all what I've envisioned and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to reconcile with any of it. It's doubly frustrating because I didn't even get to drink my coffee. My body is craving caffeine, and no, I don't think I have a problem. I reach for my phone and realize I left it in my room. Great, I can't even look up the list of cafés I wanted to check out while I'm here. Not that I need much help finding one; they are everywhere.

However, I don't stop at the first one I come across, considering it's a main chain and doesn't seem very authentic. This honestly just proves to me that I definitely don't have a problem or I would be stepping into that coffee shop immediately.

Okay, Kennedy, if you can talk to yourself about coffee, not all is lost.

Somehow, I wind up on the Royal Mile, and being surrounded by all the strangers isn't exactly what my head needs right now. While I desperately want to explore, I also desperately need to clear my mind. So I turn off the main street, walking into the nearby close, my feet moving automatically. The narrow alleyway takes me down and away from the Royal Mile, but I've barely walked at all when a sign catches my attention.

The Black Cat is written in gold on a black plaque hanging over a door. A magpie is sitting on the little overhang above it, watching me. I hold the bird's gaze and then it takes off. There really are a lot of magpies in the city. It's curious…but not right now.

I concentrate on the coffee shop instead. There's a large window to the left and a small one right near the door where I can see plants hanging near the light. My feet move in the coffee shop's direction before I can think too much about it, and I am less than graceful when I push the door open and stumble in. The coffee shop is completely empty, save for a black cat residing on a perch near the bar. There's a counter in the shape of an L and a table against the wall between it and the door. To the left, is the window with a table in front of it directly across from the bar, and another two tables placed strategically around the room.

The decorations make me feel welcomed immediately. There are plants and dried herbs hanging all over the place and candles are lit on every surface. It smells like coffee and flowers in here. The bell overhead dings as I step fully in and the cat offers me a bored glance in greeting.

"Be right there!" a pleasant voice with a subtle Scottish accent calls out.

I step up to the counter, still eyed by the cat, and raise an eyebrow in reply. I swear the cat holds my gaze for a moment before smirking. Clearly, this losing my mind thing is extending to other areas of my life if I think a cat can smirk.

"Well, hello there."

I turn my attention to the woman who appears behind the counter. Wild blonde curls frame her face. Bangles and necklaces adorn her neck and wrists, much like Parker's, but unlike Parker's edgy style, the woman is wearing a light green layered dress with a brown belt. She must be in her mid-forties, my aunt's age, but such a contrast. The woman looks approachable and kind with a smile that's so inviting I suddenly want to cry.

"Umm," I clear my throat, scanning the chalk board behind her. "Hi. Could I please get a caramel latte?"

"Sit in or takeaway?"

"Sit in, please," I reply immediately because this feels exactly like the kind of place I can hide in. For some reason, I feel like myself here and that brings me a sense of comfort.

"Pick any seat." She gives me another gentle smile, and I return it. Hopefully, it looks much more relaxed than I feel. I take a seat opposite the counter, near the bigger of the two windows. The coffee shop is a bit tucked away, but there are still people passing by in the close, even this early in the morning.

My chest feels heavy as I try to take some calming breaths. I’m staring at my hands as if they're going to offer some kind of answer to what happened in the apartment. My aunt would be livid if she knew, which means she can never find out. The moment I think of her, the force of the dread returns, and I place my hand over my heart, hoping to calm it.

Magic can only bring your downfall, Kennedy. Never let anyone know you possess it or your destiny is to be alone.

Even as my aunt spoke those words to me over and over again, she never stopped to think I was already alone. I've never met anyone with powers besides her, but now there are two girls who—no. I can't even let myself go down that train of thought.

When a cup of coffee is slid in front of me I glance up to watch the woman take a seat across from me.

"I'm Olivia Bates," she says.

"Kennedy Hellebore," I supply automatically. My fingers wrap around the mug and I take a sip, sighing in contentment. The coffee is delicious.

"This is so good," I say, as the woman—Olivia—looks pleased at the compliment.

"I'm happy you think so, Kennedy Hellebore. Now, tell me, what brings you to The Black Cat today?"

My eyebrows scrunch down at the question, taken back a bit. I'm not exactly used to such direct inquiries from café owners.

"I was looking for coffee," I say.

"You passed plenty of coffee shops coming here, did you not?"

"Yes." I have no idea where this is going. I glance at my wrists, tugging on my jacket to make sure the sleeves cover any incriminating evidence—that's how I've decided to think of the tattoo.

"Yet, you came into this one." She's looking at me as if she knows something. I have no idea how to respond to this, so I take another sip instead. When I glance up, there's a soft look in her eyes as she studies me. "I'm sorry. I see that I made you uncomfortable. Sometimes I speak before I am meant to." Before I can comment on that cryptic comment, she carries on. "Now tell me, what has you so troubled?"

"I look troubled?"

"You do, and I say that with a kindness."

I chuckle at that, taking another sip before setting the mug down. There's no rhyme or reason as to why I'm about to say what I'm going to say, but it feels like I need to get things off my chest. Even if I can't be completely forthcoming.

"I'm new to Edinburgh—to Scotland really. I'm here for a year abroad and yesterday when I arrived, well, nothing went the way I planned."

"And you're a planner."

It's not a question but I nod anyway. "Yes, it's very important to me that I know where I'm going and how to get there in every aspect of life." I stop again, not sure how to articulate exactly what's happening, considering I don't even know yet.

"But something happened that pushed you off that path."

"Rather aggressively, if I do say so myself." I take another sip of coffee, thankful for the large size of this mug. Just then, the black cat that was residing on the counter jumps to the windowsill beside us, watching me with those unblinking eyes.

Olivia stokes a hand down the cat's back, but the cat won't take its eyes off me.

"Petunia seems to have taken a liking to you. She doesn't usually come over to strangers."

"Petunia?"

"Yes. She's named after the black petunia variety, one of my favorite flowers. It, just like black cats, used to have a bad connotation attached to it, but now petunias are a symbol of comfort. Just like this little furball is."

I swear the cat, Petunia, is soaking up every bit of Olivia's words, raising her chin a little as she continues to stare at me.

"You have that in common, you know?"

"What?"

"You are both named after flowers."

That pleases me and for some reason it also brings me comfort. I turn my attention back to the mug in front of me. Even though everything still seems out of control, I feel much calmer now that I've had my coffee and met Olivia and Petunia. I'm not exactly sure why that is.

"Kennedy." Olivia's voice breaks through my thoughts and I glance up to meet her kind gaze. "Life tends to throw curveballs at us regardless of our plans. It is the only thing you can truly count on to happen. You seem like a capable young lady. What do you usually do when things don't go your way?"

That's a good question. It has happened before, of course. I can't control every aspect of my life, no matter how much I want to. No matter how much my aunt wishes she could too, life always finds a way to be unpredictable.

"Usually, I would sit down and make a list of ideas on how to fix the trajectory, do research if need be, maybe look into—" I trail off as I glance up at Olivia’s kind face. "Research. In this case, I need to do research."

The fact that my mind didn't automatically go to research just proves how off-kilter this whole experience is making me.

"Well, my door is always open and I will supply you with plenty of coffee and biscuits if you need a quiet place to think."

"Thank you so much." I stand then, excitement coursing through my veins. This is something I'm really good at, something I can manage. There is the internet, of course, but also there are libraries galore here. "I will definitely be back."

Olivia stands as well, taking the now empty mug from my hands.

"Anytime, Kennedy. Anytime."

I grin and then I'm out the door with a wave. Edinburgh is the perfect place to research magic. Or at least the lore behind it. Now I just need to find myself a library.