And like, Jahla didn’t have any questions that needed answering. Just…weird dreams…that sometimes seemed to come true—fuck! She was sounding more and more like Ollie in denial with each new day.
But like, she wasn’t a witch!? She couldn’t be! Witches had grimoires. She didn’t have one, so the conclusion was that she obviously wasn’t one.
Jahla glanced at Ollie, hesitating before covertly asking, “You weren’t a witch before you found your grimoire, right?”
Her friend’s head tilted slightly. “I…I suppose I had to be, right? I mean, I still saw plenty of ghosts before it first showed itself to me. Or rather, when Red led me to it. But then, I also don’t know when it first appeared or came into existence. Like, did it show up when I was born, or around the time my magic should have woken up but didn’t? Really, the only thing I know for certain is that it waited for me for a long time, and is very pissed off about it. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. I was just curious about the order of events.”
Curious as to how fucked she possibly was…ugh…
Jahla helped Ollie stash the items they bought behind the circulation desk, before sitting down in her chair.
“Okay, I’m off to catch the three o’clock reading circle. If Noble comes back before I’ve finished, could you have him take everything upstairs?”
“Will do. Go, go, you have like two minutes.”
“Later!” Ollie chimed before running off.
Jahla sat there for a moment before snagging the ‘away from desk’ sign off her desk and tossing it into the drawer it belonged in.
Maybe…if she ignored the weird things going on, they would eventually stop happening?
Jahla rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that had worked outsowell for Ollie…”
When she spotted Noble coming up the front stairs, she waited for the man to reach her. “You didn’t actually have anything to do, did you?”
The tall man stared for a moment, his face giving nothing away, before he admitted, “No.”
Jahla sighed. “You won’t be able to keep it hidden for too much longer.”
“I can try.”
“You are just lucky he is so good at gaslighting himself.”
Now, Noble was the one to sigh. “While it benefits me, it also makes me worry more about him.”
She snorted. “Welcome to the club.” Bending down and peeking inside the bread bags, she placed the one that belonged to Ollie on the boxed burner, along with the rest of his stuff, before picking up the box—with everything stacked on top—off the floor and placing it on her desk. “Ollie wants you to take this stuff upstairs.”
“Can do.”
Ollie smiledon finding Noble sitting in his kitchen, appearing to be reading his witchery notebook that he still had yet to get around to rewriting and reorganizing into a loose-leaf binder.
His newly acquired fresh bread—two of which he planned to freeze—sat on the counter near the fridge. On the table, the burner sat unboxed, with the cauldron on top. Next to it was what he assumed was the bag of ingredients, along with a new mortar and pestle and three empty corked glass bottles. Therewas also a small cutting board and knife he’d never seen before, which he could only assume had also been in the bag.
“Are you finished with whatever you needed to do?” he asked hopefully.
“I am,” Noble said with a smile. “I was just reading over your notes on the potion, as I figured you’d want to make it as soon as you had some free time.”
“You are correct!”
“You have gloves, right? There is a warning beside a few of the ingredients to not touch them with your bare hands because they’re poisonous.”
“I saw that, and I do.” He moved to the sink, opened the cabinet below, and pulled out a pair of small disposable gloves for himself and an X-Large pair for Noble. Thankfully, he had multiple sizes, after accidentally buying a multipack.
After handing over the X-Large pair, he pulled his own on as Noble did the same.
Carefully dumping out the medium-sized paper bag, three small vials of liquids tumbled out, along with eight sealed wax bags, all of them marked. He had to say…he was both surprised and not that the supposed ghost ‘essence’ was a clear liquid. If this had been like two or three months ago, he’d be screaming scam, but as it wasn’t…he was just going to trust that he hadn’t been ripped off.
