Page 2 of Haunt Me, Maybe

Right then.

My steps were swift but light—quiet, despite the illusion blanketing the room. Before zipping my bag, I folded my childhood blanket, shoving it and a pillow inside. I had a feeling I would be sleeping in my car for a time, and the nights were getting colder. The silence radiating from downstairs was punctured by splintered wood and the smell of smoke.

“I know you’re in here!” Gideon roared, his footsteps putting him on the stairs and then in the hall.

He paced back and forth outside my door, saturating the air with his frustration. No matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find me. Not even with his newest influx of Ashwood magic. He might have been able to trace this room if Fenn hadn’t helped me cast the protections around it.

My familiar’s affinity for absorbing magical residue helped to camouflage my powers and allowed me to cast through him without leaving a signal. He was a magical dampener of sorts, and without his help, Gideon would sense me. Every spell left an echo, no matter the size. Like a shimmer in the veil, and Gideon was able to track those echoes like footprints, making him essentially a bloodhound, and me his last remaining prey.

“You can hide your light, witch, but I will always see the shadows you leave behind,” Gideon snarled, and it sounded like he spoke right into the crack of the door.

It was beyond time to go. More smoke filtered in from downstairs; the fire Gideon set was eating up the cottage like termites in an old barn. It meant that neither of us had the time to wait the other out, and I was sure the warlock would poof his way out as easily as he poofed his way here. I wondered if he stole that magic from another line or if it was something innately his.

Move! Fenn shouted, and we both made for the window.

Heat warped the walls, messing with the wards drawn on them. I lifted the old, wooden rail and reached back for Fenn, but he hopped out of reach and shook his head.

I have my own way down. His wet snout nudged at my calf, urging me on. I’ll be right behind you.

I was already reaching for the nearest branch, fingernails ripping from their beds with how hard I clutched at the bark. My overstuffed duffel swung from my back, but it didn’t pull me over. The fire had overtaken the entire cottage now. Black smoke billowed from the window I climbed out of, and the orange flames burned hot enough to sting, even at this distance.

Gideon was long gone, I knew. He never stuck around once the fire reached its peak, and if he ever came back to search the ashes, I wasn’t sure. I was usually far gone by then, too. My boots landed in the grass with a soft thump, and I glanced down to see Fenn waiting at the base of the tree.

Quick now, he coaxed. We can’t let the human authorities find you either.

Already, sirens could be heard over the popping of the fire. Throwing everything I owned into the back seat, I started my Jeep and pulled off onto the dirt road. Away from all the smoke, it was easy to see the faint pink of sunrise on the horizon. Another day dawned—it was one more chance for me to get it right because Gideon would be back.

He always came back.

We had to be ready and prepared. We had to disappear as good as any illusion, and that meant no more magic or spells. Practicing and learning my craft came with lapses in control and breakthrough echoes. Fenn wasn’t always around to catch them. The ruined cottage and my destroyed family were harsh examples of what happened when I wasn’t careful.

No more magic. No more ability for Gideon to trace it. Done. As I watched my last chance for home disappear in the rearview mirror, I made a promise: for all intents and purposes, from this day forward, I would get really good at being…human.

Turned out, being human was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I was woefully unprepared to enter their world. I needed an illusion almost instantly after fleeing the safety of my family’s lands and was consistently tacking on more as the day progressed. By the time I turned off the interstate and onto winding back roads, I had an impressive tally of fifteen illusions already used and discarded.

Blue lights flashed in my rearview, catching me off guard, and I slowed the Jeep with a curse. Damn it all to hell! Make that sixteen illusions.

Goddess above, could something go my way for once? Blowing a slow breath out through my nose, I grabbed a couple of Post-It notes from the glovebox, then silently pulled on my magic. Boom. Driver’s license and papers at your service. That was all it took. Child’s play compared to the illusions I’d cast lately, but I had a sick feeling it would come back to bite me.

Sunlight slipped from the sky, making the shadows of the overhead trees that much creepier. I cast another quick illusion over Fenn, one I’d done so many times before that I didn’t even have to focus, and gestured for him to hide in the satchel I had in the front seat, just in case.

His skin glowed a faint green as he absorbed the magical signature, and my heart rate settled at the familiar sight. Any illusion cast around him was safe magic, as long as I didn’t lose control or expel so much he couldn’t keep up, and as long as he remained close enough to siphon off of it.

You can’t let the human see you like that, Fenn grumbled, the slit of his pupil narrowing.

“What’s wrong with how I look?”

The air felt brisk through the open window, and I wrapped my cardigan tighter around me. I appeared relaxed, presentable; nothing the officer saw should say, “Hey! I’m on the run from a house where my aunts’ murdered bodies are ash on the floorboards, and I also shouldn’t legally be driving this vehicle. Please don’t arrest me.”

You have purple hair.

I stiffened and watched the officer climb from his patrol car. He wouldn’t care about purple hair. Would he?

“I can’t help how it grows out of my head,” I whispered, fully aware that if the officer saw me talking into my bag, he would think me insane. “I’ve seen plenty of humans with the entire rainbow of hair colors.”

Are they hunted by an obsessed warlock looking specifically for a witch with purple hair?

“No, but⁠—”