Witch You Were Dead: Cozy Mystery Short Story

By S. Y. Robins

Helena Richardson is a solitary witch determined to keep her license to practice witchcraft. Something has slowly been sapping her powers however and this is no more evident than when her license is restricted with a notice of 30-days given to improve her skills. On the advice of a friend Helena asks the ancient spirits of Standing Stone Circle to aid her in her plight. She believes she's been given a chance, a test, to prove her worthiness when she stumbles across a body. She never expected the outcome would be a shambling shell of a man.

 

Desperate for answers and to fix the damage she's done Helena learns she has to wait for Halloween night to ask for help. As Helena seeks out answers as to who the man is, who killed him, and how she can return him to normal, Helena learns that sometimes you have to rely on yourself to get what you want. And if she can improve her skills in witchcraft in the meantime that would be great too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lovy Books Ltd
• Release date: Aug 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223163664

Book preview

1

Helena Richardson? Ms. Richardson, you’re next if you’ll follow me. The matronly woman dressed in a long skirt and long-sleeved blouse with a pinafore over the ensemble turned without ensuring her charge was following her, assuming the young woman would, and marched into an office. Wait here please.

Helena, a tiny little blonde with big brown eyes was normally bubbly and vivacious, a lover of life and all its wonders. Today she wasn’t, however, because today her witch license was up for renewal and her nerves were shot. Helena looked up as an examiner came in, an intimidatingly large woman with bright orange hair and a frown that would melt steel. Not Old Grinder again! Helena looked down at her hands and tried to hide her panic.

Ms. Richardson, came the grating high-pitched voice, here to turn me into a toad again are you?

Helena felt her face flush as the memory flooded her mind. She’d tried not to laugh as the former Ms. Gringer, referred to as Old Grinder, stared up at her stupidly from the floor with the cold dead eyes of a toad. When Old Grinder, in toady form of course, launched herself at Helena’s leg Helena had screamed and run for the desk in the room. Old Grinder just stared at her balefully from the floor, croaking her displeasure incessantly.

Helena had tried a nose twitch but nothing happened. She attempted a zap from a pointed finger and Old Grinder had turned into a purple toad. She’d crossed her fingers together and crossed her eyes, and still nothing happened. She’d tried for an hour before she was able to turn Old Grinder back to her normal self with the lesser-known sneeze spell. She’d barely escaped the examination with her license. Now she was back to renew it and her powers, rather than improving with age, had grown even worse.

Hello Ms. Gringer, I do apologize for the unfortunate events at our last meeting. I do hope you have recovered from that, erm, mishap. Helena said quietly.

"I’m perfectly fine, Ms. Richardson. Now let us begin. Please produce a sneefulling whazzlesnoot." Old Grinder said with a perfectly serious face.

Pardon? Helena asked, flummoxed as to what a sneefulling whazzlesnoot was.

You don’t have to know what it is, my dear, you simply have to produce it. Old Grinder said in an imperious tone.

Well, yes, I suppose so. Let’s see then. Helena said as she thought of how to do this. Using the spell for unknown items that one may want Helena drew the index finger of each hand side by side and then quickly pulled them apart as she blinked her eyes rapidly. Quickly holding her left hand palm-up with a grin Helena extended her hand to Ms. Gringer as she felt something fill it.

"What is the meaning of this Ms. Richardson? Are you trying to insult me?" Old Grinder strangled out as she backed away.

Helena glanced down at her hand, hoping to see anything but what she saw. She blinked rapidly but the creature remained. Rather than producing a sneefulling whazzlesnoot she’d produced a purple toad, calmly sitting in her palm.

Ack! Helena cried as she pulled her palm back, the toad hopping off under