Lovely Witches Club

Chapter 4: The Offer

"Reese?" Larry's voice sounded sharper now. "I know I can count on you, right? I do pay your check."

"Keeping me in this palace," I muttered as a roach skittered from the back of the toaster and down the drain, burrowing under the nasty tease of my blue wig. Hope he choked on my sad crumbs. I had to be wrong about the woman in the photo with her cutsie little parasol and the old building behind her. She didn't really look like me.

Exactly like me.

"Uh," I paused. "I gotta call you back." And hung up. On Larry.

For a moment I caught my breath, staring down at my fake blood covered phone like I'd committed a mortal sin or at least bought myself a one way ticket to the unemployment line. But he didn't ring back, and the photo drew my eyes, the contents of the envelope calling.

Oh my God. Was that cash?

I ran my hands over the wad of twenties, fifties and hundreds, heart pounding, before breaking the seal on the letter-red wax, how trite-and reading the contents.

Dear Miss MacDonald, The Lovely Witches Club would like to invite you to Prince Edward Island to film a documentary series about our membership and our history here. Your resume delighted us as did the films you have on display on your website.

Please find enclosed your contract with all the details, as well as a cash advance on the project.

We are offering a fee of $20,000-

Sweet Mary, Mother of Zombies-

$20,000? I kept reading, still not comprehending.

-for the completion of filming, though we would ask you begin immediately if that price suits you. Feel free to contact myself, Agnes Miller, at The Witches Cupboard here in Summerside, PEI, for further details and to let us know if you can take the job.

Thank you, and we hope to see you soon on our lovely Island! Best, Agnes.

I slumped on my stool, staring at nothing, heart racing. For someone who had the worst luck imaginable, was it possible mine was finally turning...? No way. Not the girl who lost both parents in a tragic accident, got kicked out of film school because her partner on a project plagiarized a professor's work and blamed it on me, ended up taking the only job I could get that didn't have fries with that in the film industry and spent the last three years of my life a slave to the Larry.

No. Luck and I weren't besties. If anything, Luck was a b***h who had it out for me so hard it made me wonder just what I'd done to piss her off.

And yet, here was a stack of bills, at least a couple of thousand if my jittery fingers and mushy brain were adding it up correctly. The little velvet bag slumped over to one side and despite my hysterical need to suddenly giggle over what had to be a huge mistake, I let go of the precious cash-more money than I'd ever held in my entire life, at least in bills if not in equipment cost-and pulled the drawstrings open.

A small deck of cards slipped out, black and glossy, with white writing on the surface. A pair of wings beneath the capital letters LWC matched those on the front of the envelope. And when I flipped the top card over there was more writing on the other side.

"Every witch needs to ride her own broom." I grinned at the saying before returning the card to the deck and staring down at the obviously misplaced bounty that had landed in my house instead of with the true intended target. Except it was addressed to me, the odd letter and the woman in the photo...

I turned the brown tinted picture over, found hand drawn directions, a kind of map, with a cutsie depiction of a bridge and the rough shape of the Island in multicolored marker.

Unreal and totally over the top. So much so I sat there the longest time before honking caught my attention once again. I lifted the phone to my ear, dazed as I touched my face, tracing fake blood over my jaw. And felt every fiber in my being tense as I hit the answer button.

Before Larry could speak this time, I did it for him. "Hey, Larry," I said, "I'm going to have to bail."

I think I heard him choke on his half-caff two pumps of vanilla soy mochaccino. "What?"

I almost laughed. A huge weight lifted from my back, my shoulders, this odd feeling of freedom washing over me, through me until it seemed the whole nasty, ugliness of my tiny bachelor apartment was filled with pink sparkles. Of all things.

"Yeah, sorry. I may be gone for a while." I lifted the cash again, grinned at it. I had to pack.

Because I was taking this job, wasn't I? At least, that's what this brushoff for Larry meant.

And it finally happened after years of frustration and banging my head against the wall of the establishment. I'd lost my mind.

"You can't just leave now!" Okay, he was finally pissed. But it didn't bother me, not even a little. How weird was that? I'd spent my life hating being yelled at. At this moment, though, he might as well have been yodeling blah blah blah for all the effect it had on me.

Coolio.

"Why don't you have Missy do the slaughterhouse scene?" Okay, now I really was going to laugh. The idea the perky, perfect blonde who did everything possible to not work and make lots of money doing it actually taking responsibility for once? It would almost be worth it to stay behind and watch.

Almost.

"Missy isn't you." Larry sounded deflated. And while his yelling didn't reach me, well, that kicked puppy attitude? It almost worked.

But the cash. The job. The freedom. Hell, the pink sparkle feeling...

"I'm sure she won't mind getting her perfect nails dirty this one time." Snort.

"Ree-se." That sounded like a wail. Did the man have no shame? Okay, nice to be wanted and all, but honestly. I was afraid of this guy? "Whatever it is, you can put it off, right? I need you."

"Seriously, I can't." Please, don't cry. I wouldn't be able to handle man tears. I needed an excuse, and fast. "My... grandmother died."

Wince. Because lame lie was lame.

And Larry knew it. At least he lost the sobbing patheticness and shifted in his mercurial way back to pissed. "Orphans don't have grandparents."

Yeah, that was it. I was so done. He'd sealed his fate, the jerk. "Nice, Larry," I snarled. "Don't be a d**k. I've got to go."

And, for the second time that morning, I hung up on my boss. My former boss. And laughed in a cackling kind of mad way that surely fit the freakishness that was my life.

Screw the zombie gig. I was going to go film witches in Prince Edward Island. And no, the fact I was trading one level of crazy for another was not lost on me.

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