~

Dinner – sigh. The best thing about dinner in our house was that Gran usually cooked it. The woman could cook up a storm, and that was just in her cauldron, but in the food department – she dazzled.

I think that’s where I got my dessert-making skills from, and Moira got everything else do with food. Eileen, bless her, was learning to boil water and we had high hopes that she might cook an egg in it one day, but nobody was holding their breath for that one.

“Can I go and eat in my room?” I whined at Gran as I came downstairs to find that the family pets, our bat, and wolf, were once again in attendance. Yea – not.

When would it be enough? When could I live alone with a cat? It didn’t even need to be my cat; a neighbors moggie would do, as long as it let me spill out my problems to it in return for free food, and let’s be honest, what cat didn’t like free fish?

“Rude,” Mother announced as she flounced in from the hallway and offered me a pitying look to mix with the one that was berating me.

“And we wouldn’t want a rude person at the dinner table, now would we?” I offered back with hope.

“If that was the criteria that barred someone from eating at the table then you’d all be eating in your rooms.” She offered with a sneer, and I half rolled my eyes.

Hope died bleeding on the kitchen floor.

“Gran…?” I whined. “Satan claws and Split personality are in there, and I just want a little alone time, is that wrong?”

“Yes,” Gran shot back and I felt a frown starting to take shape. “And if the wind changes you’ll stay like that.” She added, and I curled my top lip in a who-cares look. “Then you really will look like your mother.”

“Fiona!” Mother shot her a death glare.

“Point proven, thank you for cooperating, Caitlin, and making it too easy for me,” Gran said with a wicked chuckle. You had to hand it to the woman; she could make a saint swear.

I suppose that dinner could be a lively affair, and take my mind off the fact that Jack was coming back to town. Not that I cared one way or the other, except for the fact that it would be… awkward.

I mean, the man did leave under a dark cloud, and it wasn’t like I wanted an apology or anything, because I didn’t care. I didn’t care about an apology. I didn’t care about Jack. I didn’t care about much of anything.

I was me. Jack was Jack. Life was life, and that was the way that the cookie crumbled — especially when Ross was munching on them. I just felt so — meh.

My mother picked up a bowl of potatoes and shoved them at my stomach, of course, I grabbed it, why wouldn’t I? Who didn’t trust their parents?

I let out the kind of screech that probably had all the neighborhood dogs barking in sympathy, and cursed like a sailor on shore leave as I tossed the burning bowl back at her gloved hands. My eyes were more than accusing, one little tad of magic and mum was toast.

“Language!” Gran snapped at me, and my blood was already boiling like the skin on my hands.

“Well, why did you take it if you weren’t wearing gloves?” My mother chastised me. Was she kidding?

“I have a love-hate relationship with my hands, and I thought I’d teach them a lesson,” I hissed out as I ran them under cold water and immediately wanted the toilet. One thing about living here, you didn’t need to chill your water, it was always ice cold. “Need to pee…need to pee.” I hissed as I penguin walked across the kitchen, dripping water from my hands, and thankfully nothing else was leaking, as I went.

“Did someone blow a dog whistle because Ross is a bit twitchy?” Duncan blocked the doorway, grinning like an eejit, and I flicked my wet hands at him.

“Move,” I growled, splatting him in the face with water. He flinched, I felt satisfaction, but not as much as I would have if it been Holy water, was that wrong? But I still needed him to move.

“You’re walking a little…strangely,” he noted, and with some amusement at my predicament, and I knew that he’d overheard me – sucky little big eared leech.

“Move, or there won’t be anywhere on Earth that you can hide from my wrath,” I growled out again.

“Careful,” he said, holding up his index finger, “You’ll only overexcite the puppy with your growling.”

He did step out of my way, which was lucky for him because I was drawing on the magic within me, and if it was a choice between pee on my shoes, or letting the vampire have it, well, I liked my shoes more than I liked him.

I grumbled curse words as I shuffled by him, and his melodic tone as he chuckled rubbed against my very last nerve. Eejit.

I hogged the bathroom for ten minutes, doing what nature intended and healing my poor, sore hands with a little TLC from my magic, and by the time that I decided my pride was suitably healed, I came out to the family all sitting around the table waiting for me so they could start the meal.

“Is it age related?” Duncan whispered in my ear as I sat between him and Ross. I guessed that placement was my punishment for being burned by my thoughtless mother.

“I will hurt you,” I hissed back.

“Well,” Dad’s voice boomed out and silenced everyone. “Grab it and growl.” He said with glee, shooting a quick look towards Ross when the man groaned. “Oh, yes, sorry, Ross, that was a little insensitive of me. I didn’t think about you being…”

“Hungry like the wolf,” Moira said with a teasing grin for what I would say was definitely her better half.

“Let’s eat,” Dad said, trying to move the conversation along.

“Who?” Duncan asked, and Gran sniggered as my father looked a little taken aback by vampire humor. “I’m kidding,” Duncan said as he held his hands up to his chest to reassure my father that he wasn’t about to go all fangs and claws and start devouring the family.

“So, who is going to call out the elephant in the room?” Moira asked as a scurry of activity around the serving plates started to ensue.

I lifted my hand and pointed to Eileen, “Elephant,” I shrugged as my younger sibling sneered back at me.

“I was talking about Jack coming back, but good one,” Moira said, and I swear, I didn’t know whether to drop to my hands and knees on the carpet and crawl away, or pick up my fork and stab her in the eye with it. Everybody looked in my direction.

“Elephant,” Eileen took the wrong moment to lift her hand and point at me with a smirk. I zapped her.

“No more zapping,” Mother sighed, but she did slap her hand against the table as if she meant business. “When we are at the table nobody is allowed to zap anybody…”

“Speak for yourself,” Gran said.

“Nobody, but Gran is allowed to zap anybody,” Mother corrected herself. Trying to stop Gran from doing what Gran wanted to do was like trying to hold back mother nature. It didn’t end well for anybody but mother nature.

“Can we not ruin a perfectly good meal with talk of him?” I offered Moira my version of the evil eye, but she just shrugged in return.

“Say his name,” Moira shot back. I had to stop and think about that one.

“Huh?” I was biding my time.

“Say his name, you can’t even say his name,” Moira offered back. Silly witch, course I can say his name — it was, after all just a name.

“Jack,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders to prove my point.

“Nice man — stupid to leave,” Gran said.

“You say he’s nice — he didn’t accuse you of being involved in murder…” I shot back, and Gran snapped her attention on me like a wolf spotting a rabbit.

“Yes he did,” Gran said, and she was right. Der, how did I mess that one up?

“But that’s not the point,” I offered back with another shrug.

“The point is your pride,” Gran said as she snatched up that dastardly bowl of potatoes from the table that had injured me before Ross could clamp his hand down on it. “I’ll just take a few, and you can have the rest of the bowl, just shove your snout in.” Gran teased him.

“It’s not pride, Gran, the man actually thought I could murder somebody,” I huffed.

“Well, can’t you?” Gran shot back.

“No!” I snapped.

“Yes,” Moira piped up. She’d just jumped to the top of my to-kill list, and that fork was looking pretty good to me.

“Well, I’m glad he’s coming back, it took him long enough,” Gran snorted like she was off to hunt truffles.

“You thought he’d be pining for our Maggie sooner?” Moira asked.

“Firstly, can we not talk about me as if I’m not here, secondly, he’s coming to do a job, and that job is…” I got no further as Moira piped up again.

“Shag it.” Now I know that Moira deliberately dropped a spoon of peas all over the table so that she could say that one more time.

“Ross, that sounds like a call to action for you,” I grumbled.

“Maggie!” Gran said, but I saw her chuckle afterward.

“Not at the dinner table, Maggie,” Dad scolded me.

“Look, all I’m saying is; it’s not as if the man is coming here for anything other than his job.” I just wanted to make that clear because I didn’t want anyone messing with anything that didn’t concern them — and Jack didn’t concern any of us at all.

“Well…” Gran started, then she looked as if she’d said too much, and stopped.

Not only was that annoying, but it also got my suspicious nature up.

“Yes?” I stared at Gran until she turned to look at me. She looked guilty of something.

“Nothing,” Gran said.

“Gran, what did you do?” Moira asked. It was nice that someone had my back, even if it was only long enough to find out the gory details.

“Well, someone had to test out Maggie’s love potion…” Gran muttered, and I’m sure if I were a thermometer I would have popped the top off my head, and mercury would be flying everywhere.

“You didn’t!” I pushed up from the table and didn’t wait for her reply. It was full steam ahead toward the greenhouse, and I could hear someone’s footsteps behind me, but I didn’t care who it was.

I headed straight into the meddlesome matriarch’s domain and dropped to my knees in front of the unit where I had stashed that love spell, wrapped in red cloth, and hopefully, unopened. I reached in with trembling hands and drew it out like it was a delicate flower about to crumble to ashes.

“Gran wouldn’t!” Moira bit out from behind me; I wasn’t taking anything for granted — Gran did have her moments, I just hoped that this wasn’t one of them.

I unwrapped the evidence, and there it was – my love potion — half empty.

“That…” The rest of the words that came spilling out of my mouth were only suitable for a sailor on shore leave.

“Oh, boy!” Moira might have slapped her hands over her mouth, and she might have been looking at me with big, wide eyes that were filled with a mixture of equal amounts of disbelief and amusement, but my sentiments leaned more towards killing Gran. “She didn’t!”

“She blooming well did.” I hissed out. Gran was now at the top of my to-kill list. “Did she?”