Саманта Сильвер - Sleeping With The Fishes

I couldn’t quite understand what excuses and communism had to do with each other, but decided to keep my mouth shut.

“I don’t care, Charles. No one cares about your dumb communism theories, that ship sailed long ago. I want to hear what the girl has to say,” another witch said.

“Silence!” the witch in the middle cried once more. I held my breath as the rest of the council stopped talking. “We will hear what the witch Angela Martin has to say. But make it short, criminal,” she said to me. “We are not so young as you, we have better things to do with the time we have left than listen to sob stories.”

I cleared my throat, hoping my voice would hold. I managed to splutter out the Cliff Notes version of what had happened in about two minutes flat. I did my best to stick to only the relevant points, and made sure to point out that Jason was my long-time boyfriend, that we were talking about moving in together, and that he would have died had I not intervened.

When I was finished, there was silence among the Council. Finally, the lady in the dress spoke.

“You know, I sometimes feel as though we are slipping behind the times. Young people today often take steps we would not have considered before marriage; it does not mean they are less committed to themselves. I did not move in together with Jacob before our marriage, and sometimes I feel as though many of today’s youth are in more committed relationships than we were at the time. After all, I had only known Jacob for a month then.”

“Yes, and I wish we had moved in together as well; I never would have married you had I known you had a penchant for leaving your unmentionables strewn all around the bedroom as though they were decorations,” the wizard sitting next to the witch said, and the whole table burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Laughter was good, right?

“You’ll all excuse me,” the witch Charlene, in the middle, said eventually. “This is a Witches’ Council, should we not be attempting at least a modicum of decorum?” The laughter died down and one of the other wizards chimed in.

“I don’t think it makes a difference at all whether or not they were serious, they weren’t married. I take the opposite view of Darla, I think young people these days consider their relationships in general to be far too disposable. The divorce rate in this country is astronomical; think of how many humans there are out there who know our secret but are divorced from their witchy spouses.”

“They are all well aware of the consequences of telling anyone,” Darla said in a bored-sounding voice. “Relationships are breaking down more because women are more independent and don’t feel terrified of being out in the world alone anymore. Of course, scaring a woman into being with you is obviously the only way you could get one, so I can see why the change is annoying you.”

I bit my lip to hide a smile, this Darla woman had some spunk to her. A few other members of the council snickered, I couldn’t help but notice. Maybe this council wasn’t as terribly intimidating as I once thought.

“All right, enough bickering,” Charlene said. “I propose that we give Angela Martin a low sentence, since as she has explained, she did not act out of reckless disregard for the law, but simply in defense of a man with whom she is in a solid relationship. This is not the time or the place to discuss whether the current laws are appropriate,” she continued, sending a glare down the table toward Darla. “I suggest a three-month removal of Angela Martin’s magical powers. All in favor?”

I looked up and down the table as six of the council raised their hands. Only three disagreed. That meant it was going to go through, right? Six was over fifty percent of the council; I really hoped they didn’t need a one hundred percent vote.

“So it is done!” Charlene announced. “I sentence you, Angela Martin, to three months of revoked magical powers. Your personal power will remain, since we are aware you use it to do good in the world, but you will be unable to cast spells during that time. Your powers will return to you on the 29 thof December at eight pm. Council dismissed.”

There was a flash of light, and the next thing I knew, the entire council had disappeared and everything in the room had gone back to normal. Rather than sitting alone in the middle of an empty room I was surrounded by the tables the council had been using.

I sat there for a moment, stunned. Had that really just happened? Three months without magic. Well, without spells. I was allowed to keep my personal power, which meant at least I could still talk to animals. Still in a daze, I looked around, realized everything was over, and made my way back downstairs. Charlotte had her nose in a book, of course, but Jason and Sophie were practically pacing around the bottom of the stairs.

“So? How did it go?” Sophie asked as soon as she saw me.

“What happened?” Jason asked as well. Charlotte closed her book and looked up enquiringly.

“I’ve lost the ability to do spells for three months,” I said. “I can still speak to animals, though.”

“Good,” Charlotte said. “That’s about the best you can have hoped for. I didn’t want to tell you, but it was written in the book that the shortest sentence ever given in the past was a year of lost magic.”

“Wow, I got off really easily then,” I said, my eyebrows rising. Suddenly, my stomach began to growl. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. “Come on, let’s get something for dinner and I’ll tell you guys everything that happened.”

Chapter 23

Over the next few days, which were so hectic I was stopping by Betty’s four times a day for coffee, we managed to finally tie all the pieces together.

Jake was arrested, and on the advice of his lawyer, admitted to killing Matt Smith and attempting to kill Jason and I in exchange for a plea deal where he would spend twenty years in prison for all three crimes. I had recorded the entire conversation with Jake, although I edited the recording before giving it to the police so that the part where I used magic to save Jason’s life was no longer on it. I simply said that I must have tapped a button to turn off the recording by accident, and there were no further questions asked.

As for Jake himself, he had no memory of the events that happened at all. Apparently the blow I’d given him with my magic gave him a strong enough hit to the head that he completely forgot about it, which was good; it saved us from having to come up with a plausible story as to what happened.

He told the police he killed Matt Smith over a deal at the property where he’d tried to kill me. He said Matt was always looking for the quick money, the fast-in-fast-out option, and that when they got an offer on the property for thirty percent more than what they had paid, Matt wanted to take it, and Jake didn’t, thinking that the real money would be in developing the property in such an affluent area and selling off luxury townhouses at a huge profit.

They argued multiple times over it, until finally, after a business meeting in Willow Bay that night, Jake completely lost it, realizing that Matt was never going to come around to his line of thinking, and shot him.

Richard Steele was also arrested, as it turned out he had no permit for any of the exotic animals on his property. It turned out Richard’s father had been a very successful farmer, and when he died he left the property and a ton of money to Richard, who spent most of it on alcohol and animals.

But the best update of all came by email from Kirsten about a week after Lucy was taken by the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. I opened up the attached picture and saw Lucy standing with a fifteen-foot-tall adult giraffe. Lucy’s neck was pressed against her mother’s, her eyes closed.