Chapter 18
Early the next morning, she took the bus and then an Uber to the witches' mansion on Mount Funk. It glowed in the evening light. Its grandeur was evident from the outside, with its tall columns that rose gracefully up to the second-story balconies. Joell met her out front and spelled the driver to think he’d left her at a modest house.
Beyond the wrought iron gate, tall trees swayed in a riot of orange, red, and gold. Leaves whispered in the breeze, as if the mansion had already started gossiping about her return.
Victoria trudged through the gate and kept going. Joell wrapped her arm around Victoria’s pudgy muffin top, helping her move a little faster.
The entryway opened wide, welcoming her into polished opulence. Tapestries graced the walls. A rich oriental carpet cushioned her tired feet. Chandeliers threw light everywhere, scattering it across bold paintings that practically watched her limp in.
Victoria stopped just inside the door and exhaled. “Thank the Goddess,” she muttered. Then exhaustion crashed over her like a wave.
She didn’t just feel tired. This elderly body felt bone-deep, soul-sapping, please-don’t-make-me-take-another-step tired.
“I need sleep,” she announced. “And possibly a full-body exorcism.” She needed Magda. Magda could make a corpse feel refreshed.
Her coven would fix this. They had to. While one of them dug into the spell, someone else could work out whatever ancient betrayal had gifted her with this body. She wanted to return it like it was Boxing Day in Canada.
“Victoria?”
She turned as the witches filtered in—beloved, familiar faces with curious eyes.
Rayna stepped forward first, already holding a mug. “Drink this.”
Victoria took it without question. “If this explodes, I’ll haunt you.”
“It won’t.”
She drank.
Warmth spread through her immediately, thanks to herbs, spices, and magic. The exhaustion peeled back in layers, retreating steadily. Victoria blinked, rolled her shoulders, and stood a little straighter. “All right,” she said slowly. “I’m impressed.”
“Magda’s blend,” Rayna said.
“Of course it is.”
The others gathered closer. Sahara, Crystal, Brianna, and eventually Magda. Their facial expressions spoke of questions, concerns, and skeptical worries.
Victoria raised her hand. “Before anyone asks—yes, it’s me.”
Silence.
“Of course it is I!” she snapped. “Would the mansion welcome just anybody into its embrace? Especially someone who looks like this?”
Joell and Crowe exchanged a look.
Crowe tilted his head. “I knew. Cat senses. I never lost them. When she showed up claiming to be Victoria, I was outside and telepathically relayed to Joell that she was telling the truth.”
Joell nodded. “We let her in.”
“As you should,” Victoria said. She stomped off to the library, and the other witches followed.
When everyone was settled at the large oblong table, she walked them through the story—every humiliating, infuriating moment. The dress. The swap. The thief prancing off in her body, as if she’d just won a prize. The trek to Raoul. The bus. The entire nightmare.
She even told them of her rejected, bogus plan to get to Tennessee. It involved hitchhiking and hijacking. Nope. Not a good plan. The ladies of the L.A.W. sometimes bent the law until it cried, but they tried not to break it.
Finally, Victoria crossed her short arms. “Well? Does anyone know how to fix this?”
Silence stretched just long enough to be annoying.
Then Joell straightened. “I’m calling the librarian.” She disappeared toward the kitchen at a near-run.
Victoria blinked. “Well. That sounded promising.”
A few minutes later, Joell came back. “There’s a way,” she said. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“Shocking.”
Joell grabbed a pad and pen, shoved them into Victoria’s hands. “Write.”
Victoria sighed but obeyed.
“Stone dust from the large pyramid at Chichén Itzá.”
Victoria scribbled.
“A corpse plant,” Joell continued. “Largest flower in the world. It’s in Indonesia. And Duke says it smells like a rotting corpse.”
Victoria gagged. “Naturally it does. Continue.”
“Nepenthes Temax. Northern Queensland. Looks like a pitcher.”
“It probably eats things,” Victoria muttered, writing.
“Welwitschia. Fossil plant. Africa.”
“Ancient rock. Fantastic.”
“Ghost orchid. Cuba or South Florida.”
“Finally, something pretty,” Victoria said. “Probably deadly.”
“Dragon’s Blood Tree. Socotra. It bleeds red.”
Victoria paused mid-scribble. “I’m sorry, it what?”
“Bleeds.”
“Of course it does.”
“And Rothschild’s Slipper Orchid,” Joell finished. “Borneo. If you can’t find it, you can buy one for five thousand dollars.”
Victoria dropped the pen onto the paper. “Absolutely not. I already owe you all. I am not adding ‘botanical bankruptcy’ to this situation.”
Joell planted a hand on her hip. “You’re taking the money. You’ll have to freeze your assets if you haven’t already.”
Victoria opened her mouth.
“No argument,” Joell added. “We’re funding this. You’re fixing this. End of discussion.”
Victoria stared at her. Then sighed. “Fine. But I’m writing you all into my will.”
“Uh… One more thing. The spell also requires you to capture the witch who put the curse on you in the first place.”
Victoria’s head spun, overwhelmed by the task that lay ahead of her. “Mon Dieu! All I wanted to do this week was write my next erotica novel.”
“I’m sorry, dear friend. I’m sure we’d all be willing to help as much as we can, but all we have is this one week, while we shelter in place and PMS influences our emotions. We’re super-women, but as advertised, we are women! Prone to the same biology as other women.”
Lioness quickly changed the subject. “Do tell, Victoria! What will your next best seller be about?”
Victoria smirked. “You know how every author on the planet is writing Christmas stories, probably hoping Hallmark will fall in love with their unagented submissions?”
“Ah, yes...” Magda said. “Some of them are positively off their Kadoovas, if they think they'll make it out of the slush pile.”
“Don't tell me you're competing in that game,” Sahara said.
“Certainly not! I'll write about Yule, Ostara, Beltane, or Samhain.”
“Oh!” Joell exclaimed. “Crowe and I can help you with Beltane.”
“That's right! Crowe, you gave up your feline body right before the Beltane celebration,” Sahara reminisced.
“And I've never regretted it,” he said as he lifted Joell's hand and gave it a lick. Everyone chuckled.
“So, it wasn't a cat-tastrophy?” Lioness asked.
“Don't make me groan,” Victoria said, but laughed with the others anyway. Lioness might be full of bad puns, but she never failed to lighten the mood. And Victoria needed a moment of levity badly.
She was determined to break the curse, so she agreed to do whatever it took. She thanked them for their help, even if it was only what they could do from the mansion. Soon she'd set off on her journey to break the curse and reclaim her body. After about twelve hours of sleep.
Victoria woke to a rooster crowing. She forgot where she was for a few moments. At last, she remembered she was not at her Montreal apartment or at the mansion on Long Island, NY, but in the mountains of Tennessee.
“Fantastic.”
She pushed herself upright and swung her legs off the bed, already making a face at the effort. This body did not spring. It negotiated.
Two problems loomed, neither polite enough to wait their turn. First, she had to find seven rare ingredients, scattered across the globe like a sadistic scavenger hunt. And then capture one body-stealing lunatic currently living her best life in Victoria’s skin.
Victoria dragged a hand through her hair. “Fine. Ingredients first. Surveillance later. I can multitask my vengeance.”
She shoved herself into the same nasty, stained clothes and marched outside.
The sun had just started climbing, all golden and optimistic, as if it hadn’t noticed her situation was a disaster. “I do not have time for your cheerfulness,” she told it, squinting.
She cut across the grounds and headed straight for the conservatory. If she was about to globe-trot for magical plant nonsense, she was at least going to confirm they didn’t already own half of it.
The greenhouse doors creaked open, releasing a wave of damp heat and herbal scent.
“Please let there be something useful in here,” she murmured.
She didn’t browse. She hunted. Shelves. Tables. Hanging bundles. Drying racks.
She checked labels, flipped tags, squeezed leaves as if they might confess under pressure. Nothing unusual.
She sniffed one plant. “Well, that’s basil. Thrilling.”
She moved faster. Drawers opened. Cabinets slammed. Dried herbs crumbled under her fingers as she rifled through bundles that had clearly been sitting there since someone’s last casual mishap.
Still nothing. Because, of course, nothing.
The L.A.W. witches didn’t need a lot of ingredients. They were the ingredients. Raw power, no garnish. Usually.
Except now she needed garnish. Seven extremely inconvenient garnishes.
Thirty minutes later, she stood in the middle of the storeroom, surrounded by perfectly ordinary herbs and her rapidly thinning patience.
She dropped a bundle back onto the shelf. “Marvelous. We have enough sage to cleanse a continent, but not one thing that helps me get my body back.”
She exhaled hard, wiped her hands on her pants, and stepped outside. “Fine. New plan.”
She paced across the stone path, mind churning. She needed information. Shortcuts. Someone who knew things that weren’t in books or labeled jars.
And then it clicked. The crone.
Bas had mentioned her in that casual, slightly ominous way she had when something was either extremely helpful or extremely dangerous.
Old woman. Lives in the woods and knows things. Bas had called her a fountain of knowledge. Victoria needed a firehose.
“Worth a shot,” she decided, already turning toward the tree line. Because doing nothing wasn’t getting her body back.
And somewhere out there, a thief was walking around in Victoria De La Fontaine’s life, probably redecorating her penthouse.
Unacceptable.