Chapter Three-Evie
And The Complaints Continue
“What are you saying, Miss Spritely?” I asked, doing my best not to sigh audibly as the town’s most dramatic elementary school principal cornered me two steps from freedom.
Stanley, already halfway out the door, gave me a sympathetic wave and tapped his watch with exaggerated flair.
The universal wrap it up, woman gesture.
I shot him a helpless look as Miss Spritely’s voice rose another octave, drilling directly into my brain like a caffeinated Banshee.
It was officially after office hours. I was supposed to be heading to the woods to meet the Witch Trifecta for our monthly ward-strengthening ritual.
You know, the one that kept our town from being overrun with chaos and creatures from beyond?
But noooo. I was stuck here, dealing with a hysterical principal on the edge of a full magical meltdown.
“Are you not concerned about our children at all, Madam Mayor?” she shrieked directly into my ear like I had just endorsed demon-led daycare.
I winced. My head throbbed in perfect rhythm with every step I took toward the elevator, praying it would open quickly so I could escape to the sweet, sweet embrace of fresh air and Witchy bonfires.
“Of course, I want our kids to be safe,” I said, summoning every ounce of calm and professionalism I had left—which, to be fair, was running dangerously low. “But maybe you could—not scream at me while I try to help?”
I could practically hear how my bestie Donatella would have reacted to this whole thing. She was probably snorting from afar even now.
Donny would’ve zapped this woman into silence in under five seconds.
Maribella would’ve nodded empathetically while plotting her death via poisoned caramel glaze.
Me? I was the mayor.
The elected adult in the room.
Which meant I had to smile, nod, and absorb verbal abuse like a human sponge with a taxpayer-funded salary.
As my Nonna always said, “Politics is a tightrope walk, bambina. And sometimes, you gotta do it in heels with a Werewolf biting at your ankles.”
Sage advice.
“I’ll notify the sheriff about the incident,” I said, attempting reason. “But how exactly can I help you right now, Miss Spritely?”
I held out a sliver of hope that she might say thank you and hang up.
Ha. No such luck.
Instead, she launched into a detailed list of student names, ages, and tardy times down to the minute.
Which wouldn’t be quite so ridiculous if we didn’t already have a dedicated truancy officer for this exact kind of thing.
Emily Borzi, our feline Shifter truancy officer extraordinaire, had apparently taken the complaint earlier today.
But instead of handling Miss Spritely’s concerns herself, Officer Borzi directed the high-strung principal straight to me.
Smart kitty.
I made a mental note to have a very stern chat with Emily—and possibly lure her into compliance with a new scratching post and some smoked salmon.
“I still don’t understand why you’re calling me,” I said, somehow still calm. Mostly. Barely. “I’m the mayor, not the magical school crossing guard.”
“Because, Evie Castor, it is your job to ensure the safety of this town,” she snapped, using my full name like she was about to assign me detention.
“There’s something going on at the Castor’s Corner Cemetery. Something unnatural. Something that’s scaring our children. It’s your duty to investigate and expel that unsettled spirit before it attracts attention we don’t want.”
And just like that, she hung up with a theatrical huff worthy of a soap opera villain.
“Shit,” I muttered, staring at my phone like it had personally betrayed me.
I jabbed the screen to hang up—too late—and bit my lip hard enough to leave a dent in my soul.
My thoughts swirled into a frenzy.
Ghosts in the cemetery? Now?
Was someone pulling a prank?
Or was there really something lurking among the headstones, creeping out magical kids before homeroom?
Let’s not forget that Castor’s Corner had quite the reputation for magical schooling.
We even had our own magical university, the Royal Academy for Magical Advancement, which was something like if Hogwarts started in junior high and went all the way through college.
It brought in a ton of money and support from the supernatural world. Point was, we couldn’t afford to have any damage done to our schooling rep. And that, of course, started with Miss Spritely’s kids.
My phone let out a sudden high-pitched beep, then flashed an ominous shade of green before going completely black.
I blinked.
Then, I seriously considered hurling the damn thing at the nearest wall.
Because this? This was not how my Thursday night was supposed to go.
Witches and technology were kind of at war. Not like full-on fireballs and EMPs (though, let’s be real, we’d definitely win), but more like a long-standing cold war full of glitches, sparks, and mutual contempt.
Magic and microchips just didn’t mix. You cast a spell near a Wi-Fi router, and poof—suddenly every device in a three-block radius is streaming goat yoga from 2009 and no one can explain why.
But recently, I’d discovered a few glorious exceptions to the rule.
Enter: Swoosh, WUber, Date to Mate, and a whole suite of magical apps designed for modern Witches with lives to run and curses to manage.
After jumping through enough bureaucratic hoops to make the DMV look like a dream vacation, I’d been granted a special magical license to operate my cell phone legally within Castor’s Corner.
That meant hexing via phone? Totally possible.
Ordering potion ingredients on-demand? Yep.
Need a spell kit delivered to your doorstep in thirty minutes or less? There’s an app for that.
It made 21st-century life a little easier for us supes and helped us blend in when we ventured beyond our magically camouflaged borders.
No more pulling out dusty tomes in Starbucks or explaining why your “Uber” was actually a broomstick named Dolores.
Finally, after coaxing, cursing, and threatening bodily harm, I got my phone to turn back on.
Just in time for the alarm I’d set to buzz like an angry hornet in my palm.
“Crap,” I muttered, frowning hard enough to give myself premature forehead lines.
I was officially late.
Again.
I slung my purse over my shoulder like a warrior preparing for battle and launched my voice-to-text app to jot down a few notes about Miss Spritely’s ghosty freak-out.
Unfortunately, the damn thing still hated my Jersey Shore accent with a fiery passion.
“Note: Cast of honor ghost in—ugh. No. Correction. Not ‘Cast of honor’. Castor’s Corner.”
Angry sigh.
Regroup.
Let’s try that again.
“Note: C-A-S-T-O-R-’-S. C-O-R-N-E-R. Cemetery. Ghost.”
My phone beeped helpfully, then translated everything I just painfully spelled out into this rigamarole:
Cast of honor ghost in casserole. See money. Goat. Can I offer any further assistance?
Fuck. My. Literal. Life.
It was the lifelong bane of being born and raised in coastal New Jersey. The unshakable tendency to turn every “r” into an “aw” or just throw it out the window entirely.
I’d tried to retrain my phone’s voice settings, but apparently it needed a Rosetta Stone for Jersey Witches to understand me.
Back to Miss Spritely.
She’d been principal of the Castor’s Corner Elementary School for eighty years.
That was not an exaggeration. E-i-g-h-t-y.
She didn’t look a day over sixty, which, considering she was technically pushing one hundred and ninety-seven, was impressive.
I blamed her profession for the early aging.
Spend nearly a century wrangling magical children through snack time and spontaneous spellcasting? Of course, you’d end up with grays, wrinkles, and a tendency to shriek like a harpy with a megaphone.
Honestly, I still flinched when she used her disappointed in you voice. The same one she’d used when I accidentally turned Tommy Wick into a toad in third grade.
Totally deserved, by the way. He told me my nose looked like a ski slope.
Still, even if she made my eardrums bleed and my blood pressure spike, Miss Spritely had a point.
It was my job to keep Castor’s Corner safe. Witch’s oath and all.
If something—or someone—was haunting the cemetery and scaring the kids, I had to investigate.
Tomorrow, I’d haul myself over there and see what the fuss was about. And if I did find a restless spirit throwing shade at first graders, I’d exorcise that gory ghoul right back into the afterlife before things escalated.
But right now?
I had no time to worry about cranky ghosts or vengeful field trip poltergeists.
I had a ritual to get to.
A bonfire to lead.
Wards to reinforce.
A protective barrier to rebuild.
And, Gaia, help me, I was already ten minutes late.
So, I did what any responsible mayor-Witch would do in my situation.
I gathered my skirt, muttered a quick ward to keep my shoes mud-free, and I ran like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels.
Happened once.
And I do not recommend getting caught by those gnarly toothed bastards.