How to Stone a Crow (Witch Like a Boss Book 2) by Willow Mason (great novels txt) 📕

unhealthy lunch, I leant over to give our new familiar a tickle.

<Get your hands off me! I’m not your bonded servant.>

Nice to have you here, too. I hurriedly cloaked the words behind a mound of gibberish and tongue twisters, purposely avoiding Annalisa’s eye in case her amusement jostled the retort out. “Did you enjoy the cruffin?”

<It was passable, but it won’t do for everyday. If you tell me the supermarket you use, I’ll give you a list of my requirements.>

Right. Another feline to boss me around in my own home. I sipped my drink and stared out to the street just in time to see my aunt arrive, retrieving a stack of Tupperware from her back seat.

“What’s this? Have you been baking?”

“Don’t be silly. These are ingredients for potions.” Aunt Florentine swept past me and deposited the kitchenware on my counter, elbowing aside the few dishes I hadn’t yet got around to cleaning. “Shouldn’t you make a start on those?”

I pursed my lips, waving my mug as though it gave me a reprieve.

“Come on, girl. After going to all the trouble of arranging magic lessons for you, it’d be nice to see you put them to use.”

The lessons had seemed like a treat. Learning how to use my newly amplified powers to perform simple rituals to improve my daily life. That was before I found out how much concentration it took to get even the simplest of spells right.

All the other witches in class had the benefit of growing up in households where magic had been applied at will. Each one of them had picked up more by osmosis than I had managed with six weeks of applied effort.

The big things I could handle. The small, finicky things I’d most looked forward to learning had turned out to be more taxing than I’d ever imagined. Washing the dishes was a nuisance as a physical chore—as a magic spell, it sapped my energy and willpower like an 4K video drained a low battery.

But my aunt was grumble-proof. I drained the last of my cup and set to the task of washing the dishes. Lifting each item, using magic energy to scrub away every trace of food and drink, then ensuring it made the journey to its final resting place intact soon left me needing another cup of coffee.

Or ten.

I stretched out the muscles in my back once the last spoon clinked into the cutlery drawer. “Are you sure there isn’t a shortcut? This all feels impossible to keep track of.”

“The shortcut is repeating the exercise until it becomes second nature. Once you grow the muscle memory, it’ll stay, and you can move onto far bigger and more exotic things.”

“Like the spells I’ve already used.” Although I muttered the words under my breath, my aunt heard me. Of course. If I hadn’t wanted her to, I would’ve kept them locked in my head.

“Just because you went whizz bang pizzazz as soon as you got your training wheels, doesn’t invalidate these small lessons. You’ll be grateful in the end.”

With a sigh, I reached over and smoothed down her lapel. “I’m grateful now. Just tired and grumpy, too.”

<See what some of us have to put up with?> Annalisa said. <And I’ve got all my magic lessons down pat.>

I jerked my chin at the pile of Tupperware. “Anything in there for getting rid of poltergeists?”

My aunt shrugged, her attention already propelling ahead on her gigantic to-do list. “Use the library. After spending all that time and effort getting it open, it would be a waste not to use it at every opportunity.”

Fair enough. As she departed, I checked out the stock of potion ingredients, wincing at the labels. Hopefully, eye of newt meant nothing more than some type of weird seed or I’d need the vom bucket before I got casting using that particular item.

Chapter Three

“Spirit, poltergeist, ghost, echo, or apparition?” I read out to Patrick. “Apparently, they’re all uniquely different things.”

“Of course, they are.” He turned in a circle, staring at a library shelf with a strange intensity. When it scuttled aside a moment later, I understood why. The library wasn’t just full of books and old artefacts, parts of it were alive.

“Don’t do anything to upset the shelf and it’ll leave you alone.” I pulled him away when he stayed fixed to the spot.

“How am I supposed to know what makes a shelf angry?”

A good question. “If you avoid overstacking it, things should be fine. Now concentrate.” I snapped my fingers in front of his nose.

“Just check out the volumes you need so we can get out of here.” Patrick shifted his weight from foot to foot. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“Not calling all the animated parts of the library creepy could be a good way to avoid upsetting them.” I sighed and showed him the passage in the encyclopaedia. “First, we have to know which flavour of undead person we’re dealing with, then I’ll be able to work out what books we should check out.”

“If Pru’s worried about Andrew getting angry, I’m going to say poltergeist.” He took the book out of my hand and quickly scanned the entries. “She wouldn’t be scared of something without a physical presence.”

“They’re all physical. It’s just a matter of degree.”

“Get everything, then.” He sidled closer to me as the shelf scampered sideways. “Anything to ensure we don’t have to pay another visit.”

I followed his lead and checked out a stack of books that seemed fitting. A spell learned at school soon had the volumes reading themselves aloud to us as we drove back to my house.

“It sounds like he was an echo,” I said, pulling into the curb outside my house. “Following a routine every day until he changed into something more malevolent.”

“So a spell to change him back might be all we need.”

I laughed at Patrick’s optimism, walking through the open front door that hadn’t managed to sort out its own security. “If that was all it took, I’m sure Pru