A Witchy Inheritance

Chapter 14

Lack of sleep had me barely holding my tongue when I came into the library the next morning and Mrs. Dobbs was pursing her lips at me in disapproval as if I was coming in late to work. When in fact I was showing up 10 minutes before my shift started. I swear that some days she showed up 15 minutes early just so she could frown at me in disapproval for not being as early as her. I was exhausted, I finished the book I had read last night and despite knowing I was going to get less than eight hours sleep my body still didn't crash until six hours before my alarm would go. And even then the sleep I did get was fitful.

"Good morning Mrs. Dobbs," I just couldn't inject my normal amount of cheeriness into that greeting, but at least it didn't come across as grumpy so that was something.

She muttered a reply then turned back towards whatever she was doing at the computer screen. So I went about my day of getting ready and starting the coffee pot so that I could drink some of the heavenly elixir as the doors opened and we welcomed in the one or two early morning patrons who would be meandering around outside when I unlocked the doors. Because it was always me who unlocked the doors, Mrs. Dobbs always seemed to be too busy or have disappeared somewhere.

As I unlocked the door, I held it open for Mr. Simmons and Ms. Patricia Wood. My morning greeting to them was much more chipper than my one for Mrs. Dobbs. "Oh Ms. charm," Patricia chirped as she paused in the entryway to dig out a bunch of flyers with a rubber band around them. "I just picked these up from the copy shop on the way here, they're the flyers for this month's friends of the library book club meeting. I am so excited for this month's book. Would you like me to put them on the flyer table or would you like to do it?"

I reached out to take the stack of flyers from her. While Patricia was the co-chair of the friends of the library group I wasn't sure I trusted her judgment when it came to triaging the different community flyers we had in the little kiosk area in the entryway of the library.

"I'll take care of it for you Patricia thank you."

"Fantastic I appreciate your help and I hope will see you there on Friday."

As I was taking the stack from her my hand brushed hers and I got this weird whirling sensation before dread hit the pit of my stomach.

I saw Patricia standing up in a circle of people as if she had been adamantly talking then she was choking, but I wasn't entirely sure if she was choking or having some sort of allergic reaction or playing charades. As I watched the scene unfold in the blink of an eye, Patricia dropped to the ground.

"Ms. Charm, honey are you okay?" Patricia's voice jolted me away from what I was seeing and back to just the two of us standing in the entry of the library, me still holding the flyers and her standing right in front of me looking at me inquisitively. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

I blinked a few times in utter shock. And then I heard Marissa's words last night telling me that the sight was going to get worse, or stronger, or whatever word she had used. Had I really just seen something that was going to happen to Patricia at what looked like the friends of the library book club event? It seemed absurd. Surely it wouldn't be out of the blue like that would it?

"Yeah Patricia, I'm fine," I quickly tried to cover. "I ate something I think I might have an mild allergy to last night and this morning I'm not feeling so good and I didn't sleep well. Has that ever happened to you?" I knew I was reaching because the idea of having an allergic reaction like that seemed absurd to me but I didn’t really have allergies, so I was kind of making it up on the fly. I was hoping that what I'd seen had been some sort of fever dream but if it wasn't, maybe it was an allergic reaction and not her choking to death. If it was a allergic reaction it was something that could be prevented. Even if it did make me sound like a kook.

She smiled at me looking more sympathetic than concerned, "I am allergic to nuts. Not the kind of allergy where if I touch it I break out into a rash but if I happen to eat them and don't have someone jamming my EpiPen and taking me to the hospital I could be in pretty bad shape. Allergies are the worst. And everybody's body acts uniquely different and weird to the situation." She patted my hand. "I hope you feel better," she then turned and made her way back out of the entry.

Shaken I walked over to the small area we had all of our community flyers and as quickly as possible put down the book club flyers in a more prominent position. I organized the rest of the flyers a little before I headed back into the main part of the library. I could see Mrs. Dobbs standing by the checkout counter on the computer still doing who knew what and Mr. Simmons was still perusing the nonfiction section looking for whatever books he was going to plop down and read this morning so I knew I had a few minutes.

I walked over to Mrs. Dobbs, standing in front of the computer and waited, she purposefully made me wait longer than was necessary before she looked up and away from the computer screen at me.

"I'm going to grab my first cup of coffee for the day I was wondering if you want me to pour you some?"

It wasn't a new offer, every morning she beat me there and I ended up making the coffee I would offer to get her some. Every once in a while she would take me up on it but more often than not she would do what she was doing now which was curl her lip and say, "I have my black tea thank you." As if tea was somehow better than coffee. To me a caffeinated beverage was a caffeinated beverage but maybe I just wasn't in the know.

I nodded and gave her a tightlipped smile before heading back to the little staff room that held a small kitchenette, and a table where people could eat their lunches. I grabbed the mug I brought in from home, and cleaned every day, began pouring the coffee and pulled my phone out of my purse, which I had stored in one of the four lockers that stood in the front corner of the room.

The lockers looked like regular gym lockers and I always thought it was a funny way to care for people's belongings since each person set the lock each day for each use instead of there being set combinations. And at least once a week one of the doors would get locked and the person would forget what the combination was. The library's manager went through in cleared any of those on the days he came in. Since he was both the manager of this branch and the next closest that meant it only happened 2 to 3 times a week.

As I pour the coffee, I scanned through my phone until I hit the name Cicero. My finger hovered over the name a moment before I made myself press it and the phone began to ring. A moment later a deep familiar voice answered.

"Erin? That's fast, are you okay?" His voice was wary.

"I have to make this quick since it's not an official break or anything. But I touched one of our patrons’ hands and had a flash of what looked to be her choking and I babbled something about having an allergy which in turn had her telling me that she had a peanut allergy. It was the weirdest thing. I think what I saw was her having an allergic reaction to eating peanuts. Which is insane because I don't just see things when I touch people." I could hear the panic in my voice but knowing it was there didn’t help me rein it in.

There was silence on the other end for a beat then Cicero took a deep breath. When he spoke it was calm and measured. "That's actually pretty normal for people with the sight. Your aunt usually had visions every time she dreamed, so about four days a week. But there are others who get it when they touch things or see things or even smell or eat things. It could be that you're just on the fritz because your ability doesn't know how it's going to manifest with you yet. Since you're not a witch it could be having trouble. Or you could be one of these people that gets visions via touch. You can either avoid touching things today or you can just touch everything and see if anything sparks. That's how we'll know for sure. The important thing is to remain calm. Because in those first six months while your ability is kind of setting itself, freaking out or having spikes of anxiety is only going to make it go on the fritz more."

"Now you tell me anxiety is going to make things worse?"

"Yes, I realize the timing is crap and I realize telling you not to worry about something like this is ridiculous, but the point still stands."

"Okay, I guess I’m going to avoid touching things for now because I'm a little freaked out but maybe this afternoon I'll try going out of my way to touch things and I will let you know if anything comes of it when I get home."

"Excellent, I will do a little bit of research in the library about different types of manifestations for the gift of sight, so that I might be able to give you a more educated response. By the time I was with your aunt she already knew all the information she needed. So the information I have now is from how it worked for her. And until you're ready to talk to Marissa about this, I’d rather you be as informed as we can get you."

It was my turn to be silent on the phone. I was surprised that I had relied on Cicero so quickly, I didn't know if that was because he was a familiar or because I was somehow seeing him as a lifeline with this new witch thing but it was really nice to have him calming me down and volunteering to do the research for me. I was not used to having someone to rely on like that.

"Thank you I really appreciate you doing that research. I'll see you tonight. I'll grab food on my way home, human food."

If I wasn't mistaken I could hear a smile in his words when he responded, "not a problem, see you later."

Feeling mildly calmer but still really weirded out by the fact that I had somehow seen an allergic reaction that may or may not be in the future I finish doctoring my coffee, put my phone back in my purse, then spent the morning trying to touch as few things as possible. And I went out of my way to make sure I didn't have any physical contact with anyone which considering how empty the library was during the day didn't turn out to be all that hard to accomplish.