We Didn't Start The Fire.

“Tokabo, Norden, Stoja,” I intoned, flexing my hands, channelling the currents of magic through my fingers. Little sparks swirled through the air like dust motes in a sunbeam. “Mastholmen, Rimforsa, Malm, Billy.”

“Are those Ikea furniture names?”

I dropped my hands, letting the magic fizzle. I turned to the Normie leaning against the door jam, examining me like I was a bug.

“You asked me to repair your mother's couch, what did you expect me to chant? Latin death poetry?”

He shrugged out of his lean and stood chastised in the frame of his mother's rooster-filled kitchen. I needed to work on my customer service if I wanted any repeat clients. More so if I wanted to continue eating. One of my favourite pastimes. So I hoisted up the corners of my mouth in a cheery smile and continued to work with clenched teeth.

“Vimle, Kivik, Gronlid. . . “ the magic leapt back into my hands, winding back around my fingers and pulling taught.

Normies get hung up on the words. Wanted something grand and fancy. But the words needed to match the task at hand. Words had power, but they were never the words the Normies wanted to hear. A sleep spell required sleepy words, a couch spell required couch or couch-adjacent words. I didn’t make the rules, I just bent them into shape.

The couch shuddered as the splintered wood snapped back into place. The seemingly hundred-year-old stains vanished as well. An upgrade at no extra cost.

I wiped the sweat off my exposed neck. He stared. Clear unblemished skin, free of any witches marks. The more clear skin the better the witch. On the Good and Evil metric anyway. The skin shining next to the short white sundress I was wearing made me look like a saint, by witch standards.

Yet still he stared.

“What’s your coven?” he asked.

“I don’t have one,” I said too quickly, pushing past him to the country-ified kitchen. The butcherblock countertop matched the fake beams that crossed the builder grade ceiling. But the lights were nice. I liked the lights.

“All finished Mrs Delaney,” I said to the bright white-haired woman putting together a puzzle at the small kitchen table.

“Thank you, my dear, you witches always do good work, better than any of them good-for-nothing tradesmen. To think he quoted me two hundred for what you could do for half!”

She pressed the green bill into my hands, I tried not to snatch it away greedily. I’d eat this week. That was something. Even if we witches were criminally underpaid.

Despite my protests, Mrs Delaney poured me tea and I sat at the rooster tablecloth nibbling on a scotch finger, wondering if she would notice if I ate the whole tin. I pushed two puzzle pieces together to distract myself.

“Why you’re so small a breeze could blow you away! Aren’t your people taking care of you, deary?”

“She doesn’t have a coven Ma.”

“Don’t be absurd Nicky, all witches have covens!”

“It's true Mrs Delaney, I don’t have a coven anymore.” I saw the quick tracing of her eyes over the clear skin of my face and arms. Looking for a witches mark that wasn’t there. How could a good witch not have a coven? Unheard of. When a witch uses magic for bad deeds she gets marked. Warts, boils, deep cutting wrinkles, all the classics. But Normies could kill without a trace. Hardly seemed fair.

“I used to be in The Circle of The Silver Flame.”

Mrs Delaney's tea cup came down to her plate with a sudden uneasy clink.

“Oh my dear I am so sorry.”

She pressed a weary wrinkled hand to my forearm and squeezed. As if one touch could make me feel better about my entire coven burning alive. It never did.

“And you are interrogating the poor girl about her spells? Shame on you.” She turned on her son. “Don’t mind him, he’s a police officer and can’t seem to turn off.”

I pushed down the sense of alarm that suddenly sprung up in my gut.

“Think nothing of it,” I said as calmly as I could.

Cue the awkward silence. What to say to the lone survivor of a horrible fire?

“Some music, that will help,” said Mrs Delaney, bracing herself for the long journey out of her chair to the radio on the counter a metre away.

“Radio Schmaedio,” I said with a flick of my fingers. The radio sparked to life in the corner of the room. Mrs Delaney clapped her hands together with delight.

“Ma, ain't you got that hair appointment? I’ll make sure the witch gets home.”

Words have power. But it’s not the word, but the intention behind it. And I didn’t like the way he said witch.

Nicky helped his mother out of the chair and walked her to the door. I placed the half-eaten biscuit on the small floral plate and took a slow calm sip of my tea. My hand didn’t shake. I thanked the goddess for that small miracle.

With measured steps, he took his mother's chair sprawling across the small kitchen like a big cat who had caught his prey. The room suddenly felt very small, he could reach out and touch me without stretching.

“The Circle of The Silver Flame?” he mused.

I took another bite of my biscuit. Chewing slowly. Trying not to notice that he had boxed me in with no escape. I kept my other hand under the table, holding loosely onto some threads of magic.

“I remember that being in the news, big story. They never caught the person who did it? Or should I say, never caught you?” he leant into me, pinning me between the table and the small window.

Then he paused. They always paused. I think they expected me to do something dramatic like throw myself to my knees and beg for mercy. Instead, I took another sip of my tea. The panic from earlier had solidified into something dangerously calm. I pulled the threads of magic taught between my fingers under the tablecloth.

“Aren’t witches meant to get ugly from misdeeds? Surely killing a dozen people would leave a mark? And yet your skin- “his fingertip traced my collarbone. I sat still. I didn’t flinch. I hadn’t flinched in a long time.

“So, what does that tell you?” I asked, staring straight ahead.

“Good foundation,” he scoffed.

“Makeup can’t hide witches marks. Try again.”

“Then you admit you should have them,” he said with a smirk.

“Is that what you want a confession?” Sweat beaded down my back.

I turned to him, pinning him with my eyes. He was an inch away, invading my personal space to intimidate me. I invaded his right back.

“I watched them burn in my magic,” I whispered “And I didn’t get a single mark. What about that do you not understand?”

He adjusted his face quickly, but I saw it. The brief flicker of fear.

“I don’t care if they deserved it, I care that you murdered them.” And there it was. He wasn’t after justice. He didn’t care about protecting the people, he wanted the reward.

I smiled. A genuine dazzling toothy grin.

“And I would do it again” I said to his chest where, hidden underneath the old cotton of his button-down shirt a microphone waited to catch me. The same microphone I had disabled when I turned on the radio.

“Your own coven.”

“Murderers and abusers,” I said, the room now felt uncomfortably warm.

“And yet they looked like angels”.

“You only get witches marks if you use magic for evil. Normies don’t need magic to hurt someone. Why would they?”

“Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?” he asked, a bead of sweat curling at the collar of his shirt.

“I sleep like a baby; how do you sleep?”

“Tonight, I’ll sleep covered in money.”

“We didn’t start the fire,” I said with a small smile. Because he had said I. He was in this alone. I loved it when they came after me alone. Clean-up was so much easier.

I tapped my finger on the countertop to the beat of the music in the air.

“What?”

“It was always burning,” I smiled, pinning him again with my stare.

“Big smile for someone who’s going to spend the rest of their life in prison.”

“What most people don’t understand about spells is that the words are almost incidental, only a tenuous connection at best. A pop song will do in a pinch. Don’t you love Billy Joel?” It was only then that he noticed the song on the radio.

I watched from across the road as the fire brigade tried to put out the blaze. They would save the house, eventually.

Taking out a pocket mirror I looked at my reflection. Clear unblemished skin. I hummed the song under my breath as I made my way down the street.