A Witch of a Certain Age

 Hazel sighed. That was the third time this week she’d misplaced her wand. She could have sworn she’d left it next to the spell book, but it wasn’t there, nor had it fallen on the floor.

That was unlike her. Hazel kept a clean workroom and labeled every jar, bottle, and packet in careful black script. When one worked with belladonna, powdered mandrake, and substances that occasionally whispered, good housekeeping was not merely a virtue. It was a safety precaution.

She shook her head, silver curls shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight. It was bad enough that shopkeepers had begun calling her “dear” and younger witches seemed to look straight through her, but now this was an affront.

Hazel was feeling the pangs of being a witch of a certain age. Gray had crept in from her temples, she’d had to let out the waistbands of her skirts, and the glasses she now wore constantly fogged while she worked over a hot potion.

Worst of all, her wand regularly going missing and spells occasionally going awry worried her. It was nothing she couldn’t fix, at least not yet.

Still, she loved the work she did in the community as a finder of lost people and pets, healer of ailments and broken hearts, and guardian of mundanes from malicious beyond-the-veil interference.

Having tea with her sister the next morning, Hazel outlined her concerns.  Hester had always been inclined toward dramatic diagnoses. A headache became a brain fever. An unexplained rash was surely some obscure tropical malady she’d read about somewhere.

Hester tossed back her still-blond hair, leaned forward conspiratorially, and lowered her voice.

“Could it be…hexopause?”

Hazel gasped. She hadn’t even considered that.

“Are you having…hag flashes?” Hester inquired, her green eyes filled with equal parts concern and delight. “Mood swings?”

“None of that,” sighed Hazel. “Just my wand not being where it’s supposed to be sometimes, and spells going wrong when I’ve done them a thousand times. Other things missing, too.”

Hazel left Hester’s later that morning no more convinced she was suffering from hexopause (what a ridiculous word), but considerably more unsettled by the possibility. By the time she reached home, she’d resolved to keep a closer eye on things.

Hazel called out for Bean, her familiar, a six-month-old black cat she’d found at the shelter after losing her previous familiar. Bean had already developed several regrettable habits, including sleeping in Hazel’s cauldron whenever it was not in use. This was particularly alarming with a black cat, as Hazel had more than once walked into the workroom and thought the cauldron was staring back at her.

At present, Bean was playing with a mouse and was not inclined to look in her direction. He had recently perfected the art of appearing both innocent and deeply guilty at the same time.

Bean’s training was another thing Hazel would have to attend to.

Hazel sighed and turned toward the kitchen just as the mouse gave a final squeak and went limp beneath Bean’s paws.

“Bean,” she scolded. “We’ve discussed this.”

Bean chirped innocently and tapped the mouse once on the head.

The mouse twitched. Hazel froze. Bean tapped it again. The mouse sprang to its feet and darted beneath the armchair. Hazel stared after it.

“Well,” she said slowly. “That’s new.”

Bean bounded after his resurrected quarry, skidded across the rug, and crashed into a small table. The vase atop it tipped dangerously toward the floor. Before Hazel could reach it, Bean gave an indignant little mrrrp. The vase stopped in midair. For one long moment, Hazel and Bean both stared at it.

Then it dropped neatly back onto the table. Hazel pushed her glasses up her nose.

“Bean.”

The kitten sat down and began washing one paw.

“Bean, look at me.”

He did not.

Hazel crossed the room, intending to retrieve him, and caught sight of something beneath the settee. Her wand. She knelt and pulled it out. The end was damp and covered in tiny tooth marks.

Hazel looked at the wand, then at Bean.

Then at the space beneath the armchair where the formerly deceased mouse was presumably reconsidering every decision it had made that morning.

“Oh, you little bastard.”

Hazel held up the wand and fixed Bean with her sternest look.

“No.”

Bean blinked at her with the serene confidence of a creature who had no regrets whatsoever.

“No necromancy. We are not having zombie mice in this house.”

His tail flicked.

“And absolutely no chewing on my wand.”

Bean yawned.

“I mean it. Mice are not to be killed, resurrected, and killed again for entertainment, and this”—she brandished the wand—“is not a teething toy.”

Bean looked toward the armchair, where the mouse had begun cautiously peeking out.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Bean thought about it.

Hazel pointed toward the kitchen. “Go. I’ll give you a snack instead.”

With an offended little chirrup, Bean stalked away, every inch the unjustly persecuted familiar.

She opened a can of cat food and spooned it into Bean’s dish.

Hazel examined the tooth marks on her wand and sighed. At least she wasn’t losing her magic. Apparently, Bean had been eating it. She laughed.

At the sound, Bean glanced up from his dish and emitted a delicate burp accompanied by a spark.