Beef Witch You (Excerpt)

When a Witch Crosses A Line Chapter 1

Short Story/Novella
A/N: First Draft, please excuse any edits or grammar errors.

Writing Prompt: The witch next door and I got beef. She refuses to stay on her side of the forest, and now I gotta cut her unless I figure out another way to make her stay on her side.

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I wasn't born a witch.

The coveted practice of earth magic was learned and taught, a continuous cycle to women born of the Knighton name like all of life. My great-great-grandmother, Victoria Knighton, began teaching earth magic to the women in my family with or without charm in their veins.

Witch magic lives in our ancestry, traced back to the days of the Salem Trials. Unlike my older sisters, the twins Matty and Meredith, I seemed to be on the branch that it didn't reach. Maybe the magic ran out by the third kid. Who knows? Well, it sucked for me. I had to learn spells and cast the good old-fashioned way, like a person learning a foreign language before the days of Rosetta Stone and apps like Babbel. I didn't have the luxury of just learning how to call up my magic. I was forced to make magic, my bitch.

Each Knighton woman would pass down her teachings to her daughters. I am the youngest of the Knighton witch line. I am not a natural at spell casting. I spent most of my lessons rolling my eyes and complaining. I was clumsy. It usually took a while for me to get the nuances of graceful wrist flicking and incantations just right. To be honest, I didn't want to touch most of the ingredients. I hated getting my fingers dirty, or Goddess knows, getting stuff under my nails.

Yuck!!

I have no desire to be a mother. What and ruin this perfectly proportioned hot body? Uh.. no way! I have an entrepreneur's spirit. I like making money.
Not wanting to be tied down and independent wasn't the Knighton witch way of life.

Trust me; I carry the burden of that familial disappointment every day of my life. I did what any black sheep of the family does. I pulled up stakes, shortened my name to Savvy Knights, adopted a black cat named Midnight, and went to live in the city. Life was good. It was fun. I wasn't constantly living in my sisters' shadows, being reminded that I was a Knighton witch and not that great of one every second of my life.

Doing spells became a hobby in college, not a way of life. I was able to eke out a decent side hustle by providing edible flowers that immediately got rid of hangovers, mints that tasted like chocolate and relieving cramps, and chewing gum that gave your brain cells a kickstart during exams.

Inspiration hit one night during a group study session when half wanted mushrooms on the pizza, and the other half didn't. Sometime later that evening, we started discussing what we would wish for if we had three wishes. No, we weren't doing drugs. It was after seeing an ad for yet, another version of Aladdin coming soon to our favorite streaming apps.

Inspiration became thought, and thought became action.
I accidentally created a spell in my tiny off-campus apartment that became a secret goldmine. Magic suddenly became interesting when I figured out how to monetize it. Who knew knowing magic would be so good for making money?
After lots of trial and error, I finally had something successful and sustainable. It turns out I had something I always thought was magic—a green thumb.

Also, yes, my thumbs were a gross shade of green for a while.

I started out using pennies and small coins, but they were becoming increasingly hard to come by. They could also be dropped, lost, or stolen. Besides, it was hard to ask for hundreds of dollars for a penny, even if it was magical.
After finding just the suitable conduit for the spell, I was set.