practical magic

diez.

"Do you have a gun?" The young Emma asked.

"Mhm," Justin replied.

"Can I see it?" He looked down at the small girl wide eyes, and then looked at the stairs to see her mother coming down with a shy smile.

He returned it and coughed while scratching the back of his head.

"Mm, no." He shook his head.

"He's here for breakfast!" Emma said and ran back to her Aunt and sister leaving Justin and Sophia alone. She ran her hand through her wavy hair and fixed the strap of her tank top.

"I have a question or two." He said and Sophia sighed and then nodded her head.

Back in the kitchen, the little Emma yelled excitedly about how the officer would be staying for breakfast and Jilly and Kendall smiled in delight since they could put their plan in action to get rid of him for good. She told Emma that her job was to make sure that Sophia and Justin stayed as far away from the kitchen as possible.

While in the greenhouse Sophia waited for Justin to ask her his questions, and she was more scared that she couldn't come up with an answer. Or that she'd say the wrong thing, and blow the whole thing for her and Jilly.

All she knew was that she was nervous about Justin. All the time. She didn't know how to speak, how to think, she could barely breathe when she was in his presence. She wanted to believe it was the fact that he could very well put both her and her sister in jail, but something in the back of her mind told her it had to be something else.

"So I found something in the car. It looks an awful lot like this." He questioned picking up the same drug that they used that night to put Azrael sleep, which accidentally ended up killing him.

"That's Belladonna, some people use it as a sedative, to calm their nerves." Sophia shrugged.

"It's also used as a poison for-"

"Witch people?" Sophia smirked and Justin picked up one of the other herbs from the greenhouse.

"Yes, witch people." He laughed. "Witches." He nodded, and Sophia bit her lip.

"Well, I guess you found me out then huh?" She asked and stepped closer to him. "You should actually come around here on Halloween, you'd really see something then."

"Oh yeah." He raised his eyebrow.

"Yeah, we all jump off the roof and fly. We kill our husbands too." She said sarcastically and Justin's face had an unreadable expression. "Or maybe that's outside your jurisdiction?"

"Do you have any idea how crazy all of this sounds to me. I have people telling me all sorts of things like you're into devil worshipping-"

"No. There's no devil in the craft." Sophia was quick to defend her heritage.

"So what exactly is the craft that you do?" He asked curiously.

"I collect records and sell them in my store, I also sell instruments. The Aunts, well they like to meddle in people's love lives." She mumbled the last part. "Magic isn't just spells and potions." She said to him. "What's something that means a lot to you?" She asked him, and he pulled at the necklace around his neck that was a bright gold star dangling from the chain.

"I've had this for as long as I can remember. I never take it off." He said and showed it to her. She ran her fingers along the sides of it.

"You see it's just another object. It's just a shape, but it means so much, it's your talisman. It can't stop people from doing bad things, and it can't change the world. It means that much because you believe it." She dropped the necklace from between her fingertips, and he tucked it back into his shirt. "I wish you could believe in me." She whispered.