Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

D amon and I sit in companionable silence in the car in the school pick-up line, Damon holding the cookie jar in his lap. We have the windows rolled down because the weather is surprisingly mild for this time of year. Listening to the kids laughing and greeting their parents makes my heart feel glad. For the first time in a long time, I feel strangely normal. And that is despite the fact that a demon is sitting next to me and I'm about to go see a police officer about who might have cursed me. Like, the fact that I'm not tense and anxious is what should be considered abnormal.

I put the car in park at the front of the line and wave to Bella. She's talking to her teacher. Ms. Hawthorne gives Bella a side hug and walks with her to the car. I pop the trunk so Bella can put her violin in the back.

"Hi, Ms. Jones," Ms. Hawthorne says, leaning down to the window. "Oh, and hello to you, Mr...." Her voice trails off as she looks at Damon expectantly.

"You can just call me Damon," he says, raising his hand to shake hers.

"Oh, okay, Damon," she says with an awkward laugh. "I'm not sure I've ever seen someone like you around here before." She eyes his horns and chews on her lower lip. "What are you, some kind of shifter?"

"Well, if I told you, then I'd have to kill you," he says, his voice low and sultry despite the not-very-veiled threat. She laughs anyway.

"Wow, well, where did you dig this one up, Tamzin?" Bridgit asks, playing with her braid.

"Believe me, Bridgit," I say, "I wish I could put him right back where I found him." We all chuckle with varying levels of sincerity.

"I just wanted to say that Bella had a really good week," Bridgit says. "She was nothing but kind and thoughtful and really focused on her schoolwork."

"Good job, Bee," I say, giving her a high-five after she is settled in the back seat.

"There is a spelling test on Monday, and a geography test later next week. And don't forget about the dance—"

"Oh, right," I say. "I've been meaning to talk to you about—"

A horn honks behind me. I grip the steering wheel and pray for patience.

Bridgit gives a wave to the car behind me. I get that it's the pick-up line, but it's not my fault my kid's teacher seems to think it's her own parent-teacher conference line. There is plenty of room for the lady to just go around me.

I sigh and try again. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that."

"Say no more," Bridgit says. "We got a lot of—"

The horn honks again. I roll my eyes and grit my teeth.

"We got a lot of pushback on that," Bridgit says. "And I totally get it. Apparently, someone wasn't paying much attention when the dance committee first put the plan together and it got much farther in the planning process than it should have. The dance is now—"

The horn isn't even done honking when Damon opens his door and gets out of the car, black smoke radiating off him.

"Damon!" I jump out of my seat, worried about whatever he is about to do.

"Sorry, dear," he says, leaning down to the woman's window. "Is there a problem?"

"This is the pick-up and drop-off lane," the woman says. "Not a social hang out."

"You could just go around," he says sweetly enough to make your teeth hurt.

"That's not the point. The point is to get through as efficiently as possible."

"Then why is there a whole other lane here you can use to go around people who are holding up the line?"

"That's for emergencies only," she says.

"Oh. Well, that's good, because you are about to have an emergency of your own."

"Damon, stop—" I start to say, but he bursts into flames so hot I can feel them from several feet away. Several people shriek and put their hands up to protect themselves. The blast lasts no more than a moment. In a second, Damon is straightening his tie as he heads back to the car. I have to look to see what he actually did. The woman and her kids are fine, but they also seem confused. The woman puts her car in drive to go around me, but her car doesn't move. She looks confused. I then notice that her front left tire has melted. She's stuck to the blacktop. I can't help but snicker. But then I feel a little guilty. I'm about to go apologize and offer to pay for the damage when I hear Damon call out to me from inside the car.

"Get in the car, Tamzin," he says.

"Damon," I say, giving him my mom glare. "You can't just do that—"

"Get in the car," he repeats, his red eyes flashing. I get in the car and we stare at each other.

"You can't do that," I say. "You can't just lose your temper when people get in your way."

"Why not?" he asks. "She's attacking you, your character, and embarrassing you. If you won't stick up for yourself, I'll stick up for you."

I feel my face blush hotly, and not from Damon's hell flames. I can't remember the last time a man stood up for me like this, and it feels...good. I am suddenly so dawn to this man, this demon. I just want to grab him and kiss him and thank him in oh, so many ways. My mouth is dry and my stomach is dancing. My head is spinning and I can't remember where I am or what I was supposed to be doing. I can't even thank him, I'm so confused.

"Anyway," Bridgit says, breaking into my whirling thoughts. "The dance is now just a spring fling. Everyone is invited and any parent can serve as a chaperone. Would you like to chaperone, Tamzin? Damon?" Her voice seems to drop an octave as she says Damon's name. She looks at him with her most charming smile, playing with her braid again.

"That sounds delightful, Miss… I don't think I caught your name," Damon says to her, giving an equally charming smile back.

"I'll be there," I tell her before she can respond. "Thanks, but I have other appointments to get to. Talk to you later!" I throw the car into drive and pull away. As we leave the parking lot, I see a tow truck pulling in. I have no idea how he plans to remove the melted tire from the blacktop, but I guess that's his problem.

"Damon, that was so cool!" Bella says from the back seat.

"No, it wasn't," I say, shooting Damon a look.

Damon laughs. "You liked that, did you, little one?"

"Yeah, that was Elsa's mom. Elsa is so rude all the time to everyone. She must get it from her mom."

I open my mouth to say something, but then close it again. I feel like I should tell my daughter not to talk crap about someone. But, at the same time, if Bella doesn't like someone, or if someone is being mean to her, shouldn't I allow her to speak up and express her feelings?

"I'm sorry you feel that way, honey," I say. "But she's just one person. Can you just ignore her?"

Bella sighs and sits back in her seat. "It's not just her."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm the only witch in the whole school. The others go to the academy."

The academy is the Mystic Cove Academy for the Arts that just opened this year. It was created by Catherine Hawthorne—the head of the Mystic Cove Coven and Ms. Bridgit Hawthorne's aunt. The headmaster is Jacob Buchanan, the husband of Sophia Barnes, Beverly's granddaughter. Most of the witch kids go to school there or to the much older Redwood Academy closer to New York City. When I found out that Bella was a witch, the topic of where she should go to school naturally came up. As a Mystic Cove native, I knew that all the witch kids went to a private academy, so I assumed Bella would go there as well. But my husband, Mark, balked at that idea. He wanted Bella to have as much of a "normal" childhood as possible, so we sent her to Mystic Cove Elementary when she started kindergarten. She took private lessons with Beverly, so I had just assumed that there was no reason to change things and send her to an academy now.

"Well, what about your friends?" I ask. "Wouldn't you miss them if you went to an academy?"

"Most of my friends are werewolves," she says, and it is true. Unlike witches, the werewolf kids attend public school. "I'm the odd one out. They are always talking about stuff I don't understand or doing things I can't do."

"Feeling a bit like the odd witch out, are you?" Damon asks. I shoot him a look. I don't need his help parenting my own kid.

"Exactly!" Bella says. "I mean, I love them, but I don't think they would miss me much if I went to another school. I can always text them and see them after school anyway."

"Hmm." I thought about it, and she was right. Mystic Cove is a small town. Everyone knows everyone, so it's not like she'd be isolated from the community if she went to a private school. If anything, she's more isolated by going to the public school and not being around the other witch kids.

I thought about Mark's arguments more and realized that perhaps I should have challenged his idea of "normal" more. After all, Bella isn't abnormal. She's a perfectly normal witch. And normal for her would mean going to a school with a curriculum designed with her in mind.

But it's not really fair to argue with a dead man. He's not here to make his case or defend what he thinks is best for his daughter. Should I really be so quick to send her to the academy just because her father isn't here to argue with me? Mark wasn't sending Bella to public school as a punishment. He loved her and wanted what was best for her. I should still strive to see things from his point of view, right?

"Is that what you want?" I ask Bella. "Do you want to go to the academy next year?"

"More than anything!" she says with far more excitement than I expected. She's never expressed a desire to go to the academy before.

"Since when?" I ask her, trying to figure out where this change of heart is coming from.

"Well," she says a little sheepishly. "I always wanted to. But Dad said it was better for me to go to school here. Then he died, and I didn't want to... I don't know."

"You didn't want to take advantage of his death," Damon says. I slap his arm to tell him to shut up and let Bella talk, but, to my surprise, he seems to understand what she is trying to say.

"Yeah, I guess," Bella says. "Like, if I go to the academy and am happy there, it will be like I'm happy he's dead or something. Which I'm not. I'd stay at Mystic Cove Elementary forever if it meant him coming back to life."

"But he won't," Damon says. "You being unhappy won't bring your dad back. And you being happy won't trample on his memory either. He's dead and that's just how it is. You need to live your life the best way you know how."

"Right," is all Bella has to say to that.

I don't say anything. How does this demon I just met seem to understand something that has been staring me in the face for four years? Though, he said that he studies humans. And he tortures them for a living. He probably knows human nature pretty well. Still, I don't want to rush into anything.

"I'll talk to Beverly about it, see what she has to say."

"Yes! Thanks, Mom!" Bella says.

I look over at Damon and see him grinning at me. I can't help but smile back.

"What?" I ask him.

"Nothing," he says. "I just like being right."

"Right about what?"

"Right that you need to stand up for yourself more—with everyone. Living and dead."

"Okay, that's far enough," I tell him as I pull into the police station's parking lot.

"What are we doing here?" Bella asks.

"We are going to see Detective Dawson to try and find out who hexed me," I say.

"You aren't going to try and make Damon go away, are you?" she asks.

"Umm... Yes?" I say. "I mean, being hexed kind of sucks, don't you think?"

"I don't know," she says. "Just seems like you've been happier since Damon showed up."

Damon and I look at each other, and even he seems a little unnerved by her words.

"It's just the change in pace," Damon says coldly. "Something to bring a little spice to your otherwise humdrum lives."

"Hey," I say. "My life isn't humdrum. I have plenty of spice in my life. The last thing I needed was some demon running roughshod over me."

"Spice and stress are not the same thing," he says, getting out of the car and slamming the door behind him.

I press my lips together to keep from running after him and giving him a piece of my mind. What that piece would be, though, I have no idea.

"What was that about?" Bella asks me.

"Just let that be a lesson, my girl. Never trust a demon."