Still, I'm meeting up with the rest of the folks that were fired for drinks later today. I might post picture, but no promises.
That's it for me on this post. Lots of hugs.
The Candiest Kane around. Nilsa.
It wasn't my best post. People had come to expect more than just life updates from me on my blog, but then today just didn't feel like the time to drop a meaningful limerick or anecdote. I already had enough on my mind, and I couldn’t stop thinking about being fired in a herd with others. It left a terrible taste in my mouth.
I got dressed to head out. A nice summer attire, T-shirt, jeans and my favorite boots, a quick ponytail, earrings, my necklace charm, and a little retouching of my makeup was all that was really needed. Ready in less than ten minutes.
"Not bad," I whispered to myself, staring down the odd woman with bright, emerald-green eyes looking back at me. "Not bad at all."
So, I kept my magic in check, mostly pretending I didn’t have any, and tried to lead a normal, human life. Mom once called me an ostrich for not wanting to admit I was a witch, but after everything I’d seen her and other witches do growing up, the hurt they caused on others, the changes it brought out in them, well that wasn’t my cup of tea. So call me an ostrich.
Days were longer in the summer in New York, and I could feel the last few rays of sunshine still bursting from between the buildings, letting it soak into my pale skin. People hurried down the sidewalk, most looking like they just left work, so I briskly wove around them.
"Soon I’d have to go and find another job," I mumbled, seeing the sign for the Irish bar coming up quickly, then pushed the thought out of my mind. For now I didn’t care about work.
One of the few coworkers that I actually considered a friend was waiting outside for me with a cigarette in her lips. I smiled, closing in on her but keeping about a pace of distance between us while she finished off the little white cylinder and stuffed it into a nearby ash tray.
"How are you doing, Nilsa?" she asked, patting my shoulder.
I shrugged. "I mean, I didn't expect to be fired this morning, but... oddly optimistic. How about you, Kels? Need me to do my Jack Nicholson impression to make you feel better?"
Kels laughed, flipping her auburn curls back out of her eyes. "No, but I do appreciate the thought. I think I just need a drink, maybe a good one-night stand, and then I'll be ready to get back on the whole... job search thing."
"Well, I know that's going to go well." I leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Popping in on all the job interviews like... Here's Johnny!"
She snorted, shaking her head. "Fuck you. Come on, Jenny and Charles are already here. Brig said that she's going to be a little late."
We both stepped into the bar, and I motioned to Cas, the bartender. He waved back and already started filling a tall glass mug with beer, quickly motioning for one of the waitresses to get it to me as I joined the rest of the team that had been fired today at one of the booths in the back.
"Nilsa!" Charles called, waving her over. "Nice post on your blog. You guys all follow Nilsa's blog, right? She's got like... what, almost ten thousand followers by now?"
"People like the idea of putting ideas of the occult into regular, day-to-day terms," Jenny noted as Kels and I took our seats. "I mean, there's always going to be place for fearmongering, but having the stuff explained in a way that takes all the woo-hoo voodoo shit out of it. How do you know so much about the occult anyway?"
I did tell them in the past that it was because my mom is an actual practicing witch and I inherited the gift from her, but they had taken it as a joke. No point in pressing the issue.
"I minored in occult studies while I was finishing my journalism degree," I lied, smiling at the waitress that brought my beer. "It's always been interesting to me, so I kept on doing independent research after I graduated. I started using the log to take down my thoughts like a diary, and... it sort of took off."
"Well, at least you have something to keep you busy while you're out of a job." Charles took a sip from what looked like a Manhattan.
Kels reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "We're all in the same boat. Drinking our troubles away is just the sort of thing one needs to hit the ground running from this point.”
I took another sip from my beer and smiled.
"Time to spend some of that last paycheck," Jenny shouted, raising her bottle of light beer. "Here's to hitting the ground running!"
"Hear, hear," I replied and was met by a chorus of the same from the rest. I needed something to numb the growing worry that if I didn’t find a job soon, I’d end up homeless.
Chapter 2
Something was ringing, and it most certainly wasn't my head.
I was hung over. I hated the feeling. It had been a couple of years since the last time I'd woken up with a head feeling like an anvil.
"Fucking... damn it," I mumbled, rolling over on my bed and narrowing my eyes, looking up at the crack in the shades, letting some of the morning sunlight though. It was a nuisance, although thankfully the air conditioning unit in my apartment was powerful enough to keep the humid heat out.
I dragged myself out of the bed, groaning. I could almost feel the blood rushing around in my body as I dragged myself over to the bathroom. It was clean, and I couldn't smell any puke from the night before, which said that things could have gone a lot worse.
I picked up a small, pale white crystal that I kept next to the mirror.
To anyone else, it was just something pretty, a decoration, maybe a present that I’d gotten and had nowhere else to put it.
It had a whole other use for me, of course. I gripped the crystal with both hands, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, feeling something cold reaching through the skin in contact with it.
The headache and the roiling in my stomach was touched by the cold and started seeping away.
There was a limit to what the crystal could absorb, and there was still something of a headache left, but it felt more like a mild case of dehydration that would be quickly fixed after a solid day of hydrating properly.
When I opened my eyes, the crystal had turned from pale white to a deep, dark red, almost burgundy as I placed it back on the mantel. It would return to its regular color in a couple of days, ready to be used again if I needed it. If there is one thing my mother gave me that I appreciated, it was the crystal.
At that point, I froze, looking back into my room, realizing what it was that had woken me up in the first place.
"I need help," I whispered softly, shaking my head and returning to my bedroom, heading the vibrating and ringing from my phone starting up again. I picked the device up, unplugging it from its charger and seeing that there were three other calls that I had missed while sleeping it off. I didn't recognize the number.
With a sigh, I pressed the button to accept the call, pulling it up to my ear as I looked around the bedroom, starting to clean up after the mess that I'd made the night before. Clothes were tossed around; the bed was a mess, and I had apparently had a bit of difficulty getting into it. There were a few vague memories, and I knew for a fact that I had gone to bed alone.
"Hello?" a male’s voice asked.