Bad Bex by John Stormm (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📖

TALES OF THE WITCH CLAN
BAD BEX

     Living at college can be so stressful, Becky grumbled to herself. It was a pleasant break being with her family again for the holidays. Her elder sister Melanie, had some fascinating studies about Merlin archetypes through out recorded history. Jonathan was back from Afghanistan, and beginning to rediscover himself as a budding wizard with Dad. Little sister, Tori got all the magick she wanted, playing video games and reading fantasy novels. Mom was all business, with her sewing shop, where Becky and Melanie would help out as they could.

     Mom was comic to see, bustling so fast, she nearly ran into herself, trying to run a business during the holiday rush and set a fair table for holiday company and making sure the house looked ‘cheery’. Dad, well… he lived in his ivory tower, which was a four room apartment at the edge of town, near the woods he loved so much. Dad was an imposing vision in basic black, always a sight to behold. He had a way of entering a room and people would clear the way for him. Her college friends would never understand somebody like him. Dad was an anachronism. He looked like he could turn you into a newt if you crossed him, but he was a lot warmer and caring than he appeared to be. Maybe that was just to his own children. He still called her ‘Bad Bex’, as he had most of her life. It was one of those childhood nicknames that parents never let their kids grow out of, and is as comfortable as a favorite, old pair of slippers.

For Christmas, her father had given her a wizard’s fountain with a scroll. He had told her that he was aware of all the stress, living away from her own kind would give her, and that the fountain had a spell that would help her with her studies.

“I’m studying to be a vet, Daddy,” Becky giggled. “It’s not Spellcraft 101.”
 

But her father was not to be put off, and gave her a rather heavy hatbox to take back to her dorm. Holidays having come to an end and school renewing its demands, Becky was feeling extra tense, with all the midterms coming up and the social issues in the dorm, she thought it would be a good time to open Dad’s present and set up the wizard’s fountain.

Inside the box was a wide, blue stone crock, about four inches deep, with an insulated electric pump wrapped inside. She cleared a spot on the stand near her bed, and set the crock and pump up there. Next there was a hefty smaller box of stones, comprised of petrified wood slabs and semi-precious stones and pebbles, to arrange in the crock around the pump. These all looked normal enough, Bex thought. She was concerned, her father might have made something too outrageous to be seen by her non-witch college friends, but this looked rather nice. With all their muted colors and striations, it was relaxing just arranging the stones in the fountain to her liking, Finally, there was a vellum scroll, with thin scarlet ribbon and a wax seal, that her father said, were the instructions on how to use the fountain. You just never knew with Daddy, what that might entail.

She poured some water into the crock, plugged in the pump, and watched the fountain bubbling away merrily. The stones looked ever so much prettier when they were wet and shiny. As the water began to saturate the rock, Bex noticed images beginning to surface on them. No doubt, her father had done something to them. He did say the fountain was enchanted for her. She looked back at the fountain, to see her father’s face, appearing faintly in the stone of her waterfall, and a couple runic symbols to either side. As she pulled the stone out of the fountain, the images faded to show only bare stone. Daddy had some curious craft, Bex thought proudly. She decided it was time to break the seal on the scroll, before faeries started appearing and decide to river dance on her computer, or something equally bizarre. The instructions were in a penned Celtic script, and indicated the fountain was safe enough to have around. It was designed, by her father, to help her relax. The scroll read:

Enchanted Wizard’s Fountain

     This fountain is intended for use when too much study and stress, make it impossible to concentrate any more. Simply set up the fountain near a light source and a place where you may lie down and relax to its soothing sounds. As you close your eyes, you are to remember the woodland brook where you played as a child. Picture yourself back there, sitting beside the clear, bubbling stream. Before too long, a familiar old wizard will join you at the brook, and remind you of all lessons, long forgotten. When you awaken, you will be refreshed, and relaxed. The problems you faced when you lay down, will now have ready solutions. Merry Christmas, my child. I wish you success in all your endeavors.

-the old wizard

Becky replaced the stones in the fountain. As she studied the stones with the water flowing over them, she could see her name, written in runes on one. She remembered her Dad, teaching her about runes when she was very small. The stone face of her father, peered at her out of the waterfall. She kissed her index finger and touched it to his face, and said: “Thanks Dad, it’s just what the doctor ordered.”

She lay back on her bunk and closed her eyes. The bedside lamp felt like sunshine on her face. Coupled with the sounds of a babbling brook, it was easy to picture herself, laying by the brook on a warm sunny day. Butterflies and dragonflies fluttering and zipping around her, with the occasional faery, landing on a branch or a rock to tell her a story. It was so good to be back. To hear her brother and sisters playing near by, would have completed the illusion, but they were busy elsewhere, with lives and problems of their own. Bex sighed deeply. As she looked in the water, a very large, and familiar shadow appeared, over her right shoulder. Looking up through the sunlight, was a vision of her father, with his long hair down over his shoulders, in a long white robe, with a staff in his hand. For all the world, he looked like Gandalf the White, come to tell her not to be upset if the trees get up and walk around a bit. She giggled at the thought.

“Nice touch, Dad,” she laughed, “with the robe and all. I can’t remember the last time I ever saw you in anything but black.”

“I thought it would be nice for the occasion,” her father replied. “Sundog, seemed to think it was appropriate.”

Perched on one shoulder, was the mischievous blue faery, they all knew as ‘Sundog’. That was not his real name, that was a secret kept even from the Storm kids. But there he was, his eyes practically gleaming with delight, and a wicked grin on his face, as if he had just pulled the grand daddy of all pranks on the old wizard. It was a strange relationship between her father and this fae. Becky remembered, the day her father opened a rift into the faery’s world, using some old chart he had found. Her sister, Mel, had taken its picture. Life was not the same in their household since. She knew he was up to something.

“Do you remember,” the old wizard asked, “the proper definition of a spell?”

“Of course, I do,” Becky returned, “It’s a period of time, where certain influences are brought to bear, to accomplish a specific goal.”

“Very good,” the wizard applauded. “Your great grandmother would be so very proud of you. That’s it for today’s lesson. I’ve got an appointment further along in the woods, in the Emerald Tunnel.”

“That’s IT?” Bex asked incredulously. “I was just beginning to enjoy this.” as her father turned to walk up the trail from the brook, she noticed a sign, embroidered in the fabric of his fine, white robe. It read:

Beware of D.O.G
(Deadly Old Geezer)

     Sundog was smiling back at her, so broadly, she thought his face might split. He so enjoyed his own pranks, but God help the misguided soul that dared to cross her father. Sundog was his fiercest friend. They were inseparable companions.

Her father stopped on the trail for a moment, and turned to speak to her once more.

“It wouldn’t do to stay longer,” the wizard said. “You have visitors coming. It’s really too bad, she doesn’t have better taste in boyfriends,” and he proceeded up the trail towards the Emerald Tunnel and out of sight.
Becky wondered after him for a while. He even comes off enigmatic in my daydreams, she thought. She awoke to a knock on the door. The fountain was merrily bubbling away as she left it. She crossed the room to answer the door. Her friend, Rhonda was standing there, with an armload of textbooks. A vision of American manhood, in ill fitting clothes, was standing behind her, eyeing a girl walking further down the hall.

“Hi Becca, this is my boyfriend, Ronny,” Rhonda announced cheerily, “May we come in?” Ronny turned to look at Bex, and did a double take, eyeing her up and down. Becky’s tall, willowy figure, with her mother’s Cherokee features, combined with her father’s height and elfin features gave her raven hair and dark eyes an exotic appeal, hinting at untold depths. The boy was clearly captivated, and Bex was irritated that he would disrespect Rhonda with such behavior. She stood aside and motioned them into the dorm.

Rhonda was excitedly babbling on about plans for an upcoming Native American social. They were going to have a live band, maybe the Deer Clan Singers. It was going to be over the top. Ronny was busy looking about the room at all the pictures and mementos Becky personalized her living space with. When he came to a framed picture of her father, he paused.

“Hey, I know this guy!” Ronny exclaimed, “I met him in one of those freaky, New Age, Paranormal conferences in Toronto a couple years ago.”

“That guy, would be my Dad.” Bex observed.

“He was probably the coolest lecturer in the place.” Ronny babbled on, “They said he was a hereditary witch. He talked about practical magic and spells and stuff, did some hocus pocus and lit up a huge crystal. Hey, you must be a hereditary witch too.”

     “That’s my Dad, and it’s a family thing, for sure,” Bex quipped, anxious to hear what Rhonda had to say.

Ronny wasn’t making a very good impression on her. It was funny about the comment her father made in her daydream about the people knocking on her door. Dad’s spells always seem to reach levels within levels. But Ronny rambled on with his remembrances.

“There was this blue ball of light, he shot around the room,” he went on, “I figured he had an associate with a blue laser or something. The lady after him was a serious nutcase. She talked about discovering your own divinity. We should all be putting crystals in our water bottles and drinking our own urine, and stuff like that. I made it a point, not to kiss anybody at that lecture. So, a babe like you is a real witch, huh? You can put a spell on me any time.” He laughed at his own humor, but Becky was becoming a bit more than rankled.

“If I put