Stuck with a Spell by D. D. Scott Page A

real
life than on the page. Come to think of it, I’m no longer just
Samantha Aldredge, Editor Extraordinaire. I’m about to become a
witch’s protege.
    Well...if you’re allowed to job shadow
a witch. Maybe I could be an apprentice of sorts. Kind of like
on-the-job training. In the name of research of course. I mean,
think about it this way...all great editors do their research. And
they do everything possible to make sure their authors’ stories are
authentic. It doesn’t get much more authentic than this,
right?!
    “ So, tell us about these
dolls, Liza. They’re actually Voodoo dolls? Or were Voodoo dolls?” I asked, thinking
perhaps I should pull out my iPhone and record this so as not to
forget one detail of awesomeness.
    “ Yes, that’s right. Voodoo
dolls,” she said, sitting down on a wrought iron bench covered with
snow.
    She must have still been so damn dazed
from the explosion that she didn’t care whether or not she was
sitting on an ice cold seat. ‘Course, being as she was in the hot
seat with Nicky and probably my Captain too, maybe the cold chill
was a relief.
    I followed her glassy stare, which was
focused on what remained of the two Voodoo dolls.
    Then it hit me. And oh my God did it
hit me!
    One of those extra-crispy dolls had to
be representing my ex, Hank Aldredge!
    What have I
done ?!
    It wasn’t that I really believed Liza’s
spells would work. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have given her Hank’s
wedding band. But now that I saw his partially melted ring around
one of the doll’s smoldering necks, what if her witchcraft was
real? And what if it did work?
    There was no mistaking that Hank was a
total asshole, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him seriously
injured or worse yet, dead. And isn’t that the kind of energy
that’s spread using Voodoo rituals?
    But she’d just said something with this
spell had gone awry.
    Oh shit! I didn’t know what the hell to
think, let alone do.
    A few days earlier, I’d had a
conversation with her about our less-than-stellar ex-husbands.
Her’s was a real doozy of a hot mess. Mine? Well, let’s just say
there are princes and there are frogs. And he was the biggest frog
of ‘em all.
    Liza said she was planning to have a
little fun with her former hubby, and she’d be more than happy to
make it a two-for-one spell...if I was interested. Hell yeah, I was
interested!
    She asked me if I had any objects that
belonged to or were associated with Hank. And I had just the thing.
I’d kept his wedding ring. The bastard threw it at me right before
storming out of our condo. I’d hung onto the absurdly expensive
piece of broken promises with the intention of pawning
it.
    What could it hurt to let Liza play
with it for a little while? So, I’d given her the ring.
    Of course I thought she was more than a
little off kilter, but what the hell. It wasn’t like I thought she
was going to actually be able to do anything to harm Hank. Mostly,
I just wanted to watch her at work. Who knew what kind of craziness
she had up the sleeve of that hunting jacket.
    As it looks now...she had quite a lot
of crazy packed up in there. More than I ever imagined.
    I don’t know much about Voodoo, but
what I do know is giving me a sinking feeling in the pit of my
stomach.
    Okay. What to do...What to
do...
    First, I had to get Liza alone so I
could figure out what had happened versus what was supposed to have
happened. I needed the details of what she was trying to do to our
ex-husbands with her latest spell. And then, how exactly she’d
screwed up the hexes on our exes.
    The implications sent shivers through
my already quivering body. I couldn’t imagine what the answers
would do to me or to my nerves. Or...worse yet...what they’d done
to our exes.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    I laid in my hospital bed at the NYU Langone Medical Center
looking out the window past the liquid that was supposed to serve
as my dinner. Watching the fluid move through the IV tube hooked up
to my arm, I