Chapter 23: The Magic Shop, Tomorrow

Ethel placed the box with the two unchewed pieces of gum on a small table. “OK Ladies, is everyone ready?”

“Too loud,” a hungover Amy mumbled.

“Do you have to get rid of Emily’s lady cock?” Tabitha asked. “You didn’t have any last minute realizations that someone else needs the gum more than she did?”

Ethel froze with a grim look on her face, “Why did you say that?”

Looking around at the others, Tabitha said sheepishly, “Because it’s the most awesome thing ever! Once it gets hard, it stays hard until Emily falls asleep. I’d still be riding it right now if you hadn’t magicked us to stop fucking.”

“Enchanted, the term is enchanted,” Ethel corrected. Taking a deep breath, Ethel went on, “Tabitha, you didn’t notice anything that would make you say that, maybe subconsciously? Or is it purely just a sex thing? For that matter, Ai, Amy, you don’t have effects of the gum you’d like to report that might make us reevaluate.”

“I can live with being obscenely wealthy. I think I’ll be fine as long as I can stay away from Kory,” Ai replied.

“I’ll be fine if you will all stop shouting,” Amy mumbled again with her head resting on the table.

“Are you sure she’s OK?” Emily asked.

“She’s fine, just hungover. Now that Tabitha said that, I’m worried that I have missed something. I saw Ai’s layout of Tarot cards, do you remember anything about Amy’s”

Emily protested, “Why are you asking about Amy? I wanted her to be exactly what she was, so the gum didn’t have any effect on her.”

“Hell Bitch may not always be right, but she’s almost never wrong. She identified Amy and Tabitha as the most affected by the magic gum when I was telling her how irresponsible it was to create that stuff in the first place. Fuck! She probably listed them in order too. I assumed at the time she wasn’t paying attention to mortal names, but what if Amy really were the most affected? What even could have happened that none of us notice anything different about her? Ai, those Tarot cards, what do you remember?”

“All I remember is that we never finished a full layout for her. She kept flipping up and upside down death. After the first two, she went through the deck and turned all the cards the same way. She freaked out when another upside down death came out and gave up. I kind of thought she was trolling me,” Ai explained.

“So, and upside down death would represent a strong lack of change, that could indicate that Hell Bitch is not just mixing up your names. It may be nothing, but it’s enough to make me not want to be hasty though. I think I need to know exactly what Hell Bitch said to Amy when she looked through the seeing crystal. Amy, do you remember what Hell Bitch said to you.”

Amy shuddered at the mention of Hell Bitch’s name and started coughing and gagging. She actually puked up a small amount of bile before saying, “Awww, gross. I thought I was done puking.”

“Can I look at your memories, I promise I’ll be gentle.”

Amy looked scared, but nodded, and Ethel held the girl by the jaw while touching her forehead with one finger. Ethel’s eyes glowed bright blue and Amy’s rolled back into her head, she spoke quietly, “Please allow me to serve you my Dark Queen ... No, it would take over a century to teach you enough sorcery for you to be useful to me.” Ethel’s eyes dimmed, and Amy blinked and looked around. “Well, aren’t you going to do something to me.” The other girls all looked back and forth at each other not sure about how to tell Amy Ethel had already gotten her to repeat what was said without Amy being aware of it.

“What does that mean?” Tabitha wondered.

“That’s a good question, with Hell Bitch, phrasing is always important. It would take more than a century to teach you enough sorcery...”

“Hopefully I’ll be dead by then,” Amy grumbled. “If I’m this miserable at sixteen, I don’t want to know what it would feel like to be one hundred and sixteen.” Ethel looked at Amy in horror after she said that.