This Story Is Not About The Villain

    “A robbery?” I asked, a slight quiver slipping between the cracks in my vowels and sitting atop my bottom lip.

    “Come now, June, you know no one can take anything from us,” my manager asserted somewhat playfully. 

    She edged closer to the ingredients and lifted her hand up and up in a blunt sort of pulling motion, and all across the room a shimmer flared over everything. it curled up into the air like the tendrils of a vine before it dissipated as though it was never there in the first place. 

    I remained planted in the doorway. 

    “Come in here, June,” Mary sighed, ”Look, I don’t feel like I need to tell you when I’ve lifted the protection spells before you’re allowed in anymore. I think you get the idea now.”

    “Yes ma’am,” I nodded shortly and scuttled over to my working station. 

    As I began to gather my supplies and all my ingredients, Mary stayed in the room with me. She walked slowly, casually around the room, peering over stacks of flour and measuring cups as though this was just a routine checkup and not a robbery. 

    “See, June, everything’s here, you have nothing to-“ she stopped herself short when she opened a box that sat on the end of a table. 

    A pinched gasp escaped her lips and she snapped her fingers shortly, stiffly causing the windows to blacken. 

    “No- This can’t- The protection spell worked! I know it works!” she looked at me with glazed over eyes, “Where is it? June, help me find it! Please!”

    “What’s going on, Mary? What happened to the windows? Help you find what?” I cried, clutching the edge of the counter. 

    Strange things happening here are not foreign to me. I know what all of my coworkers and my boss and Mary are, and they know that I know what they are, and the more comfortable they become with me knowing what they are, the more magical things they allow to happen around me.

    Still, though, there is a courtesy about them. Besides lifting protection spells, they still have it in their right minds to have a bit of modesty around me. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to scare me. Maybe it’s because they’re a little shy about using magic around humans. Maybe it’s because they still think I’m going to sell them out to the police. Maybe there’s a small part of them that thinks I’m one of the humans that believe witches are evil.

    I suppose it doesn’t matter why. What I’m getting at is I have never felt the full force of a witch’s magic before. Until now. 

    The floor shook and jostled me back and forth. Mary’s hair began to levitate as if someone was grabbing a handful of it and lifting it above her head. The windows slowly became blacker and blacker, until it seemed as though it was sucking all light from the room. As her screams echoed off the walls and pierced through me, her legs buckled beneath her and now she was leaning over herself on the floor with her back to me. 

    “Mary! Please calm down, you’re scaring me!” I howled, but it was unclear whether she heard me or not.

    I began to notice cracks forming on the floor from all this rocking just before the last sliver of light was whisked away into the window.

    A tear rolled down my cheek from this shaking and her screaming and this darkness before I screamed, “Stop! Mary, STOP!”

   And to my surprise, she did. Her hair fell, her screaming stopped, and she teetered over on her side. The rocking jolted still, and the windows released all the light they had stolen before the darkness coating them disappeared completely. 

    I needed to breathe. Just breathe. Just slow down, and calm my beating heart. That’s what I needed to do before I crawled over to Mary on all fours, not trusting my trembling legs to stand on their own.

    “Mary?” I breathed, “Please don’t be dead. Please.”

    I gathered her in my arms, and tilted her tear streaked face to look at mine just as her eyes fluttered open.

***

    “You’re a front, June,” Alliah, my coworker, stated evenly.

    “What?”

    “This bakery. You and all your little cookies or whatever it is you make. It’s a front.”

    I suppose that makes sense. Why else would a bunch of witches want to work with a human? But a front for what? 

    Mary slept on the couch next to me. We sat in our break room, and all my coworkers, (which, besides Mary, there were only two of them) and my boss gathered around us.

    “Great job getting to the point, Alliah, but let’s give June some time,” Celeste, the girl that usually works the register, looked delicately at me, “I’m sorry you had to see that. It’s just- what was stolen was an ingredient that-“

    My boss, Ms. Shaya looked sternly at Celeste and interrupted, “Is very important to Mary. She overreacted. That’s all a human is permitted to know.”

    I could hear Alliah snicker behind me. 

    “Well if I could just know what it was, maybe I could-“ I started.

    “No,” Ms. Shaya asserted.

    “Well could you at least tell me what I’m a front for? I deserve at least that,” I said.

    They all shared glances for a moment before Ms. Shaya nodded at Celeste. 

    “We’re a witch refuge,” Celeste answered, almost in a whisper, “we provide shelter and food for witches who get found out by the police and are in hiding, or for witches that just have nowhere left to go,” she smiled at me, “your baking is a front, yes, but it also helps pay for all these services… among other things.”

    I nodded, “That’s good to know, but I suppose I’ve always known.”

    Ms. Shaya replied, “We suspected as much. What with all the protection spells and Mary’s little tantrum just now.”

    “Little?” I whispered. 

    “Well, you should get going now,” Alliah said with thin lips and an urgency about her, “I don’t think we’ll be opening up shop for today. Not with a robber on the loose, and most certainly not with a human who just had the most traumatizing experience of her life, no doubt.”

    “Yes, we have a few loose ends to tie up,” Ms. Shaya agreed. 

    Celeste added, “Quite a few.”

    “What? No, I should stay here and help. At least let me wait here until Mary wakes up,” I pleaded.

    Ms. Shaya tossed the idea around in her head for a moment before saying, “Fine-“

    “What? No, Shaya, you can’t let her stay-,” Alliah whined.

    Ms. Shaya looked sharply at her, brows furrowed, but continued to address me as she spoke, “You can stay, but only until Mary wakes up. Once you’re sure she’s okay you must leave immediately.”

    And that’s what I did. I stayed and waited and waited until it was dark outside and I had used all my spare change on vending machine snacks, and even when my eyelids became heavy Mary remained fast asleep. I imagine, based on what I saw today, she must have used up most of energy. It might be awhile before she’s able to wake up again. 

    Everyone else had left a long time ago. They said they had “some business to attend to,” but they assured me they placed a protection spell over the whole building that was much stronger than what they had been putting over my kitchen supplies and ingredients.

    That would have been fine. Knowing three powerful witches cast a spell on the building would have been enough to convince me I was safe if I wasn’t still thinking about how someone already broke a protection spell last night and had stolen something very important to Mary. I would feel okay if I wasn’t hearing someone rummage around in the kitchen. I would probably be asleep right now if this darkness wasn’t looming over me, stealing my breath, and slithering in between the cracks in my shoes.

    Just as the darkness began to sink into my skin, a figure appeared in the doorway of the break room, slow and dark. Tall and slender and terrifying. Darkness formed like a fog at his feet, and followed him with each step he took. From the silhouette his body cast, I could see that he wore a long coat that flowed to the side each time he shifted.

    He stepped through the frame slowly, casually, and purred, “Hello,” with a cracking smile and stiff eyes.

    In the light I was able to make out that his face was pale and sunk and stretched so thin I could see the outline of his skull and the deep dip of his hollow cheeks. He moved his hands airily when he walked, like he was conducting a symphony. He turned his head to the side, allowing his judging gaze to graze each corner of the room.

    I stood and looked to Mary, who was now cracking her eyes open, but I could tell even that was hard for her. 

    “Eyes up here,” he demanded slowly, evenly, and I followed his fingers pointing at both of his leering eyes. 

    “Who are you?” I said, and felt my voice crack at the end despite how hard I was trying to appear brave and angry.

    He turned his head to the side and ran a hand through his shiny, black, slicked back hair. 

    “It doesn’t matter,” he sighed, but it was menacing, sarcastic, “one day everyone will know my name.”

    If the dark fog that pooled at his feet wasn’t beginning to disperse throughout the room and crawl up my legs, I would have thought what he said was stupid. Funny, even. 

    “How did you get through the-“ I began, but I knew. 

    I realized then that he must have been the one to rob us last night. I knew the man that stood in front of me must not be entirely human. I knew that I must be looking at one of the last wizards on Earth. 

    In the beginning of time there was a man and a woman. A choice was to be made. In God’s hand was the essence of magic, the essence of a witch or wizard. They were both put through a series of trials, but in the end God saw it fit to bestow the woman with the magic, which, in turn, created generations of witches.

    At first, every woman was a witch. Most used their power to heal, to give gifts. Some were even given the name of gods. It was an era of peace that, tragically, did not last long. There were certain men in the midst of the witches' followers that did not like this unfair imbalance of power. They waged war against the witches, stealing their essence away and attempting to give it to themselves. Most did not survive this transfer of power. The men that were successful became wizards, and the women that survived the transfer became the first female humans, which, in turn, created generations of female humans. 

    An idea was born from this war, this war that still rages on today; an idea that has been ingrained into the minds of men and women alike; an idea that fuels this senseless war, that convinces innocent humans that taking magic from witches is a justifiable reason to go to battle against them. The idea that witches are evil. Some humans, such as myself, are able to see through this. We are able to see that this is merely an excuse to continue to steal magic from witches. And, though the transfer of power to men was made illegal, humans are still determined to extract all magic from witches, no matter how many lives are lost in the process.

    This man in front of me has clearly been able to see through the idea that witches are evil, or perhaps he has simply learned to embrace it. 

    “This,” he lifted a cookie from his pocket, “this is what I’m here for.”

    “Is that,” I narrowed my eyes, “one of my sugar cookies?”

    “It’s a dud is what it is,” he huffed, and tossed it on the table next to him, “it was clearly a ploy. A distraction. And a bad one at that. Make me a new batch with the real stuff in it, or there will be hell to pay.”

    He dribbled his last words together slowly, a smirk playing at the ends of his lips as he peered down at Mary struggling to stay awake and at all his black smog creeping up her neck.

    “It’s- It’s just a cookie. Wait. What do you mean ‘real stuff’?” I pressed frantically, wanting him to distract himself from Mary who now seemed as though she was struggling to breath.

    He rolled his eyes. “It’s so easy to spot a human these days, you know that? Look,” he revealed a vile of what seemed to be nothing, but when you looked closer you could see a certain shimmer dancing around inside.

    “No,” Mary croaked and reached her hand out, which the man promptly smacked away.

    “Hush now, Mary, I wouldn’t move around too much if I were you,” he said and the darkness tightened around her. 

    “Your little secret ingredient,” he chuckled to himself, “was incredibly easy to steal.”

    “What?” 

    “Yes, I was just as surprised as you until I found out it was a fake. Long story short, I mixed it into a batch of cookies, as per the instructions say, but after I took a bite I was disappointed to see it did nothing for me. How am I supposed to become the most powerful wizard when all you witch refuges keep setting out fake vials of magical essence?” he growled and edged closer until our faces were inches apart. 

    A million things bubbled in my mind, but I couldn’t let him see that. I just had to get him to keep talking.

    “So you work for the police? Is that what it is?” I posited.

    He laughed a hardy, echoing laugh that startled both me and Mary, and he left that cold smile to soak upon his face for a moment before he shifted his expression into something stony and empty. He reached for my throat and choked me and choked me as he spoke.

    “I don’t work for humans. I don’t work for witches. I work for me. But if I have to play the part of ‘policeman’ just to get every inch of essence I can then I will,” he hissed and left me gasping for air before turning out the door, “have a batch ready for me within the hour or she will be my next source of magic.”

    When he finally left and brought all his darkness with him, I felt I could breath again.

    “I’m sorry June,” Mary murmured, and I scrambled over to where she lay, “I’m sorry you had to be dragged into this, but please, June, please, you can’t let him take the vial of essence. You can’t.”

    “But he said it was fake-“

    “It’s not. He doesn’t understand,” she winced before continuing, “okay, June, I think it’s time I explain this to you as it was once explained to me. Every person on Earth, woman or otherwise, was once filled with essence. For witches it was magic. When men took that from witches we didn’t just turn into humans, we were left as a husk, and every ‘human’ woman that has been born after that, has been born a husk. That’s why most women died when they took their magic away, because they took their soul, their essence, they took everything that made them up and left them empty. 

    “It’s also why most men died when they tried to transfer magic to themselves. It’s because they were already filled with something just as beautiful and powerful as magic: human essence. When they did that they overloaded their bodies, they couldn’t handle it, so eventually they just died. When men were able to become wizards it’s because they did something to themselves. They took human essence and replaced it with magic, but that didn’t really make them wizards. It didn’t make them anything. It just made them vessels for magic, and it made them a menace. It made them far more ‘evil’ than everyone claims witches to be. That’s why the vial of essence he stole didn’t work on him. We put that essence into your cookies and give it to the witches who come to our refuge with their magic stolen. We use it to restore. It didn’t work on him because he is already full of magic and his body rejects any more, but that doesn’t make him any less power full or any less dangerous.

    “June, every female human is a husk waiting to be restored. Eat the cookie that didn’t work on him and you will see. Eat it and take the vial back, our secret ingredient. Please, you can’t let him take it. Witches are counting on you.” She whispered her last words, and then she was asleep.

    I stood slowly. Would I really feel different after I ate the cookie? Could this be the thing I’ve been missing my whole life?

    I inched toward the table, the half eat cookie laying in crumbs upon it, and I stared at it for a moment, the key to everything I’ve been missing.

    I lifted it to my mouth and took a bite, then another and another. It was strange. I felt like me. A me I had never known but had been inside me all along. A glowing, electric sensation filled me up like lightning. I looked down at my hands, my glowing, shimmering hands and felt more powerful than I ever had before.

    I was going to end this. Now.