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incensed .”
    “Let’s have a cup of tea, shall we?”
    “No, Aunt Surtie. You—” The rest of her reprimand ended with a scream. A twenty-foot python slithered through the kitchen toward the back door humming Twinkle Twinkle Little Star .
    “Oh that’s just Henry, child,” Aunt Esmie said.
    She lived with three crazy women and a cat called Henry who suffered from an identity crisis every other day. Last week he decided to be a gorilla. Whatever did she do to be punished with such madness?
    “You think this is a joke? I could have been arrested for stealing a dildo. Yes, a dildo, from a sex shop. That’s what your spell did to me. Not only has it turned me into a raging lunatic, it doubled up and turned me into a seasoned criminal too. Do you see how serious it is now? Do you see how far you’ve gone?”
    Her words fell upon deaf ears. How could that be? She’d just mentioned stealing a dildo from a sex shop, words she never in her wildest dreams would repeat in front of her aunts. Ever. Surely they could mete out the direness of the situation just from what she said. Surely.
    She followed the direction of their dazed focus and found Sebastian standing in the archway of the kitchen, arms folded over his chest, the three top buttons on his shirt undone. The smell of her soap clinging to his skin tinged the air around her.
    “Sebastian.” They attacked his face with kisses, hugged him lengthily and looked dreamily at him. He enjoyed their interest and dished out his own in swoon-worthy proportions.
    “Stop it. Stop it.” Her command remained ignored as they bombarded him with questions he charismatically answered. “Stop it! I’m the one in need of your attention, not him,” she wailed to no avail. Fine. If that’s the way they wanted to play it, she could make her own noise. She chose the heaviest plate from the cupboard behind her, held the floral-designed ceramic high above her head and dropped it onto the floor. The shattering sound got her what she wanted. All eyes on her. Including a pair she wished she’d never set eyes on again. She neatened the sheet around her and smoothed back her hair. Her dignity would not go the way of her inhibitions, spell or not.
    “Good, now that I have your attention. Fix this.” She used her severest tone, her shoulders plucked up a level, her chin free of wavering. She meant business.
    Her aunts didn’t jump to honor her demand. Instead their eyes zipped between her and Sebastian. A decided change in their casual ambience bounced off the copper pots dangling from the ceiling, seeped under the Moroccan-tanned tiles and evaporated into the roughly plastered walls, closing out the setting sun, closing in on her.
    They wrung their freckled hands together, dismissed the whistling kettle, which normally evoked glee from them. Small glances whisked amongst the three sisters, speaking volumes in a language only the three of them understood. Impending disaster weighed around her. And repercussions, there always had to be repercussions.
    “Fiddlesticks,” they muttered together.
    Fiddlesticks? Seriously, fiddlesticks?
    “Sebastian was the man you were with?” Aunt Lindie’s brows burrowed in the center of her forehead.
    “I wasn’t with him by choice. I had no control. Why is that so important?” Seconds ago they burbled profusely over him, now they met his presence with knitted brows. The uncanny feeling of the joke being on her hit her nerves.
    “Are you sure?” Aunt Esmie needed her own clarification.
    “Of course I’m sure. You’re scaring me. What’s going on? Tell me this instant.”
    “Oh dear,” Aunt Surtie mumbled. “Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.”
    “What?” Her eyes roved over to Sebastian, standing comfortably against the wall, waiting for the sequel to her debacle to air.
    “Oh dear.” Aunt Esmie paced the kitchen, her fingers drumming her collarbone.
    “Oh dear.” Aunt Lindie plopped herself into a chair.
    “Oh—”
    “Stop. Not another oh