It was the aunt who showed up a few days later. Tessa immediately recognized her from Nikola’s description: short and very thin, she looked as though she had more bones than the average person, with hair as wispy as a dandelion puff and the the brassy orange of ill-maintained peroxide blond.

Evidently they had learned their lesson about confronting Tessa directly, because when the aunt entered the little shop, she did her best to pretend to be a customer.

Tessa pounced like a leopardess, baring her teeth in an expression that couldn’t quite be called a smile. “Hi, how can I help you today? Looking for a charm, or amulet? A potion? Spell? Supplies? We just had a fresh shipment of pickled butterfly kisses delivered, and I can assure you the quality is the finest you can get.”

“No, no,” said the incognito-aunt, flinching away from Tessa as if physically repelled by the witch. “I’m just… looking.”

“Well you just let me know if you need anything, I’ll be right here to help,” Tessa offered.

And she meant it.

She hovered over the aunt’s shoulder, following the older woman so closely that they collided whenever the aunt stopped to look at something.

The aunt did a lap around the store, pausing briefly now and then to perfunctorily pick some random object up and glance at it without any real interest, before setting it down and continuing on her way. She seemed more interested in trying to get a look behind the counter and through the curtained doorway than in any of the objects in the shop.

Unable to find Nikola crouching behind the counter or the bookshelves, the aunt’s expression grew ever more sour.

Tessa expected her to give up and leave, but then the woman suddenly darted off to the side, making a beeline straight for the curtained doorway.

“That’s for employees only!” Tessa snapped, hurrying to stop her just as the aunt pulled the curtain back with a triumphant flourish.

All that greeted her was the dark, empty landing of the stairs, which led up into the darkness of the second story. The aunt seemed to deflate a little, evidently having expected to find some sort of back storeroom in which Nikola was hiding.

“My apologies, I thought there might be more back there,” the aunt said, not sounding apologetic in the least.

“I’ll bet you did,” Tessa said under her breath as the woman left the shop. She watched from the window as the aunt crossed the road and met up with a man standing beside a parked car. It was the uncle of course, and the two exchanged a brief but unhappy looking conversation before getting into the car and driving away.

For four days the aunt and uncle staked out the witch’s shop, the uncle taking the weekends while his wife kept watch on weekdays. They didn’t try to come back into the store again, but Nikola could see their car parked a little ways down the street every time she peered out from between the curtains of the upstairs window.

Nikola hadn’t dared to leave the second floor since her uncle’s first appearance, but being cooped up in the tiny apartment for so long was driving her mad.

“They’re never going to give up,” Nikola wailed at Tessa when she came upstairs during the half hour that the shop was closed for lunch. “They know I’m here, and they’re just going to sit out there, day after day, forever! I can’t bear it anymore!”

“Well, maybe there’s no point in hiding up here like some kind of fugitive,” Tessa countered. “Even if they do catch you, what then? If they try to have you arrested, they'll risk having their theft of your inheritance brought to light. If I didn’t think you might really get into trouble for taking that silver, I’d make you go to the police just to put them in their place. I say we should just give up this whole ridiculous charade, and you should march out there, give them one of these,” here Tessa made an extraordinarily rude hand gesture, “and get on with your life.”

“I couldn’t,” Nikola gasped. “They’d make me go back, I know they would!”

As much as Tessa tried, she couldn’t convince the girl that there wasn’t some inexplicable force surrounding her aunt and uncle that would force her to return to their house against her will.

“I can’t make you go outside while they are out there,” Tessa said, giving in partially, “but it isn’t healthy for you to be cooped inside like this for so long. They always leave when the shop closes in the evening, so after it does, why don’t you go out and see a movie or something? You can wear a big trench coat and a fake mustache if you want to, but just get out of the house and get some fresh air.”

Nikola was hesitant, but after more cajoling, she eventually agreed.

That evening, Tessa flipped the sign on the door to “closed”, but did not lock it. Nikola watched from a crack in the curtains until her uncle drove away, and then came downstairs into the shop, coat in hand.

“I don’t even know what’s playing at the theater,” she protested as Tessa shoved a wad of crumpled bills into her hand, but the witch was already pushing the girl out the door.

“Movies are pretty much all the same these days anyways. Just get out, and try to relax a little.” She shut the door, leaving Nikola standing in the street.

The theater was only a few blocks away. Nikola walked the first block with her head down as quickly as she could, but eventually she started to calm down a little.

Tessa was right, they would be long gone by now, there was no need to still be so afraid. She may be a prisoner in the apartment during the day, but now, at night, she was free and safe. Feeling some of the tension in her shoulders release, Nikola slowed her pace and enjoyed the feeling of the cool evening air.

A car came driving down the street towards her, its headlights blinding her a little. She kept walking, and it passed her. But she didn’t hear the sound of a car driving off into the distance down the street behind her; she heard the sound of it pulling over and parking on the side of the road.

Nikola stopped, and turned around.

She hadn’t been able to see the car clearly when it was coming towards her, the beams from the headlights making it difficult to see its color and make. But from the back, she recognized her uncle’s car.

Anxiety leapt into her throat, choking her. She didn’t know what to do. He had seen her, he had seen her and now he knew, he really knew for certain where she was, and they would never let her go now.

“Nikola!” he shouted as he levered himself out of the driver’s seat, and his voice made her heart start pounding like thunder in her chest. He strode right up to her, his hands clenched into fists at his side, his face red and blotchy with barely contained fury. “I knew it! I knew you were there in that place when I heard about that woman’s new ‘apprentice’. And then I when saw the witch close the shop tonight but not lock the door, I suspected someone was going out! So I drove out of sight down the street and waited, and look who came strolling up the road, pleased as punch with her little tricks!”

“I didn’t--I’m not-” Nikola tried to say, but her mouth had gone dry and her thoughts had turned into TV static.

“You stupid girl, you didn’t really think we would just let you get away with stealing from us, did you? After everything your aunt and I did for you, taking you in and putting a roof over your head! We didn’t have to do any of that you know! You have no respect at all for what we sacrificed for you! You’re damn lucky I don’t call the police right this minute. Juvenile prison, do you really think that’s going to be better than what we were good enough to provide you with?”

Nikola cowered, and her uncle seemed to make an effort to pull himself together.

“But we’re not heartless. Your aunt and I are willing to forgive you if you give the silver back, and come back home. You’ll have to get another job of course, so you can pay us back for all the trouble you’ve caused us--do you know how much it costs to have missing persons flyers made? And I had to miss work to come around here looking for you. But if you do all that, we might not feel the need to get the police involved.”

“I don’t… I don’t have the silver anymore,” Nikola whispered.

Her uncle looked as though he was about to have an aneurysm. “What?”

“I sold it, all of it.”

Apoplectic with rage, her uncle did a strange kind of dance, hopping from foot to foot. He’d have torn out his hair if he had any left. “You sold it? All of it? That set was worth thousands!”

Nikola hadn’t gotten thousands of dollars from it at the pawn shops, and somehow she found that that knowledge stung worse than the insults thrown at her by her uncle.

“Yes, I sold it,” she snapped. “It belonged to my grandfather, so it was just as much mine as yours. I figured it was a fair trade since you spent every cent my dad left me--left me, not you.” She hadn’t intended to say it, but she found it felt bitterly good to threw the words she had spent so long thinking right into his stupid red face.

Her uncle looked as though she had hit him. He spluttered, scrambled for an excuse. “It was--we used that money to take care of you, to afford to keep you on,” he protested.

“That’s a lie,” she said, and though her voice trembled, her clenched her hands tightly as her sides and held her ground. “Tessa makes less money than you do, and she can afford to keep me just fine. And she pays me.”

Her uncle clung to this piece of information like a drowning man, using it to redirect the conversation so that he had another point of attack. “What, you think you’re some kind of witch now, some big shot with magic talismans and silly potions? Ha, I’d like to see that. You probably just sweep the floors and dust the shelves, don’t you? I bet that woman doesn’t even pay you a legal wage. How much do you get?” His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared at the scent of almost three months of plump paychecks, all ready to be handed over to him by his contrite and groveling niece.

Except Nikola wasn’t contrite, and she wasn’t groveling. “I am a witch now,” she said, standing up a little straighter. “And I’m going to keep learning, so just go away and leave me alone!”

“You’re still a minor, and I’m your legal guardian!” he snarled. “You’re going to come home with me whether you like it or not, and you’re going to pay your aunt and me back every cent that silver you stole was worth!”

“No,” Nikola said, taking a step back from him.

“What did you say?” he demanded.

“No.”

He didn’t bother arguing anymore. He just reached out and snatched her by the wrist and began to drag her to car.

Nikola struggled and tried to pull free, but she was pulled along helplessly. “No, I won’t go! You can’t make me!”

“Watch me!” He opened the door with one hand, and tried to shove Nikola into the back seat.

She struggled and thrashed, elbowing him hard in the gut.

He staggered and released her for just a second. Nikola kicked out at him, forcing him to jump back to avoid her heel, and she darted through the gap between him in the door, back out into the street.

He started to come after her again, but then she stopped, spinning on her heel to face him, and raised her hand to point right at the center of his chest. Her skin tingled, and a rush of heat filled her chest, and magic filled her.

Her uncle staggered backwards, tripping over the curb and falling back through the open car door. Then Nikola turned and ran, heading back for the witch’s shop.

                                                                 *   *   *

Tessa carried two cups of hot, strong coffee to the little table and placed one in front of Nikola, who sat with her head in her hands. Tessa added milk to the girl’s cup until the coffee turned the color of uncooked cookie dough. Then she sat back and took a long sip of her own, black and sweet and hot enough to burn a few layers off her tongue.

“Well,” Tessa finally said after several minutes of silence. “They probably won’t come around here trying to make trouble for you anymore.”

Nikola just groaned into her hands.

“I’m really proud of you,” Tessa continued. “Throwing magic around like that on the spur of the moment. That’s not an easy thing to do. You’ve come a long way these last few months.”

“I hexed him,” Nikola moaned.

“Served him right,” grunted Tessa. “He shouldn’t have expected to be able to take you without a fight. You're my apprentice, after all.”

That made Nikola smile, almost imperceptibly. She wiped her eyes on the back of her hands, and took a small sip of her coffee.

“Now we don’t have to worry about any of this ridiculous hiding nonsense anymore. I’ve had to do double the work these last few days, and I’m exhausted.” Tessa looked over the rim of her steaming cup at Nikola, and her curiosity finally got the better of her. “What exactly did you do to him?”

“He was a greedy thief, who didn’t care about anything except money,” said Nikola bitterly, and then she flushed, embarrassed. “So right at that moment, all I could think was, fine, let the whole world know how you cared more about money than your own family, and I… I turned him green.”

“You what?” Tessa snorted, spilling scalding coffee all over her lap.

“I saw him, from the overhead light in the car as I ran past. His skin had turned green all over.”

“Bright green, like a lime? Or a horrible pea green?”

“Bright green. I think I meant to make him the color of money, but all I was thinking was ‘green’, and now he’s the same color as one of those little green tree frogs.”

“Well, people will certainly know he got on the wrong side of a witch!” laughed Tessa.

Nikola however still looked rather concerned. “Will it wear off eventually?”

Tessa shrugged. “It might, but on the other hand, it might not. It’s hard to know for sure with those kinds of hexes woven on the spot. If it doesn’t fade on its own, he’ll probably be able to find another witch somewhere who can lift the spell. They won’t be able to mend his pride, though.” She grinned wickedly. “Alright, come on. Let’s head upstairs. It’s late, and you have a lot of orders to help me catch up on. Maybe I’ll start teaching you a little alchemy, you’re probably ready to try to tackle that.”

Nikola smiled at her mentor, and Tessa at her apprentice.