A klutzy witch, a shaman's curse, a quest to save her family. Can Kat find her magic in time?
Mordita the Witch (She Prefers Sorceress)
Mordita the Witch (She Prefers Sorceress)
Kat meets Mordita in Bad Spelling. In Midnight Oil, the two have become close friends. Even Aunt Thordis gets along with the sorceress since Mordita helped rescue Kat and Rune. Well, they pretty much rescued themselves in Bad Spelling, but Mordita's skill with a scrying crystal helped greatly.
While Mordita has tons of magic, she prefers to maintain her old hag appearance just to keep the Galdorheim witches from stopping by to visit. Mordita is alone, and she likes to keep it that way. She's not quite alone if you want to count a fat orange tiger cat named Kudzu.
EXCERPT FROM BAD SPELLING
Kat woke in the dark and dressed
without turning on a light. She slipped out the front door and jogged
down the empty main street. When she reached the very edge of the
village where a gate barred the way, she stopped. This was the home
of Mordita the Sorceress.
Unlike the neat houses lining the rest
of the street, Mordita filled her yard with brambles and poison oak.
Translucent green slime covered the stone path from the gate to the
door. It twinkled in the early morning sunlight. Pretty, but it made
walking hazardous.
When she neared the dilapidated front
door of the house, she hesitated. What am I thinking? Mordita
would as likely turn her into a toad as help her. Still, she knew
Mordita wouldn’t tell anyone what Kat wanted, if only to thwart the
other witches. Aunt Thordis despised Mordita. The feeling was mutual.
Kat rolled her shoulders, took a deep
breath to get herself ready, stepped up to the door, and spoke to the
knocker. “Hello. I’m here to see the lady of the house.”
The knocker just hung there, a plain
old horseshoe turned upside down with a spike on a hinge attached at
the top. Kat reached out to raise the spike, hesitating just before
she touched it. When her finger came to within a fraction of an inch,
a blue spark of electricity arced from the spike to her hand. The
knocker cackled with maniacal laughter. Kat tried to shake some
feeling back into her fingers. Then the door swung open with a
spooky-sounding creak.
Kat peered into the gloom, but it was
too dark to make out any details. She shrugged. An open door was an
invitation to enter, so she stepped over the threshold and into the
Sorceress’ abode.
“Madame Mordita,” she said, not
daring to raise her voice above a whisper. “Ahem. It’s Katrina,
Ardyth’s daughter.”
Outside, the safety committee had
peppered the village with spirit lights to ensure the safety of the
residents. Mordita’s home did not have a spirit light in front of
it, though. When the municipal-care warlocks set one by her gate, it
disappeared by the next night. The front room was gloomy, with only a
glow from the fireplace casting weird shadows on the walls. Looking
left and right, Kat noticed shutters covered the two front windows,
one on either side of the door, so even during the day little light
could seep into the house.
Something touched her shoulder, and Kat
jumped. She suppressed a full-out scream and squeaked, “Erk!” She
whirled around while grabbing her shoulder, but whatever touched her
was gone.
She saw a hazy form floating toward her
from the other end of the room. It must be Mordita, who had a flair
for dramatic entrances. When the ghostly shape stopped before her, it
thickened and became opaque.
“Well, well. Thordis’ niece. What
did your auntie do? Send you because she’s afraid to face me?”
“Of course not. Aunt Thordis has
nothing to do with why I’m here.” Right away, Kat regretted
sounding so abrupt. She needed Mordita’s aid and insulting her
wouldn’t help.
She pasted a sweet smile on her face
and continued. “Of course, if Thordis did want something, she’d
be too afraid of you to come herself.”
* * *
BAD SPELLING - Book 1 of The Witches of Galdorheim Series
A klutzy witch, a shaman's curse, a quest to save her family. Can Kat find her magic in time?
Can Kat find her magic in time? If you’re a witch living on a remote arctic island, and the entire island runs on magic, lacking magical skills is not just an inconvenience, it can be a matter of life and death–or, at least, a darn good reason to run away from home. Katrina’s spells don’t just fizzle; they backfire with spectacular results, oftentimes involving green goo. A failure as a witch, Kat decides to run away and find her dead father’s non-magical family. But before she can, she stumbles onto why her magic is out of whack: a curse from a Siberian shaman. The young witch, accompanied by her half-vampire brother, must travel to the Hall of the Mountain King and the farthest reaches of Siberia to regain her magic, dodging attacks by the shaman along the way.
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