Witch Is The New Black (Paris, Texas Romance #3)

Cracking her knuckles, she took one last glance around her jail cell and blew out a breath of relief. Almost there, Bernie. Almost there.

Fee hopped down off the table and onto Bernie’s dismally thin jailhouse mattress, where he’d spent every night since she’d arrived, curled into a small ball of tulle and Dollar Store tiara. “And I’m telling you, your journey’s just gearing up.”

“What’s this journey your gums keep flapping about? There is no journey that includes you. I get to leave here today a free woman.”

And go back to what, Bernie? You can’t go back to nothing. You have nothing.

Shut up.

“Oh, girl. You bettah come on back from that trip you’re takin’ at Delusions-R-Us now.”

“Fee? Save the fancy talk and get to the point. What do you know that I don’t know?”

He rolled onto his back, his ebony fur glistening sleekly under the dim light. “You don’t really think once those cell doors open and that crazier-n’-a-queen-at-a-beauty-supply-store-wig-sale Baba Yaga shows up and waves her magic wand that it’s over, do you? Humph. This is exactly why you need me as your familiar—to guide your pathetic ass.”

Right. Familiars were a witch’s advisor. Sort of like high school counselors—only not. If all the crazy she’d been spoon-fed up to this point was true, witches often became great friends with their familiars, and Fee had been first in line to apply for the job.

Bernie balled up the sheets from her cot and threw them in the bag that had magically appeared every three days at her cell door for dirty laundry since she’d arrived. As the hour of her release grew closer, her patience grew shorter.

“Just explain what you mean, Fee.”

“Parole, honey. P-A-R-O-L-E. You don’t just up and skip outta here as if those Kotex-pad slippers were made for walkin’. You gotta do more time on the outside. Prove you’re worthy. Community service. Atone, you know?”

That pulled Bernie up short. Parole? God, she should’ve listened more carefully in Redemption Is The New Black class, but her fellow inmate, Chi-Chi Gonzalez, had been far more interesting. Her story about polar ice caps and what had gotten her five years in magic-abuse jail was more fascinating than anything that screw Halima could teach.

Plus, Chi-Chi had paid good commissary money for Bernie’s special Kotex slippers. They’d lasted longer than Winnie Fosters’ had, according to Chi-Chi—Winnie being the ultimate success story everyone referred to when talking about redemption.

But this was bullshit. “Atone? I did atone—for something I wasn’t even aware I did to begin with. Hell yes, I’ve done my time, buddy. Yes, I damn well have. I did the prison rotation like I was goin’ for the convict gold. I worked in the laundry room for three hellish months with Big Sue Moses breathing down my neck while she practiced putting eyeshadow on me made out of baby oil and cigarette ashes, for shit’s sake—”

“You have to admit, that concoction’s pure genius, and it makes a hella smoky eye that lasts all night.”

“I’m making a point, Fee.”

“Sorry. Carry on.”

Bernie held up her red, chapped hands. “See these? I peeled a thousand potatoes if I peeled one in the kitchen—even under the hateful glare of One-Eyed Lorraine, who, I might add, pads the orders for pudding then sells the overage to the cell-dwelling nuts in here for a ridiculous price. So the hell I’m giving this bunch of crazyface, pointy-hat-loving, wand-wielding dark overlords another second of my time. I did my ten months clean as a whistle. No isolation. No strikes. No backtalk. That means I’m out the second Baba Yaga decides to put on her leg warmers and show her freakishly age-defying face at that cell door,” she scoffed, thumbing a finger over her shoulder.

Fee hissed.

Taking in a long breath, Bernie blew it out with a wince. “She’s behind me, isn’t she?”

A tapping of nails on the cell bars made Bernie cringe. “She is, and lucky for you, Bernice, today is Monday, which is ripped-sweatshirt day, not leg-warmer day, thank you very much.”

Whipping around, Bernie was fully prepared to throw herself on a metaphoric sword and apologize in order to keep from doing any more time. Baba Yaga was the witchin-charge-of-everything witch, and also the warden at jailhouse rock. She couldn’t afford to piss her off—especially not on release day.

Lifting her eyes, Bernie fought the urge to laugh out loud at Baba Yaga’s latest outfit. She was an ’80s fanatic, stuck somewhere between Rick Astley and Debbie Gibson, and sometimes her outlandish reproductions of Madonna a la “Like A Virgin” caught Bernie so off guard, she had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from snorting.

“Aw, c’mon, BY,” Fee backed up Bernie. “She’s just got some release-day jitters. She can’t wait to get started on making things right, isn’t that so, Bernie?”