Chapter 1 (BKI Novel Version) (Patreon)

“Gah!” Norman shouted, jolting upright. His eyelids snapped open with terror.

THUMP!

Blinding pain exploded from his forehead as he immediately smacked an unforgiving surface.

Norman gasped, swore, and tenderly rubbed his already-swelling brow.

The hell did I hit? His thoughts echoed with a frustrated wince.

After the pain and shock subsided, Norman's eyes registered his bedroom ceiling just a few inches above his face. Confused, he slowly cast his gaze downward. Games, furniture, clothes, books. Everything in his room–including himself–was floating at least a foot off the ground.

A pained groan escaped his lips.

“Not this again.” Norman muttered. His face scrunched in anxious worry.

Sleep-walking was a common occurrence for Norman. As a witch, unfortunately so was sleep-spelling. The two almost always went hand-in-hand whenever he had nightmares.

This time, however, it appeared to be just a simple levitation spell. Norman thanked his lucky stars for that.

Carefully outstretching an arm, he reached for a nearby floating shoe and missed. The object gently floated away like an astronaut in zero gravity.

"Fuck." Norman grumbled. This was getting him nowhere.

He clasped his hands together and exhaled slowly, focusing his mind and body to cast a reverse spell. The mana in his body began to hum–resonating with his will and intent to change the flow of matter around him.

Focus. He thought quietly, as if coaching himself into a deeper state of concentration.

With a relaxed sigh, Norman imagined the objects returning to their proper places. Peaceful, orderly, and organized. Just like Gam, his grandmother, had taught him.

Now think, Norman. He said to himself in his mind. Think about where you want the magic to go.

As if on cue, the floating objects all suddenly stopped–suspended in the air like a still-life photograph.

Magical energy crackled and sparked between Norman’s fingers like tiny blue arcs of lightning. But suddenly, like the soft snap of a thread splitting in two, Norman felt the concentration of mana in his spell break. It quickly evaporated under the weight of his own growing anxiety.

Norman's stomach flopped. He knew what came next.

“No wait, please don’t!” He cried desperately.

Everything in the room, including Norman, fell to the floor with a loud CRASH!

When the dust and debris finally settled, Norman groaned in frustration and sat up off the hardwood floor. Most of the heavy furniture was fine, but his bed-side lamp was scattered in a dozen jagged pieces.

What Norman saw next made the hairs on his neck stand on end. His $300 box-shaped gaming console was now a sad, dented pentagon.

His sighed sadly.

He got up to fetch a broom and dustpan. As he cleaned, Norman furrowed his brow in disappointment and quietly bagged up the remaining trash.

Opening the back door of his house, a rushing gust of Fall wind sent a deep chill straight to Norman's bones. The salty-cold nip of coastal Oregon air pricked his skin like needles–reminding him that the Pacific-Northwest summer was officially over.

Norman stopped, taking a deep breath in. He forced himself to stop shivering for a moment and let the cold snap him fully awake. From the familiar look of the gloomy gray sky, Norman wondered if it was going to start snowing soon.

With a loud clang, he heaved the trash bag into the garbage bins. Just before he closed the lid, his broken gaming console stared back.

“Trick or treat! Eehehehehe!” An electronic witch head cackled from a tree in his neighbor’s yard. Its plastic, ruby-colored eyes glowed neon red while it screamed spooky greetings at him.

Norman jumped, startled by the sound. Goosebumps raced up his arms and legs like needles under his sweatshirt. They only started to vanish when the witch head finally stopped cackling.

“Good morning, Norman! Happy H-week!” Bryan, a nearby neighbor and owner of the cackling device, called over to Norman.

Norman cordially waved back. Bryan moved happily into setting up more decorations in his yard. The words “Happy Halloween!” were stamped in bright orange lettering across every plastic sign and hanging streamer.

Norman's eyes panned the neighborhood. Halloween decor dotted every lawn and tree up and down the street.

The citizens of Red Cove loved Halloween so much they dedicated an entire week to the holiday. H-week, aka the official city-sanctioned acronym for “Halloween Week."

Or “Hell Week” as Gam, Norman’s grandmother, called it.

All across the neighborhood, cheesy, decorative pumpkins and ghosts smiled at passing cars. Orange Christmas lights and fake, stringy cobwebs lined the rows of evergreen trees. Some neighbors even had those tacky, cardboard tombstones in their front yards with their relatives' names on them.

Bryan’s husband, Mako, and their daughter Mia came out and started to help set up a blow-up frankenstein on their driveway. They laughed and teased one another as they set up their spooky inanimate creatures.

Norman always liked the inflatable monsters. The translucent spectres, ferocious fiends, and ghastly grim reapers seemed less scary in balloon form.

A faint blue glow on Bryan’s front steps caught Norman’s eye. The ghost of an elderly woman sat knitting, completely unseen by Bryan and his family. It was the ghost of Bryan’s mother, Monica. She noticed Norman staring her way, smiled, and waved a friendly greeting at him.

Norman waved back and caught a strange look from Bryan. He looked back to his porch and then back at Norman skeptically–clearly unable to see the ghost sitting on his own front steps. Monica sighed sadly and smiled as her granddaughter Mia continued to set up Halloween decorations.

Norman watched on as the neighborhood went about their merry business completely unaware of the very real world of magic around them. Then, Bryan and Mako shared a loving kiss.

A jealous knot tightened in Norman’s throat as he watched their lips connect. He blushed and quickly stepped back into his house, pressing his back up against the inside of the door once it was shut. Norman sighed sadly and a deep pang of loneliness filled his gut.

The image of their lips replayed in Norman’s mind like a movie reel. The way the two of them fit together so perfectly...Norman could tell they loved each other deeply.

He gently placed a finger to his mouth, thinking of how it’d feel on his own lips.

Shaking his head, Norman erased the thoughts from his mind. He ran a hand through his coarse blonde hair, grabbed his gym clothes, and started prepping his gym bag. Maybe a workout would help take his mind off things.

As he dressed, Norman’s phone vibrated. Some part of him hoped it was a new guy messaging him on one of his many gay chatting apps, but the message was just a text alert about new deals from his service provider.

Grabbing a toaster pastry for breakfast, he checked his gay chatting apps for any new texts.

The phrase “no new messages” stared back at him from the loading screen.

With a frustrated grumble, Norman shoved one end of the toaster pastry in his mouth and headed for the front door.

An unseen force brushed up against his legs and emitted a low purring sound as it wove between his legs. Norman looked down and saw his witch's familiar, Nim, staring up at him with mischievous feline eyes.

She had the body and face of a cat with stubby little horns and bat-like wings. A cute little chimera through and through with a green garden snake for a tail to top it all off.

The snake end’s beady black eyes stared up at him with the same look of innocent pleading. Its slithery tongue flicked as it tasted the air.

“Mreow.” Nim bayed, begging to be pet.

“Hey, Nim.” Norman said lovingly, kneeling down to rub her chin. Nim's collar jingled as he scratched the top of her her head right between the horns.

“Checking in on me, huh?” He added with a sarcastic chuckle. "You staying or are you going to pop back into the spirit world?"

Nim looked up at him and meowed again, as if affirming his thoughts. Then her body became translucent and she vanished from sight.

Alone once again, Norman turned to find the back of the front door. Its wooden surface was littered with sticky notes left by the various members of his coven. The whole thing was Gam's idea: a magical message board for coven members to let each other know what they were doing that day.

Norman tried explaining to her that the same result could be achieved via a group chat, but Gam vehemently refused to use a phone. In her eyes, magic was tradition and science was the devil.

Norman sighed and read the notes in order:

Work! - Liam.

Old Lady Things - Gam.

Not Work - Mouse.

Groceries & Gym - Danny.

Gay Things & Pizza - Cora.

He paused.

“...Gay things and pizza?” Norman chuckled to himself. He made a mental reminder to put that on a shirt and give it to Cora for Christmas.

With a POOF, a new sticky note appeared on the door below the others.

Norman, don’t forget your 7pm shift at the Paragon TN! - Gam.

“Shit.” Norman groaned in frustration.

He forgot he'd picked up a shift.

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