My Grandmother was a Witch
Chapter 16
Response: No I didn't plan ahead for the cliffhanger to be on a weekend where I don't post a chapter till Monday.
Let's recap, shall we? Plus I want to prolong the readers' agony just a little longer. I'm evil that way (Insert wicked maniacal laugh here)
Kate has learned from her grandmother on her mother's side that she is a witch. Being a witch skips a generation so Kate's mother wasn't a witch. Now Kate's grandmother has taught her how to make a potion on her stove top. This is the 21stcentury after all. Black cast iron kettles over an open fire are so old fashioned.
Yes, there are White Witches and Dark Witches. The trick for a White Witch is to not stumble and start down the wrong path to becoming a Dark Witch. Kate, thanks to her sudden explosion of anger over something very personal, presently has a foot or two down that path. If she isn't more careful she will be on that path, possibly permanently. Now Kate is fighting it but it's a difficult path to get back off of.
Thanks to her potion-making ability she has saved her dad from being a drunk. He knows nothing about Kate being a witch and neither did her mother. Also thanks to some trial and error she has been able to make a wand that she can use to channel her Witchy abilities. Her wand contains no metal so she could pass through a metal detector if she so desired. Like getting on an airplane post 9/11, for example.
Kate, thanks to all of her personal events that have hurt her heart and in some cases helped to lead her down that Dark Witch path, has begun building up walls to protect her fragile heart from more damage. To try and not keep walking down that Dark path.
It has taken Richard Castle two years to reach this point. He has endured being insulted and dismissed by Kate herself. He has put up with Demming, however, he wasn't planning to come back to the precinct after the summer since Kate had chosen Demming instead of him.
Now Kate has been warming up to Castle especially over the last year. It takes Roy making one little side remark to get her to see what she has done and what she needs to do to fix that. Except Gina shows up and leaves with him, crushing Kate's heart yet again. However, she has an out thanks to her grandmother. It only gives her an hour but an hour is all she really needs.
So Kate dumps Demming and doesn't go for a week long trip to his little cabin. Gina doesn't go to the Hamptons with Castle but Kate does. She finally lets go of her walls. Now if Castle does ultimately dump her, her heart will be crushed. That will be all it takes for Kate Beckett the White Witch to become Kate Beckett the Dark Witch. She might even as a heartbroken Dark Witch KILL Castle for doing that to her.
Now where were we? Oh, yes. Gina the Dark Witch, who had lost control over Castle, has decided to reassert control over him and is in the Hamptons after finding the ingredients to make more potions to gain and keep control over Castle. Perhaps even go back to being Mrs. Castle. However, Gina has run into a roadblock in the name of Kate Beckett, the White Witch.
_/\_
"Don't!" Kate warned her as she still had her hand in a pocket. Kate had no illusion that she was facing down a Dark Witch. The potion she knew well was on the stove and besides Gina had called her a Witch, which was what she was.
Granted finding out she was a witch had been a shock. A little late in life to be told one was a Witch, however, being a Witch had helped her in her life so it wasn't that bad. She had saved her dad after all.
"You can't have him. He belongs to me," Gina snarled at Kate. She looked the detective's wand over to see if she could judge just how powerful this Witch was.
"Castle doesn't belong to anyone including me but make no mistake, I will defend him," Kate told her.
"Richard has been mine since I turned him into a playboy," Gina informed her and ignored Richard. He wasn't going to remember any of this after she got rid of this Witch anyway so she could say whatever she liked.
"GINA!" Richard was shocked. He knew he had agreed but was she talking about what he thought she was?
"Shush, Castle, and stay behind me." Kate used her free hand to push him back behind her since he had moved a little.
"And how does marrying your playboy fit in?" Kate pointed out a flaw in Gina's thinking. "A married playboy who sleeps around doesn't work."
Gina rolled her eyes. "So he cheats on me. Who cares? I cheated on him. A lot, actually. Richard is good in bed but even he can't keep up with me."
"Really, Gina?" Rick was barely keeping up. His life wasn't what he thought it was. How had this happened?
"Shush, Castle." Kate wanted her to keep talking. She was doing what all the bad guys did in all those really bad movies: explaining their plan before they killed the good guy and since she was the good guy here she wanted Gina to talk.
"But you lost him. He divorced you." Then a thought hit her. "You ran out of ingredients. Even the purveyor in Chinatown was running really low last time I was there. Very expensive, though." Going there had pretty much drained her checkbook.
"I have enough to regain control. But you won't be here to watch it." Gina made a choice. She was a powerful Witch after all. She could take on some tiny flat-chested Witch.
"Don't, I don't want to kill you." Kate saw her arm muscle move and was all set to shoot her.
"As if a Witch with tiny little tits could ever defeat me." Gina drew her wand and pointed it at Kate.
Kate, though, was ready. She and Rick watched a white ball with sparks flying behind it hit Gina in the chest. After Rick had time to consider it he would think of it as watching a mini comet strike Gina.
Kate was ready for it. She was used to watching her little white balls with sparks sort of cork screwing toward her target. It was a killing blow. They both watched Gina light up from head to toe. Since Kate had never been able to investigate what actually happened she didn't know that Gina's entire electrical system was now fried. Her brain and her ability, if she even still could, would never be able to send signals to her body or feel her ability to feel pain. Her memories were instantly gone and her dead body fell to the floor.
"She shouldn't have made me do that. I didn't want to kill her. She could have just gone home and forgotten all about this." Kate let her wand fall to her side and her head fell to her chest.
Kate barely registered as Castle went past her to check on Gina. "She's dead." Rick was conflicted in the extreme. His ex-wife who was apparently controlling his life – or had been – was dead. Kate had killed her and he still remembered the words witch and potion.
"I'm sorry, Castle. She didn't give me a choice." Kate being a Homicide Detective needed to figure out what came next. Gina was dead and she had killed her. How she had killed her needed to be a secret. She needed to keep her being a Witch a secret.
Just for a moment she thought about the potion that was presently burning on the stove top so she turned off the heat, left it, and joined Castle.
"Are you okay, Castle?" She could imagine the questions he was going to have.
Rick stared at her. "You're really a Witch?"
"Yes." Kate gave him her best, "Please don't be mad and hate me," look.
"And Gina was a Witch?" Rick looked down at her body and saw what he was betting was her wand and Kate was holding hers.
"It looks that way. I didn't see that one coming. Grams had warned me about Dark Witches but I never really thought I would meet one, let alone kill one." Kate had killed someone before now so another dead body didn't bother her that much. Not like the first time.
"You're a Witch! A real Witch," Rick proclaimed loudly. Suddenly Kate found herself being hugged tightly and then she was being kissed. She couldn't help but kiss him back.
"You're okay with me being a Witch?" Castle was shocking her yet again. Though with a little more time to think about it it shouldn't be such a shock. Castle believed in aliens and that the CIA was doing everything. She was betting he believed in ghosts, demons, and even zombies.
"Ghosts?" Kate immediately thought of her grandmother.
"You're a WITCH! How cool is that!?" Rick couldn't decide what to do next. Kissing her again came to mind.
"Um, Castle." Kate pointed at the dead body at their feet.
"Oh, yeah. What do we do about Gina? You did kill her but it was self-defense. She was going to kill you," Rick pointed out.
"A White Witch killing a Dark Witch? Yeah, everyone's going to believe that. I'm not even sure what killed her besides it being my wand." Kate knew she was dead but didn't know exactly what had killed her.
Rick could see she had a point. "But you're a Witch! Can't you just, um, do something?" He waved his hands at Gina's dead body.
Kate rolled her eyes. "My wand can do things and I can make potions to do a number of things. But no, Castle, I can't just make a dead body disappear."
"So if I was writing this how would I get rid of a body?" Rick mostly said to himself.
Kate was thinking of calling Lanie. She might help them get rid of a dead body. "Grams," Kate told herself.
"Grandmother?" Rick didn't understand. How did her grandmother that he didn't even know she had enter the picture?
"Grams taught me what I needed to be a Witch. We could take the body to her. She might have an answer. Except her place is a long ways from here." Kate was thinking 2 hours just to reach the city and even more hours to reach her house.
Rick thought about it for a couple minutes. "Put a tarp in the back of the car, put her body in the trunk, and take her there. Though we need a story for when someone comes looking for her."
"That might work, I guess." Kate didn't have anything else. "You're really going to help me?" Kate was a little shocked.
"Of course." Rick didn't see he had a choice. He loved her and if all this was correct, Gina was trying to turn him into a slave. AGAIN!
"Here are the keys. The car's in the garage. I need to pack a bag it sounds like. The tarp's in the garage somewhere." Rick handed her the keys. He looked down at Gina again, shook his head, and hurried to his bedroom to pack.
_/\_
Kate had found the tarp. She had the trunk open with the tarp unfolded inside it, hanging out over the bumper, and onto the floor.
Rick was soon out carrying Gina and dropped her in the trunk. "Oops." He hadn't meant to drop her. It was just that he was a bit clumsy. Kate had a lot of leftover tarp so he covered up the body with the excess.
"I need to get my bag, close up the house, and make sure the range is off. Move the car to the front and close the garage door," Rick told her and left her again.
_/\_
Rick put his bag in the back seat and got in the passenger's side. "Why are you driving? It's my car."
Kate listed all the reasons she could think of. "Because I'm the better driver. And if we get pulled over they're less likely to search the trunk since I have a badge. Besides, I know where I'm going and you don't."
"Oh." She had him on knowing where she was going and he didn't but that was all so far as he was concerned.
Kate was driving and smacked Castle's hand when he started playing with the radio. "I'm driving; my choice."
"Are you always going to be like this?" Rick asked her since in his mind he was keeping her forever.
"Yes, now leave the radio station alone. And the A/C controls." Kate smacked his hand yet again. "And the Navigation System. Just sit there and enjoy the view, Castle, and watch out for police looking for speeders. We have a dead body in the back."
"Right! Dead body." He almost couldn't believe he was doing this. And yet doing this WITH Kate was so exciting! He didn't even mind all that much now that it was Gina's body.
He cleared his throat. "So, Kate, how long have you known you were a Witch?"
"I was fifteen, I think. Mom and Dad drove me out to meet my grandmother who I hadn't seen since I was really little. I didn't even remember her. She had this nice little house with a barn for horses out back. Mom taught me to ride a horse and Grams taught me how to make potions. I even have a book at home that thankfully didn't get blown up with the rest of my apartment that one day. It's full of potions I can make.
"Some of the ingredients are really strange," Kate told him since he was helping her and she truly did like him.
"For example?" Rick queried.
"Slug eggs for one. Another needs a spoon or two." Kate shrugged. "I've never made that potion so I don't know what happens to the spoons."
Rick's eyebrows went up. "Not something like bat shit?"
"That too," Kate admitted. "I found most of it in a shop in Chinatown. They're expensive, though. He charges a lot for his ingredients."
_/\_
Rick was bored and he was driving Kate to distraction. She was beginning to question why she liked him so much. "Are we there yet?" and "How much further is it?"
"It'll be a lot shorter for both of us if you don't shut up, Castle. I can pull over and let you out," Kate threatened him and that seemed to do the trick.
_/\_
Eventually Kate turned down a very familiar dirt road and since the leaves were changing it was beautiful again.
"WOW, Kate!" Rick finally saw the house she had talked about all the way up here. "Thick rock walls, thatched roof. I don't see a barn yet but this is really nice." Once she stopped he got out to look it over.
Kate could almost see herself in him with what she did when she saw his place in the Hamptons. "This way, Castle." Kate took him to the front door and searched for the key since she wasn't ready to come out here. She had an emergency key hidden away.
"And this is it." Kate went first. Rick followed her and saw a grandma sofa, a massive fireplace, a tiny little TV on a table, windows, and wood floors.
"Different," Rick commented.
"Hi, Grams!" Kate was happy to see her again.
"Katie!" She would hug her if she could. "Who is this?" She had brought a man with her this time. A tall, broad-chested, and handsome one even.
"Grams, this is Richard Castle. Castle, this is my grandmother."
"I don't see anyone," Rick whispered to her.
"She is dead. You really don't see her?" Kate hadn't anticipated this development.
"I'm dead, Katie. You're a Witch, I'm a Witch, and he's a man. Of course he doesn't see me," Anna explained to her grandchild.
"SHE'S A GHOST? THIS IS SO COOL!" Rick had thought she was a live grandmother. This was even better. "Where is she?" Rick waved his arms around to see if he could feel her.
"I think I like him, Katie." Anna didn't know many that were this enthusiastic about meeting a ghost. "Why are you two here?" She was hoping she was here to show off her boyfriend.
"She's in front of me, Castle, and we're here because I killed a Dark Witch," Kate told her.
"Did you now?" This was a shock for her.
"We brought the body because we didn't know what else to do. I can't say it was self-defense. Self-defense because a Dark Witch with a wand wanted to kill me and I killed her with my wand? That wasn't going to work, Grams."
"Take me to her." Anna followed her outside to a car she had never seen before. Together they uncovered the body for her to see.
"Dark Witch. Did you bring her wand?" She watched Kate produce it from her pocket. "Hm, every wand is different. All right, what do you need from me?"
"How do we get rid of the body, Grams? Do we bury her somewhere? We still have to explain that we don't know anything about her when someone comes looking for her," Kate pointed out.
"If that's all you want it's easy enough. Take her out of the car, put her on the ground, and use your wand to disintegrate her."
"That's all?" Kate couldn't believe it.
Rick looked at Kate then looked around his car. "What are you two talking about? I only hear you."
"She says we take her out of the car and I disintegrate her using my wand."
"That's all?" Rick thought they were going to need to cook her or something. Get this big black pot and cook her.
"How was I to know?" Kate said in exasperation. "I haven't been a Witch for that long. I only had a day or two of training and Grams died before I could come back again. But Grams, is my killing her a Dark act? I don't want to be a Dark Witch, Grams. I don't." Kate was ready to cry. Killing was an evil act and she didn't want to be a Dark Witch. She couldn't keep Castle if she was a Dark Witch.
"First deal with the body and then we'll deal with your Dark Witch tendencies," Anna told Kate.
_/\_
The tarp was back in the trunk and Gina was on the ground. Kate was standing there waving her wand back and forth and they watched as little by little Gina began to turn to dust till even her bones and clothes were gone.
"That was tiring." Kate slumped somewhat and realized she was both hungry and thirsty.
"THAT WAS AWESOME!" If Rick ever put a Witch in one of his books he was going to have to remember this. He saw Kate look at him like he had lost his mind yet again. "Well it was! You're a Witch! How cool is that?"
"It's official. I like him," Kate heard her grandmother say. "Now give him your wand."
"What? Why would I want to give Castle my wand?" Kate wanted to keep her wand. It had taken a lot of work to even get one.
"Do you want to lose the Dark Witch path you've started down? Give him your wand," Anna told her yet again.
"All right, fine. Here, Castle." She handed her wand over to him.
"What do I do with this? I'm not a Witch." Rick didn't know what to do with it.
But as he held it her wand started to disintegrate in his hand. "MY WAND!" Kate tried to take it back but it was disappearing too fast. "That was my wand, Grams!" Kate watched as the dust fell between his fingers.
"A Witch's power is mostly wrapped up in her wand. With the Dark Witch gone so is her wand now. Your wand is gone so your path down the Dark Witch path goes with it.
"You want a wand, Katie? Go build a new one. It will be different from that one. Just stay away from that path and you'll be fine," Anna promised.
Kate heard her but her wand was dust on the ground and that hurt more than she thought was possible.