4

Ally stood and watched her husband laying on the sofa and watching television as he snacked on chips and popcorn. He sipped his soda a second as on the TV old reruns showed Benny Hill getting in trouble on the beach and in the city. Ally suddenly felt she was married to a new person as she walked up to him and stood in front of the TV. If he really was her husband, he'd be typing at his computer.

"All right," She asked him. "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?"

"Ally, babe," William moved his head to see around her. "Could you bring me another root beer?"

"I would like to know..." Ally started calmly. "Just what is going on around here? I've had a hard time trying to drag you from your computer, but now you're doing nothing but watching television. You didn't even come to bed last night."

"Uhhhhhh..." William made a noise. "I just... Don't feel like typing."

"But writing is your life." All sat down on the ledge of the sofa and brushed her hand on his forehead to see if he was sick. "Are you feeling bad?"

"Could you make me popcorn?" William handed her the bowl with the dried kernels in the bottom. "The air-popped, not the microwave crap."

Ally groaned out loud as she wondered if she should start looking for an alien pod in the house. She felt as if her husband was out of his mind as she heard the front doors of the house behind her. Her mother-in-law, Angelique Bouchard-Collins, hung her coat on the coat rack as she turned and looked in.

"How are my son and daughter-in-law?" She shined toward them.

"Hi mom..." William barely looked up.

"Mrs. Collins." Ally gave her in-law a quick peck on the cheek. "How you doing?"

"Fine." Angelique noticed her son uncharacteristically spread out across the sofa and watching girls in skimpy bikinis dancing around Benny Hill. She looked back to Ally. "Where are the babies?"

"Sara took them to the movies." Ally leaned in close. "Could you talk to your son? He's been watching TV for thirty six hours straight."

"Thirty six hours?" Angelique realized that was not her boy.

"Ally," William didn't look up. "Root beer and popcorn?"

Ally just groaned frustratingly and rolled her eyes to the kitchen. As she did, Angelique turned and moved around the sofa. She beamed happily to her boy and nudged him to look up. He just barely acknowledged her and then looked back to the TV.

"Don't you have something better to do?" She asked.

"Like what?" He answered back.

"Like your writing?" Mother answered back. "You've barely watched more than an hour of TV at one time since you were a little boy. "Writer's block?"

"I don't know."

"William, darling, look at me!" She reached forward and turned his head to her. She gazed into her son's big brown eyes and realized there was something missing. Some spark or aspect of his soul was missing. It was as if he had become another person as she looked into his mind and saw an emptiness that was never there before.

"You've got a spell on you." She murmured.

"A spell?" William scoffed and looked back to the TV. His mother sat up as she heard the air popper in the kitchen popping more popcorn. Angelique knew a lot of spells and she took it personally when one was cast on her children. Realizing she couldn't explain fully what was truly happening without revealing her past, her voice gasped a second and cleared her throat and her foot stepped back a second and headed her for the kitchen in the back of the house.

"Is my husband back yet?" Ally asked as she watched the popcorn.

"He's just..." Angelique picked up the phone on the wall and started punching numbers. "Tired." She claimed as Ally took William his root beer. Placing the phone to her ear, Angelique tried to conceal her voice as best as she could. Somewhere in Connecticut, a phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Samantha?"

"She's not here." The girl answered. "Aunt An, is that you?"

"Tabitha," Angelique spoke directly to Samantha's daughter. She had known her off and on for years and had watched her grow from a beautiful young lady to a most lovely woman with a husband and two children of her own. "How's your mother?"

"Just fine," The lovely lady TV director leaned back. "Mom just went to put flowers on dad's grave. Is there a problem?"

"Well," Angelique turned her back as Ally returned to the kitchen to get William's popcorn. "I've got a question. Did one of your relatives put a spell on my son?"

"On William?" Tabitha remembered when her mother and Angelique tried to fix up the young Collins heir with her little sister, Amanda, but much like Sabrina before her, William was just not meant to marry a real witch.

"I don't think so," Tabitha continued. "But I can get a message out to the atmospheric continuum and find out."

"Please do." Angelique peered back to the living room. William's arm reached up and took the popcorn from Ally as she folded her arms disgustedly. Her husband was turning into a coach potato and she didn't even like it.