- 8 -

Samantha blinked, momentarily confused as to where she was.

"So what do you think, darling?" said a voice beside her.

She turned and smiled up at the reassuringly familiar figure of Andrew Fortnum.

"You wanted to check out a typical mortal suburban home, but I don't know," she replied, looking around her dubiously. "It seems awfully small."

"Ah, here's the owner now," said Andrew, as the front door opened. "The realtor said she'd meet us here."

It wasn't something Samantha could have explained but as soon as she saw the elderly woman who appeared in the doorway she felt an instant affection for her. The woman looked so adorable that Samantha couldn't help but smile. She went over to her.

"Samantha Dobson," she said, holding out her hand, "and this is my boyfriend Andrew. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. Thank you for letting us view your lovely home."

"Edith Morgendorffer," replied the woman, taking her hand and staring at her wistfully. "I'm pleased to meet you, too."

"Do you live here alone, Mrs Morgendorffer?"

"Miss. Yes, I'm afraid so. There was someone once but it...it didn't work out. We were together less than a year."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that," said Sam, seeing the sweet old lady's eyes glistening. Clearly the loss still hurt. She laid her hand over Edith's and patted it sympathetically.

"Shall I make us all a cup of tea?" she said.

"Yes, if you would. Thank you."

In the kitchen, Samantha put the kettle on, took out cups and saucers, and made the tea. Only as she was carrying the tray through to the living area did it occur to her that she had known where everything was. She frowned, then shook her head. It was odd, yes, but then odd things happened all the time. It wasn't as if she had ever set foot in this house before, after all.

"Ah, good," said Andrew, when Samantha arrived with the tea. "Edith was just telling me about the neighbours. Seems Morning Glory Circle is a bit more colorful than it appears."

"Well, I wouldn't go quite *that* far."

"What was that fuss all about they reported on in The Star Despatch two weeks ago?" asked Samantha as she poured their teas. "Something about a love triangle?"

"That's right," said Andrew. "Two men got in a fight over a seductress who'd been leading them both on. I believe her name was Gladys Kravitz."

Edith's eyes went wide at this, and it looked to Samantha as if she barely managed to stop spitting out her tea. Whoever Gladys Kravitz was she must be quite a woman.

"That was all just a big misunderstanding," Edith explained to them. "Abner and Gladys Kravitz are good neighbors, and about the least likely swingers you could imagine."

A pity," said Samantha. "Something like that adds a bit of character to a place."

She smiled mischievously.

"Well, this has been charming but we really should be going," said Andrew.

"You're right, darling. Thank you, Edith, and please don't get up. We can see ourselves out."

She leaned down to kiss the old woman on the cheek before turning to leave.

"Shall I call us a cab?" Andrew asked when they reached the hallway.

"Whatever for?" said Samantha, giving him a puzzled look. "We're not mortals so why would we want to travel like they do?"

"I couldn't agree more," he replied, with a grin.

Andrew snapped his fingers and the hallway was suddenly empty, with nothing to show they had ever been there.

Behind them they left an old woman staring wistfully into space.

"Goodbye, Samantha", Darrin Stephens whispered, knowing he would never see his wife again.

- 9 -

When Darrin eventually rose from his chair, he turned to see Endora standing there, waiting for him.

"Is it done?" he asked.

"Naturally. I've transported your clothing and personal belongings and made all the arrangements. The cost will be covered for as long as you live. All that's left now is to move you there."

Darrin looked around him at what had been his married home with Samantha for one final time and nodded.

"Okay, let's do this"

"Yes, let's," said Endora, inscribing a mystical pattern in the air with her hands.

"Shady Pines Retirement Home," said Darrin, as they materialised in his room there. "I'm still not sure about this, Endora."

"Oh, nonsense, Donald. The older you get the more difficult it is to make new friends. You're leaving your old life behind so this will give you quite the best chance of connecting with others your age."

"I guess. And there are staff who'll take care of me in my few remaining years."

"Few remaining...oh dear," said Endora.

"What? Oh dear what?"

"I thought you knew. Magic can't actually make anyone older or younger. If it could Dr Bombay would have been able to keep his mortal wife alive forever. No, what it does is make you look and *feel* older or younger. You still have as much life ahead of you as you always did just, unfortunately for you, as an old woman. You'll look like you do now for decades, until your actual age catches up with your apparent age, in fact. We'll have to relocate you every ten years or so until it does so that no one notices."

"Well that's a fine good news/bad news thing to lay on a fella, I must say!" he said. Then he realised something. "But it still doesn't make any difference to my situation here and now, does it?"

"No, not really."

"Then I'm not going to worry about it. Are you and Andrew ready to do what you promised you would?"

"Of course. We'll masquerade as Mr and Mrs Stephens long enough to quit your job for you, say goodbye to your parents, wrap up your affairs, and tell everyone you and Samantha are emigrating to Australia to start a new life far away from the rat race. We'll take a bunch of photographs together down there and arrange for any mail sent to you in Australia to be forwarded here for you to reply to. That's it, I think. Or have I forgotten something?"

"There's another thing you're supposed to tell my parents."

"Oh, of course. I'm to let your mother know that her aunt Edith has returned to the US and is now living here at Shady Pines so that they'll come and visit you."

"Good. Well that's everything. Looks like I'm going to have to do a lot of reading up on Australia if we're going to pull this off."

"Yes, you are."

Endora studied him for a moment, this woman who had been her son-in-law, then came to a decision.

"I can remove your memories of your time with Samantha," she said quietly, "if it would make all this easier for you."

"Don't you dare! Samantha was the love of my life. I'll cherish our time together for the rest of my days."

"Yet you let her go."

"I had to. Truly loving someone means that their happiness is necessary for your happiness. Seeing Sam so unhappy was almost physically painful for me. I had to let her go. I needed her to be happy, which meant there was no other choice. Knowing that she's out there somewhere, and that she's happy now...that means the world to me, truly it does. I did the right thing for her."

Endora stared at him thoughtfully.

"I may have misjudged you, Darrin Stephens," she said. "You're a better man than I ever realized you were."

"How about that? You finally learned my real name just as I've stopped using it."

"I've always known it," she said, "and you've always known that I did."

"Yeah, I always have," he chuckled. "And you were right about gender pronouns. I'm a woman, which means I have to get used to being referred to as 'she' now."

"So what will you do next?"

"I always intended to write a novel one day, well now I am. It will be based on my time with Sam. I'm going to call it 'I Married a Witch'..."

- 10 -

In the study of his Manhattan penthouse, Andrew Fortnum took out a bottle of thirty year old malt whisky and poured himself a glass. He held it under his nose for a second or two, savouring its smoky aroma, then wandered across to the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over Central Park, sipping it as he went. It was night now, but New York was a twenty-four hour city so light shone out from almost every building. Standing there, admiring the view, he felt blessed, and he found himself thinking back on all that he had done last year to arrive at this happy state.

Unlike his fellow witches and warlocks, Andrew had always been fascinated by stage magicians. As possessors of real magic his people had no use for those they saw as frauds and mountebanks pulling wool over the eyes of gullible mortals, and dismissed them as mere showmen. For his part Andrew appreciated their skill and their dedication to their craft. At first, it had been the ingenuity of the illusionists and the sleight-of-hand of the card sharps that had attracted his interest, but in more recent years he had become increasingly drawn to those who used the power of suggestion and psychological manipulation as the basis of their acts. The idea of being able to get someone to do things without them realising their choices were not their own both fascinated and excited him. Here was magic without magic, something genuinely powerful that mortals had developed on their own. If you tried using magic to make a witch or warlock do something they would know, but this was something they would be just as susceptible to as any mortal. Realising this he had studied under the practitioners of these techniques, learning everything they knew. Non-magicians were also developing these techniques and he consulted with them, too. Among themselves this latter group had started referring to this stuff as neuro-lingustic programming.

Andrew had used actual magic on the mortals, of course, first to cause the woman to move to Morning Glory Circle, and then to have the man follow her in a jealous rage. He had programmed them to act in such a way, and to say exactly the right words and phrases, that would get Samantha to react as she had. Though she had no way of knowing it, she was playing her role in a drama that went precisely the way Andrew had designed it to. The trickiest part of the whole thing had been getting her to turn Darrin into an old woman.

Andrew sipped his Scotch, remembering what a knotty problem that had seemed at first.

Seeing her husband as an old person would give Samantha a view of what the future held and, Andrew hoped, would make her realise the mistake she had made in marrying a mortal. However, she must have realised going into the marriage that he would get old. She was such an essentially good natured person he could see her staying with Darrin even then. If he were male. Sam was a very passionate, very sexual witch. Which was why Darrin had to become an old woman rather than an old man. Ensuring that he would had required Andrew to involve himself in the drama he was scripting personally. But then he had already done so for many months in preparation for this.

Soon after hearing of Samantha's marriage to Darrin, Andrew had started taking the forms of various individuals who flitted in and out of the couples' lives, learning all he could about the mortal and figuring out how best to win Samantha back.

Andrew liked acquiring knowledge, and loved solving puzzles. It was that latter skill that had enabled him, after much study of Dr Bombay's notes on his late wife's condition and much experimentation on small animals, to unlock the secret of how to reset someone's base form and to then lock that change in place. This, he knew, would be the key to everything.

Andrew opened a drawer in his desk and lifted out the brown cap and overalls he had worn after transforming himself into Pleasure O'Riley's moving man. Beneath them lay a reproduction of a famous painting. He picked this up and smiled. As the moving man he had deliberately dropped Pleasure's chest of drawers knowing the commotion would bring Darrin Stephens running. When they were both holding that piece of furniture he had surreptitiously placed a spell on him, one designed to interact with Samantha's own later spell. She had followed Darrin out, of course, which was where the reproduction came in. He had placed it there prominently among Pleasure's possessions where she couldn't fail to see it - Whistler's Mother. With the image now firmly planted in Samantha's subconscious he knew it was the one that would influence her at the appropriate moment.

They say that all's fair in love and war, and Andrew had loved Samantha since the moment they first met. He held no ill will towards Darrin Stephens, but in marrying such a mayfly creature as a mortal man Samantha had temporarily lost her mind. What he had done was for the best, not only for himself but for her, too. He had saved her from a situation that could only ever have ended in heartbreak.

"Are you coming back to bed, darling?"

He turned and there was Samantha leaning against the doorframe, smiling seductively and looking magnificent in her black lingerie and five inch heels.

"In a minute, honey," he replied. "There's something I need to finish here first."

"Okay, but don't be too long."

"I won't," he promised, as she turned and went back to their bedroom.

Andrew made a mystic pass over the painting and clothing, all of which then instantly vanished, consigned to oblivion. This done, he closed the drawer and headed to the bedroom to rejoin his beautiful wife.

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The End

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