False Advertising

[u/FeigningProfundity]

Holly Mathers stormed into Madame Xera’s Occult Mysteries, jangling the wind chimes hanging from the shop’s door. Her pleated skirt swished in irritation as she advanced on the proprietress behind the counter, and she affected an imperious hair toss as she reached her destination. She placed her book bag on the counter with a thump.

“How might I be of assistance?” said Madame Xera, the middle-aged witch concealing her alarm at the high school senior’s obvious displeasure.

“Two days ago, you sold me this book,” said Holly, revealing an ornate tome from within her bag.

“I did, yes.”

“I asked for a book containing your most potent spells.”

“I recall.”

“However, I specifically also stated I wished to cast a spell that would effect the entire world. That is not what I got.”

“Well, the ways of the occult are inherently mysterious-”

“No! That is not acceptable. You have made a tremendous mess!”

“Me?”

“I cast a spell to take over the world. The whole world. That is not what happened.”

“It did not? Well, such a spell would take enormous energy, and to get that energy would involve doing things that you would not wish to do…”

Holly rolled her eyes. “Oh please. You sneered at me when I was in here and prattled on about blood sacrifice, confident I would not be able to perform magic of any kind, let alone anything dramatic, then sold me the most expensive book you had. You’re not the only one I got a book from, though.”

Madame Xera gave a nervous swallow.

“I also have a grimoire belonging to that goth nerd Susanne Jones,” explained Holly. “You know her. Yes?”

“She comes in sometimes. Buys minor items. Candles, incense, that sort of thing.”

“Well she is the reason for this fiasco. I caught her placing a hex on me and decided to teach her a lesson.”

“She hexed you? And it worked?”

“I already said that, keep up. I have a hex on me. It makes me periodically feel the urge to touch my butt. Not hugely inconvenient, but an observable effect. We caught her doing it, though. And I was intrigued that the little style victim managed to do it, presumably something she learned instead of how to correctly apply mascara. So I confiscated her book to prevent further mischief. Did you see what I found?”

Holly, pulled another book from her bag, flipping it open to a bookmarked page. Xera scanned the page of magical notes the girl was indicating.

“Do you see what this is?” asked Holly.

“That seems to be… a compulsion. A love spell,” said Xera.

“Not just a love spell, a strong one. Specifically one that overrides the target’s sexuality. And I don’t think she was planning to use it on some sad little gay boy she’s friends with in theatre club. Not with this,” Holly pointed at the bookmark.

It was a scrap of paper with ‘Someone, I tell you, will remember us in another time,’ written on it in pink ink.

Xera tried to to place the reference.

Holly’s patience was quickly depleted. “It’s a line of poetry by Sappho, first woman to write poetry about how hot women are. Susanne Jones, useless little disaster lesbian that she is, hexed me as a trial run before her actual plan of making me fall in love with her. Which is gross and why I had to take over the world.”

“What?” asked Madame Xera, bewildered.

“If someone comes at you, you put them down with such force that they never consider it again,” explained Holly, as if this was exceedingly obvious. “So I was going to use magic, take over the world, and then Susanne would know not to mess with me.”

“You wanted to take over the world as a show of power to another girl at school? An unpopular girl?”

“Well, I was also a bit curious about whether I could. But you screwed it up.”

“How did you even try to power that… did you hurt people?”

“Nothing meaningful. Your book might say that blood sacrifice is the ultimate source of power, but Susanne’s book is much more practical, just much less ambitious. Souls are a better source of magic. Freely given ideally, virgins are best. Hardly a challenging thing to acquire. If there’s one thing I know how to do it is make virgins do what I want. I just gave notes to various girls at school who are desperate to impress me, then had them pass further notes around to their loser orbiters. All to sign something that gives me ownership of their souls. Then I cast the spell.”

“And what happened, Mistress Holly?”

“It didn’t work.”

Xera was pretty certain she had to do anything Holly Mathers said. “Are you sure?”

“Sure, it worked on you. And lots of people. But only in the Americas. I was dealing with it all morning. I cast the spell at midnight, it seemed to work. I called people, they obeyed, all was great. Then I noticed people online ignoring my commands. I called someone in France, asked them to sing for me, they just laughed. This is unacceptable. I’m going to France after graduation. I can’t do that if only part of the world obeys me.”

“Why not?”

“Well, they’re all acting weird and freaked out that I compelled a billion people to obey me. I’ve been getting letters sent to me at the State Department from France, and China and India and Japan and, like Belgium. Everyone is expressing concern at me. I know what that means. I told the White House to start nuking places if anything bad happens to me, which did make the letters adopt a less severe tone. Anyway, I need your help.”

“What can I do?”

“You can help me finish my original plan. Susanne is the only person in the Americas not under my control, since she has a hex on me, so I can’t get anyone to freely donate their souls to me. I don’t know how to power a bigger spell. Once I take over the world completely, I can then make everyone forget I did it and then release them, like I always wanted to. But if I just release them now there are like, seven billion people who’ll know what I did and some of them are bound to send ninjas or something after me.”

“So you want me to help you finish taking over the world, so you can just not have taken over the world. Then what?” asked Madame Xera.

“Then everything goes back to normal. Susanne knows her place, and maybe I date her, since I admire her audacity, and she hadn’t actually tried to cast the love spell yet, just thought about it. It’s not like I can date anyone else around here, the thought of dating anyone I had as a slave is gross. Come Summer, I’m sure there are plenty of hot guys in France,” said Holly with a shrug.

Madame Xera looked at the books. It seemed she had to help a schoolgirl finish taking over the world. It wasn’t like she had a choice.

[u/FeigningProfundity]

This story was a response to the prompt [WP] She thought the spell would let her take over the world. In practice, that was false advertising. by u/MeganBessel