The corpse that had broken into his house the night before made his bathroom smell most unpleasant. For some reason, it had just stood in there, clutching the shower curtain with its grimy fingers. Morris heard it soon after his alarm went off and the odor followed quickly on the heels of realization that he'd called another dead body up unintentionally. It was time to do something about it. Before she left, his mother had told his grandpa that he would need to find a witch to teach him how to control his power, but Morris had never been interested in doing so. But everyone had their breaking point, and Morris had hit his own. So he would start the search for a witch in the most logical place, one of the small occult shops in Coldwater. He'd never been sure if it was a tourist trap, or authentic and as he walked inside, he looked around with a skeptical expression on his face.

The occult shop was small, but clean and tidy. If there was one thing that Merrin Michaels couldn't stand it was disorder. Especially in her shop. It was a slow day, though most of her days were slow. The majority of her money was made through her website. Witches from all over the country kept in contact with her and ordered their supplies from her because she had a good reputation and took care of her clients. The foot traffic in the shop was typically teenagers or people just looking to fool around and she usually sold them candles and random other little things, but never anything bit. When Morris came in she was sitting behind the counter, writing in her spell book. She was in the middle of putting a spell together that would essentially give the spell caster an amplified charge of power for their next big move. Lifting her head up, she glanced over at him and lifted her hand to balance her head on it. "Can I help you?"

Morris glanced down at his hands. He still had a smear of grave dirt on them from shuffling the body out his front door and back to the graveyard. At least he'd been able to find the hole the creature had left and put it back where it came from. Sometimes, there was no pile of freshly tilled earth in the local cemetery and Morris was forced to dig a new grave somewhere else. It was awkward to say the least and time consuming. "I'm--" he didn't know what he was looking for or if she could help him. "Actually I don't know."

The smell of the grave dirt was subtle, but distinct. Just like the energy that was coming off of him in waves and she just smiled a little bit. "You're here because you need my help. Why don't you go on into the back room and wash your hands and then come back down out here and I'll make you a cup of tea. It'll be good for your nerves." Merrin slid off of the stool and she closed the spell book that she was writing in to tuck it beneath the counter. "Go on now, don't keep me waiting."

Were all witches like that? He could vaguely remember a couple visits from his mother when he was and then years old. She'd had that same all-knowing charm about her. Morris wasn't sure if he liked that or not and he frowned with a mild bout of confusion. "My nerves? I don't think I have nerves, lady. Do you have coffee?" Because that was a real drink, not pansy tea. He looked down at his hands again, realizing how dirty they were and he turned to follow her direction into the back room.

"No. You don't need anything else winding you up. But I have a little bit of brandy if you want it in your tea." She let him go off and she pushed the curtain back behind the counter so that she could get her kettle going. There were all sorts of teas all over the counter and she set to work preparing the leaves so that she could brew something that would settle him.

By the time he was done washing, he could smell the herby steam bubbling up into the air. He was half surprised that the damn kettle wasn't some sort of cauldron. Maybe he'd made a mistake, because this was exactly the sort of thing he'd wanted to avoid. This was a foray directly into his past and the vague memories he had from a culture his grandfather had tried to keep him from. "More brandy than tea would be nice. How did you know I needed your help and not some creepy black candles?"

"Well I could always give you some creepy black candles, but those are six ninety five apiece and if you want to waste your money on something that won't be of any service to you, then I think you can go right ahead and buy some." She poured the tea into two mugs and then topped them both off with liberal amounts of brandy. Coming from behind the curtain she held his mug out for him and took a sip of her own. "If you'd like me to help you control your power then I would be more than willing to show you how."

He raised one of his shoulders so that he could take a brief sniff. No, he didn't smell like the dead, and he was sure someone couldn't tell grave dirt from just looking at it. Maybe she didn't know exactly what power she was talking about, or maybe she'd discerned it from other means. The damn witch thing, no doubt. He took the mug and looked down into it, expecting to see newt eyes or something. He had a very muddled view of witches, what they were and what they did. "Why would you do that?"

"Because from the grave dirt you just washed down the sink of my bathroom, to the dark energy coming off of you, I am guessing that you just raised something. Was it an animal? Usually when necromancers are young they start with small things, like, dogs and cats. Though you aren't all that young anymore so it could have been a person. Were you sleeping? Were you dreaming?"

Morris pursed his lips and then drank his tea in one big anxious gulp. Talking about it wasn't his favorite thing to do, though he didn't know what he'd expected. He'd hoped that she could just flip a switch and turn it all off. "The accidents only happen when I'm asleep. It started with a little girl at the foot of my bed." Morris had bypassed the smaller stuff. If he'd started training much earlier, he could have been an extremely powerful necromancy. Now his power was all tangled up in discomfort and hiding.

"A little girl?" Her eyebrows raised. "You are incredibly closed off. What's your name? My name is Merrin. I think that perhaps you had better make time for me at least once a week, if not more. You have a lot of work to catch up on as far as learning how to control yourself. You wouldn't want to go raising something that you can't put back, now would you?"

That hadn't happened to him yet. He hadn't even known it was possible and at the mention of it, Morris's eyes widened a little. The very idea was terrifying, and yet he didn't freak out. The warm tea in his belly was making him breathe easier. "I'm Morris," he answered and then rubbed his hand over his forehead. "How much is this going to cost?"

"Do you have a job Morris?" She took another sip of her tea and then put the mug down on the table before she went over to the large, full bookshelf on the side of the room. She skimmed the books while waiting for an answer, looking over all of the titles until she found the one that she was looking for.

"What, is your fee on a sliding scale or something? How often do you do this?" Morris hardly ever asked so many questions, but Merrin's very existence was raising a lot for him. "I'm an EMT with the county. I just--want to be sure it's a matter of cash and not a matter of my first born child, or something."

"Oh you haven't had a child yet?" Merrin looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow as if she was already considering it. "I really hate new born child deals. They are better if they are girls but if you have a girl what good is that to me?" She was teasing him, if only because he was being sort of a dick, so she was going to be one right back. "No, I was going to say if you dodn't have a job then it would cost you running my errands and keeping my shop clean."

Morris didn't like the sound of 'errands,' but he was kind of desperate. "I work long shifts and have four days off. I could do your errands then," he offered. "And keep the shop clean." He was positive that he was getting himself into something horrible, but she didn't seem like anything too nefarious.

"All right, that's fair enough." Bringing the book over to him she passed it across the counter to him. "It's very old. Don't lose it, or ruin it. If you do that I will have to seriously hurt you because it's the only one I have. But read this, and then we'll get started. When is your next day off?"

"Day after tomorrow," he said as he stared down at the book she'd given him. He'd been all right at academics in school, but miserable at the social aspects. "Have you done this before?" As if he had any right to be picky about her credentials in this field.

"Nope." Merrin smiled cheerfully and took another sip of her tea. "But read that, all of it, and then come back on your day off and we'll talk about what all of it means. Controlling your powers isn't really going to be something that is easy but I'll do my best to give you all the help that I can."

Morris decided then and there that she wanted something more out of this than just a clean shop and an errand boy. No one took on a task like this one for something so simple in return. He didn't trust her kind as far as he could throw them. But he would cross that bridge when he came to it. "All right. Then that's what I'll do."

"See you the day after tomorrow then." She settled back onto her stool and she took out notebook from under her counter to keep on writing and working on the spell.