Psst! Can I tell you a secret? Midlife is a c-r-a-z-y ride. Not what I expected at all. But, I’m having a ton of fun in between the…you know…near death experiences and bladder-testing moments of complete terror. Curse, curse, swear! How did midlife get so out of control? All I wanted was to make my own mark on the world. Start my own business and celebrate the end of an uninspiring marriage. Instead, I have a bat in my belfry. Not a metaphor…a REAL bat. The woods in my back yard is full of something dark from my nightmares. I’ve got a mysterious and sexy neighbor who seems to appear out of nowhere and knows more about my life than he should. And my best friends? Yeah, they’re witches. What the..? My life has become a carnival and I’m sitting at the OhMyGoddessNo! spot on the most heart-stopping roller coaster. Things are getting hairier than my chin. And midlife is definitely not shaping up to be the calm and graceful phase I’d been expecting. But, I’ve got a good grip on my granny panties and I’m taking the ride. What could possibly go wrong?

’m discovering that glossing over that whole “epicenter of a magical vortex” thing when I took this Lares job was a mistake. Looking back, that now seems like important information. Whoever said midlife was a time for reflection and relaxation clearly wasn’t an ancient guardian deity. I’d just started to think I was getting a handle on this whole Lares thing, and then the earth decided to open up into a giant, fiery hole of evil nastiness. Talk about your hot flashes! Add in a deadly new ally, a magical weapon I’m pretty sure I’ll never get the hang of, and being forced to play “Where’s the Voodoo Queen” while trying to deal with everything else…well…let’s just say that crepey skin is probably the least of my worries.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that getting on the wrong side of a curse is a small thing. Even when you think you’ve got a handle on them, those suckers have a way of jumping up and chewing on your nose before flinging you into the pits of Hell. Have you ever heard of a Groundhog Day curse? Yeah, I hadn't either. Until somebody put one on a certain goth teenager, who means a lot to me. I'm determined to find the source of Wanda's curse and fix it. But the timetable for that becomes greatly accelerated when she goes missing, and I get a vision of her begging for help. Not good. The curse has just gone from inconvenient to deadly. Unfortunately, the path to saving Wanda is long, twisted, and fraught with challenges. Did I say challenges? Silly me. We only need to overcome an array of murderous sea monsters. A legendarily wicked crone. Corrupt, power-hungry witches and a cadre of deadly demons. Piece of cake, right? Sigh… I’ve only been on the job for a couple of months, and already I need a vacation.

One of the great things about midlife is having the experience and knowledge that comes from decades of navigating jerks and mansplainers. Unfortunately, I had nothing in my repertoire to help me deal with a true Trickster. From a strange array of glitches popping up around town, to an apocalyptic level of strange pregnancies, I found myself facing a foe unlike any I’d encountered as Lares of Rome. My new enemy had no impulse control. Zero common sense. And no sense of personal responsibility for anything he did. I know what you’re thinking…I just described a teenaged boy…but believe me, this guy was taking his flaws to new levels of bad. And his ultimate goal was to run me out of town and out of my guardian job. He probably didn’t realize it yet, but he was in for a curse, swear, curse of a battle. I wasn’t giving my people up that easily.

I'm trying to find my missing Council member, which might involve visiting the spectral plane. Something that I'm strangely not looking forward to. (sarc) The last thing I need is this...this mess. Achieving my full powers feels like mega-menopause, hot flashes and all. Unfortunately, these flashes can actually burn. Something’s changing. Something big. I’m finally achieving the last stage of my Lares power. I realize the transformation is hard. It’s painful and confusing. I know all of this because my advocate, the world’s crankiest moon hound and consummate know-it-all, was elated to inform me about it. What I didn’t know was that I’d be trying to save one of my council members in the middle of the whole mess. Unfortunately, this is all starting to remind me of my initiation into the Lares gig. I barely survived that transition. I’m not so sure I’m going to survive this one.

Live ho the wicked old witch…the wicked old witch…the wicked old witch. Live hale the wicked old witch…Ye’ll surely mourn her death. The last person anybody ever expected to get into trouble was the crone. I’d believed she was pretty much bomb proof. I mean, who in their right mind would go after a two-thousand-year-old witch who was also a magical historian? The problem was, I didn’t know what took her down. But something did. Whatever it was, it left her hovering on the razor edge of death. If I don’t kick it into gear and go after her attacker, the old witch’s present condition could become permanent. And then I’d have a grieving teen to deal with. As well as an extremely irritated magical horse.