This Strange Witchery

“I actually do. Which, again, is reason for me to want to pursue this job.”

“I suppose I can understand that. You need to see if the grass is greener. Trust me. It’s not.” She turned and stirred the pot. “Too bad for us paranormals. Not having you to have our backs.”

“Someone else will take up the reins.”

“How will that happen? How did you take up the reins?”

“Monsieur Jacques taught me after I moved to Paris. Well, uh...hmm...it’s not important.”

He hadn’t thought about passing along his knowledge to anyone? Mel felt sure he hadn’t thought through the whole idea of normal either. But who was she to overexplain something the man had to learn for himself?

“Did you get the heart cloaked?” Tor asked.

“Yep.”

He bent to study the container she’d set at the edge of the counter, cracking open the lid to peer inside. “It looks...like a real heart. Wasn’t it more glassy when you first showed it to me?”

“It was. And it’s not glowing as much either.” She seasoned the ingredients with pepper and her favorite smoked black sea salt. “But it doesn’t smell, so I think I’m okay.”

“That’s your determination of an efficacious cloaking?”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t it work for you?”

“Well—okay, I can agree with you on that one. Not like I know much about hearts left over from long-dead witches. What, exactly, is this spell you plan to invoke on the night of the full moon?”

“The full blood moon,” she said.

“Really? Ominous.”

“Right? There’s a lunar eclipse on the night of the full moon, which will make it appear reddish-orange. The blood moon portends the closing of struggles and new beginnings. Couldn’t be more perfect timing for such a spell, if you ask me.”

Placing the bamboo spoon across the top of the pot to keep the brew from boiling over, Mel turned her back to the stove to face Tor. The setting sun beamed through the front window in a cozy orange glow and backlit him in the most delicious manner. He looked less uptight this evening. More amiable. And she still wanted to run her fingers through his hair.

It was easy enough for her to reveal a few things to him. As a means to gaining his trust. Because he still wasn’t completely on board with her beyond this merely being a job she would pay him for.

“My mother needs protection,” she started, then cautioned herself from saying from a ghost. The man didn’t do ghosts? What did that mean, exactly? “And since she’s only recently died—again—my dad is busy getting her back up to speed with life, so I offered to do the spell and take that worry off his hands.”

Tor put up a palm to stop her. “So many questions.”

“You know my dad,” she offered. “Thoroughly Jones, dark witch, husband to a cat-shifting familiar.”

“Yes, and your mother is Star. And she’s recently died?”

“Fell from the top of my parents’ building. She was...” Couldn’t tell him Star had been spooked. “Doesn’t matter how it happened. Only that she didn’t land on her feet. That’s a myth about cats. Anyway. You know how it is with familiars?”

“I do. Mostly. I’m not sure about frogs.” He looked about the kitchen, but Bruce was nowhere in sight. “I do know that cat-shifters have nine lives. If they die, they come back to life the same age at which they died.”

“Exactly. But they never come back with memories of their former life.”

“Oh. That’s—I didn’t know that detail. Wow, that’s gotta be tough. For the familiar and for her family.”

“Tell me about it. In my lifetime, my mother has died four times. With each death, she forgets I’m her daughter. That she had two daughters, actually. She died after giving birth to me. Poor Dad had to take care of a newborn and a newly reborn wife who couldn’t remember him or that she’d had a baby. My sister’s birth was event free, thankfully. Mom made it through that one like a breeze.”

“You have a sister?”

“Had.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He splayed his hands before him. “Isn’t there a life history of some sort you could record to help get your mom up to speed?”

“Dad does keep a video journal for her. It helps a lot. But it’s never easy. Poor Mom.”

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