by Jill Nojack
"If I'm making you a portable unlock, I'll need it. But that won't present a problem." Gillian replies. "Lettie's been hostile to me since I cured her of one of those unmentionable problems that sometimes happens. When we were much younger, she didn't have the knowledge to manage it on her own." She shrugs. "You know how some people are when you help them out with an upsetting situation. They can't face you, so they make up a reason not to have to."
Then she reaches into her huge macrame handbag and pulls out a large jar labeled "Goldenseal" in antique lettering.
"When did you?" I run the events in the shop through my head again. No, there's no way she grabbed it when I wasn't looking. I was always looking.
"You think Natalie's the only one in town with a gift for finding things in her purse?"
I shake my head. "I had my eyes on you the whole time."
"Did you? Because I'm sure you must have blinked."
"Okay. It's not like I think you couldn't manage it. It's just I would have expected that from Nat. But you?"
"There's a fair payment for this jar sitting exactly where it was hidden behind the counter. So don't go accusing me of being a budding Natalie Taylor. Extreme situations call for extreme measures."
She's got that right. And, considering what's at stake, I'm more than glad she's willing to play free and loose with her moral guidance system.
***
After Gillian unwards Cassie's room, I put myself down for a nap and the girls head for the kitchen—I need it if I'm going to be alert when prowling around tonight.
What feels like only minutes later, I wake fuzzy-headed— although not literally, not furry-headed—I haven't yet taken up shifting in my sleep—to Gillian standing over me with a perfume atomizer full of a clear, amber liquid. Cassie is standing next to her. Our eyes meet for a long moment before hers slide away.
Gilly says, "You'll need to try this before you use it during this caper. I've locked the front door for you. It worked for me, but since I can pretty much open my own door just by thinking about it, you need to see if it works for you as well."
I yawn and sit up, then reach out for the bottle. She grabs the afghan I'd spent the last few hours under and folds it into a rectangle which she lays across the back of the couch and straightens to perfection. That's Gillian, tidying while the world ends. Based on the spicy smell coming from the kitchen, she's been baking something other than liquid unlock, too.
At the front door, I check to make sure it's currently secured, then spray it with the fine mist from the atomizer and it glows briefly but nothing appears to happen. Despite it's sunny color, the mist smells like old machine oil. I look over my shoulder to Gilly. "Is there anything I need to say?"
"A 'thank you' wouldn't go amiss."
I lift one corner of my mouth in a wry half-smile and try the door. It's unlocked now. The stuff works like a champ.
I turn to give her a big hug. "Thank you. Sorry if I don't say that enough."
"No, I'm sorry I'm being so testy. I thought I understood what you went through when Anat possessed Cassie last summer, but I'd forgotten what it feels like to worry you're going to lose someone you love. I'd boxed all that up after I lost Martin. I never thought I'd be feeling that today for Robert. It's an awful, aching, angry pain…so you better find the answer to all of this and find it soon."
I tighten my hug at first, hold her in position too long, maybe, wanting to show her that I understand how important it is for us to get Robert back soon. But then I see Cassie looking at us, her blue eyes appraising. I let go. I let go fast. I don't want her to interpret my support of my friend the wrong way. Things are dicey enough between us right now as it is.
"I say it's time for us to get at it, then." I head for the mudroom to grab the invisibility suit and reach out to squeeze Cass's hand on the way, but she pulls it out of reach. There it is again, that grasping twitch around my heart. I don't really think she's worried about me and Gillian, but she might be upset because I left her in the dark about Anat.
I have to stay focused. Cassie will come around once the threat is gone. I know she will. I walk back to Gillian with the suit in hand. "You ready to be my getaway driver again?"
"It would be my pleasure."
I step into the coveralls by feel as Cassie and Gillian go upstairs to lock her up tight upstairs again. Soon, I'm all gone.
We're already on the way to City Hall before I remember I've still got the phone we'd bought for Cassie in the back pocket of my jeans.
Giles City Hall is buttoned up for the night. Only the exterior accent lights and intermittent lights in the downstairs burn, going off in one room and then coming on in the next as someone moves around the building. That's got to be the janitor. I watch for a while, and when the light travels to Robert's chambers then goes out again, I head to the back entry and mist the lock.
Bingo. I'm in.
I sneak down the hall not because I can be seen but because I can be heard. I don't need innocent bystanders gumming up the works tonight. It's terrible to admit, but I always enjoyed this part of being Eunice's familiar—it feels just like playing spy did when I was a kid. But that was a game, and what I'm up against now is very real. And very dangerous.
I apply more mist and the lock on Robert's door opens. Another spritz and I'm into the cabinet where I watched him store his rolled up plans. Gillian thought they might be warded or charmed. I hold the apophyllite crystal she gave me in front of the one last lock. It doesn't glow. There's no magic surrounding it. One final spritz and I'm in. That sure is sloppy on Robert's part. He would never get caught with his wards down like that if he was fully himself. Lucky for me that the evil Robert isn't on the ball to the same extent as his moral twin.
I grab the paper and unroll it. It's an artist's drawing of the downtown area where the Witching Faire will take place. It centers on the small downtown park and gazebo and pictures the shops and restaurants of downtown laid out around it. On each of the streets the locations of stands and stages are carefully marked out with information about what each one sells or is used for.
Clustered around the area where the streets will be closed off for the event, there are a series of large asterisks marked in red with letters and symbols next to them. It's done in Robert's chicken-scratch. He really should have been a doctor. But hopefully Gillian can make something of it.
Even though it's difficult to read, I can make out that one of the letters is a C crossed out and replaced with a question mark. For Cassie, maybe? Too bad we ruined whatever Anat had planned for her.
I smile to myself when I think of Cassie waiting safely at Gillian's.
Above the gazebo, there's a large symbol drawn in a circle, also in red. I haven't got a clue on that. It just looks like a scribble. But maybe the letters represent the witches Anat has under her control? This one could be an R for Robert. And this one? Could be a Z for Zelda. She has one of the pups.
I need to get a good image of this for Gillian. I've gotten better at taking pictures with this blasted traveling phone, tiny and ridiculous as it is—I can even usually manage not to take a picture of my own hand blocking the lens every other try—but I don't think it will give the detail we need.
I bet they've got one of those fancy electronic mimeographs around. What do they call them these days? A copy machine. Cassie has one hooked up to her computer, but she went to a shop to get the shop flyers copied in bulk. Pretty amazing that you could get them immediately. They used to take days at the printer. She told me that kind of thing is no big deal anymore and I need to "get out of the stone age". Yeah, like the sixties—the most vibrant time period of all time periods—had any resemblance to the stone age. But still, she says any decent-sized business office has their own machine for just that kind of thing. There has to be one around here somewhere.
But how am I going to get this long roll of paper down the hall without being noticed? If I stick it inside my coveralls to make it invisible, too, I risk wrinkling it and having Robert know some
one has messed with it.
If I carry it down the hall out in plain sight, I risk the janitor freaking out over floating documents and calling someone to investigate. Or, at the very least, mentioning the strange sight to someone who'll tell Robert. Can't have that, either.
I roll up the plans and leave them on the desk, then take off without them to find the copy machine. Less chance of drawing attention that way.
I manage to find myself in a large room with what I'm looking for, although I'll never sort out how to use it with the only light coming from the snack machines. I'm going to have to wait out the janitor and come back with it when I can turn the lights on.
I go looking, and she's still puttering around through the offices, dumping a trash can here, taking a swipe with a rag at a windowsill there. She doesn't give it much more than a lick and a promise, and when she's done I follow her down to the basement where she takes the band out of her long, dirty-blond ponytail so that her thin hair falls over her shoulders, and then she sits on a folding chair, and puts her feet up on a handy box of cleaning supplies. She's got those tiny headphones they make these days stuck in her ears, and her eyes are glued to her phone screen as she pokes and prods at it.
This is my chance. She's on break or packing it in for the night. Either way, I scramble for Robert's chambers and the waiting plans.
The small room where the copy machine sits is at the building's center, but it still has windows to the hall that could give me away if I turn on the light.
In the dark like this, the infernal machine stymies me. Using a mimeo was simple—type your document up on a special sheet of paper, affix it to the wheel, and give it a crank until you have all the copies you need. I could do that in the dark.
Of course, I bet the monks all complained about having to learn to set type when the printing press came around. I was damned cool in my day: now I fear I really am the Neanderthal Cassie says I am.
I lift the lid and set the upper left quadrant of the plans on top of the glass face of the machine. That's how Cassie's scanner works, so I've probably done that right.
The buttons are lit. At least there's that. But it's too dark to tell what's written on them. And there's so blasted many of them. I hit one and it produces a beep.
Blast! It sounds like an airhorn in the silence. I go to the hallway and poke my invisible head out. But it's clear both ways.
I go back to the machine. There's more beeping, a flash of light around the plans that nearly blinds me—and a piece of paper—well, okay ten pieces of paper with identical copies burned onto them—spits out into a tray.
Ha! I just figured out how to get a copy out of this blasted machine! I'd like to see a Neanderthal manage that.
I hold up the image of the upper fourth of the map and it looks pretty good where there aren't spots in my vision. I flip the map around then, copying each corner as I go, until I've got the whole shebang. Neanderthal me even figured out what the lid was for this time. I fold the copies, unzip to my waist, and stow them inside my suit. All that's left is to get the set of plans back where they belong.
As I'm zipping the suit back up, the light changes in the hallway.
I freeze, halfway zipped, afraid to make a sound. All that's left is to get the rolled-up map back where Robert put it and let myself out with a spritz. I finish zipping in slow motion, keeping it as soundless as possible. Then, I poke my head out into the hall. The light is coming from the room next door. I sneak down the hall past it.
The janitor is bent over a garbage can when I dart across the doorway with my floating plans.
Once the plans are stowed again, I'm home free. I move more easily when I don't have to worry about creasing them or getting caught with them. I salute the cleaner when we walk past each other in the hall as I head to the front door.
***
Gillian's head is bobbing up and down over the wheel when I get back to the car as she starts to doze, then pulls herself awake. I peel off my suit in the darkness of the unlit alley she'd parked in and tap on the passenger side window to get her attention. She wakes with a start mid-bob, but she quickly orients herself and leans across the seat to unlock the door for me.
Her eyes move to the papers I stow on the dashboard. I stuff the invisibility suit into its waiting bag as she asks, "Is that it?"
"A copy. Hopefully, Robert won't be able to tell we've had a look at it. But I still have no idea what Anat's planning based on that map. Maybe you and Cassie will have better luck."
"I'm sure we will. Hopefully, it won't take all night for us to ferret out an answer. I haven't felt this exhausted since our last run-in with our dear friend Anat. I'm glad of the break between battles. I don't think I could have kept this up, going full tilt like this all the time." She yawns. "I have to admit, it's exciting, though." As she puts the car into reverse and starts backing out of the spot between two sets of dumpsters, she grins. "I guess I can't complain. How many women are still having adventures once they hit wrinklies stage?"
I shake my head. "No more adventures for me, thanks. When this is over, I want a quiet life with my beautiful wife and a couple of beautiful kids. I'll run my friendly local diner in what I hope turns back into a quaint, quiet town where nothing much ever happens, and I'll get fat and lazy in my old age." I pat my stomach to emphasize my point.
"In between Cat's hunting expeditions in Corey Woods, of course."
I see her point. But a guy can dream.
I sealed the door from the inside and Gillian sealed it from the outside, so what could get to me, right? I'm not super thrilled that they keep leaving me behind while they work on figuring out what Anat's up to, but I mean, there's a window, my room here is on the second floor, and I watched Gillian standing underneath it, giving it some of her special-protection sauce before she went each time.
I'll be fine.
For real.
Okay, maybe I'll be bored: I should have made sure there was a TV in the room. Or something to read other than the local copy-shop-bound edition of The Young Witch's Guide to Auras that I grabbed off the bookshelf. Talk about making the supernatural seem tedious. It wasn't bad being stuck in here at bed time.
Okay, a nap? Maybe a nap? No, not until those guys get back. Auras it is.
Oh man, auras are boring. I drop the book on the floor and stare at the ceiling. Yep. Nothing much going on up there.
I'm glad I have my own room despite the lack of entertainment, but when I think how Tom looked when I told Gillian I didn't want to share…well, he crumpled up like I'd hit him in the stomach or something. There's that place where if you get hit there, you can't breathe for a while and you think you're going to suffocate until your lungs start functioning again. That place and that kind of hit. He crumpled forward a little, and he looked like he was in pain.
I felt sorry for him. But I still flash to that picture I have of him and Gillian trying to suck each other's tongues out. I mean, I need some time to process that it didn't really happen. Right? It seemed so real. It's still hard to believe that a bunch of cute little puppies arranged themselves around town just to put on a show for me.
The problem is, that, just like me and Dan, those two are each other's first loves. He's never going to forget her, no matter how old she's gotten. I don't think he even cares about that—I bet he still sees her as the girl he married a g-zillion years ago. I know he does. He doesn't see her as a white-haired granny lady.
And I guess that's good. If he and I do end up together, he'll see me that way when we're old, too.
If he gets old, I mean. If Cat doesn't run up against a raccoon with an attitude or not see a car coming when he's crossing the street. Because he's only got the one life left now. He gave up number eight for me, to save me from Anat. Which is okay, because one life is kind of the normal number. Better than none, at least.
Anyway, I've got to get over this icky, stuck visual of Tom and Gillian together. I want to. My brain knows it isn't true, but my heart…
> There's a noise outside and my wary heart skips a beat, revving on adrenalin at the sound. It's a squeaky little bark. A Blackie kind of bark. I don't want to look, but I have to.
I feel weighed down as I move to the window and look out to the front yard. Blackie is there, his pink tongue lolling out the left side of his mouth as he stares up at the window. His tail wags furiously when our eyes meet.
He's come for me.
And he's not alone. He's brought friends. Zelda and her daughter Deborah are with him, accompanied by a pup of their own, whose tail is also pumping away now, just as happy to see me.
I'm everyone's favorite: if Zelda and Deborah started wagging their behinds to the doggy rhythm, I wouldn't be surprised. It's like they're one unit, sharing one thought. They all stare up at me with the same vacant look in their eyes.
Looking back down at them, it's kind of calming, you know? Sweet of them to come to visit…
OMIGOD!
I snap out of it and tear myself away from the window. I hope Gillian warded the door to keep me from opening it, because that was my next thought—I was going to open the door and go out to meet them. I hope she remembered this time. As long as she doesn't die or something, she can always let me out.
Why am I thinking about Gillian dying? And why doesn't it bother me to think about it? That wouldn't be right even if she was grinding all over Tom right now. And, ew…I am trying not to think these things, so why am I thinking these things?
My little Blackie is so cute, you know? And I really want to go down and scratch behind his ears and maybe throw a stick for him to chase. Who cares about Tom and Gillian? They can have each other. I turn the knob, but the door stays shut tight.
OMIGOD!
I snap out of it and back away from the door. My heart pounds. Thank the Goddess that Gillian thought to keep me safe from myself. I cover my ears to drown out the high-pitched yapping from outside and try to think. What can I do?
