by Mara Webb
“Will he be turned into a familiar?” Quin had jumped up onto the table, he looked bothered by something. I was confused.
“Probably, there isn’t anything they can do that is much worse short of splitting his body up into pieces and burying them at sea,” Ryan chuckled a little then looked at Quin, “no offense of course.” My confusion grew. Quin noticed it.
“It is a punishment to be turned into a familiar, a consequence of doing something wrong, committing a crime. An eternal prison,” he explained, almost in a whisper. “Not to me though of course, I love it!”
He yelled before jumping down and wandering out of the room. Quin was a criminal? What? Turning to the group I saw four sympathetic smiling faces staring at me, Edith’s was the widest smile of all.
“He isn’t a murderer if that’s what you’re thinking Nora,” Jennifer explained. “Quin! Come back, you haven’t told Nora how you became a familiar? You never stop talking, how did you miss that out?” Quin looked surprised then realized that he had in fact never brought up how he became a talking cat, and I hadn't asked.
“Oh. I volunteered!” he said with pride. “Not very common apparently, but I was a wizard that wasn’t sure what to do after college, I trained to be a teacher, but I kept getting so tired. All the time I was awake I was just fantasizing about the next nap, curling up in a warm sunbeam on a bed or a chair and just dreaming the day away.”
At this, he lay down and changed his position from curled up, to stretched out, to lay on his back, to face down on the rug, demonstrating all the ways he likes to fall asleep.
“So, I volunteered to be a familiar! It can’t get any better than this. I have some magic; I can still be helpful as a teacher and I can sleep as much as I like, and I don’t get judged for it!”
My forehead crinkled trying to understand what he was trying to tell me.
“Quin you’ve been helpful,” I said, “but I think calling yourself a ‘teacher’ might be a bit of a stretch.”
“Not you! I help out on the familiar training program. Like Ryan said, usually it is a punishment to be turned into a familiar, so people have been in human form right up until suddenly BAM, you’re a cat. So, I help out teaching cat stuff, you know, knocking small objects off horizontal surfaces and chasing little red laser dots. Then I lead the course on how to be a helpful familiar. Speaking of, a fresh class of cadets is arriving tomorrow actually. They’re here at ten.” He paused. “Was it ten, or eleven?” He looked up at me questioningly.
“Arriving where Quin? What cadets?”
“Oh no way, did I not tell you that either? Some regular kittens fell asleep on a wand by accident and transformed themselves into familiars, I said I would take them in and help raise them, teaching them at the same time. I think there are five or six. Aren’t you excited? KITTENS NORA! I always wanted kids.” His excitement was shining. I loved this weird little animal.
“Ok then, some beers tonight, kittens in the morning!” I went and grabbed drinks from the fridge for all of us, pouring a little of mine into a saucer for Quin, we drank and laughed into the small hours.
15
Ryan called me first thing in the morning, the sound of my cell buzzing on the nightstand woke me. The kittens had been here for a week now and their favorite time to play was after the sun had set. After about forty minutes of running they would all fall asleep in a fuzzy pile, then the heap of cat fluff would start to twitch and stretch, and they would be off again.
Both Quin and I were exhausted.
“Has Ben been charged with murder? What did the justice department decide to do?” I asked. I had fallen out of the loop on purpose, it felt too overwhelming. I had been interviewed the day after his arrest but wasn’t contacted again. I had asked Ryan to call, and he filled me in.
“Familiar, like we thought,” he said. “He is a sweet little tabby at the big familiar boot camp north of here. He will probably be getting training from Quin at some point in the next six months. That should be fun.”
“Quin’s already told me that Ben is going to be in charge of changing the kitty litter trays. He says there are hundreds of them. Ben is going to love it.”
Ryan laughed. Though things had looked shaky after I threw a murder accusation and a literal shot glass at him, we’d moved on from the small misunderstanding.
“He was pumped full of truth elixir and testified yesterday. He admitted to running you off the road, that he had taken a thread from my sweatshirt and used a cloning spell so you would think it was me in the car behind you. That gave him enough time to grab Quin. He had some pretty sinister things planned for your furry little friend; I won’t go into details. But just be grateful you got there when you did.”
I shuddered to think of anything happening to Quin. I watched as he lay on his side whipping his tail for the kittens to chase.
Ryan’s sister had insisted that he invited me to the Halloween ball. He was convinced that I wouldn’t want to attend a BBQ with a field full of strangers, but she fought my corner and I was glad she had. I was looking forward to meeting some more magical beings, I had heard a rumor that centaurs might attend. That rumor had come from Quin however, so I took it with a pinch of salt.
A ping sound from my laptop notified me of a new email.
My grade!
I clambered out of bed and rushed over to the desk. Quin and the council had helped me with Edith’s notable achievements for the family tree over the last few days. I had added her date of death and the cause, ‘murder by magic’ then submitted it to O.W.L. last night before I went to sleep.
With my trusty familiar sitting on the desk beside me, and kittens brushing up against my ankles, I opened up my computer and clicked on the new message in my inbox. My right hand was holding a book in front of my face.
Nothing happened.
I lowered the book to check the screen and as soon as I did, confetti fired straight into my face. Why does this have to happen every time? I noticed that this confetti was a little different. On each individual paper someone had typed ‘sorry that your aunt was murdered.’ I appreciated the sentiment, but the delivery was a bit off. Who would send condolences with a confetti cannon? Anyway, the email from O.W.L. told me I had passed, I couldn’t believe it. A smile spread across my face; the kittens were clapping their tiny feet together in applause. Quin insisted on a celebratory salmon breakfast for everyone.
At the bottom of the same message was details of the next assignment.
No rest for the wicked, eh?
Life was settling into a routine now and I was feeling content. I had a council meeting later this afternoon and I was covered in scratches from the kittens. Quin had tried to reason with them, but they were tiny baby cats, they weren’t going to do anything other than play for months yet. He was getting frustrated with their lack of progress, I showed him some videos online of kittens doing all sorts of ridiculous things and he felt a bit better that they were on the right track.
They had learned to climb the curtains and chase birds in the garden thanks to his tutorage, I was proud of them all. We shared parental responsibility as they were quite a handful.
To keep myself active I had started jogging recently, my endurance was already improving, and it felt good to focus my mind. I changed into running shorts and a light shirt and carefully stepped down the stairs. A game the kittens liked to play was ‘try to wriggle underneath feet when they are moving’ so it was a constant hazard to walk anywhere in the house now, stairs especially.
They were speaking, like any familiar, but it was the limited vocabulary you would expect from a tiny talking cat. Mostly ‘Milk!’, ‘Meat!’ and one of them who screamed ‘Eggs!’ at every mealtime but had never seen or eaten one. I organized breakfast for the seven cats I now lived with, laced up my sneakers and was out the door.
The first song on my playlist had just finished when I saw Officer Brent jogging towards me in his own workout gear. He slowed as he approached, removing his headphones
. I followed suit.
“Good morning! I didn’t know you were a runner, are you signed up for the Sucré Triathlon? I am thinking of giving it a go this year!” Sweat was glistening on his forehead. Now that all the craziness of learning my heritage and solving a murder had subsided, I was able to actually pay attention to what he was saying. Our every interaction so far had involved him demonstrating patience and kindness and I had been snappy and unfocused. He was smiling at me so attentively, I hadn’t responded.
“This is my fourth run in the last fifteen years! When is the event?”
“Ooh, at least six months from now?”
“Sure! I would have to get a bike and find a pool to practice but it could be fun. I am trying more things that take me out of my comfort zone now apparently.” I laughed.
Looking at him, truly seeing him standing in front of me, I was beginning to notice things I hadn’t seen before. He was in great shape, built like an athlete, and still grinning at me like a goof, so I took a shot. “Would you maybe want to train together? I could use the extra motivation and I don’t know where to ride around here, do you?” A smile showing all of his front teeth grew across his face. I think he was hoping I would bite the bullet and be the one to suggest it.
“Yeah, and I have a spare bike if you would like to borrow it! It will be a great way to explore the town, it’s a beautiful place, and I can get to know more about you. I only know the little bits I heard from your aunt. You are a mystery to me.” His joyful expression made it seem as though he was walking on air. “How about tomorrow morning? I could come by with the bikes at ten. I have the day off.”
“It’s a date.”
Now I was grinning too, we must have looked ridiculous just standing there silently smiling at each other. My eyes felt like they were sparkling. I bit my lower lip and slowly put my headphones back on with a, “See you tomorrow, I can’t wait!” and jogged away.
YES! So slick, don’t look back over your shoulder, play it cool. No DON’T. Too late, I looked back and he was still watching me. I hadn’t felt this giddy in years.
Once I emerged from the shower Quin started to grill me on all things Officer Brent. I almost wish I hadn’t told him about it, but it felt great to have a friend that was as excited about it as me, he didn’t mind if I wanted to talk about it all day, he welcomed an excuse to chat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fantasize about my date for too long, I had a council meeting shortly.
We needed to discuss a fifth member, how to recruit someone that would enable voting to happen without a tie and having someone to provide more magic to fight off any dark forces or giant invaders would be helpful too. Quin was weary from kitten rearing and was stalling my departure, I told him I wouldn’t be long and wished him luck.
The weird little building out of town didn’t fill me with nervous energy like it had the first few times I came here. I walked confidently to my robe on the hook and fastened the clasp in front of my neck, leaving the hood down. I took my seat and we began. Amber had more reports of witch hunter activity and we needed to decide what we were going to do about it.
The new robes she had wanted were out for delivery and apart from a loud, piercing shriek that had been heard echoing in the woods where our giant spider friend had run off to, it was business as usual really.
A month ago, I had been struggling to keep my car filled with gas, couldn’t afford groceries, was working dead-end jobs and wallowing in my post-separation misery. Now I had money, a home I loved, a cat that I would risk my life for, and magical powers that I was using to make the world a better place. I had a purpose, people that depended on me and a date with a sweet, handsome police officer when I woke up tomorrow.
The council would look out for me. With Edith dying on their watch they would never let that happen again to one of their own. The four of us pulled our hoods up over our heads and took each other’s hands as we stared at the bubbling cauldron between us. The flames beneath it turned a bright blue, then purple, then green.
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