By Familiar Means

by Delia James

  “But, Anna, dear!” murmured Grandma. “Opening your mind without proper preparation, you could let in all kinds of unwanted influences—”

  She didn’t get any further. Julia spoke softly, but the words went through me with more force than any shout ever could. “You did this after you swore an oath that you would not use your magic without supervision and permission?”

  “I wasn’t actually using magic,” I muttered, but even Alistair was giving me the fish-eye. “The Vibe was so strong in there, I was having trouble keeping it out.”

  “What do I have to do to convince you that your ability to receive and interpret vibrations is your strongest magic?” Julia glowered, but not at me. This time her icy disapproval was entirely for Grandma B.B. “It is the magic of your heritage and your spirit. You have only just begun to actively attempt to control it, and you don’t know what it will do to you or cause you to do. None of us do. That is why we must proceed carefully.”

  “But Jake and Miranda needed help,” I said, and, yes, I did hear how limp that sounded. “They were arguing about it. I thought I could help if I just sort of took a quick peek, just to reassure them, because ghosts don’t exist.”

  I waited for Julia, or Grandma B.B., to tell me I was right about that. They didn’t. Instead, Julia turned a look of absolute shock and disbelief on my grandmother. Leo whined and pawed at Julia’s ankles, but Max gave a low growl.

  “We will return to that later.” Julia picked Max up and laid him across her lap. “Regardless. Anna, you did not just take a quick peek.” Julia gave those last three words a particularly tart twist. “You led two innocent people into a genuinely dangerous situation.”

  “I . . .” I started to say I did not, but I couldn’t seem to finish my sentence. I looked to Grandma B.B. for help, but she was busy watching her own hands, which were knotted in her lap. Alistair butted her elbow again. She reached out and scooped him up against her stomach. The sight of my familiar doing his best to comfort my grandmother made something twist under my heart.

  Julia thumped her cane once, jerking my attention back to her.

  “You didn’t think about what you were doing, did you?” she snapped. “You just followed your Vibe. You didn’t stop to consider how unstable that tunnel must be. And despite my lessons and your own studies, you didn’t think that this ‘ghost’ that Jake felt might be something dangerous or malevolent? You thought you could just dismiss all the warnings about negative energies and influences.”

  She was absolutely right about that last. I was still wrapping my head around the idea that there might be a real ghost at all. A malevolent ghost was a whole new level of creepy, and I was not ready to go there.

  Alistair stopped trying to hold Grandma’s attention and settled back onto my lap. He did not, however, take his attention off Max and Leo for even a split second.

  “Did you even suggest that the three of you should wait until magical, if not physical, help could be brought in?” I swear Julia’s eyes flashed—I mean really flashed, like Alistair’s did in the dark.

  “No,” I admitted. Now that Julia said it out loud, I felt very cold. I was sure I had at least thought about telling Jake and Miranda we should wait and get help, but the truth was, the whole event was turning into one big blur inside me. The only emotion that held steady was that overwhelming sense of wanting to know what was down there. Nothing else had seemed quite as important. Not even when I saw how easily the dirt cascaded down from the walls, or the kind of shape those old support beams were in.

  Miranda had been the only one sounding a real note of caution. In fact, she hadn’t wanted to go at all. I could have backed her up. I could have put my foot down and said none of us should go at all. But I didn’t. I’d wanted to uncover all the secrets.

  “Julia, you don’t need to be quite that dramatic,” said Grandma B.B. “Look at her face. You’re scaring her half to death.”

  “Good!” Julia thumped her cane again and we all jumped, including the dachshunds. “She should be scared. Maybe it will teach her a lesson.”

  “Julia. This is not Anna’s fault.”

  “This is,” shot back Julia. “Now, as for the rest of it—”

  “What do you mean the rest of it?” snapped Grandma, but Julia ignored her.

  “I mean all the rest of it. Jake and Miranda could have been killed. Your granddaughter, Annabelle, could have been killed. Not that you’ve ever evidenced any genuine concern about her well-being when it comes to her magic—”

  Grandma shot to her feet. “How dare you!”

  “How dare you!”

  The dachshunds had gone very still. Alistair tensed, and I felt the lightest prickling of claws through my jeans.

  “Grandma, Julia—” I tried, but that’s as far as I got.

  “You have no right to say I do not care about my granddaughter, you old prune!” shouted Grandma.

  “Don’t I?” replied Julia coldly. “You ran away, Annabelle. You broke your promises and abandoned your responsibilities. You did not even test your granddaughter for her abilities. You let her suffer for most of her life under the delusion that she had a mental illness!”

  Grandma said nothing. Two bright spots of color appeared in her cheeks.

  “We would not be having this problem now if you’d taught and trained Anna properly. She is your family. Your first duty was to tell her the truth about her heritage and you didn’t. But now!” Julia threw up her hand. “Annabelle Blessingsound has changed her mind! Again! After all these years she says she has her granddaughter’s best interests at heart, so it’s all right and we should just trust her!”

  “That’s enough, Julia!” I felt Alistair tense to spring, and I grabbed hold of him before he did something we’d all regret.

  “No, Anna,” whispered Grandma B.B., and her voice shook from the force of everything she was holding in. “She’s right. She’s just . . . right.”

  Grandma ran from the room. Before I could get to my feet, the door was slammed shut behind her.

  I had no idea she could still move like that.

  “Grandma!” Alistair blinked out as I jumped up to hurry after her.

  “Not yet, Anna,” said Julia.

  I stopped with my hand on the doorknob. Alistair reappeared down by my heels, putting himself between me and the dachshunds. The dogs growled. My cat stretched lazily, incidentally displaying the fact that he was longer than either one of them, not to mention more massive than the two of them put together.

  “Julia, do not do this,” I said, and I was a little surprised at how even my voice stayed. “I know you’re hurt and angry about what happened back in the day. Maybe I’m angry, too, but she’s my grandmother. Don’t make me choose between you. You won’t like the way it goes.”

  “That is up to you,” said Julia softly. “But I ask you to consider, Anna, there are very serious reasons an apprentice witch takes her oath. Magic not only affects the people around you, Anna; it affects you. It can cloud your judgment and interfere with your ability to reason. Proper preparation is essential before undertaking any magical working. You must be focused and grounded, or you risk being swept away by your own spell.” She paused, but she was a long way from finished. “If nothing else, I would have thought you’d show some concern for Alistair.”

  “Alistair?”

  “Merr-oww-oow,” muttered my familiar, to the dachshunds and to Julia and just maybe to me.

  “Alistair wasn’t in danger,” I stammered. “He could have, just . . . you know . . . popped out if there was real trouble.”

  Julia shook her head. “Not if he was hurt, and not if you were still down there and in danger. Familiars have long lives, and a cat may have nine of them, but Alistair is not immortal. He can be trapped, and he can be seriously hurt, even killed.”

  I should have known that, but I didn’t, and I didn’
t like knowing it now.

  Julia correctly interpreted my silence as understanding. “Now,” she said. “I expect there are a few things you have to say to Annabelle, and things you need to decide.”

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed.

  “I hope we will be able to talk about this again,” she told me quietly. “But whatever decision you make, it is yours, and I do understand.”

  I left then, and quickly. Because I didn’t want to think about how I saw the tears standing out in my mentor’s bright, hard eyes.

  8

  When I got outside, I found Grandma sitting in the driver’s seat of the Galaxie. She had her filmy scarf in both hands, but she wasn’t doing anything except staring at it.

  I climbed into the passenger seat. Alistair appeared between us.

  “Merow?” He head butted Grandma’s elbow. It didn’t work this time either.

  I tried putting my hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay, Grandma?”

  “No,” she said quietly. “No, Anna, I don’t think I am.”

  “Julia shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”

  “But she should have.” Grandma wound the scarf around her hands so tightly that for a minute I thought she was going to tear it in two. “That’s the problem. She was right, about everything. I did run away. I didn’t follow the first duty of a witch who has children. She must tell those children. She has to teach them at least enough that they won’t accidently harm themselves or the people around them.”

  “But you didn’t know I’d inherited the magic. I never told you.”

  “Merow,” added Alistair.

  “Thank you, Anna. Thank you, Alistair.” She patted my hand distractedly. “But I’m afraid that’s no excuse. I had plenty of opportunities while you were growing up to find out. I didn’t take any of them and I ignored the signs I did see.”

  My mouth went dry. Alistair climbed into my lap and turned in an uneasy circle. “You . . . you saw signs?”

  Grandma nodded and smoothed the scarf across her knee, only to bunch it up between her hands again. “I told myself I was imagining things. Your father was so very determinedly nonmagical, I came to believe none of you could have inherited any talent through him.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because Julia was right about something else,” she whispered. “I am a coward.”

  “You are not! Grandma B.B., you are one of the bravest people I know!”

  “No, I’m not. I, well, facing highway robbers is one thing, but my own family? That’s something else altogether. I couldn’t stand up to my mother during the feud, and then, when your father . . .” She swallowed. “When I tried to tell him about . . . things . . . he got so angry he threatened to cut me off from you four completely if I ever brought up witchcraft where you could hear it.”

  What was I going to say to that?

  “It wasn’t his fault.” Grandma unwound the scarf and wound it back up again. “I waited too long, and I handled it badly. I had nothing ready to show him as proof. He’s so hardheaded, so practical . . . And the thought of losing touch with you and your brothers and sister . . . it was too much. So, I told myself that the magic must have ended with me. Or that if any of you really were talented, I would of course see it, or he would change his mind eventually. I told myself so many things I can’t remember them all.” She wiped her eyes. “But it all came down to the same thing. I would accept any nonsense as long as it would keep me from having to confront my son with what I knew to be the truth. I ran away from it. Just like I ran away from my home rather than confront Mother with her own outdated attitudes toward the true craft.

  “But the worst part is knowing now that you suffered for what I did.”

  My throat tightened up and tears pressed hard against the backs of my eyes. I had no idea what to say or what to feel. My Vibe had given me a lot of bad times. I had thought I was crazy, a lot. I had lost friends when I was a kid. I had grown up scared and I’d spent a lot of time trying to hide or suppress who I was. I had been angry about it. Maybe I still was. But something else was true too.

  I took Grandma B.B. by both shoulders and turned her to face me. “Listen to me,” I said. “You are the best grandmother I could have asked for. You gave us all fantastic adventures when we were kids. When Mom got sick . . . you were there, Grandma. You helped keep us all together and showed us we could still count on each other, no matter what. You got Hope to come to the hospital and say good-bye when none of us could even get her out of her room.” I pulled the scarf out of her hands and laid it down. Alistair, very helpfully, sat himself on top of it. “I don’t know if that was witchcraft, and honestly, I don’t care. I’ve always been glad that whoever hands out grandmothers gave you to me, and there’s nothing and nobody that’s going to change my mind about that. I love you, Grandma B.B.”

  She looked up at me, her eyes shining. “And I love you, Anna.”

  We hugged, of course. We hugged for a very long time.

  “Do you want to go back upstairs?” I asked when we finally separated. “Maybe we can talk to Julia—”

  “Merow,” said Alistair. At some point, he’d slipped out from between us to perch on the seat back.

  “Yes, I think you’re right, Alistair.” Grandma rubbed my cat’s ears. “We should give her—all of us—a chance to cool off first.” She fished her keys out of her bucket of a handbag. “Julia always did have quite the temper.”

  She started the engine and worked the choke, clutch and gearshift.

  “So,” I said, gathering Alistair onto my lap. “What’s the story about the nightclub?”

  But Grandma B.B. just smiled mysteriously and eased her land yacht into traffic.

  * * *

  When we pulled into the cottage’s narrow driveway, it was to find Valerie McDermott standing on the front porch with a big Tupperware container balanced on her hip.

  “Kenisha called,” Val said by way of explanation as she gave me a one-armed hug. “I’m so sorry, Anna.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You brought food, didn’t you?”

  “I always bring food. Roger’s apple muffins, made with your apples.”

  My cottage came with a huge, beautiful garden, and that garden came with two ancient apple trees. The fruit was almost too tart to eat out of hand, but it made the best pastries. Val’s husband, Roger, was a terrific cook and had been more than happy to trade baked goods for the lion’s share of my fruit harvest. In fact, he’d been setting up a table at the local farmers’ market to sell the extras and sock the money into what he called the Baby Fund. Val said he’d started talking about a Web site and delivery.

  After a pause so Val could text Roger and assure him that I had come home and everything was still fine, we all trooped through to the kitchen. Except for the stove and the fridge, the cottage’s kitchen had never been modernized. It still had the deep, enamel farmhouse sink, the built-in breakfast nook with its window that looked over the garden. Old-school rag rugs covered the scuffed wooden floor. Alistair, who hated car rides, had gotten home on his own. Now he was stretched out on the windowsill in the breakfast nook with the afternoon sun shining on his furry back.

  “I expected you back sooner,” said Val as she opened one of the glass-fronted cabinets and pulled down a plate for the muffins.

  “We should have been.” I filled the kettle and put it on the stove. “We had to stay downtown because Julia wanted to talk.”

  Val raised her eyebrows at me and Grandma B.B. “Talk?”

  “I used my Vibe without permission.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I kind of got read the riot act. The worst part is, I deserved it.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, dear.” Grandma started pulling my mismatched collection of mugs from the junk shop . . . er . . . consignment store out of the
ir cupboard. Alistair stretched and got up off the windowsill to stick his face into Grandma B.B.’s purse, probably looking for more nibbles. “I got the same lecture, more or less, when I started practicing formally.”

  “I just wanted to help,” I murmured as I reached for the can where I stored the peppermint tea. I’d started drying some of the herbs from the garden, and the results were surprisingly good. Normally, at a time like this, I would have fired up the coffeemaker, but Val was off caffeine until the baby was born, so it was going to be peppermint tea all around. These are the sacrifices demanded of genuine friendship.

  “When you discover the magic is real, it’s hard not to use it,” Val said. I couldn’t help noticing how she’d suddenly gotten very busy arranging muffins on the plate. Alistair turned his attention from Grandma’s purse to poke a curious nose toward the baked treats.

  “Down, cat.” I lifted Alistair and put him on the floor. He looked up at me, deeply affronted. He also climbed back up to the bench, and the windowsill, and the table.

  “Oh, Alistair.” Grandma sighed and lifted him down onto the floor.

  “Merow,” he said sulkily, and climbed back onto the bench, and the windowsill, and the table.

  “At least you were trying to do some good, Anna,” said Val. “Some of us didn’t do quite so well.”

  I paused, both hands full of a grumbling Alistair. “Don’t tell me you—”

  “Oh, yeah.” Valerie nodded. “I think everybody does. I just . . . well, I had my own reasons. I was a different person then. At least, I hope I was.”

  Val never talked much about her life before she joined the coven. She didn’t talk about her family at all. The people who came to her baby shower had all been Portsmouth friends. No parents or brothers and sisters—or any relations, actually—had turned up either at the party or at the house to offer to help. Or at least, if they had, Valerie hadn’t said anything about it.

  The kettle whistle cut off any further conversation for the moment. I put my cat down and went to fill the pot and bring it to the table.