A Hex a Day (Which Village Book 1)

by L. C. Mortimer

  "Nice to meet you."

  "You too. I wish it was under different circumstances."

  "Same."

  "Jasper is, well, was, Alicia's cat," Natasha said.

  "Got it. Mom had a cat."

  "You didn't know?"

  "About her pet collection? No."

  "Oh," Natasha looked at Jasper and patted him on the head. "Well, I think it’s safe to say that she loved Jasper a lot. He was always hanging out around the garden when she was outside."

  "Cool."

  Just another thing I didn't know about my mom. Why did that suddenly bother me so very much?

  "Make sure you give him lots of water, and he loves burgers."

  "Burgers?" I looked at the cat suspiciously. "What kind of cat likes burgers?"

  "Jasper."

  "All right," I said. "Well, thanks."

  I turned to go back inside, but I felt a hand on my arm. I turned back, and Natasha was still there.

  "If you ever need to talk," she offered with a shrug. "I'm just right over there."

  She pointed to a big pink house. Like the other ones on the street, it was Victorian style. It had a huge turret and a big, wraparound porch. It had everything anyone could possibly want. If you wanted to live life as a Barbie doll, that was probably a pretty sweet way to go about it.

  "Thanks," I said. "I'll keep that in mind."

  Natasha finally left, and I went back inside with my mom's cat. Who knew she'd been a cat person? Certainly not me.

  "Well, I guess it's just us," I said.

  I set the cat down and he took off, obviously scrambling to go explore the house. I went back to the couch and sat down. Then I grabbed the box I'd brought up from the basement and started looking through it.

  The first thing I pulled out was a childhood notebook.

  "That can go in the trash," I muttered, flipping through it. There wasn't really much there: just some drawings and doodles. I set it aside and grabbed the next item.

  It was a snow globe. I shook it, watching the little bits of snow flutter to the ground. There was a little cabin in the background of the globe. I remembered when my mom gave it to me. I played with it a few more times and then that, too, was set aside.

  The rest of the box was filled with random childhood stuff. Most of it could be tossed in the garbage. I wasn't one for collecting, but my mom had been, and she'd saved more things than I thought she probably should have.

  When the box was empty, I filled it back up with the things I was going to keep. Then I grabbed the other items that I planned to throw away, and I headed into the kitchen to look for the trash can. I tossed them in, and then I looked around. I realized, suddenly, that there was no cat dish here. Shouldn't my mom's cat have a food bowl?

  I opened the cupboards, but I didn't see anything. In fact, there was no sign that a cat ever actually lived here. I definitely hadn't seen a litter box or bags of litter as I'd gone through the house. How strange was that? Surely there should have been some sign of Jasper's existence, but there wasn't.

  I thought back to Eliza's office. I thought back to the talking plants, and I thought about how many weird things I'd seen since I came to Which Village. My mother had secrets, of course, but there was more to her death than people were letting on.

  What had my mom been involved in?

  Why had she died?

  More importantly, perhaps, how had she died?

  And how could I find out?

  I wondered why Natasha had brought Jasper over. I was beginning to think that I was going totally crazy, but I was also beginning to think that my mother didn't actually own a cat. I remembered reading stories as a kid about shapeshifting monsters and things that didn't act the way that they looked.

  The cabin I'd stayed in last night had seemed bigger on the inside than on the outside. The plants at Eliza's office had definitely been talking and echoing what I was saying, and now the cat...where had it gone?

  I didn't call its name. I was starting to think that it wasn't a real cat at all. At least, it wasn't my mother's cat. Something weird was going on in Which Village, and I wasn't going to be the only one who didn't know what it was. I might be an outsider, but I wasn't an idiot.

  Jasper wasn't on the first floor, and the basement door was closed. He had to be upstairs. I moved quietly up the stairs. I walked as silently as I could. I'd learned as a kid to be sneaky, and when I'd gone upstairs earlier, I'd taken note of which stairs squeaked and which ones didn't. When I reached the second floor, I looked toward my mom's bedroom. The door was open and it seemed empty. The other room, though...

  Well, the door was closed over. It wasn't shut completely. I pushed it open and sure enough, there was a man in the room rummaging around through some of the books and boxes.

  "Where is it?" He muttered. "Come on."

  I watched him for a minute. He was naked, which was to be expected since a minute ago he'd been a cat.

  I knew it.

  Suddenly justified, I stepped completely in the room and slammed the door shut behind me. The man spun around, staring at me, and immediately shifted back into his cat form.

  So he was a shapeshifter.

  He meowed loudly, purring, and came over to me. He started rubbing himself against my legs.

  So that was how it was going to be, huh?

  He wanted me to think that I was imagining things and that he really was just a cat. If he was a cat, then why had I just seen him searching in my mom's room for stuff? Why had I just seen him rummaging? I wasn't going crazy. I wasn't.

  I also didn't have a way to trap him. Well, not in the bedroom. He was bigger than me, and he'd be able to overpower me easily if I wasn't careful. Besides, there was a big, beautiful window. If he wanted to escape, he'd be able to just jump out of the window.

  But there was a bathroom upstairs, and there hadn't been any windows in that room.

  "Come on, kitty," I said. "For a second, I thought I was seeing things. You must be thirsty. Let's get you a drink."

  I headed into the bathroom.

  MEOW, Jasper purred. He came with me, and I turned on the faucet to the sink.

  "Oh dear," I said. "There's no bowl here. Hang on, Jasper. I'll be right back." I turned, closing the cat in the bathroom, and stepped into the hallway. My mother's house was old with big, skeleton-looking keys, and the bathroom key was on the outside of the room. I turned the lock and pulled the key out, and then I just stood there.

  Meow?

  Jasper's meow sounded less like a normal cat noise and more like a question.

  "You're locked in," I said. "So why don't you tell me who the hell you are and why you're in my mother's house?"

  Silence.

  It was quiet for a long minute, and then...

  "So that's how it's going to be, huh?"

  Chapter 4

  It was strange for me to think that just a moment ago, I'd been alone in my mother's house. Now I wasn't with a cat. I wasn't by myself. I was with some strange sort of man-beast and he was locked in the bathroom. I could hear him breathing heavily, and I didn’t like the idea that we were trapped in my mom’s house. Was he some sort of murderer? Was he responsible for her death?

  "Let me out," he said coolly. I couldn't see the man's face, but I could imagine it. I guessed he was glaring at the door. I could practically feel it.

  "Tell me what you want," I said. I wasn’t about to let this guy out. Not after I’d totally called him out. Not after I’d trapped him. If he wasn’t thinking of murdering me before, he definitely was now.

  "Strange. You didn't ask me who I am or what I am. You don't even seem to care about that. Most humans care far more about the fact that I'm a shapeshifter than you." I could hear the curiosity in his voice, and I tried to stop myself from completely freaking out.

  It was true.

  He wasn’t human.

  He was a shapeshifter.

  So they were real.

  I felt slightly justified by the thought. I
had imagined, long ago, that these things might be real. Everyone wanted to believe that humans weren't alone in the universe. Now I knew that was true. I was far less surprised than I thought I should have been. That bothered me a little bit. Shouldn't I have been scared or concerned? Instead, I was irritated, and I felt like I was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.

  I wasn’t scared of him.

  I was about to freak out because I was so mad.

  How dare he break into my mother’s house. How dare he think he could slink around in the shadows searching for things. What kind of horrible creature thought it was okay to go through a dead woman’s belongings? Hmm? That was what I was really upset about.

  "What are you after?" I asked again. I tried to keep my voice level and even. I didn’t want him to think I was scared of him, but he also didn’t need to know just how angry I was. Anger was something people could use against you. In fact, any strong emotion was something people could use. That was one thing my mother had taught me: don’t let people know how you’re really feeling. Not unless you can truly trust them.

  A pause.

  I wondered if he was going to be honest.

  Was the man in the bathroom going to tell me what he was doing or what he was after?

  "That's a long story. Why don't you let me out? We can brew some tea and have some cookies and talk all about it. I'll tell you everything."

  The man's voice was smooth and sultry. I had a feeling he was used to talking his way out of trouble. The truth was that if I could see his face, maybe his words would have been more effective than they were.

  As it was, I wasn't particularly in the mood to find a new guy. Stanley's death still pained me. I wasn't sure how long I was supposed to wait before "moving on" after losing a husband, but today didn't seem like the right day. Some smooth-talking shapeshifter cat definitely wasn’t something I was particularly interested in.

  "Nice try," I snapped, irritated.

  "I could tell you everything you want to know."

  I waited, not speaking.

  "I could tell you all about your mommy dearest," he continued. "I could tell you who she really was. Maybe you want to know what she was. Surely you have questions about that."

  Well, if Jasper wanted to get my attention, he had certainly figured out a way. He had obviously grasped that my mother was my weakness. Did I want to find out what she was?

  I did.

  I had so many questions.

  But I couldn't let this guy get to me. That was what he wanted. Right? He wanted me to speak up and beg him to tell me who she was. Well, it wasn't going to happen.

  Instead, I just stood there, staring at the closed door. I felt something inside of me: something powerful. Anger coursed through my veins, and I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to yell, telling him what a horrible person he was. I wanted to make him pay for what he'd done. I wanted him to suffer.

  Wait a minute.

  I blinked.

  Where had those desires come from?

  I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. I wasn't a hateful person. Yeah, he was obviously some sort of thief, but making him pay? That wasn't the kind of person I was. I didn't want to make people pay. That wasn’t who I was.

  Apparently, Which Village was having some sort of effect on me, but I wasn’t sure that it was a good one. If anything, I was disappointed with the way being here was making me feel.

  I didn’t answer Jasper.

  What would my mother have said if she was here?

  Maybe that was the question I should have been asking. Would my mother be the type of person who would let a little shifter cat get under her skin? Would she be comfortable with that? Or would she fight back?

  A knock at the door sounded, and the man fell silent. That would be Eliza coming over after work. Apparently, more time had passed than I'd thought. I stood there, staring at the bathroom door. She knocked again, but still, I didn’t move. The inside of the bathroom was suddenly silent, and I knew that the shifter had heard the knock, as well.

  "Are you going to answer that?" The man said. "Your guest will be waiting."

  I knew what he was thinking. He thought it was Natasha - if that was even her real name - coming back to finish what the two of them had started. Was that how their little ploy worked? She dropped him off at someplace and then he just stayed until he'd stolen everything of value?

  Forget that.

  Then again, maybe she didn’t even realize he was a shifter. Perhaps she thought he really was an innocent little kitty. Maybe she figured that he was a harmless sort of cat: the kind of creature that wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  "Come in," I screamed down the stairs. I didn't dare move away from the door. What if he escaped somehow while my back was turned? "Come in!" I yelled again.

  The front door opened. Apparently, I hadn't locked it. Either that or Eliza had a key.

  "Jaden?" She called out.

  "I'm upstairs."

  Her footsteps sounded, and soon Eliza appeared beside me. She saw that my eyes were glued to the door. She looked from the bathroom door to me.

  "Jaden, what's going on?" She asked.

  "There's a shapeshifting cat in there named Jasper," I said. "A woman called Natasha dropped him off and said it was my mother's cat."

  Eliza blinked, looking at me. Was she going to accuse me of being crazy? Was she going to haul me off to the hospital? Telling her all of this was a huge risk, but it was one I felt like I had to take. I had nobody else who could help me. If anyone knew how to get rid of Jasper or how to make him talk, it was going to be Eliza.

  She stared at me for a minute. Then, instead of asking me what was wrong with me or whether I was going crazy, she simply shared some information with me.

  "Your mother didn't have a cat," Eliza said.

  "I'm aware," I said dryly.

  "How do you know he's a shapeshifting cat?"

  "He was a cat, and now he's a naked man."

  We heard a meow coming from inside the bathroom. It was followed by scratching sounds. He was pawing at the door, obviously trying to convince Eliza that he should be allowed to come out.

  She reached for the doorknob, but noticed the key was gone.

  "Key?" She asked, holding her hand out.

  "Don't let him out," I said. "I know it sounds crazy, but he's not human."

  "Darling, you're in Which Village," she said. "Of course, he's not human. Key."

  I handed her the key, and she slid it into the lock. She turned it, shoved the door open, and then held up her hand and murmured something so quietly and fiercely that I couldn't make out the words. Instantly, some sort of invisible bubble shot from her hand and wrapped around the cat, trapping it.

  MEOW.

  The cat was still standing on the bathroom floor. He wasn't floating or anything like that. Still, it was strange to see it locked in a sort of giant bubble.

  I looked over at Eliza. She was staring at the cat.

  "So you're a witch."

  "Yep."

  "And that's a shapeshifter."

  "Yep."

  "And it's not your first time seeing one."

  "Nope."

  "Was my mom a witch?"

  "Yes."

  "Okay."

  I started heading down the stairs.

  "Where are you going?" Eliza asked.

  "I'm going to need another beer."

  I went down to the kitchen and opened the fridge. So the stuff on the top shelf actually was a set of potions. My mom really was a witch. It made a lot of sense, honestly. Maybe that was why she didn't want me to visit. She had been dealing with weird witch stuff. I cared far less about the fact that my mother was a witch than about the fact that she’d hidden this oh-so-important thing from me.

  Why hadn’t she trusted me with this information?

  Why hadn’t I been good enough for her to share this with?

  I sipped the beer, doing my best not to chug it. This sucked, honestly. I just wanted a li
ttle bit of peace and quiet while I mourned my mom, but now I was dealing with something totally different.

  Now I was dealing with the fact that she not only had these huge secrets she was keeping from me, but that she was a paranormal creature, too. Awesome. Did that make me a witch? Was witchiness something that was learned or inherited?

  I went back to the bottom of the stairs. Eliza was still up on the second floor with the cat. I didn’t know what she was going to do with it, and I was a bit too tired to care. I called upstairs instead of walking up. Somehow, the idea of moving myself upstairs seemed like it would take a ton of energy.

  "Hey Eliza?"

  "Yes, dear?"

  "So my mom was a witch, right?"

  "Yes, dear."

  "Does that make me a witch?"

  "How old are you?"

  "Almost 35."

  "You'll be one soon," she explained. "You'll get your powers on your 35th birthday. At least, that's when they're supposed to come in."

  "Is that when my mom got her powers?"

  "Yes."

  That explained why she left when she did. It explains why she wanted to be alone. I thought she was just mad I married Stanley. Apparently, she’d been going through her own stuff around the same time. She’d had me as a teenager, so she was still pretty young when I ran off to get married.

  Had she known she was a witch? Had she realized that she was going to get these incredible powers? Or had she just turned 35 and then realized hey, I am super powerful and can do all sorts of cool stuff?

  I had no idea.

  I honestly had no way of knowing.

  Eliza walked down the stairs. The cat followed her. Well, "followed" wasn't quite right. It was still trapped in its bubble, so it sort of floated along behind her.

  "What are you going to do with it?" I gestured at the feline.

  "Whatever I want," she shrugged.

  "Are you going to interrogate it?"

  "Probably."

  "Are you going to torture it?"

  Eliza sat down on the couch and looked up at me.