by Jill Nojack
As she hands me a twenty and I make change, she asks, "Have you decided if you're going to be there next week, Cass?"
"What's that?"
"Choir practice?"
I cover for myself, not knowing that the coven would be meeting before the full moon, which I did mark on the calendar once I'd pinned down the date of my return. Or that Cassie even knew about the choir. But with the skills I taught her without her knowledge, it isn't surprising she would be attracted to the opportunity if it was offered. "Oh yes, of course. In Corey Woods, right?"
"Yes. Just a quick one. A cleansing. We'll gather just before midnight. Nat tells me that Janice has been feeling unbalanced and needs to get back to a good place. She doesn't want to wait for the next full moon because her magic has been so unreliable lately. "
"That'll be nice," I say. But oh, that'll be boring. Let's raise some demons instead. I've got old friends I want to see.
"See you then, sweetheart."
After she leaves, I try to remember all of the items she buys regularly as I busy myself with the pricing marker.
***
Why is the shop so busy? It seems like everyone in town comes by and lingers. It's maddening. I had a steady trade built up, but they got in and out: it was nothing like this. I hate it. That girl has them all coming in to browse and socialize. They feared me, but they needed what I could provide. In a very short time of being nice to people, she's ruined a lifetime of building the shop's reputation.
It takes me hours to familiarize myself with what's been rearranged. It's difficult to manage in-between the far too frequent interruptions by townsfolk wanting a chin-wag. Eventually, I find the latest Archeology Today magazine shoved under the counter unread. I pull up the stool and start paging through it, relishing the familiar names from my past.
And then—wait…a team has discovered a previously unknown tomb. Have they found him? My hopes rise each time someone digs deep beneath the Egyptian sands, but it always comes to naught.
I read quickly, consumed by the notes about the discovery. And then, there it is—the picture from the top of the sarcophagus.
I know that face.
I can't breathe. Is my heart still beating? Yes, it is. It is. I take in a long, glorious breath with my young lungs and the burst of oxygen tingles all the way to my toes.
Finally, after all these years of waiting. I spring into action.
"Out! Out! The shop is closing early!" Two teenage girls dressed in black look at me like I'm deranged, but I've never felt saner. A murderous glance has them running for the exit soon enough.
It takes me half an hour to book a flight, hotel, and cab. It takes somewhat longer to find Cassie's passport. Eunice's certainly won't do.
All these years waiting, moving from place to place, body to body, hoping that someone will discover through the urge of human curiosity what I have not been able to discover under the black moon, and now it's done.
Robert knocks on the guest bathroom door where I've managed to finally grab the shower I've gone without for too long. "Gillian just phoned. She's on her way."
I head toward the kitchen as soon as I can, dressed only in jeans, still drying my hair on one of Robert's thick towels. Natalie's helping in the kitchen as they make dinner. I wish I'd remembered that and gone for a shirt before coming out.
She grins. "Stand just there, Tom. No, don't move. Yes, with the light through the window illuminating just the slightest sheen of water on that lean but muscular torso, I can see that I should have done anything in my power to sample your wares years ago. If only I'd not been so wary of what Gillian and Eunice might do. And now with Cassie in the mix, as soon as we get her back, well…I fear my time will never come."
"Not in the mood for it, Nat." I drape the towel around my shoulders like a cape. My days of chasing tail are long over, and I don't need Nat reminding me of what I used to be when my unasked-for Cat side is a more than adequate reminder on its own. "Robert, did Gilly find anything out?"
"She's got good news and bad news. She wants to give them both at once when everyone is available."
I head up the stairs to find a shirt. I normally wouldn't be bothered by Nat's teasing attentions. She's harmless enough. But I'm on edge, barely slept, and don't need any more bad news even if it's tempered with something positive.
After I'm dressed, I sit quietly while Robert and Natalie bring the meal to the dining room table. He puts on a good feed. It's amazing he's stayed so lean at his age. I can't even begin to tell them what their dedication to helping Cassie means to me. I don't think my mouth would form the words. I'm so terrible with emotion after having been Cat for most of the past forty-five years that if I started to say it, I'm afraid I'd lose it completely. It will have to go unsaid.
When Gilly bursts in the back door, she's breathing hard like she ran in from the car. "She left! Sue from the bakery told Dash, who told Janice, that she saw Eunice leaving the shop with a suitcase."
"She's gone? Cassie's gone?" Eunice is going to tear me apart a piece at a time until there's nothing left of me. It's no coincidence Cat lost a snip of ear to that pigeon—that's just Eunice's way of letting me know that the pain will never end. I ball my fists and lower my head to the table top to keep from screaming out my rage.
"Don't panic, Tom. Don't." She hurries to me and strokes my hair. I raise my eyes, and hers are there: kind, supportive, and determined. "I checked it out, and the sign on the door says the shop will be open again on Thursday. That's only a few days. There's no reason to think she won't be back right on time. And from talking to her, I'm absolutely sure she has no knowledge of anything that happened after she died. But, yes, this alarms me, too. Can you think of anything Eunice was planning before she died that would cause her to suddenly close the shop and leave?"
In my head, I run through the last few months I spent in captivity with Eunice. "No, nothing. Business as usual. She was consumed with the same old power-mongering and vicious commentary about everyone in town." I pause as my voice catches. I take a deep breath before continuing. "Gilly, she could disappear, and we'd never find her."
Natalie clears her throat. "I think that's unlikely, Tom. Never underestimate the witches of Giles. Gillian, do you have the jasmine oil?"
"Bloody hell, I left it out in the car. I got distracted when Janice called. Couldn't think of anything else. And I realized while I was at the shop that Tom had been working there. I covered myself by saying I hadn't been in for several weeks, but you know how everyone talks. They're bound to ask about the handsome shop clerk and when he'll be back. Eunice is going to wonder how none of us recognized him."
The corners of Nat's lips twitch up. I think she gets happier the more difficult things get. "You can dash out to the car for the oil after dinner, dear. We've got work to do. But dinner first, my busy bees. We all need to keep our strength up."
I countermand her, saying "Gilly, get it now. We can plan during dinner. A quick dinner." Natalie starts to protest, but I cut her off. "You're high priestess. I get that. I appreciate that. But this is my battle, with my enslaver, for my girlfriend's life, and we don't have time to linger over our meal. We've got a lot of problems to solve, and I'm not waiting."
She narrows her eyes, then shrugs and heads for the kitchen to start bringing in the food while Gilly heads out back to her car.
By the end of dinner, we've got a three-pronged plan that gets us closer to getting Cassie back. First, we prove Cassie is still there. I know she is, so I'm not worried. This is just to keep Nat from going after Eunice half-cocked. Second, I need to be hidden so Eunice can't trace me and find out about everyone who is helping me in the process. It's probably lucky that she's gone out of town or she would have started looking for me already.
We can't cover the fact that I worked in the store yet, but we've got some ideas about how to go about that when Eunice gets home.
Three steps closer to Cassie. We'll be ready. I know we will.
***
"Tom, you understand that you'll be both the possessor of the lost object in the first casting and the lost object in the second?" She stands behind me with her hands on my shoulders while Gillian lights candles all around us. The chair is plain oak. Natalie doesn't want interference from anything plastic or artificial. I think she's more of a purist than she lets on.
"I understand. Although I don't think that Cassie would like it much if I go around saying I own her."
"Technically it's not a spell for things that are lost in an ownership sense. You wouldn't use this spell to find lost coins. It's for something that you care about. Is there anything you care about more than Cassie?"
I glance at Gillian. "No. I have an old friend who stood by me even when I didn't deserve it who runs a close second, though." Okay, maybe I actually can say some of those difficult things I feel once in a while. Cassie has helped me begin to open up.
Natalie catches Gillian's return smile and snorts. "Tom, get a grip, you're flirting while I'm telling you that you need to focus?"
I shake my head and sigh. "I haven't stopped thinking about Cassie for a second since Eunice puffed out of that box like fiery demon's breath. It wouldn't be possible for me to be more focused."
"Fine, then. Let's begin." Natalie waves the others out of the room. Robert turns out the lights on his way and closes the door. We're alone in the near-darkness, lit only by three candles. Her hand on my shoulder feels heavy and warm.
"Hold your hands out. Cup them." I do as I'm told, and she places a small copper bowl with a greenish patina into them. Then, she removes the ceramic vessel that she'd hung around her neck on a cord. She leans over me to pour the contents into the bowl. "Don't turn, Tom. Continue to look ahead. Look at the reflective surface of the liquid in the bowl and try to see what you've lost there. Picture Cassie and your feeling for her."
I do as I'm told, and the oil in the copper container begins to warm. It becomes almost too hot to hold.
"Don't remove your hands," Natalie warns. "It won't burn you, I promise." I focus again, but it's difficult. With thoughts of Cassie comes pain.
Natalie bends to my ear. "Are you focused? Do you see?"
I concentrate everything that I am toward picturing Cassie—that last night together, her hair softly brushing my face as she bent down from above to kiss me.
Her face appears in the surface of the oil. Her loving face. I can't pull my eyes away from it. I barely notice that the oil is turning blue.
Then, the image is projected above the liquid, shimmering and vaguely formed. A tendril begins to grow from the side, reaching and twisting outward. It's found her. It's drawing a path.
"Now, Tom, dump it over your hair and skin. We need to cover every part of you. We've proven Cassie is still there. And we'll use that piece of her essence you've found to disguise yours."
I drop my robe and pour the oil over my head, spreading it first through my hair and then across my skin. As Natalie promised me, it doesn't burn me.
"Make sure you're thoroughly covered." At least Natalie doesn't offer to help me out. I'm finding that magic may be the one thing she takes seriously.
She circles me in the candle light, pointing. "There, more coverage. Good." In a moment, her voice comes from behind. "You've missed a spot just below your left buttock."
I can't believe she resists an off-color remark as I smooth the oil down across my backside.
She makes one more circuit. "Yes, we're done. You can put your robe back on as soon as the oil is dry to the touch. That will only take a couple of minutes. But no showering for 24 hours. You have to give the magic time to attach itself fully to your skin. If you don't, this will all be for nothing."
I grab my robe off the floor as she continues, "We'll have to skip poker tonight in favor of hide and seek. When you're dry enough, get dressed and come let us know. Our best test is to see if any of us can find you."
As it turns out, while I lay on the grass just to the side of the wooden deck off Robert's spacious back living room staring up at the limitless stars, none of the witches are able to catch a magical whiff of me. There's a little spring to my step when I come back into the house after Natalie calls out, "Ollie-ollie-oxen-free". It's not just because I won at hide and seek. Or that her call reminded me of simpler times. Mostly, my heart hasn't stopped singing since Cassie's face appeared over the bowl. She's still there. She's still mine. And I know I'm going to save her.
I even have a little plan of my own that I'm not sharing with the team right now. They'd come up with some reason I shouldn't go ahead with it, but I'm not waiting any longer than I have to to take Cassie back from that evil witch.
***
It's nearing midnight when I explore the outside of the shop on Cat's padded feet that slide through the grass without a sound as I look for an open window. Tonight, I'm a panther. Silent, deadly, the very definition of sleek.
With my head craned upwards, I trip unexpectedly, do a head over heels roll, and look back to see that I'd stumbled over a landscaping stone that's been there for every one of Cat's lives.
Sure. Right. Tonight I'm a panther. Tiny, harmless, and prone to rolling around adorably in the tensest situations.
This little caper is starting out great.
I can't believe Eunice would go away without leaving a window cracked open for Cat. Has she given up? No, no way would she just let me go free. I can't let myself believe that for a minute. It will only make it harder when she snaps a leash onto my collar again.
I know I shouldn't think that way—Cassie would call me out on it, but I won't let myself go chasing after hope again. I have one thing to focus on: I need to find something that will help get Cassie free. After that, it doesn't matter what happens to me.
No, if Eunice didn't remember to crack a window, she just wasn't thinking about me when she left. That can only be a good thing. The vise of anxiety I'm wearing around my chest loosens a little.
Or maybe she doesn't plan to be away as long as she said she would: as soon as I think that, my panic revs up again. It could be a trick to lure me back. She found out about me being in control of the shifting magic and figures I'd need my ID to skip town, so she pretended to go away. If she doesn't know about me and Cassie, she'd have no reason to think I'd stay.
I take a long breath. This needs to stop. I have to stop imagining scenarios that keep me running scared. There's no evidence for any of it, and even if it is a trick, my head has to be clear to fight her if she turns up.
Cat's not worried. He's more than sure he could outrun her if she popped out from behind the parlor window like some demonic jack-in-the-box. I take strength from that. He's small, but he's scrappy. I can do this. I can find that box she used against Cassie and take it back to Robert's. And the friendly neighborhood witches? They'll figure out what to do with it if I keep the pressure on. It's only a matter of time.
There's no way for Cat to get in, that's clear soon enough. I prowl to the back while I think about the best approach to the problem. I don't have tools, and if I shift, I'll be exposed, vulnerable. I'll also be locked outside in the buff.
I could go wake up Gillian to help with the locks, but I'm so close now. I don't need her trying to talk me out of it.
Unless Eunice has changed things since she returned, there's no alarm in the shop, only the video cameras to deter shoplifters. No one who lives in this town would have risked her ire by breaking in.
I shift myself, trying not to make a sound as I experience the pain that always accompanies my transformation. Then, when I'm able, I pick up that troublesome landscape rock and pitch it at the side parlor window. It shatters on the first try. I shift back to cat and leap through gracefully, careful to jump out beyond where the shards of glass are strewn.
I thought I'd leapt far enough, but a sharp pain in my left fro
nt paw tells me I misjudged. I raise the throbbing paw to take a look. A piece of the window glass pierced Cat's left front paw as it met the floor. The cut is deep and dangerous. Cat can see no reds, but the gray blood flows freely. He's in trouble.
I move a few steps farther into the house to make sure I really am out of the danger zone this time and shift again. A third shift in such a small period of time is agony, and I take longer to recover than normal. I'm completely defenseless while I try to get control over my human limbs but flail helplessly instead as the pain and the lingering sensations of Cat fade too slowly.
My heart races out of control. If Eunice walks in, it's all over.
I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out. I'm freaking out.
Cat's injury won't harm him until I shift to his form again, but he'll need medical attention immediately then, or he's done for.
I take a huge breath and blow it back out. Calmer. But still panicked.
I take another breath. And another. And another.
I have to put my fear aside and focus on one thing: Eunice has Cassie. And she's not keeping her. Not even if Cat loses his last two lives. Not even if I lose mine.
I have to get what I'm looking for and get out before anyone notices that broken window. Then I've got to get from downtown to the ritzy section of Giles where Mayor Robert lives without being stopped for indecent exposure.
Looks like I'm not going to need the pouch I put on my collar for the ID. I'm going to have to take some of my clothes from the house so I can get across town as a human, and if I do, Eunice could discover that they're gone and wonder why. That's a lot of "ifs", though. First, she would have had to go through Cassie's closets and found my stuff there. And once I take them, she'll have to go through them again to find out that they're gone.
There's a chance she'll never know. A big chance.
