by Shannon Page
“Willson can’t stay out of closets either,” Logan said with a smile.
“Cats,” I agreed.
This grand old house had seen a lot of lives in its hundred and twenty years. It had been remodeled over and over, carved into flats, then later recombined into one house again. It remained full of stray, random walls, mismatched windows, and what seemed like far too many doors. I wasn’t sure I’d ever even entered all these rooms.
“Oh, wait, I almost forgot: housewarming present!” Logan reached into her purse and pulled out a small lace-trimmed bag, tied with a red ribbon.
“What is it?” I sniffed it. “Mmm, lavender.”
“And mugwort.” She smiled. “To protect the house.”
“Thank you!” Her gift reminded me: I’d prepared a batch of modified Mistress of the House potion myself. I pulled my own bag—a Ziploc—out of my jeans pocket, then sprinkled a little of both powders in the corners of the entry hall. “We should do the downstairs rooms before we go up.”
“Want help?”
I thought a moment. “No, I ought to do it myself.”
“Right.” Logan waited in the front hall as I went through the first floor once more, sprinkling every corner. “All right, ready,” I said.
We climbed the stairs and walked through the second floor. I did the corners here as we went.
“These windows let in so much good light,” Logan said.
“Yeah, as long as those trees don’t get any taller.” I made a mental note to update the spell suppressing their growth. “This will be my bedroom,” I told her, pushing open the door to a smallish but very charming room near the back of the house, with a window seat and a good closet, and a tiny half-bath leading directly off it.
“Nice.”
“And then that front room will be a sort of study. The other bedrooms can be guest rooms, I think.”
“Does Petrana get a bedroom?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a frown. “I thought I’d just keep her in the lab. But you’re right—it would be good to have a place to stash her, even though she doesn’t sleep, or even lie down.” My golem had been just standing in my coven house bedroom when I wasn’t using her in experiments. It would be nice to sleep without her looming presence. “She can have this one, next to mine, I guess.”
“Where are you going to work?” Logan asked. “Is there a third floor?”
“There sure is! It’s the best part.”
We climbed a narrower staircase, emerging into a finished attic, almost as high-ceilinged as the lower floors.
“Wow!” Logan said, looking around. “This is huge.”
“Voila—the lab.” Most of the space was one large room, with only a few smaller cubbies and closets along the back wall. “Bench along there”—I pointed to the wall opposite the staircase—“and equipment over there. Storage in those cabinets.”
“I’m envious. I so want this room.”
I smiled at her. “You don’t do science.”
“I don’t care—I just want to work in this space! It’s great.”
“Come hang out with me whenever you like, bring your work.”
She nodded, still walking through the space. “I just might. Thanks.” She opened one of the closets and looked in, then closed it and leaned against the door. “So, how’s the coven taking all this?”
“Ha!” I looked in a second closet, then leaned against the wall next to her. “Pretty much how you’d expect. Niad never misses a chance to be bitchy; most of the older sisters are quieter about it. Leonora doesn’t like it, but ultimately she okayed it. I know she wanted the golem out of the house.”
“She’s letting you keep it, though?” Logan asked.
“For now. She’s still talking to the other covens about it. She says she’s worried about the effect of foreign magic on our workings.”
Logan wrinkled her nose. “There are endless flavors of magic. Coven magic isn’t the only viable kind.”
“I know!” I agreed. “She’s just hidebound, she hates change.”
“Most older witches do.”
I nodded. “But mostly I think she’s just humoring me. I’m sure she thinks I’ll come to my senses, unmake the golem, and move back into the coven house before six months go by.”
Logan shrugged. “Maybe you will.”
“Maybe.” I gazed around the room. “Hard to imagine, though,” I added with a grin. What had seemed so unthinkable a few weeks ago now filled me with excitement.
“There is much to be said for living alone.”
“The students are having some trouble with it,” I admitted. “Particularly Gracie.”
“Hmm, yes, I imagine she would.” Logan gave me a gentle smile. “She’s at a tough age.”
“Yeah. I wish I could make things easier for her, but…only time can do that.” I pushed off the wall and walked over to the front windows, looking down at the street. “The movers should be getting here soon.”
We walked back down the creaking staircase. I looked around the second floor for my familiar. “Elnor! Here, kitty kitty.” My voice echoed; I saw no cat.
“She’s probably still in the closet downstairs,” Logan said.
But she wasn’t there either. I walked down the long hall toward the back of the house, peering into every room, finally finding her in the kitchen, glaring out the back window. “There you are.”
She glanced over at me, then returned her attention to the backyard. Her energy was unsettled, spiky.
What was she seeing? I shifted my gaze, opening my sight to the full range of energetic information there. At first I saw only a confusing jumble of minor forces—purples and oranges and a dull red laced with blue, all wrapped around each other—human energies, plus those of their pets. This was why we kept our witch-sight shuttered most of the time. Then I noticed a small rosette of golden light right where Elnor was staring.
“It’s just a squirrel, silly,” I said. “Seriously, haven’t you heard about the cat who cried wolf?”
Elnor ignored me, still staring at the terrifying threat from outside.
“I’ll hate to see what you do when you meet your first neighbor cat,” I muttered, as the doorbell rang. Logan opened the door to the movers; I headed down the hall to tell them where to put everything.
All the boxes that had crowded my tiny room in the coven house would have fit in one corner of the front parlor here. Distributed among the three floors, you could hardly tell I’d moved in. There was a lot of furniture shopping in my future. Fortunately, Logan had already volunteered to help with that. We’d made a date for next week before she left.
After I unpacked Petrana, she stood in the front parlor, staring blankly ahead. I should have been used to her by now, but even I had to admit she was rather uncanny. Alive-but-not. “Go clean the kitchen,” I told her. “You should find supplies in the pantry. Don’t forget the cabinets. Or the floors.”
She dutifully shuffled off. I peered through the walls a moment, watching her find what she needed. The broom looked like a toy in her massive hands.
I collected Elnor and climbed back to the third floor to carve my pentacle: the focus and center of all the magic I would work here. In the big open room, she jumped down out of my arms and began once again inspecting every corner, sniffing closely at the baseboards, sneezing when she got some Mistress of the House in her nose. I sat down in the absolute center of the floor, cross-legged, and waited for her to finish. When I could tell she had found nothing dangerous or threatening and had turned her attention to the mice in the walls, I called her to come sit on my lap. She did, then nudged me, looking for an ear-scritching. I obliged. There is nothing to be gained from rushing a cat.
We sat a few minutes, letting our energy settle, getting used to the new space. I’d spent so little time here; it had been an investment, not a home. Not my home. Slowly, I began to focus my power, bringing my awareness from the edges of the property, to the house, to this room—narrowing and honing as
usual. After a minute, Elnor turned her yellow eyes up to me, giving her assent to our work, joining her magic to mine. I concentrated further and slowed my breathing. My familiar followed my focus closely, letting me channel power through her. She amplified and modulated my magic as I formed the space at the edge of my fingertips into something like a scalpel, strong enough to cut wood. We gathered potent energy until I was ready to draw. Then I leaned forward, tracing the image in my mind across the floor with one finger. The pentacle slowly formed beneath it, carved a quarter-inch deep.
A fancy witch—or a wealthy coven—might have spent the resources to add a dark wood inlay into the grooves, but this didn’t need to be pretty. It just needed to work.
Twenty minutes later, it was done. I was out of breath, and suddenly very hungry. Elnor got to her feet stiffly, sneezed again, and stretched luxuriantly before making her way back to the baseboards. I lay back on the hard floor, letting my energy recover. Rest first, then food.
The pentacle must have been carved correctly; I felt better within a few minutes, if still starving. I sat up and dug through my jeans pocket for my cell phone, and dialed Raymond.
“Hey you,” he answered.
“Hey sweetie,” I said. “Whatcha doing?”
“Waiting for my girl to invite me over to her new place.”
I chuckled. “There’s no place to sit and nothing to eat. But I’ll give you a tour if you take me out to dinner first.”
“How ’bout I bring Chinese? I know how to sit on a floor.”
“God, that sounds good. Bring lots.” I thought about the empty kitchen, that vast unfamiliar stove. Had I even plugged in the fridge? “Especially the General’s chicken—two orders, if you’re going to hog it all like you did last time.”
“Will do! Text me the address?”
“Yep.”
I hung up, sent the text, then shoved the phone back into my pocket, reminding myself I’d need to find the power cord and charge it up soon. Complicated, fussy little devices. Witchkind don’t use them, of course; we can communicate easily through the æther.
The trouble is, that only works witchkind-to-witchkind. Witchkindto-human requires their clunky technology.
And Raymond, the man I had been quietly dating for nearly a year now…was human.
— CHAPTER THREE —
I shut Petrana in “her” room, closed the stairway door leading to the third floor, and poked through a few boxes on the first floor, finally coming up with cushions, a blanket, and a small lamp with an amber mica shade. A box of books served as a table. Raymond could coax music out of his cell phone (who said humans had no magic?). I looked around, satisfied. Finally! My first intimate dîner pour deux, in my very own home.
In fact, the first time Raymond had been able to visit me at all. Oh yes, getting my own place was a very good idea.
I was at the door before he rang the bell. “Come in!”
He stepped in, looking around with a smile. “Great pad!” Then he pulled me into one of his strong arms for a kiss. The other arm was clutching a paper bag emitting a very enticing aroma.
My stomach growled, but the kiss was pretty enticing too. Our embrace might have gone further, if it hadn’t been rudely interrupted by an angry feline sound at my feet.
“Oh, Elnor, really,” I said to her, pulling away from Raymond. “Don’t be like that, you can see he’s no danger.”
“So, this is your cat!” Raymond bent down. “We meet at last, little kitty.” He reached out a tentative hand. Elnor hissed, then sniffed at him, tail and back fur standing straight up. She glanced up at me, puzzlement on her feline face.
Yes, that’s right, he’s not a warlock, I thought. “It’s okay,” I said to her. “This is Raymond. He’s been invited. Raymond, this is Elnor.”
She gave me another quick look, then lowered her tail an inch or so. Raymond kept his hand out—offering, but not reaching. “Here, kitty,” he crooned in a gentle voice. Elnor took a step forward, still sniffing. Finally, she allowed him to scratch her ears, while still holding her posture very alert.
Raymond smiled up at me. “Cats usually like me,” he said. “She must be kinda shy.”
“Yeah,” I said, not elaborating.
Her dignity attended to, Elnor withdrew, still watching us both.
“So, show me around?”
“Dinner first, then tour,” I said, leading him into the front parlor. “I’m starved.”
We sat on the cushions and ate from little white cartons with disposable bamboo chopsticks. And I enjoyed it so much more than I had any number of elegant banquets at the coven house.
Which had at least as much to do with the company as the food, delicious as it was. I smiled as I watched Raymond wolf down moo shoo pork and the General’s chicken. His brilliant tattoos looked gorgeous in the lamp light, swirly and red-gold; dragons and lizards and snakes twining around one another down his muscular arms—almost alive. His reddish-blond hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail. I looked forward to liberating it soon.
“So, you finally did it!” he said. “Moved out of that commune and got a place of your own! I love it.”
I smiled weakly. Though I hadn’t ever been overtly dishonest with him, Raymond did not know much about the rest of my life, for obvious reasons. When we first got together, I’d told him I lived in an intentional community that valued its privacy—which he had somehow translated into “commune,” with a side helping of “we’re polyamorous.” Which served the purpose well enough, though it was kind of amusing, how he so very carefully did not pry into my home life. He probably imagined some sort of co-op filled with wacky characters who practiced weird rituals. Instead, it was just a house full of ancient crones who cast spells under the light of the moon and…
Oh, never mind.
“Yeah,” I said, and quickly changed the topic: “How was work?”
“Eh—same ole same ole. That reno we’re doing in the Mission got hung up waiting for another permit, so Dad got us started on a bathroom remodel in Upper Haight. You should come see, it’s awesome.”
“Maybe I will,” I said, shoveling more chow mein into my mouth. “I could use some bathroom ideas.”
Witchkind was not forbidden to have relations with humans; it happened all the time. We just knew better than to take such liaisons the least bit seriously. Any formal union with a human partner—legal contract, financial agreements, potential children—was, of course, impossible. And Raymond was nearly twenty years younger than me, though he had no clue about that. Humans, with their shorter life spans, mature more quickly than witchkind, so we were effectively the same age anyway. But when I’d met him, I never imagined he would be more than a one-night stand. Or two nights. A week at the most.
He was the bass player in a very good local rock band…and sexy beyond belief. Rough and rugged, yet sweet. I had caught their set at a bar one night, then stuck around and bought him a drink. I’d even told him I was a witch, because who would believe it was actually true? “Oh, cool, so’s my sister,” he’d said, explaining that she was a Wiccan, and a midwife; that both she and his mother had a touch of “the sight,” as he called it. I hadn’t bothered to correct his misconceptions. “You’d love Christine, you guys should get together!”
Dude, I’d thought. You’re doing this whole ‘pick up a girl in a bar’ thing wrong—enough about your sister already! “Sure,” I’d said, then changed the subject to something more likely to steer us into bed.
When I had finally gotten him to take me home, it was so delightful that I went back for seconds a few nights later. And then again the following week. After that…well, he had grown on me. He was kind and sensitive, honest as the day was long, and more interested in me than in himself. In other words, nothing like any warlock I had ever dated. Our conversations were long and always surprising—how many construction workers read modern philosophy books? His interest in music was wide-ranging and passionate; he had quirky but informed opinions about everything
. He teased me about being an imperialist, because I owned a pet. (Never mind that the truth was almost exactly the opposite of that—at least in Elnor’s mind.) Yet his manner was always mild, humble even; he seemed to have no idea how intelligent he was.
And the bed sports…oh, Blessed Mother, we were good together. Now that I’d moved out of the coven house, I would be able to see him so much more freely.
“Finished?” I asked him, as he put down his carton.
“Taking a breather,” he said, grinning at me. “I don’t know where you put all that.” He reached out and poked me in the belly. “You got a secret compartment?”
“Vile creature!” I chortled, twisting away from him. “That tickles!”
“I’ll show you some tickling.”
Then we put those cushions to good use.
Early the next morning, I sat at the foot of the futon in my bedroom, watching Raymond sleep. It continued to be a marvel to me, how much sleep humans needed. Seven or eight hours, every single night! How did they get anything done?
He hadn’t been like this on the rare occasions when I’d managed to escape the coven house for an overnight stay in his apartment. Sure, he’d always complained good-naturedly that I was keeping him from his sleep. Apparently he’d actually meant it.
After a minute, I got up, dropped my robe on the floor and pulled some clothes on, and slipped out of the room, closing the door quietly behind me. I tugged my hair into a loose knot as Elnor followed me up to the third floor, where I spent a few hours unpacking boxes and starting to get the lab set up.
My research focused on improving witchkind reproduction. Fertility is a real challenge for us. My mother’s line was unusually prolific, though it didn’t begin to approach human fecundity; at forty-five, I still had no siblings. If we weren’t so long-lived, our kind might have died out long ago.
I didn’t just want to test things in Petrana; I’d also been hoping she would serve as a proof of concept for my research in the creation of microscopic homunculi. These “tiny helpers” should, in theory, be able to travel through a witch’s system, encouraging the release of eggs and guiding a warlock’s sperm to them. Unfortunately, our immune system was so powerful, I hadn’t managed to keep any homunculi alive for more than a few minutes before they were absorbed and destroyed. If I couldn’t get some traction on this soon, I would make an appointment to consult my mentor, Dr. Gregorio Andromedus.
