by Douglas Rees
“You speak Spanish?”
“Pues, un poquito,” Ariel answers. “He pasado varios tiempos en México estudiando con las curanderas. Pero no tengo la oportunidad usarlo mucho aquí. Desculpe.”
Victor smiles. All his fierceness uncoils. “You sound good to me,” he says. “For an Angla.”
“She sounds better than you,” Leon says, all serious.
“José speaks Spanish, too,” I say, getting prouder of Ariel by the minute. “He taught me some today.”
José ducks his head,
“Y es usted el señor quien hizó este esplendor?” Ariel asks Victor.
Victor grins. “No. The guy in the back did it.”
Aunt Ariel walks around to Chris and says, “Beautiful work.” Her voice is all soft.
“If you really like it, maybe you could come over to the shop sometime,” he says, and his voice is all soft, too. “This is how I make my living. There’s usually two or three street rods around the place at any one time. Other stuff, too. If you like cars.”
“I will,” says Aunt Ariel.
“We have got to get going,” Leon says. “If Victor’s any later, he’ll have to fire himself.” He drops the hood. It makes this great crumping sound. Then he slams his door. It’s like he’s putting on his armor. It is armor. It’s all their armor, and the crest on their shield.
The Chevy takes off, low and slow and full of power and love.
I wave. Blesséd be, I thinksay.
15
FAMILIAR
WHEN WE GO INTO THE HOUSE, the kitten is nowhere. I start looking under furniture and in closets, but no way is he around.
Meanwhile, Aunt Ariel is reading the note from Garbage.
“Kestrel, would you come in here, please?”
I go in and sit across the kitchen table from her.
“What happened to you today?”
So I tell her. While I’m telling her, her face gets whiter and whiter.
“And did they search Blake and Jason, too?” she asks when I’m done.
“No,” I tell her.
“That man is out of control, and he is not fit to be around children,” Ariel says. Her voice is different. Man, is she mad. “He threatened you with something that would have been completely illegal if he’d actually done it. And I’m sure he knew that. I’d have sued the school district, and they’d have been glad to settle out of court. But they might keep him on afterwards. No, I’m going to have to find another way to change the flow.” Her voice is smooth, but her eyes are blazing with witchfire.
Then, after a minute, she says, “But let’s put this aside for now. We have a weekend ahead of us. Let’s enjoy it.”
She smiles at me, but she’s still mad. I feel warm all over, thinking how fierce this aunt of mine is right now because of me. I almost feel sorry for Garbage.
But the kitten is still nowhere.
“Aunt Ariel, do you know a spell to bring a cat to you?” I ask.
She laughs and says, “There’s one that works almost every time. Watch this.”
She goes over to the refrigerator and opens it. She gets out some milk and pours it into a saucer. Then she slams the refrigerator door and calls “Here, kittykittykittykittykitty.”
The kitten comes running into the kitchen from wherever he’s been, mewing, and runs right over to the milk. He puts his face down to it and stands there, staring.
“He’s too young to know how to drink,” Ariel says. “Come here, Kestrel.”
I go over and kneel down by the cat. He tries to run away, but I catch him and hold him.
“Put some milk on your fingers and let him lick it off,” she says.
I do and he does.
“Now see if you can get him to follow your fingers down to the saucer,” Ariel says.
After a couple of tries, he gets the idea. He drinks the saucer dry, hisses at us, and runs off again.
“We’ll run an ad in the paper, but I suspect we have a cat,” Ariel says.
“He’ll be my familiar,” I say.
Ariel shakes her head. “That’s not something just any cat you find in the street can be,” she says. “There are familiars with pedigrees going back centuries. We’ll have to wait and see with this one. Maybe he has it, and maybe he hasn’t.”
“How will we know?” I ask.
“We’ll know,” Ariel says.
But I decide in my head that he’s my familiar, no matter what. The universe knew getting a familiar is on my list. And now it’s sent this cat. Maybe it’s trying to make up for all the bad stuff that happened this week. Anyway, let Aunt Ariel run her ad. I’ll chant a chant to make sure no one answers it. Help the flow along.
After dinner the phone rings. I wonder if it’s Laura calling to bless me out for abandoning her, but it isn’t. It’s BD. He must be a little better if he can stand talking to me.
HERE IS WHAT WE SAID
BD: Hello, dear. How are you?
ME: Cool. How are you?
BD: Not so cool, but a little better, they tell me.
I don’t say anything, so he goes on.
BD: What’s school like?
ME: Well, there’s this big building and they have classes and stuff.
Truth he can handle, right? But BD sighs this big long sigh. His heart, I remember.
BD: Have you got any friends yet?
I almost say, “Yeah. Her name’s Ursula and she’s got tattoos all the way up both arms and she’s gonna get me into her gang,” but I remember A Witch Never You-Know-Whats and tell him the truth I think he can handle.
ME: Not a friend, exactly. But there’s this kid in my English class I like. He draws really neat pictures. We hung out in detention today and his brothers gave me a ride home in their lowrider, and Ariel asked them in but they couldn’t stay.
BD: What’s his name?
ME: José Iturrigaray.
BD: Put my sister on, please. Now.
So Ariel gets on the phone.
AA: Yes, she did… Yes, I did… All right? Yes, they seem like a charming family… Well, his brother is a police sergeant, but I don’t think we ought to hold that against him, do you? Ted, you’re going to have to stop worrying so much. You don’t have that luxury anymore. And you don’t have cause. Kestrel is doing very well. She’s a delight to have around…. Yes, she’s not smoking. She’s not smoking, her grades are good, and she’s starting to make friends. You should be very proud of her…. Why don’t you tell her that?… It will mean more coming from you…it would mean a lot…. Good.
She hands me back the phone.
BD: Honey, I just want to say that I’m proud of you.
ME: Thanks.
BD: Keep it up.
ME: Keep what up?
BD: Uh—everything you’re doing.
ME: Okay, I promise.
Then we both hang there with four hundred miles of dead air between us because he can’t think of anything more to say to me and I can’t tell him any more truth and it sounds like even what little I did tell was almost too much. And when I realize that he’s not talking because he hasn’t got a clue about what to say, and that there’s nothing I can say, and how much we do not compute, I want to cry. And I don’t want him to hear that, so I hand the phone to Ariel and get out of the room.
AA: No, she just left. I think you touched her very deeply, Ted. She’s crying a little, I think…. Give yourself credit. You mean more to her than you know. You’re her father, after all. No, I think she wants to be alone now. Take care. ’Bye.”
THE END BUT NOT EXACTLY
Aunt Ariel puts down the phone and comes into the living room, where I’m balled up on the sofa with my knees in my eyes. She sits down and puts one of her great arms around me. I roll myself into her chest and we just hang on to each other for a while.
Finally, Aunt Ariel says, “He really does love you, honey. He just doesn’t have a clue.”
“How’d you know that’s why I was crying?” I say.
“I’m
a witch.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say. Of course she would know. “Will he ever get one?”
“It could happen. This heart attack could be the thing that breaks him open inside,” Ariel says.
“Are there any spells we could cast that would help him?” I ask.
Aunt Ariel thinks. “A huge part of his problem is that he can’t be who he was and he doesn’t know who he can be instead.”
I get this cold feeling. “You mean he might decide he doesn’t want to be anybody?”
Ariel sighs. “It’s possible. When someone comes to me for a spell, at least they know what they want. That’s a huge advantage. I guess the best thing we can do is ask the universe to show him who he wants to be next.”
After that, she offers to take me out to a movie or down to the video store to rent whatever I want, but I turn her down. All I really want is to go into my room and write down what just happened.
When I am done doing that, I take one last look around for the kitten, but he’s found someplace really great to hide. It’s early, but I say goodnight to Aunt Ariel, close the door to my room and go to bed.
I sit there in the dark feeling my scratches and thinking about the day. I don’t think I ever had one with so much good and bad in it. Blake was the pig of the world, but if he hadn’t been, would I ever have found out how neat José is? Would I have gotten my kitten if it hadn’t been for Blake? Would I have gotten to ride in that car? If Garbage hadn’t sent that note home, would I have known how much Aunt Ariel loves me? I think about BD who can’t compute me and now can’t compute himself. But maybe now I can help.
Is the universe on my side or not? Ariel would say, “It’s both.” But that’s not enough for me. The universe is in higher gear, and I want to know which way it’s flowing.
I take a step back. I thinksay, Interesting. And it is interesting. But that’s all I can tell.
I go over to the bed and pick up a pillow to throw it.
I hear this “Aaow.” The kitten bounces up and dashes around the room. He was asleep under the pillow.
He hisses. He runs. He puts up a paw and scratches at the door.
I sit back down at my desk.
After a minute, he trots over to me. He pounces up on my knees.
I pick him up and hold him against my chest. He squirms, then stops. He starts this tiny purr, like he’s never done it before and isn’t sure how it works. It gets stronger.
I try petting him again. First he scratches me again. But then I skritch him under his chin, and he stretches his jaw into my hand. His purr gets louder, so loud it shakes him.
It starts to flow into me. My familiar is trying to heal my heart. And it is working.
Interesting. Very interesting.
16
LAURA
THE NEXT MORNING, I NAME THE CAT. This is very important to keeping him. Ratchbaggit is what I call him. I don’t know what it means, it just comes to me. It has a good, witchy sound.
Anyway, now I can cast the spell to make sure no one else gets him. I draw the sacred pentagram and put him in the middle of it. He gets up and runs away. I put him back; he runs. We do this about ten times.
Finally, I take my wastebasket and put it upside down over Ratchy and the pentagram. He hollers, and the wastebasket keeps making little jumps, but at least it holds him in place while I chant a spell of protection which comes to me from the same place I got the name.
Powers of darkness and powers of light
Don’t let that ad come to sight
Of anyone who owned this cat.
I say this five times, once at each point of the pentagram, though I have to guess where they are because of the wastebasket. I think Ratchbaggit kind of likes it, because he calms down a little and the wastebasket jumps less.
Then I take the wastebasket off and let him run around. I write his name on a piece of special red paper with my special silver pen and light my black candle. I take another piece of paper and write Whatever Name He Was Before on it. I hold it over the flame. It crisps up, and his old identity is gone.
“Come on, Ratchy. Let’s get some breakfast,” I say.
He follows me into the kitchen, like any familiar would.
I give Ratchy some milk and me some cereal. It’s good to sit there in the kitchen with the sun coming in through the windows and the quiet all around, just me and my cat.
When we’re done, I decide to help the universe out by washing the dishes. I even dry them and put them away. While I’m doing this, the phone rings, and I get this flash: It’s Laura.
“Oh, well,” I say. Time to get my little ear blasted.
Of course it is Laura. Before she can talk, I say, “Listen, I’m sorry. They gave me detention yesterday. I didn’t get home ’til practically night.”
“Why did they give you detention?” Laura asks.
So I tell her and after five minutes it’s like I’m talking to an old friend. And she’s listening and going, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Oh, no,” and, “Blake did what?” And I feel so good telling this to someone my own age that when I’m done, I don’t want it to stop. So I say, “What’s up with you?”
And for the next half hour we talk about everything. The Queens, how school sucks, and why chocolate is better than carob even though carob is sweeter.
Then Ariel comes into the room.
“Just a sec,” I say to Laura.
“Listen, Kestrel,” Ariel says. “I have to go to Costa Mesa this afternoon. I’m speaking to a group. Do you want to come along?”
No, I don’t. But then I think, Laura’s interested in the Craft. So I say, “Can I bring someone?”
“José?” Ariel asks.
“No, the girl who found my stuff—Laura,” I say.
“Of course. If she wants to come, we’ll pick her up in an hour and all have lunch someplace. How’s that?”
Ariel looks even happier than I feel.
So I tell Laura, “Look, I’ve got to go to this thing my aunt’s doing in Costa Mesa. Want to come along? We’ll get lunch.”
Laura practically squeaks, “Yes.”
So we drive over and get her.
Her house is in a part of Jurupa I haven’t seen before. It’s the old part, with houses that are a hundred years old, some of them. There are houses like little castles and houses like Spanish missions and houses that don’t look like anything but houses, but they are way interesting. The streets are quiet and the trees are friendly and make thick shadows on the pavement.
“These are nice,” I say. I am very surprised to hear me say it. “They are indeed,” Aunt Ariel says. “Jurupa was the original Palm Springs. A hundred years ago, people used to come here to spend the whole winter, and get away from the snow. There are mansions on some of the hills that make these places look small.”
“So what happened?” I say.
“Smog. People,” Ariel says. “It stopped cooling off at night the way it did. The rich folks moved on and left their fantasies behind.”
“So why do you stay here?” I ask. “It seems like you could live anywhere and do what you do.”
Aunt Ariel doesn’t answer at first. Then she says, “Spiritual ecology. There’s something about this place that lies underneath the ordinary surfaces of things. And if you can touch it, it’s very sweet and powerful.”
Jurupa does not look like a place that has any ecology at all, let alone the spiritual kind. But I have to believe that Aunt Ariel knows what she’s talking about. Or at least I have to believe that it’s possible that she does.
But now we are in front of Laura’s house. It is one of the Spanish-looking places. It is long and low and about twice as wide as Aunt Ariel’s house.
When we ring the bell, there is a chime that sounds like a one-note song, and Laura opens the door.
“Hi,” she says and smiles. “Thanks for coming.”
Inside it’s dark and cool and clean and makes me think of a library. There isn’t even a television in the living room. But it fe
els peaceful.
Her rentz seem nice in a gray sort of way. They’re pretty old to be rentz, but they turn out to be kind of cool. Their names are Arthur and Irene.
“How very nice to meet you,” Arthur says, taking Ariel’s hand. “I greatly enjoyed your last book. Your knowledge of folklore is most impressive.”
“Thank you, Mr. Greenwood,” says Ariel. “I’ve enjoyed all your books.”
“You have?” Arthur says, like Aunt Ariel’s just given him a present. “I’m surprised you’ve heard of me. So few people read poetry.”
“Perhaps that’s because so few poets write poems worth reading,” Ariel says.
Arthur smiles.
So Laura’s BD is a poet. I wonder how you get a job like that. Anyway, it’s wicked cool that he and Aunt Ariel know about each other.
Irene says, “We’re very pleased to meet you, Kestrel. How did you come by such a beautiful name?”
“Basically, I gave it to myself,” I say.
“Wonderful,” Arthur says. “More people should name themselves. It makes a great deal more sense than being named by a couple of strangers. Aztecs had five names, of increasing secrecy and potency. Very intelligent.”
“Well, I like being named Laura,” says Laura.