Fatima blinked and snapped back into focus, her head upright once more. “Come with me.” She waved for me to walk around the counter. “I’m sure your fur-kid will be happy to see his mommy.”
I snorted to myself. I’d been called a few things, but being referred to as a fur-kid’s mommy was a first.
We walked past an examination table and into an alcove with stacks of roomy cages. The fox’s cage had been labeled Mr. Fox, as though the big bushy tail wasn’t enough of an identifier.
True to Fatima’s promise, the little guy did seem happy to see me. He lifted his pointed muzzle and rotated both big dark ears to face me. He was all ears and fur. What a cutie! His gold-green eyes blinked with recognition as he unfurled the bushy tail he’d had wrapped around his small body. And was that a smile on his black lips?
Fatima called over the veterinarian.
Dr. Katz joined us in the alcove. In his soothing tone, he described the emergency treatments he’d given the fox. He used the technical terms to describe the extent of the damage, and he didn’t pull any punches. The injuries had been deep. I swallowed hard, regretting the valuable seconds I’d wasted in the forest, being indecisive and chatting with that nosy blue jay.
I thanked the veterinarian, and he excused himself to check on the cage directly across the alcove.
He opened the grated door and poked at what I’d assumed was a fluffy white sheepskin blanket. The lump rose up and took the shape of a long-haired white cat.
“That’s a good Boa,” the veterinarian cooed. “Good girl. Wave goodbye to the charming Mr. Fox. This nice redhead lady is going to take him home now, and you’ll have the place all to yourself tonight.”
The cat showed her intense concern by yawning lazily.
Fatima saw me watching Dr. Katz with the cat. She asked me, “Would you like to adopt Boa? She’s currently looking for a furever home.”
“Did you say furever home?”
Fatima grinned, her teeth as white and pearly as her glasses frames. “That’s what we call adoption.”
Of course. Fur-kids went to furever homes. I’d know that if I’d ever owned a pet before.
The vet chimed in. “Boa’s a lovely girl, and she’d make a lovely addition to any household. She’s up to date on all her shots and ready to curl up on someone’s lap. Wouldn’t you like that?” He gave me a hopeful smile. “Some people think a white cat with long fur might need a lot of maintenance, but I assure you Boa is quite capable of grooming herself. A little dab of fur-ball medicine once a week is all she needs.”
“Let me think about it,” I said. “Why is she called Boa? She’s not part snake, is she?”
Fatima and Dr. Katz exchanged a knowing look and snickered. The vet explained, “She showed up here with no identification, and she reminded us of a feather boa.” And then, speaking very slowly, as though I was quite foolish, he said, “Cats are no more related to snakes than humans are related to, say, birds.”
“Right,” I said, though I happened to know otherwise.
The veterinarian scooped fluffy white Boa from her cage and murmured sweetly to her, “Let’s go get some sunshine in the courtyard.” As he walked away, the cat peered over his shoulder at me and raised one pink-toed paw, as if to say, Don’t forget about me.
Behind me, there was a metallic clinking sound as Fatima operated the latch on the fox’s cage.
“We had to use our high-security latch,” she said. “Foxes are notoriously clever about foxing their way in and out of places they shouldn’t be.”
“Great,” I said flatly. Did I really want to take this clever animal home with me?
“Good boy,” Fatima said as she looked him over. “You haven’t touched the stitches, so you may not need the Cone of Shame.” She scratched under his chin as she explained the after-care treatment for his wound. He would need oral antibiotics plus a topical cream.
She asked brightly, “Any other questions?”
“Yes. Sorry to be a bother, but could you describe to me again the person who paid my bill?”
Once again, her eyes unfocused, and she stared blankly past me, this time in the direction of a cat poster on the wall.
“It was a petite Asian woman with short hair,” she said. “She was elegant and regal, with the most dazzling bright-blue eyes.”
I felt my eyebrows rise. “Did you say a petite Asian woman paid the bill? Not a large black man?”
“She was short-haired,” Fatima said with a slow nod.
I turned my head and looked at the poster in her field of view. It was an artistic photograph of a Siamese cat walking daintily along a tree branch, staring at the camera with bright-blue eyes.
Magic!
The veterinarian’s assistant was under a spell. Whoever had paid for the fox’s treatment had done so under a glamour, a magical disguise. I’d been disguised by magic once, as a bush. And I’d seen my aunt transform herself into an old man. This spell affecting Fatima was a bit different, it seemed. The memory itself was changing.
I turned to the fox, who still appeared to be smiling.
Mr. Fox, you’ve got some questions to answer when I get you home.
But first, how was I supposed to get him home? I’d brought him there wrapped in my leather jacket. I’d zipped out on my lunch break to take the blood-soaked jacket to a dry cleaner, so I didn’t have it with me. What I needed was a portable cage, or even a car. I could call for a taxi, assuming they wouldn’t see the fox and refuse service.
The fox got to his feet and waved one front paw. He seemed to be beckoning me to lean forward. Did he want to tell me something? Whisper it in my ear?
I leaned in, and he jumped onto my shoulders with seemingly effortless grace.
He settled in for a shoulder ride, comfortably balanced on my shoulders with his paws draped forward over my shoulders.
Fatima smiled at us with adoration. “What a beautiful family. I love how your hair blends with his fur.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling weirdly vain. Did she think I’d chosen to own an exotic animal because we matched? I wasn’t shallow like that. Or was I? His fur did complement my hair.
The fox nuzzled my cheek with its wet black nose.
Fatima looked down at my feet. “The lady who paid the bill was wearing those same boots,” she said. “Exactly the same.”
“I’m sure,” I said. I’m sure you believe she was, thanks to that spell.
I patted my fox companion on his sable paws, thanked the assistant and the vet, and began walking home with my furry, rust-colored scarf.
Chapter 4
They say you can get used to anything if given enough time.
It took me two blocks to stop worrying about the fox falling off my shoulders, and a third block to find the pleasure in parading around with a genuine fox scarf.
“This is actually fun,” I said to the fox.
He responded by tickling the tip of my nose with his bushy tail. I smoothed down the tail, ruffling my fingers through the thick, luxurious coat. The bright-red fur was both softer and denser than it appeared.
“I hope you don’t mind me petting you. For the first time in my life, I finally understand why people wear fur coats.”
The fox puffed out an indignant snort, right next to my ear.
“So, you do understand what I’m saying, Mr. Fox. You comprehend human speech.”
He gave me an ear twitch and nothing more.
“You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
The fox rested his chin on my shoulder and stretched out his dark sable paws, letting them hang down languidly along the neckline of my purple blouse.
I reached the end of the street and asked the fox, “Left or right? I’d be happy to take you right back to where you belong, if you’d just give me a hint.”
The fox closed his green-gold eyes and let his head go limp. He was playing dead.
“Cute,” I said.
There was a clip-clop sound behind me. By the sou
nd of it, a woman in heels was hurrying toward the corner where I stood waiting to cross the street.
“Excuse me,” the woman said. Her tone was anything but polite. “Ex-cuuuuuuuse me,” she repeated, more aggressively. “Hey! You with the fox!”
I turned around to find a short fifty-something woman with gray curls around a rectangular face approaching me. She wore a dark-gray suit and hard-soled shoes that clip-clopped like hooves. One of her curls stuck out from the center of her forehead. She had rounded shoulders, and her upper body was tilted forward as she came toward me, giving her the appearance of a charging rhinoceros.
I replied politely, “Can I help you?”
She stopped charging and pawed the sidewalk with one hoof-like foot.
“Fur is murder,” she spat. “It’s wrong. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I might have agreed with her message, but I sure didn’t like her tone.
Mr. Fox was still limp around my shoulders, playing dead. I gave his tail a tug as I smiled sweetly at the Rhinoceros Woman.
“Ma’am, you should take a closer look at my scarf before you start hurling accusations.”
She clip-clopped right up to me and leaned in close, frowning. She reached out and tentatively poked the fox on its dark, wet nose. The fox gave no signs of being alive. The woman recoiled and crossed her arms.
“You sick person,” she spat. “You’re wearing a corpse!”
“He’s alive.” I tugged the bushy tail again, harder. “I swear, he was alive a minute ago.”
The woman gawked at me with bugged-out eyes. Her whole rectangular-shaped face was twitching, as though her muscles couldn’t decide what expression to make. The horn-like curl on the center of her forehead trembled with outrage.
“Wake up,” I said to the fox. “You’ve had your fun, now open your eyes.”
“You’re a psychopath,” declared the woman. “Or a sociopath. Or both. Your parents should have drowned you at birth!”
The fox made a growling sound but didn’t open his eyes.
I raised my hand. “All right. You’ve made your point about wearing fur, ma’am. Now if you’ll just let me be on my way—”
The woman lunged forward, hands raised, and grabbed the fox’s front paws. His eyes flashed open immediately, and suddenly his jaws were snapping, his sharp white teeth just inches from the woman’s face.
She released the paws, shrieked, and stumbled backward. She tripped, and her arms windmilled helplessly as she teetered backward off the sidewalk.
At the same moment, a city bus was rapidly approaching the same space occupied by the top half of Rhinoceros Woman’s body.
I jumped forward, reaching for her arm. Her eyes bulged with terror. She was more afraid of me than falling. She yanked her arm out of my grasp, propelling herself even more rapidly toward the front of the bus.
There was no time to think or debate. I used my telekinetic magic to catch her on the back and bounce her back up onto the sidewalk. It was ridiculously easy, much simpler than trying to grab her with my hand. Once she was upright, I latched onto her hand and dragged her to the middle of the sidewalk. The bus roared by without so much as a honk.
“Phew,” I exclaimed theatrically. “I thought you were going to slip through my fingers, but then luckily I snagged the hem of your jacket.”
She made a gurgling sound as her rectangle face contorted. Her rhinoceros-horn curl was now damp with sweat. She twisted her head to look at her back and kept twisting, twirling around like a dog with something on its tail.
“My back,” she muttered. “Something touched me on my back.” She stopped twirling and stared after the bus as it trundled down the street, its aura of raw destructive power decreasing by the second. “Something invisible,” she said.
“Invisible? You mean like wind?”
“No! An invisible force!”
She was onto me. I needed to change the topic. Fast.
I pointed across the street, at a familiar-looking man in a suit the same shade of gray as the woman’s.
“Hey,” I said to the woman. “Who’s that suspicious guy over there? What do you suppose he’s up to?”
The man across the street noticed me pointing and stopped walking. He broadened his shoulders and pushed back his jacket to put his hands on his hips in a Superman pose. It was good ol’ Detective Bentley. I’d missed teasing him at the bakery this morning. He looked stronger and more rugged than he appeared when he was eating donuts.
Rhinoceros Woman swiveled her head to stare at Bentley. While she was distracted, I made my escape. I walked swiftly down the street, turned down a side street, and didn’t look back. I listened for the clip-clop of her shoes, but to my relief, she wasn’t chasing me.
The fox on my shoulders made a sound not unlike a human guffaw.
“You’re a monster,” I said. “You nearly got that woman killed, and you made me... do something I didn’t want to do.”
The fox pressed his wet nose against my cheek and gave me an apologetic lick.
“You’re still a monster,” I said.
The fox sighed, rested his muzzle on the front of my shoulder, and gazed up at me. Those green-gold eyes were still so familiar. I felt a confusing mix of emotions I hadn’t experienced in a long time. I was annoyed, but having fun in spite of my reservations.
We left the downtown core, and my walking slowed as I neared my neighborhood. The hills felt steeper with the additional weight of the fox on my shoulders. He was mostly fur, but he had a few solid pounds underneath the fluff.
I received a few curious stares from my fellow Wisterians, but nobody dared to talk to the sweaty redhead with the live fox on her shoulders.
As I turned onto Beacon Street, I noticed a cacophonous clanging followed by an ominous groaning. It was the sound of a large structure being strained. Was someone doing a home renovation? There were more clangs and groans. It didn’t sound like the typical hammers and saws of construction. The groaning reminded me of a school field trip to an auto wrecker yard, where all of us children had cheered as the auto crusher squashed a rusty old car into a cube.
The fox’s ears straightened up, and he raised his head. His shiny black nose pointed straight at the corner of the street, where my house sat.
As I drew closer to home, it became clear the horrible noises were coming from my house. My daughter had been planning to come straight home after school, so she was presumably inside the house. What was she doing? There was more clanging. My pulse raced. What was happening?
I ran up the porch steps two at a time and yanked on the door. The handle was unlocked; it turned, but the door didn’t open. The door didn’t even budge. I yanked again, but it was like pulling on a brick wall.
I banged on the door and pressed the doorbell button. I couldn’t hear the cheery ding-dong of the doorbell over the clatter. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess a six-man wrecking crew was inside, tearing up the hardwood floors and ripping out plumbing.
“Zoey!” I banged on the door. I tried using my magic to shove the door from the other side. It still wouldn’t budge.
My shoulders felt lighter. The fox had jumped down and was now pacing the porch, stepping gingerly on the rear paw that was next to his injury. His pointy sable ears kept swiveling left and right.
“Mr. Fox, do you know what’s going on?”
He let out a single YIP.
“Did you say ‘yip,’ as in yes?”
He tilted his head to the side. I might have found the head tilt adorable under different circumstances.
I rubbed my hands together, feeling my powers growing while my mind raced for answers. My lips got ahead of me and curved into a smile. Zoey’s powers? Despite my fear over the noise, I had a glimmer of hope. Perhaps my daughter’s latent witch powers had finally kicked in and she was doing something amazing with her magic.
I ran down the steps and around the side of the house. There wasn’t much space between our house and the Moores’ house, an
d today the breezeway seemed even narrower.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and called up, facing her bedroom window. “Zoey!” And then, for maximum effect, her full name. “Zolanda Daizy Cazzaundra Riddle! Open your window right this instant!”
The air shimmered before me, twinkling with the visual signs of my magic that only I could see. The window flew open with a bang. The cacophony of noises continued, louder.
Zoey’s face appeared in the window, her red hair swinging out over the ledge as she leaned down. Her skin was as white as snow, her cheeks flushed with patches of pink.
“Mom? What are you doing to the house?” Her gaze darted over to my animal companion. The fox sat by my feet, his bushy tail wrapped around his front paws, as calm as could be.
“Me? What are you doing to the house?”
“It’s not me,” she said, and then, softer, in a tone that felt like ice in my heart, “Mom, I’m scared.”
“I’m coming up. Throw me down your ninja rope.”
“Can’t you just...” She looked at the fox and frowned. “Is that a red fox?”
I turned to look at the fox. His elongated mouth was open, and the corners of his black lips were curled up. He was smiling, all right. No doubt about it.
“You’re doing this,” I said to the fox.
He clamped his muzzle shut and gave me the cute head tilt.
“Stop it right now,” I growled. “You can mess with other people, and you can mess with me, but don’t you dare mess with my daughter. She’s up there by herself, and she’s terrified, and it’s all your fault.”
The fox licked his nose.
My powers rose up inside me, the pressure like rushing water straining against a concrete dam with cracks forming.
In the controlled, barely audible voice I’d been trained to use for the Witch Tongue, I commanded the fox to stop whatever it was he was doing.
Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 2 Page 3