by Mindy Klasky
Clara looked skeptical. “Can you do that, Jeanette?”
“Jane,” I reminded her through grinding teeth. “And I don’t know. But at least I can build on whatever training they’ve already received. I can focus on each individual element of our working, making sure we have a solid foundation before moving on to the next thing. Walk before we can run, and all that jazz.”
Gran beamed. “It sounds as if you’ve truly thought this out, dear!”
Thought it out, yes. But I was a long way from being confident about implementing the results. Dissatisfaction with traditional training was exactly what had driven Emma and Raven from Sedona into my arms. Would they even stick around if I tried to force them into a traditional education?
At least Gran’s enthusiasm temporarily dispersed my cloud of self-doubt. I had to laugh as she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Now, how about dessert? I hear this place is known for their salty oat cookies!”
No amount of magic would ever explain how Gran managed to pack away so much food. But who was I, to pass up a salty oat cookie?
* * *
I only felt a little like a traitor as I approached my best friend’s bakery, Cake Walk, an hour and a half later. Sure, I had indulged in a hearty brunch. And I’d done my best to keep pace with Gran when it came to dessert. I had no business even looking at another baked good. But I wanted to see Melissa in person. I only got down to D.C. once or twice a month.
“Walk on in!” said the cheery sign in the window, and the bell over the door jangled to announce me. No one was sitting at the tables in front. In fact, Melissa was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear her.
“No, Mother, I am not telling Aunt Agnes to wear beige and shut up. That’s the mother of the groom.” Pause. “No, I’m not telling Rob’s mother to wear beige either.” Pause. “I’m not telling anyone to shut up!”
I shook my head in sympathy. Melissa and her boyfriend had announced their engagement a few months ago. At the time, it had made perfect sense to choose a wedding date more than a year away—Rob’s sister would be home from her stint in the army, and Melissa’s newly-expanded catering business would be on sturdier footing. As a practical matter, though, the long lead time had only given Melissa’s relatives a chance to dig in their heels about a million details the happy couple could not care less about.
“Mother—” Melissa said three times, but she was apparently unable to wedge more than that single word into the tirade streaming over the phone line.
Melissa and Rob had originally planned on a simple morning service with a light brunch for guests—baked goods from Cake Walk, a couple of urns of coffee. Yielding to familial demands, though, the happy couple had been convinced to switch to an evening ceremony, complete with a full dinner reception and a twelve-piece band. Melissa’s grandmother had insisted on a rehearsal dinner to feed every guest traveling to the wedding. Great-Aunt Sarah had campaigned for a morning-after brunch. Melissa’s father had plotted a golf outing the weekend before the blessed event, and Uncle Joe had upped the ante with an evening smoker at his favorite cigar shop.
And there were still nine months to go. Plenty of events to add. Maybe the boys would go to a strip club. Or we girls would. And there was still ample opportunity to schedule a few bridal showers. By the time Melissa’s family was through harnessing the might of the wedding-industrial complex, I was pretty sure the overall cost for the White-Peterson nuptials would be greater than the GDP of several small countries, combined.
“No, Mother,” Melissa finally bulled her way through the barrage on the other end of the phone line. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. That’s not what I meant to do. Look, I’ve got to go. There are seven people waiting at the counter. I can’t keep talking right now. Whoops, bye!”
The phone crashed into its cradle and then there was a suspiciously long silence, while I imagined Melissa running her hands over her face. When she finally stepped out of the back room, I was waiting for her with as strong a smile as I could muster. “I’m not seven people. But I can buy seven different things, if that would help.”
She came around the counter to give me a hug. Her slight frame seemed to have shrunk since the last time I’d seen her. Perhaps for the first time in memory, her perfect honey-colored hair was in disarray, standing on end as if she’d spent the last half hour combing it with frustrated fingers. Which she probably had. “Nothing will help,” she mourned. “Nothing at all. I was insane to get engaged.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never seen you happier than the night Rob proposed. What’s on the Greatest Wedding Hits list today?”
“Aunt Agnes wants us to order roses tattooed with our initials. Little Ms and Rs burned onto every petal. Apparently they’re all the rage at her country club.” She picked up a rag and began scrubbing at the perfectly clean countertop. “Am I a terrible person, for wishing we’d never invited Aunt Agnes?”
I grinned and quoted, “Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.”
She laughed. “All’s Well. What is it? Act I? Scene … 3?”
“Good. For a minute, there, I thought you’d been too traumatized to recognize a perfectly good quotation.”
“I’m traumatized enough to consider doing my Ophelia impression. It’s not a bad day for a dip in the Potomac, is it? ‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.’” I laughed as she did her best imitation of a madwoman. She took a shuddering breath before saying, “Okay. What can I get you?”
I wanted to say “Mojito Therapy,” so that we could shut down the bakery, take lime and mint from her perfect kitchen, and retreat upstairs to her oven of an apartment. We could drink the night away, bemoaning demanding aunts and controlling Head Clerks of Hecate’s Court, and everything else that was wrong with our lives.
But I couldn’t do that. I had to drive home eventually, and rum would not mix well with David’s Lexus. Besides, it was barely after noon.
“Yoo-hoo!” Melissa said, saluting me with a glass of ice.
I forced my attention back to the beverages at hand. “Mango Madness, please.”
Melissa complied, and then she put a couple of Sugar Suns on a plate. Sure, I’d had a feast at Teaism, but I couldn’t hurt my best friend’s feelings, could I? I nibbled on one of the iced lemon cookies. Wow. Absence really did make the heart grow fonder.
“So,” I said with the curiosity of a small child poking a bruise. “I have one wedding-related question. Why do you put up with this stuff?”
“You’re my maid of honor, and you have to ask?”
“Humor me.”
“I’m the only girl on both sides of my family. Everyone’s been planning for this since the day I was born.”
“But if you’re not happy…”
Before I could continue, the bakery door opened and a pair of women rushed in. They wore shorts and T-shirts, with sweatbands cinching their foreheads and wrists. From the expensive tennis rackets in their hands, it was clear they’d just come from the courts. Melissa dished up everything they ordered, a couple of Cinnamon Hearts, three Lemon Sparkles, and a handful of Ginger-Butterscotch Dreams in a separate bag. Melissa smiled as she took their money and told them she’d see them next weekend.
“Regulars?” I asked dryly.
“Like clockwork. They insist they’ve each worked off 3500 calories by playing doubles tennis for half an hour. I’m afraid of the hit on my bottom line if I tell them the truth.”
I waited for Melissa to get back to the real matter at hand—her struggle to declare independence in her wedding travails—but she was rescued by two more customers, a father and his adorable toddler. The little boy debated between four different treats before going back to his first choice, a Vanilla Vroom.
As they walked out the door, I said, “I miss this.”
“So come around more often.”
“I would, if I could. Things are getting … interesting out at the farm.”
“Interesting, as in you’re learning where little bitty lam
bs come from? Or interesting, as in you’re discovering you and David can’t live under the same roof?”
“Interesting, as in class is in session at the Madison Academy.”
“Do tell!”
Between interruptions from customers and refills on my Mango Madness, I caught Melissa up on all the dramatics. She laughed until I told her about Norville Pitt and the Court’s demands.
“So what are you going to do?” Melissa asked.
“What can I do? I’m going to start official classes tomorrow morning. The next four months are going to be like final exams in college. Why sleep when I cram in one more detail about reading runes?”
“You’ve got plenty of time,” Melissa said confidently.
I shook my head. “Maybe if I’d done this teaching thing before. I’m starting to think I bit off more than I can chew. I mean, I’ve completed difficult rituals on my own, and with Gran and Clara. But whatever made me think I can do something like that with absolute strangers? I should have thought things through a bit more before I registered the Academy.”
“You’ve wanted to do this for months,” Melissa reminded me.
I feel like a fraud, I wanted to say. I’m as bad as Sister Moonsilver. But I shoved down that nagging voice of self-doubt. “Enough about me. I came here because I’m your maid of honor. And as your maid of honor, I’m telling you, you’ve got to put your foot down on some of this wedding stuff.”
“Fat chance,” Melissa said. As if to avoid my quirked eyebrows, she took out a pasteboard box and started to fill it with two huge squares of Almond Lust. She carefully centered a square of tissue paper on top of David’s favorite treats before adding a couple of cream-filled Lemon Pillows for Neko. She tucked in a few of the peanut butter treats she kept for the canine companions of her favorite customers. Spot would be in heaven.
I let her tape up the box before I forced her back to the matter at hand. “Am I going to have to Friendship Test this?” I was pulling out the big guns. If I made her promise on a Friendship Test, she’d have no choice but to follow through. “Seriously. Talk to Rob. Find out what he thinks about tattooed roses. And if he thinks they’re an abomination against nature, then tell Aunt Agnes she’s out of luck.”
Melissa smiled wanly. “And you’ll back me up, when the Four Horsewomen of the Wedding Apocalypse come riding to my door?”
I laughed. “I don’t even know who the Four Horsewomen would be.”
Melissa counted them on her fingers: “Vanity. Gluttony. Avarice. And Pride.”
“Not Lust?”
“Ewwww. I don’t want to put Aunt Agnes and Lust in the same conversation. Much less the same sentence.”
I laughed and reached for the box of treats. “Really, Melissa. Just do it. Stop the madness now, or the next nine months will be a nightmare.”
A trio of kickball players tumbled through the door, already shouting out their drink orders. As Melissa set up glasses on the counter, she gave me a meaningful glance. “Go on,” she said. “Hit the road. Don’t you have something all important and magical to do back at the farm?”
“Friendship Test,” I reminded her.
“Okay,” she said.
“I mean it.”
“I said okay!” But she was smiling as she waited for the athletes to place their order for sweets.
* * *
By the time I got back to the farmhouse, David was ensconced in his office. I assumed he’d already worked his warder’s magic, whisking Clara back to Sedona. I wondered if he’d mentioned tuition payments. Maybe he’d made better headway than I had.
I stood in the doorway, watching my warder work. A stack of papers was centered on his desk, each sheaf fastened by a grommet and threaded with ribbon, just like the contract Pitt had made me sign. A fountain pen rested beside the documents, and I could just make out a column of numbers on the nearby pad of legal paper. An adding machine purred at the edge of the desk, its spool of paper curling onto the floor.
“I know you’re there,” David said quietly. Of course he did. I smiled and stepped into the room as he rose to greet me.
“I stopped by Cake Walk on my way back from brunch.” I held out the pasteboard box. “Lust?”
“Always,” he murmured, and a smile twitched across his lips. As he took the box, his eyes never left my face. Somehow, he set it down on the desk without upsetting any of his official papers.
His fingers were warm through the fabric of my sundress as he pulled me close. I leaned down to kiss him, a quick brush of my lips against his, but I caught my breath when he folded me into a full embrace. Tension radiated across his back, tangible even through his shirt.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s all this?” I pulled back enough to gesture at the papers.
“Court records.”
“Are you supposed to have them here?”
“I kept a copy of everything, toward the end.” Well, that didn’t really answer my question. Or, maybe, it did.
“What are you looking for?”
“I’m checking the numbers again. Making sure my accusations about Pitt were right the first time. He shouldn’t have been promoted to Head Clerk. Shouldn’t be working for the Court at all.”
“Accusations?” I frowned at the vehemence in David’s voice. “You haven’t told me everything. What happened between the two of you?”
He shook his head.
“Hey,” I said, bumping him gently with my elbow. “I’m on your side. I’m your witch.”
His fingers tightened on my hips for just a heartbeat before he backed away. “It’s ancient history. No reason for you to worry about it.”
I frowned but decided to let him have his way. “Hey,” I said, brightly enough to alert him I was changing the topic. “I had an idea. I think we should bring the witches closer. Move them into the house.”
“You think that?”
“Gran thinks that,” I amended. “She says I should give the apartment back to Neko. But that would mean you’d have to move your office to the storage room in the basement, and that doesn’t feel right to me. You shouldn’t lose your personal space for me.”
“For your students,” he corrected.
That sounded better, but… “I don’t mind changing things around for Emma, but…” I bit my tongue to silence my uncharitable thoughts.
David’s lips curled into a wry smile. “Raven’s a piece of work, isn’t she?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” I laughed. “Say what you’re really thinking. She’s a scheming, manipulative—
But I cut off the rest of my thought. David would never say those words out loud, not about a witch. Not so long as he was still a warder sworn to Hecate’s Court.
“Hey,” I said, tightening my arms to bring him closer. “Are we okay?”
“Of course,” he answered. “Why wouldn’t we be? I can probably get more work done downstairs, anyway.”
He set about proving the fact that we were fine with a most reassuring kiss. I laughed in the back of my throat, and my hands slipped beneath his shirt. He let me feel the planes of his chest, but he stopped me when I reached for the buckle on his belt. With a knowing smile, I reached behind me, and closed the office door to guarantee our privacy.
CHAPTER 7
WITH ONE THING and another (ahem), I didn’t get to break the good news to Neko until the following morning. Everyone was gathered in the kitchen—my students, their warders, and their familiars. David had just poured himself a bracing cup of coffee when Neko sauntered in.
“Just the man I was looking for!” I said, as he crossed to the refrigerator.
Neko froze, his fingers clutching tight around a quart of cream. “I have receipts for everything. I swear!”
I’m sure he did. Not that my sobbing bank account would care. “That’s not what I was worried about. I’ve been thinking. It makes more sense for Raven and Emma to stay in the house than out in the garage apartment. We’re going to be working pretty intensely over the next
four months, and we’ll make more headway if we’re all under one roof.”
If David hadn’t made a miracle catch, there would have been cream all over the kitchen floor. As it was, Neko nearly crushed me with his ecstatic embrace. “Really? I mean… You think…” He crushed me tighter. “You don’t know… It’s just… Jacques and I…” I was really starting to have trouble breathing. “Thank you,” he said.
And he didn’t even sniff at my rumpled T-shirt, my missing makeup, or my haphazard French braid.
That utter lack of snark made me realize how upset poor Neko had truly been. He didn’t even protest when I announced that he was responsible for managing the move of David’s office to the basement. He just nodded a dozen times and started issuing orders to Kopek and Hani, insisting that the team of familiars could get everything taken care of by the end of the day. It took him a full fifteen minutes before he asked, “What about the shopping? Do I have to take back everything I bought yesterday?”
I shook my head. “We’ll find a use for all of it. I’m sure.”
He yelped with glee.
In light of the major residential shift, I postponed classes until the following morning. That turned out to be a wise decision. It took until after noon for the familiars to carry all of David’s boxes to the basement. The warders pitched in during the afternoon. In short order, the new guest room was graced with a swiftly purchased bed, a chest of drawers salvaged from the barn, and an armoire from the flea market halfway down the road to Parkersville.
Late that afternoon, Emma stopped me in the hall. “Have you any flannels?”
Flannels. Um, those were washcloths, right? “Over there,” I said with a one-shouldered gesture.
“Ah! The airing cupboard.”
No, I wanted to say. The linen closet. That’s what any red-blooded American witch would have called it. Instead I asked, “How long did you live in England?”
“Live there?” She laughed. “Cheeky monkey! I never lived in England! I spent a fortnight, though, seven years ago. I was on a coach tour.”
She’d spent two lousy weeks on a bus, and now she sounded like an extra for Masterpiece Theater? I almost rolled my eyes at the absurdity. In fact, I might have said something I would truly regret, but I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Raven was recording our conversation with her camera.