What The Cat Dragged In (The Celtic Witch Mysteries Book 1)

by Molly Milligan

“But why was a smith involved, then?”

  He laughed. “Maybe you are looking just a little too deeply into the choice of companions. He could have just been there as hired muscle.”

  “Bron, that would be the simplest explanation,” Maddie said.

  I put my head in my hands. “I wanted it all to fall into place,” I said. “And we still don’t know why Rachel Harris is so mad about all of this.”

  At the mention of her name – I’d kept her out of the conversation previously as I didn’t want to reveal her paternity to all and sundry, no matter how much I trusted Gruffydd – he snorted. “Is there anything that Rachel Harris is not mad about?” he said with amusement. “That’s what keeps her looking so young.”

  We all laughed.

  I wondered.

  Twenty-two

  It felt like two steps forward and one step back at the moment. We did at least know why Robert Cameron was in my garden, and we had some good idea of why he was haunting me, but I wasn’t totally sure why Rachel was so furious about the whole thing. It felt like a lot more than just a desire to protect her past and her dad, whom I – and everyone else – considered to be her father.

  I briefly considered that she might be ashamed or embarrassed about her biological dad’s magical connections, but that could hardly be right. She herself was openly brimming with the stuff.

  At least I had my dinner date with Adam to look forward to. Maddie had fluttered around my bedroom, picking up – and picking apart – all my clothing choices. Eventually I’d had to banish her and she then went through all my make-up in the bathroom. When I emerged from my bedroom she had laid out a “select palette in this season’s colours” for me. I mimed gratitude and shooed her away.

  If I started wearing make-up now, wouldn’t Adam expect that all the time? I wasn’t going to set up expectations that I had no intention on keeping.

  All right. Maybe a little eye liner. I’d worn that before.

  And some kind of foundation thing to smooth out my skin a little, perhaps. I’d bought the base cream in summer, though, and on my pale February complexion I did look a little over-done.

  Oh well. The lights in the place we were going to were bound to be low, right?

  I stared at my own reflection in the mirror for too long. No, I’m not going to describe myself for you. You’ve had my Great Aunt Dilys’s assessment already, remember? But I gazed at myself long enough to start to feel nervous, and that was ridiculous. We were friends, me and Adam. Friends on a date. Friends who might become more than friends.

  And if it all went wrong?

  There was the problem, in the end. I would lose a friend.

  Butterflies crowded my stomach. At the memory of the black-winged ones I shuddered, and then saw the ghost of Robert Cameron over my shoulder.

  He smiled at me, and nodded encouragingly.

  It was pretty creepy the way that he knew what I was doing and the fact he could just float around the bathroom. But I knew, also, that ghosts had left many of their earthly desires behind, and carnality didn’t often trouble them.

  I managed a weak smile in return, and then I turned out the light and went on down to the kitchen.

  But while I was in the corridor, my hand reaching out to the kitchen door, I heard Maddie talking to Adam inside.

  I stopped. I knew that I shouldn’t listen. Nothing good ever, ever comes of eavesdropping. Even Harkin wove himself around my feet, and I could feel his displeasure. Maybe I was imagining that, and it was just a projection of my own ill-ease.

  I tuned in to the conversation.

  “Yeah, I sure miss the candy we get at home,” Maddie was saying, and her accent sounded stronger than usual. Was she putting it on? “But I don’t mind the British stuff, either, you know? I guess that’s the thing about travel. I want to be open to new things. I don’t wanna be the terrible stereotype of a tourist loudly demanding to eat exactly the same things they eat back home.”

  I was relieved that they were not talking about me.

  Although, you know, they could talk about me if they liked. As long as they were saying nice things.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” Adam agreed. “So, how are you finding Llanfair?”

  “It’s cute. It’s kinda strange how everyone just walks around.”

  “You wait until the summer. Even on the few days it gets really hot, everyone will be outside, burning in the sun like they’ve never seen it before.”

  I heard her laugh. “I like how relaxed everyone is, and they talk to strangers just like in small towns back home. I guess London is a bit different.”

  “It is very different,” he said. “I prefer it here.”

  “Don’t you miss home? Zambia, I mean?”

  “Oh, yeah, there is so much that I miss. But moving away gives you a new perspective, too. My timekeeping has improved. I can’t work for the police here but still keep running on Africa Time. I miss all my aunts and the sunsets and the community, but I don’t miss…”

  “What?”

  “Feeling a part of something and yet not a part of something. There’s such baggage with the history of the settlers. My folks, the white settlers. I belong there and I don’t, at the same time. People don’t talk about it much but it’s there.”

  “Oh my gosh, I so know what you mean,” she replied earnestly. “And I don’t think other people understand, do they? I mean, Bron, she’s so well-meaning. She wants to learn and understand, but she can’t just get online to read things. I don’t ever want to be someone’s ‘teaching experience’ but I kinda got to, you know? But she won’t really ever get it.”

  I wanted to shout “Of course I get it” and “I don’t get it so why don’t you teach me” all at the same time. The unfairness of being criticised for something I didn’t feel I had any power over was burning.

  No, I reminded myself as Harkin pressed hard against my leg. I wasn’t being criticised. Just … discussed.

  I stamped my foot as if I had just come down the stairs, a warning to them that I was coming in, and flung the door open, expecting the pair of them to look up in startled horror.

  Neither of them looked like they’d been doing anything wrong.

  “Ah! Wow, Bron, you look gorgeous!” Adam said, and he smiled so broadly that I believed him. He came forwards with a bunch of roses.

  “Another bunch of flowers? Two in one month? I thought you weren’t planning on being sick this time,” I joked.

  It was the wrong time to joke. His smile wavered. “No, these aren’t saying sorry in advance. These are just to say …” He petered out. “Hi.”

  Well, I’d ruined that moment, hadn’t I?

  Maddie took her leave very swiftly.

  “They are lovely,” I said. “Thank you very much. Let me just put them in water.”

  We chatted about inconsequential things as he drove me to the restaurant. I always felt so safe when he was driving. I suppose that was his police training. Even though it was dark, and the roads were narrow and twisty, I could relax. I took care to keep my shielding up. We really didn’t want to break down because of my energy going haywire.

  The restaurant was a pleasant one, but we could have been anywhere. I was sure I’d been in an identical one on a visit to Cardiff, and another very similar in Chester. It was inoffensive and bland even if it did lack individuality. The food, when it arrived, was tasty.

  I asked him about work, and he shrugged me off. “I want to escape from that for a few hours,” he told me. “It’s not the job itself, just the politics I need a break from.”

  I understood. But then he asked me about how things were going with the ghost. He couldn’t help smirking a little.

  “You do believe me, don’t you?” I insisted, tearing into some naan.

  “Yes, I do,” he said. “Sorry. But I’ve never seen a ghost. I would find it easier to believe in them if I had seen them.”

  “You believe in me though. You’ve seen my … er, skills … at first hand. A
nd trust me, seeing ghosts is a whole new kettle of fish. It complicates life. And it brings certain responsibilities.”

  “How so?”

  “All talents have trade-offs. If I have been blessed in seeing spirits then I need to work on behalf of those spirits. If I try to just profit off it, things will go very wrong for me. I mean, haven’t you ever wondered why you guys, the police, don’t get many actual real psychics working for you? I know a few do, the truly altruistic ones, but once someone gets greedy and demands money or even just recognition, the gifts are withdrawn.”

  He was listening intently and he nodded with seriousness. “I see. That does make sense. So, I’ll ask without sounding like a tit then: how is it going? Is he still bothering you?”

  I brought him up to speed quickly, keeping my voice low. The restaurant wasn’t very crowded but even so, I wasn’t comfortable talking about some of the issues. I even told him about Rachel Harris, and her biological father. I only missed one thing out.

  I was really hoping for some insight from him but he couldn’t offer anything new.

  Our conversation petered out.

  After a few minutes of picking at the remnants of our food, I sighed and put my cutlery neatly on my plate, and looked up. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. Um, can I ask you, did you really want to come out tonight?” he asked.

  I was stunned. “Of course I did! I wanted to spend some time with you. I’d have come bungee-jumping if you’d asked me.”

  Suddenly the tension was broken and he laughed loudly. “Oh, thank goodness. You know, that’s what we should have done. Why are we even sitting here?”

  “Because it’s what couples do?”

  “Are we a couple now?”

  “No,” I said. “Not unless you take me somewhere interesting. Like bungee-jumping.”

  “I wanted to,” he said. “But then I thought I ought to do the expected thing.”

  “I don’t want the expected thing.”

  He reached across the table and took my hands in his. “I am so glad. Once again, I feel as if I have been a colossal idiot.”

  “You have,” I said. “But the food is pretty nice, so it’s not all bad. And you’re not drunk this time.”

  “I might have to be if we do go bungee-jumping,” he said.

  “I think that would be a mistake.”

  “You’re right.”

  There was another silence but this wasn’t at all like the previous one. This one was warm and meaningful. We held one another’s gaze and I liked it very much. I was getting all manner of fluttery feelings in my belly now.

  Yeah, you know I’m going to mess this up now, don’t you?

  But we continued making doe-eyes at one another for a little while longer. Then we strolled through the chilly night air back to the car. We would have wandered for longer but both of our faces were getting numb. I could think of a way to warm our lips, but sitting in a car did seem like a more sensible option.

  It was just before we set off on the drive home that I managed to sabotage my own happiness once again.

  We spoke at the same time. I was saying, “So, what do you think to Maddie? Do you think she’s settling in?” and he said, “So, Maddie said you had been to see Gruffydd?”

  That’s the one thing I hadn’t told him.

  We were both sitting in the car, letting the engine idle while he demisted the windscreen. I looked at him sideways. He glanced at me and smiled, and said, “Oh, you first.”

  The question was harder the second time around. “Oh, it was just that you were talking with Maddie in the kitchen. I wondered what you thought about her?” I could hardly reveal I’d overheard them bonding over their experiences. I hoped the petulant, pathetic jealousy didn’t sound in my voice. I was ashamed that I even felt this way. But feelings are funny things. You can control your thoughts but how do you really control feelings? It’s like telling a depressed person to cheer up. It’s not so simple.

  “I think she’s great,” he said. “She’s so brave, jetting off across the world like she has done.”

  “It’s not so brave,” I said, hating myself for suddenly becoming so spitefully argumentative. “We mostly speak English here. If she had gone off to France or Spain, then that would be brave.”

  “No, that would be foolish if she didn’t speak the language. I think she’s brave. Are you jealous?”

  “No, of course not! It’s me here with you, not her.”

  He gaped at me in astonishment. “I meant, are you jealous that she has travelled and you have not? Not, oh my god … no, I didn’t mean that. Why would you be?”

  “Why indeed,” I said, hunkering down in my seat. I screwed up my face.

  “Are you going to cry?” he asked.

  My eyes flew open. “No,” I said, and it was my turn to be astonished. “I was just telling myself to stop being such a stupid cow. I reckon I just have this self-destruct switch I flip on whenever anything is going well. I am sorry. I mean that. Ignore me.”

  He laughed. “Oh, I don’t want to ignore you. I don’t think you’re stupid. Silly, perhaps.”

  “Thanks. The windows are clear. Shall we make tracks?”

  “You haven’t answered my question yet.”

  “Hadn’t I?” I feigned surprise. “Oh, yeah, we did call in to see Gruffydd. I wanted to speak to him about the smith in the photo.”

  “And how is he?” Adam asked, lightly.

  I knew what that tone hid. Adam’s own unease and, dare I say it, jealousy of Gruffydd. All he saw was a fit, hot man and the fact that I was friends with him.

  It was not my place to tell Adam, or anyone, the reality of Gruffydd’s sexuality. I longed to, just to reassure Adam. The issue was compounded by the darker side of small town life - continual gossip. Not all chat is harmless chat. Gruffydd himself wasn’t in the closet, exactly, but he kept himself to himself. He knew he would be accepted if he presented himself as “safe” to the town, and this meant acting a certain way, keeping himself under wraps to some extent. Not in, but not quite out. Even so, most people did know or suspect he was gay; some people pretended not to know.

  And some people, like Adam, were surprisingly dim.

  So I said, “He was fine. I took Maddie. I don’t think she’d been in a real forge before, so it was quite the experience.”

  “I bet it was.”

  “Which means?” I asked pointedly.

  He started the car. “Sorry. I am being petty.”

  “Neither of us have been exactly the ideal human this evening, have we?” I said.

  We pulled out onto the main road. “I guess not,” he said. “We definitely should have gone bungee-jumping.”

  “Next time, eh?”

  “There’ll be a next time?” he asked.

  I heard nervous hope in his voice. “Of course there will be,” I assured him.

  The peace was restored.

  Twenty-three

  To tell you the truth, I really didn’t feel so good about my actions - well, about my words - the previous evening. I didn’t have a good night’s sleep, and I woke early. Harkin prowled around my bedroom and then came to sit on my chest, staring into my eyes.

  “I know,” I told him. “How old am I? Fourteen?”

  Why were relationships so hard? I sometimes thought I should just stay as a good friend with Adam. That was one of the reasons why we had moved along so slowly. I was just so scared of messing it up, and that made me over-analyse everything, which inevitably led to me messing it up, which at least was a comforting foregone conclusion.

  But I am not daft. I knew that I had created an idea in my head of myself, and it was easier to stick to that idea than to have the guts to change it. I needed to change it. I needed to stop seeing myself as “bound to fail” and instead say, “I can make this work.”

  But, ugh, effort.

  Effort needed fuel. I felt groggy but I went through the usual morning routines. The ghost of Robert Cameron was hanging aro
und on the landing and I found myself waving a good morning to him as I went to the bathroom.

  Hang on. When did I get to this state of actually accepting his presence?

  He was not going to become a permanent fixture. Anyway, I knew he wanted to move on, and I still had to work out how. It was tied in with the sports centre, somehow. Perhaps with the rebrand they’d build an extension or something, and that would mean they’d have to dig foundations. As I stood in the shower I imagined a scenario where I’d somehow get the corpse from wherever it was currently stored, drag it over to the sports centre in the middle of the night, and chuck it in the foundations with a quick ritual that would effectively lay him to rest.

  That was never going to work, was it?

  Still, it was a nice fantasy.

  I wandered down into the kitchen. I was a little later than usual but not lethargically so. I was braced for a grilling from both Maddie and Dilys about my date, but I was not expecting to find Sergeant Polly Jones sitting at the table, steadfastly refusing the constant offers of cups of tea from Dilys.

  “I’m on duty.”

  “But it’s not poisoned.”

  “I didn’t think it was. Why would it be?”

  “Then you can have one. Sugar? Milk?”

  “No, thank you,” Polly was saying. “I’m on duty!”

  “You’re sitting down. Does that still count as being on duty?”

  “Ah! Bronwen!”

  “Good morning,” I said.

  Dilys hovered by the kettle. “Maddie is seeing to the animals. Brew?”

  “May I have a word with Bron in private?” Polly asked.

  “You may.” Dilys made no move to leave.

  “Go away,” I said.

  She went, at last.

  “So,” I said to Polly with a slightly cheeky smile, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “No! I am on duty.”

  “Oh, are you?” I gazed innocently at her uniform. “Right you are. What can I do for you?”

  Polly rested her forearms on the table and lightly clasped her hands together. She put on what I can only assume was an attempt at a sympathetic-but-firm expression. She smiled, yes, but she pressed her lips together.