"We'll have to give this more thought," Harriet said. "Oh, Babs, have you heard anything about the young gentlemen who will court my daughter? Are they signing up in droves, as expected?"
"I haven't heard of one yet," Barbara responded, adding hastily, "but I expect that's because the sisterhood's trying to sort through all those admirers to select the choicest of the lot."
"Yes." Harriet had a twinge of anxiety. What did she know about the coven's connections to real men? Lost in her own world for so long, she'd assumed that her sister witches would produce the crème de la crème. But what if they did indeed show up with morons aplenty, creatures with spindly legs and goggle eyes and cold hands that sweated like old toilet seats and dreadful voices that reminded one more of monkeys than of men?
"Harriet, have you set a date?" Barbara was asking.
Wrenching her mind away from the unpleasant thought that no one might show up no matter when she held it, she said, "Do you think a week from Saturday will give us enough time?"
"Will it be catered?" Babs asked. "Because I do know of a wonderful little bistro that does incredibly clever things with fungus."
"My chef is more than up to the task," Harriet said with just a touch of hauteur.
"Well, I do beg your pardon," Barbara said, "I didn't mean to insult your gastronomic genius, whoever it is."
"If I told you, you would gasp with awe and delight," Harriet said, and whispered the name that did indeed send her old friend and onetime lover into raptures.
"My goodness, what a cake she'll bake," Barbara said. "Wait until I tell the others. They'll be green with envy."
"No, don't tell them. I don't want envy. I don't want anybody thinking of sabotaging this night simply because they're jealous of my beautiful Melissa or my home cooking. I want my girl to have a marvelous time and meet the prince of her dreams."
*~*~*
Surveying the crowded ballroom from the upper gallery, Harriet pinched herself on the arm. "Yes, it's real." She pinched herself again just to keep herself in the proper frame of mind. "I mustn't let myself get distracted. I must watch Melissa every moment. I must—"
"Hello, there, Hattie."
Harriet stared at the shriveled old hag grinning up at her. "Babs?" When the poor old creature nodded, Harriet forced herself to fling her arms about the stooped shoulders. "My goodness, it's been far too long."
"I've shrunk," Barbara said matter-of-factly. "I don't mind, not really. I can always wear heels if I need height."
"You look fine to me." Harriet stepped back. "Oh, my, yes. And I do love the hair."
"It's all mine, you know." Barbara ran a hand more like a chicken claw than a human appendage through a great gray bush of springy tendrils, some of which had small nests in them. "Don't mind the finches. It's nesting season."
"I have to say, you did a magnificent job of drawing people here." Harriet reached out and touched her former lover on the shoulder. "I owe you a world of thanks."
Barbara cackled. "You know that old saw about giving a witch your first-born?"
"Wait." Harriet moved toward her with menace. "There is no way in hell you're taking Melissa's first-born, Barbara. I will see you in hell first."
"Oh, come on, I was only joking." Barbara's yellow eyes narrowed to orange slits. "But you do seem a bit humorless tonight. Want me to tell you a joke?"
"Is it off-color?" Harriet asked, trying to see both Barbara and the floor below at the same time.
"Don't do that, dearie," Barbara muttered. "Crossing your eyes that way, they might get stuck, and then what?"
"It gives me a headache anyway," Harriet said, and leaned away from her old coven cuddle. Before she knew it, Barbara had grabbed her feet and hoisted her up onto the balcony railing. "No! Wait! I don't have my—"
"Broom," Barbara finished gleefully. "I know. So, about that new-born business."
Dangling over her guests, Harriet hissed, "Pull me up and put me down this instant, Barbara."
"Not until you say the baby will be mine." Barbara gave Harriet a little jiggle. "Go on. Say it."
"What if it's a boy?" Harriet hissed, wondering how long it would be before somebody, preferably not Melissa, saw her. Knowing Melissa, she'd start pointing and laughing.
"Oh, that can be easily fixed," Barbara said airily. "Why, Olympic gold medalists get rid of their crotch torches every day and no one thinks any the less of them. In fact, they make lovely wives, I hear."
"You'll have to ask Melissa," Harriet said. "Now, pull me up or I'll take you down with me."
"Okay." With a brisk heave, Barbara got Harriet back on her feet. "I'll ask. But you set it up."
"I don't know what you want with an infant anyway," Harriet said, giving herself a brisk shake. "I don't see you as a mother, Babs. Why, any poor child of yours would be subject to all sorts of indignities because you have no sense of humor at all. You're about as funny as a tar pit. Why should I even let you speak with Melissa?"
"Humor me." Barbara grinned again. "After tonight, you may never see her with the same eyes."
"That's true." Harriet nodded. "It will require a different vision, seeing her with a man."
"And there are so many of them." Barbara edged closer to the balcony's edge. "The girls did well. Of course, that Botticelli thing worked like a charm."
"Men." Harriet bent over the railing again, rubbing elbows with Barbara. "Show them a naked lady and they'll do just about anything."
"Tell me about it." Barbara pointed.
Downstairs on the stage set up for the formal orchestra, Melissa was spinning in an ecstasy of nudity around a brass pole from which hung a potted geranium while several hundred handsome young men gaped up in awe.
"Melissa!" Harriet spun away and ran toward the spiral staircase. "You put on your ball gown at once!"
"You forgot to tell her," Barbara cackled, flying right on her ankles, "the old story about how they don't buy the cow when the milk is free."
"She's not a cow," Harriet snarled, "and I'll handle this." Flinging out both arms, she cried, "Minions of darkness, minions of night, curse them with blindness black as the night!" When the young men began to groan and howl with fear and anger, reaching out with groping hands and knocking into each other with painful disregard, she added, "Freeze all their movements, silence their rage, let them forget what they saw on that stage."
Taking the stairs at a breathless clip, Harriet wove her way through the frozen legions. "You, you, and you, I don't know how you got in here. You're not just plain, you're downright ugly. But maybe you have money. We don't care about money, though. So, you're dismissed. Out!" On the last word, three of the suitors she'd picked out of the crowd simply vanished with a pouf. "Now, back to whence you came, never to remember my daughter's name or speak it aloud or I will hear and then you'll really be filled with fear." Her spell was a bit awkward, but she knew it was good enough to transport the unfortunate three back to their mundane lives without the slightest memory of Melissa's coming-out ball.
She vaulted onto the stage and approached her frozen daughter with a pounding heart. "Pole dancing?" she muttered, studying the perfect creamy flesh, the shining hair, the perky breasts and creamy thighs. "Where did you ever learn that, my precious daughter?" Clapping her hands, she snapped, "Well, speak up!"
"Mum?" Melissa blinked. "What happened?"
"You tell me," Harriet said. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you've been sneaking out to cheap strip clubs."
"What do you mean—oh. Did I take off my clothes?" Melissa looked so stunned that Harriet believed she was as innocent as she looked. "I don't know what came over me. Truly, I don't. One minute, I was standing there looking ravishing and sipping champagne from my own slipper and the next—well, I don't really know."
"Do you remember who gave you the champagne?" Harriet asked, her jaw tight with outrage.
"No, just some guy. He was, like, maybe this tall—" and Melissa lifted her hand a foot over her own head. "And he seemed r
eally, really nice. At least, I guess he was nice." She hung her head. "I guess I don't know whether a guy is nice or not, Mummy."
"This one wasn't." Harriet glared around at the room of frozen bodies. "Rohypnol isn't something you give a sweet young thing, not unless you want to lose the family jewels."
"What jewels are you talking about?" Melissa asked sleepily.
"Never mind." Harriet snapped her fingers. "Let's get you dressed." As invisible hands twirled Melissa to and fro, she muttered, "Once you're properly attired, we're going to go from man to man until you find the one who slipped you the mickey."
"I don't understand a thing you're saying," Melissa complained. "What's a mickey?"
"It's a drug to knock you out so that a man can have his way with you." Taking Melissa's hand, Harriet peered up into one frozen face after another. "This one's tall. Is that the one? How about this fellow?"
"No. No. I don't think so." Melissa's eyes filled with tears. "Why did you ever make me have this stupid party?"
"Me?" Harriet looked astounded. "You wanted a sweet sixteen party. You wanted to meet the prince of your dreams."
"I did?" Melissa's brow puckered. Wiping at her tears, she sniffed, "I don't even know what that means. I don't dream about princes. I dream about chocolate."
"Well, these lumps are all princes, at least to their mothers." Harriet looked up at the balcony, where Barbara had draped herself like a discarded cloak. "Barbara, did you see anything amiss?"
"Oh, no, not at all." Barbara let herself drop like a crow, swooping to land at Melissa's feet. "If I'd seen anything, I would have raised the alarm. I hate, detest, and despise date rape."
"I say we go through all their pockets." Harriet thrust a hand down the pants of the human statue next to her. "And when we find the culprit, we treat him to a taste of his own medicine."
"Drug him with the intent to ravish him?" Barbara shook her head. "I'd toss my cookies just thinking about it."
"Chocolate chip?" Melissa inquired with interest. "Or peanut butter?"
Barbara laughed, reaching up to pat Melissa's flawless cheek. "I hope your daughter is as sweet as you are, Melissa dearest."
"My daughter?" Melissa looked suspiciously at Harriet. "Mummy, what's she talking about?"
"She's talking about the child you'll bear. You see, dear," Harriet said, taking her daughter's arm and walking her a little distance away from Barbara, "a daughter, or, with less luck, a son, is the ultimate result of being with a man. A male. The other gender."
"Wait." Melissa dug in her heels, ignoring the glassy stare and bearded chin of a frozen specimen of manhood facing her. "What do you mean? Do they bring this daughter or son with them when we get married?"
Harriet laughed uneasily. "No, no. You produce it between the two of you."
Melissa's face cleared. "What do we do, make it out of dough or something, like the gingerbread boy?"
"No." Harriet pinched her lips together. Must not frighten the child, she said to herself. Time enough to learn the nasty way humans thrust their way into the world when it was happening to her.
"Tell her," Barbara said out of the blue, having read Harriet's mind if not her lips.
"It's something to do with those spiders, isn't it?" Melissa said. Observing Harriet's disgust, she said, "Does it have something to do with hairy legs?"
"A modicum," Harriet grumbled.
"I'm not sure what that is," Melissa said, "but I know it's a terrible, terrible thing for a girl to have hairy legs. The spiders said so."
"Did they really?" Harriet asked, vowing to dispatch them to the deepest, darkest part of the cellar where they'd have to suck mold from the stony walls in order to survive.
"Yes, the subject came up when they were challenging me to that nine-legged race. They were just going to tell me about other hairy parts—" Melissa pouted, "—when you barged in and ruined it."
"Hattie, you must tell her," Barbara urged.
"Ind-may or-yay own-yay usiness-bay," Harriet barked.
"Oh-nay, oh-nay, oh-nay!" Rushing over to Harriet and Melissa, Barbara said, "Melissa, you're a grown woman, and grown women have to face the truth that they are the Bringers of Life to this world. It is a sacred task which scares the bejesus out of men, which is why they have to be enticed into marriage."
"Oh, what hogwash," Harriet snapped. "Men chase women, not the other way around."
"Oh?" Barbara looked around her with an arched eyebrow. "So all of these men have been frozen like rainbow trout because they were chasing after Melissa?"
"Why would anybody chase anybody?" Melissa asked. "I didn't think we were going to play games. I thought all these people in here came to celebrate my birthday with me. I thought we were going to dance and eat cake and drink champagne and at midnight they'd all turn into pumpkins and I'd go to bed with a splitting headache because I'm not used to strong drink."
"Oh, there's a lot more to it than that, dear," Barbara said. "You see, they were all looking you over to see if you were fit to breed with. Then, the one with the most money would slip a ring on your finger with a great big splashy stone in it made from old, dead animals that had been in the ground for a few million years. Then he'd get to pull down your pants and—" she shot Harriet a glance "—uck-fay you."
"What?" Melissa turned ashen. "I don't know exactly what that means, but it doesn't sound like any fun."
"Of course it's fun," Barbara said. "That's why humans keep on doing it. It's so much fun that people routinely do it until they finally drop dead from old age, although these days there's a pill for that." Her eyes got a far-away look. "Oh, yes, uck-faying and being uck-fayed. That's what makes the world go round." She shook her head briskly. "For humans, that is. The sisterhood is different, of course."
Harriet shook her finger in Barbara's face. "Don't go filling my daughter's head with old wives' tales."
"As if I could." Barbara shook her finger in turn at Harriet. "I've never been an old wife."
"Listen up, you two." Shaking her finger at first Harriet and then Barbara, Melissa said, "I don't want to be a wife, old, or young or middle-aged or anything."
"Cold feet," Harriet said soothingly. "It's natural."
Melissa looked down at her slippers. "You never said I should wear socks."
"Listen," Barbara said. "We're getting off track here. We want to find the genitally challenged monster who tried to dope Melissa."
"He'll be even more genitally challenged when I'm done with him," Harriet said grimly. "How about this one?" She patted the breast pocket of the involuntarily entranced male next to her. "Hah! Look!" She pulled out an amber plastic pill bottle. Squinting at the miniscule type, she read aloud, "'For ravishing females of all ages. Trick her into taking two and call me in the morning so I can get a crack at her'."
"Let me see that." Barbara snatched the pill bottle away. "I think we should do a spell or two, don't you?"
Clutching the bottle, she smiled as Harriet put her hands over hers. "Whoever this jerk is, get rid of him, and the pill who gave him the drug. Thank you."
With a tiny squeak, the frozen male shrank down to a puddle, then flowed toward the door.
"Good riddance," Harriet called after him.
"Yeah," Barbara shouted. "Don't let the gutter hit you on the way out."
"That didn't make any sense," Harriet said. "But I liked your venom." She stared around the ballroom, where all the frozen-trout-suitors were doubled in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. "If we melted them all down, we could save the whales."
"How?" Melissa asked breathlessly, twirling among them so that she could get her dancing in after all.
"Ask her," Harriet said, pointing to Barbara, "I've got spells to work."
"Mummy?" Melissa was looking at one of the frozen creatures intently. "Come and take a look at this one."
Barbara and Harriet studied the delicate features, frozen now but giving a promise of great beauty if allowed to thaw.
"I think I like this one,"
Melissa whispered. She raised a hand and cupped the smooth cheek. "Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to uck-fay this one."
"That's the spirit, dear," Barbara said. "There's still only one way to make a baby, and that's the old-fashioned way. Turkey baster, porn, and semen."
"Hush." Harriet grabbed Barbara's arm. "Look closer, Babs."
Rubbing her eyes, Barbara leaned forward. "He's a pretty little thing, isn't he?"
"Use your gray cells," Harriet hissed.
"Ah." Nodding wisely, Barbara said, "Underage. Too bad, Melissa, dear, I'm afraid we have to throw him back."
"Put on your glasses," Harriet snapped.
Grabbing up two glasses of champagne, Barbara poured the contents, far less fizzy by now, onto the floor. Putting them to her eyes, she gasped, "Oh my, goodness me, I believe it's a girl!"
"Can I keep her?" Melissa turned to Harriet. "Please, please, Mummy, say I can keep her."
Harriet beamed. "Why, of course you can, child. Of course you can."
*~*~*
The boat was bobbing rather too enthusiastically around the ballroom for Barbara's taste, but she forbore complaining about it. After all, she was the one who'd started the meltdown. "It's a veritable sea of men," she said equably. "By the time they dry up, they'll be snug at home in their beds and having wet dreams they won't understand one little bit."
Sitting with their arms wrapped about each other in the prow, Melissa and Daphne giggled. "I don't understand what you mean, Auntie Barbara," Melissa said. "I pretty much never understand what you mean." Tenderly brushing a tendril of Daphne's auburn hair off her forehead, she murmured, "But I don't care. I don't care what those drips do as long as I don't have to be part of it."
Manning the rudder, Harriet said, "I wonder, do you think we should call up a wind?"
"Good heavens, no," Barbara said. "All we'd do is run aground on the cellos."
"I'm so glad you crashed my party." Melissa sighed, resting her head on Daphne's shoulder. "I think you are so brave."
"I heard about this beautiful princess," Daphne said softly, "and I wanted to gaze upon her from afar." Her lips curved in a sensual smile. "But not too far."
Musical Hearts Page 3