“Ma'am? Excuse me... could you tell me…” she points to the Witch's hut, “anything about your neighbor, there. I'm about to enter into a meeting with her that so far - until now - I couldn't get out of, despite my best efforts, and I'm trying to quell a sudden urge, here, to run. She couldn't be all that bad, could she? I mean, is she, like they say, a true witch?”
“I normally wouldn't talk to you, about –” the lady motions her head toward the Witch's, “but you almost remind me of a long ago traveler, who I helped in much the same way. Had I not taken the time, that day, to talk with her; Domina was her name - she might never have gotten away. You seem sweet enough. If I were you, I wouldn't go in there, unless you just can't possibly get away from it. And, yes she is, I feel, a true witch, as they say. This was her cat,” the lady reaches down and pets a white cat with blue eyes that seems to stare straight into Jessica’s eyes, “but, she won’t even go near the road, any more. Stays completely away from her hut. Poor thing. She was dreadfully frightened when she first arrived.”
Jessica also pets the cat, asking, “What about you? Do you like her, or does she frighten you?”
“Like her? O, no, no, no,” the Hair Lady pauses while taking a good look at the hut, sizing it up and down, then she blurts, rather loudly, “No!”
“But she doesn't-“ Jessica glances over her shoulder at the place, and then back at the Hair Lady, “- kill people, does she?”
The Hair Lady whispers and leans in, over the fence, “I think she killed her lover.”
“She did? She killed? She had a lover?” Jessica bombards the lady with her intense questioning, attempting to satisfy her curiosity.
The Hair Lady nods her head up and down slowly, pursing both lips together in a tight press.
Then she witnesses, “She did, have a friend, a man who lived, there. I think he was in love with her. And I think she did - kill him. Two men, carried the poor, collapsed fella in one day, and he's never, ever come out again. Then I heard, through a rumor,” a slight and gentle wind picks up and moves past the Hair Lady's house down the street right past her mailbox, giving Jessica the idea it was the mail that carried the news, “he had been killed - her man, that lived there, with her, like a live-in lover, I suppose.”
“Huh,” is all Jessica manages to say at first, her mouth slightly ajar. She glances, less timid this time toward the Witch‘s door; more confidant, now, she reveals her thoughts on the matter.
“She can't have been the one to kill him, that's why she’s summonsed me - to find his killer. I heard she was thinking of blaming me, and I know I didn’t kill him. I’ve never even been here before; and, I don't think he was anyone I knew; so, this shouldn't take long. Thank you, so kindly for your advice and your help in restructuring my attitude and lack of desire to attend this meeting, today. I still don't want to go in there; but, it shouldn't be the trouble that I sensed was brewing as I approached.”
The Hair Lady's expression does not move from steadfastly solemn regarding this neighbor she's had to endure. She leans in toward Jessica again and says, “Maybe that's what she wants you to think.”
“What?” Jessica stammers, “No. She's outraged, supposedly. She’s called my Father, for brave mortal's sake. She wouldn't venture to call a vam-” Jessica, almost unveiling her identity, quickly ‘covers up’ her mistake, considering the lady’s penchant for gossip, “venture to call him - if it weren't from the utmost authority of her stature in the Underworld to do so. He's not just anyone, here. “
The Hair Lady steps away, pressing full lips ever tighter, and whisking her hands together as if to say 'we're all finished up here' and yet she only says, “I see.” She continues back stepping until she ducks for her basket and hurries away to her front door, “Good bye!” She waves and does not let the screen door hit her in the backside as she lets it slam, closed tight (and locked) behind her.
“Well, hmmm,” Jessica turns and resolutely faces, straight on, the outside of the Witch's hut as if to steady herself for the next steps of the obligation. She stares a moment, noticing first the weeds, in sharp contrast to the Hair Lady's well-kept yard. The unnerving charm of the twiggly gate and the sad appearance at the face of the house.
“This isn't helping,” she thinks, “I have just got to get in there and get this over with.” She marches up to the twiggly gate, and, at the very moment that she reaches out to open it, the Witch bursts open the hut’s front door.
The Witch scowls, squinting one eye, turned to the side and pointing, rudely, with her arm straight out, “You!!”
She turns her pointing finger up toward the sky and then curls it in and out repeatedly, “Come here!”
Jessica looks repulsed, “How odd a greeting is this? I won't be addressed this way. Excuse me?!“ She looks down and side to side, examining the wood floor she is about to step onto.
The Witch drops her arm down by her side and looks at Jessica, astonished to be reprimanded by the likes of this little pipsqueak.
“Well!” the Witch says right one-hair-of-a-second, before Jessica says, “Well!” and both nearly sniff the wind, incensed, by the other's audacity.
“I've a right mind to turn on my heels and go back where I came from,” Jessica tells her.
“Who do you think you are? You have come here on a summons, not the Review Board of my manners.”
“I am a vampire, Madame, of the most prestigious family, with one ancestor, here, in fact, who-”
The Witch interrupts, “I've a right mind to teach ya’ what blood suckers are to the folks around here. But I won't. I'll remember who you are - if you remember who I am – and, why you are here.”
“Yes, well, that is the topic to be discussed, isn't it? All false and wrongfully alleged claims, so far, is what I have to report to you.”
The Witch sneers, “I'll be the judge of that.”
Jessica begins to protest, “What?!” however, the Witch insists, “I said, I'll be the judge of that.”
“O, I don't think so. There is no democracy in that set up,” Jessica says, “you can’t be fair. You’re too emotional, I’d imagine,” and then Jessica raises one eyebrow and studies the facial expression of the Witch (supposedly in mourning from a lost loved one - or, a cold-blooded killer (and a Witch’s blood does run cold). The Witch looks around.
“Would you like to yell this from the road, or would you like to come inside?” she asks, her expression gets almost ridiculously 'sweet', for a moment which almost seems vaudeville in its absolute phoniness.
“I could brew you a cup of tea,” she says. Jessica pulls at her own coat lapels and takes one step forward, “I suppose a cup of tea would be nice. It has been quite a day for a journey.” The Witch gets a wolfish smile.
“I can tell this is the type of 'greeting' you are much more used to.”
“Accustomed to,” Jessica says.
“What?” the sour expression of the Witch returns at once.
“Accustomed to is the proper wording. But yes it is - thank you - I'm feeling a little less put upon, now. You practically scared me with that kind of hello.”
The Witch nearly cackles, “O, this will be so-oo easy.“ She fakes a school chum’s pat on the back as Jessica approaches the doorstep, “you know, we shall check our facts, catch up, brew tea if you like! Whatever helps you keep our ’get-together’ easy-going.” The Witch smiles, actually showing her teeth!
“How nice,” Jessica says, “A witch who’s agreed to be formidable.” The Witch hides an expression of utter disgust from her called-upon visitor as she opens the door just wide enough for Jessica to walk in past her.
“Sit down!” She points, her fake sweetness already at a test. She stomps toward the tea pot, slamming the lid on the counter, as already she’s at an imposition, adding tea to the meeting – another waste of her time.
“My father has sent me,” Jessica begins.
The Witch sighs and rolls not just her eyes, but her head, “I know.”
“
Otherwise, I must tell you, I wouldn't have come,” Jessica says.
“Pity,” the Witch responds, “I would have hexed you and the Underworld would not have stopped me. Couldn't have stopped me.”
“Hm! Then, I suppose it is good that I came. Although I don't believe in – hexes-”
The Witch interrupts Jessica‘s near disgracing of magic potions, hexes, and spells. Pointing once again, she says, “Watch it!! Not in my house you won't!” throwing Jessica off topic, or almost.
“Sorry,” Jessica quips. The Witch begins to pour the tea, and Jessica asks, “Do you have any lemon?”
“No!” the Witch says.
“Sugar?”
“Two?” the Witch inquires.
“Just one.” Jessica says as the Witch adds a spoonful to the tea cup and brings it over to her seated guest. Again, the Witch smiles, actually showing teeth. Jessica takes the cup out of her hands.
“It is good tea?” the Witch asks.
“Thank you,“ Jessica sniffs it, “Darjeeling?”
“Witch hazel.”
“Witch hazel? I haven't -”
“Just drink it!” the Witch insists and then mutters, “It's almost like you want it.“ Jessica takes a drink.
“Now then, this business of the summons,” Jessica begins matter-of-factly to address and adjourn this meeting. The Witch practically stares at her, leering over the teacup.
To avoid the Witch’s stare Jessica takes another drink of her tea and then looks up to see the Witch staring at her.
“Why, you haven't touched your tea; aren't you going to -” then Jessica stops, mid-sentence, exclaiming, “O, no!” about witch’s tea and witch’s brew. The Witch watches, generally amused, as the moment of awareness enlightens Jessica – she has been tricked by the Witch.
“Nooo!” is all Jessica can say, and then her head falls forward for the all of u. She is out, almost like a light switched off. The Witch jumps up, onto her pinchy, witch-black boots and wrestles the cup out of Jessica’s fair hand. She quickly begins tying the daughter of the prestigious vampire up, doing uncomfortable looking little motions with bent knees and horrendously odd, little fussings - in a half-animated, half-crumpled manner (almost an exact demonstration of the word crotchety). The crotchety, old Witch ties her up!
Outside, the Leprechaun, whom Jessica had seen earlier at the Underworld Café walks fitly down the lane, checking his pocket watch. He stops at the Hair Lady's place, who just so happens to be out re-sending her seed packet order at her mailbox. He leans his elbow along the fence and tips one boot up on its toe. The Leprechaun whistles a barroom catcall. The lady with astonishing hair is taken aback.
She looks at the small man lightly touching her cheek with her open hand, as if to say “Me?” so modestly. He smiles and winks, a 'yeah you' type of response and the Hair Lady nearly bursts into giggles.
And then, for a second time in the duration of this one Underworld meeting, someone thinks, “So-oo easy.”
One more coy look from the Hair Lady and the Leprechaun nearly sputters, “Like candy from a baby. How ya’ doing darlin'?” The Hair Lady takes a few steps toward the fence and the Leprechaun takes a few steps toward the gate. Next thing going, he begins chatting up the ‘sweet dear’ on the porch over 'ice teas' while she 'dishes' about the neighborhood’s witch trash. He asks a few questions and points over to the Witch's hut.
The Hair Lady gingerly brings the sides of her shirt’s collar together with the fingers of one hand, “I rather wish she'd just move away. You know?”
She gets a playful smile and whispers, “I hope we’re not witch bashing! But, I think it lowers the property value. I do.”
The Leprechaun dishes, too, “Witch trash!” he sneers and the Hair Lady laughs.
“O, I like you!” she tells him and tee-hees, “you're clever!”
“I'm what they call - a mover,“ the Leprechaun tells her when a little 'pinging' alarm begins to go off in his pocket. He pulls out and touches the metal device.
“A mover,“ the Hair Lady repeats looking up at him from the rim of her glass while drinking, causing her to make a sad and rather inquisitive expression while the Leprechaun launches into a rant of why he is so valuable a comrade to have on her side.
Chapter Seven
Relative Radar - Bat Sense
Back Above, in the World as-we-know-it, night has drawn itself and the moon has risen in the sky. Drew sits in front of his 'web cam' playing Dungeoness Hero. After a quick glance at his watch to note the time - although it is probably on his computer, and possibly less than ten minutes since he checked it last - he looks out the window.
“It’s already dark!” Drew observes, and looks back at his computer screen.
He types in, “Aye, but a bit tired I be. Call it a day?“ He hits enter.
Two seconds later a reply on the screen reads, “Call it a knight! Hee hee. Good bye!” Drew quits the game and walks into the kitchen.
“She didn't say she wouldn't be home for dinner,” Drew opens the fridge and fishes around, “Hmm.”
He lifts the lid on a Tupperware* container, “Nope,“ he says, its less-than-tempting appearance disagrees with his appetite, s0, he puts the lid back on and continues fishing. He heads for the refrigerator drawers and goes inside for a look around.
“Nothing,” he declares, at last. Then he gets an idea, “Chinese!” He grabs the Foo & Yung’s magnet in the shape of a pagoda off the refrigerator’s front door. He picks his cell phone up off the counter and dials.
An hour later, Drew sits in front of the television, eating out of cardboard cartons with chop sticks. It is dark outside, and most of the house except for the bluish cast in the room with the television.
The t.v. program’s heroine exclaims, “I just saved your life. I love you!” Drew picks his cell phone up off the coffee table to check the time.
“Hmmm,” he mumbles with chow mein noodles poking out his lips. He chews and swallows putting down the carton and goes to the window with his phone, presses ’Contacts’. He sighs at the list appearing on the screen: Jessica's Dad being first on the list. He lets out a pent-up, anxious, little yell as he highlights the number and hits the Call button. He holds his hand behind his neck and fiddles with his hair as the phone begins to ring.
“I hate doing this,“ he whispers looking out into the night, at the moon, at the stars, the lights above the city block.
“Should have been home by now, though,” he starts to worry, but is interrupted as his call is picked up.
“Uh... Hi!“ Drew says.
Jessica's Father has said a deep, slow, “He-ll-o,” and then Drew hears the beep which catches him off guard.
“Sweet mistakes!“ Drew says and then he kind of laughs, “Tricky, there, you caught me... I thought you had answered the phone,” he says to the message that is now recording.
“Um look, Jessica's not home yet. From that summons thing, you wrote about. I’m kind of worried. Not too. But you know, it's, well, it's not a teeth cleaning appointment, so... could 'ya call me back? When you get this? Thanks. A... Drew. Yeah, it's Drew. You knew that though, I presume. Hope you knew that,” he laughs, again.
“Who else would it-” he starts to explain but the, ‘Beep!’ sound cuts him off.
“Be. Okay,” He hits the red ‘Off’ button. He sighs.
He looks at the fish in the tank and talks to it, “That was uncomfortable,” he says, and then he looks outside. On the balcony railing, something moves.
“What is that?” he squints his eyes, “A pigeon?” he rationalizes, “this late? Do they stay up this late? Ahh! A bat!! Good fright, it's a bat!“ He looks back at the fish, “What do I do, now?” Just then the bat flies off the balcony, out into the night.
“Ugh, ghads... creepy! What was that doing, here? I wish she'd hurry home,” Drew pulls the drapes shut hoping he never, accidentally, calls bats ‘creepy’ again, and especially not in front of Jessica.
The bat flies off the balcony
into the dusky darkness and lights upon the rooftop of a brownstone, several city blocks away. He leans an ear to one side, listening.
The one and only most ancient, and Underworldly known vampire, Nostramadeus, himself - in bat form - has just left Drew’s balcony incensed by the mortal being’s reluctance to ‘let him in’; but, he gets over his frustration, quickly, and gets back to listening, honing, “Yes, there it is,“ he says. He hears a soft crying. He adjusts the position of his ears and wings, as if turning the rabbit ears, side to side, on the t.v., tuning his 'radar' which actually makes a slight humming noise. The crying comes in a little clearer, and now slightly louder.
“Yes-s-s,“ He pauses, thinking, “But where is it coming from?” He re-adjusts, “Huh... Sweet Domina?! It sounds like Domina, yes; but it couldn’t be - and she's in trouble, whomever she is.”
Back at the Witch's hut, the sky has turned dark, too. Jessica has woken up from the tea’s slumber and is now tied to a wooden chair, crying. The Witch slams a wooden flask down on the wooden table of her kitchen.
The Witch shrieks, “I said answer me!!”
“I don't know!” Jessica yells.
“Maybe... maybe. I don't know. He called it Smash the Cooch. Or Squash the Troll, or Kibosh the Squash, or something like that. But I didn't see him do it. I don't know!” And then Jessica demands, “Untie me at once!!” The Witch ignores the last request and continues working on her case.
She strokes her chin, “I see… Could it be that this 'cooch', as you so slanderously disparage the Underworld troll had a name? A life, a 'love', a 'fiancée'?“
The phone rings, “Excuse me,“ The Witch picks up the phone.
“Hello! Yes, I called the Labor Hotline, the other day. (Pause.) Mm-hm. I'm kind of busy, right now. Look, I said, I'm kind of busy!“ She raises an eyebrow and casts the ‘hairy eyeball’ over at Jessica as a warning to her to keep quiet. Mid-scowl, though, her expression suddenly changes, her eyes light up, almost dance. She turns her back and talks into the phone.
The Nebulizer Potion and the Electric Compass (Vampire DeAngeliuson Book 3) Page 6