by Harper Lin
The Escape
As I made my way up the aisle, I tried to remember the spell to pull a host apart from an Unfamiliar. The process was often one long and exhausting fight. Being a witch wasn’t like in the movies where they had unlimited power. If we used too much magic, we might get magic burnout, which was very depleting, and it might take days, weeks, or even months to recover.
As I’d mentioned, as a child, I had almost become a host for an Unfamiliar spirit. My mother tried to explain to me that I had the power to keep it away from myself, but I was too young and scared to really understand how. That was the easiest way to prevent becoming a host for an Unfamiliar though—and the best way. Maybe things would have gone differently if I’d done it on my own.
Maybe I could simply talk Old Murray into rejecting the Unfamiliar, but I doubted that would work. It hadn’t work for me, and I’d already known the basics of magic and witchcraft. Talking someone through the Unfamiliar rejecting process left too much to chance, especially if they weren’t witches.
So I had no other choice but to use magic. I could do a binding spell. The Unfamiliar wouldn’t leave the host but simply be bound inside the host so it wouldn’t do any harm. It sounded unpleasant, but what else could I do?
By the time I decided that, I was in the theater lobby. I caught Diane speaking into her communicator as she made her way up the grand staircase.
“Area clear,” she finished then looked alarmed when I ran up to her.
“Not a chance,” I told her. “Topher and Old Murray left the balcony seats a few seconds ago. Where would they be now?”
“The balcony leads straight to either the west wing or the east wing,” Diane replied.
“Of course you’ve got backup watching both.”
Diane shook her head. “Blake and I are doing a favor, private security just for tonight. Min told us to expect those two to make their way down here after the show, then Blake could read them their rights in private and take them in for questioning.”
I groaned and started up the staircase. Diane followed me as I almost scolded, “Well, they’re trying to dodge us by getting out earlier than that.” When we reached the top of the grand staircase, I told Diane, “You and Blake block the east wing. I’ll block the west, and we’ll have them surrounded—but if you find them first, don’t do anything to threaten them. Just stall them until I meet with you.”
There was no time to wait for her answer. I ran ahead to the west wing. Fortunately, that was where I found the both of them.
Murray was grappling Topher and saying, “I can’t let you go out on your own and disappear again! Come back with me and just calm down!”
“Stop it!” I said as I fixed my gaze on the ripple over Murray’s and Topher’s heads. “You can’t control him, Murray. You don’t have the right. I’ll give you one chance to leave him alone.”
I concentrated on him to do my spell.
Murray raised his hand, palm toward me, and I was struck with a paralyzing fatigue. The Unfamiliar laughed. My knees buckled, and my field of vision darkened even though I tried desperately to remain standing and alert. In my panic, I thought I might have done the spell wrong.
But I sensed the Unfamiliar spirit’s fading laughter. I used all of my strength to conjure a magic lasso. I made it wrap around the Unfamiliar again and again before tying a knot.
It had worked. For now. The spell could last a day, up to two or three, until I, or another witch, had to do it again. It took a lot of energy, and it wasn’t sustainable for the long run.
Somewhere down the hall, footsteps sounded, followed by a scuffling sound. Murray made a grab for me as I began to faint.
A voice pulled my attention back to the world of the non-witches. “Step away from her! I’m telling you, I’m armed.”
It was Blake. My vision focused, and I saw Old Murray looking confused and shocked.
Murray let me go. “What’s going on here?”
Blake holstered his gun and drew a pair of handcuffs instead.
“I’m so sorry, Murray,” I said as Blake snapped on the handcuffs.
Murray looked from his cuffed wrists, to Blake, to me, and back to his wrists. “What did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything…”
He really hadn’t, but there was no way to even try to tell non-witches what had really happened. Instead, I asked Blake, “Where’s Topher?”
Blake nodded in the direction of farther down the hall. “I caught him as he was trying to run off and got him handcuffed. Diane will take care of him.”
Diane trotted up behind him with her gun drawn. “Take care of what?” She saw us and holstered her gun.
Blake peered at her. “Wasn’t there an old man in the hallway behind us?”
Diane paused. “Yes?”
Blake groaned with aggravation. “Diane! He was handcuffed and knocked out! Get back there and guard him like you were obviously supposed to!”
As Diane backed away apologetically, I raised an eyebrow at Blake.
“I can’t wait until Jake clocks back in,” Blake muttered.
“Handcuffed and knocked out? That’s harsh, Blake. You could have given Topher a heart attack or a stroke.” Old Murray, at least, was spry for his age, although I still felt sorry for him when he looked at us sadly. We took care of lost and injured animals together. We were friends.
Blake argued, “He attacked me first.”
“He’s over eighty years old! He couldn’t have been too much of a threat.”
As I said that, Diane jogged back into our hallway. She fidgeted a little and said apologetically, “The other old man got away. I went back and saw your extra handcuffs in the hall, so I tried to run him down—I guess he was faster than we gave him credit for.”
“He was stronger too.” Blake turned to Diane and said, “I think you should turn your resignation in to Chief Talbot.”
Diane flinched. “That isn’t fair, Samberg!”
I glared at Blake and touched Diane’s shoulder. To Diane, I said, “Take us home first. Topher can’t be all that difficult to find, right?” I looked at Blake, thinking that it would be on him to do it.
Normal
Diane drove us Greenstones and the Parks home.
“The first two-thirds, maybe, of the show wasn’t all that bad,” I admitted.
“If only Mr. Park had given the ballet a chance,” Aunt Astrid said. “There’s even a glowing review from Cath.”
“Even if she did walk out.” Bea chuckled.
Min talked about what had happened behind the scenes, the concepts that he enjoyed but didn’t make it to the stage, and the battle of egos that I had warned him about.
We solved the mystery before the full moon, I thought. The town was safe again. I counted the binding spell on the Unfamiliar spirit as a victory, even if it is just for now.
There was still the question of how harsh the legal proceedings would be though. As uncompromising as Blake could be, I doubted that he would go too far in interrogating somebody who wasn’t in their right mind and was so infirm of body. Maybe temporary insanity would be the best compromise between the truth and the consequences for Old Murray. I could only hope.
Bea was smiling again because she’d seen her friends. With some good old-fashioned family support, maybe she could figure something out with Jake.
Aunt Astrid and Mrs. Park had both been able to put on nice dresses and watch an entertaining show. Min had done something for the community like he wanted to.
We’d find Topher, or someone would, and we’d figure out a more reasonable explanation for his disappearance.
The Greenstones would finish renovating the Brew-Ha-Ha next week and have an opening party the day after.
Things were looking up.
* * *
Sometimes I wished I were normal. Then I remembered that not knowing about magic didn’t stop it from ruining people’s lives, and I realized that I was very lucky.
Then I forgot that and wished I were normal, becau
se without magic, I’d have one less thing to think about on a crazy day.
The next morning got off to a running start. I received a call from the construction company’s new accountant about a discrepancy in the amount billed for the Brew-Ha-Ha reparations. Something about the insurance, or the taxes, or the retainer fee—Bea usually did the numbers with that, so because the accountant was new and the filing was messy, I told them to call Bea. I gave them her house number, because it was the one I’d memorized. Then I realized only Jake lived there now. That wouldn’t be so bad though. Jake was a good guy, and he would call Aunt Astrid to pass on the message, or even just give them Aunt Astrid’s number instead.
Instead, I had my breakfast, got dressed, and received another call from the accountant about the Brew-Ha-Ha’s internals manager no longer living at the number given.
“Is that what Jake is telling people?” I exclaimed, shocked and outraged. I might have called him some names, and I definitely hung up and stormed out.
On the walk to Bea and Jake’s place—no, I thought with sarcastic fury, just Jake’s place now—I checked my cell phone and found nine voice messages from Blake and two from Min. I’d expected the ones from Blake. Most of them were the increasingly improbable theories of a sleepless gumshoe, concerning Samantha Perry’s murder. I wondered why he didn’t just write them in his cop’s notebook. I was more worried than flattered that he spent the entire night leaving me messages like that. The case was driving him nuts, and he didn’t seem to have anyone else to turn to.
All right, maybe I was a little flattered—and a little frustrated, because I could never tell Blake anything close to the truth about these cases in Wonder Falls. The Greenstones had solved the Samantha Perry case, but we didn’t have a cover story. An Unfamiliar took advantage of an aging man to stir up trouble in our physical world. How were we supposed to explain that? If not even Jake wanted to know, then Blake hadn’t a hope.
According to Blake’s messages, it had been Jake who convinced him to take up the security sideline at the show.
Blake’s final message worried me the most. “No means, no motive, no evidence… this makes no sense. This makes no sense! This makes no sense! This makes no se—” He trailed off in wordless, muffled gargles of anguish. “Call me when you think of something.”
Min’s concerns were much simpler. His first message informed me that he wouldn’t be available to help at the Brew-Ha-Ha because he had to talk something over with his dad. I winced. Min had always had a rocky relationship with his father. For Min’s sake, I hoped that was water over the dam, but some family dramas never ended.
Min’s second message informed me that he’d joined the search party to look for Topher.
The moment after I let all those messages play out, my phone buzzed to life with a call from Aunt Astrid.
“Honestly, Kitten Cath!” she exclaimed. “You have enough boy troubles of your own. You don’t need to make more by interfering with Bea’s.”
I reached the corner of Rainfall and Riverfall and halted. Farther down Riverfall would take me to Jake’s place, or I could turn the corner and head for Aunt Astrid’s. Before making any decision, I needed to ask, “Aunt Astrid, how did you know that?” As far as I knew, Aunt Astrid could see the future, not the present.
Aunt Astrid answered, “Bea is helping me organize my dream journals. We’re only a fraction of the way through, but I read some of my entries, and they…” She paused as if thinking of how to describe it. “They reminded me of the future.”
“That might be helpful later, but don’t we have more mundane problems to worry about?” I told her about the construction company.
“One moment—”
I listened to her distant voice speaking to Bea.
When I could hear Aunt Astrid properly again, she said, “Oh, dear.”
I had mixed feelings then. Anger at Jake nagged my feet to run toward him. Worry nagged me to head for Aunt Astrid’s house. Guilt kept me frozen to the spot.
Aunt Astrid said, “Leave Jake alone. Bea needs her family.”
I bolted for Aunt Astrid’s house.
Enough is Enough
The first thing I noticed when I stepped in the door was that the cats were on the table in the anteroom. Marshmallow was curled up like a large fuzzy dumpling. Peanut Butter was belly up, mouth open and panting.
“Peanut Butter!” I exclaimed. “What happened?”
“I told him,” Marshmallow thought at me. “I showed him the other world, the one we all share, where Bea heals. I told him he couldn’t make worries go away or else the first one Bea would have healed was him!”
“And Peanut Butter tried anyway,” I guessed and tickled the tawny cat’s belly.
Our cats could sometimes work magic. Marshmallow was the best at it, because Peanut Butter and Treacle were both too young. They sometimes managed it, when they joined together or used the help of their humans. To heal a human all alone though, without even knowing how… “How bad is his burnout?”
Marshmallow assured me, “Peanut Butter doesn’t need to go to the cat hospital.”
At that, Peanut Butter yowled. He sent me the thought, “I’m fine! I want to try again to help Mommy. I need help.”
“I’m not helping you,” Marshmallow grumbled, shifting so that she curled up into a smaller ball.
I sensed Peanut Butter calling for Treacle.
“Treacle’s not here then,” I said. He tended to be most feral of the three of them. Marshmallow was like a crochety old lady, and Peanut Butter was a scaredy-cat.
If Treacle wasn’t at my place when I left and he wasn’t here, then I wasn’t sure where he was, and I wasn’t surprised. Treacle also tended to worry much less about what he couldn’t understand. When I realized that, I tried to comfort Peanut Butter with the thought that what made Bea upset was a human problem that we could solve without magic. Bea just needed Jake to quit being such a jerk.
“Treacle doesn’t worry about what he doesn’t understand,” Marshmallow repeated my thoughts to me. “We should both give him a stern talking-to. He won’t attend our magic lessons! He thinks they’re boring and we can always depend on our humans to do it!”
“The opposite problem you have with Peanut Butter then,” I thought back.
“What am I going to do with these kittens? What are they going to do with themselves?” Marshmallow grumbled.
When I tried to pet Marshmallow between the ears, she lifted her head and nipped me.
Aunt Astrid was never as grouchy as Marshmallow could get. Bea could be sad but never seemed to reach the levels of desperation and anxiety that was Peanut Butter’s personality. As I headed up the stairs to Bea’s room, I thought about Treacle and decided to follow his example as a person of action… so to speak.
I knocked on the door to Bea’s room, and Aunt Astrid let me in with a look of exacerbation. I saw Aunt Astrid’s dream diaries stacked on one side of the room, forgotten, and I saw Bea lying belly-down on the bed as if she’d melted there. She lifted her head from the pillow, her eyes swollen as if she’d been crying.
“Enough is enough!” I announced. “Bea, I’m calling you a divorce lawyer!”
As Bea keened, “What? No!” I saw Aunt Astrid’s expression shift from impressed to pretending to be shocked.
Aunt Astrid sat on the foot of Bea’s bed. “Maybe I should have let you rip Jake a new one.”
“Mom!” Bea exclaimed. “That’s worse!”
“That,” I declared, “is nothing. Maybe I said too much and scared Jake off from the Greenstones forever. But you know what? What I said was true. And what I said was… well, said!”
Bea looked confused.
“Because people are supposed to talk,” I finished. “You and Jake are supposed to talk. He said he wanted space, time, peace, quiet—whatever. We should never have believed him! When his wife who loves him so much—who he’s supposed to love back—is in this much pain, and he doesn’t even know because neither of you
will say anything to each other? He gets what he wants, but what I think we all need is balance. That means you get right in front of him, right now, upset and noisy! He can have his peace when there’s nothing to ignore!”
Aunt Astrid applauded as Bea looked from me to her and back to me in disbelief.
“Cath, I…” She sounded as if she was going to cry again.
Aunt Astrid and I looked at each other. I couldn’t usually read the minds of other human beings, but when it came to family, some things went without saying. We pulled Bea out of bed and pushed her into the bathroom. I rummaged through her bags of clothing, looking for sharp and intimidating outfits that she would never wear. Aunt Astrid looked through Bea’s computer for the transaction records between the Brew-Ha-Ha and the construction company.
Aunt Astrid remarked, “Paper records, I know how to deal with. I have an awful feeling that Bea left them at Jake’s.”
About a half hour later, Bea emerged from the bathroom and said with more confidence, “I am not coming at Jake with a divorce lawyer.”
Aunt Astrid heaved a sigh of disappointment, but I knew she didn’t hate Jake or not want him in the family. That day, I hated Jake and wanted him out of Bea’s life, but Aunt Astrid wasn’t as impulsive as I was. But Aunt Astrid had been staying with Bea, living with her like this, and the magic didn’t let Aunt Astrid have so much as a peek at the final solution.
“It’s too sudden, too much for him, let alone me,” Bea continued. Still, she stood up a little straighter. “But you’re right, Cath. I’ll give him a chance on more even terms. I’m going to talk to him.”
She wouldn’t wear the outfit that I chose for her though. She would go visit Jake, in all honesty, as the Bea he knew and loved.
At the door, we saw her off.
I asked, “Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you?”
“I’m sure that’s what you want,” Bea said, but she laughed.
Aunt Astrid cleared her throat. “Well, the matter Jake has with you is a little offensive to our entire family legacy.”