Love and Other Calamities

by Virginia Nelson

  It didn’t feel like a first kiss or even strange. It felt normal, as if they’d kissed hundreds of times and this was a quick, “hi again,” peck rather than something completely bizarre.

  And when she leaned into it, he easily deepened the kiss into a little bit more.

  After a couple of breathtakingly beautiful moments, he pulled back and studied her face. “You okay? Feels like you’re worrying about something. What did I tell you about worrying too much?”

  She frowned, because he’d never told her anything about worrying.

  Not that she could remember, anyway.

  “I know you,” she said to him instead of commenting on whether or not she was okay.

  “Of course you do! We’ve been together three years now, so I would hope you know me, ha! In all seriousness, though, you probably know me better than anyone, which I cherish, as you know,” he replied easily before sipping his tea. “Do you want me to get that coin for you? Your knight, as always, is at your service, milady.”

  He dipped into a comically overdone bow, and she snorted in repressed laughter. “Fine, grab it, sir knight.”

  He reached into the water, but before he could touch it, she grabbed his wrist under the water. She didn’t know why, but she suddenly had a very bad feeling about the coin. “Wait!” she said quickly. “Don’t!”

  But it was too late. His fingers closed on the coin, and a jolt of what felt like pure fire shot from where her fingers touched his wrist in the water and up her arm. It went straight through her like lightning, burning her nerves and making her mouth open in a scream that never had a chance to be given voice.

  * * *

  The weight of Peter flopped onto her chest and Bobsy’s eyes popped open with a gasp followed by a scream as the pain of her seared nerves ripped through her body as if it was happening right then.

  As if Ambrose had touched the coin just that moment, rather than in the dream.

  Peter startled, almost jumped off her chest, then settled again when her scream tapered off. “You okay?” he asked.

  “No,” Bobsy answered, curling her arms around him. The pain faded after a couple seconds, the screaming in her nerves vanishing to nothing in the space between one breath and the next. But the memory of it remained, tearing a sob from her throat.

  For a long time, all she could manage to do was hold the cat and weep.

  Peter, sweet familiar he was, allowed her emotional mess and simply purred as she held him tightly and rubbed her chin against the softball of his furry head. “I’m here. I’m with you. Ground yourself,” he advised. “Nice slow breaths. Whatever monsters you faced in dreams are not here, but I am.”

  “Stop being nice,” she said between sobs. “I like you just find as a sarcastic asshat.”

  His purr increased and he nuzzled her ear. “There’s my witchy bitch.”

  As her crying wore itself out, her bladder reminded her she needed to get to the bathroom, so she padded her way to the restroom still sniffling. “There weren’t any monsters in my dream,” she began as she headed to the kitchen to brew some coffee. “But it felt like I was remembering something I’ve forgotten.”

  “Ah, finally,” said the cat amicably enough as he jumped onto the counter to survey her work. “I thought you’d remember yesterday when he showed up on the train, but now works I guess.”

  Her finger had already depressed the top of her coffee bean grinder, and for long moments, she just listened to the motor spinning as she stared at the cat.

  He thought you’d remember yesterday…

  Her brain got stuck on that one thought and instead of processing it, just played it on repeat.

  “Remember what?” she finally asked and stopped grinding the now espresso fine beans.

  “Ambrose, of course,” he replied, grooming himself as if none of it was in the least out of the ordinary.

  “You know who Ambrose is?” she asked the cat.

  “Baba Yaga said reminding you would make the spell double back on you, so she advised I keep my… how did she phrase it? Ah, my gabbing gob sealed tighter than an unprepared asshole is I think how she worded it.” The cat stopped grooming between words and tilted his head at her. “You do remember, right? I don’t want my words to cause you undue duress.”

  “I—” She cut herself off and went back to making the coffee. If Baba YoMama said not to remind her, it meant she did have memories gone—ones she’d either repressed or had repressed for her. “I remember something, but I don’t know if it was a memory or a dream. I could really use help filling in the blanks.”

  Peter shook his feline head. “I’m not sure if that is a good idea. The witches fought to bring you back, took a whole lot of them, and I don’t want to mess up what they did to save you that day.”

  The coin…

  “Someone tried to kill me?” she said aloud.

  “I think it is safe enough to agree or disagree as you work through things, so I will agree with you on that one. Someone tried, and they very nearly succeeded,” the cat agreed.

  Abandoning the coffee, Bobsy began to pace the length of the kitchen. “Okay, so I have to figure it all out for myself, but you’ll tell me which bits I’m right on… that should help.”

  “We could call—”

  “We’re not calling Baba YoTits,” Bobsy interrupted. “No, if she knew about this and didn’t tell me to protect me or whatever, she might not help now. I want to figure it out for myself.”

  Peter went back to licking his bits. “Your call,” he replied between slurps.

  “Stop licking yourself on my kitchen counter,” she ordered.

  “Don’t get distracted,” the cat replied.

  “Fair enough. Okay, so as I was saying… someone tried to kill me.” She knew she’d already said it, and Ambrose admitted he’d been trying, but it seemed important—like she was still missing something there.

  “Yes,” replied Peter. “Coffee is done.”

  Bobsy grunted, but she began preparing her mug. “I dreamed I was in a shopping mall.”

  “Yes,” Peter replied.

  “I saw a coin in the fountain,” she said.

  “There’s always coins in fountains,” Peter said. “People make wishes on them.”

  “Yes, but this coin was different. It was black, with something red written on it. Stuck out in the blue water and caught my eye, but usually that wouldn’t be enough reason for me to dunk my hand in a fountain. This coin… it, like, I don’t know. I felt compelled to pick it up and get a closer look,” Bobsy explained.

  “Ah,” Peter said. “We wondered how they did it. We figured it was a spell of some kind—the irony was not lost on the witches. Witch hunters using a spell on a witch? The hows and whys of it still don’t make sense.”

  Bobsy considered this and then shook her head. “We can figure out how and why later, but a spell would explain my sudden and all consuming need to touch the damned thing.”

  “So you grabbed it?” Peter asked. “I wasn’t there at the time, teleported in right about as you crumpled to the ground. I sensed you in danger too late, sadly.”

  “No, I didn’t touch it,” Bobsy admitted, trying to recall the little details of the dream which tried to fade with the morning light streaming in the kitchen. “Ambrose appeared. He got us tea.”

  “Yes, Ambrose was there,” Peter agreed, slitting his eyes at her. “We know that much.”

  “Was I dating Ambrose?” she asked.

  The cat said nothing. He just stared at her for long moments in that unblinking way of all cats, even ones who aren’t familiars.

  “Let me rephrase,” Bobsy said after long moments of him not responding. “He called me babe, said we’d been together for three years as if it was common knowledge. When he kissed me, it felt normal and comfortable rather than new. And when I see him now, he seems familiar, as if I should know him but can’t recall from where.”

  “Correct,” Peter said, not offering any additional information.
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  “I was with him for a long time,” Bobsy said.

  “Yes,” Peter agreed.

  “For years,” Bobsy added.

  “Did you remember the ring yet?” he asked.

  Ring?

  Ring.

  Her mind replayed the scene at the mall as if it were a movie she simply watched in her head. Her hand, as it reached for the coin… The glint of something wrapped around her ring finger which she hadn’t noticed in the dream because it was so normal.

  “We were married?!” Bobsy shrieked. “I got married and I don’t effin’ remember it?”

  “Correct,” Peter agreed. “Three years married after dating for about a year. Do you want your ring back?”

  Tears threatened again, but she cupped her mug and brought it to her lips, refusing to shed another tear over a past that had been stolen from her. “Yes.”

  The cat leapt from the countertop and returned moments later holding a small black leather coin purse in his mouth. He dropped it at her feet then gazed up at her with big eyes. “Breathe,” he ordered.

  Bobsy sucked in a breath and reached for the wallet. Part of her didn’t want to see it—didn’t want to accept there might be whole years of her life that she’d utterly forgotten.

  Part of her wanted it and her memories back.

  The latter had her fingertips opening the clasp and reaching inside.

  It was a pave set filigree band—nice and flat so it wouldn’t get caught on things while she worked in her garden, just like she’d requested, but with lots of girly sparkle—and with it came even more memories.

  The moment he’d proposed—

  The sunsetting over the beach as they lay on a blanket together and waited for the stars to shine. Him rolling toward her, rising up on one elbow to tell her how much he loved her, wanted to spend his life with her. Him sliding the ring on her finger after the handfasting ceremony attended by all of her friends and family.

  It all came back.

  “I remember,” she whispered. “But I can’t remember anything after I touched that coin. Like there’s a blip where everything went black… then I was just at work again, saving the world from the little girl the wraith controlled. Tabby…” she trailed off.

  “Yes, that was the third time you literally saved the world,” Peter agreed with pride in his feline voice.

  “But I only saved the world twice…”

  Then she remembered. “Hells, I’ve saved it three times.”

  Chapter 8

  Ambrose

  He didn’t tell his father about the meeting on the train, as he was sure it would lead to a lecture about almost losing track of Bobsy, but it lingered in Ambrose’s mind like a half-forgotten memory.

  It was likely some sort of spell—didn’t his father tell him how witches were tricky and would do just about anything to ensure their kind thrived and continued to wreak havoc on humanity? He remembered the glowing light between their palms, and it just verified his fears…

  He’d been compromised by the witch, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t finish his job.

  After all, hadn’t he been raised for just this job? He was a witch hunter, one of the few willing to stand between the dark and all of humankind.

  With that belief held firmly in place, Ambrose headed up the spiraling stone staircase that led to his father’s study.

  A thought raced through his mind, gaining purchase in the slope made slippery by his strange attraction to Bobsy, and he paused mid-step to consider it.

  Why didn’t he call his father Dad? Okay, probably too informal for Jennet Salazar, as the man clearly preferred his reality dosed heavily in ancient tomes and long-forgotten ways, but still…

  Why not Father?

  He tried to remember a time when he’d called Jennet father and came up with nothing. He tried to remember his childhood—growing up among the witch hunters and learning their ways, but he only had more recent memories. He could remember his training, remember the long lectures about why witches were a problem, remember the warnings about their wily ways… but nothing from his childhood.

  Surely he once played on these stone steps or the ones back in their home in Pennsylvania. He had to have been a teenager at some point, but he couldn’t recall any of it.

  Weird…

  But when he thought of Bobsy, he had all these random and seemingly illogical memories. He could remember being on a boat with her, watching the way the wind tangled its fingers through the strands of her hair.

  That memory brought on another that didn’t make sense—them holding hands and walking through a forest. They were laughing, and she was telling him about her dreams and asking him about what he wanted out of life.

  It had never happened, so why was it so clear in his mind?

  As if called up by his other illogical “memories,” he remembered the way her back arched and her feet dug into the sheets when she—

  Why was he having sexy thoughts about the witch?

  It had to be a spell of some kind.

  He shook his head, as if the motion would jiggle loose the smell of her body and the taste of her on his lips. As if he could simply shake his head and make his body not respond at the thought of her.

  Because his body did respond to her—enthusiastically—and that didn’t make sense, either.

  Ambrose gritted his teeth and placed one foot in front of the other to finish climbing the stairs. Her spell was strong, but he was stronger.

  After knocking on his father’s study, Ambrose entered to find Jennet studying yet another giant book bound in leather with pages gone yellow with age. Some things, at least, never changed. “You asked to see me, sir?”

  Jennet looked up and blinked fast, as if returning from whatever world he’d entered in the book. “Ah, yes, Ambrose. Come in. I think we’ve finally found it, m’boy!”

  “Found what?” he asked, but he again was thinking about why he never called Jennet by any name other than his given name.

  “The way to defeat the witch once and for all, of course! It was right here in front of us the whole time, so I don’t know how we missed it…” Jennet again pored over the text before him.

  “That’s great… Dad,” Ambrose said, trying it out on his tongue and finding the word awkward.

  Jennet snapped his gaze up to Ambrose and squinted his eyes at him. “Dad?” he asked, sounding a little appalled.

  “Would you prefer Father?” Ambrose asked, trying that word out as well.

  “I prefer Jennet, boy, and you know that,” Jennet replied tersely.

  “Why?” Ambrose asked. “I don’t remember why, which—”

  “Because it is my name,” Jennet snapped. “What is all this? Are you distracted from your mission?”

  The bite in the words couldn’t be missed, and now Ambrose did have some memories of his father—ones where he slapped, ones where he yelled, and other times…

  “Why did you have me locked in the cellars? The memory is fuzzy, like something from a dream, but I remember being locked in the cellars and food coming from a metal opening in the bottom of the door. I remember chanting and—”

  “Enough!” Jennet roared, and his hand slapped across Ambrose’s cheek with enough force to have him rocking on his heels. Ambrose hadn’t even seen him approach, too lost in his own thoughts.

  Ambrose said nothing for long moments that ticked by with the metronome like click of the grandfather clock in the corner. He didn’t move, either, just waited with his head turned as his cheek burned with fiery pain.

  “I’m sorry for that,” Jennet said in a voice that shook a bit with what Ambrose assumed was emotion. “But you’re distracted from your goals, and we can’t have that.”

  It wasn’t enough explanation, and for the first time, Ambrose wondered why conversations with Jennet always ended in a similar fashion. Anytime he had questions, he was met with reprimands or pain. It didn’t feel terrifically…

  Paternal.

  Shouldn’t his fath
er temper his punishments with love or something? He’d read enough in his time to know most families had their problems, but they had them out of love.

  Did he love Jennet?

  He wasn’t sure.

  His mouth opened to ask more questions, but when his eyes met Jennet’s, he saw something like fear.

  Of course there was something like fear in his father’s eyes. He feared his only son, the child he adopted who didn’t have a home or a family, might be distracted from their goal.

  Their shared goal.

  To destroy the witches.

  Standing up straight, he met Jennet’s gaze. “I’m sorry, Jennet. You’re right. That has nothing to do with what is important. You said you’d discovered a way to kill the witch?”

  When his father’s lips curled into a slow pleased smile, Ambrose had to work hard not to shudder in fear.

  Chapter 9

  Bobsy tossed the dandelion crown into the bubbling stream in frustration. “Mom, you could’ve told me.”

  “I’m not like you,” her mother explained, the frustration clear in her voice. “I can’t just stand up to Baba You-Know-Who like you do. She said it was best if we let you remember on your own, and I would rather carve out my own heart than hurt you, so I left it be.”

  “At least tell me you still have my wedding pictures. It sucks to both not be able to clearly remember that day and also have no pictures,” Bobsy said.

  Her mother’s gusty sigh came across the line like a rush of white noise. “Of course, I have all your pictures. I have your wedding gown, too. I also tried to talk you out of dating someone else, if you remember correctly, and you didn’t even thank me for it.”

  Bobsy snorted. “You didn’t mention that I shouldn’t date because it would be cheating on my husband.”

  “Yeah, well you didn’t mention you were going to go off and fight the darkness and come back without any memory of doing so, either, so clearly we need to work on our communication, right?” Her mother sighed again, then added. “My soaps are coming on in a few minutes, and I haven’t even asked the most important question because I’ve been too busy answering yours.”