Besides preparing for her guests, Becca did have work to do. Despite what she’d told Maddy, the fledgling investigator was feeling a bit more desperate than defiant. Money was tight, and her unemployment was running out. If she wanted to make being a witch detective a going concern, now was the time.
Clara might not understand the details—finance being of little interest to a cat—but she picked up on her person’s intensity as she huddled over the laptop for the next few hours.
The first was spent on what Becca called“old-school research.”
“I can’t rely on my sensitivity for everything,” she had whispered to Clara. What that meant, as far as the cat could tell, was typing in people’s names and seeing what came up. Gaia/Gail Linquist seemed to have an awful lot of photos. With, Becca noticed, an awful lot of young men.
“Tiger can’t have been that serious,” she said, with what to her cat sounded like a happy upward lilt. Clara wasn’t sure how she felt about this development. A few clicks later, though, she did agree that the goth girl’s jet-black hair was a more striking look than her original mouse brown.
Margaret and Frank Cross seemed to have less of an online profile.“Makes sense,” Becca said. “Given their ages.”
Once again, Clara couldn’t make heads or tails of the comment, or of the few photos that popped up. One, back when the used car salesman had more hair and his wife’s mouth had been smiling rather than puckered, made her sad, though. She leaned on Becca, and the two sat quietly for a moment with that one the screen.
When Becca rose to fetch the smelly baggie, Clara became concerned. Her person had stuck it in the refrigerator, and her cat had hoped it would disappear there, never to be seen again, like that lettuce from last month. She was relieved to note that its smell had faded, somewhat, after its time in the chill—and even more so when she realized that Becca was only going to look at the thing, through the plastic, rather than touch or taste it. When she put it aside to return to her laptop, Clara considered her options. Harriet’s actions might have been troublesome, but her instincts were dead on, hercalico sister realized. If only there was a way to get rid of the thing that didn’t draw attention to the feline sisters’ powers or otherwise break the rules against involving humans in their magic.
“I’m sure Harriet could bury it again.”Silent as a shadow, Laurel had jumped up to join Clara and Becca on the sofa.“She doesn’t have to make it look like anything. She could just dig.”
“Becca would worry.” Clara didn’t even want to admit the truth to herself.“She’d only turn the house upside down.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” Laurel drew back in distaste, any kind of frenzied human activity, including housecleaning, being anathema to a cat.
Before they could decide on any other action, Becca had picked up the bag once more. Holding it close to her laptop, she seemed to be comparing it to one of the odorless images. Clara and Laurel could only trade worried glances as Becca typed madly and then stared long and hard at the screen.
After what seemed like an eternity to the cats, Becca finally put the specimen aside, and with a tantalizing dance of her fingers, the screen before her changed. That picture again—the woman and the cat—moved as Becca read. Although she didn’t have Laurel’s gift, Clara thought she could make out a few stray thoughts as she focused on her person.“Ancestor…”The little cat tried out the word. Yes, that was right.“With her familiar…”
Could Becca be close to understanding? To comprehending, at last, that her cats had a history of power and had protected their people as best they could? Clara closed her eyes to concentrate and found herself visualizing her own mother. Those last days at the shelter…
“Witch.”No, she wasn’t hearing Becca’s thoughts. Her person was whispering to herself, reading, Clara realized, the text on the screen. A story that seemed to dismay her, from the way she blinked and then closed her screen.
She rose, then, but her mood carried over from whatever she had seen. Although their person remained quiet, the set of her mouth indicated trouble, Clara thought, as did the way her brows had pulled together. When she went for the vacuum cleaner, pulling it from the back of a closet where Clara and her sisters had hoped it had gone to die, she and Laurel made themselves scarce. Even Harriet woke in the ensuing tumult, blinking and affronted as they all crowded beneath the bed in safety.
By the time they emerged, Becca had gone into full-on hostess mode, arranging her small apartment for the arrival of her friends. The three cats took refuge on the sofa, until an extra vigorous fluffing of pillows sent Laurel scampering once more, and an aggressive wiping down of the table had even Harriet hesitant to hover, no matter what tempting crumbs might have gone flying.
Only Clara remained, to show her support as her person fussed. She might as well have been invisible, however, as Becca nearly tripped over her in her frenzy.
“I’m sorry, kitty.” She reached down and scooped up her youngest cat. And although the embrace was a tad awkward—Clara’s foot stuck out and she could feel the bulk of her body already sliding through Becca’s arms—she began to purr. Clearly, Becca was still bothered. Whether that was because of her friend Maddy or because of what she’d found on her laptop, Clara couldn’t tell. Still, any opportunity the plump calico had to soothe her person was worth a little discomfort.
“Hang on!” At the sound of the doorbell, Becca shifted, and Clara managed a decent landing on the floor.
“Graceful,”Laurel snarled quietly from under the sofa.
“I just wanted to make her feel better.”Clara sat and began to groom the fur on her back, where Becca’s embrace had ruffled it.
“I thought you wanted her to give up all this witch silliness.”With Becca safely at the door, Laurel ventured from her hiding spot.“Give up the idea of being a detective, too. Too dangerous, you said. Too risky for a human to try. And that root…”
Clara paused, tongue hanging out between her discreet white fangs. It was true that she had hoped that Becca would go back to being a researcher. The idea that she, or any human, could have magical powers was silly. Any cat would agree.
The worst part, of course, was that Clara and her sisters were responsible for Becca’s obsession. It had been Harriet’s summoning of a pillow—the golden velvet pillow that had been plumped up so vigorously—that had started the trouble, when Becca had misread its appearance as the manifestation of her own attempt at a spell. But recently, she’d come around to the idea that her person might be more like, well, like her cats. And if there were humans who had powers, then their Becca should be one of them.
“You look like a dog, with your tongue out like that.” Harriet emerged from the sanctuary of the bedroom to saunter past. Clara quickly closed her mouth as her oldest sister began snuffling up the crumbs that had gone flying.“Not to mention the way you tag along after her,” the marmalade added as she licked up a particularly tasty morsel.
“It’s not like you need to.”Laurel appeared alongside her and, with a wiggle of her hindquarters, launched herself to the tabletop.“Together, we could—”
“Kitties! No!” A loud clapping made Harriet put her ears back and Laurel leap to the floor. Only Clara looked up to see the tall, slender woman who was laughing behind her hands. The first of the guests had arrived.