A Familiar Tail Read online

  “And your kind of coven is . . . ?”

  “We’re guardians,” said Valerie.

  “Of the galaxy?”

  “Loved that movie,” said Kenisha.

  The corner of Val’s mouth quirked up. “Just of Portsmouth. We use our magic to divert harmful influences, to help those who need it, and to bring justice if we can.”

  “Justice?”

  Julia nodded.

  “Like if there’s been a murder?”

  “That one’s my job,” said Kenisha firmly. “We do not go messing around there with the magic.”

  Something told me that Valerie did not entirely agree with this blanket statement. Maybe it was the set of her jaw. Maybe it was the way she was facing forward again, both arms folded over her belly, and not talking.

  “So,” I said, only kind of changing the subject. “You guys are the good witches of New Hampshire.”

  “That’s about it, yeah,” said Kenisha.

  “Is there a bad witch?”

  I thought I was joking, but neither one of them answered me. The fresh silence was quickly brushed aside by the business of spotting a parking space, which was followed by the smoothest parallel parking job I’ve ever witnessed. Then there came the process of helping the pregnant woman out of the bucket seat, gathering up the cat and box, and a quick check to make sure the SUV behind us was in fact the required distance from the hydrant, because, well, cop.

  None of this changed the fact that neither Valerie or Kenisha had answered me.

  12

  THE SIGN ON the window of Midnight Reads bookstore did not say CLOSED. It said LOST IN THE STACKS. BACK EVENTUALLY. Despite this, the lights were on, and Kenisha pulled the door open without a problem.

  “Julia?” Valerie called over the sound of the jingling bells. “It’s us!”

  You don’t need a Vibe to know you’ve walked into a good bookstore. It’s all in the smell. Midnight Reads smelled like paper, ink, warm dust and lemon polish. Wooden display tables and slanting shelves were piled with the latest bestsellers and beach reads. Hand-lettered signs announced NEW, RE-GIFTED, STAFF PICKS and MUST READ.

  Low shelves painted with bright primary colors fenced in a kid’s space furnished with beanbag chairs and a Lego table. Farther back, broad bookcases made a series of narrow library-style aisles. Plain plaques on the sides announced the sections: ROMANCE, MYSTERY, BIOGRAPHY, FANTASY/SF, RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY. I couldn’t help thinking the owner might do something more interesting with those blank spaces that faced the customer. To me, they cried out for murals. Portsmouth is a city full of murals, and I hated to see a perfectly good flat surface going to waste. The mystery section, for instance, should have a shadowed drawing of the corpse, and a butler maybe, and old typewriter font . . . no, wait, cutout letters like for a ransom note and . . .

  No, no, no, A.B., I told myself. You do not get to make improvements to this place. You do not want to make improvements. You are just here to meet this Julia person, who apparently is not going to like you.

  I set Alistair’s box down. The cat shook himself, arched his back and yawned, unimpressed by his new surroundings. I braced for any Vibe that might be coming.

  What I got was dachshunds.

  A pair of miniature, energetic wiener dogs galloped down the MYSTERY aisle—ears flopping, tails wagging and doggy toenails clicking madly against the floorboards. They also barked at the tops of their little lungs. I jumped back, knocking into Kenisha, and frantically wondering what I’d do if we got into a full-on cat-versus-dog fight.

  Alistair sat down on my toes.

  The dachshunds scampered straight up to us. One was a shining coppery brown, the other a sleek black and tan. They frantically sniffed my ankles and Alistair’s tail. Alistair allowed this, all the while projecting an air of extreme tolerance.

  “Hey, Max. Hey, Leo.” Kenisha crouched down, rubbing ears and patting long backs. “Hiya, boys! Good to see you too!”

  Alistair looked up at me with an expression that clearly said, Bored now. At least, he did until the woman came out from between the shelves. Then he got to all of his feet and pressed right up against my shins. Kenisha straightened up too, and the dachshunds stopped sniffing us and scampered away to snuffle around her ankles.

  The woman, who I had to assume was Julia Parris, ignored the dogs and concentrated on staring daggers at the three of us. Her appearance was nothing short of striking. Wavy white hair cascaded down her back and shoulders. Laugh lines framed her wide mouth and dark eyes. Her flowing purple blouse and ankle-length black skirt accentuated her strongly curved figure. A pair of reading glasses dangled from the silver chain around her neck and she walked with the help of a black cane that had a blue glass sphere for a handle.

  To tell the truth, she looked like a cross between Maggie Smith and Mae West.

  “You might have told me.” She frowned at Valerie and Kenisha.

  “You would have refused to see her,” replied Valerie.

  “You’re correct. I would have.”

  There didn’t seem to be a lot of point in letting this go any further without me, so I stepped forward, over Alistair’s back. “Hi. Anna Britton.” I held out my hand. “Julia Parris, right?”

  It took Julia a heartbeat, but she did hold out her hand, and I shook it. Her hand was light in mine, but I felt the strength there. I also saw the anger and the challenge in her dark eyes.

  Valerie broke the stare down. “Julia, somebody tried to breach the wards around my house tonight. It wasn’t you, was it?”

  Julia Parris snatched her long light hand away. “Why on earth would you even ask such a question?” Funny how she said it directly to me.

  Valerie didn’t answer. She didn’t answer a lot when she was upset, I noticed.

  I raised my hand. “Um, breach? Wards? Can I get a translation please?”

  “A ward is a spell that protects a specific person or place from harm,” said Val. “The wards on the B and B were breached, broken, by whatever, or whoever, was trying to force you to leave.” She said all this to Julia. “Since I set up the wards, I felt them break. That’s why Kenisha and I knew we needed to make sure you were okay.”

  Julia said nothing. I said nothing. Alistair washed his whiskers, keeping one eye on those snuffling dachshunds.

  Kenisha sighed, irritated. “Julia, I know it’s not what we were expecting, okay? But how about instead of standing here making accusations, we sit down and talk? We’re going to have to at some point.”

  Julia looked at each one of us, and she took her time about it. Beside her, the dachshunds did their best to appear staunch and alert. This is difficult when you’re only a wiener dog, and a cocktail wiener at that.

  “Very well.” Julia sighed. “Valerie, will you please lock the door?” She gave me a reassuring smile that I didn’t believe for a minute. “We’re going to be here awhile, I’m afraid, and I don’t want anyone interrupting.” Her eyes glittered. I sensed her ticking off a point in the back of a mind that was probably—what was that phrase Ellis Maitland had used?—as sharp as a new pin. “Maximilian. Leopold. Come along.”

  With that, she turned and walked back into the shadows between the shelves, and her dachshunds trotted dutifully behind.

  “Well, that could have gone better,” muttered Kenisha.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll bring her around,” said Valerie.

  Yeah, but to what? I had to suppress a shiver, and I chided myself for it. There was nothing to be nervous about. This was a bookstore, on Market Square, with approximately half the tourists in New England strolling past outside. I was in here with nobody but an old lady and a pregnant woman, for pity’s sake. And yeah, okay, an armed cop. And, yeah, okay, they were all witches.

  Maybe it was reasonable to be a teeny bit nervous.

  I scooped up Alistair and followed Kenisha
and Val farther into the store. The cat snuggled down into my arms, and I felt strangely glad to have him there. You know things have gone a long way down the weirdness road when you start thinking the spooky cat is your best ally.

  Or your familiar.

  The tall shelves took up the central portion of the bookshop. On the other side waited a reading nook complete with cozy furniture, a rag rug and an ancient brick fireplace. A plump brown teapot stood on the coffee table.

  I stepped onto the rug, and all at once I got hit with a wave of reassurance. It was one of the strongest Vibes I’d ever felt, and it told me I was perfectly safe. I was among friends—trusted friends, good friends. This was right where I was supposed to be. I could relax and be open and honest. But it was too strong, and too one-sided, and I staggered under the force of it, even as Julia turned a knowing and triumphant smile on me.

  Magic. This was magic, and she was responsible.

  Without thinking about it, I shoved my hand into my purse and gripped Dorothy’s wand. In answer, Alistair meowed sharply. He sprang from the crook of my arm to the nearest chair seat and then to the mantelpiece and the knotwork vase full of cut flowers and greenery. Max yapped and scrambled after him, but too late. The vase toppled to the brick hearth. Vibe and vase shattered at the same time.

  “Oh, for the love of mud, Julia!” shouted Kenisha. “What are you doing?”

  “That was uncalled-for!” added Valerie.

  Julia made no answer. Alistair, shaking each paw in turn, picked his way between shards of vase and the scattered stalks of flowers and fresh herbs. He curled around my ankles, while managing not to take his cat’s eyes off the dachshunds, who pressed up against Julia, one on each side.

  “What just happened here?” I demanded.

  “It was a binding spell,” Valerie told me. “It was meant to make you . . . suggestible.”

  Seriously? We’d just met and this woman was slipping me some kind of psychic roofie? I walked up to Julia Parris, close enough that one of the dogs growled a warning. She’d stopped smiling in triumph, or at all.

  “I don’t know what you think I’ve done or what you think I’m going to do,” I said. Julia was taller than I was and I had to look up to meet her gaze, but I did it, and I gave my words every ounce of feeling I had in me. I didn’t take my hand off the wand. “But the only reason I came here was to get answers about the weird stuff that’s been happening to me. You don’t want me here? Fine. I’ll take my . . . the cat and I’ll go and we don’t have to see each other ever again.”

  “But what can I possibly have done?” she replied.

  She was going to make me say it. She was going to make me admit it, right out loud. “You’re a witch,” I said. “And you just tried to work a spell to make me trust you.”

  “And you not only felt it; you resisted,” she said. “Far more strongly than I would expect from someone who appears to be completely untrained.”

  “Come on, Julia,” said Kenisha softly. “Give it up. Look at Max and Leo. Would they have let Anna, or Alistair, in here if they had any bad intent?”

  Julia did look at her dachshunds, and they looked up at her. It was disconcertingly like the way I’d started looking at Alistair, except Max and Leo wagged their tails anxiously and seemed like they might really care.

  Julia sat down slowly. She rested both hands on her walking stick and stared, not at the dogs, but at the shattered remains of the vase. At last, she pressed one long hand against her mouth and then against her eyes and her forehead. Something rippled through the room. I felt it against my skin and up my spine. I tightened my grip on the wand.

  It was gone. Julia’s shoulders slumped, and she suddenly looked very tired and very old.

  “Kenisha, Valerie,” she said softly. “I would appreciate some help cleaning up this mess. Miss Britton . . .” She turned her face toward me.

  “Anna,” I said.

  “Anna. I’m afraid I owe you an apology. But you see, I’ve been afraid for months now that Alistair might have become corrupted somehow. That he . . .” She swallowed. “He might even have betrayed Dorothy the night she died.”

  13

  “HOW COULD ALISTAIR have betrayed Dorothy Hawthorne?”

  The remains of the vase were cleared away and peppermint tea was poured into flowered cups. We all claimed seats around the reading nook, with Julia in the wing-backed chair closest to the fireplace. Maximilian draped across her lap while Leopold sat sentry by her toes. Valerie and Kenisha claimed the flowered sofa, which left me in a green armchair with Alistair curled up so tightly on my lap he could have been mistaken for a gray fur pillow, that is, if gray fur pillows purred like they’d recently swallowed an eighteen-wheeler.

  “Alistair is not an ordinary cat,” Julia reminded me. “He is, or was, Dorothy’s familiar.”

  “I heard.” I scratched the dent behind Alistair’s left ear and the purr kicked into another gear. “That’s supposed to mean he was her . . . assistant?”

  “Assistant and companion. Some familiars act as eyes and ears for their partner, or as messengers.”

  “Think superhero sidekick,” suggested Val.

  “If you must,” Julia said, sighing. “For a practitioner of the true craft, a familiar assists the witch’s spell working, each according to his, or her, ability and nature.” Julia ruffled Maximilian’s floppy ears and he wagged his tail in doggy delight. “Normally, if Dorothy was in trouble, she would have sent Alistair for one of us.” She gestured around the room with her free hand.

  “But none of us saw him the night she was killed,” said Val softly.

  “Died,” Kenisha reminded her.

  Valerie shrugged. “It was like he vanished off the face of the earth.”

  “Very few things can separate a familiar even briefly from his human partner,” Julia said. “Most of them involve powerful magic.” Max’s tail had stopped wagging and his ears pricked up toward me, or maybe it was toward the cat on my lap. Alistair snuggled closer and I let him. Not that I was starting to feel protective toward the spooky feline or anything. “Alistair vanished when he was most needed by his partner, and when he does reappear, he’s bonded to you,” Julia went on. “Perhaps you can understand why I might be a little suspicious.”

  I laid my hand on Alistair’s furry side. I thought about how he’d led me to the house and to the basement. He knew what had happened there, and he wanted me to know. If—and it was still a big if—he could do that, why couldn’t he go get help when Dorothy needed him?

  I also remembered my earlier crack about little Timmy falling down the well. Since Dorothy Hawthorne had fallen down the stairs and Alistair was some kind of witch’s assistant who really had been supposed to go for help, that joke suddenly seemed less funny.

  And here I was thinking about apologizing to a cat.

  Did I say normal had left the building? At this point, I couldn’t find normal with a flashlight and a GPS. “The attic wasn’t locked,” I tried.

  “Yes, it was. It opened for you because the house, like Alistair, had instructions to wait for you.”

  “If you really believe Dorothy wanted me here, why are you so . . .”

  “I didn’t say Dorothy created the instructions. It could have been someone else.” She paused. Max lapped at her hand and his whiplike tail went thwap-thwap against her thigh. “Your grandmother, for instance.”

  Wait. What? I shoved myself up straighter in the chair. Alistair lifted his head and made grumpy noises at me. “You did not just call my grandma B.B. a witch.”

  “I did,” replied Julia. “Because she is one.”

  I straightened up and got a warning prick from Alistair’s claws digging ever so lightly into my pants. Okay, I might be almost ready to believe in magic cats, but . . . Grandma B.B. as a witch? My world-traveling, seashell-collecting grandma? The woman who couldn’t bake a cookie
to save her life but always knew where to find the best French fries and ice cream in whatever town she was living in, and who sent the best birthday and Christmas presents?

  Grandma B.B. was a witch?

  “You didn’t know?” said Val.

  “Come on, Val,” said Kenisha. “That is not the look of somebody who knows.”

  “She didn’t tell you.” A whole set of different expressions chased each other across Julia’s face: surprise, hurt and sadness. “Oh, that is so like her.”

  Now, I will admit I had my disagreements with Gran, but that did not mean this . . . witch got to go talking down my family. Alistair stood up on my knees and arched his back. Leopold, who was still on guard down by Julia’s feet, gave an unhappy growl. The cat twitched his tail, but this time the dog wasn’t backing down.

  “Julia,” said Val. “Please.”

  This time Julia at least looked abashed. Which represented some kind of progress in our relationship, I supposed.

  Alistair finished stretching and climbed up the chair to settle himself on the back behind my head, a portrait of a cat on the watch.

  “So, I’m guessing you know why she really left Portsmouth?” I made myself speak calmly. It was not the easiest thing I’d ever done.

  “We had . . . call it a falling-out, just before Annabelle married Charles Britton and left us.”

  Fallings-out with Grandma B.B. were not unusual. She tended to be firm in her opinions, and her drama-queen approach to disagreement took some getting used to. I could easily see her butting heads with this Julia, who was no slouch in the drama department herself.

  The black-and-tan dachshund, Leopold, whined up at Julia, thumping his tail on the rug. Alistair glowered down at the dog from his perch, and the dog squirmed uncomfortably. I resolutely refused to smile.

  “But if Grandma B.B. left town back in the . . .”

  “Nineteen sixty-one,” said Julia. “I remember quite clearly.”