Chapter 8
Rumor
The ground shifted, and with a gargled sob, I woke up.
Sitting up in bed, cold sweat stuck to my forehead and chest in the shadows of my room.
The same narrow bed I’d slept on as a child.
The same patchwork quilt my mother knitted and wrapped me in as a baby.
My knife—Matri’s knife—laid on my bedside table.
My heart twisted.
My matri was in my dream.
I’d heard her so vividly. Not only heard but felt, smelled, sensed…
Something stirred at the foot of my bed. I pulled my feet back and reached for my blade when it sat up and stretched. My eyes adjusted, taking in the furry gray heap.
“Twenty?” I croaked, my throat dry and my pulse still beating furiously.
“Meow,” he replied, twitching his ear and moving to perch by my knees. The moonlight made him appear blue in the darkness of my room.
“What are you doing here? Why are you a cat again?”
One copper-slitted eye and one green-slitted eye gazed impassively back at me—as if he wouldn’t answer even if he could. “Your stupid cat form suits you. You’re as conniving and loyal as a feline, too.”
Twenty purred and nudged his head against my side. Despite my anger and hurt, it was an effort not to pet him. “What the hell was that?” I asked. “Burying me alive? Why would you do that? Aren’t you supposed to be my familiar? Well, familiar then. Help me.”
Twenty-the-cat only massaged the quilt, glancing idly up at me.
“Don’t make bed-biscuits, don’t try to be cute.
” I sighed, giving in and rubbing his ears.
“That dream was so freaking real. Do you think it was a vision of sorts? Do you think I’ll reach Prism that way?
Could that have really been… was it…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “I’m losing my mind, aren’t I?”
Twenty tilted his whiskered head and swished his tail before climbing onto my lap.
His weight and warmth calmed me as my fingers found comfort in his fur—in his presence—finally not alone.
As much as I wanted to hate him for leaving me, emotion swelled in my chest that he’d come back for me.
Even if it weren’t in his human form, this was something; this was more than anyone else had deemed me worthy of.
I swallowed a tangle of emotions I didn’t want to acknowledge-- couldn’t acknowledge—if I did I’d fall apart. If I fell apart, I’d be no good to Prism, and if I were no good to Prism, then… then I don’t know.
“How are…” I paused, not wanting to ask and wanting nothing more than to ask. “How’s… everyone?”
Twenty arched a fuzzy eyebrow.
Something between a huff and a muffled laugh pushed from my throat.
I sucked in the cool night air and settled back under the quilt, comforted by the weight of my familiar next to me.
As sleep came for me again, so did thoughtless wonderings of if or when I’d be taken back to what lied behind the ragged pink door…
Instead of keeping it inside the walls of my mind, I whispered softly, “Thank you for coming back. Thank you for… for not leaving me.”
As my slumber pulled me under, a soft purr lulled me towards the emptiness of rest.
The crackle of grease and the smell of salty, smoky air greeted me in the morning.
Matri didn’t come back when I went back to sleep.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that it hadn’t been just a dream though.
If I asked Empath’s advice, would she give it to me?
When would I be able to consult with my coven again?
More importantly… was that bacon I was smelling?
I sat up in a cold, lonely, cat-less bed, hearing a commotion in the kitchen.
Hope sprang in my chest that Twenty had switched back to his human form.
Wrapping my quilt around my shoulders, my bare feet shuffled against the cold wood floors and paused in the kitchen.
A fire sissled at the hearth and bacon popped and simmered in a cast-iron pan over the wood stove.
Twenty, furry and feline as ever, sat on the counter, lazily swishing his long tail.
At the stove, a young girl with frizzy, curly red hair that looked as if it had never seen a comb in its life, spun on her heel, holding the pan. “Oh, good morning.”
“Who the hell are you?” I barked, inching backward, regretting leaving my dagger by my bed and not immediately strapping it to my thigh. “What the hell are you doing in my house? How did you make it past the protection runes?”
The girl, a good foot shorter than me, shrugged. “Maybe because I’m a witch, too? I don’t know a lot about runes. No one will teach me anything, and it’s my first year going to the solstice gathering. Well, I’m not exactly going because I was invited, more like I have to, like I’m in trouble.”
I rubbed my temples, deciding if I wanted to grab my knife and kill her, or if I wanted to grab the cast iron pan and eat all the bacon first. “You broke into my house.”
“But I brought bacon. My brother butchered the pig last week.”
“I am so confused—”
“Empath sent me. She’s our crone, right?” The girl took a fork and scooped the bacon onto a plate before sitting it down at the kitchen table. “Crone is like, the witch-leader, I think? Anyway, she told me to wait here with you so they can figure out what to do with me.”
My gaze dropped to the girl’s thick leather gloves that were a size too big for her petite hands.
“Oh, so Empath just gets to dictate who comes into my home now, too, huh?” I rolled my eyes, deciding the talkative girl may be annoying and intrusive, but she at least had the sense enough to bring food.
If she were lying and actually some sort of misguided murderer or thief…
well, she looked easy enough to kill—and I was starving, anyway.
I took my seat at the table, shoving my grimoire to the side.
The girl joined me at the table, pulling her knees up to her chest and taking a mouthful of eggs.
It was alarming I’d slept through such commotion.
Having Twenty with me in the night put me at ease when it shouldn’t have.
Twenty didn’t deserve my forgiveness even in his furry, cute cat form.
I took a bite of bacon. “What is your name?”
“Trinket.”
“New witch?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “I guess so.”
“I like thick-cut bacon,” I mused, taking another few strips and adding three eggs from the skillet to my plate.
“Me too. When I help butcher, I always cut it thick. My brother used to yell at me about it because the thicker it is the less we can sell of it—but it tastes so much better that way.”
Trinket wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked around the room before nodding toward the wall. “What happened?”
“A wither tore through my house trying to snatch my sister away.”
The girl’s auburn eyebrows rose. “What did you do?”
“I killed it.”
Trinket let out a puff of air. “Badass.”
A small chuckle left my throat, and despite this young witch’s total intrusion, I found myself warming to her. “Badass? Yes. But did it create a whole world of trouble? Also yes.”
Forking her food clumsily in her thick leather gloves, she nodded. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What did you do as such a young, new witchling to be exiled here with me?”
Typically, young witches or newly turned witches waited for the solstice like everyone else. For some reason, though, our crone had sent this young girl to await her fate on the outskirts of town in my cottage with me.
“Well… Trinket shoveled in another bite of scrambled eggs. “I got bad magic, like you. We all saw what you did to the town. You helped too, though. I mean, who else was brave enough to fight the withers except you and your friends? I don’t know why everyone’s blaming you for everything.”
The little red-headed rat had a point with that statement. I leaned back in my seat. “What do you mean you have bad magic?”
Wiggling her fingers in her gloves, she said with a mouthful of food, as if she were sharing a silly anecdote or commenting on the weather, “It’s my touch. It’s bad, bad magic. You know, that’s what happened that got me sent here to you.”
“What happened exactly?”
“Oh, I killed my brother.”