Chapter 3 #2
“I didn’t have any choice. She said that I needed to be a good boy for her, and she would turn me back when the time was right, but then she went and got herself brutally murdered, so that’s me screwed.
And I’m hardly going to leave the comfort of a warm shop and a neverending supply of bacon next door for the cruel streets of Argleton.
You’ve clearly never been a cat, but there is a cat hierarchy out there, and it is brutal.
I am too pretty to be pushed around by Grimalkin or Mr Muffins. ”
“But now that I’m here, and you’re human, can’t you just walk out and never come back?” He’d still have the tail, but it seems like a small price to pay for freedom and opposable thumbs. Besides, he seems to enjoy it.
His tail flicks with displeasure. “Oh, no, the Widow Hardcastle was very clear. She limited my shifting abilities to inside the shop. If I get even a few steps outside the shop, I’ll shift back into a cat.”
“Show me.”
He huffs, throws open the door, and leaps dramatically over the stoop onto the cobbles below. He throws his arms out dramatically. “See?”
“Rafe, you’re still a human.” His tail swishes. “Mostly.”
He peers down at his body with interest. “What? That’s never happened before. I swear.”
Before I can stop him, Rafe takes off running, naked, across the green. His pale butt glows in the moonlight like a flare. He gets to the other side, in front of the new age shop, before he collapses into the dirt as a Siamese cat. Luckily, no one is around to see.
He flattens his ears, howling with indignation. I march across the green towards him. When I get about five metres away, he transforms back into a man.
“It seems to be proximity to you that’s giving me the ability to shift.” His tail flicks with interest. “I wonder if that’s because I’m your familiar now. Does that mean you can change me back?”
I shove him back towards the shop before someone sees me standing on the green with a hot, tattooed, naked cat burgler. “Old Widow Hardcastle thought this form improved you. Far be it for me to argue with a dead old woman.”
“You seriously won’t help me? For the last thirteen months and twenty-two days, I’ve been her cat.
And when she carked it, I thought that might break the curse, but nope.
Instead, I’ve been stuck in this shop for weeks, resorting to stealing scraps from next door and running zoomies up the curtains.
But it’s such fortuitous luck that you’re my new tenant.
It’s fate! It’s kismet! Now, if you could be so kind as to break the curse, I’ll be ever so grateful. ”
“I can’t.”
He stops in his tracks, studying me with those intense azure eyes. “You’re a witch. Isn’t there a spell you can recite that’ll stop me growing whiskers?”
“I’m a honey witch. I do garden spells and make my bees happy, and in exchange, they give me beautiful honey. I don’t know about curse magic, especially not the kind that can turn a human into a cat.”
“Can I offer you anything to change your mind?” Rafe waves his arms around, his pale skin glowing in the moonlight.
I glance over at the pub, hoping no one sees me talking to a mad dancing naked man.
“Unfortunately, my worldly possessions have probably been absorbed into the criminal underworld by now, so all I have left to offer is my body. But it is a fine body—”
I shake my head, even as my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. A couple of bees hover lazily nearby, even though they should be back in the hive by now.
You’re not tempted. You’re not.
You’re still technically married, remember? Warrick’s missing. They haven’t said he’s dead.
“Are you sure? I’m a generous lover, and you look like you could use—oh, I know!
Ever have an orchid you’ve absolutely dying to possess?
Or a rare painting? I’m good at nicking paintings, too, especially now that I’m small enough to wiggle through air vents.
I’ll grab you a nice Picasso, a small one, don’t go crazy, just enough to set you up with a perfect retirement somewhere sunny, and then you turn me back. ”
“Honestly, I don’t want anything except for you to get back inside, and to open my meadery.
” I march inside and turn back to my wall as the bees dance past my face.
I’ve had enough trouble from the animal world as it is.
The paint is starting to dry at the edge.
I run the roller over it before I get a streak. “You could help with that—”
“I’ll help,” his voice drips with honey as he ducks back through the low door. “If you find a way to break my curse.”
I sigh. My impossibly long list of tasks rattles around my skull.
I don’t have any friends or family in the village.
Mum and Grandmother Mags are dead, and all my high school friends moved away, and Warrick preferred to hang out with just the two of us.
Celeste and Mina have been lovely today, but we barely know each other, and they have their own shops to run.
It would be nice to have someone to help.
And it doesn’t hurt that Rafe is gorgeous.
Plus, he’s clearly going to be hanging around being a menace, whether I want his help or not.
Surely I can find something that will help Rafe? Or maybe one of Grandmother Mags’ old witch friends will have answers? She must have an address book somewhere.
If all else fails, I could brew him a mead of dandelion and motherwort. For acceptance.
I turn back to him, blinking because looking at him is like staring into the sun.
“I’ll try to help you,” I say. “But I can’t promise anything. I’ve never touched curse magic before. I don’t know how it works or whether we can even break the curse now that Widow Hardcastle is dead. Were you here when that happened? Did you see anything? That could be a clue—”
He shakes his head. I think I catch a flicker of sadness in his eyes, but it’s gone before I can confirm it. “I was otherwise occupied on ICB.”
“ICB?”
“Important Cat Business. I’d decided to brave the nocturnal world, and was busy helping Luna and Mr Muffins overturn a garbage can to get out the tuna someone had dropped in the bottom.
I heard something at the shop, and I ran back as fast as I could, but by the time I got here, it was too late.
She was lying right there, and her killer had fled.
” Rafe wrinkles his nose. “The killer left a scent trail behind – sulphur and bergamot. It smelled familiar, but I can’t remember where I had smelled it before.
My senses are all messed up from being a cat. ”
GOT TO HERE
Ever since Celeste told me the news, I’d been wondering why anyone would want to kill the Widow Hardcastle, especially in such a brutal manner.
But Rafe has offered two possible motives that the police absolutely wouldn’t be following – that the widow might have been trading in rare orchids, and that she was a witch powerful enough to turn a man into a cat.
I shouldn’t stick my nose in, of course.
Warrick would hate me sticking my nose in.
“My mother and grandmother were both witches,” I tell Rafe.
“I have their grimoires in a trunk in the attic. We’ll start there.
Maybe they have something that will help.
You haven’t seen Old Widow Hardcastle’s grimoire around?
All witches have one, but I haven’t found anything like that during the cleaning. ”
“She had a leather book she carried around,” Rafe says.
“But I haven’t seen it since she died. Are we going to your house now?
Where do you live? I can’t wait to walk there on two legs and not get accosted by Mr Muffins, the Giant Ginger Gigolo of Peach Street.
When I get my human form back, I am going to have vengeance for the humiliations I have suffered. Tiny costumes will be involved.”
I glare at him. “Are you forgetting something?”
“Bargain with a witch? Revenge plans? The chance to sleep in a human bed once again?” He grins. “Nope, I think we have everything. Let’s go.”
“You agreed to help me. We need to finish this coat of primer. So grab a brush.”
He looks disdainfully at the pile of brushes. “I’m a cat. I don’t do manual labour.”
“If you help paint, this will go faster, and then I can leave you to licking your arsehole or plotting revenge or whatever it is that cats do, because you are not coming home with me.”
He sighs dramatically. “Your disrespect angers Bast, the goddess of cats, and you shall suffer greatly.” But he picks up a brush and gets to work.