Chapter 11
Sylvie
My eyes fly open, the groggy feeling of being awoken in the middle of a much-needed sleep fleeing as a sense of wrongness settles over me.
Where am I?
I inhale deeply, trying to calm my stampeding heart, and think. I’m in my new apartment, third floor, over the mysterious bookshop I’ve inherited.
What woke me up?
A floorboard creaks and my stomach drops, the iron taste of fear on my tongue.
Did I remember to lock the front door?
“Shit,” I mutter, sweat beading on my palms.
I can’t just lie here and throw the sheets over my head and squeeze my eyes shut. I mean, I could, technically, but that’s probably the worst possible choice.
Is there someone in the house? In the bookstore?
I can’t remember if I locked the door to the alley, either.
A black shape bounds onto my mattress and I nearly scream, but the sound won’t come. Then I hear it—the soft, motoring purr of the little black cat that was here when I moved in.
“It’s just you,” I say, a too-loud laugh causing the green-eyed cat to startle slightly. “Nameless cat, giving me a heart attack.”
Thunder cracks outside, so loud that the whole floor shakes, and the cat and I stare at each other.
A second later, lightning flashes, illuminating the dark room through the slats of the white shutters.
The cat and I are not alone.
Thunder cracks again, but this time it spurs me to movement, towards the dark, towering shape in the bedroom door I am sure wasn’t wide open when I went to sleep.
“Nobody wakes me up and lives to tell the tale!” I scream, which, as battle cries go, could use some workshopping.
Lightning flashes again, another peal of thunder following right on its heels—
There’s nothing there.
The dark shape must have been a shadow, or worse, a figment of my overstimulated imagination.
Somehow, I’ve also overshot the doorway, and I’m now teetering on the top step of the stairs, my balance totally out of whack thanks to my run towards an attacker that ah, wasn’t an attacker at all.
“Shit, shit.” My arms freewheel around and I attempt to take a step back, really very much not wanting to eat it down an entire flight of stairs in the middle of the night.
The cat darts between my legs and I suck in a breath, everything happening so fast that when I fall, I’m not sure which direction I’m going.
Until I land on my ass, timed perfectly with another loud clap of thunder.
“Ouch,” I say on an exhale.
The cat plops gracefully on her hindquarters, regarding me with those luminous green eyes. Then she stretches one leg up and starts to lick her butthole.
“That feels pointed,” I tell the cat. Apparently grooming her privates is worlds more interesting than the fact I’m crumpled on the floor.
“Well, it’s not going to lick itself.”
“What the fuck?” The words explode out of me and I scramble upright, crab-walking towards the open bedroom door.
“Such language from a would-be bookstore owner. You’d think you’d have a better vocabulary.”
I must have hit my head when I fell.
There is no way the cat is talking to me.
“Cats can’t talk.”
“Ah, but I am not just a cat.”
Over the noise of the pounding rain, I barely make out the sound of my phone vibrating where it’s hooked into the charger, and crawl over to my nightstand, not willing to take my eyes off the talking cat.
“A talking cat?” I say, just because I have to acknowledge what’s happening out loud.
“Not a just a talking cat,” she repeats regally.
Right.
It’s Ivy, and I’ve never been so happy to get a call at… two AM.
“Ivy.” My voice sounds breathless and weird to my ears. “Possible concussion, I assume. Maybe there’s a gas leak up here. Maybe I’m dreaming.” I’m babbling.
“I need you to take a deep breath and calm down.” Ivy’s voice is tired but excited, and she doesn’t seem at all surprised at my strange greeting, which makes sense because her freak matches mine.
“Never in the history of humans has telling someone to calm down made them anything but madder,” I tell her.
Gingerly, I check the back of my head for sore spots, bumps, or—heaven forbid—blood.
“I can’t figure out where I hit my head,” I say into Ivy’s annoyed silence.
“You didn’t hit your head.”
“Ivy, how do you know?” I say, exasperated. “I woke up, I thought I saw something, then I nearly fell down the stairs, but the cat managed to keep me from doing that and I fell backward instead.”
And then the cat talked to me.
I narrow my eyes at where the black… feline rubs against the door jamb, tail curled into a question mark.
Same, buddy, I think at her.
“I know because you’re one of us.”
I pause. “You realize that doesn’t make sense, right? What you just said.”
“How do you think I knew to call you tonight, Sylvie? Right after you heard your familiar talk? Huh?”
She keeps muttering something about how I’m stubborn enough to believe I’m concussed but can’t believe in anything that isn’t right in front of my nose, but my attention snags on the word familiar and I hardly notice the rest.
“Familiar.” I repeat.
“Yep. Familiar.” Ivy looses a long sigh, and I just know she’s pinching her nose. “Listen, I wish I could come down there and stay to help you get all this figured out, okay, but shit is going down here in my town too. This time of year is always nuts.”
I get the weird, uncomfortable feeling she’s not just talking about the approaching holiday rush.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so weird and uncomfortable in my entire fucking life.
“I need you to put a pin in that and explain what you mean by familiar.”
“You’re a witch, Sylvie. The bookstore is your inheritance.
That town is yours to help protect, just like my sisters and I protect our town.
Things are about to get really strange as the veil thins, and I don’t know exactly what that looks like where you are, but I know what it looks like for us, and I don’t love it. ”
“Witches aren’t real.” The words are a whisper, and the denial does nothing to stifle my budding excitement. Which is absurd.
“I’m not magical,” I tell Ivy. “I’m a librarian.”
“No, you’re not a librarian. They fired you, witchy-poo, and now you’re a magical bookstore owner.
Listen, your familiar is like a… battery, or a TV antenna.
Do people still use those? Whatever. She’ll help you charge your magic and can help you dial into what you’ll need.
By the way, what woke you up? Was it the storm I hear? ”
“Ahhhh.” I’m not sure I want to tell her. If she thinks I’m a witch, I’m not sure how nightmare shadow creatures in my room are going to sound. “Do you believe in ghosts?” I try for levity and fall about a football field short.
“Fuck. Yes. A ghost woke you up? Okay. Shit balls. Listen, there are other witches in your town. I don’t know who they are because frankly, your shit is all clouded up for the three of us—”
“Your sisters are witches too.” It’s all unbelievable.
“Hecate forbid I be saddled with a witch with a brain cell,” the cat says.
I hold my finger up at her, and she returns to cleaning her asshole.
So. Rude.
“Did your familiar just say that?” Ivy sounds like she’s holding back laughter. “God, I’ve wanted to see your familiar for ages.”
It dawns on me then, the mopey block-headed lab that’s always sitting in Ivy’s shop isn’t just a dog.
“What the hell, Ivy? You mean you’ve known I’m,” I choke on the word witch.
“A witch?” She pauses. “I suspected. I mean, you didn’t have magic yet, but the signs were there. You know how much I listen to signs. It’s not something I could just tell you, you know, in case I was wrong.”
I do know how Ivy loves signs. I want to ask what the signs are, but also, I don’t. I don’t know that I want to know anything new right now. How un-librarian of me.
“This can’t be real,” I say. “I’m going to go back to bed, and this will all have been a freaky dream.”
“Oh, it’s not even close to freaky yet,” the cat says.
“It’s not a dream, but going back to bed isn’t a bad idea. Your familiar will know where your grimoire is, and you can find the rest of your town’s coven. You’ll need to lean on them for whatever is breaking loose there.”
“Excellent. I’ll put it on my to-do list along with ordering paperbacks and setting up my online store.”
“That’s the spirt!” Ivy chirps, my sarcasm lost on her.
“I’m going to bed.”
“Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow morning. Put some salt around your exterior doors. It’ll keep any wayward ghosts out.” Ivy yawns. “Bye!”
She hangs up.
“I could have told you that,” the cat sniffs, now licking a paw.
“You lick your own butt,” I tell her.
“Humans,” she says in a disgusted tone. “And you eat vegetables.” She spits out the word like it’s a curse, and then gags a little.
“Right. I am going to go to bed and maybe I won’t wake back up, but—”
“No, you’re going to put salt around the doors.”
“Salt around the doors,” I repeat, slowly standing up.
The cat watches me like she’s never seen anything so stupid in all of her nine lives, but I’m not about to move too quick and risk falling down again.
Better safe than hospitalized, or something.
“How do I put salt on the doors?” I ask the cat.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Why not ask the cat for advice? Maybe I should get a CAT scan tomorrow.
CAT scan. Ha.
“You don’t put it on the doors, witch. You salt the entrance.”
“Oh, obviously. What else would I do? Of course.”
The cat ignores me, padding across the floor on silent feet. Outside, rain falls in sheets against the roof and window, the thunder and lightning show already having swept past us.
I’m wide awake, and it doesn’t take long at all to find the container of table salt I brought along with me in the car. It’s always smart to pack a few kitchen necessities where you can get to them easily.
I just… never thought I’d be using it on the floor.
“Do the bookshop door first, witch. The spirit is gone, for now, but it will be back.” The cat’s voice cracks like a whip, and there’s an undercurrent of fear that has me moving faster.
I pause, the salt spout open, and glance back at the cat.
“Yes, go on, make a thick line at the door. Graveyard brick dust would be better, but I assume you don’t have any of that?”
“Fresh out of graveyard brick dust,” I mutter.
Then I do as the cat—my familiar—says and dump a thick line of salt along the edge of the door.
Golden light and energy burst off the door the moment the threshold is sealed.
I jump back, screeching, falling on my butt all over again.
“That is quite amusing. Do you do it often?” the cat asks. “I can’t imagine it’s good for your dirty asshole.”
“My asshole is not dirty.” I pick myself up, snatching the salt canister from where it’s tumbled onto the floor.
“Really? When was the last time it had a good licking?”
I don’t dignify that question with a response, because surely it’s saner not to talk to your hallucination when they ask about your asshole being licked.
Instead, I stomp over to the other staircase, rushing down as quickly as I dare. Despite the cat’s jerkwad comments, she’s clearly worried.
And if my hallucination is worried, I may as well indulge it.
“The things I do to get sleep.”
“Oh, you’ll sleep much better without that disgusting cretin hanging around leeching your energy.”
The cat watches me from the top of the stairs.
“Does it leech it out of my butthole?” I ask.
“What a foul thing to say.” The cat blinks at me.
I roll my eyes and pour the salt out along the door. I step back as soon as I’m done, and sure enough, the glow and electrical charge seems to shoot right from it.
Maybe I should write these side effects down in my notes app, just in case.
What would they file this under? Migraine aura?
I give a humorless laugh. I don’t think that’s what this is.
Witch. Familiar. Talking cat. I’d rather it be true than need to be lobotomized. Most days, at least.
“Do you have a name?” I ask, trudging back up the stairs.
“Prudence.”
“Right. I’m Sylvie.”
“I know. Unlike you, I’m observant.”
“And rude,” I tell her.
“You’re the one who watches me clean myself. No one made you.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just shake my head.
“It’s a good thing you’re meeting another witch tomorrow. She has experience with ghosts, so she should be able to help you. She’s not as powerful as you are.” Prudence gives a sniff, her whiskers twitching. “Hopefully, she’s smarter, though.”
“What is your problem?” I stop, staring down at the little cat. “I got you food and water and a litter box. Why are you being mean to me?”
“I’m not being mean; I’m being honest.” The end of her tail flicks back and forth. “You accepted this role without one lick of curiosity about why you were being handed the golden key to a bookstore. You’ve ignored your witch instincts for what, forty years?”
“I am barely thirty,” I yell.
“And just now, you almost fell down the stairs with nothing but a ratty t-shirt on. It’s unbecoming, Sylvie.”
“You lick your own butt.” As far as retorts go, it’s not my best work.
“How else is it supposed to get clean, hmm?”
I swear I hear her mutter something again about brain cells, but before she can follow me, I’m up the stairs and running a bath.
With the door closed.
I don’t need her making any comments about my asshole as I try to stop shaking and come to grips with whatever the hell is going on.
A hot bath and as much sleep as I can get before I have to be up to tackle my to-do list.
That’s what I need.
No talking cat required.