Chapter 4
Chapter four
“Stop that,” I muttered. I’d had an insane dream, and now somebody was wiping my face with a rough, damp cloth.
No response, apart from a quick wipe of my nose.
“Eek.” My eyelids flattered open. In front of me sat Cosmo.
He gave me a final lick before he stopped. “Are you now ready to listen?”
I blinked. Then I blinked again. Nothing had changed. I was still draped across my bed at the Blue Moon, where I’d fallen, and my aunt’s black cat was talking to me. Make that my black cat.
Trying to stay as calm as possible, I probed my head for a bump. Had I concussed myself?
“You’re fine,” the cat said. His voice held a slight lilt, one I thought I recognized.
“Why do you suddenly sound French?” I dragged myself into a sitting position. Obviously, I’d landed in the kind of dream that’s so real you couldn’t tell you were asleep.
He drew himself up to sit as regally as a statue. “Why should I not? After all, I’m Cosmo Merlin de Beaufort, in the short version of my name. And now, stop dawdling. We’ve got things to do.”
“De Beaufort?” I broke into a laugh. It turned into a hiccup as Cosmo glared at me. If my rusty French didn’t desert me, his name sounded a lot like “beautiful fur”.
He slitted his eyes. “Bex. We need to move back home. There’s no way I can do all that needs to be done here.”
“Can perimenopause drive you insane?” I wondered out loud to myself.
He covered his eyes with his paw. His tail swished in a figure of eight. A boom outside startled me. The next thing, I was falling out of bed and hitting the floor.
“Ouch.” I sat up, wide awake.
He circled me. “No injuries. Good.”
“I’m awake?”
Cosmo gave a tiny, exasperated growl. “Of course you are. I told you. Like I told you we have a lot of work ahead.”
I nodded meekly. “Care to enlighten me?”
“Wasn’t the will clear enough? You’re Violet’s heiress. That also means you have to carry on her work.”
“I know, and I’ll learn how to run a lending library.” I couldn’t help the peevish note in my voice. I might not be the smartest cookie under the sun, I mean, look at who I married, but I was smart enough to figure out my new tasks.
“That’s the easy part. The harder part will be to teach you the important stuff.”
“Like what?” By now, the part of my brain responsible for reason and logic had shut down and I was full on embracing the crazy in front of me.
“To put it in lay terms, Violet was a good witch, and now you need to step into her shoes.”
“What?”
“You. Are. The. New. Witch. Is that so hard to understand?”
“Wait a moment.” A few brain cells sprang back to life. “How can you know? You said you hoped it would be me, but you were the one to decide on the heir.”
“The hair.”
“What about it?”
“It’s blue.”
“Are you trying to tell me everyone with this color is a witch? Although, when I remember the old gals who went for a blue rinse when I was a kid …”
“They probably thought it looked cute. No, it’s the fact that you did it. Remember when your aunt changed her hair to purple and adopted a cat?”
“How could I forget? She used to say those were the best things that ever happened to her, apart from my Uncle Paul, may he rest in peace.” Violet and Paul had been the happiest married couple I’d met, until he passed away from an aneurysm a year before the purple hair.
“That’s when she came into her powers. She was easy to train.” Did a tear roll down his cheek?
“How would you know? Or did you take over when Cosmo the First went over the rainbow bridge?”
“You haven’t figured it out? My name?”
It took me a minute to grasp his hint. “That was also you?”
“Nine lives. She needed me, and so do you.”
“Not so fast.” I’d spotted a gigantic flaw in his logic. “If my hair was the give-away, then there was no need to hope I’d be the one. You’d already seen me in all my blue glory.”
“I’d seen you, but I couldn’t be sure until your cousins turned up, looking exactly like they have forever.”
My knees turned to jelly. “A witch.”
“A good one. And the sooner I can whip you into shape, the better for all of us. Violet had her plate full, taking care of Willowmere.”
I scanned my hands. They looked normal, strong and with a few scars from wielding tools when I restored old furniture to its former glory. The mirror also showed no difference. The same crow’s feet, freckles, and tired look. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”
“Bex?” His paw touched my knee. The temperature in my body rose a few degrees. “Can witchcraft stop hot flashes? Seriously, I’m the most ordinary person in the world.”
“It’s like moving on from a tricycle to a bike, Violet said when she started out. You were born with some powers. All of you were.”
“Like what?”
“Why do you think you can match certain furniture pieces to humans and houses? Or why Brian knows exactly which songs to play at each wedding?”
“And Brenda? What’s her superpower?”
“You ever tried finding the perfect outfit you need, on sale? She’s homing in on them like a bloodhound.”
“That’s a mixed metaphor, but okay, I get your drift.” A thought hit me. “We all have abilities? All the Merriweathers?”
“Yeah?”
“What about my daughter?” Did I really want to hear the answer?
What if it was something bad? I missed Alex so much.
At least she was far from this madness, studying at McGill University in Montreal.
Her dad and I had agreed that he’d pay her way through college in return for my share of the business.
That was the best I could do, to save her from the fallout.
On the books, there wasn’t much capital left anyway.
We’d specialized in sourcing vintage furniture pieces on request, and on taking care of high-end home stagings for real estate agents.
My ex had also dabbled in art. Diversifying the portfolio, that’s what he called it when he invested in his name only in a small gallery.
I was still convinced he’d cooked the books, once he’d decided to move on.
Maybe I should’ve fought harder for my rights.
Then again, I’d only wanted the mess to end.
If what Cosmo said was right, losing my special talents would hit Rick’s bottom line hard. I grinned.
“The kid has a power alright,” he said. “A bit quirky, but that’s a Merriweather for you.”
I waited, while he washed his face. Powers or not, it seemed that deep down he was still a cat.
“Alex can cook up a storm with any ingredient she finds, before it goes off.”
“Handy for a student.” A chuckle rose in my throat. “She’s not a full witch yet, right?”
“Nope, and there’s no guarantee she’ll become one.”
“So, it’s not hereditary?”
“It is, but it doesn’t have to be the direct line. Think of it as –” He paused for another quick groom. “A lottery. You all have the potential but when the time comes to pass on the gift, only one wins the jackpot.”
“But if anything happened to me?” As much as I loved being back in Willowmere, I wouldn’t want my daughter to have to give up her life to bury herself in a small town.
“Then it wouldn’t be her, probably. Not yet anyway. To inherit the full powers and responsibility, you have to be of a certain age.”
I could almost hear the air quotes. “You mean menopausal? What about men?”
“With them, it doesn’t matter.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Stop being so prickly. Would you want to run after your kids and do your duty as a witch? It’s not like it’s a 9 to 5 job.”
My stomach growled. How long had we been chatting?
Cosmo, who among other things appeared to be a mind-reader, ran to the door. “We should head down.”
“We?”
“You might need me. Anyway, people love me. They’ll want to see that I’m okay.”
I picked up his harness. “Please?”
He let me put the contraption on him with good humor. I’d eat and then I’d decide what to tell Alex about my change in fortune.
“Don’t forget we need to return to the house as soon as possible,” Cosmo reminded me.
“I’ll try. Now shush.” I mimed zipping my lips as I opened the door.
We were halfway down the stairs, when a searing pain shot through my head and my body threatened to burst into flames. I slid down against the wall. “What’s wrong with me?” I whispered.
Cosmo put his mouth so close to my ear, his whiskers touched me. “It’s the witch in you reacting to bad vibes somewhere in the neighborhood. If you don’t learn to control your reactions to any form of evil or magic, you’ll be in for a lot of nasty surprises.”