Chapter 3 #4
She was tiny. The crown of her head was perhaps level with the third button on Edgar's flannel.
Her hair was white and pinned up several days ago and had not since been reconsidered.
She wore three shawls of three different colours.
She smelled, faintly, of cinnamon and a bonfire.
At her ankle came the long low moan of a cat.
He was a marmalade tom with one ear. He had the faint smell of moth balls and moved with the slow deliberate creak of a creature who knew his bones were a bit worse for the wear.
"Bramble," Oona almost let a smile creep across her face, "there you are. Kindly do not embarrass me."
"Too late for that, Oona." Bramble looked up and winked.
"Oh hush, you old troublemaker." She fluffed his head.
"Last Tuesday," Bramble announced to the house, in a voice that was forty years deep in tobacco he had never smoked, "Oona pinched a pumpkin off the porch of the meetinghouse and brought it home and ate the whole thing in custard."
Oona let out a low chuckle, "that was a fine pumpkin."
"With her hands." He added.
"It was a fine custard, Bramble. How else was I supposed to get all the bits." She bent down and tickled under his chin.
"Out of the pan." Bramble continued.
"Forks are a tool of repression and you can shout that sweet truth out, my love.
" She took the parlor in with the open avid pleasure of a woman who had nothing to lose and was delighted to find the company assembled.
"I'm nearly four-hundred years old, and don't give a hoot-and-holler what secrets you tell about me. Go on blab it out!"
The whole lot of gathered guests and the Hadwins, took in a collective gasp.
"Goddess on a griddle," Oona said. "You've got the whole circus in here."
"Oona, it's been ages, " Rhoda began.
"Rhoda, my heart, don't even start with me.
I heard the speech. I respect the speech.
The speech was beautifully delivered, Leahnora, that purple looks marvellous on you, you should wear it everywhere.
But my dears, none of this nonsense applies to me.
I don't mind Bramble running his mouth at all. "
Leahnora's small smile, in her chair, did not change. She lifted her coffee cup the smallest fraction in salute, and drank.
Oona spun around in the middle of the parlor. She did not look at Lazlo or Maeve. She crossed straight at Phineas on the rug. He had set his hand quietly on Quill's back and was watching her come.
"Why are you hunkered down there little man," she said, without slowing. "I'll stop anyone trying to stop a cat from telling."
Phineas's face did not change, but he cleared his throat.
Oona reached the settee. She lowered herself onto the empty end of it, and Duchess, at Lazlo's ankle, turned her head a quarter inch toward the new arrival and looked at Oona with a smirk.
"Now then." Oona accepted, without looking, the cup of coffee that Edgar had wordlessly poured her and was wordlessly delivering to her hand.
"I expect I am the oldest witch in this room.
I will not insult anyone present by being precise.
But I have outlived six wars and two pandemics, and I have buried more friends than most of you have met, and what I would like to say to the matter at hand is this. "
"Let them talk. The truth will set you free." Oona chuckled.
No one responded.
"Let them," Oona said again, into the quiet, with great satisfaction.
"Let every last bonded cat in this house tell every last secret they have been carryin'.
The world has been keepin' too many secrets for too many centuries, and the cats have finally had the sense to refuse. I am here to applaud them."
Bramble, from the rug at her feet, belched.
"That's my boy." Oona patted his head.
Maeve, in the chair by the fire, made a small sound between a laugh and exhaustion. Oona's bright eyes went to her. Maeve's eyes went back. Two fierce women took each other's measure.
"Hello, my dear," Oona said.
"Hello yourself."
"What's your name." Oona sipped her coffee.
"Maeve Byrne."
"Are you drinking that coffee or are you drinking something stiffer." Oona winked.
"I would be drinking somethin' stiffer if anyone were offerin'." Maeve giggled.
"Oh, Edgar," Oona said, without taking her eyes off Maeve. "We're going to need the good bottle."
Edgar looked at his wife and Rhoda shrugged and rolled her eyes.
Leahnora set her coffee on the side table and rose.
She did not speak. She lifted both hands chest-high, palms open, and turned a slow circle in the middle of the parlor rug.
Her purple sleeves moved with her like water.
Small red sparks rose out of the floorboards under her feet.
They climbed the walls, ran along the picture rails, slipped up around the doorframes, and traced the high corners of the parlor ceiling before sinking back down into the wainscot and out through the boards.
The fire did not flicker. The cats did not stir.
Nothing visible had happened. Leahnora lowered her hands.
"It is done," she said quietly. "The house will hold. No witch or warlock not already inside it will come up your drive again today. Those of you under this roof now will need to stay until the work is done."
"Thank you, Leahnora," Rhoda said.
Leahnora inclined her head to the room. Then she crossed the parlor and the front hall. Baval lifted from the weathervane and took flight. She began walking down the lane, and suddenly disappeared in a cloud of red glitter.