Girl's Guide To Witchcraft Page 7

  I tried to remember which was Bow and which was Camel—I think that Melissa had just accomplished the back bends that the springy, popular girls had always shown off in third-grade gym class. I fought the urge to ask what Mary Lou Retton was doing these days, and I repeated, "Mojito therapy. Now."

  Melissa finally heard the dire note behind my words. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Your foot wasn't really cramping, was it?"

  I shook my head. "I'll tell you all about it when we've got drinks in our hands. You've got limes? And mint?"

  "Of course." Melissa shrugged and tossed her yoga mat over her shoulder. She'd rolled hers into a perfect cylinder and sheathed it in its nylon bag. I felt like a naughty pre­schooler beside her, too slovenly even to have picked up my toys. "Oh," Melissa said. "I brought one of these for you."

  She passed me a fluorescent-pink flyer. I recognized the logo for the yoga studio centered at the top of the sheet. In delicate script, the page announced a special weekend series on "hot yoga." Participants were expected to bring their own towels (three, recommended) and water supply. I looked at Melissa for a long time before I crumpled the paper and crammed it into my bag. "You have got to be kidding."

  "Rock, paper, scissors?"

  "No way." She must have heard the vehemence in my tone, because she didn't even try to argue. Instead, she struck off down the street, leading the way to the canal towpath that formed the shortcut to Cake Walk.

  Melissa made short work of the walk. Opening up her back door, she slung her yoga mat into the corner and dug in a drawer until she came up with kitchen shears. She waved me toward a tangle of potted herbs in the tiny side yard, and I found the mint without any problem. Ah, sweet therapy. If the mojitos didn't work their magic, we might have to move up to the big guns: deep-dish pizza, with pep-peroni and black olives. That would still leave Ben & Jerry's in reserve with its pints of last-ditch salvation.

  Breathing deeply of the fresh-cut mint, I returned to the bakery. Melissa was setting a gigantic net bag of limes on the counter. "You've got sugar?"

  "Yep." I felt proud of myself. I was just like a regular homeowner.

  "And rum?" She glanced dubiously at her cooking supplies; she kept rum for the Devil's Nips that she made when she was feeling particularly devious. I swallowed hard; I could taste those liquored-up chocolate truffles now.

  "I've got half a bottle at home. That should be enough."

  "Should be?" She arched a bemused eyebrow. I wish that I could arch an eyebrow. I wasn't certain I could harness "bemused" for any amount of money. "Sounds like some serious therapy you're contemplating."

  "You don't know the half of it."

  She nodded and wrapped the mint in a paper towel, adding it to the limes in a tote bag. She glanced around the kitchen and started to turn off the light, but then she shook her head and turned back to the industrial-size refrigera­tor.

  She pulled out one of her heavy pottery serving plates and set it on the counter. When I glimpsed the treasures beneath the plastic wrap, I felt a warm flush of joy. Melissa did understand how serious this was.

  "Almond Lust!"

  "Only the best for you," she said. I loved the shortbread concoction, and my mouth watered at the thought of the rich chewy caramel and dark Valrhona chocolate that cradled sliced almonds. I started to lift the corner of the plastic wrap, but Melissa playfully slapped my hand away. "Patience!"

  "But there are three bars!"

  "One for each of us, and one for Neko, right?"

  Neko. Well, that was one thing to be said for my grand­mother's informational bomb. It had driven all thoughts of the strange cat-man out of my head. Thoughts of my, um, familiar came spiraling back, and I wondered how I could have forgotten about my life as a witch so quickly.

  "Right," I said. Suddenly those mojitos sounded med­ically necessary.

  It didn't take us long to walk to the Peabridge. I was glad that the library was closed when we passed by—there was no need for anyone there to see me in workout clothes, carrying my bedraggled yoga mat and the makings of tropical drinks. I started to dig in my bag for my keys, but the door swung open before I could find them.

  "Good evening," Neko said, and he bowed to Melissa and me. My ingrained manners took over enough for me to in­troduce them. Melissa shot me a sharp look as I turned toward the kitchen.

  I knew that expression. She was sizing up Neko for a spot on the First Date roster. Oh, girlfriend, I almost said out loud. You are going to be so disappointed. There was more to Neko than the tautly muscled torso carved beneath his black T-shirt, more than the exotic slant of his eyes beneath the oh-so-touchable buzz of his hair. So much more, but we women weren't going to see any of it. Not that there was anything wrong with that.

  I glanced toward my bedroom door, but it looked un­touched. It seemed like a second safe day for Stupid Fish. At least, I could hope so.

  As Melissa and Neko traded pleasantries, I marched into the kitchen and got straight to work. I opened the left cabinet and reached for the rum on the top shelf. Not there. I checked the middle shelf. No luck. I glanced at the bottom shelf, but I knew I wouldn't have put the alcohol there.

  I tried the second cabinet without any greater success before I remembered that I had put all the liquor beneath the sink. After all, I didn't have that many cleaning bottles left by the time Melissa and I had made the cottage livable, and I didn't want visitors to see my alcoholic stash and conclude I was a lush.

  Okay. I didn't want Jason to see my liquor and think that I was just a hard-drinking party girl. Our first date was already scripted in my mind—I was going to brew him a nice hot cup of tea one evening when we had worked late at the library on some difficult research project. I'd save the hard stuff for our second date. Or for Bloody Marys the morning after.

  I pushed aside a woefully depleted fifth of gin and reached past sculpted bottles of Kahlua and Baileys. The rum was at the back of the collection, and I was pleased to discover there was even more of it than I'd remembered. "There," I said. "Now, if I can just figure out where I put my pitcher..."

  "The one with the fish on it?" Neko asked, popping back from his chat with Melissa. He produced the oversized item from a cabinet as if he'd lived here all his life. Which, come to think of it, he might have. I had a lot of questions for the guy. Questions that I'd be ready to ask, just as soon as the drinks were mixed.

  "Thanks," I said. Melissa started to help with the mojito preparation, but I waved her over to the tin kitchen table. "Both of you, sit down. I'll do this."

  "I can't wait anymore, though," Melissa said. "Tell me what we're treating with the mojitos!"

  "Treating?" Neko purred, and I could see interest waft over him like the scent of salmon. He'd ignored my in­structions to sit down. Instead, he had taken over preparing the limes. After watching me roll one across the counter, hard, to release the juice inside, he repeated the process with the rest of the fruit. He moved his fingers like a pastry chef kneading dough. A distant look came into his eyes, as if the motion provided him with a distinctly sexual frisson of pleasure. As if he were a cat.

  I shook my head and began to bruise the mint. I spoke as I worked, telling Melissa and Neko about my meeting with Gran. Both reacted appropriately, gasping in surprise at her revelation (or, in Neko's case, hissing).

  Years of practice let me eyeball the correct amount of mint, along with sugar, the juice from Neko's limes and sparkling water. I poured in a healthy amount of rum, then added more when Neko cast a critical eye. I started to dig for a wooden spoon in the container on the counter, but Neko placed a utensil in my hand. I stirred absently, looking from one friend to the other, as I concluded my tale of woe: "And so, I left. I needed time to think. That's why I couldn't finish yoga class."

  "Mmm," Neko said. "Cat Pose. It's perfect for tightening your abs." As if to illustrate, he flexed his taut belly.

  "I'll drink to that," Melissa said, eyeing him appreciatively. I poured us each a tall glass. The mojito was
icy cold as I swallowed, but the rum warmed my woefully untaut belly. Already, I could feel myself relaxing, opening up. The mint was sweet-sharp against the back of my throat.

  "Mmm," Neko said. "You put in extra lime. I like them like that."

  I swallowed another healthy dose before I asked, "How do you do that?"

  "Do what?" His eyes were sly as he met mine over his glass.

  "Know about mojitos. I mean, you've been in my basement for a while, right? Frozen as a statue?"

  He licked his lips and glanced over at Melissa, as if he were wondering what he could say in front of her. Fine time for him to decide to be circumspect. "Go ahead," I said. "She's my best friend. She already knows about you. At least as much as I do."

  Melissa nodded and drank from her own glass. She must have been thirsty after yoga class; her drink was already half-gone. I refilled it and topped off mine. Hmm. I must have been thirsty, as well.

  Neko shrugged and said, "It's part of the Covenant. The power of witchcraft." He spread his hands a precise distance apart in the air, and I couldn't help but picture him as an interior designer, describing the parameters of my living room just before he told me I had no fashion sense and everything I owned must go. "The Covenant is always there, for those of us who are sensitive to it. When I was put into stasis by—" he hesitated only slightly, but I caught the ripple "—the person who owned the books downstairs, I was current on everything known to every member of our Coven. As soon as you awakened me, the Covenant was reenergized. It flowed through me, and it filled in all the gaps in my knowledge."

  "So the witches know about mojitos?" I asked, and the question seemed silly enough that a bubble of laughter rose inside me.

  "At least one of them does. Or one of their familiars. It only takes one for all of us to have the information." Neko reached out for the fish pitcher and stirred it carefully before refilling my glass. Melissa accepted more, as well. "Different witches specialize in different things. We familiars transmit the specialized information that we learn. It's our job to explore as much as we can."

  I remembered what Montrose had said. Neko had been awakened on the night of the full moon. He was free to go anywhere he wanted. Anytime he wanted. He could ex­plore a hell of a lot.

  Melissa interrupted before I could say anything. "So how does this all work? How do you help Jane with her spells?"

  Neko raised a single eyebrow—he could challenge Melissa in the "bemused" department. "I help her channel her power. Whatever she needs. I can't work the magic on my own; the power has to come from her. I'm sort of like a magnifying glass. Or Batman's Lucius Fox. Or James Bond's Q. Or—"

  "We get it," I said, washing down my annoyance with another healthy swallow of mojito. Like I was going to be some sort of suave superhero, saving the nation's capital from threatening villains. Yeah, right. Me, and my well-chewed fingernails. My freckles. My unruly hair and glasses.

  "So can I go downstairs and look at the books?" Melissa was really into all this. She jumped up from her kitchen chair, but she had to steady herself with a hand thrust out against the table edge. Maybe I had been a bit too generous with the rum.

  "Sit down!" Neko cried. "Here." He topped off her glass again and saw to mine before he said, "I'll bring one up. Won't be a minute."

  I started to protest, but the mojito therapy was working its own magic, mellowing me out so that I didn't really care to argue. Neko was out of the room before I could explain what a bad idea it was for him to bring anything magical upstairs. Well, I wasn't going to read any spell from the Compendium again. And I certainly wasn't going to light any beeswax tapers. I'd promised Montrose. And my life was complicated enough without adding to the witchcraft quotient.

  Neko trotted back into the kitchen, and for a moment, I thought he was empty-handed. He certainly hadn't lugged the Compendium with him. Instead, he set a small book on the kitchen table. It was no larger than a paperback volume of poetry. It was clearly old, though; the cover was bound in leather. Gold letters were stamped on its surface.

  "A Girl's First Grimoire," Melissa read, and she burst out laughing. "What is that, like Pat the Bunny for the witchy set?"

  Neko struck a pose. "You are too funny, girlfriend."

  Melissa turned to me. "So what do you do? Just read from the page?"

  I looked at Neko, but he merely gave an elaborate shrug. His job might be to help me work magic, but he wasn't about to answer all my questions. I could practically hear him whistling his innocence. "I'm still not totally sure," I said. "Montrose said that the candles I used were impor­tant—they were pure beeswax. Also, I touched my forehead, and my throat and my chest before I read. And I ran my fingers under the words."

  "Ran your fingers..." Melissa sounded amazed. Frankly, so was I. I mean, I must really have some sort of power, right? If my touching a page could make something come magically to life? Melissa shoved the grimoire toward me. "Read from this one!"

  "I can't! I promised—"

  "Come on! It'll be like a Ouija board! You remember when we used that at my ten-year-old birthday party."

  "I remember that you moved the pointer. You made the board say that John Goodnight would be the first boy I ever kissed."

  "John Goodnight," Neko crooned, and I swore as my cheeks flushed. There was something provocative about the way he said the name, and I suddenly wanted to show him that he was wrong, that I wasn't the Goody Two-shoes girl that he seemed to think I was.

  I stepped up to the table. I would show Neko. I could read from a silly leather-bound book. I wouldn't light a candle this time, wouldn't touch my rapid pulse points. I wouldn't run my fingers beneath the words, and I definitely wouldn't speak them aloud.

  Neko smiled and opened the book, apparently to a random page. I squinted at the letters, but they seemed to shift in front of my eyes. I started to put my fingertips beneath them, but I pulled back as if the parchment burned when I remembered my promise to Montrose. Neko handed me the wooden stirrer from the mojito pitcher, giving it one quick wipe against a towel.

  Feeling more than a little silly, I teased out the words on the page, saying them to myself:

  "Glamour, glamour, magic bind Vision twist and veil unwind Wrap my face in power hidden Spark a love from man unbidden Tie him to me ever more Lock him up with grimoire's lore."

  And then there was that flash of darkness, more aston­ishing than the first time, because I had specifically worked to avoid the spell. I bit off a shriek and caught my breath against my teeth before I whirled around to face Neko.

  "It couldn't work!"

  "It did." He smiled and looked pointedly at my hand. I wasn't holding the wooden spoon that I expected, the ancient utensil that had been nibbled by the garbage disposal in my old apartment. No, I was holding a smooth piece of wood. A dowel, really.

  A wand.

  "What the hell is this?" I asked him, and Melissa jumped at the anger in my voice.

  "What?" Neko asked, trying to look innocent. "It's just a little something I picked up while I was out and about this afternoon." But even he could not carry off the happy-go-lucky charade as a loud knock sounded at my cottage door.

  This time, David Montrose was dressed in casual clothes. In fact, he looked like he had just stepped out of a Lands' End catalog spread. His dark brown hair was ruffled, just enough out of place to prove that he was not overly vain. His slacks were a charcoal-gray, the perfect contrast to his light blue button-down shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, displaying the corded muscles of his forearms. As before, though, his eyes were dark, his pupils were expanded by the nighttime, or by the wild ride he'd taken to appear on my doorstep. "Miss Madison," he said, and the formality of his words contrasted with his easy­going appearance.

  I looked down to see that I'd brought my glass to the door. My empty glass. Where was a good slug of rum when you needed one? "Would you like a mojito?" I asked, because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

  Montrose strode past me into the livi
ng room. "I thought we'd reached an agreement."

  "We did! I didn't work a spell." I thought of the flash of darkness. "Well, I didn't mean to." I remembered the electric tingle that had rippled down my arms. "Um, I'm not even sure that it worked." Montrose just stared at me. That blue shirt really did contrast with his eyes, really made his face stand out. "I don't even know what it was supposed to do!" I found myself saying, and I felt like I was going to my first confession, blurting out all sorts of sins that I hadn't even committed, just so that Father Brennan would smile kindly and grant me absolution.

  "And that is precisely why you should have some guidance. Some training." He sighed and gestured toward the basement door. "You might think that this is all Bewitched and Charmed, but I can assure you that it is not. There are consequences for your behavior."

  "My behavior! What about Neko! He's the one who made this happen. He's the one who gave me the stick—"

  "Neko." Montrose raised his eyes to the kitchen doorway, where my familiar stood next to my best friend. The cat-man managed to look unabashed, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened—as if nothing out of the ordinary could ever happen when he was around.

  Melissa seemed a bit more shocked—and intrigued. Again, I knew that expression. Now that she'd recognized the impossibility of snaring Neko, she was measuring David Montrose against her entire pool of First Dates. She was cal­culating his net worth, determining where he would stand in her ongoing home-run derby. She didn't understand, though. She apparently didn't remember that Montrose was a warder, that he was a cosmic policeman. That he was here to monitor me and what I did.

  In a flash, she ducked back into the kitchen, and before I could say anything else, she returned with a pottery plate in hand. "Lust?" she asked, and she managed to look bashful as she peered up at Montrose through glistening eyelashes.

  He actually blushed, which made Neko gasp with delight. "Who is this?" Montrose turned to ask me, indi­cating Melissa with a cautious nod of his head.