Page 58 of The Witching Hours

Still sitting at the kitchen table, Nick took off the ice pack sling and tossed it into the sink. “Not sure which is most humiliating. Being so uncoordinated I bounced off a wall while dancing to “Uptown Funk”, sleep fighting, or having other grown men think I got beat up by my wife. Which would you choose?”

“Sorry. It was all I could think of at the moment.”

“About that.”

“Yes?” I sat down.

“It’s worrisome how good you are at lying on the fly.”

After a long slow breath in then out, I said, “Lots of practice. It was a survival skill I developed to keep me out of the looney bin.”

What happened next made me want to cry. I saw sympathy form in Nick’s eyes and soften the planes of his face. “You were dealing with that when you were a kid.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly.

“And only you could see them.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly before grasping the implication. When I did finally get it, my eyes flew wide open. “NICK! YOU WERE ABLE TO SEE THEM!” I laughed. “YOU CAN SEE THEM, TOO!!!”

“Shhhh,” he said. “Tim and Roger have probably gone back to sleep.”

“There’s only been one other time when somebody besides me saw them and talked to me about it.”

“Your teacher.”

“Yes. My teacher!”

“Do you think it might be possible to get another ten years peace and quiet?”

“I just remembered. Mr. Caras got the remedy somewhere around here. He’d spent Thanksgiving in San Francisco and said something about a relative. That was pretty non-specific.”

“Let’s find out if… what was his name?”

“Caras.”

“If Mr. Caras is still around.”

“I thought he was old at the time, but I think he might’ve been in his thirties. So, it’s a good bet he’s alive and kicking somewhere.”

“Tomorrow morning you know what we’re going to do?”

“Sleep expert?” He gave me a look. “Okay. It’s too soon for jokes. Got it.”

“We’re going to track down Mr. Caras and find out who we need to see about good-riddance magic. That’s Plan A.”

That raised my curiosity. I sat up straighter. “Does that mean there’s a Plan B?”

“Maybe.”

“What is it?”

“We’ll get into that if Plan A doesn’t pan out.”

“Come on. Tell me.”

“No. Let’s go back to bed.”

I thought I was way too wired to sleep, but I let him pull me down the hall.

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