Page 71 of The Witching Hours

Nothing was familiar about the house but the floor plan. On the way to a higher station in middle class, my mother hadn’t had much money to spend on furnishings, but she’d had good taste and it had showed. She’d dragged me through every junk store in town seeking treasures at a bargain. I’d always thought she may have originated the antiques trend. She found various and sundry things that, after she’d worked some restorative magic, looked like she’d spent a fortune.

“My room is at the back,” I said. As an adult I realized that “the back” was an astonishingly short walk.

It appeared the current owners didn’t have children. The room that had been mine was someone’s office. The good news was that furnishings were minimal. A desk and chair by the window. A couple of file cabinets on the wall next to the closet. We wouldn’t even have to move any furniture to make space for a hole the same size as the one I accidentally, unintentionally, created.

“We won’t have to move furniture,” I said. “Just this, um, truly ugly rug.”

Nick smirked at the fact that I was judgey about décor, in minutes he had it rolled up and standing on one end out of our way.

One thing that hadn’t changed was the floor. Thin strips of blonde oak throughout the house. The floor had been covered with wall-to-wall carpet at one point, but the original wood was re-exposed.

I stood staring at the grain patterns in the oak floor weighing the pros and cons of going through with the plan.

“I know what you’re doing,” Nick said.

I looked up. “You do?”

“Yeah. It’s clear as day. You’re a hair’s breadth away from calling it off.”

“Wow. Youdoknow what I’m doing. If they bring back the “Newlywed Game”, I’m signing us up.”

“First, let’s get through today.”

As instructed, we both wore black head to toe. We looked more like burglars than a dynamic duo out to save ourselves from fictional characters. I sighed. “So, we’re really doing this.”

“Yep,” he said as he started removing the items Aunt Ceija had assembled for our “kit”.

He handed me my cheat sheet. “Let the eviction begin,” he quipped.

The exercise was too important to rely strictly on memory. Mine was pretty good, but fallible. I’d typed it out in huge font so that it was the next best thing to a teleprompter.

I held it up and pretended to read. “Dearly Beloved…”

It was intended to lighten the mood. Instead, I got a chest full of Cheshire Cat. He materialized a few feet away looking mad as hell and, with a mighty, ear-splitting yowl leapt at me, planting two paws in my chest and two in my abdomen. He hissed in my face, as he bounced off and disappeared.

I’m not saying it was worthy of a visit to the ER, but it didn’t feel good at all. It was the first time any of the characters had touched me. It was also the first time I’d heard Cheshire Cat make a sound.

“What the fuck!?!” Nick dropped what he was doing and, grabbing both my arms, turned me to face him. “Catherine. Are you okay?”

Was I okay?To be determined.I was definitely stunned.

“I… I guess.” I rubbed the places where the thing’s paws had landed. Not so much because they hurt, but because the points of contact felt offensive. There was no telling where those paws had been. Maybe in cranberry sauce.

I took a deep breath, feeling my emotions tilt from anxious to angry. I looked at Nick. The clouds blurring my vision, and commitment, were clearing.

“I am fine. Let’s get rid of these ‘creatures’ while I still feel that way.”

Nick’s lips pressed together then pressed tightly to my forehead as if he was rededicating his commitment to seeing this through. When he pulled away, he said, “We’re ready. Let’s do it.”

As he finished that sentence, I thought I could hear the beginnings of a whirring sound. Distant, but distinct.

I set candles around the room and lit them. Yellow in the east. Red in the south. Blue in the west. Green in the north.

“Chime,” I said, trying to muster the authority Aunt Ceija had insisted I demonstrate. According to her, it would be deadly to doubt myself. Easy for her to say. My most reliable lifelong pastime had been doubting myself. I felt like Willow pretending to be a great sorcerer.

Nick handed me the three tone hand chime and the little accompanying wand. The tones were calibrated in musical thirds. I struck each metal bar from low to high. To me, it sounded like I was calling school to order, but I didn’t have time for fanciful thoughts of the rabbit-chasing variety.

I reached toward Nick. He handed me the staff I’d bought at the magic shop. It was made of twisted rosewood. Themost fanciful thing about it was the polish that gave it a pretty sheen. Most would say it was unremarkable, but I’d felt an odd kinship when I’d touched it and knew it was mine. Even though I had no doubts, I was gratified when it was christened with Ceija’s approval.

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