Клеа Саймон - A Spell Of Murder

It was dinnertime when Becca peeked at her phone again, muttering in dismay. “Cousin Joan? Richie? Did Mom tell everyone?” She turned the device on then, and as it rang again, she paused—open can in hand—to answer it.

“Jeff!” she squeaked like a mouse, and dropped the phone.

“Becca, are you there?” Harriet sniffed at the device with disdain. Nothing good came from separating Harriet and her can. “You never called me back.” Even through the tiny speaker, the disembodied voice sounded hurt.

Becca reached for the device, only to be blocked by Harriet, who pressed her furry head into her person’s hand.

“Hang on.” Becca grabbed the phone and propped it on the counter before reaching for a dish. She’d been well trained—and not simply by her cats. “Sorry,” she called over to the phone. “I’ve just been—it’s been crazy.”

Clara could feel the fur begin to rise along her back as the tiny speaker emitted some small, beetle-ish response, and she readied for a leap to the counter. How Becca could even be talking to her ex was beyond the little calico. Sure, he was tall and had what the young woman had called a raffish smile, but if Clara could have knocked the phone all the way into the sink, she would have.

“Wait!” Harriet’s paw landed on her tail. “Not until she fills the dish.”

“But it’s Jeff.” Clara rounded on her. “He cheated on her and broke her heart. You remember!”

“Humans.” Laurel, washing her face, piped up from the corner. “They’re all like that. The males gallivant; the females accept it. Not like us.”

Clara could only stare, focusing her green eyes on her tawny sister. With her Siamese blood, Laurel affected a certain worldliness, but Clara knew that both Laurel and Harriet had to remember the bad times, after the faithless computer programmer had said his last goodbye and all Becca did was cry. There was no way they could be nonchalant about his reappearance. At least, not once Harriet got her dinner.

But Clara hadn’t counted on her sisters’ appetites. Once the dishes were placed on the mat, the two could not have cared less. And while their youngest sister hesitated—tempted like her siblings to bury her face in the savory pile—Becca picked up the phone again.

“Jeff.” At least the break had allowed her the opportunity to compose herself. “I’m so sorry.” She stopped there and bit her lip.

With a sigh, Clara turned from her dish and jumped to the counter. From here, she hoped to get a better handle on the situation, but all she heard from the other end of the line was a one-word query: “What?”

“About—” Becca swallowed. “About Suzanne.”

A spurt of sound followed, and went on for so long that the calico found herself looking longingly down at her bowl. If she didn’t get to her dinner quickly, Harriet would soon be scarfing it up.

“Don’t, Jeff.” Becca’s voice grabbed her attention back. “I know…and I’m sorry.” A pause as her brows knit. “You didn’t hear?”

Harriet was sitting back, demurely washing her face with those cream-colored mitts. Clara knew what was coming next and made her decision. As Becca delivered the news in halting tones—“I found her, Jeff,” she said. “She was, well, she was already gone”—the compact feline hit the floor and headed for her dish. Too late: a large, creamsicle-colored mass had moved into her path.

“Harriet!” Clara tried to push by. Yellow eyes blinked back at her over a well-rounded shoulder. “ That’s mine.”

“I didn’t think you wanted it.” Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

“Well, I do.” Clara managed to shove past her, and nudged Laurel out of the way as well. The middle sibling had already managed a few bites, but Clara managed to wolf down the rest, ears turned back to hear Becca, who was now in the awkward position of having to comfort her ex.

“ Don’t use those ears with me, little sister.” Harriet was waiting when Clara finally came up for air. Not to reprimand her, she knew, but to see if she had left anything over. “I won’t stand for it.”

“Fine.” Clara licked her chops clean. “ I’m out of here.”

Before the calico even landed back on the counter, her oldest sister was lapping up the few crumbs she’d overlooked, leaving Laurel to watch, a particularly peeved expression on her pointed face.

“I’m sorry, I really am,” Becca was repeating for the umpteenth time. She looked over at the calico on the counter and, wonder of wonders, reached for the bag of treats. Putting the phone down on the counter, she poured several into her palm.

“I can’t—this doesn’t make sense.” The tinny voice seemed to be repeating itself as Clara gobbled down two treats. Take that, Harriet , she thought. “I didn’t think she was that upset.”

“What?” The hand jerked out from beneath Clara. The little calico mewed in protest and her person returned it, even as she again lifted the phone to her ear. “Jeff, what are you saying?”

Clara finished the treats and licked Becca’s palm before looking up with what she hoped was an endearing expression.

“No, she didn’t—it wasn’t suicide.” More treats were not going to be forthcoming. Not while this call lasted. “What made you think…that?”

A loud howl from the floor. Harriet had seen the treats. Seen that her sister had gotten them before she did too.

“Hang on.” Becca went for the bag again, putting the phone on speaker.

“I thought, maybe…” The words were breathy and hesitant, and Clara could almost connect the distant voice to the man she remembered. She had found his boyishness adorable at one point. A little rough with the belly rubs, but tolerant of the sisters’ squabbling and their insistence on sleeping on the bed. But that memory was now overshadowed by another, of the gawky young man pacing back and forth as he explained to their person why he couldn’t be with her anymore. Boyish—try puppy-ish—and not in a good way. It always took him forever to get to the point, as Clara recalled.

“You see,” she heard him say, and Clara realized she could. He’d be pushing his too-long hair back from his forehead, a strained look on his dog-like face. “It’s just that, well, you know I’d gone out with Suzanne a few times. I mean, it wasn’t anything serious. But, well, what makes this all so awful is that I had just told her that I couldn’t see her anymore. Becca, I’d told her I wanted to try to win you back.”

Chapter 10

Becca didn’t sleep much that night either. The image of Suzanne’s too-white skin streaked with darkening blood might have been stained on the inside of her eyelids. Clara picked up on her restlessness and did her best to calm her, staying as still by her human’s side as she could. Not that it mattered. Even when Becca finally drifted off into an uneasy rest, Harriet kept waking her youngest sister with her own grumbling complaints.

“ So selfish,” the big cat muttered. “Doesn’t she know I need my beauty rest?”

Clara didn’t respond. Her oldest sister could sleep anywhere—and did. But since Clara had gotten on her case about summoning that pillow out of the ether, she had made a point about what she’d had to sacrifice to live by what she called the “silly” rules. As if she didn’t know full well that the number one rule of feline magic is that cats must keep their powers secret.

Despite Harriet’s complaints, all the sisters knew that wasn’t difficult to do. People attribute all sorts of qualities to cats. Even the most mundane of their kind is considered mysterious, as if being beautiful and incredibly limber were special skills. But while it is true that some basic physical attributes—like a feline’s excellent night vision—are common to all cats, and most felines can conjure up a few supernatural tricks—that disappearing through walls thing Clara had used to follow Becca—only a few are actual witch cats. And, therefore, it was incumbent upon the three sisters to be extra careful.