Under My Hat by Jonathan Strahan

Author:Jonathan Strahan [Jonathan Strahan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2012-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

WHICH WITCH

PATRICIA A. McKILLIP

LIESL, THAT GRINCH, stole my G string. “Borrowed,” she said. Ha! So I had to limp along on a Spinreel G so old it was liable to snap at any moment with a twang in pure country, while she wailed along like she was summoning the devil to dance, with her long black hair tangling in her bow until it seemed she was pulling the song out of her hair instead of her fiddle.

Maybe she did. Summon up the devil, I mean, since that night was when Trouble joined the band.

I know Cawley warned me. I know that. But it had to have been while I was on the floor slithering like the snake in the Garden into my tightest black jeans, or trying to bend over after that to buckle the Mary Jane strap on a seven-inch lollipop-red heel and then zip a black ankle boot on the other foot, or surrounding myself with puddles of sequins, satin, leather, and lace, trying to find just the right top for my mood. Pirate Queen, or Good Fairy/Bad Fairy, or maybe I’d just wear my glasses and my crazy-quilt jacket and Cawley on my shoulder and be Scholar Gypsy.

Cawley hates being used as an accessory, unless I’m in dire need. Which I wasn’t then. Or at least I didn’t know it. Though I would have if I’d listened to him. But I was on the floor, et cetera, while he was fluttering on his wooden perch trying to take my attention off my clothes. Translating crow requires concentration. I thought he was asking me to open the window so that he could fly out, and I finally did give it a shove up, in the middle of putting on a shirt covered with roses and skulls.

“There,” I said. “Bye. You know where I’ll be.”

But he didn’t leave, just kept squawking. Since he had hopped from his perch to the sill, I thought he was talking to his clan, which had covered the tree outside like very dead leaves. They were all chattering, too. Where to go to dinner, or the sun about to go down, or somebody spilled a ginormous order of french fries in the middle of B Street. Something like that.

So you can’t say I wasn’t warned. I pulled off the shirt, which wasn’t right, then limped in one-shoe-on, one-boot-on mode to the window and pushed it shut behind Cawley. I nearly caught his tail feathers. He whirled in a black blur and could have cracked glass with the word that ripped out of his open beak.

I yelled back, “Sorry!”

But what I thought he squawked wasn’t what he said at all.

I hadn’t really had him that long. Some witches find their familiars; some familiars find their witches. Liesl’s smokecolored cat with golden eyes had been put in an animal shelter along with her seven siblings. Liesl had a dream about her and went searching. They recognized each other instantly. Liesl smiled; the cat started a coffee grinder purr that rattled her tiny body.

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