Still, they all managed to grow and thrive. Perhaps it was Greta’s magical green thumb. Or perhaps it was the Goddess’s way, spinning beauty out of chaos.
The marigolds caught Greta’s eye. They badly needed to be deadheaded. She leaned forward, plucked the dried-up blossoms, and slipped them into her pocket. She could brew them for a tea, or maybe steep them in milk to make a lotion—Teo was constantly falling or bumping into things, and marigold lotion was good for bruises and sprains.
Marigolds had other magical properties. For example, according to Callixta’s book, sleeping with a marigold under one’s pillow could bring on prophetic dreams. The thing was, Greta never had dreams, prophetic or otherwise—or if she did, she never remembered them. She’d tried the marigold-under-the-pillow trick several times, just to see if they could cause her to have a dream, any dream, but nothing had happened. She’d tried other remedies from the book, too, like wild asparagus root and peppermint. Still nothing. Obviously, she was destined to be one of those dreamless people. Which was kind of depressing—it was like there was an entire part of her that she would never know, like roots growing too deep under the loamy earth.
A whisper-light sensation tickled her brain.… Something was mentally nudging Greta for her attention. She glanced up; her familiar, Gofflesby, sat in the kitchen window in sphinx position, his large emerald eyes fixed on her. His mouth was slightly open, and his chest rose and fell in an irregular rhythm. He let out a long, wrenching cough.
Greta’s heart clenched like a fist. “I know, little one. I meant to tell you before, I’ve been working on some new potions for you. I’m going to take you back to Dr. Slotnick, too. The last time we saw her, she told me about these new medicines that are good for kitties with chronic respiratory infections.”
Gofflesby continued staring and panting and coughing. The thing was, he was just barely out of kittenhood. Two or three years old, max. Greta had found him this summer hanging out in Bloomsbury and eating the valerian and silver vine, and after making sure he didn’t have another owner, she’d adopted him as her familiar. Cats this young shouldn’t be sick all the time. It wasn’t normal, and it most definitely wasn’t fair.
Greta was a witch; surely she could cure him? What good was magic otherwise? What good was she? Sometimes, she seriously questioned whether she had any business being a witch. Much less a coven leader. Half the time, she felt as though she was making it up, improvising, pretending.
And now, on top of Gofflesby’s illness, she had to deal with the Antima.…
Oh, right. Greta pulled out her phone and fired off a quick text to Binx and Ridley, detailing her conversation with Div.
“Hello, my love!”
Greta’s mother, Ysabel, emerged from the back porch lugging two canvas bags, a pile of library books, and a basket of cookies. She walked over to Greta and planted a kiss on the top of her head. The air filled with her jasmine-and-lemongrass perfume.
“Hey, Mama.”
Gofflesby had vanished from his window perch. In her mind, Greta imagined him padding up to her room to take a nap in his favorite spot: on top of her mandala-print comforter in a pool of sunlight, snuggled below the large dream catcher that he sometimes pawed at.
“I need to deliver more bath soaps and soy candles to Organic Bliss,” Ysabel was saying. “Sparrow said the last batch is almost sold out, can you believe it? After that, I need to return these books to the library and drop these gluten-free goodies off at Angelina and Jack’s—they just had their baby, did I tell you? Babies, plural, twin girls, Zadie and Zoe—and pick up Teo from coding club. I hope he didn’t get into a fight with that Sasha girl again. How was your first day of school?”
Her words tumbled out in a rush of breathless, happy energy. She was always like that, even when things around her were not so happy.
Greta rose to her feet and pocketed the rest of the dead marigold blossoms. “School was fine. Can we make another appointment with Dr. Slotnick? Soon? Gofflesby’s still coughing.” She hated asking this; she knew money was tight. The vet bills for Gofflesby had been piling up along with the other bills; she’d noticed the unopened envelopes on the kitchen counter.
“Poor kitty. I thought he seemed less coughy lately, but you would know better. My friend Lamar told me about a homeopathic remedy he uses for his pug’s asthma. I can find out the name of it for you.”
Pug asthma? “Um, okay. Thanks, Mama.”
“Of course, honey. Your dad is doing inventory at the store, so he’ll be a little late. Do you mind making dinner? The avocados are probably ripe by now, so I’m thinking guacamole. There’s leftover lentil soup from my Climate Coalition meeting. It’s that recipe you like from Veganomicon, except we were all out of tarragon so I had to use marjoram instead. Oh, and maybe a nice salad, we still have a few of those heirloom tomatoes from the farmer’s market.”
Before Greta could reply, Ysabel leaned in and hugged her, the canvas bags and library books and cookie basket crushed between them. “Love you! Don’t forget about the—Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Maybe it’ll…”
Her words trailed off
