“Meow,” he told me, noncommittally.
“You’re no help at all,” I grumped. I gave him a scratch. “If it looks terrible, I’ll just take your example and fling it into the corner when she’s not looking.”
“Meow,” he agreed.
He jumped up onto the table and started sniffing around the suitcase, pawing at the bulging bag.
“Don’t mess with the artifacts,” I told him, setting my pad aside. “I’ve almost got them all organized.”
“Meow!”
With a sigh, I headed for the store. A long feather flew off the shelves and lodged itself into my hair. With a sigh, I reached up and tugged it out, giving it a chastising glance. “None of that now, you have an assigned spot. You’re supposed to stay there unless I call you.”
The feather rippled gently, quivering in my hand. I narrowed my gaze on it. “What’s your magic, anyway?”
The tip wasn’t covered in ink, so I assumed it hadn’t been used as a quill. A flowery scent filled my nostrils, and I grinned. “Woman’s hat, huh? I think you need to get back to it then.”
I opened my hand and gave my fingers a little twitch in the direction of the artifact shelving. “Go on now.”
The feather lifted from my palm, did a little shimmy, and then dusted my nose with its soft barbs before dancing through the air to the spot on the shelves where a woman’s hat from centuries past waited. The hat was covered in plastic, no doubt sealed, but somehow the little feather had wriggled its way free to visit me.
I smiled, giving it a little wave before heading toward my bangers and beans.
If I survived lunch, I’d try to get the story on the hat feather.
Alice settled a wide, shallow bowl in front of me. I looked down at a pale glop of beans with a fat sausage sitting on top. “She grinned happily. “Tuck in, now. We’ve oodles of work ahead today.”
I glanced longingly toward the dividing door, wishing I could get back to my cataloging. I felt curiously competent when I was dealing with the artifacts. As if I’d been meant to work with them all along.
Maybe I had.
I took a bite of the pale-colored beans and forced myself to smile at Alice. She was watching me for my reaction. “Good, yeah?”
I swallowed quickly and nodded. “Delicious.”
Something dinged and she jumped up. “Brilliant! The bread’s done.”
I shoved the pasty, tasteless beans around my plate, wishing Alice had a dog I could surreptitiously feed under the table. “I’ve been cataloging the artifacts on the table in the back,” I told her.
She glanced up, humming her response. I watched as she settled a beautiful, golden loaf of bread onto another cat-decorated towel and dug in the drawer for a knife.
“I’m almost done with them,” I said. I was hoping she’d be happy about my taking the initiative. But she seemed too engrossed in trying to get the knife to cut through the loaf of bread to pay attention. She hummed again, leaning all her weight on the knife.
It barely dented the bread’s surface.
She stood back, wiping her hands on her apron, which I noticed was also covered in black cats, none of which bore even the slightest resemblance to the mountain-lion sized Fenwald. “I’ll just let the bread rest a few minutes,” she finally said. “The fibers need to loosen.”
I fought a smile. She sat down across from me, cutting into the sausage and taking a tidy bite. “This brings me back to Sunday meals with my mums and gram,” she said, smiling.
“That sounds nice,” I told her.
She gave me a sideways glance as she scooped up beans. “Did your family have any special meals?”
The way she asked the question made me think she was fishing for information. I’d asked A.P. not to tell Alice any more about my family situation than he had to. I was embarrassed by my lack of magical upbringing, and mortified by the fact that I hadn’t grown up with parents.
“My grandma liked roast beef with carrots and potatoes,” I told her, keeping my tone neutral.
Alice held my gaze for a moment, no doubt noting my lack of enthusiasm. Finally, she nodded. “Brilliant. I’ll be sure not to fix that.”
I snorted out a surprised laugh.
She was intuitive. I’d have to remember that.
To thank her for her kindness, I admitted, “I like tacos and egg rolls.”
“Good enough.”
We ate in slightly awkward silence for a few minutes.
“I was wondering if you knew the story on that woman’s hat with the rogue feather?”
Alice put her fork down. “Has that silly thing been a bother?”
I shook my head and set my fork into my nearly empty bowl. To my amazement, the banger hadn’t been all that bad. “It came to see me. But I’m used to that. It’s no bother.”
She nodded. “You’ve got a unique attraction for magical objects. They probably sense your unformed magic. I suspect it’s been a bit of a challenge at times?”
I grimaced. “Living with a non-magic grandma, it was more than a challenge.”
“I’ve known the type. She pretended magic didn’t exist?”
It was hard to explain. “Not so much that as…” I pushed beans around in my bowl. “It took me a while to put a finger on it. The magic made her sad. I have no idea why, but it got to the point where I’d do anything to keep that look off her face.” I looked at Alice. “I don’t want you to think Grandma Neely was mean to me. She never was. She was kind and thoughtful in her own way. But something or someone hurt her badly once. She would never tell me. And she just couldn’t find it in herself to help me embrace my magic. So the two of us played parts for the twenty years we lived together. We both pretended there was no such thing as magic. And I pretended I was happy about it.” I shrugged. “It’s not
