Magic and Loss

Chapter 21

The water from the multiple-head shower felt good on my body. I could have stood there for another hour, without worrying about the hot water running out, but I knew I was just postponing the inevitable. And, besides, I was starting to prune. As I toweled myself dry in my old bedroom, Beanie patrolled the perimeter, diligently sniffing the baseboards, his eyes bugging even farther out of his skull than usual. There was a polite knock on the door just as I finished slipping into some fresh clothes. It was Clarence, of course.

“Your parents are awaiting you in the Grand Salon, Miss Timmy,” he announced.

“Can’t they just sit around the kitchen table like normal people?” I sighed.

“Then they wouldn’t be Eresbies, would they?” Clarence replied, with the same small, conspiratorial smile we used to share when I was in junior high and chafing under my parents’ rules.

“No, they wouldn’t,” I agreed. “Well, no point in putting it off any longer, I suppose. Come along, Beanie.”

Beanie stopped his sniffing and obediently trotted at my heels as I led him down the pristine marble staircase that was the only access to the Grand Salon, a cavernous room with ceilings, paneling, and mantelpieces looted from only the finest Venetian palaces by the family’s founder.

My parents were there, seated before the massive fireplace in antique club chairs. My father looked like he had just come back from yachting, his face still ruddy from the wind, while my mother was dressed in her after-luncheon ensemble and working on what I hoped was her first highball of the day. I was surprised to find myself actually glad to see them.

My father’s weathered face split into a wide grin as I descended the stairs. “There’s my girl!” he exclaimed, as he rose to hug me. “I’ve missed you, Princess!”

“I missed you, too, Dad,” I said around the lump in my throat.

“I told you she’d come back once she got tired of playing haunted house,” my mother said as she rattled the ice in her glass. “What on earth has that Kymie been feeding you? Look at that pot belly—oh my God, you’re pregnant.” As my mother realized what she was looking at, her usual sense of decorum disappeared and her jaw dropped in disbelief.

“Thanks for noticing,” I said proudly.

“You hear that, Millie?” my father asked with an excited laugh. “We’re going to be grandparents!”

“Yes. I heard,” my mother replied curtly, reaching for her decanter of bourbon. “How far along are you?”

“Eighteen weeks.”

She glanced at my stomach again. “Are you sure about that?”

Before I could ask her what she meant by that, my dog walked over to one of the statues that decorated the salon—in this case, a Bernini—and pissed all over its base.

“Beanie—! No—!” I yelped. Instead of stopping, he merely turned to look at me as he continued to urinate.

My father seemed more amused than irritated as he gestured to the butler. “Clarence, it would appear my daughter’s dog needs to be walked.”

“I’ll see to it personally, sir,” Clarence said. Once Beanie finished emptying his bladder, Clarence picked him up and, tucking him under his arm like a football, carried him out of the room.

“So—I take it that is the reason you’ve come back,” my mother said, gesturing vaguely toward my midsection with her glass. “Slumming it isn’t nearly as much fun when you actually have to live in the slums, is it?”

“I’ll admit, living without a trust fund to fall back on is hard,” I replied. “But working at a steady job has taught me a lot about life, especially what is and isn’t necessary for me to be happy.”

“So what is it that you do?” my father asked.

“I’m employed at Canterbury Customs as a fabricator and apprentice blacksmith.”

“You’re working as a common laborer?” This information seemed to shock my mother even more than the news I was pregnant.

“It’s a skilled trade, Mother,” I pointed out sharply. “And my Master has recently taken me on as his partner.”

“It sounds positively pornographic,” she replied with a grimace. “So, what does your magic man—what’s his name? Vex?—think about becoming a father?”

“His name is Hexe and he’s very excited about the whole thing and is looking forward to being a dad. . . .”

“There has to be a ‘but’ after that sentence,” my mother said, fixing me with one of her patented glares. “You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t.”

“Things have been a little . . . tense . . . between us lately,” I admitted grudgingly. “Hexe and I are both going through some changes right now, and I decided it would be better if we gave each other some . . . space.”

To my surprise, my mother abruptly set aside her drink, a concerned look on her face. “Has he laid hands on you, Timmy?”

“No!” I replied, although not as quickly or as forcefully as I would have liked.

Her eyes narrowed, and I could tell she was trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not by parsing out my response in her head. If ever there was a human lie detector, it was my mother. However, her calculations were interrupted by the downstairs maid who arrived armed with a bucket and mop. For some reason, my mother had an aversion—if not an actual phobia—when it came to watching others engage in manual labor of any sort, and would invariably leave the room.

“We’ll discuss this later, at dinner,” she said, hastily rising from her club chair. “Seven o’clock, sharp.”

After the reunion with my parents—which did not go nearly as horribly as I had dreaded—I returned upstairs to see Clarence closing the door to my room behind him. He smiled upon espying me. “I just finished taking your Beanie for a brief stroll in the park. I must say, he is a very friendly little chap—although he appears to have a decided dislike of squirrels.”

“Yes, he does seem to take their existence as a personal affront,” I agreed with a chuckle.

“It’s good to have you back, Miss Timmy. You have been missed.”

“I’ve missed you, too, Clarence,” I said, giving him a warm hug.

“Oh—and Madam requests that you dress for dinner.”

“Of course she does,” I sighed.

Upon entering the bedroom, I saw that Beanie had made himself at home by hopping up onto the king-sized bed and falling asleep at its very center, his legs stretched out as far as they would go, as if it was the world’s biggest dog bed. As I set about searching my suitcase for something my mother would consider “dressing” for dinner, I heard a scrabbling sound outside the window, which I assumed was just pigeons from the nearby park perching on the ledge. Suddenly Beanie snapped out of his snooze and leapt off the bed and began frantically jumping up and down like a kangaroo, all while yapping excitedly. I drew back the curtain to see what could possibly trigger such a reaction from him, only to find Scratch squatting outside the window.

“Nice digs,” the familiar purred as I slid open the window, allowing him to drop down onto the carpet. “Really swank.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Since you’re refusing to answer your phone, I’ve been turned into a message delivery service. Yes, yes, I’ve missed you, too,” Scratch said, bumping his head against Beanie as he continued to hop about excitedly.

“How did you find me?” I asked cautiously.

“I sniffed out Beanie,” he replied. “I knew you wouldn’t be far away.”

“So what does Hexe have to say?”

In reply, the familiar leapt up onto the dresser and opened his mouth. To my surprise Hexe’s voice issued forth, sounding eerily like the playback on an answering machine. “Tate, whatever it is I’ve done, I’m sorry, and I swear it won’t happen again. I’ll get help, I’ll go to couples counseling—whatever it is you need me to do, I’ll do it. Just please come back home. It’s not the same without you—the house is so empty without you here. I love you, Tate. And I love our baby. Just say you’ll come back.”

“Stop it!” I said with a shudder. “You’re giving me the creeps.”

“So—what do I tell him?” Scratch asked. “Are you coming back or what?”

“I won’t come home until he agrees to get rid of the gauntlet,” I said firmly. “Once he’s willing to do that, I’ll come back, but not before.”

“He’s not going to want to hear that. But I’ll deliver the message just the same.” Scratch then sighed and I saw true concern in his bloodred eyes and the furrow of his hairless brow. “I am a familiar, and I am bound to my master. I must obey him, regardless of the order, and I am powerless to thwart his will. That is the nature of the bargain we have made, he and I. But, for what it’s worth—you were right to leave. I have never seen him like this before. And it scares me. Oh—and for what it’s worth—the house really isn’t the same without you.”

And with that, the familiar jumped from the dresser and dove through the open window, leaving a heartbroken Beanie standing propped against the sill, whining inconsolably as he watched his best friend wing his way back downtown.