"It is the least we can do." She crossed her legs as Edgar brought her a cup. She took it without speaking and rested it on her knee.
"Friends." Leahnora addressed the parlor. "By the authority of the town of Cauldron Falls, this house and its grounds are hereby a protected sanctuary. The visitors who have come this morning are in our care. No more will be admitted to your door without my word. The work that needs doing inside these walls will be done without interruption. So long as Rhoda and Edgar will have these guests, the town will hold the line at the foot of the hill."
"Thank you," Rhoda said.
"Of course."
The winds changed. And a moment too long passed. From the weathervane outside, the raven Baval cocked his head once. He had still not made a sound. And before Dean could croon out the words, the third arrival mounted the steps and did not knock.
The front door, which Rhoda had not quite latched again in her hurry to embrace Leahnora, was simply pushed open from the porch side with the casual shove of a small fierce hand.
"Well, that's done it." A voice from the hall, scratchy and cheerful. "I expect I am hereby uninvited. But my knees aren't what they used to be, and I'm here now. So that will be that."
Edgar trotted to the front hall ready to cut off the last intruder.
"Oona?"
"Hello, you tall drink of trouble. Give me a hug." She held out her arms and embraced him at his waist.
She was tiny. The crown of her head was perhaps level with the third button on Edgar's flannel. Her hair was white andpinned up several days ago and had not since been reconsidered. She wore three shawls of three different colours. She smelled, faintly, of cinnamon and a bonfire. At her ankle came the long low moan of a cat. He was a marmalade tom with one ear. He had the faint smell of moth balls and moved with the slow deliberate creak of a creature who knew his bones were a bit worse for the wear.
"Bramble," Oona almost let a smile creep across her face, "there you are. Kindly do not embarrass me."
"Too late for that, Oona." Bramble looked up and winked.
"Oh hush, you old troublemaker." She fluffed his head.
"Last Tuesday," Bramble announced to the house, in a voice that was forty years deep in tobacco he had never smoked, "Oona pinched a pumpkin off the porch of the meetinghouse and brought it home and ate the whole thing in custard."
Oona let out a low chuckle, "that was a fine pumpkin."
"With her hands." He added.
"It was a fine custard, Bramble. How else was I supposed to get all the bits." She bent down and tickled under his chin.
"Out of the pan." Bramble continued.
"Forks are a tool of repression and you can shout that sweet truth out, my love." She took the parlor in with the open avid pleasure of a woman who had nothing to lose and was delighted to find the company assembled. "I'm nearly four-hundred years old, and don't give a hoot-and-holler what secrets you tell about me. Go on blab it out!"
The whole lot of gathered guests and the Hadwins, took in a collective gasp.
"Goddess on a griddle," Oona said. "You've got the whole circus in here."
"Oona, it's been ages, " Rhoda began.
"Rhoda, my heart, don't even start with me. I heard the speech. I respect the speech. The speech was beautifullydelivered, Leahnora, that purple looks marvellous on you, you should wear it everywhere. But my dears, none of this nonsense applies to me. I don't mind Bramble running his mouth at all."
Leahnora's small smile, in her chair, did not change. She lifted her coffee cup the smallest fraction in salute, and drank.
Oona spun around in the middle of the parlor. She did not look at Lazlo or Maeve. She crossed straight at Phineas on the rug. He had set his hand quietly on Quill's back and was watching her come.
"Why are you hunkered down there little man," she said, without slowing. "I'll stop anyone trying to stop a cat from telling."
Phineas's face did not change, but he cleared his throat.
Oona reached the settee. She lowered herself onto the empty end of it, and Duchess, at Lazlo's ankle, turned her head a quarter inch toward the new arrival and looked at Oona with a smirk.
"Now then." Oona accepted, without looking, the cup of coffee that Edgar had wordlessly poured her and was wordlessly delivering to her hand. "I expect I am the oldest witch in this room. I will not insult anyone present by being precise. But I have outlived six wars and two pandemics, and I have buried more friends than most of you have met, and what I would like to say to the matter at hand is this."
