He smiled at her and nodded. "I do."
"Now, I'm going to read to you." Rhoda drew in a deep breath and bent her head to the page. She touched the first line with her finger and began to read in a voice and cadence not her own, but one that harked back to the swamp witch. It had been a very long time since her mouth had shaped sentences like this, and it felt, Rhoda thought, a little bit like dancing an old dance.
"Long time ago, child," she read, "before anyone kept books. Before anyone kept rules. The witch and her familiar, they lived together under a different promise. That familiar loved her witch. She carried her witch's secrets the way a well carries water. Not stored, you hear? Held. That secret, she become part of the creature. She fuse into the bone. A familiar who know her witch's shame, she carry it in her teeth. A familiar who know her witch's joy, she carry it in her tongue. And a familiar who know her witch's sorrow, she hold that one close, child, close to the heart, and she quiet about it for the rest of her days. That was the bond. You understand?"
Honey nodded. Roam nodded. The cats in the parlor all nodded.
"Now," Rhoda continued, "the bond could end. Oh yes. Familiar go rogue, that bond end. Witch pass on, that bond end. Familiar grow old and lay down, that bond end. Nothing wrong with that. The end of a bond ain't a wound, child. It's a closing.And the secrets she carried, they go on with her, and the world turn, and the work go on."
Rhoda's finger stopped. "But the bond can be broken another way. Not ended. Not closed. Some bonds ain't ended, you see. They just covered up."
Rhoda's finger rested beside the drawing of the stitched mouth. "When a bond hold a lie inside it, child, that bond don't die. She fester. She go on living in the wrong way. And the secrets in the familiar, they stay with her, bound still, hers still, but rotting child. Rotting in her bones, long as the lie live."
Rhoda turned the page. A third drawing: a cat with her jaws forced open so wide her head was nearly split.
"And if the lie go on long enough, and if it go on deep enough, one night, child, the bonds gon' remember themselves. Every loyal creature who ever held a bound tongue, she gon' feel it at once. That old magic come up out of the ground and out of the water and out of the dark places under things. She come up, and she reach into every familiar, and she open they mouths."
Rhoda's voice was barely above a whisper now. "Every cat. All at once. And the spilling don't stop, child. It don't stop. Not until the lie is found. Not until the bond that was spoiled is answered for." Rhoda stopped reading. The parlor did not breathe.
Rhoda's finger moved to the word in the margin. She touched it once more. "The old ones called it," she twisted her bottom lip pulling on it with her teeth, but she couldn't hold the words any longer, "The Telling."
The word landed in the room like a stone in a still pool. And the pool answered.
Honey felt it in her spine a half-breath before she heard it. The pressure, the low hum she had felt on the porch now coming out of the air itself. Lady Grey went first, a small betrayed breath and then a helpless flood, "Hildegard Voss eats pastriesover the sink at two in the morning and tells her sister she has been eating healthier, she has been eating healthier," and Lady Grey clapped a paw over her own mouth in horror. The calico in the wood basket sat up, already apologizing with her eyes, and spilled her witch's stolen fertilizer. The Persian bayed.
In the dining room, the Copy Reveal Device above the sideboard began to chime. Then it broke into a chorus: witches and warlocks worldwide pushing through the glass.
Edgar rose and stared at the mirrored device. "We're getting dozens of calls from witches everywhere."
Another chime. Then another. Then a cascade. In the dining room, the Copy Reveal Device on the sideboard was lighting up like a lantern as witches and warlocks across the world felt their cats' confidentiality come unmoored all over again. Hildegard Voss screaming from the glass. Marco of Tuscany shouting. A warlock from Marseille sobbing. Eight faces cycling in the mirror and more pushing through. Every witch who had ever trusted a familiar to hold a private thing was suddenly standing in her own kitchen or her own shop or her own bed knowing that private thing was being told aloud by someone who loved her but could not stop.
The parlor cats wailed. The calico keened. The sisters from Marseille poured out the multiple-husband situation in French. Pepper, who had meant to keep her mouth shut on principle, began to weep and spill at the same time.
"Mom…" Honey said. She had never seen anything like this. Her skin was crawling. "Mom, what…"
"I know."
"What do we…"
"I don't know, sweetheart."
In the dining room, Edgar searched the mirror. Faces stacked on faces, witches he had known for decades weeping into their hands, an entire world of bonded people shouting over eachother on the other side of the world. He tried to quiet them with the calm voice that had worked all his professional life, and his calm did nothing. The magic of the room was running over, and nothing was going to slow it.
Edgar Hadwin was not one to raise his voice. He hadn't done it in a long time. But he had no choice. The house was coming apart at its seams between the cats and the callers. His daughter was frightened, and his wife was gray-faced in the wing chair, and their friends from all over the world were shrieking in a mirror six feet from his hands.
"STOP." Edgar yelled. It was not a shout. It was a warlock's voice, the full force of him, and the lavender of him flared up his forearms and leapt out through the parlor and the hall and the front door in a wash of pale purple that rode the air like weather.
Every cat in the house stopped mid-word. Every face in the Copy Reveal Device froze with its mouth hanging open. The silence that followed was enormous.
Rhoda looked at her husband from across the way. Her mouth had opened a little.
Edgar set both palms on the sideboard, and spoke into the glass. "My friends," he said. "Your familiars are safe. We are working hard to sort this out. Please. Stay where you are."
The faces in the mirror nodded, one at a time, like children nodding at a grown-up who had finally gotten their attention. The glass dimmed. The chiming did not start again.
Edgar exhaled. His shoulders dropped. He turned back toward the parlor.
Into the absolute silence of the house came a knock. Three polite taps on the front door. Nobody had heard anyone come up the drive. There had been no glow on the porch of a transport arriving, no footsteps on the boards. There was simply a knock, cordial and unhurried.
