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I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Charlie hummed, considering the puzzle. “They’re trying to raise someone from the dead?”
“What has led you to that conclusion?” Zaide asked.
Charlie shrugged and said, “‘When he rises’ just sounds veryBuffy the Vampire Slayer.”
“Can fire raise the dead?” I asked, horrified at the thought. Zombie movies I watched as a cat flashed in my mind, and I shuddered.
“Yes. It can do anything if you have enough of it. And clearly, they do.” Daithi looked a little shell-shocked. “Did they say anything about where they are storing the fire?”
I shook my head. “No, they didn’t say.”
“We need to get it back before they use it. Did they say anything about the timescale of this event?” Daithi seemed panicked now, his hands twisting in his lap while his face displayed a fraction of emotion, his chest rising and falling quickly.
I sympathized and told him what I knew. “I got the impression that it was soon. Winnie and Mary had been told not to use their magic because they are going to be pouring as much as they can into this reservoir.”
Daithi looked horrified. “What are they raising with that much magic?”
“That’s what we’ll have to figure out,” Charlie said.
“How? How do we figure out who they want to raise?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a witch forum online that I can monitor for information about this event?” Charlie shrugged. “If worse comes to worst, we’ll try to grab one and make them talk.”
Daithi shook his head, his green hair swinging with the action. “That is very dark for you, Charlie. I don’t think it will come to that. Your ways are more underhanded than that.”
“I prefer underhanded, but I have experience in both.”
Zaide interrupted that thought. “What about the books? Has anything of interest come from there?”
Daithi shook his head. “Nothing I believe to be beneficial. It talks about the steps in learning to cast spells.”
Charlie groaned. “If we just had some clue where the event was going to happen, we could do some digging. Literally. If they’ve got no body, they can’t raise it right?”
“If they are using fire they have collected for centuries and their own magic, I suspect they are going to raise something skeletal. They need the magic to reform the body.”
“Okay, I can look into that. There’s not much to go on, but maybe something will ring a bell when I see it.” He flipped his laptop open, rubbed his eyes, and sighed.
We need a miracle, I thought as I leaned my head back against the sofa and stared at the white ceiling. Sighing, the effects of the worst day ever settled into me like a winter chill, and I rubbed at my temples, trying to massage a headache away.
Zaide was staring at me from across the table. “You are unwell?”
I shook my head. “Just tired.”
He nodded slowly, a deep sadness in his purple eyes. “You are tired of being human, are you not, Little Cat?”
It was a feeling I was sure everyone had. Where existing is too much, where thinking hurts, and emotions are battling a weakened sense of self. Where all you want to do is go to sleep and hope the next day is better.
It wasn’t so much about not being human and being a cat, but about escaping the humanness of human life. That’s what I wanted.
I nodded and sighed again. “Yes,” I replied simply.
He nodded. “You suffered as a human.”
Charlie, who was sitting next to him, closed his laptop gently and added, “We have a theory that you are the center of all of this, but we can’t pin down how.”
“What do you mean?” I asked as Daithi closed his book and leaned in to listen to Charlie.
