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“Ooooowwww! Damn you, Cleo!”
"That's Cleopatra. Ms. C.P. Katz, if you're sexy, Molly Brown. You know how I feel about nicknames. We've hadtheconversation,” she huffed, with a prissy shake of her head. “I tried to be nice about waking you,” she added with a sassy purr, making a show out of licking her paw and running it across her long, sleek whiskers. “After all these years, you seem to think that as your Familiar, I don’t know when you’re playing possum. How many times have we been through this? You and I are joined at the Magic. That’s like being joined at the Soul except I am most assuredly and without one single doubt not. Your. Mate.” Using her paw to draw an upside-down triangle with a horizontal line through it – the alchemic symbol for Earth - that cranky Cat rolled her eyes upward and whispered, “Bless the Great Goddess for not saddling me with that burden.”
Eyes returning to mine with more than a tad of mischief shining in their depths, she went on as if she hadn't just dissed me to the one and only Goddess of All. "I know you. You know me. I can tell when you're full of shit and well…" She stopped to yet again lick her paw and swipe it across her incredibly smug, furry, black face while her gaze never wavered from mine. "If I ever dared to tell a fib…"
"Oh, hell no," I snorted, falling back onto my warm pillow and throwing my precious orange and black plaid comforter, made by my favorite Granny's very own Sew-It-For-Yourself Spell, over my face. "I just pray I don't get struck by the abundant bolts of lightning that are sure to come crashing through the ceiling of 'ye old Manor' and set your tail on fire for telling the biggest whopper of falsehood ever to be uttered. You are so full of shit the Universe literally made you black. You tell little white lies like a fish blows bubbles."
“Do not bring Harriett into it,” Cleopatra warned with a twitch of her whiskers and a growl in her tone. “You know how she gets when you talk about her like she’s not here.”
“She isn’t,” I ground out through gritted teeth. “Your one-hundred-and-three-year old Beta Fish is in the kitchen, on the windowsill between my Hemlock and Wolfsbane – right where she’s been for the last ten years.”
"Yes, but she can hear you. Harriett hears all, knows all, says nothing."
“Only because she’s pumped so full of Magic that she could jump out of that bowl, make my coffee, and deliver my sweet, precious nectar of the Goddess to me right here in this bed while pirouetting on the tips of her little blue and red flippers.”
“Well, yes, but…”
"But why did you wake me up? Why, Cleo, why?" Jolting back into a sitting position, I threw the top part of the comforter right at the smug face of my pain-in-the-tail Familiar and growled, "I was sound asleep. I was dreaming of pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin candy, pumpkin coffee – for the love of all things Witchy – everything pumpkiny, sweet, and delicious.”
“Visions of selling sugar pumpkins to little children and their moms and dads complete with a happy little tune – my very own soundtrack was playing in my head. I was painting little chubby cheeks with the cutest designs. Some were Fairies, some Unicorns, some even little Demons. I was taking pictures of all the little people – both Other and Human – having the time of their lives to put in this year’s volume of the Party-stravaganza scrapbook. It was wonderful. Just like every year. And you know what,Cleo?" I stressed the use of her nickname, not givin' a hairy Harpy's heiney what she had to say about it, and kept right on ranting. "There was not one, nope, not even the slightest little hint of the sexiest man alive with dark dreamy eyes, wavy brown hair, and abs that made my fingers tingle with the need to touch them. Yes, you and I both know who he is, and we will refrain from using his name.”
I hurried on before Cleo could interrupt. “The first boy who gave me a dandelion then stole a kiss and told me he would love me forever. Best fifth birthday gift ever. The same boy who taught me how to throw a fast ball, how to climb a tree without magic, and what it meant to have somebody – other than a family member – who saw all my faults and loved me because of them, not in spite of them.”
A heavy sigh that came all the way from the bottom of my heart and soul and I was back to being pissed at my kooky Cat. “And I hadn’t even thought of him for the last twelve whole hours. No schmexy sexiness to make me wanna climb the walls and put new batteries in B.O.B. and stay up all night dreaming… well, youknowwhat I would’ve been dreaming. But he’s gone. Been gone for what seems like forever and three days. It was perfect. Better than perfect, it was wonderful, and you…”
I jabbed my finger at the oldest living Feline in the world, the Familiar I’d inherited from my mom, who inherited her from her mom, who inherited her from her mom – you get the picture, right? Yeah, Cleopatra P. Katz wasoldwith a capital O.
(No, I have no clue what the P stands for, but I can give you a couple of suggestions, let me tell you.)
Sure, being reminded of her age was something else she abhorred, right in line with being called Cleo, (Please do it any and every time you can. I love to watch her get pissed. It’s the highlight of my day. But you knew that, didn’t you?) but she’d woken me up, so, all bets were off.
“…Woke. Me. Up.”
"Oh, yeah," she nodded, her glowing green eyes batting as her whiskers turned upward, completely ignoring my rage, my rant, pretty much me, if I'm honest. "I almost forgot. Listening to you prattle on about your completely inconsequential loss of sleep downright disrupted my train of thought. What was it again?" Tapping the tip of a single claw on her chin, she thought aloud, "Let me rewind. I was in the kitchen, making a midnight snack…" Looking up at me, she declared, "By the way, we need tuna. Put it on the list, along with beef-flavored treats. I'm tired of the chicken ones."
“Yeah, okay,” I scoffed. “I live to serve.”
Back to her inner monologue, the one so far from ‘inner’ that what she was doing and silent weren’t even in the same galaxy, not to mention, it was about to get her killed, she murmured, “I had just put the can opener in the sink when…”
"Oh, yeah!" Paw shooting in the air, she jumped onto all four of her feet, a devious plan shining in her eyes. With her head held high and her tail straight in the air, my seven-pound-two-ounce bundle of endless irritation, constant sassification, and an inexhaustible supply of agitation pounced on my lap, somehow feeling like she had gained a hundred or so pounds while in the air. Standing up on her hind legs and with both paws on my shoulders, Cleo looked me right in the eyes and whispered conspiratorially, "There's a burglar in the Pumpkin Patch."
Quickly, albeit carefully because I valued my creamy porcelain skin and did not want it decorated with claw marks, I tossed Cleopatra to one side of the bed. Then, because I would never ever never have heard the end of it if a single fur was out of place, I threw my comforter to the other side with my tootsies right behind said blanket as I spun on my perfectly round behind.
Jumping out of bed, I slid my feet into my brand-new Bride of Frankenstein slippers – the gray stripe in her hair flashed a pretty pink color when I walked - and made a mad dash for the door. Snatching the long, black woolen robe that had been my dad's off the hook in the hallway, I was down the back steps, through the gate, and in the Patch in less than thirty seconds.
Panting as if I'd just run a mile – something I never have nor will I ever do no matter how long I live – there was a stitch in my side, my thighs were on fire, and I realized I'd forgotten one crucial thing -my Wand. Sure, at my age, I was able to whip up any and all spells with little more than a thought, but there was just something about having that long, wonderfully crooked shaft of Rowan Wood in my hand that scared the livingbejeezusout of any would-be intruders.
It was an old prejudice I admit to using to my advantage. Sue me.
Doing the best I could with what I had, which was pretty much nothing, I raised my hand, pointed my index finger, and shot off a stream of neon green and fluorescent orange Magic that popped and crackled and smelled like rotten eggs. "Get the hell outta my pumpkin patch, you lowdown dirty, rotten, squash grubbin' smuggler, or I'll turn you into a mouse and feed you to my Cat."
“Oh, that was just sad,” Cleo scoffed. “How could you even mention me in one of the most horrible threats anyone in the history of the world has ever uttered? And to suggest that I eat mice. Maybe some Felines do, but not me. You know that. Wrong, Molly, just wrong on so many levels.”
"Shut up," I seethed under my breath. "I'm tired. You woke me up with claws in my shoulder, every last strand of my usually well-coiffed strawberry-blond locks are standing on end, and I haven't had any coffee in what seems like forever but is probably just shy of seven hours. It was all I had. If you can do better…"
“Oooooooohhhhhh,”came a low, rumbling groan from the farthest side of my almost half an acre Pumpkin Patch.
Any other time, I would've snapped my fingers, magicked up a broom – another crazy image I'm responsible for perpetuating and feel no shame about - and whooshed through the sky, cackling like a… well, like a Witch. I would've shrieked all kinds of stupid, made-up, make-believe things - likeabracadabra, hocus pocus,andalakazam- while tossing what amounted to magically enhanced rotten tomatoes at the intruders' feet.
