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CONVERSATION WITH MEERKATS
Bethany worked far into the night because she didn’t want to go home to her small, empty, stupid apartment. No one would be waiting for her there. No one would pick her up for supper or send her flowers in the morning. No one would grin at her, dragonly.
Loneliness felt like a thousand-mile sprint toward nothing.
By ten o’clock, the dozens of crayon-colored meerkats running around the ballroom had begun to look haggard, and Bethany’s arms and back were aching from conducting their movements.
She called out, “Let’s bring it in. Ten-minute break.”
The meerkats all popped up and stood upright to stare at each other and her, confused that they were neither dissipating back into the ether nor doing their job. One fuchsia meerkat was spiraling around the arms of an enormous crystal chandelier, dusting it, and it hung from its hind legs like a bat to peer at her and its fellows.
“Come on over here,” she announced from the center of the cavernous ballroom. “Let’s sit down for a few minutes and rest.”
The meerkats dropped down to all fours and trundled over to her, some hopping and skipping, and sat down in a huddle around her. Some hugged, and some wrestled for the fun of it. A few leaned on her calves, so she sat down in their warm, furry midst. “Some night, huh?”
The meerkats, which were sentient though nonverbal, gazed over the ballroom, staring at the wide swaths of grimy wooden floor and several chandeliers that were still dull with oily dust.
“Yeah, I know. It feels like it’s never going to end, right? I mean, this enormous ballroom is taking forever to whip into shape, and then there’s that damn fountain with the sea serpents in it. I have to banish those somehow and then summon something else to eat the algae. Banishing legendaries is master-craftsman, guild-level magic. I don’t think I can do it. Even if I could, then I’d have to summon something else, and there won’t be time for whatever shows up to eat all the green crud. That sludge is growing every dang day.” She sighed. “Well, I guess I’m going to have a lot more time on my hands now to get it all done.”
A fluffy little chartreuse meerkat waddled up and put its paw on her knee, peering into her eyes questioningly.
“I’m okay,” Bethany sighed. “I’m probably okay.” She sighed again. “I think I’ll be okay, someday.”
Two more meerkats touched her legs, and one hopped onto her shoulder to curl around her neck.
They knew. Bethany had discovered long ago that, while her apparitions took on whatever form she asked, the spirits that guided them returned day after day. They remembered her and their lives together, and she’d formed long friendships with them.
They knew when she was sad.
“I can’t believe Math asked me to marry him after knowing each other just a few weeks and only one date,” she demanded of the apparitions as they inched closer to her. “That’s crazy, right? We just met! I don’t know him well enough to marry him.”
The meerkats surrounding her sat up on their haunches or hind legs and watched her, their pointy little faces angling as they studied her.
A cobalt blue meerkat laid its chin on her knee and stared up at her with fathomless black eyes.
They were concerned, the sweet little things.
“I’ll be okay,” she reassured it. “I mean, I really liked him. Math is a nice guy. He’s actually agreatguy. He’s a great guy, and he’s kind, and he’s funny, and he liked my magic and you guys, and he really knows how to go overboard on presents. That’s not a bad quality in a man. And he’s so ripped that he’s shredded, though I’ll bet I could fatten him up with a few months of my cooking, unless that dragon metabolism he talked about really does let him eat anything he wants and still look like that. Home and hearth witches are good at cooking. If you guys could eat, I would make you some of my peanut butter-chocolate cookies. They’re awesome. I never even got to make them for Math. But we’ve only known each other a few weeks, you know? And we had just one date. It would be crazy for me to marry him or dragonmate with him, or whatever he calls it.”
The little blue one rolled his head and gazed up at her, while the pink one snuffled her ear.
Bethany scratched the little blue apparition absent-mindedly and rubbed her cheek against the other meerkat’s satiny fur. “But you can’t fall in love that quickly. No one can. If I had fallen in love with Math Draco, I’d know it. I’d be horribly lonely, now that we’ve broken up. My heart would break.”
Water splashed on her hand.
Bethany wiped it on her shirt.
The dampness left a dark spot on her red top.
“How could anyone who loved Math Draco just give him up? Just walk away without a backward glance? He’s too good for that. He’s too good a man. He deserves someone who really loves him, not just someone who’s known him less than a month.”
A teal meerkat and a gold one slithered into her lap and curled up on her legs, snuggling against each other and her.
She said, “I mean, Math said that he was in love with me. So, evidently dragon shifters can fall in love that fast, though he seemed more level-headed than that. But I wouldn’t do that. I’m a sensible witch. I’m a home-and-hearth witch, not an elemental witch like Ember who can literally blow hot and cold. Or a potions witch like Willow who brews up a new potion every day and constantly tinkers with recipes. I’m steady. I’m neat and organized. I’m not the type to run off and get married to a guy I’ve only known for a few weeks, even if he is a great guy like Math Draco.”
Her face was hot.
A violet meerkat stood up on her thigh and held her chin in its paws, staring at her soulfully.
