“Okay, Junie.”
“Love you. I’m going to go haul your dad out of the well he’s helping dig to talk to you. Don’t go.”
“No, no. I’m good, and I don’t want to stand in the way of water for a community in need. I’m fine. I am. Really.” Yes. I’m holding onto that thought. I’m fine, no matter what my eyes and ears tell me.
“YOU FEELING ALL RIGHT? Do you need to take the afternoon?” Alban Wymark is competing for best boss ever.
“I’m fine,” I chirp, clacking around the office in my black granny boots with the white spat tops, the perfect complement to my pinstripe vest and skirt and ruffly white blouse.
“I don’t want to pry. You don’t seem fine. Not entirely.”
“Just... I heard a strange noise at my apartment. That’s all.”
Alain pops up from nowhere. Alban and he exchange a look. “Want us to come check it out?”
“What? No! No, I’m sure it’s not necessary,” I laugh and stammer, waving away their offer with the manila folder I’ve just collected.
“It’s okay if it’s unnecessary. You know you can call on us, right?”
My heart fills up fast, and it hits me in the eyes. I have to blink back tears. “Is this what people mean when they say they have a ‘work family’?”
Alban shrugs. “Probably.”
“Or they mean you get treated like crap and taken for granted. We prefer option A,” Alain chuckles and takes his cousin by the arm. “Alban, we have to have a word before Mrs. Withers arrives.”
“We do? But—Ow, I’m coming, I’m coming!” Alain hauls Alban away by the ear, and I can hear them squabbling like brothers.
I smile. I kinda feel like they’re my big brothers, too.
Fuck, I got tear drops on Mrs. Withers’ file.
“IT’S LIKE THIS, CAT. Berry. May I call you, Berry?” I use my most ingratiating tone to the feline assassin who has heroically destroyed fifteen mirror-bugs and one real spider this morning. “Humans are my only source of entertainment most of the time.Now, if I could see the television from here—or even a book... I know you don’t understand this, but trapped in this prison—there is nothing. Nothing but myself. My mind only stays sharp by driving others to madness. It makes me think. I have to watch, pay attention, and find the weaknesses to exploit. You understand, don’t you? You have Agatha wrapped around your little pink paw.”
Berry turns herself into a W and licks herself in a most embarrassing manner.
“Don’t think I haven’t been tempted to contort myself in such a fashion,” I mutter. “Doesn’t work. I have bones in the top half and none in the bottom. Cartilage. The mystic form of it, I suppose.”
Berry rolls over and bats a catnip mouse through the covers. I sigh and wish it were Aggie rolling about.
There’s another type of pussy I’d like to pay attention to.
The thought startles me.
It’s not that I’d hurt the girl to get it. I might scare her at first—and at the end. But I could be nice in the middle. Iwantto be nice in the middle.
That sickens me and shows me I’m going soft.
Something smacks into my stomach insistently.
All right, onlypartsof me are going soft.
“How come she’s sad, not scared?” I demand.
Berry bites the tail off of the mouse.
I guess I have to figure her out on my own.
AGGIE COMES HOME LATE. Very late. Eleven is like the wee hours for her. I admit that I sigh in relief when she comes back,and I prepare to take on her form, wondering which way she’ll turn as she enters the bedroom.
