Mrs. Ellis stared down the villagers until they backed away. I heard Richard the bartender mutter under his breath that my ‘bossy feminist’ ways were rubbing off on my old school teacher. This only made me lean in to hug her tighter.
“Thank you for rescuing me.” I squeezed Mrs. Ellis, squashing Quoth between us.
“Croak!” He managed to pull one wing free, flapping it in defiance.
“There, there. We’ll get you fixed up.” Mrs. Ellis led me by the arm across the green and up the steps of Nevermore Bookshop. Once a teacher, always a teacher. “Yoohoo, Mr. Heathcliff. I’ve found something that belongs to you!”
Heathcliff barreled into the hallway, his hands balled into fists and his face twisted in a murderous scowl. “The sign clearly says the shop is closed—Mina?”
He slammed into me, crushing Quoth against my chest as he smushed me in a hug that was both violent and beautiful.
“Do not leave me in this abyss again,” he murmured into my hair, the words an echo of something he’d once said to Cathy. “Be with me always. Drive me mad. But don’t you ever, ever, scare me like that again—”
“Heathcliff…” As much as I wanted him to keep saying such sad and wonderful things… I managed to extract one of Quoth’s feet. He kicked the air violently as he struggled to free himself. “Quoth can’t breathe.”
“I don’t care,” Heathcliff growled in my ear. “I—ow, what was that for?”
Heathcliff staggered back, clutching his hand. Blood dripped from a cut on his finger. Quoth burst free and dropped to the ground.
“Crooooooak!” He hopped up and down, shaking with anger as he shook the tip of his wing at Heathcliff. I burst out laughing as tears of relief streamed down my cheeks. Only a few hours ago, I trudged through the forest at gunpoint and believed I’d never see them again. Relief washed over me. I sagged against Heathcliff’s wide chest, my legs no longer able to hold up my weight.
Heathcliff glanced over my shoulder. “Where’s Morrie? What happened?”
“Don’t mind me, dears.” Ms. Ellis bustled toward the staircase. “You have your little reunion. I’ll go make the tea and draw Mina a bath—”
“Oh, no. You’re not getting away with eavesdropping on Mina’s ordeal.” Heathcliff pointed to the door. “Out.”
“But I—”
“Out.Or I’ll replace theentireerotica section with another shelf of knitting books.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Mrs. Ellis knew that her reading habits were one of the reasons the shop was still hanging on.
“Don’t test me, woman,” Heathcliff shot back.
“Fine.”Mrs. Ellis pursed her lips. She swung her carpet bag over her shoulder and flounced toward the door. “I’m off to the pub. I don’t need the truth to spin a good yarn for the village. Mina, I hope you don’t mind being kidnapped by handsome pirates, because that’s what I plan to tell everyone.”
“Only if one of them has a villainous mustache,” I grinned. When Ms. Ellis was safely out of the shop, Heathcliff shut the door and rolled a bookcase in front of it, just in case any other nosy villagers decided to barge in. “Tea,” he barked at Quoth, who fluttered up the stairs, croaking his protests.
With Heathcliff supporting my weight, I shuffled through to the main room and collapsed in the velvet chair under the window, rubbing my temples where a migraine bloomed with fresh pain. I thought about what Morrie might be doing at this very moment, trapped in that cabin with Sherlock, and my stomach churned.
“What happened to you?” Grimalkin’s head popped over the arm of the chair.
I shrieked and clobbered her with a pillow. “What are you doing hiding down there on the floor?”
My grandmother’s lips curled back into a sumptuous smile. “I hid a mouse carcass behind the shelves two days ago. I wanted to play with it again.”
Gross. Ever since I’d spoken some Ancient Greek words that broke the curse the god Poseidon placed on my grandmother, she struggled with letting go of the feline habits she’d lived with for several centuries. We were letting her continue to live in the shop until she could function well enough as a human to be allowed to roam freely. So far, she preferred to sleep curled up in Heathcliff’s armchair during the day, but she did occasionally pop downstairs as either a human or cat to frighten customers.
Grimalkin butted my arm with her head (a very disconcerting thing for your grandmother to do while she was human and naked, let me tell you). Sighing, I stroked her hair, and she rubbed her head into my hand, her whole body trembling with the force of her happiness.
“I appreciate the comfort, Grandma.”
Grimalkin shot me a filthy look. “Don’t call me that. It makes me sound old.” She curled up on the seat beside me, stuck her leg in the air, and tried to lick clean her inner thigh.
“Grimalkin, remember what we talked about. You can’t bend the same ways in your human form, and it scares people. The shower is for cleaning.”
She set her leg down and frowned. “The rain cupboard? What kind of heathen do you take me for?”
