"Thank you, Miss Willow. Hang tight."
When his back was to her, his hand on the handle of the door she said, "Iris. Her name was Iris." She felt a clawing need to name her.
He turned then. The look in his eyes said he understood. It said that he, too, had experience with this. He dipped his head and said, gently, "Iris."
They shared a silent moment. A prayer.
And then she was alone in the room again.
"Jen," Kelsea said, waving a hand in front of her face. They were sitting around Jen's living room digesting what Ursula had told them.
After Eloise had been taken to the station, Ursula texted the group a vague SOS with the need to meet somewhere other than The Lost Souls House. It had already been a few hours, Ursula worrying over each minute her friend was in that station.
Jen finally looked up at them and she had an odd look on her face that fell away as she rolled her eyes. "Don't mind me. I'm just salty that crazy witch called us sad and silly and that our hexes are lame."
Kelsea leaned into her and stretched the blanket from her lap over Jen's. "I think your cat hex is great."
"Thank you." She pinched Kelsea's cheek affectionately.
"Ladies, we need to finish this." The statement came from Crystal who was sitting in a light blue armchair, one leg elegantly crossed over the other and one of her hands lightly rubbing the thin, gold bracelets on her wrist. "Cassidy Parker was a menace the moment she swept into town, and was a menace until she was run out of it."
"Yeah, what happened there? I don't remember hearing much about her when I moved here," Tilly said. She was sitting curled up into one corner of the large sofa behind where Kelsea and Jen were sitting in front of her on the floor.
Crystal made a thoughtful face and reached back into her memory. "It was a while ago. I remember she inherited the house from an ancestor, but I got the impression she hadn't been very close to that family member. She was odd, for sure. Which wouldn't have been a problem, but she had a penchant for creating drama. She had a way of finding a loose thread and pulling until everything unraveled."
"What kind of drama?"
"Oh, she broke up a marriage or two. She liked to make women feel uncomfortable in the way that is tacky."
"Not a woman's woman," Jen said.
Ursula made a low sound in her throat in agreement.
"Correct. There were rumors about her graveyard dailiances at The Lost Souls, too. Beloved pets of people in town she didn't get along with went missing for a string of time."
A few gasps were heard around the living room. Tilly's eyes were wide behind her cat-eye glasses. Kelsea had a hand to her mouth.
"She wasn't pleasant. And of course you know about our Jenson and Taylor, poor dears. And she wasn't wrong about Taylor's father. Nasty man," she said shaking her head. "What he put Taylor and his mother through was unforgivable."
Crystal thought back to late evening visits to Taylor's house with a pan of fudgy espresso brownies and carefully crafted tonics for his mom's inside and outside bruises.
"I say we hex her," Jen said.
"I have a feeling she wouldn't be easy to hex; if she's worked with darker magic she's protected herself," Crystal said thoughtfully.
Four women shared a look and then looked at the older woman in curiosity.
"And what do you know about dark magic?" Ursula asked.
Crystal tilted her head, her pretty clear eyes touching hers and a secretive smile lifted her lips.
"I know enough."
"I knew it!" Jen said. "Tell us everything."
Officer Craig Peterson brought Eloise a scalding hot coffee and a snide comment, said in another language she could not understand, but the intent was clear. She remained silent and kept the weak-smelling coffee untouched on the table where she sat for another hour. She didn't admit to killing anyone. But she told them no one else was involved. She gave them Cassidy Parker's name, with little hope that they would look into her. Her experience with police was shallow and disappointing. But she held onto hope for her friends.
There was an empty seat across from where Jessica sat reading a book and drinking her decaf honey latte. Twice a week she came to The Black Cat after her mother-in-law came to dote on them to get herself a hot drink, sit and read, and relish in her new life. While her relationship with Rob's mom wasn't warm, the woman had done the right thing standing up for Jessica and the kids in the face of Rob's scandals. Which were many. So, she'd slowly let her stay in their lives until they worked up to thistradition of twice a week her coming over to do the kids' dinner and bedtime routine.
