"Maybe we should wait-"
"Show me," she said again. And on his phone he showed her six pictures from last night. Taken from far enough away, most of them with branches in them, that the person who took these was well hidden. But still, one could deduce that there were six women in the graveyard doing something ambiguous. And pictures tended to do something quite interesting without the honest context; they allowed whoever narrated them to tell any story that they wanted.
Embellish a little here, add some fictional hexing there.
She groaned again and then pressed a hand to her mouth. Taylor must have seen her face pale as he got up to get her a glass of water.
He handed her the water, which she drank in great gulps, feeling a thirst so intense she wondered when the last time she'd had any water at all was.
"Uh, what is that?" he asked pointing to something on the couch and she saw a furry grey leg poking out from underneath the blanket.
"Oh. Right. So, in my drunken state, I may have adopted a cat. Or the cat adopted me? I'm not really sure what is going on with cats in Salem but it seems almost like an initiation thing so I'm just taking it as I'm now one of you." She finally set the water down and gave him a wincing smile. "Sorry if I overstepped. I can keep him or her at Lost Souls. I need to name it, though."
He laughed, the sound rubbing her mind in the best way even as it bumped against her headache. She loved hearing him laugh. His smell of oranges and hickory bloomed when he did.
"I don't mind at all but uh," he scratched at the scruff on his chin, the sandpaper sound soothing as he looked at the cat and then at her oddly. "Well, I don't know how to say this, but that is not a cat."
She frowned at him before she pulled the blanket up and her eyes widened as she saw two eyes surrounded in black with white eyebrows staring up at her.
She gasped.
"Ohmygosh." Eloise slapped a hand to her chest and stared wide-eyed at the creature that was staring at her in a mirrored look of shock. "I adopted a racoon. I brought a racoon into your house! What do we do?" She looked frantically at Taylor who was laughing hard, the sound muffled with his hand covering his mouth and his shoulders shaking.
She laughed once, nervously and looked back at the raccoon who was on its back now, legs kicking in the air and smiling.
"Taylor. It's not funny. I brought a chubby trash panda into your house. I snuggled with it all night!"
His laugher turned almost violent as he was trying to hold it in with his hand, the shaking got intense, until she pulled his hand away from his mouth and his booming laughter spilled out, filling the room.
She looked at the raccoon, who looked at her, then they both looked at Taylor. Woman and raccoon waited patiently for himto gather himself until he sighed. The raccoon had scooted closer to Eloise, one little black hand on her thigh as she absently stroked its back, both creatures staring at him.
"Come on. I'll take you ladies back to the Lost Souls House. I have a feeling you'll need to talk with your friends, or coven, or whatever."
"Alright. Let's go," she said as he gently helped her up. She still had her shoes and jacket on and she turned to see the plump racoon jump down and follow her. "How do you know it's a girl?"
He shrugged. "Female racoons tend to be more friendly. And I'm pretty sure she's pregnant."
She nodded with a resigned sigh as her head pounded. "I adopted a pregnant racoon while drunk."
"Could be a great country song."
She gave him a flat look. He winked, her heart fluttered, and the racoon sidled up to her wrapping a dexterous black handed arm around her leg. She sighed again and said to the racoon, "Come on. I guess you're with me now."
"Please tell me this witchy concoction will work in five minutes," Eloise said on a groan.
"It will take more than five minutes, but as you can see I am feeling pretty good and I took it about forty minutes ago," Ursula replied as she pulled out lemon ricotta coffee cake from the oven.
Jen, Eloise and Tilly made a pathetic sight draped like noodles over the kitchen island.
Kelsea walked in slowly, a hand braced on the doorway and stopped to look at the scene blinking and trying to understand what she was seeing. "Is that a racoon?"
"Yeah. I adopted her last night between the bourbon, sage smudging and sleep. She's pregnant. And I named her LadyMacbeth," Eloise said without lifting her head from the wood countertop.
Kelsea nodded with eyebrows raised. "Okay," she said simply then took an empty seat just as Ursula set a cup of hangover tonic in front of her which she wrapped her hands around and made a sort of groaning sound of gratitude.
"You know what is terrible about hangovers in your late thirties?" Eloise asked, raising her head as much as she could without the beating in her head strengthening.
"Everything. Everything," Jen groaned.
