“She once chased me up a tree because I showed her my backside.” He hops off the table, his,er,dangly appendages swinging between a pair of muscled thighs. “Well, if you won’t help me, I’m off to get some dinner.”
“Wait, you’re the ghost who’s been haunting the place and stealing food from Celeste’s kitchen?”
“I assure you, I am no ghost.” He runs his hands along his narrow hips in a way that’s supposed to be seductive but instead comes across as seductiveas fuck. “All of this is thoroughly corporeal. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back later. Probably not until tomorrow morning if Celeste left out the bacon again?—”
“Sitdown,” I snap.
Rafe’s lips form an O of surprise.
I surprise myself. I don’t snap at people. I never tell anyone what to do.
A bee crawls along the top of my ear, buzzing with agreement.
Rafe plops his glorious arse down onto the counter.
“I meant for you to sit on the paint can, but fine. That’s fine.” My mouth tastes like crackers left out in the sun. “Now, I’ve had quite a day. And I’m the new owner of this shop?—”
“You’re not,” he interrupts. “I’mthe owner of the shop. Widow Hardcastle left this place to me.”
“Okay, technically that’s true, but?—”
“I’m a property baron.” He puffs out his chest. “So if you want to stay here and serve peopledelicious hats?—”
“Bouchet isn’t a hat! It’s a mead made from caramelised honey!”
“—then you need to appease me, for I am now your overlord. And trust me, if I want to sabotage your shop, I will do it. I have claws and teeth and an enduring love of mayhem. I am a chaos gremlin and a tiny Egyptian god rolled into one, and the only way to appease me is to strike a bargain.”
“I can’t bargain with a naked talking cat. What evenareyou? I don’t know anything about cursed familiars. I didn’t know familiars could shapeshift. You might be a…ademon!The first rule of being a witch is to never make a bargain with a demon.”
“I’m demonic between the sheets, that’s an established fact, but I’m not a demonper se. I’m your common variety orchid thief who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Widow Hardcastle decided I should be taught a lesson, so she turned me into this magnificent creature.” He grabs his tail. “According to her, when you change a human into an animal, they’re always able to shapeshift between the two forms, but she worked a spell that kept me as a cat. It was part of my punishment. She’d only let me turn into a man when she needed something from a high shelf. When she was killed, I got stuck as a cat, but being near you seems to activate my ability to shift. If you’re a witch, do you know why I keep the tail even when I shift? I’ve learned some neat tricks with it. Want to see?”
Yes.
My cheeks heat. I hope he can’t see my blushing. “Er, no. I want to know what’s going on. Why were you trying to rob the Widow Hardcastle’s shop? She sold begonias in pots and bouquets of lilies. Surely she didn’t have anything worth stealing. And if you were trying to rob her, why would she keep you as a familiar and then give you her shop?”
Rafe throws a leg over the counter and straddles it, his tail swishing behind him. “Your innocent old lady was a crafty plant dealer with a reputation among certain botanical circles for trading in orchids so rare no one had even published them yet. I’ll happily tell you the whole sordid tale, since you’re the first person I’ve been able to talk to in six weeks, and the mouse hiding in the upper right cornerof the room is sick of my shit. I broke in one night and was minding my own business, searching for the orchid my client wanted?—”
“Stealing isn’t minding your own business!”
“Do you want the story or do you want to niggle over the details?”
“Yes, fine. Sorry.”
“I should think so.” He takes on that haughty expression ubiquitous to cats. “As I was saying before I wasrudelyinterrupted, I was here to steal a rare orchid. I’d scoped out the place and it looked empty, and I knew the witch didn’t live onsite, so I jimmied the lock on the back window and climbed inside. I had the orchid in my hands whensheemerged from the shadows, brandishing a wand and foul words on her tongue. I dropped the orchid and legged it, but by the time I got to the window, my legs didn’t work the way they were supposed to and the window was suddenly a lot further away. I tried to jump, but she caught me in midair. That’s when it was all over for me. I’ve lived here in the shop ever since. I can roam around outside, but only as a cat, and it’s scary out there.”
“She just…forced you to live here as a cat, against your will?” Even for crabby Widow Hardcastle, that seemed cruel.
“She said she was teaching me a lesson about the path my life had taken. Let me tell you, after your first week of going in a litter box and having to wait for someone else to open your meat tins, you do start to question your life choices.” He hangs his head. “But, on the plus side, I can lick my own?—”
“Okay! I get it!”
“You know, it’s quite something being able to twist that way. I’ve done things to myself that I’ve never been able to?—”
“Yes, yes!” I cover my ears. “And you just stayed with her, even though she cursed you?”
“I didn’t have any choice. She said that I needed to be a good boy for her, and she would turn me back when the time was right, but then she went and got herself brutally murdered, so that’s me screwed. And I’m hardly going to leave the comfort of a warm shop and a neverending supply of bacon next door for the cruel streets of Argleton. You’ve clearly never been a cat, but there is a cat hierarchy outthere, and it is brutal. I am too pretty to be pushed around by Grimalkin or Mr Muffins.”
“But now that I’m here, and you’re human, can’t you just walk out and never come back?” He’d still have the tail, but it seems like a small price to pay for freedom and opposable thumbs. Besides, he seems to enjoy it.
