Free Hexes and Hemlines by Juliet Blackwell Page A

of magic, though, Mistress. Like what happened with the wax figures with Aidan.”
    “The wax figures?”
    He looked suddenly guilty, as though perhaps he’d said something out of turn.
    “I just meant, the way when your magics mingle, all hell breaks loose.”
    “You’re saying when my magic mingles with Aidan’s?”
    He nodded. “I guess you’d be hard to stop, you and Aidan as a pair.”
    Is that what happened with the candle sconces? Could that be why Aidan was helping me—did he have some sort of “use” for me or my power?
    I couldn’t think about this right now. I needed to open up shop, then go talk to Gregory and see what I could figure out about Malachi’s murder. I only hoped Gregory wasn’t guilty.
    Most mornings I walked a couple of blocks to a local café called Coffee to the People for caffeine and breakfast. But since I was already tending to the animals, I brewed coffee and ate a leftover biscuit with a slice of cheese.
    “We should at least name the poor little thing,” I told Oscar, looking at the cat while I prepared a peanut butter and jam sandwich with the last of my homemade wheat bread and apricot preserves.
    “We don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl.”
    “True. How about this: You pick a name for it.”
    “Me?” Huge shiny eyes stared at me. “How could I pick a name?”
    “Why not?”
    “But that’s . . . it’s like adopting it if I name it. Like when you named me Oscar.” His gnarled face screwed up in a smile. “That was a good day.”
    “Just think of it as a friendly gesture. For all we know, it already has a name. Maybe it will find a way to let us know, but we need to call it something in the meantime.”
    “Let’s call it LTN, for ‘Less Than Nothing.’ ”
    “Very funny.”
    “How ’bout ‘Thing that crawled out from under a rock’?”
    “Oscar . . . ,” I warned.
    “Or Beowulf.”
    “Beowulf?”
    “It’s from history.”
    “I know where it’s from. I just think it’s an interesting choice.”
    “Is it a bad choice?”
    “No,” I said, laughing. “It’s not a bad choice at all. It’s a great choice.”
    “I’ll keep thinking. Maybe that’s not right.”
    “Does it look like a Beowulf to you?”
    “Not sure. How about Napoleon? Or Genghis Khan? Reginald?”
    “So you think it’s a male cat?”
    “Dunno. Pandora, maybe?”
    “Tell you what, Oscar. You think on it a while,” I said, patting his scaly shoulder. “No need to rush into anything.”
    I left him staring at the feline. I found it interesting that the cat didn’t appear to notice any difference between Oscar the pig and Oscar the goblin/gnome/ gargoyle. It was a good thing—I could only imagine trying to coax a frightened cat to come out from under the bed and visit with a creature like Oscar.
    After showering, I put my long dark hair up in a loose knot, swiped a quick bit of mascara on my eyes, and dressed in a green tweed two-piece with a wide skirt and bolero jacket with pointed tips, which I pulled on over a crisp white blouse. Studying myself in the antique standing mirror, I decided I looked downright businesslike. I hoped it would give me courage in my new role as detective.
    When I emerged from my bedroom, Oscar was still staring at the cat, reciting a whole stream of names. Now that Oscar was interested in it, the pet acted completely oblivious to him. It walked away, leaving Oscar to trail behind it like a confused, rejected little monster.
    Dastardly felines.
    I went downstairs and out the front door to deliver the sandwich and a travel mug of sweetened coffee to Conrad, a neighborhood fixture who spent much of each day sitting on the curb outside my shop.
    “Anything new on the street lately?” I asked.
    “Duuude,” said Conrad. It was a sort of all-purpose response that sometimes led to a longer discussion, and sometimes was a sentence in itself.
    I waited a beat. Apparently, today that was all there was to say.
    Soon after I opened Aunt Cora’s