Page 16 of Thistle Thorns

“Oh sure,” Otter complained, “talk to Meadow all sweetly, but me?”

Seizing Otter’s wrist again and resuming her hauling, Aunt Peony replied, “You are the king of dawdling, Otter. Everyone knows this. Now what did I tell you? Keep up!”

Though they were not meant for me, I took Aunt Peony’s words to heart too. The rest of the family was waiting for me in the gravel driveway, Grandmother drumming her fingers on the hood of the sedan. The five of us split between the two remaining cars, Grandmother and Dad joining me in the sedan to maintain the power of three, should the small foray into town warrant it, and for my protection. Grandmother slid into the backseat in a rustle of black wool and creaking black leather, as she didn’t drive, or at least I’d never seen her behind the wheel. While Dad had tried to sit in the passenger seat, Sawyer had beaten him to it, hunched with his fur fluffed and tail lashing. Dad cleared his throat and joined Grandmother in the rear.

As I pulled out onto the country road, Aunts Eranthis and Hyacinth following in the second car, Sawyer moved out of the seat to perch on the compartment of the center console so he could stare at the two witches in the back with as much unimpressed disdain as he could muster.

“Sawyer,” I cautioned.

“Just a little longer,” he murmured back at me, whiskers twitching.

“And you are?” Grandmother drawled.

“Sawyer Blackfoot. I’m Meadow’s cat.”

“Don’t you mean ‘familiar?’”

“We, um, haven’t made it that far in our relationship,” I answered.

“I haven’t graduated Grimalkin University yet,” the tabby cat said.

Grandmother snorted. “They have a university for you lot?”

“Sure do.” Sawyer’s tail lashed. “It’s how I knew that spell that knocked half you lot flat on your tails.”

“Powerful magic for an unbound familiar,” Dad commented, sharing a look with Grandmother. Some communication passed between them, and my palms broke out with a nervous sweat. “How… unusual.”

“I’m kind of a big deal,” Sawyer said. “Best remember that.”

“You might take a page out of Roland’s book and not antagonize them,” I whisper-hissed at the cat. I seemed to be whisper-hissing a lot lately. “They’re my family.”

“I’m your family too,” he hissed back at me.

“And where is your moonstone collar?” Grandmother asked sharply.

Sawyer straightened proudly. “I don’t wear one.”

“I see.”

At the same time, my grandmother rapidly churned the manual hand crank to lower her window and my father lunged forward to seize Sawyer and hurl him out the car.

“Thistle thorns!” My foot stomped on the brake, momentum and claws helping Sawyer launch out of my father’s hands and into my lap. Behind us, Aunt Eranthis screeched the second car to a halt. “Dad! What the h—”

“How do you know that’s just a cat?” he shouted back at me, drawing his knives.

“Because I know my cat!”

“That’s not good enough, Meadow, and you know it.” Grandmother had already summoned her magic. “He’s been back and forth and out of sight countless times since we’ve arrived here. He could be compromised. That could be a glamoured fairy in your lap. I see some fuzzy edges around him.”

“That’s my fur,” Sawyer cried. “I still have fuzzy baby hair!”

“Back off, Grandmother. Dad!”

Both of them had called upon their magic now. I clutched the cat to my chest.

“Tell me how he lost the tip of his ear,” she demanded. “Together. Now.”

“Hobgoblin!” we both cried.

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