Read Online Spun by Sorcery by Barbara Bretton - Free Book Online Page B

trudged back to the car through the snow. “When was the last time she climbed a tree, sometime around 1712?”
    “It’s not you,” Chloe said. “It’s the Sugar Maple thing. She’s homesick.”
    “The cat told you that?”
    “The cat will tell you a few things if you don’t stop.”
    Which would have been funny in my old life but in my new life it wasn’t funny: it was true.

CHLOE
    I settled Penny on the floor near my feet. Luke turned on the heater and she was asleep by the time we exited the parking lot.
    “You should’ve bought one of those cat carriers at Walmart,” Janice said as she worked on her sock in the backseat. “Or a leash.”
    “I’ll definitely buy one when we get to Salem.”
    Until then Penny was staying in the car.
    I had trusted that Penny’s unusual history made her immune to crazy cat behavior but I hadn’t factored in the effect a change of landscape might have on her. Different sounds, different sights, different smells. She was probably as lost without Sugar Maple as I was.
    I was halfway down the leg of my sock when we finally reached the entrance to the highway. The sun was shining. The road ahead was clear and dry.
    “How long until we reach Salem?” I asked Luke as he merged with traffic.
    “Another two and a half hours, give or take a blizzard or runaway cat.”
    I’d be able to finish the first sock and take a big bite out of the second. With a little luck I’d fall into the knitting zone where there was nothing but color and texture and the gentle rhythmic click of my needles as they formed stitch after stitch. I definitely didn’t want to think about what lay ahead. I’d rather think about the way turquoise bumps up against royal purple.
    Luke finally managed to tune into a sports talk station and I tuned out the chatter. In the backseat Janice was already in the zone and was casting on for her second sock.
    “Are you knitting for Munchkins?” I asked over my shoulder. “You can’t possibly be knitting for adult feet. I still haven’t turned the heel on my first.”
    “Toe-up, baby,” she said with a wink. “I told you it rocks.”
    We chatted back and forth about elastic cast-offs for a while then fell into companionable silence. A radio caller was going on about Opening Day. Luke seemed riveted.
    Go figure.
    I knitted along in silence for a while. Behind me Janice dropped off into a nap, her head cushioned by a mountain of Manos and Araucania. The heater proved too much for Penny and she arranged herself on the console between Luke and me. She didn’t seem any worse for the wear after her adventure in the great outdoors. She did, however, seem unusually fixated on Luke.
    “What’s up with the staring?” he asked as a big brown UPS truck passed us on the left. “She hasn’t taken her eyes off me.”
    “I guess you two bonded when you were up that tree.”
    “She made a horse’s ass of me up that tree. If you hadn’t come along, I’d still be up there waving that stupid Egg McMuffin at her.”
    Penny stretched out her front paws and inched closer to Luke. She rested her chin on his thigh.
    “Too late, cat,” he said. “I ate it.”
    She stretched again then eased her upper body into his lap.
    “This isn’t going to work,” he said. “Not that I don’t trust her or anything.”
    I reached over to pluck Penny from his lap but she was too fast for me. Hard to believe an aged, sedentary cat could move that fast in such a confined space but she went from his lap to his shoulder in an eyeblink.
    A cat person wouldn’t flinch. A driving non-cat-person definitely would.
    “What’s going on?” I said as I unbuckled my seat belt; I leaned over to extricate Penny from her new perch but she pressed her face against his neck. “It’s like you used a catnip aftershave or something.”
    “You want to get her off me?” He sounded a little tense. “The cat breath is getting to me.”
    Funny how I’d never had to use magick with Penny until I had