It doesn’t make any more sense the second time. I cock my head, frowning at the speaker like that will somehow make Brenda start speaking more clearly, stop saying things I don’t want to hear. The cats are waking, and a few of the bolder ones come and strop their bodies against my ankles, creaking their ancient meows as they demand breakfast. I leave the message playing and make my way to the kitchen. Brenda has my phone number. Brenda—a witch—knows how to find me if she wants me. That’s bad enough to make me think of moving, even though there’s no way I could afford anything bigger than a bottle on what I make from my day job at the coffee shop.
Brenda knows how to find me, and what she chose to do was not threaten, was not beguile: she chose to offer me a warning. That should be reassuring. It proves she’s a friend, that she hasn’t spent all those nights in the diner thinking about what it would be like to grab my hands and do the witchy thing, forcing me to pull the unwanted years away from her. Instead, it’s just unnerving.
I spoon shreds of gravy-covered animal by-products into the dishes that line my counter, setting bowls on the floor two and three at a time, and wonder what could possibly be drawing the ghosts of my city away. Some of them are friends; some are acquaintances; some I know by rumor alone. But I’ve been here long enough that most, if not all, of them know me, and I like to think that if some new danger were on the horizon, at least one of them would have swung by to tell me about it.
Sophie’s a street witch. That explains so much. Street witches must be common, as such things go; this day and age doesn’t leave much room for farm witches like Brenda, or swamp witches like old lady McGeary who used to live down at the bottom of the Hollow. But magic adapts. Magic finds its way through the cracks in the world, and magic busts things wide open, remakes them in its own image. Pave the fields and the blacktop witches rise. Build high-rise towers to block out the sun and sky and the glass witches will climb your constructs to dance away the morning. Magic always finds a way.
I’d always assumed that witches took care of their own. They’re solitary sorts, living their isolated lives in their specialized pockets of magic, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get along. Witches teach each other, share knowledge, share spells, and I’ve heard of witches with similar affinities sharing space. So why aren’t the other street witches taking care of her? Why is she dependent on the kindness of strangers and the dead, when we don’t have that much kindness to spare? The world is hard. There’s no need to make it harder.
The oldest of my current crop of cats is a weather-worn old tortoiseshell whose eyes never open all the way anymore. She doesn’t have the energy for alertness. She leans against my ankles as she eats her breakfast, and she either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care when the bare skin against her fur is covered by denim, when my daytime clothes flow into place and my winding shroud of a nightgown goes to wherever it is when I’m not wearing it. That’s another nice thing about old cats: they’re difficult as hell to startle.
“Keep an eye on the place while I’m gone,” I say, leaning down to stroke her between her ears. The cats are fed, the day is young, and Brenda has my home phone number. It’s time to talk to someone.
My apartment has two doors: the one that leads out into the hallway connected to the street, and the one at the back of the kitchen which leads to the internal stairway, intended solely for tenant use. There was a time when everyone in this building would have left their “back doors” unlocked, according to my landlady, popping in and out of each other’s kitchens for a slice of cake or to borrow a cup of sugar. It was a different time. I sort of wish I’d been here to see it. It sounds a lot like living back in Mill Hollow, where for years, I didn’t even know if our front door had a lock, much less when it would be appropriate to use it.
Every door I pass on my way up the stairs is closed and locked. Some of them are even dusty, like they haven’t been opened in years. That sort of community is no longer something we reach for. That sort of community is no longer safe.
And then I reach the top of the stairs, and the door there is standing open, letting light and warmth and the sound of a radio playing hits from the 1940s into the stairwell. I poke my head inside.
Delia knocked down all the unnecessary walls years ago, leaving herself with a loft that stretches from one side of the building to the other, ceiling held up by Grecian pillars painted white and draped with artificial vines, like she’s planning to stage a Shakespeare revival in the middle of her unreasonably large living room. The only distinction between kitchen and everything else is whether the floor is hardwood or large, colorful tiles. The radio is on the counter, and a large green parrot sits atop it, rocking gently back and forth in time to the music.
“Delia?” I take a step inside. Delia never leaves the door open unless she wants company; on some level, for her, this will always be the building she bought with her husband when she was young and breathing and the city was a promise she was certain would be kept. The skeleton of the place is the time, even if time has moved on around her. “You here?”