“An emu?” Ren suggested. “Or an ostrich?”
The thought of an ostrich arriving at this celebration of life sent shame shooting through me in all directions. “I can’t believe I just ruined Cassie’s event.”
“You didn’t,” Bixby said, as we all got into the car. Liberty had commandeered the passenger seat and the dog looked over at me with longing in his big, soulful eyes. He didn’t want to sit with her, but I didn’t want him at risk between me and the steering wheel while I was driving.
“Not intentionally, but it’s still my fault.” I turned the key in the ignition. “I really thought we’d succeeded this time.”
“Well, in a manner of speaking, you did succeed.” My dog resigned himself to his fate and settled on Liberty’s dress. Harold was perched between my friends in the back, while Ren held Bijou close. Probably for warmth. “The hiccups have returned to their rightful owner. She was the one firing out birds like a slot machine in the legion hall.”
Liberty stared straight ahead, her silence confirming it.
I turned the car off. “It was you?”
She stayed silent, until inevitably, it happened again. Then her proud head dipped.
A few sparrows appeared on Elsa’s hood, seeming confused in the darkness.
“That’s it?” Bixby asked. “All you’ve got left is sparrows?”
“Stop, buddy.” I scooped him out of her lap. “If sparrows are all she has left, she feels bad enough.”
Harold slipped through the seats and sat on Liberty’s lap. If she cared about hair on her black dress, it didn’t show. I felt his comfort pouring into her and gradually her chin lifted.
“That’s right,” Harold said. “You’re Liberty Brighton. You show no fear.”
Bixby started to speak and I cut him off. “Liberty, we can do something about this.”
Her head angled toward me slightly. “How? How do you rid a funeral of dozens of ravens and perhaps an ostrich?”
I consulted with Harold wordlessly. “We hold the door open and Harold whooshes them all out. That’s the fastest way.”
“But we’ll be seen. If Oscar knows it’s me—that I’m vulnerable—I don’t like my chances of coming out of the next wasting spell intact.”
“Invisibility spell,” Bijou suggested. “Bye-bye, Witchy. Begone birdies.”
“Got it.” I opened the door. “Ren, drive up the road a little bit and wait with the motor running. Harold and I will get things done and catch up with you.”
Long before we reached the door, Harold confirmed I was invisible and then whirled himself up into a small tornado.
“Targeted, Harold,” I told him. “Don’t blow the guests around more than you can help it.”
I wasn’t inside to watch but I knew his intentions were good. It wasn’t long at all before birds flapped and fluttered out into the night. The “something big” turned out to be a seabird with a very broad wingspan. Squeezing through the door was a struggle for the poor thing and I had to reach in to assist. It still beat an ostrich. At least, in my opinion. The seabird would have a ready water supply in the surrounding springs. And perhaps all would vanish, after Liberty erased her problem as I had mine.
“Or did you pass it back to her?”
Harold’s gravelly voice startled me, but it was my cue to start walking. “I don’t know, honestly. If I had to guess—and it’s all I can do—when the doctor supposedly cured me this morning she did this to both of us. Were there other unusual bird sightings today?”
A long pause told me all I needed to know. “A few,” he reluctantly admitted.
“Well, that tells us two things, Harold. Liberty never overcame her nervous hiccups. And she was nervous today.”
“No comment.”
“None expected. You’re her dog, first. But I won’t have you thinking I deliberately bounced something back to her that could put her life at risk.”
“I know.” He whirled around me and blew up my skirt. Luckily, it was invisible. “I’m worried.”
“Just tell her two things,” I began.
“You tell her.”
“It’ll be better coming from her canine soulmate and you know it. Tell her to do an erasing spell. I found one in my book—her old book—and it worked well.”
“And?”
“Tell her to stop doing what’s making her so nervous.”
“Or?”
“Or she’s going to be sorry because I’m going to put an end to it.”
“You think?”
“Harold, I don’t think, I know.” I knew he could sense my smile, without seeing it. “I just don’t know what I know. Yet.”
“Be careful, Janelle,” he said, speeding up again.
“Always am.”
