The Garden Witch

Chapter One

I should have known something was wrong when Frank ran away. That cat was better than a barometer for sensing a bad situation. He had an otherworldly ability to read people and circumstances, and I say that as a witch. When I opened up my door to walk in from work, he was there waiting for me, waiting to dart out past my legs and into the frozen garden. I raced after him but he disappeared around the corner and into the brown hedgerow of the next house. Half an hour of searching turned nothing up.

"Suit yourself," I muttered. He was sure to come back when he got hungry, as he always did when he escaped. I wasn't sure what he did on his nighttime forays but he always returned, sometimes a little worse for wear. I couldn't afford to wait around for him right then. I had a date.

I stepped out of my car and into the rain, pulling my raincoat tighter around me. It was abysmal weather and normally I wouldn't be out on a day like this; I would be cozied up in front of my fire with a cup of tea and a soothing book. Or rather, I'd be out looking for Frank in the downpour. But today I had a delivery to make that couldn't be postponed. Why my client had chosen a Walmart parking lot was beyond me, but he had always been eccentric.

I watched as the driver of the other car got out and walked toward me. The drizzle of rain made it hard to make out his face, but I already knew who he was. Thomas Singer, my contact with the local valley Wolf Pack. He walked up to me and grinned.

"Hey Tabby Cat."

"It's Tabitha," I sighed, knowing it was useless. Thomas had been calling me 'Tabby Cat' ever since I had met him almost three years ago, and I doubted he would stop anytime soon.

"Do you have the goods?" he asked, not dropping the grin. He was wearing a leather jacket that was getting steadily darker and wetter by the second. His curly blond hair was plastered to his head already and I saw rivulets of water starting to run down his face. I shook my head.

"You're ridiculous. But yes, I have it."

I held up the large Tupperware I was holding and he raised his eyebrows.

"Your packaging just keeps getting better."

"It's to keep it dry," I said, explaining the obvious. "You don't want wet Vetiver."

"Why not?"

"Because then it's wet. And it's not a poultice anymore, it's a soup."

"Ah." He took the Tupperware out of my hands and handed me a plastic bag. Inside the clear plastic I saw a stack of twenties. "Do you want to count it?"

"Do I ever?" I asked as I stashed it in my pocket out of the rain. I glanced up at the sky and got a raindrop in my eye. It didn't look like the rain was going to end anytime soon. "Alright, I'm gonna go."

"Don't tell anyone about this," Thomas said with a wink. I sighed and got in my car. Thomas had to be both the most ridiculous and the most laid-back werewolf I had ever met. Granted, I had not met many, but still. He was always able to turn a perfectly innocent herb sale into what felt like a drug deal. Granted, I was paid in cash and didn't report it as income, but I could hardly put the Valley Wolf Pack as a client on my Schedule C tax form.

I wasn't sure why the pack always sent Thomas, nor was I sure of what position he held among the wolves. He was probably just an errand boy, send out even in the worst condition to buy the poultices and healing herbs that I sold to the pack. Werewolves were naturally fast healers but sometimes they got into scrapes that they needed some help with. I didn't ask what they were fighting. I didn't want to know.

I got back into my car and turned the heat on full, shedding my rain jacket. Despite the rain, it felt below freezing outside. Sure enough, as I drove, the rain turned into ice. I upped the speed on my wipers and tried to peer through the sheets of the icy downpour. It was only a ten minute drive home and when I got there, I rushed into the warmth of my cozy home. The smell of lilac and sight of my numerous houseplants greeted me. Some witches would say I wasn't a proper green witch because I used artificial air fresheners to replicate the smell of flowers in my home, but I ignored them. I had never been a proper witch anyway. Besides, who could keep lilac alive, indoors, in the winter? No one, that was who.