The 7th

Chapter 6

As we left the shop, Hetty in the lead with Cami close beside her and myself trailing behind, I had to consider that my day had become marginally better when I took in the view. The sun was now well passed the midpoint of the sky and had begun it's descent and would soon begin its daily teasing ritual with the moon. Being that it was late September in Alabama it wasn't to cool for the type of dress that Hetty was wearing but it had become cool enough so that the trees had started to gather their color. It was a gorgeous day and even though it had started with some kind of weirdness that we were now investigating, the fact that I was cruising the college campus with two gorgeous women had brightened my mood. I whistled the wizard of oz tune as we walked.

"So why be a wiccan Hetty?" Cami asked with what I believed to be honest curiosity.

Instead of answering with a long-winded kind of an explanation Hetty just shrugged.

"Why not?" She looked at Cami. "You a religious type then I take it?"

"Well yea but why do you say that?" Cami asked with her brow beginning to furrow in that way it does when she feels her way of thinking or her opinions under attack. Hetty didn't know her as well as I did. Unless she was more preceptive than average she was going to miss the fact that she was edging out onto some relatively thin ice.

"No offense Ms. Camille,"

"No miss. Just Camille." Cami cut her off before she had gotten to far.

And the ice begins to crack I thought to myself as I watched Cami's brow furrow just a bit more at the use of title miss.

"Sure. No offense Camille" Hetty continued, "but generally speaking the only people whoever really care enough to ask why Wicca or why Wiccan are generally from one of two parties."

"Which two parties are those?" Cami asked after a few seconds in which she had clearly been waiting for Hetty to continue.

"Guys who want to get to know me" she answered as she threw up the air quotes "and religious types."

Knowing that I shouldn't but, as per the agreement my mouth has with my brain, I went ahead and said what was in my mouth without any thought to the repercussions.

"Hetty don't sell Cami short. We just got done talking about how much she liked coffee and by my account she may be due a cup."

I had just enough time to begin a chuckle before Cami turned and stopped it dead in my throat with one of those looks of her. The effects of that look was amplified when Hetty turned and kind of rolled her eyes in that "wow you are just another dumb guy way.

"Great" I thought "I haven't even had time to consider that I might want to attempt to have anything beyond a conversation with her and she's already writing me off and just how in the hell did I end up breaking the damned ice when I wasn't even the one who started the cracking." I mentally face palmed myself and, not for the first time, promised to renegotiate that agreement between mind and mouth. I just sat there grinning stupidly watching my joke flop on the ground as the girls turned and began walking again.

"So anyways, I am a religious type but it's not why I asked." I could hear Cami say as she turned back to Hetty and I resumed my walk behind them as well.

"Ok. If you say so." Hetty answered. "If you didn't ask for that reason then why did you ask?"

"Genuine curiosity honestly. I mean let's face it if it ain't Baptist, Methodist, or the occasional Catholic you simply don't find it that often around here." Cami had hit on something that was true but I wasn't sure that it was the only reason she had asked. She had a bit of her Mom in her in that respect.