Between Catholics and Voodoo Queens

84. A witchy tale from the perspective of the familiar.
81. The town's witch has gone missing and no one is looking for her but her two familiars - a crow and a black cat, plus the teen who has always been scared of her.
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Eclipse is a raven familiar, an invasive Corvus splendens in small-town coastal Louisiana. He serves an outsider called Mamman Simbi, a witch hidden between a Catholic and Voodoo culture, when a new witch is born into Cajun bloodlines (Tammy Broussard, b. 1977). Being overburdened in soul leads to the new witch having dangerous fevers that Eclipse and Simbi protect her from until she's old enough to take over as Mung Bean's witch (Simbi's rescue cat the same age as the girl). Familiars take on that excess spirit and help manage their partners health and daily work, becoming as human as their masters.

The process of protecting Tammy leaves her frightened of Mamman Simbi, and parents in denial don't push children to stray outside their culture.

But the world has never been safe for their kind, and just as the deep south starts to recover from a painful recession, the witches hiding in their culture start disappearing, leaving Simbi too distracted to reach out to a fearful child.

Then Simbi disappears from a gathering during the worst years for murders in New Orleans (1994), with police corruption running rampant. Mung Bean and Tammy, both now 16, run away from home soon after, leaving Eclipse to sort out how much is safe to tell the young witch's parents, Rafe and Dinah Broussard, and Simbi's boyfriend, T-Beau LeBlanc.

Can Eclipse find his master, ride herd on two teens (a witch and her familiar), keep mere humans safe, and not lose himself to the humanity he's avoided as a crow? Life wasn't supposed to be so complicated for a bird brain.