Laughing Down the Moon (5 page)

Burn juniper incense.

“Blessed be Creatures of Light.”

Light white candles in brass holders to bring protection and love.

Missing image of Familiar due to indecision—use the earth’s offerings, whatever is around me now—this pinecone will do.

Greet and honor the four directions and the universal elements.

“I’m writing to Mother Earth, God, and Goddess to request assistance

in finding my Familiar.

I have no idea how to recognize my Familiar, therefore I have no specifics in my request, other than to humbly request that my Familiar be an animal other than a cat.”

Written on birch paper fallen from front yard tree.

Placed in amulet and worn until Familiar comes home with me.

Thank the four directions and the universal elements.

“Blessed be Creatures of Light.”

Extinguish candles.

Open the circle.

Chapter Five

Pink, Naked Belly Needs a Home

“Take the neediest animal—the one who practically throws himself at you,” Veronica said as she opened the door to the din of the dogs’ wing at the Humane Society.

“The neediest one?” I asked. “Why? So he can die in my possession two months from now?” The barks, bawls and brays were already crushing my heart, and we hadn’t even reached the first kennel.

“He won’t die in your possession.” Veronica sounded exasperated. She took off her swing coat and held it over one arm revealing a simple dark blue dress made less simple by a black satin corset elaborately laced up her back. The garment showcased her ample cleavage. “He’ll be so happy to have you as his new owner that he won’t even be able to contemplate dying. And because it’s one of your assignments from your shrink.” Veronica made air quotes around the words “assignments” and “shrink.”

I had told her about my short to-do list from Dr. Browning. Veronica was anti-therapist, not trusting that people’s best interests were well-served by someone who charged by the hour, but the list of tasks did appeal to her, especially this task of adopting a companion. Bringing home a pet to help me feel better adjusted to the hole left by Mickey’s and some of our communal friends’ departures was not one of my favorites. Joining a new class, practicing saying “yes,” and watching old TV shows, now those assignments were reasonable.

“Excellent corset, and we’ll see,” I said, pointing at her outfit and then kneeling down to look into the eyes of a small, tail-wagging hybrid of a dog.

“Thanks, and just go with the one that grabs your heart the hardest. You’ll know him when you see him,” Veronica assured me.

“It won’t be a dog, but we can look,” I said to Veronica. “Hi, little guy,” I cooed. The dog sat his little beige butt resolutely on the floor of his kennel. “Whatcha doin?” I asked. What a dumb question. He was doing the only thing he could do in his little kennel and that was to wait. Wait for someone to notice him, pick him out and take him home. I made the mistake of looking at his next-kennel-door neighbor. He was a big golden retriever who literally smiled at me between giddy barks. I tipped my head toward his kennel because either he had two wagging tails or he had a kennel mate.

Kennel mate it was. He shared space with a medium-sized black dog that didn’t want to make eye contact with me. So I looked back at the grinning golden. When I did, I felt the eyes of his kennel mate on me. So I looked back, but he looked away again. His tail wagged faster when I looked at him, though. He must have been playing hard-to-get. Good tactic, I told him in my head. But a dog was not the right companion animal for me.

I had thought a good deal about it all and knew my familiar would have to be an animal that matched my own Japanese-Irish temperament. Dogs were too outgoing and dependent. I needed a familiar who could do his own thing while I wrote, didn’t need to be let in and out, yet who would bring some life to my home. What kind of animal would
that
be? I ran my fingers over the amulet in my skirt’s pocket, wondering.

I heard a raspy scrambling behind me and when I looked over my shoulder, I was greeted with the sight of not one but two scruffy-faced Jack Russell mixes. How did two dogs, from what I’m guessing was the same litter, wind up at the Humane Society? They were chasing each other in tight circles. Every now and then, they’d slow down enough for the tawny and white blur to become two separate dogs with well-defined spots. One kept his eyes on me even as he raced after his scrappy little buddy. He sent his metal water dish flying. I was shocked to hear the metallic clatter over all the yapping and howling in the clean, cement-walled corridor. The new puddle stopped the race as both dogs nosed around in the water, investigating. Aw Goddess, what was I doing here? How did people ever just choose one single dog to adopt? I turned back to the beige dog in front of me. He was still sitting, waiting for me to bring my attention back to him.

“Okay, little guy, good luck here,” I told him, making up my mind. “Somebody is going to come and take you home soon.” As I stood up to walk down to the kennel that Veronica was peering into, the beige dog raised one paw and seemed to caress the air in front of him, as if he had been taught to shake by his previous owner. Had it not been for the wire between us, I would have shaken his paw. Sadness pooled in my throat and pressed from behind my eyes. I couldn’t take this.

“We’re going to the cats now, right?” Veronica asked as we left the din of the dog section behind and found ourselves in the main foyer of the Humane Society again.

“I don’t know…” I said. Cats had made me nervous for as long as I could remember. They were beautiful. I’d give them that. And they were very intelligent—which was part of the problem. I wasn’t keen on having a cat lurking around the house doing little cat things like sending a milk cap back and forth across the kitchen floor, planning a hostile takeover or batting at the curtain tassels. I knew proper witches had cats, but the lack of one was not the first thing to make me improper, that was for certain.

“Come on,” Veronica said, “let’s at least have a look. Just looking won’t hurt anything. You never know, maybe you’ll make a connection with a needy kitty.”

“Veronica, that’s the thing, no cat is needy,” I explained. “Cats don’t actually need us. They just need our things, our homes, litter boxes, food, whatever. In fact, they don’t really even need those things; they’re just icing on the tuna-flavored cakes that the cats feast on as they plan to take over the world.” I was thinking of the mystery cat that pooped in my garden beds. I despised being outside, digging or weeding in the productive plot of earth behind my house, feeling the sun warm my back and my toes curl into the soil as I knelt and then, whammo, finding a cat turd right next to the carrots.

“Perhaps you haven’t met the right cat,” Veronica said.

She lived with cats that she believed were the right cats, but I was on to them. I was not fooled by the way they wove their bodies in and out between my feet as I visited their home where they deemed it permissible to let Veronica live. I knew what they were doing as they pushed their fuzzy cheeks along the surfaces of my cowboy boots.

They wanted me to think that they were welcoming me, but I knew better. They were scenting my ankles so that territorial feral cats might be more likely to attack me on my walk home. When they looked at me through their half-closed, please-think-I’m-dozing-and-not-thinking-about-the-way-the-meat-of-your-thigh-might-taste eyes, I could hear Dr. Evil laughing.

I had to content myself with the fact that even though they were highly intelligent, they didn’t have opposable thumbs. So taking over the world would be just
that
much harder for them. A cat would not be my first choice in an adoption.

“We can walk through, but I don’t think a cat is a good idea for me.” I gave in to the idea of visiting the Humane Society’s cat house, but knew they’d all still be there when I finished my tour.

We walked, stopping a few times to read the names on their placards. I had to humor Veronica so that she wouldn’t think I didn’t at least contemplate bringing a tiny terrorist into my home, but none of the cats made me feel as if my adopting them were a matter of life and death. Soon enough we were exiting the cat section through a corridor that led to the foyer. I was empty-hearted, which surprised me.

“Well, we tried,” I said over my shoulder to Veronica, trying not to show any disappointment.

“Watch it!” Veronica cried. The air whooshed in front of me. I stopped as a huge cage rolled toward me.

“Oh!” I yelped. An echoing “Oh!” came from the cage.

“Excuse me, hon!” another voice said, “I almost ran right over you, didn’t I?” The cage was so big and had so many wild, colorful things hanging in it that I couldn’t make out the owner of the voice.

“Sorry,” I said, “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” The woman parked the cage in front of me and peered around it, grinning at me. She had unruly brown curls and root beer brown eyes. She looked like Sigourney Weaver.

“Easy to get distracted here,” she said.

I looked for whatever might be in the cage. Was it a monkey’s house? Did the Humane Society ever get monkeys? I doubted it—weren’t they every little kid’s dream pet? I could remember more than half a dozen of my own grade school friends who confessed to wanting monkeys when we were kids. I never saw the appeal. Granted, a pet monkey would be better than a cat. I toyed with the beads at my neck as I leaned forward to search the cage. Monkeys didn’t talk, so the echoing “Oh!” was likely the work of a big bird. I looked for beautiful, glossy plumage amidst the hanging toys.

“Where are you, little fella?” I asked quietly.

“Lilfella,” something responded from the bottom of the cage. Upon seeing the owner of the voice, I recoiled in a way that still embarrasses me. He was a raw pink, plucked-bellied large bird. He was adorned with a black and red-banded tail, a few black feathers on his head and not much in between.

“Oh!” I said.

“Oh!” the bird echoed.

“Is he talking?” The woman pushing the cage sounded surprised. Her face was suddenly right next to mine as she scrutinized the homely bird. In another second, Veronica joined us. We all stared at the poor thing on the bottom of the cage, and he tipped his beak up to stare right back at us.

“He hasn’t said anything since he got here,” the woman whispered.

“What happened to him? Did he get burned?” I asked.

“No,” the woman answered, “his owner died, so his sister looked after the bird, but surrendered him to us after he plucked his feathers out. She couldn’t bear the sight of him like this and didn’t know what to do. He’s been here for several months.”

“Oh!” I now sounded like a parrot, but it was the only thing I could think to say.

“Oh!” the big, ugly bird replied.

“Why, he’s talking to you!” the woman cried.

I was humbled and honored, and my knees were getting kind of wobbly, so I repeated my greeting because it was the first thing that I could muster.

“Hi, little fella,” I said, even though he was not little at all.

“Hi lilfella,” he said, looking me in the eye. He made me smile and then made me do something that would have been really out of character for me a year ago, but that was sort of becoming a bit of a habit these days. He made me start to cry. Hot tears scouted out paths down my checks and then dripped off my chin onto the shiny floor.

“It’s okay,” Veronica said, patting my back, “it’s okay.”

The woman stared. She was smiling about the bird’s words yet looking concerned for me all in the same face.

“His name is Dwight.”

I snuffled back a few ounces of tears and snot and said, “Hi Dwight!”

“Hi lilfella,” he said. He bobbed his head up and down a few times, lifting his meager black crest feathers up as he did, so now I was crying and laughing at the same time as Veronica’s hand made warm circles between my shoulder blades. His rough, dark pink belly brought to mind the crow’s feather from a few days ago. I pictured it taped to his naked tummy and smiled at this imagined picture.

“Actually,” said the woman, “his name is Dwight Night, Jr.”

“After his owner?” I asked.

“No, his owner’s name was Sheldon. Sheldon worked at the Como Park zoo, which is how he met Dwight, I think. Dwight’s a red-tailed black cockatoo. They’re not as common as other cockatoos, as far as pets go. I’m guessing Sheldon got him from a zoo connection or something.”

“Is he adoptable?” Veronica asked.

I held my breath. I hoped, really hoped, that the answer was yes.

“Yes,” the woman said.

Dwight Night, Jr., Veronica and the woman all watched my face, waiting.

Book of Shadows

Spell to Welcome My New Familiar

Cast circle around myself and Dwight.

Light golden candles in Dwight-proof chimney.

Burn frankincense and diviner’s sage in metal bowl.

“Goddess, God, and Mother Earth,

I request affection, companionship and connection with my new familiar.”

Offer a dish of veggie bits and bowl of water to assure Dwight of support.

Relax, share breath.

“Thank you, Dwight, for being.

Thank you, Goddess, for bringing me Dwight.

Blessed be Creatures of Light.”

Snuff candles.

Book Of Shadows

Cleansing Spell for Dwight

Cast circle around myself and Dwight.

“Blessed be Creatures of Light.”

Light winter-white candles.

Burn myrrh incense.

Rub Dwight from talon to top of head with egg.

“I request, from the Goddess, protection, cleansing and renewal for Dwight.”

“Blessed be Creatures of Light.”

Snuff candle.

“Thank you, egg, for absorbing negative energy.”

Flush egg down the toilet.

Chapter Six

Boxes of Childhood

“Hold it, hold it!” my dad called out from somewhere under his end of the blue corduroy couch he and Alaina were hefting into the moving truck. I couldn’t see his face, but the fog his breath made in the cold air rose above the arm of the couch. Alaina, my older sister, struggled to get a better grip and braced her shoulder against the couch’s armrest.