This Strange Witchery

“You know my dad,” she offered. “Thoroughly Jones, dark witch, husband to a cat-shifting familiar.”

“Yes, and your mother is Star. And she’s recently died?”

“Fell from the top of my parents’ building. She was...” Couldn’t tell him Star had been spooked. “Doesn’t matter how it happened. Only that she didn’t land on her feet. That’s a myth about cats. Anyway. You know how it is with familiars?”

“I do. Mostly. I’m not sure about frogs.” He looked about the kitchen, but Bruce was nowhere in sight. “I do know that cat-shifters have nine lives. If they die, they come back to life the same age at which they died.”

“Exactly. But they never come back with memories of their former life.”

“Oh. That’s—I didn’t know that detail. Wow, that’s gotta be tough. For the familiar and for her family.”

“Tell me about it. In my lifetime, my mother has died four times. With each death, she forgets I’m her daughter. That she had two daughters, actually. She died after giving birth to me. Poor Dad had to take care of a newborn and a newly reborn wife who couldn’t remember him or that she’d had a baby. My sister’s birth was event free, thankfully. Mom made it through that one like a breeze.”

“You have a sister?”

“Had.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He splayed his hands before him. “Isn’t there a life history of some sort you could record to help get your mom up to speed?”

“Dad does keep a video journal for her. It helps a lot. But it’s never easy. Poor Mom.”