By Familiar Means (32 page)

“I'll call you as soon as I've got anything more definite,” I told him.

“Thanks,” he said, and we all said good-bye.

“What happened, Anna?” said Grandma B.B. as soon as I shut the door behind him. “What did Jake want to talk to you about at this hour? You should have come to get me.” This last she said to Alistair. My familiar put his nose in the air. He also vanished.

“Jake's just worried about . . . stuff.”

“And of course you told him we're doing everything possible to help.”

“Of course! But . . .” I stopped. I was having a hard time finishing sentences all of a sudden. “Grandma, you didn't have anything to do with Jake coming here, did you?”

“Why should I?”

“I saw you out back, at the fire circle. You were . . . doing something. Was it a summoning?”

Grandma B.B. drew herself up, and just like that, my sweet, comforting grandmother was gone, and in her place was the stern-faced woman who could face down hurricanes and hooligans and send them both home to their mothers. “Annabelle Amelia, I am getting very tired of your questioning my judgment.”

“I'm not, well, okay, I am, but . . .”

“Merow,” interrupted Alistair, pacing back and forth. But Grandma didn't let either of us get any further.

“I am not irresponsible and I know the laws of the true craft. I came here to help you understand your heritage, and
now every time I turn around you are accusing me of interfering with people!”

“I'm not . . .” Except, of course, I was.

“Maow!” Alistair jumped up on the window seat. We both ignored him.

“I am aware I have made a mistake,” Grandma said. “I have apologized, and I have paid for it in more ways than you know. I am
endeavoring
to make amends. If I had known
you
would stop trusting me . . .” Her chin quivered.

“I do trust you, Grandma. I just—”

But she wasn't listening. “Maybe I really should have left you to Julia.”

That was when the doorbell rang.

34

“What the . . . ?” I stammered. “What now?”

“Meow!” announced Alistair.

“Yes, I know, you did try to tell us,” said Grandma to the cat, although she kept her gaze on me. “For your information, Anna, I expect
that
is Julia.”

“Why would it be Julia?”

“Because your grandmother cast such a summoning I'm surprised she didn't wake the whole neighborhood.”

That wasn't Julia. That was Valerie. My neighbor waddled in from the kitchen. She was wearing a powder blue sweat suit with a lavender terry-cloth bathrobe tied over her baby bulge. One of us, clearly, had forgotten to lock the back door. “So,” she said around an enormous yawn. “What's going on?”

“Annabelle? Are you all right?” Now, that was Julia, and the dachshunds scampered in from the foyer, yipping and nosing and wagging everywhere. Alistair began washing his paws at them.

“You know, some people use the phone,” I muttered to Grandma.

“Yes, but magic doesn't go to voice mail,” she replied. “And it was time for me to talk with Julia.
That's
what I was doing in the backyard.” For the first time she did look a little sheepish. “I didn't think it would wake everyone up, though. It's been so long . . . I guess I don't know my own strength anymore.”

Julia, leaning heavily on her walking stick and carrying a bright orange tote bag with a publisher's logo on the front, came in from the foyer. One of us had forgotten to lock the front door, too. It was a good thing the place was magically warded.

She stopped in front of Grandma B.B. “In that case, I may take it you and Anna are all right?”

“Yes,” Grandma answered. “I'm sorry to have woken you, Julia. But I am glad you came.”

Julia blinked and I watched her bite back whatever her initial reply had been. Instead, she turned and set the bag in the one clear space left on my dining room table. “I thought I should bring some breakfast.”

“It's four in the morning,” I stammered.

“Which means we need our stamina,” my mentor replied calmly. “And we can't leave it all to Roger. How is Roger, Valerie?”

“Asleep, thankfully.” Valerie eased herself down onto the living room sofa. “But I have to be getting back soon or he's going to wake up and freak out. So, will somebody please tell me what we are all doing here?”

“Well,” began Grandma B.B., but right then, my phone rang. I yanked it out of my purse, checked the number, and hit the Accept button.

“Hi, Kenisha.”

“What is going
on
over there?”

I pushed my hair back from my forehead. “Um, Grandma B.B. called a meeting. Apparently, she used a little too much oomph.”

It's amazing. When you know someone well enough you can hear the aggravation even when they haven't said anything. “Some people use the phone. And wait for daylight.”

“That's pretty much what I said.”

“Right. Okay. So, I take it the world's not about to end?”

I eyed Julia and Grandma B.B. They were pulling containers of yogurt and homemade granola out of the tote bag. Julia being Julia had brought the healthy snacks, and bowls and spoons to go with them. “I don't think so.”

“Good,” Kenisha said heavily.

“Um, Kenisha?”

“Yeah?”

I took a deep breath. “You should probably know, I'm going to talk to Christine Hilde tomorrow about . . . stuff. Do you want me to tell you what I find out?”

The pause was long and it was heavy. “No,” she said. “But I think maybe you'd better.”

“Okay. I will, then.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “Now I'm going back to bed. I got this feeling I'm going to need my sleep.”

Something inside me eased. I had been worried about how we left things the night before. Now, despite some perfectly justified grumbling, I knew that our friendship held.

“Night, Kenisha. We'll talk later.”

“Darn straight.” She hung up and I hung up and put the phone back next to my purse to find myself facing Julia and a bowl of blueberry yogurt and granola.

“Thank you,” I said and took it. I also sat on the window seat. Alistair, of course, immediately jumped up and began nosing the bowl.

“Down, cat,” I said, which had as much effect as usual.

“Now.” Julia turned to Grandma B.B., who was sitting beside Valerie and stirring her own bowl of yogurt. “I presume you had something you wanted to say to us?”

“Yes.” Grandma took a deep breath. I tensed. Both dachshunds took up sentry posts in front of Julia's toes. Even Val put her bowl down on the coffee table like she thought she might need her hands free.

Grandma B.B. licked her lips. She set her bowl down and clasped her hands on her lap.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

We all looked at one another. The dachshunds whined in surprise. Only Alistair seemed unfazed.

“I'm sorry, Julia, that I left you here all those years ago. I'm sorry I didn't try harder to find a way to come back. I'm sorry, Anna, that I didn't obey my better instincts and face the fact that my beautifully talented granddaughter had inherited our family magic.”

My throat tightened. Julia let out a very long breath.

Grandma lifted her chin. “I imagine you have a lot of things you want to say about my behavior, so we'd better get on with it.”

Julia shook her head slowly. “No,” she said softly. “I cannot think of anything I need to say. Well, except perhaps one thing.”

“Which is?”

Julia lifted her gaze and met Grandma's. “Welcome home, Annabelle.”

I'm not sure who moved first. All I know was that in the next minute, both women were on their feet and my grandmother and her oldest friend were in the middle of my living room hugging each other like there was no tomorrow, with Julia's dachshunds barking their approval and wagging everything they had.

I found myself looking out the bow window at the dark street.

“Merow?” Alistair nudged my hand.

“Something in my eye.” I sniffed. “And allergies.”

“Merow,” said Alistair.

“Yip,” agreed Max. Leo just sniffed around my ankles in case I'd dropped anything interesting.

“See?” Valerie rubbed her belly. “I told you everything would work out, baby girl. Sometimes it just takes them a while. So,” she went on as she lifted her eyes to the rest of us. “As long as we're here, why don't you catch us up with what's been happening since last night.” She pointed her spoon at me. “And don't you dare even think about saying ‘nothing.'”

So we ate, and Julia and Val listened while I told them
about my conversations with Kelly Pierce and Dale Hilde. I told them about the discovery that Harbor's Rest had it's own private archive, and the phone call I'd gotten from Rich, and about Miranda and her meeting. I may have left out my time with Sean on the beach, but it was already so late it was early, and that whole episode was a little beside the point.

“What about you, Annabelle?” said Julia to Grandma B.B. “This summoning didn't come about simply because you wanted to apologize.”

“No, I'm afraid not. I went to talk with Gretchen and it did not go well. In fact, it got rather . . . heated.”

“How surprising,” remarked Julia dryly. “I imagine she's still angry about what happened with Charlie.”

“Yes,” admitted Grandma. “I hadn't realized how much that had hurt her.”

“You and Charlie are not the ones who really hurt her,” said Julia. “At least, it was not just you. Gretchen has been left by many other people since then, and it's wounded her badly.”

“Oh, dear,” murmured Grandma. “I mean, I knew about her husband.”

“Who walked out with his administrative assistant,” said Julia. “It was all horribly clichéd. In fact, it was one of the few times I wished I really could turn someone into a toad. But after that, Gretchen met another man and fell in love and it looked like they might get married. In the end, however, he couldn't cope with the responsibilities of a family and a business and an independent woman. So he walked out as well, at about the same time as her mother died. All this left Gretchen with the hotel and her fractious children and a badly broken heart.”

“So that's why Gretchen's clinging so tightly to the hotel,” murmured Val. “It's all she has left.”

Julia nodded. “And why she's done her very best to make sure her children stay attached to it, and to her as well.”

“Why didn't you tell us this before?” said Grandma.

“I might have, if you weren't so busy charging off without talking to me.”

Val made a slashing gesture with her spoon. “Oh, no. We just got you two reconciled. You are
not
starting up again.”

Grandma looked at Julia, and Julia looked at Grandma.

Grandma nodded first. “No, dear. Of course not. It's just that Gretchen is not the only one who finds it a little hard to let go of old grudges.” She paused. “I'm talking about me, of course.”

“Yes,” said Julia. “But it applies to others as well.” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Now, the question becomes, how do we help Gretchen come to terms with her past so she can find her way through her present?”

“I have an idea about that,” said Grandma B.B., and I admit I tensed again. “Tomorrow, Anna's going to be sleuthing at the hotel . . .”

“Grandma . . .” I groaned. “That's not what I'm doing, and it's not a verb anyway.”

“It is, you know, I looked it up.”

Of course she did. I rolled my eyes. Grandma ignored me. “Julia, I think that now might be a good time for you and me to do a little intervention.”