Just Horsing Around

Chapter 8

“Are you kidding me? That’s your plan?” Charlotte was evidently going to take a bit of convincing to get on board.

“What?” I asked innocently, shrugging my shoulders. As soon as Charlotte had come home from her classes that afternoon I asked her if she was willing to turn us all into birds for a couple of hours so we could go spy on the people at Gibson Farms.

“Well for one thing, you seem to think that high-level magic has no consequences. Do you know how hard it is to turn someone into a bird from human form?”

“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be asking you to do it for me,” I replied, and I heard Sophie snicker behind me.

“It’s so dangerous! Things can go wrong. Very, very wrong. What if I mess it up and you end up half-bird, half human? Or what if I can’t turn you back?”

“Charlotte, we all know that if anyone can pull off a high-level spell, it’s you.”

“But there’s still risks involved!”

“A bigger risk than the idea that I’m a suspect in a murder investigation?” I asked. That stopped Charlotte, she looked like she was definitely going to give in.

“Fine,” she sighed. “We’ll do it. But if this goes badly, I want it on the record that this was so not my idea, and that I am not enthusiastic about it.”

“That’s fine, we know you hate all the good ideas anyway,” Sophie replied, and Charlotte glared at her.

“When are you guys thinking of doing this, anyway?” Charlotte asked.

“How about tomorrow afternoon?” I offered. “You have no classes on Saturdays, and I looked at the appointment book before we left, and we should be done by two thirty.” It seemed most people didn’t want to spend their nice summer weekend days at the vet’s office.

“Fine,” Charlotte said, resigned to the idea. “Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed, remembering something. She went back to the front hall and came back with this week’s copy of The Willow Bay Whistler, the local paper Jason Black worked for. “I almost forgot! I grabbed this when I was going through town on the way home. I imagine neither one of you thought to get a copy yourselves.”

To be totally honest, in all the excitement of the day, I’d completely forgotten that the Whistler came out on Fridays, and that Jason’s article about the murder might have just made the deadline. Sure enough, this week’s headline screamed: “Gibson Farms Owner Found Strangled.”

Sophie and I pored over the article. I smiled to myself as I read the headline; I imagined Chief Hawthorne hadn’t released the manner of death late last night, and was going to be pissed that the information had been leaked so quickly. Good, he deserved it.

Jason had actually managed to write a pretty decent amount for how little info he must have actually gotten yesterday. He wrote up a small history of the Gibson family on the Oregon Coast, a little bit about their most popular horses – including Touch of Frost, of course – and mainly just the information that Caroline Gibson had been found strangled on her estate. There was a picture of police cars driving into the estate yesterday afternoon to accompany the photo. He had even managed to get an interview with Tony, the jockey, who described Caroline Gibson as a terrible boss who was impossible to work for – the same sorts of things I’d heard him say over the body the day before. I begrudgingly admitted that Jason Black actually seemed to be a pretty decent reporter. It was also a reminder that I had to re-schedule our date. I quickly put that thought out of my head.

“Well, it doesn’t exactly have any new information,” Sophie said.

“You can’t honestly expect to solve a crime based on information from a local weekly paper,” Charlotte told Sophie, who shrugged.

“You never know, it was worth a shot.”

“That’s true, it was. What do you think about the comments Tony Clegg made about Gibson?”

This time it was my turn to shrug. “I don’t know. I mean, he said those same things over the body right after we’d discovered she was murdered. You’d think an actual murderer wouldn’t be so obvious about their hatred, but then what if that’s what he wants us to think? I don’t know. I still think Corey’s a much better candidate. Besides, Tony might have been with that trainer Philippe the whole time anyway. I’m not sure. Obviously, I can’t just ask him.”

Sophie threw up her hands. “I really hope tomorrow reveals a lot more to us than what we know now. I’m taking Sprinkles for a walk, and then going to bed.”

Sprinkles jumped up enthusiastically at the mention of a walk, while Bee looked at him scornfully from her spot on the windowsill.

“Why does he always get taken for a walk?” she asked me from her perch.

“Because he enjoys walks. I tried putting you on a leash once, and you made me literally drag you down to the mailbox and back because you refused to walk,” I replied.

“I did not.”

“I took video of it with my phone, if you’re pretending to forget that ever happened. It got over 10,000 views on YouTube.”

“YOU POSTED MY HUMILIATION ON THE INTERNET???” Bee screeched, and I had to work hard to stop myself from laughing.

“Of course I did, it was hilarious.”

“TAKE IT DOWN! TAKE IT DOWN NOW! WHAT IF PEOPLE SEE?”

“Lots of people have seen, Bee. Ten thousand views, remember?”

“Ohhhhhh my life is over,” Bee cried dramatically, throwing her paws over her eyes and crawling behind some books, knocking them off the shelf and onto the ground.

Charlotte was obviously trying to hide a smile at my cat’s tantrum. I went over to the shelf and put the books back in place, then asked Bee calmly, “Would you like to go for a walk now then?”

“Not with the leash on!” Bee cried.

“Well then you’re not going at all.”

“Why can’t I go out for a walk without my leash?”

“Because I don’t trust you one bit.”

“You hear that? The lady doesn’t trust me! I’ve been her faithful cat for years, and she doesn’t trust me!”

To be honest, it wasn’t just the idea of letting Bee off-leash outside before. I’d made her promise not to chase birds outside before and she’d obeyed, mainly just choosing to sun herself on the back deck, but there was something about wanting to go for a walk outside off her leash that made me suspicious. My cat was up to something, and Bee being up to something never meant anything good.

I bribed Bee into submission with a small piece of sushi, her new favourite treat, and headed off to bed myself. After all, tomorrow was going to be a big day.

At a quarter to three the next day, Charlotte, Sophie and I were all sitting in the living room.

“Alright, you guys are sure you want to do this?” Charlotte asked, and Sophie and I nodded.

“Ok. Well, the spell will turn you into the bird that most resembles your personality. I’ve left the living room window open, so when we’re all in bird form, we’ll fly out of there and to the Gibson Farm. Because I won’t be able to reverse the spell as a bird, I’m going to have to set it on a time. We’ll have two hours from start to finish before we turn back into humans. If nothing else, make sure you’re on the ground when those two hours are up, or you’re going to have a nasty return to earth. Got it?”

Sophie and I nodded once more.

Charlotte closed her eyes and pointed at Sophie. I had to admit, my heart was pounding in my chest a little bit. I knew Charlotte was an incredible witch, but this was still some high level, dangerous magic.

“Reformaroa avem duo horoas.”

Sophie was suddenly surrounded by a light so bright that Charlotte and I had to avert our eyes. It lasted a little under a second, and when we looked once more, Sophie had disappeared, and instead there was a bald eagle, with a very light streak of purple through its feathers.

“Sophie?” I asked, and she laughed.

“Oh my God! I’m an eagle now, right?”

I nodded. “This is amazing!”

“Stop wasting time, we can all appreciate our bird forms in a minute, when we’re all birds,” Charlotte scolded, and I sat there waiting for my turn.

“Reformaroa avem duo horoas.”

I saw the bright light, and it felt like my insides were being turned inside out. Kind of like that feeling you get when you’re on a roller coaster, and it goes over a big dip, but a hundred times stronger. Then, suddenly, the feeling was gone. I was looking up at Charlotte now, instead of being the same height as her.

Sophie was laughing next to me, while Charlotte was getting ready to cast the spell on herself.

“What?” I asked Sophie.

“It’s so fitting!” she said through fits of laughter. “You’re the world’s most annoying bird!”

I flew up to the mirror to see a tuft of dark blue and black feathers, little black eyes and a black head. I was a Steller’s Jay.

“Steller’s Jays are incredibly intelligent, thank you very much,” I replied haughtily as Charlotte suddenly became encased in the bright light as well. A moment later, we were looking at an all-black crow.

“Well, I guess it could be worse,” I said.

“Crows are the smartest birds, we’re corvids,” Charlotte said. “You’d think as a vet you would know that.”

“Well I’m the symbol of America, which makes me the greatest bird of all!” Sophie bragged, and I tried (and failed) to roll my new bird eyes into the back of my head.

“Ok, let’s stop bickering about whose bird is better, and let’s go,” Charlotte said, flying to the open window.

“No! Stay! Play with me,” I heard Bee whine as we flew up to the window. I had warned her we were transforming into birds and that if she knew what was good for her she wouldn’t try and catch us once we’d transformed, and she seemed fairly sulky about it. A moment later we flew off into the bright sunshine of a beautiful Saturday. We had two hours. Two hours to get as much information as we could.