Then he froze at the sight of her.
“It’s from Mags,” Sibyl whispered.
Colin didn’t say a word.
“I… um, thought it would be a nice celebratory gesture, you know, get into the swing of things while we’re breaking the curse.”
“Get over here,” Colin snarled in a tone so savage, she didn’t know if he was angry or… something else.
“I’ll take it off,” she offered, “we have guests…”
Colin’s response, “They can wait a couple of hours. Get over here.”
Sibyl’s body jerked and her eyes grew wide.
“A couple of hours?” she breathed.
The room was huge; it would take a normal person twelve, maybe thirteen strides to get across it.
Colin made it in five.
* * * * *
Mallory pulled out of his early evening nap, got to his feet far more gracefully than he had ever done in his whole doggie life and he walked into the house, following the last person of the party to enter as they all went in to escape the oncoming storm.
He walked directly to his master and mistress’s bedroom and sat properly, not lounged, at the door.
And thus he stood sentry.
* * * * *
It wasn’t just people who were reincarnated, you know.
* * * * *
After Mrs. Griffith had risen to hug Sibyl and Colin upon their engagement, Bran leapt from her comfy lap to the ground and stayed in the shadows most of the evening.
The air smelled funny and he didn’t like it. Most of it was good, very good, but there was a hint that was very, very bad.
He followed the dark-haired man who’d come into their lives some time ago. He liked this man. This man was arrogant and assertive and autocratic and a lot of other things that Bran respected.
Bran had long-since approved of this new human in his life.
Without being noticed, Bran slid into the bedroom when the dark-haired man (quite rightly in Bran’s opinion) confronted Bran’s human about her latest reckless endeavour.
While she was in the cold, white, shiny room, Bran silently jumped to a chair and then after his new human closed a set of drapes; Bran deftly leaped to the curtain rod and crouched low, his dark body hidden by the top of the drapes and the shadows.
And he stood guard.
* * * * *
Cats, however, were never reincarnated. They already had nine lives.
Bran was on his third.
Bran thought it should be noted, however, that the loss of the first two was not his fault.
* * * * *