Three of Hearts

"Faith don't have no edges." - Willa B.

The music was the soundtrack from Chocolat.

You have got to get a new disc. "The scratches and divots are part of the whole," Ambriana laughed at the sulking coming from her cat. "How important is it to have perfect music? A million other things more important than Chocolat without the halting strings."

Name one thing more important. Corn was in a challenging mood, and he would be asleep if the sound track actually flowed.

"Chicken livers. Raw for you, sauteed in butter for me."

Ha, you have a point there. Those would be nice. 

Traffic was pointlessly intense. Drivers seemed in a rush to be somewhere else, and though there were small glamours possible to calm attitudes the effort would connect the witch to everyone of those drivers. For no more than a few minutes, true. But even that wasn't worth the expense. Ambriana calculated her options. She had five days to be in Vancouver. A couple hours on the back roads would calm them both, and there was Battered Beats the used record and c.d. store and best breakfast in West Seattle.

"Corn, your wish is my command old friend," checking her mirrors on the step van she saw her gap and took a right in time to take the next exit leaving the frenzy of I-5. "We're taking a little detour. A new copy of Chocolat and pancakes with a side of bacon and eggs over easy." Corn smiled to himself satisfied that his brand of magic still worked with the girl. She wasn't a girl anymore. He knew that. And the magic that passed between them was simple today. A small manipulation for the good. Ambrianna felt the pull of that record store. Corn knew it was more than Chocolat and pancakes.

Corn purred as he remembered Ambriana as a girl. There couldn't have been a pair of eyes more beautifully shaped nor browner than those of the little girl who came with the yellow corn painted van. It was a coincidence ... a word and a condition witches and their cohorts snicker at. But all the same, there was little to the connection between the yellow van and the silky almost white long haired cat. Corn was named for the silk on ripening corn. It was the stuff his people, his women people collected before the silk turned reddish brown. Corn was a kitten when Willa found him, picked me out from the litter of FREE PLEASE TAKE ONE HOME kittens. Willa. Thinking about her made the old cat sad, and at his age, sad took as much or more energy than casting traffic glamour. "I'm not gone, Corn Silk. Just not solid. Keep the faith sugar. Faith don't have no edges."

I know.

Here's a little more ...