I walked with Ms. Esther back to our building, feeling lonely even with her clinging onto my arm. Poor thing, I thought, knowing that her prized possession, now gone forever, wasn't even meant for her in the first place.

We were quiet the whole way home. I was thrown off about the whole Officer Denton mistaken identity, not so much because that policeman hadn't been him, but because of my reaction. I hadn't had that rollercoaster feeling in my gut since college.

Ms. Esther's apartment was still in a bit of disarray. I put the one drawer back into the dresser and tucked her underpants back into their drawer. She seemed so angry at Harry and this Hester Diamond person that she had shed all of her fears, though. She just wanted to be alone, she told me. I left her there, but when I closed her front door, I just knew.

That creepy feeling was hitting me front-on, the same one as yesterday, right in this spot. Only now, it was hot on my head, almost like two laser beams burning into the back of my skull.
I stopped and stared at the peephole across from Ms. Esther's door and waved at it.

"Night, Mr. Benson!" I said cheerfully, and was met with silence, but the hot laser beams definitely went away.

I checked in on my beloved plants, and my heart was in the right place, but my mind was nowhere close. I was dead on my feet, confused with what was happening in my head with this Officer Miles Denton, puzzled about what on Earth could have happened with Ms. Esther's bracelet, and finally, since I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of woman, I allowed myself that nagging worry about which way my mother was going to turn next.

I took a deep yoga breath and tried to focus on my plants, my lovelies. Water isn't the only important thing plants need and crave. They need lots of carbon dioxide, as well as some good old-fashioned oxygen to breathe. But more than just the basics, plants actually appreciate interaction, whether it be with other plants, humans, or even animals. It doesn't hurt to give them a good solid meal once in a while, or a fertilizer treat.

I find solace from my own troubles just by helping others, so after I tended to my babies' physical needs, I settled down in my little corner chair in the back of the shop and sorted through my memory bank for songs.

My darlings loved a sweet lullaby just after lights out, and while I sang to them I nearly fell asleep myself. No sign of Sedona anywhere, which was odd; usually she's pretty happy to see me if I've been gone for a couple hours. I told each of my plants that I loved them, sang a final verse about mice and Ferris wheels, locked up, and made my way to the elevator.

The stairs might be great exercise, but on this day, enough was enough.

It was time to try to center.

I changed into my comfies, as I call them, just sweats and a gigantic t-shirt that has Fergus, my favorite literary familiar, on the front of it. Fergus is a blue-haired unicorn. I've read every book about Agatha Blackmore, his witch, at least twice, and Fergus makes me laugh. Way more than, say, Sedona does.

I put on a solo saxophone playlist, poured a glass of sauvignon blanc, grabbed my laptop, and sprawled out on the couch. Before I could even log on, Sedona came tiptoeing into the room.

"Home a litter late, aren't you?" she asked, winking at me with one eye. I've often wondered how many hours Sedona spends thinking up new cat puns. "Maybe you've been sifting through old clues in your little mystery and need a new purr-spective?"

I smiled at her and winked back. "A litter later than usual, yes. Sorry." It occurred to me that Sedona had teased me earlier about how she knew things about the goings-on in our building yesterday. Things that only a cat might be able to observe without raising human suspicions. During the course of any given day, she slunk from floor to floor, from the rooftop to the ledges where the pigeons roosted, and all around the neighborhood.

"You hungry?" I asked.

"Does a dog pee on a fire hydrant?"

"Indeed. Come on," I said, and we went into the kitchen. I grabbed a can of one of her favorites, a feast of tuna and liver, and spooned it into her little silver dish.

As I freshened her water, I said, "Sedona, about the Ms. Esther robbery..."

"Hmmm," she said. She looked up from her bowl, licked her lips, and returned to her food.

"I'm wondering if you might have seen anything yesterday that was, I don't know, out of place or unusual? If maybe you were anywhere near Ms. Esther's apartment, maybe when it was robbed, or even right after? You know, like you mentioned."

"Hmmm," she said again, and I remembered how she hated it when I talked to her during a meal. I decided to shut up and let her finish. I sipped my wine and hummed along to the music. Grover Washington, Jr. on his sax makes everything feel better.

Finally, Sedona sat in front of her empty dish and proceeded to bathe herself.

"You want to groom yourself in the other room? Talk for a bit?" I asked.

She sighed. "Fine, Maddie. But I'm not sure I have anything that significant to tell you." She turned and left the room, her tail at high mast.

"Do you know the guy who lives across the hall from Ms. Esther?" I asked. I watched her plop herself down on the opposite side of the couch. She picked up her left front paw.

"Little guy? Weirdly spaced whiskers?" she said.

"I guess," I said, scratching my head. "To be honest, I don't think I noticed his whiskers. Looks a little like Mr. Rogers?"

"After a really hard day in the neighborhood, maybe, sure," Sedona said. She bent back over her paw and closed her eyes while she licked it. "Kind of creepy, though. Talks to himself." She took the clean paw and raked it over her ear.

"Hm. He was sort of stationed at his peephole, just watching, when I checked in with Ms. Esther last night, and then again tonight when I dropped her off."

"Maybe he likes her," Sedona said, opening her eyes a crack. "Maybe he likes lots of ladies."

"Maybe," I said. "But I felt more like he'd just been standing there, waiting behind his door. He had no idea when we'd be getting back. Does that mean he was just standing there? For what, a couple hours?"

"Maybe he's fixated on her. Can't get Ms. Esther out of his mind sort of thing. Love does weird and wonderful things to us, you know, Maddie." Sedona flicked her tail and looked at me with a steady gaze.

"I guess you could have something there," I said. "So you don't really have anything for me in the way of clues? Like you said you might. Before I fed you." I didn't mean to, but I might have glared at her. She always did this, teasing me with some juicy bit of information just to get food, then totally dissing me.

"Well, not really, no," she said. "I was just about to say that I am all talked out, here. Thanks for sparing a few moments of your day for the likes of me--ow," she added in her haughty, sarcastic voice, and she leaped down from her cushion to saunter out of the room.

She really is a nice cat; we had just been a bit off lately. Like most of us, Sedona likes attention, and I guessed I hadn't been giving her that, given my distractions.

"Either way, I should probably call Hannah and check in with her. She probably heard more from Harry than she let on tonight," I said to the empty room.

Hannah was an early-to-bed kind of person, and I wanted to get to her before she turned in for the night. I looked up to my living room wall, where my wise old owl clock ticked. Her tailfeathers acted as the pendulum, her spectacled eyes were at half-mast, moving back and forth with the seconds, and right now her one wing pointed at the nine and the other was straight up at the twelve.

I took the chance. Hannah answered on the first ring, with a little bit of a shake in her voice.
"Hey," I said. "Just wanted to check in with you, tell you thanks again for the seance. Sorry she was kind of a handful."

"She was the least of my problems tonight, Maddie," Hannah said. "Harry was kind of a big deal, though, let me tell you."

"Can you talk?" I jumped at the chance to spend time with her, especially if she had news from Harry. "Too late for that wine date? I have pizza!" My mouth started watering as I talked. When was the last time I ate, I wondered?

"Perfect," Hannah answered, and hung up. Even on the phone, it's like Hannah's still right beside me.

While I waited, I could use the time to center. Hannah being Hannah, she could be here in minutes, or she could very well be here hours from now.

Being a witch has its definite advantages. Meditation mixed with just a pinch of my magic helps me transport my conscience into the gap that exists between the real world and the true world.

I know, that's a lot to swallow.

The real world is where we all are, hustling to work every day, scrubbing our bodies, eating our meals, talking, laughing, worrying. Doing worldly things. Earthly things.

The true world, though, that's a harder thing to describe. Imagine not thinking at all. Just being. That's the world where, if you're a good witch, and most of us are, you are able to revel in your existence, connecting to the universe for hours at a time.

If you have hours at a time.

Which most of us don't, so I take what I can get.

I lit the candles, turned off the lights and music, and cracked my neck and my back, which I do at least once a day just to stay comfortable. I was in a car accident when I was a little girl and still have spinal problems, but that's another story, and it's a long one.

I held my copper nugget in my left hand, having carefully removed it from its home in my underwear drawer, and in the right hand, I squeezed my smoky quartz, to help me gain balance, clarity, and a bit of grounding. My smoky quartz helps me sort things out, pulling apart a big problem into tiny bite-sized pieces, somehow making the problem seem much simpler than what it had once been.

I floated there, in the true world, eyes closed, with even breath and just a ghost of a smile on my face, for what seemed like a full night's rest. I lost Ms. Esther's robbery, I lost worries about the Mother Meeting, and I even managed to lose thoughts of Officer Miles Denton. This was life and awareness as it was meant to be. I sighed and let my head fall back onto the back of the couch.

Three loud knocks jolted me back into the world, the world where people steal from and cheat on each other and cats get indignant and police officers are just out of reach.

I looked at my wall clock. Now, the owl's eyes were wide open, and her wings were high over her head.

It was midnight.

The witching hour.