Rebecca coughed and waved a hand in front of her face. “Holy smokes. It smells like Inga when she would eat those garlic bagel chips.”
“What’s the point of bequeathing her bad breath?” Kate asked.
Libbie fell silent, a memory stirring. An uncomfortable memory but one that seemed entirely relevant. “Her last words,” she finally said.
“I’ll miss you?” Kate asked.
Libbie shook her head. “She said ‘breath is the spirit.’”
“So her spirit smells like garlic?” Julie queried. “That’s unfortunate.”
Kate pinched her nose. “I hope mine smells like roses.”
“It depends on who’s opening mine,” Julie said.
“What’s the gift? I’m confused.” Rebecca took the jar from Kate’s hand and stuck her nose inside.
“I’m starting to think this really was an elaborate prank,” Julie said.
Although Libbie didn’t think so, she remained quiet because she couldn’t offer a better explanation.
As they stared at the seemingly empty jar, Libbie’s arms and legs began to tingle. The sensation rippled across her entire body until she shivered from the effect.
“Does anyone else feel that?” Kate asked.
The four women exchanged uneasy glances. “I do,” Libbie said.
“Me, too,” Rebecca said.
Julie nodded, her eyes rounded. “Does anyone else—?” She halted as the women seemed to realize at the same time that their skin was glowing with a soft white light. Before anyone could comment on it, their skin reverted to normal.
Rebecca stared at her arms, now outstretched. “What just happened? Are we all going to walk around reeking of garlic? Did she hex us?”
“Why would Inga hex us? She loved us,” Kate said.
Libbie breathed into her hand and sniffed it. “My breath smells normal.”
Kate turned and blew out a breath in her best friend’s face. “How about mine?”
“Smells like you gargled with garbage and then rinsed with acid.”
The other women laughed.
“Libbie, that sounds more like something Inga would say,” Kate told her. “You know that’s my normal breath. That’s why I brush a few times a day.”
Libbie did know. She knew her best friend’s brushing habits as well as her own. “It’s your one flaw.”
“Why isn’t there more to the letter?” Julie complained. She held out her hands and examined them. “Is the tingling somehow the gift? A reminder that Inga is always with us?”
“I don’t think so,” Rebecca said. “The way the lawyer spoke about it…I think there’s more to it than that.”
“According to him, we’re the Dread Pirate Witches,” Libbie said.
Rebecca scrunched her nose. “Like the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride?”
Julie wore a blank expression. “I don’t get it.”
Libbie felt a rise of excitement. “Remember in the movie, the Dread Pirate Roberts isn’t one person. The name gets passed on to someone else when the current pirate is ready to retire.” She’d watched the movie countless times with her kids and knew it by heart.
“And, in this case, retiring is…death?” Julie appeared uncertain.
“Yes. Inga died and passed her witch-related assets on to us,” Libbie said. “And someday we’ll pass our assets on to others.”
Kate tapped the letter on the coffee table. “Except we don’t know what those assets are, and she didn’t seem inclined to tell us.”
“I hope I can turn people into toads,” Julie said.
“Would you really do that?” Libbie asked. “They might get run over or drown in the lake before you can change them back.”
Julie pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Okay, maybe only a few select people.”
“I’m not sure about Dread Pirate Witches,” Rebecca said. “If we’re sharing her spirit, I think it makes us more like soul sisters.”
Libbie liked that idea, too. “I don’t care what label we use. I just can’t sit in this position anymore.” Her knees cracked loudly as she rose to her feet.
Rebecca laughed. “I was waiting for someone else to say it first.” She used the table to pull herself upright.
“Cramp,” Julie moaned and limped to the wall to try to stretch her calf and foot.
“You need more potassium,” Kate said. She was the only one able to rise gracefully without a crack or cramp.
Julie craned her neck to look at them, still stretching. “You saying it fifty times doesn’t make it true. There’s nothing wrong with my diet. It’s my knotty muscles.”
“Then try yoga,” Kate said.
Julie hobbled back to the coffee table. “I’d rather eat a pretzel than be one.”
Rebecca smiled. “You crack like a glow stick. Might as well glow like one.”
“This is crazy,” Julie said. “And we’re crazy for going along with it.”
“Either way, Inga wanted this. As her friends, I say we roll with it,” Kate said.
“Okay, so what now?” Rebecca prompted.
Kate glanced to the doorway. “I guess we should divide the contents of the liquor cabinet. Those are the real assets.”
“And the cats,” Rebecca said, inclining her head toward the couch where all four cats were now asleep.
“I have a question,” Libbie said. “How did she get her spirit, or whatever it is, into the jar before she died? Does that mean she gave it up early?”
“You’re thinking too hard about this,” Kate said. “The more I think about it, the more I think the jar was meant to be symbolic.”
“Then how do you explain the tingling and the smell?” Libbie countered.
“It’s like that psychology experiment when a group of people think they’ve experienced the same event, but they all imagined it.” Kate snapped her fingers.
“No, I definitely felt something,” Libbie said. There was no way she’d imagined it.
“I’m not sure,” Rebecca said. “Maybe it was something like mass hysteria.”
“We glowed,” Libbie insisted. “We all saw it. There’s no point in denying it now.”
“If anyone manages to turn someone into a toad, let me know.” Kate swept her handbag off the floor and slung it over her shoulder. “In the meantime, I call dibs on the tequila.”
Chapter Six
Libbie was glad she’d thought to ask Rebecca for advice on the best way to introduce Eliza to Hercules. It was handy having an expert on speed dial. Courtney was thrilled to meet the new member of the household and seemed to claim her as her own from the moment Libbie walked through the door, which worked out because Cat-Cat’s introduction to the household involved confinement to Courtney’s room. Rebecca had instructed them to feed Cat-Cat on one side of the bedroom door and Hercules in the hallway on the other side of the door so each had a chance to get used to the other’s smell.
“You’re not actually going to keep it, are you?” Chris looked at her askance from the kitchen table.