Page 1 of How to Flirt with a Witch

Chapter 1

Call the Vet and Maybe an Exorcist

The bedroom door rattlesagainst my sweaty palms as Lucy claws furiously at the other side.

“Mrawwwrrrr…”

“I think I should crawl out the window,” I say, my heart pounding.

From the laptop on my unmade bed, Hazel’s voice is stern. “You listen to me, Katie. You’re going to take a big breath, open the door, and trap that kitten under your laundry hamper like your life depends on it.”

There’s a terrible pause as we both seem to wonder the same thing.Doesmy life depend on it? What, exactly, does this cat want to do to me?

“You saw my arms!” Adrenaline pumping, I turn around and lean back against the only barrier between myself and mortal peril.

“So put a jacket on before you touch her!”

“More like a hazmat suit.” I look heavenward. My skin stings so fiercely that tears well in my eyes. Aside from the bloody scratches, boils have erupted on my hands, arms, and neck, resembling gigantic, pus-filled versions of the zits I used to get in high school.

But Hazel’s right. I have to take Lucy to the vet. And possibly take myself to the hospital, depending on what the vet says.

“You’re sure you haven’t developed an allergy to cats?” Hazel asks. “It’s been a long time since you had one.” On my laptop screen, she paces in and out of the frame, flapping her hands in her signatureoh-my-god oh-my-godgesture. She’s ready for class in jeans and flannel, with her dark hair braided and her makeup done. She’s three hours ahead in Toronto, so it’ll be ten there. Guilt twists my stomach for delaying her like this. But the rising panic pushes it aside.

“It’s not allergies. I’m not sneezing. It’s…” I scrunch my face. How do I explain without sounding like I’ve lost my mind? “The way Lucy’s acting, there’s something wrong with her. I know the shelter checked her health, but…”

But I don’t think there’s a test for whatever this is,I finish in my head. In the corner, her food bowl sits melted to the floor, a lump of pink ceramic with ash in it that was once kibble. The charred scent still hangs in the air. Beside it, the kibble bag slumps where I left it when I jumped back screaming, letting the flood of spiders scuttle out and disappear to God-knows-where.

These are not your typical symptoms.

Which is why they’re probably unrelated incidents, right?

There’s no sound of a tiny paw trying to turn a doorknob, so I dart to my closet, grab the laundry hamper, and empty it onto the carpet. Then I rummage through the hangers for a few layers of protection. “Can you research boils for me?”

A chair scrapes as Hazel sits in front of her laptop. “Yeah, for sure. Skin boils from cat scratches… aggressive behavior… anything more?”

Yes. A lot more.

I shake my head, unable to say it. I’m afraid of what’s happened, afraid of sounding unhinged, and afraid of what it all might mean. “That’s it. Look for a condition that could transfer from cats to humans.”

“On it.”

The frantictap-tap-tapof Hazel’s keyboard rings out from my laptop, the noise reassuring me that I’m not alone.

My heart fills with gratitude as I pull my ski jacket off its hanger. Where would I be without her? Even from across the country, she’s here for me—the same way it’s been since we met in Grade 10. Back then, we were two multiracial girls adrift in a small-town high school—me, Filipino and German, her, Japanese and Italian—and the cliquey nature of our class meant neither of us was sure which social group we belonged in. Too white to be one of the Asian kids, too Asian to be one of the white kids, not athletic enough for sports, too studious for the rebels, not into gaming… So we formed our own group, just the two of us. It’s always the two of us.

My ski jacket swallows my small frame as I zip it up over the moon-phases t-shirt I use as pajamas. It’s like I’m donning armor for a battle I never signed up for. I put on winter gloves and a balaclava for extra coverage, then jeans to try to bring some normalcy to the look.

Hazel groans, sending a jolt of dread through me. That isnotsomething you want to hear when you’ve asked someone to research what sort of disease you might have contracted.

“What is it?” My panicked voice is muffled through the balaclava. I race over to the laptop and lean down.

Her brown eyes flick to me through the screen. She doesn’t laugh at my appearance, which is a testament to both our friendship and the grimness of the situation. The visible part of my face is clammy, my normally rosy-beige complexion drained and ashen. My dark eyes are wide, and light brown tresses poke out from the balaclava, which I tuck away so I don’t look like a mad scientist.

“Come on. Hit me.” I clap my gloved hands and make a ‘bring it’ gesture. “This day can’t get any worse. Might as well know what I’m dealing with.”

“Well, I’m not sure,” Hazel says calmly. “But it might be some kind of… worm or parasite? None of the pictures look exactly like what you’ve got going on, but it’s the closest I can find.”

A wave of nausea crashes over me. The idea of these boils beingwormsunder my skin makes me light-headed. I lean on the bed for support. “Th-there’s a cure for that sort of thing, right?”