It Must Be Magic by Jennifer Skully Page B

wasn’t a ghost. Not even Bigfoot.
    It was Lady D. Normally Lili would have been nervous, but when she’d been terrified she’d tripped over a real body, tripping over Lady Dreadlock was the lesser of two evils.
    “It’s a gorgeous day, isn’t it?” Lili rolled to her hands and knees, then got to her feet and backed up several steps. She didn’t feel comfortable with the woman standing over her. Her relief at not having tripped over a real body quickly receded. It was bad enough seeing the woman in town, but out here…alone? It was creepy. Where was Einstein? And what was the woman doing out in the wide open spaces when her usual haunts were in town?
    “God is watching you,” Lady D. said, her usual refrain.
    Lili almost mouthed the woman’s next words aloud, but the empty meadow was way too empty to start antagonizing her. “It’s a lovely day for a hike.”
    “God thinks we’re bad.” She pointed at the darkening sky.
    Standing alone in the middle of the field with nothing around but big trees and long grass and the sky overhead, Lili wished she’d reported the woman the way Kate had told her to.
    Could dreadlocks look like a helmet from a cat’s-eye view? Actually, no. Not in any way, shape or form could the woman’s hair be covered by a bowl-shaped helmet the size Fluffy had seen.
    “Be careful or God will punish
you.
” This time, Lady D. pointed her finger at Lili, her fingernail short and ragged.
    Maybe it was the quiet, the lack of traffic and passersby, or the fact that her last mocha had been about nine hours ago, but Lili couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t care about being polite or nonconfrontational. She cared about the empty meadow, but if the woman was going to threaten her, she had to at least know why. “What do you know? You always say that, and you never tell me
why.
What have I done that God’s so mad at?”
    The woman smiled, the leathery texture of her skin creasing her mouth and deepening the grooves meandering down her face, then she stared at something over Lili’s shoulder. “Ask the cat.”
    The cat? In three months, it was the first thing the woman had ever said that wasn’t part of her script. Lili wanted to hear more, but Lady Dreadlock turned and glided away.
    “Wait. What’s that supposed to mean?”
    Lady D. ignored Lili, trailing her fingers along the tops of the grass, until she reached the edge of the forest and it sucked her into its depths.
    Einstein appeared, sitting down in the trampled grass.
    “Where have you been?” Lili almost shrieked.
    Important things to do.
An image of a field mouse popped into Lili’s mind.
    Lili simply plopped down in the middle of the grass and closed her eyes. “This was a stupid idea.” She cracked one eye open. “And don’t you dare give me the dunce cap.”
    Einstein yawned. Which
was
better than the dunce cap.
    “If there is something out here, I shouldn’t be looking for it by myself.”
    Einstein lifted a paw and licked the pad.
    “What do you think she was doing out here?” Then she flashed an image of the dreadlocked woman.
    I’m a cat. How would I know?
For once, Einstein gave herself the dunce cap.
    “Well,
she
told me to ask you.” What did that mean, anyway?
    Einstein merely blinked. She couldn’t figure out Lady Dreadlock, either.
    Lili sighed and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Do you think we could be wrong about what Fluffy saw?”
    We?
    Then Lili rolled to her feet. “There’s only one thing to do.” Whatever was necessary to get Tanner Rutland on her side. “I’ll have to seduce him.”
    Einstein started a hacking cough.
    “I was kidding.”
    Liar, liar, pants on fire.
She saw an image of a woman cupping the rear of her burning jeans. “Let’s go home. I’ll think about it all later.” After a salad and a cherry cordial chocolate kiss.
    Einstein hunkered in the trampled grass.
She spammed me.
    Einstein was like a shadow, following Lili everywhere, often sitting at Lili’s