Tiger's Eye (2 page)

“Strike one!” yelled Gus.

Dizzy from the force of a failed hit, I wondered,
What the hell happened?
The ball had been right over the plate.

I stretched my arms briefly, shook my shoulders and hands, before stepping back inside the box.

A glimmer in Birdie’s emerald eyes gave me pause. Had she done something to that ball? Would she cheat?

I shot back a fierce glare, hoping my own eyes—a lighter green than hers—appeared as cold as a shark’s. My head nodded slightly.

I know what you’re up to, old lady, and it won’t work. You’ve been training me, yes, but I’m younger, stronger, and faster. I don’t need magic to win.

Laughter. Loud, clear, and very familiar. Only it wasn’t external. She was literally inside my head. I smacked my ear to shake her out.

So, she was going to play dirty. Well, two could play at that game.

I steeled myself, flexed my biceps, and curled my lip up in a snarl.

This time, Birdie did a full 360-degree spin and launched the ball. It was coming over the plate, right into range. I swung. Hard.

The damn thing twirled around the bat, hit the wood, then bounced off the far fence and rolled into Lolly’s glove.

I stepped out of the box. “Cut that out, Lolly!” I pointed to Birdie. “You too!”

She had to be using magic. There was no physical explanation for how that ball moved.

Lolly gave me a sinister smile.

Parker was cheering me on. “Come on, Stacy. Bring it home. You’ve got two strikes and no balls.”

He was right about one thing. I had two strikes. “Time!”

Gus came over and dusted off home plate.

Lolly stood and cracked her neck. She pulled out a silver flask with her initials engraved on it and downed a shot. Jameson, from the smell of it. I could only imagine how many she had belted for breakfast to play so sharply.
Normally, she functioned like a hot air balloon with a faulty pilot light, but alcohol acted as brain fuel for Aunt Lolly.

Parker came over and asked what the problem was.

“She’s cheating!” I pointed at Lolly. “Gus, tell her to knock it off. She put some sort of sp…” I was going to say spell, but I chewed the word off and came up with “
spin
on it.”

It wasn’t exactly a secret—my family of witches. Most people in town knew what we were, even accepted it. But I was still warming up to the idea. Still wrapping my brain around all that had transpired in the year since I had been back home.

As a reporter, I relied on facts, not the fantastical.

As a woman raised by witches who considered me the Seeker of Justice, I had to face the very real, unexplainable events that happened around me far too often.

It wasn’t easy, but I was getting there with the guidance of my grandmother and her two sisters. Not to mention the Blessed Book of our theology and family history. It contained not only spellcraft, herbal remedies, and recipes, but predictions for future generations (hence the Seeker of Justice title I now carried) and the history of my ascendants, whose roots reached back to an ancient tribe of Druids from County Kildare, Ireland. The book had been passed from Maegan, Birdie’s mother (who also helped me out on occasion, though she was long dead) to Birdie. Now it belonged to me.

“Now, Stacy,” Gus said, “don’t be a sore loser.”

Aunt Lolly stuck her tongue out at me.

See, when they acted like escaped mental patients, my faith wavered.

Gus stepped in before I kicked dirt all over the catcher. “Your aunt Lolly was MVP of the farm league four years running. Of course she might play better than you.”

My mouth dropped. “She was? I never knew that.”

Parker and Gus both looked at me as if I were the worst grandchild on earth.

“Your grandma Birdie too. She was home-run queen.” Parker scratched his chin. “Fiona played some ball as well, but she mostly looked gorgeous in the uniform. Don’t tell me you’ve never even seen the photos?”

Aunt Fiona did a beauty pageant wave from third base, wiggling her hips and showing off her supple legs. It was my belief that most garages in this town had been plastered with her pinup at one time or another.

I shook my head. “Fine.” I stepped back up to the plate and Lolly repositioned herself.

This time when the ball came at me, I took two hop steps toward it—before it got near Lolly—and smacked a line drive over Birdie’s head.

I tossed the bat and ran as fast as I could. Cinnamon leaned in to field the catch. I was a few inches taller than my cousin, but she was a powerhouse of a woman. If Cinnamon were a car, she’d be a Challenger with flames painted on the side and a Hemi under the hood.

First base was three steps away. I could smell the sweetness of victory as I pumped my legs. Cin reached to catch the ball and her foot slipped off the bag.

There was no choice.

I had to slide.

Which was a much easier task for a teenager than a woman in the twilight of her twenties.

My arms stretched out in front of me as my chest skidded across the dirt. My chin bounced off a rock before my body came to a complete stop.

There is no way to describe the taste of dirt. It just tastes brown. But the salty taste of my own sweat mixed with the metallic flavor of the blood leaking from the bite in my lip definitely added to the buffet going on in my mouth.

I felt leather and I yelped in excitement. At least I had reached the base.

“Out!” yelled Gus.

What the…? “Are you freaking kidding me? Doesn’t the tie go to the runner?” I said, barely lifting my head.

“Um, Cuz?” Cinnamon said.

I looked up. My hand was touching her shoe. “Son of a bitch.”

Cinnamon helped me to my feet, a brief look of horror crossing her face.

“What?”

“I don’t think they make Band-Aids that big, Stace.”

I looked down. I was a walking road rash.

Gus got on his horn again. “Well, that’s it for the eighth inning, folks. Let’s give our teams a hand.”

“You okay?” Cinnamon asked me.

“I’ll be fine.”

She patted my back and jogged toward the dugout as the crowd clapped without enthusiasm.

Parker walked over with a cold beer and a wet towel. I thanked him, drank half the beer, washed up, and tossed the towel. There was hardly any skin left on my knees and they stung like hell.

Derek was our team’s first baseman and he was kind enough to bring me my mitt as he took position.

“Really?” was all he said.

“They were cheating. It was my best option.”

“And you care why?”

Good question, but not good enough to warrant a response. I put my glove on and carried the rest of my beer toward right field.

My bear of a Great Dane trotted over and sat in front of me, defiantly blocking my path.

“Hi, Thor.”

He gave me a pitiful look as if to say he was incredibly disappointed. Thor could be rather competitive when it came to sports. You don’t want to see him on a volleyball court.

“I’m sorry, buddy. I didn’t even get us on base. My bad.”

He grumbled, his black muzzle moving in waves over his sharp canines. He licked my right knee and stood, his giant head anchored regally above his massive tan frame.

“Tell you what, big guy, you get us three up, three down and I will not only buy you the biggest hot dog they have in that tent, I’ll take you swimming tomorrow. Okay?”

He considered this, then howled in approval.

“Great. High five.”

I lifted my right arm and Thor reared up to meet it with his left paw, towering a full foot over me. His landing shook the ground and he trotted over to his place at short-stop.

Making my way to center field, I finished the icy cold brew and tossed the cup toward the back woods, where I would retrieve it after the inning. The lake was just beyond the forest and I could hear splashing and screaming.

But not the screams of playful children.

It was a man’s scream.

A terrified scream.

I spun around to face the infield, but it seemed that no one else heard the cries, not even Thor, whose ears were perked and pointed toward the plate, where Cinnamon was gearing up to bat.

Had I imagined it?

I looked back toward the giant oak tree that stood at the edge of the park. There, lounging on a thick bough, was a sleek white tiger with ebony stripes. She had piercing eyes the color of the Caribbean Sea and she aimed her gaze right at me. Her whiskers flickered and her tail slapped the branch once, punctuating her presence.

Before I could process what I was seeing and the meaning behind it, Parker yelled, “Stacy!”

I whirled to see Thor charging my way and a high fly targeting my head. I dodged left just in time to miss the full impact of my two-hundred-pound dog as he leaped into the air to make the catch. He tagged me only with his back legs, which was enough to knock me down, but not enough to knock the wind out of me, thankfully.

Thor sauntered over to me, ball in his mouth, and lowered his neck. I grabbed his collar and pulled myself up. He looked at me proudly and I praised him.

Then Cinnamon screamed, “Dammit, Thor, no more rides in the new convertible for you!”

Thor whined and moped back to the pitcher’s mound, depositing the ball at Parker’s feet. My boss patted the dog’s head, picked up the ball, and wiped it off with his shirt.

When I looked back, the tiger was gone.

Chapter 2

“A hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz.”

—Humphrey Bogart

Despite the short-stop’s valiant effort, we lost 10–2. As promised, Thor and I made our way over to the grill and I bought us each a hot dog. One with sauerkraut, one with mustard. I’ll let you figure out whose was whose.

I grabbed a water and a beer (for myself) at the neighboring tent, hydrated the dog, and made my way over to a weathered picnic table already claimed by Birdie and the aunts. En route, I spotted Cinnamon accosting a clown near the cotton candy station so I walked over to see if I could help. The clown, not my cousin.

Her voice was raised, her face twisted in anger. “Listen, Bozo, I said I don’t want a freaking balloon. I don’t care what animal you can turn it into. Now get out of my way before I tie your nuts in a knot.”

The poor guy was about Cin’s height, which was to say he was slightly taller than a member of the Lollipop Guild. He looked to me for help.

“How much?” I asked.

“It’s only five dollars. It’s for the kids.” He had a nasal voice and watery eyes. Not to mention a big red nose.

“I’ll give you ten dollars to stay twenty feet away from this woman at all times.”

We made the deal and Cinnamon gave the guy an Italian hand gesture.

It wasn’t her fault, really. Cinnamon has had a great fear of clowns ever since she was robbed by one in New Orleans on her honeymoon.

The way her husband, Tony, explained it to me, the newlyweds were standing outside of Café Du Monde, about ready to take a romantic carriage ride across the city when a seemingly innocuous clown approached them. He was a smooth-talker, telling my cousin what a beautiful woman she was while distracting her with fast-moving hands and shiny balloons. At the end of his spiel, Cinnamon was up one blue giraffe and down one engagement ring.

Being recently married and being Cinnamon, she noticed the absence of the ring immediately. A police report corroborated what happened next.

In her defense, Cin gave the clown one chance to rectify the situation. When he denied all knowledge of the missing ring, Cin literally took the law into her own hands by grabbing the guy’s collar with one hand—nearly lifting him off the ground—and shaking him down with the other. She tore through his apron, tossing tiny scraps of colored latex all over Decatur Street, destroying the seeds of dozens of potential balloon animals. When she finally heard the ring drop, she released the clown and bent down to pick
it up. She held it to his face, waiting for an apology or, at the very least, admission of guilt.

The poor bastard still denied taking it.

His nose is permanently red and Cinnamon isn’t allowed near the Big Easy.

“You okay?” I asked her.

Cin was shaking. “I hate clowns.”

I hugged her. “Who doesn’t?”

I handed Thor his hot dog and he lumbered over to a shady spot and sat down to eat. My cousin and I approached our grandmother and the aunts and scooted onto the bench.

“Anastasia,” Birdie said.

“Grandmother,” I said.

Birdie stiffened and I couldn’t help but grin. She was proud of the fact that she was named after the goddess Brighid, keeper of the hearth and fire. She hated being called grandmother as much as I hated being called Anastasia. Especially since my birth name was Stacy.

“Aren’t you going to congratulate us?” Fiona asked in that sultry voice that made her sound like she should be draped over a piano.

“You cheated.” I bit into my hot dog.

Fiona looked shocked. She put a hand to her ample bosom. “Well, that is a terrible thing to say, young lady.”

Always with the theatrics, these three.

I swigged some beer. “Okay, maybe not you.” I pointed from Birdie to Lolly. “But you two. I’m almost positive.”