Cora and Willow had no idea where to search for Tilda first. It was probably the one time she wished they lived in a smaller house.
"We should start from the bottom and work our way up," she said, leading Willow out of her room. After all, mice did love food and where was a better place for a mouse than a kitchen? Cora and Willow tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to draw attention to themselves as they passed the living room where Agatha, Stella, and Blythe were having wine.
Cora waved her hand. "Hurry up."
Willow had stopped to check on the grownups. She made a gesture that looked as if she was guzzling a drink. "They're drunk." She traipsed to Cora. Cora shoved her into the kitchen. "Hey," said Willow, but it was a whisper under the rattling of pots on the stove.
"We should check under the sink first." Cora pulled open the door beneath the sink.
While she got onto her knees, Willow lifted the cover of a pot. "Yuck. I hate spinach."
Cora swatted her legs and hissed, "Get down here."
Willow did as she was told. "We need a flashlight you idiot."
She was right. Cora couldn't see anything, so she snapped her fingers, and a small blue flame emitted from them. That was better. Underneath their sink was full of bottles of dish washing liquid and other cleaning supplies. Cora shoved the soap aside with her free hand. Willow took out the cleaning supplies, and afterwards all they were left with was a mildewed odor but no Tilda.
"Maybe we should do mouse sounds," said Willow. "Squeak, squeak, squeak." She tried to imitate the noise Tilda had made.
Cora blew the flame from her fingers. "She is here. We have to keep looking." She helped Willow put everything back. They'd just finished when their grandmother came into the kitchen. Cora nudged Willow's arm a little, silently telling her to stay quiet.
"I'm here to check on the cauliflower. What are you girls up to?" Agatha asked.
"Nothing," said Willow.
"Nothing," said Cora.
Agatha walked around them and grabbed the pair of mittens on the counter. She slipped them on and pulled open the oven door. While she checked on the Cauliflower, Cora gestured at her mouth.
What she meant by this was keep your lips sealed, but Willow mistook it. "We came down here to get Tilda a glass of water," she said.
"Oh." Agatha closed the oven door. She pulled off the mittens and tossed them onto the counter. "I didn't even get a chance to say hello to her. I should go up."
"No," Cora and Willow said at the same time.
"She's in the bathroom," said Willow. "She says she has a stomachache."
Agatha's mouth tightened. "We do have some ginger. I could brew her a soothing drink."
"She said she wanted water." Willow punched Cora's arm. "Right?"
"Umm, right," Cora said, rubbing her arm, and looking towards the door to the dining room where she could have sworn a mouse had gone under.
"Okay then," Agatha said. "Dinner should be ready soon."
"I'll walk you to the living room." Willow took her grandmother's arm. Behind her back, she mimed for Cora to go.
"I don't think I need help with that," Agatha said, but she allowed Willow to anyway.
As soon as her grandmother left the kitchen, Cora hurried to the dining room door. She pushed the door open in a slow, easy way in case she'd frighten Tilda. She didn't want that. She dropped down onto her hands and knees. "Here, Tilda. Here, girl," she said. "I have a nice piece of cheese for you. The good kind too. Cheddar." Cora crawled underneath their dining room table, which had already been set with their finest plates and silverware. "Tilda, where are you?" Tilda sat at the end of the table, watching from her beady, dark eyes. "There you are?" Cora crawled closer. "I want to help you."
Tilda's little ears twitched. Cora took that as a good sign. She held out her hand, expecting Tilda to crawl into it. "Come here." But as she grabbed for her, Tilda darted out of her reach. Cora knocked her head on the bottom of the table hard. "Ouch." She groaned, rubbing the sore spot.
The dining room door swung open. Willow marched in. "What the heck are you doing?"
"What do you think?" Cora said, still rubbing her head.
"Did you find her?" Willow walked around the table. Her face appeared beneath it.
"What do you think?" Cora asked again. She pushed a chair out of her way and stood. "She got away from me." She massaged her elbows, which also ached.
"Grandma says we eat at eight," Willow said. On cue, they turned to the old grandfather clock against the back wall of the room. They had an hour and a half to find Tilda before dinner. They couldn't keep her in the bathroom forever.
"We need to find her before she gets outside." Cora stomped her foot. "I don't get it. How the heck did I do it?"
Willow shrugged. "I think the better question is why and I can answer that."
For fifteen minutes, they searched the dining room with no luck. Cora noticed there was a hole in the wall right next to the cabinet they used to display dishes. "Willow, come here." She motioned for her sister who'd been searching around the grandfather clock.
Willow came over. She knelt beside Cora. The hole was large enough for a mouse to go through. If Tilda went through that hole she could be anywhere in the house.
"We might as well give up." Willow pulled herself to her feet. "We're never going to find her now."
Cora thought she would cry. Her eyes felt hot as if she would. What they needed was some way to see where Tilda hid. No doubt, even as a mouse, she was as much a menace. "We have to keep searching." Cora fixed her determined stare on Willow.
"Why?" Willow shot up her hands.
"Because," said Cora, getting to her feet, "it's as much your problem as it is mine."
Willow glared at her, but she didn't protest.
"We need to lure her somehow." Cora pushed out her lips, thinking. Unlike Willow, Tilda ate her vegetables. Cora stormed towards the door to the kitchen. "Come on," she said to Willow who hadn't followed. They needed to have Tilda back to her old self before dinner.
In the kitchen, Cora and Willow filled several small containers with the contents from the stove, after a quick cooling charm they took them upstairs to Cora's room.
"Now what?" asked Willow, once the containers had been set out for Tilda under the bed.
"Now we wait." Cora collapsed onto her bed. Willow sat beside her.
Minutes went by with no sign of Tilda. Cora had moved from her bed to her computer to check on her blog. Willow was lying on her back flipping through one of Cora's many magazines.
"I can't believe these are trends," she said. "I wouldn't wear this if you paid me."
Cora didn't reply. She closed her computer and grabbed her phone. She didn't have any messages, not one from Beau, but she sent one to Eva, telling her that she wasn't having so great of an evening. Dinner from hell was what she actually said.
Cora heard feet coming up the stairs. "Tilly, honey," Blythe called.
Cora spun around as Willow sat up. With her eyes, Willow asked, "What do we do?"
Quickly, Cora pushed Tilda's clothes under the covers. She climbed into bed, pulling the covers up so Blythe wouldn't see her face.
"Tilda." Blythe stepped into Cora's room. "Where's Tilly?" she asked Willow.
"Tilda isn't feeling well," Willow said.
From her side of the bed, Cora gave a high-pitched cough, her best Tilda impression. She heard Blythe walk around the bed. "Oh, honey." She rubbed Cora's back. "We don't have to stay if you aren't well. Do you want to go home?"
Under the sheets, Cora shook her head.
"Where's your sister?" Blythe asked Willow.
"In the bathroom," Willow said. "There must be a bug going around."
"Oh, my," said Blythe. "It's a good thing we have Agatha on hand then. That woman certainly knows her way around herbs."
Blythe squeezed Cora's shoulder. "I'll be downstairs if you need me." She kissed Cora's head over the sheets. Once she was gone, Cora threw back the covers.
"I can't believe she fell for that." Willow's grin was mocking. "What a dunce."
Cora got up and checked her phone for the time. It was nearly seven. Eva had responded to her message. Sitting on her bed, she read it.
Hell sounds much nicer than my life right now. She'd added a frowning emoji at the end.
"What are you reading?" Willow snatched the phone from her hands.
Cora snatched it back. "Don't worry about it."
Neither of them noticed when a tiny, brown mouse scurried into the room. Willow heard the squeak first. She pressed her finger against her lips and gestured under the bed. They moved as quietly as they could to the end of the bed. Willow drew back the sheets.
Cora snapped her fingers, making a small flame appear at the end of them again. Mouse Tilda had her face buried in the container of spinach. She was actually sort of cute as a mouse with her small ears and whiskers.
"I'm going to try to turn her back." Cora blew the flame from her fingers and tried to clear her mind. She thought of Tilda as Tilda and snapped her fingers. Under the bed, mouse Tilda had moved on from the spinach to the container of cauliflower.
She hadn't changed back.
"Did you do it?" Willow asked.
"No." Cora took a deep breath, and snapped her fingers again, thinking of Tilda as she'd been earlier in her red sweater dress. Nothing happened.
"Why isn't she changing?" asked Willow.
"I don't know," said Cora.
Willow snapped her fingers. Mouse Tilda gave a tiny squeak as if her tail had been yanked and scurried off out from under the bed, disappearing underneath Cora's closet door.
"Look what you did." Frowning, Cora's shoulders slumped.
"Me?" said Willow. "I'm not the one who turned her into Stuart Little."
Cora went to the closet. She yanked open the doors. "Come on, Tilda," she said. "It isn't funny anymore. I know you're just messing with us. All we want is to help you." She turned on the light and heard the scraping of tiny feet against the floor.
She shoved her clothes aside and spotted Tilda hiding in one of her shoes, an old flat. "There you are," she said, reaching for the shoe. "I don't want to hurt you." She inched closer and picked up the shoe. Mouse Tilda pushed herself further into the shoe, but Cora had her. Now she just needed to figure out how to turn her back. She carried the shoe out of her closet to her bed, setting it down.
"She's in there?" asked Willow.
"She's in there," said Cora.
"How do you get her out of there?" Willow poked at the shoe. Tilda poked back. "I'll say it again," she said. "We should leave her like this. She could be our pet."
Cora didn't dignify that with a response. She knelt at her bed in front of the shoe. "Tilda, why don't you come out and say hello to us? Willow's sorry for what she said. Aren't you Willow?"
Willow shook her head.
"Aren't you, Willow?" Cora asked again.
Annoyed, Willow averted her gaze but gave in. "I guess I am."
"You see," said Cora. "We want to be friends."
The mouse shaped lump in the shoe moved but she didn't come out. "Tilda," Cora said louder than she'd meant to. She picked up the shoe and shook it. Tilda fell out onto her lap. She gazed up at Cora. Cora gazed at her. "See that wasn't hard." She reached her hand out to pick Tilda up. Tilda sniffed at her fingers. "We want to be friends now." Cora put out her palm, wanting Tilda to crawl into it.
But Tilda bit her hard on her thumb.
"Ouch." Cora stood abruptly, sending Tilda to the floor. Tilda scurried out of the room. Again, Cora swore she heard a small voice cackle.
"I hope she didn't give you rabies," said Willow.
Cora shot her a withering look and hurried out of her room after Tilda. At the stairs, she caught sight of her scampering into the living room. Cora hesitated, not sure what to do. Her mother, grandmother, and Blythe were in there.
And, on top of that, the front door opened, and Mariam waltzed in. "What is that smell?" she asked, shrugging off her coat. "Why are you just standing there, darling?" she asked Cora. "Are you waiting for the food?" A smile spread across her made-up face. She wore a dress that was entirely too tight for a granny.
Cora went down to her. She kissed her cheek. "Blythe and my mom are in the living room," she said.
"Oh, Blythe." Mariam took off her faux fur shrug and tossed it into the closet. "I guess I should go in and say hello." She said this as if it was the last thing she wanted to do. When she drifted past Cora, she caught a strong whiff of her perfume. It was a spicy number today. "Ladies," Mariam said to the women in the other room.
Willow appeared at the top of the stairs. "Did you get her?"
Cora shook her head. If she couldn't change Tilda back and Tilda wouldn't come to her, she had nothing left but the truth now. Before going back up to her room, she poked her head into the living room. Stella and the other women were still having wine. She didn't see Tilda anywhere.
Willow came halfway down the stairs. "Blythe is going to freak," she said.
I've ruined my mother's relationship with her only friend.
If that wasn't wicked, she didn't know what was. To make matters more frustrating, her magic had been strange as of late, working one minute when she least expected it to and not the next.
Was she dwindling? Was this what it felt like?