Buster

“I’m not really surprised that you murdered him.”

Tess looked at me over the decapitated gummy bear, then shrugged.

“It’s the traditional way to eat them. Here, come look at this spell I’ve found.”

“Can I have a gummy bear?” I asked. Tess’s face scrunched with disgust.

“Of course not. They’re my gummy bears. I saved them. What did you do with yours?”

“I ate mine whole, the humane way,” I responded, but pulled the book closer to see. I whistled softly, a bit impressed but also not entirely. This had Tess written all over it.

“You want to speak with the dead?” I asked.

“Anyone who says they don’t want to talk with the dead is lying,” Tess replied. “We have most of the stuff already. Here, I made a list of things you could get so we could try it out.”

“You want to try now?”

“When else?” she responded with a shrug. Of course. How simple.

“Shouldn’t we study the spell a bit first?” I asked.

“I’ve read the whole thing. Trust me, this is no sitcom with ‘and be careful not to’ on the next page. It’s a straight forward spell. We can do this.”

I glanced through and nodded to myself. It did seem pretty straight forward. But then again, it was just talking, right? What could go wrong with a conversation.

“Where did you get this book?” I asked.

“Does it matter?” Tess answered. A barking came from the window.

“That damn dog,” Tess muttered, going over and looking through the curtains.

“What’s Buster doing now?” I asked.

“Trying to dig under the fence to our shed. Andrew, if that mutt gets in there and ruins all our stuff… Last time we barely got him out of our yard before the neighbor came snooping.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “The dog is curious.”

“He makes a beeline for our magic supplies. He’s like… a magic bloodhound. He could run his own witch-hunts.”

“How about I go see if I can do some shopping, and you light some calming candles and not think about Buster, okay?” Buster blew Tess’s temper up like nothing I’d ever seen. It wasn’t just that he went after our magic supplies (which he did, remarkably well, actually). Tess had never liked dogs. And here was one bent on destroying her hobby. I had been thinking of suggesting we move, but hadn’t worked up the nerve yet. Tess hated moving, too. She had a lot of hates, which were only outnumbered and outmatched by the power of her love.

“Oh, can you pick up more gummy bears, too?” Tess asked. I acquiesced with a smile. She loved gummy bears.

*****

I came back to find the living room floor covered in something white and fluffy. I carefully placed my bag of supplies on the table and bent closer to inspect. That’s when I heard the growling from the kitchen. I straightened up so quickly my head felt dizzy. But I couldn’t wait around and adjust. I needed to deal with the kitchen. I came up to the door, took a calming breath, and slide it open.

Buster was there, gnawing on the head of Tess’s favorite stuffed cat.

“I’m not really surprised that you murdered him,” I told Buster. I mean, cats and dogs, it’s a trope for a reason. Plus, the cat was one of Tess’s first wards. She’d be upset, but Buster couldn’t understand that. I tried to pull the cat head back, but before I could get my hands on it Buster had fled through the open back door.

Why was that open?

“Tess?” I called out. No answer in the house. I went out into the backyard.

Our yard is pretty small. Really just room for the shed, where we store most of our magical items. Makes it less weird to have company over. Buster was no where in sight. I wondered if he’d completed his tunnel.

“Tess?” I tried again. I heard a muffled reply from the shed and went to find Tess inside, gathering what else we’d need for our spell.

“I have bad news,” I said. “But first, did you leave the back door open?”

“I told you, the door doesn’t close properly. We need to call someone to look at it.”

Or move, I thought to myself, but dismissed it for now. Not the time.

“Okay, well, Buster got into the house.”

“What? That… that thing was in our house?”

“Yeah. He found Mr. Fuzzywhiskers.”

“Is he okay?” Tess asked quietly, and I knew who she was concerned for.

“I think we both know with that name, Mr. Fuzzywhiskers was asking to die.”

“That… HORRIBLE MUTT!” Tess took up a spare bat we had and marched out of the shed. I followed, trying to calm her down.

“He’s just a dog. He doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

“I’m going to scare him back into his yard so he doesn’t come back. How’d he get in, huh? Show me!” Tess started marching up and down the fence that separated us from the neighbor. Suddenly, by one of the bushes, she stopped.

“There’s dirt here,” she said. “Think you can sneak in this way, huh?”

“Tess, calm down.”

“Oh no, I will not calm down! If that mutt comes back, I’ll just—” She hefted the bat and readied a swing. At the last moment, I saw the white, fluffy head peeking out from the bush.

“Tess, WAIT!”

But she was already in motion. Time slowed for me as I watched her round the bend and connect with Buster’s head. The instant she felt the resistance, she dropped the bat.

“I didn’t. He wasn’t there! I was just gonna fill in the hole, I… I… Wait. I can fix this.”

Tess pushed past me and disappeared into the shed.

I looked down at Buster, still as I’d ever seen him. I waited, hoping he would twitch or something. But nothing happened.

We were in serious trouble now.

“I have it,” Tess said, bringing the new book forward, but on a different page. I studied and felt a little faint.

“Tess, this is open necromancy. You want to bring the dog back.”

“Look, he died right now. The problem with necromancy is the timing. But he died right now. We can bring him back, pop him back in his yard, fill in the hole, la la la the problem goes away.”

I didn’t like it. But I also didn’t have a better option.

“I’m not really surprised that you murdered him,” I told Tess. “You hated Buster. But I’m surprised you want to try to bring him back.”

“Just shut up and help me,” Tess muttered. Together we finagled Buster out from his hole under the fence and carried him to the shed. Tess barked out ingredients for me to locate, some of which were in the bag in the house that I had to retrieve. She drew a circle and symbols into the floor, and together we lifted Buster to place him in the center.

Which was when he did start to twitch.

We were both so shocked, we dropped him. He went still again, so still I thought we’d imagined it, but then he rolled up on his feet and looked right at me.

I swear this dog wanted to thank me.

And then havoc broke loose.

Every jar was smashed, every box knocked over, every book disrupted. Buster had a field day. By the time we chased him out and shut the door, it was hard to assess what was left usable. Among the casualties was Tess’s new book — Buster had taken so much glee in that book I believe he ate most of the pages.

“So,” I began, “I’ve been thinking we should move.”