"How about this? Should we take the cat to our home? I'm sure there are healing spells there!" The ghost spoke hurriedly. Jay looked at the cat and nodded.
"How do we move him without disturbing him?"
"I have just the thing!"
The ghost produced a bubble blower and blew a big bubble.
"Are we going to play with it so we can get an idea of traveling aids?"
The ghost rolled his eyes and then moved the bubble towards the cat. The bubble touched the cat and then enveloped the cat and floated above the surface.
"Now, we have to not make the bubble touch a horizontal surface, or it will break, understood?"
Horizontal surface, that's easy. There were no branches that could come in the way! Jay cleaned everything in the path, and the ghost levitated the bubble with the cat. Jay didn't notice the little holes in the bubble for air transfer.
He and the ghost brought the cat demon to their home, and then the ghost proceeded to bring the bubble to their guest room.
"This was your mom's potions room. It looks like a guest room, but it's all a facade. An illusion. It's great that you guys never have guests over to stay, or this couldn't have stayed a secret for so long."
The overload of information was becoming a norm with the ghost for Jay.
"Can you remove the illusion then?"
The ghost answered readily, "For that to happen, you, as her son, should do a ritual."
"Stand on one leg!"
"Left or right?"
The ghost paused, "I guess left?"
The questioning tone in his answer made Jay worry more. As he spent time with the familiar, he wondered more and more about the decision of his mother.
Jay stood on his right leg and waited for the next instruction.
"Flail your hands and jump while singing the ' Better Me song."
Jay knew the song, and he sang. The ghost took a phone and recorded it. Jay didn't mind. But nothing happened.
"Why isn't the illusion changing?"Jay stood normally, trying to ignore the ache in his legs. He wondered how vampires could be so attractive with all the not going out in the sun part? How did they exercise? At night? Maybe their dashing, zooming speed made up for the exercise, though.
"Ah, wait, there's a button too!"
The ghost peeled the poster of a cat and revealed a sliding button. The ghost, despite being a ghost, could press the switch, and the room suddenly changed. Gone were the chairs and the bed; in their place stood a bookshelf and a terrarium. Jay walked towards the bookshelf and read the titles.
Terrible Spell Names for You
Walk a Mile in A Witch's Hat
Wrestle your way out
Name your familiar
Medium powers: Volume Nine Hundred and One
And so many unnamed books. Jay raised his hand to touch them, but he abruptly pulled away. He felt that books- even magical books should be sought with a reverent attitude. Something told him these books could put up an attitude.
"Oh, here we are! Now, healing potions, where are they?"
The ghost ran to a rack of bottles, and Jay felt that it was an accident waiting to happen. Glass potions should be kept safely, not haphazardly and precariously, as they were currently. The ghost moved bottles, and Jay watched intensely, hoping nothing fell.
"Huh, this is it!"
And the more you worry about something happening, the more certain it is. There was a pink bottle careening its way to the floor, and Jay reacted a second too late.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the certain clatter of glass breaking sounds.
Without the sounds assaulting his ears, he opened his eyes and found the bottle hovering on the edge of the table. There it was. The most casual use of magic that he hadn't yet seen or considered. It should be a given because what else could you use your magic for? Absolutely for the stuff you had no control over. Like breaking things, or boiling milk that always spilled, or windows that got dirty?
The ghost put the bottle back and walked towards the bubble that was still hovering with the cat demon in it.
"Where do we place him?" Jay asked the ghost.
"Let's use the drawing room hall, I spend my time there anyway, and I could keep an eye on this cat."
So, the cat was put on the sofa and the bubble dispersed. Jay presumed that the ghost would feed the cat the potion, but like everything that floored him, this was the same. The ghost just opened the cork, dropped ten drops of potion, and the drops gathered in a pattern, and then light shot from the pattern surrounding the cat.
In the multicolored halo, Jay didn't notice the speedy recovery of the cat's wounds, and by the time it was done, which was ten minutes, the cat opened his eyes.
"You are awake!"
"Yes, thank you for helping me." The cat sat up and surveyed his surroundings. The ghost felt that it was an invitation to chat, so he slid onto the sofa and asked the cat in a gossipy tone.
"Who cursed you with blood?"
"None of your business!" The cat scowled.
"We can try to solve it for you!"
"Like hell you could!"
The ghost shrugged, "We might, you will know once you try!"
Jay didn't know what kind of brainwashing scheme this was, but he was interested in hearing the story.
"I punished someone's family, and they retaliated. That's it."
There should be more to the story.
"What were the words?"
The cat's whiskers moved back as if he wanted to scratch the ghost but thought better of it and then slouched on the cushion as if resigned to his fated and then answered slowly, "You will experience the pain of my family a hundred times every week, I curse you with my blood as presence!"
"How old are you?"
"Seventy!"
"How many family members?" Jay asked again.
"Twenty-five!"
"When were you cursed? Your age, I mean?"
"When I was twenty-two!"
"The curse will end soon anyway!"
The cat looked at him with surprise.
"Blood curses don't end, kid!" The cat spoke dejectedly.
"Cat, according to the spell, it should work exactly, and simple subtraction tells me, your curse will end soon!"
The ghost and the car had the same open-mouth reaction to Jay's words.