It was Sunday. I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and feeling sorry for myself when Cat hopped up.

"I'm never going to be normal," I said gloomily.

"Duh. Glad you realized it." He kneaded his paws on my blanket.

I had started taking the fact that I had a talking cat for granted.

"I'm serious!" I sat up. "If I'm not normal, what am I?"

"I know it sounds corny," he said, "but how about just be yourself. Be a witch." He rolled onto his back in a sunbeam and swatted at his own tail. Sometimes it was hard to believe he wasn't just a regular cat.

"Well," I grumbled, "apparently I suck at being a witch. I can't control my magic, or my emotions, and I could've gotten somebody seriously injured..."

"You are so full of drama!" Cat exclaimed, rolling to sit up. "Are you sure you're not a cat? Anyway, anything worth doing takes practice. Do you think I became such an excellent familiar overnight?"

I smiled just a little. "How did you become a familiar anyway?" I asked.

He gave me a sly look. "That's a story for another time. Right now, I think it's time I showed you something," he said. "C'mon." He jumped down. I stayed put.

"C'maaaaaaahn," he half-said, half-meowed, looking back at me with his gray tail swishing in the air.

I slowly crawled out of bed. "What?" I said grumpily.

"Look under this dressing table here," he said, talking about the big antique desk thing with the giant mirror attached. "Move the stool out of the way."

Under the table was a cat door. It was a square flap that swung in and out when I pushed on it. "Is this how you got in my room in the first place? How come you didn't tell me about this?"

Cat licked his paw. "You didn't ask."

Wait a second! A place that only mice and cats would know about!

I felt around inside, but there was nothing hidden there. "Well, this doesn't help me," I said. "A cat can barely fit through that door. What am I supposed to do?"

"Move this huge piece of furniture and I'll show you."

I put all my weight against it, but it wouldn't budge. I needed magic. I closed my eyes and rolled up all my miserable feelings about getting in a fight with Hazel, and also all my hope that I could fix things. The dressing table made a lot of noise sliding across the hardwood floor, and I still had to use all my body weight plus my magic to make it move. I was out of breath when Cat finally said, "Okay, stop."

I stood back and looked. There was a door! It was covered in the same fleur-de-lis wallpaper as the rest of the room, so it hadn't even been noticeable behind the dressing table's huge mirror. It had one of those flat iron handles and a very simple keyhole. I tried it, but it was locked.

The skeleton key from the scavenger hunt! I rummaged through the stuff on my desk. Sure enough, it fit. I pushed down the handle and pulled the door open.

And looked into a dark, cobwebby, narrow stairwell. Simple wooden steps led up to the right and down to the left. A secret passage? How cool was that? I had a moment of regret that Hazel wasn't here to discover it with me.

"Down leads to the cat entrance under the porch," Cat said. "Up leads to the smaller tower room."

"But I can get to that tower room from the attic," I said.

"Not this part of the tower room," he said. "Keep that key, and follow me." With that, he started up the stairs. I took a breath, and followed him.

It was so narrow that my shoulders brushed against the walls. Luckily there was a small window a little ways up that let a little bit of light in. The glass was clouded with dirt and dust.

At the top was another door." Same key," Cat said. I unlocked it and the door swung inward.

"Welcome," Cat said grandly, "to the Raven Rookery. Well, at least it used to be, long ago."

I had never been in this room before. It was very small. It had plain wooden walls lined with empty shelves. The only light came from a narrow rectangular window high up near the ceiling. There was a long pole attached that let you open and close the window.

In the middle of the room, there was a low round table (so low you'd have to sit on the floor to use it). In fact there was an old pillow on the floor as if someone had used it as a seat.

"The ravens roosted here in the winter, when it was especially cold." Cat wandered around, rubbing his face and body against the legs of the little table, against an old candle lantern, against a trunk sitting by the wall.

"Man, it's good to be back," he said, but I wasn't paying much attention.

I looked at the heavy wooden trunk with magical symbols, like pentacles and mystical eyes and other squiggly signs carved on it.

The grimoire must be hidden inside!

Cat watched as I hurriedly flipped the clunky metal latches and pulled up the heavy lid. There was something inside! And it was a book!

I carefully lifted out the old-looking, hard-bound journal. It's dark brown cover was printed with fleur-de-lis designs and there was a sturdy cord wrapped around the book to keep it shut. Woah.

It felt wrong somehow to find the grimoire without Hazel. But I unwrapped the cord and opened it.

Then I turned the page.

And another.

And another.

They were all blank.

"No!" I cried. "I don't understand!"

Cat moseyed up and looked over my shoulder. 

I flipped back to the front and a folded piece of paper fell out. I opened it.

"Read it out loud," Cat said. "I can't read."

To Whom It May Concern:

First of all, I hope you are a young witch. If not, kindly stop reading this note.

Okay, good. You're still reading, so you must be a new witch.

If you were looking for my grimoire, I'm sorry to tell you that a witch's grimoire is private and uniquely personal, and I've taken mine to my grave.

Don't be too disappointed, though. In your hands, you hold your own grimoire, a gift from me. Your job is to fill these pages with your own noticings, your own spells and the results of your own magical experiments. And remember the witch's code: Harm no one and do as you will. Make me proud.

Sincerely,

Ms. Esmerelda May

The signature was written in a bold flourish.

P.S. Turn to the back of the book. I've also left you the recipe for my great-aunt's devilishly delicious angel food cake. You're welcome.

P.P.S. Say hi to Edmund for me.

Cat cozied up next to me as I sat back and started to cry. Not because there was no grimoire filled with magical secrets, or because Elspeth would probably win the essay contest. Those things didn't matter. Not really.

"What's wrong?" Cat asked. "You just inherited Esmerelda May's legacy! I thought you'd be happy."

"I don't deserve this gift." I sniffled. "Hazel does. And she's not even here with me. I said mean things to her and she was just trying to help me..." Tears ran down my face and I didn't bother to wipe them away.

"Of course you deserve it, and if you don't right now, you'll grow into it," Cat said. "I wouldn't have led you here otherwise."

"You knew this was here?" I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. "How? Wait, who's Edmund?"

Cat gave one of his mysterious cat looks. "Me! I wasn't always a cat, you know." Then he jumped into the trunk. "Hey, there's something else in here."

He was right. I pulled out what seemed like a crumpled piece of dark fabric. It was a witch hat, like one you might see as part of a traditional Halloween costume. Exactly like the one Esmerelda May was wearing in that old Halloween photo.

"See," Cat said, sitting in the trunk, "isn't all this better than normal?"