Thursday's evening meal in the school dining hall was pretty interesting to say the least. It was quite busy for a start, normally there weren't as many students or teachers in as most would go out in to Hitchin or further afield to eat instead. But it looked like the kitchen staff were on top of everything, still churning out some fantastic food. Tonight's offerings were minestrone soup or French onion soup for starters, a choice of vegetable curry, chicken curry or a creamy wild mushroom fettuccine pasta dish for main then followed by Eaton Mess, Creme Brulee or some weird looking vegan cake thing.

I was sat down at the usual table with my Aunt, Katie and Victoria, having a discussion about what we were up to that weekend. Normally I would've expected both Katie and Victoria to be going home for the weekend, but apparently they were staying at the school as both their parents had already made plans to go away or something.

'We gonna have a girly weekend then?' Victoria asked as she stabbed her fork in to her chicken curry.

'I'm up for it.' Katie said. They then looked at me and my Aunt. 'Of course you're invited Auntie M. You in Maddie?'

'Um,' I started. 'Yeah I think so.' Ugh I made the biggest mistake by saying that. Victoria was now practically sat on me, glaring me right in the face.

'Spill' She mumbled at me. I sighed wishing I had just said "Yeah I'm totally up for it!" Katie was now staring at me and even my Aunt was giving me a peculiar looking side eye glance. I kept my mouth shut for as long as I could before the glaring started to get to me.

'Alright alright!' I exclaimed. 'I might be going on a sort of date thing with Duncan on Saturday. Maybe.'

'Aw dude that's great news!' Victoria squealed.

'Maddie you gotta get us a photo of this guy.' Katie nudged me.

'About bloody time.' My Aunt mumbled in to her glass of water with a grin. I was now wishing that sometimes, just sometimes I could string a sentence together without looking like I was up to something. Perhaps I should work on that and then maybe I wouldn't be faced with the Spanish Inquisition.

All in all we had quite a nice dinner that evening in between all the questions I kept getting. Mr Evans and Liam I had noticed weren't in the dining hall so I assumed they were possibly at their own coven meeting tonight. The male coven for some reason did have a tendency to start earlier than ours. I did wonder if maybe the male coven would be joining us tonight but, seeing as we were getting a visit from our vampire friends; I shoved that idea out of my head pretty quick figuring none of them would get on.

My Aunt and I bid farewell to Katie and Victoria saying we were going out somewhere for a bit, I can't remember what Auntie M said; to the cinema or something like that. We donned our creepy black cloaks, retrieved our cats and walked to our site in the woods, choosing not to teleport there as it was a fairly nice, mild night. I glanced up to Auntie M who's new feline companion was perched atop her shoulders.

'Maddie let me introduce you to Duke. Duke this is my niece Madelyn and her familiar Domino.'

I was weirded out slightly by the fact that my Aunt was talking to a cat as if he was human and could totally understand what she was saying. But the weirdest thing of all was when Duke nodded his head at me. I lifted my hand slowly to his face. Duke casually smelled my hand then licked one of my fingers in acknowledgement.

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'Um, hi Duke. Nice to meet you.' Wow I sounded really unsure there. 'Auntie M, err I did see you talking with Duke last night at school. Can he... actually understand you?' My Aunt just smiled at me. I watched as Duke, still riding on my Aunts shoulders slow blinked at Domino who was in his usual spot, catching a lift in the hood of my cloak.

'It'll come to you eventually, but we have an interesting bond with our familiars. Maybe when Domino grows up a bit and you become more in tune with that area of your powers, then you'll come to understand each other better.'

'And do cats just gravitate toward us by any chance?' I asked, it sounded like a dumb question in my head but since everything started I've been throwing caution to the wind a lot more. My life had been turned upside down and at this point I kept telling myself that there were no stupid questions, not even stupid answers; just some extra absurdity.

'They do actually, well most animals do to be honest. But you'll see what I mean. Anyway, everyone's bringing their familiars tonight so they can all hang out and play together for a bit.'

'Aw that's quite nice actually.' I smiled imagining a bunch of cats together having a nice time.

'Well it's only fair, we gather all the time it's only the right thing to do to let our familiars meet up once in a while so they can talk and have fun.'

'You mean, they chat as well?'

'Of course they do Maddie.'

Occasionally people do have this notion that groups of animals do "chat" with each other, similar maybe to how humans do. I know for sure I've had that thought once or twice "Oh I wonder what they're thinking or talking about?" I guess in a little while I'd actually see this with my own eyes.

Trudging through the woods on the way to our meeting ground was becoming easier with each trip out. In fact it almost felt like the branches and leaves were almost moving themselves out of the way for us. Either way, we still made our way through carefully so as not to disturb too much or make a mess. Funny, considering we always had a massive bonfire right in the middle of a large clearing where we gathered, but it was always well looked after so it wouldn't get out of control. We could see that our usual settees and tables had already been magicked in to place and the other coven members were busy chatting with each other and arranging cake, biscuits and hot beverages on the tables. Seeing this every time we came to our meetings just made me smile; it felt homely and comforting even though this situation was more like a spooky coffee evening in my head.

'Auntie M! Maddie!'

My cousins Molly and Macy had spotted us as we reached the clearing and dashed over. Molly had informed me on the night of my initiation on Samhain that not everyone in our coven had familiars but some did. Of course they were all cats. Molly had her familiar, a tortoiseshell cat by the name of Jinx with her. She was only a young cat, around three years old but whilst she was Molly's familiar; Jinx sometimes "helped out" Macy from time to time. It made sense really what with Molly and Macy being twins. The sisters Gabrielle and Brianna had familiars, cats named Jones and Blossom respectively. Deidre's familiar was called Jack and there were two other members who had I never met before but had been unable to attend previous coven meetings until now due to family matters by the names of Joyce and her younger cousin Hazel; their cats named Izzy and Boo, Boo looking to be only a kitten around the same age as Domino.

We all gathered together around the bonfire, our familiars by our sides.

'Welcome everyone and hello to all our familiars.' My Aunt announced to the group. As if on cue, all of the cats looked up at her. 'So, you guys can all go play over there for a little bit while we chat. But don't go too far okay?' Auntie M spoke to the familiars. They responded by going over to a clear area where she pointed to. I watched Domino who seemed to be a little hesitant but Duke stood beside him for a moment before they padded off side by side as if Duke had told Domino that it was okay and he'd look after him. It was actually really cute. But the tendre moment of watching everyone's familiars go off to have some fun, the mood in our group soon turned serious.

'Now then friends,' Auntie M began solemnly. 'We need to discuss our little serial killer problem.'