by Ivy Asher
“I’m not going to leave you alone in a place like this,” he tells me as though that should be obvious.
“Did you ever think that maybe your hulking ass might be what gets me into trouble in a place like this?” I ask, gesturing to the front door. “I doubt anyone in there would care about some woman stopping in for a drink, but you...well, you just look like someone who wouldn’t mind creating a good ruckus or two.”
Rogan rolls his eyes. “I’m sure any old woman would have a hard time from at least one person in a place like this, but someone like you...here...that’s what’s going to cause a ruckus.”
“What does that mean?” I demand. “I know I’m new to all of this, and aside from you, this will be my first summoning, but despite what you think, I can do this. I can also take care of myself, thank you very much,” I huff as I round the front of the car.
Rogan reaches out for my arm, using my momentum against me and swinging me around until I’m facing him instead of stomping toward the door. I didn’t even see him move from where he was standing next to the driver’s side of the car.
“I’ve seen how you can take care of yourself, and as impressive as your right hook is, I still won in the end,” he points out, and indignation fires through me. “I never said you couldn’t do this—I don’t even think that—I was saying that a beautiful woman walking into a hole like this is bound to create issues.”
“Are you seriously using the fact that you attacked me against me?” I question, completely floored and willfully ignoring the beautiful comment. Mooning over that is just going to get me nowhere. “First of all, I had no idea you were going to do what you did, and second of all, if you didn’t have magic, I would have taken you.”
“Oh please, do you really think anyone is going to give you fair warning before they come for you?” he exclaims, his tone astonished and dripping with judgment. “And if I recall correctly, you attacked me first. I didn’t get physical until you did, and even then, I was just trying to keep you from hurting yourself.”
“You are fucking delusional. You made me your familiar less than two minutes after meeting you. Maybe I threw the first punch, but you most definitely attacked first. And if I didn’t have someone in there that needed me, I’d show you just how helpless I’m not. So just stay the hell out of my way, or so help me, I will test all the different ways I can break your bones without killing you.”
I pull my arm free from his hold and march toward the bar’s entrance. Rogan doesn’t say anything, and I hope that he’ll just stay in the car with Hoot and let me do what I need to do. I’m nervous enough as it is, but now I’m pissed and shaking with adrenaline from the argument I just had. It’s not exactly the state of mind one should be in when someone needs help.
I practically stomp into the bar. It’s dimly lit, with a pair of pool tables off to the right and neon signs hung up on the walls that announce what brands of beer are sold here. I rein in my irritation over what just happened outside and head for the bar, taking in the dark booths to my left and the high-top tables and stools scattered about.
There aren’t a lot of people in here, and surprisingly, I’m not the only woman in this place. There are three men, who I assume belong to the bikes parked outside, playing pool with a woman who most definitely is a bottle redhead and looks as though she takes fashion tips from Peggy Bundy. Two older gentlemen sit at the bar, and there’s a man draped in darkness, sitting in the booth farthest from everything else.
The pouch of bones blaze against my hip, and the anxious clenched-feeling in my chest immediately subsides as I lay eyes on the man in the booth. I’m tempted to immediately walk over now that I know he’s the one I’ve been summoned to assist, but I stay on my route to the bar. Nerves scramble inside of me like ants over an abandoned picnic lunch. All at once, I feel like I’m in sixth grade again, standing on a high riser, blinded by a spotlight, and completely forgetting the words to the song I spent months practicing for the choir performance. My mouth grows dry, and I realize I have no idea how to do this.
Do I just walk right up and say you called? Does he even know that he summoned me, or is it more like I’ve been guided here by the universe? I try to think back to what Grammy Ruby used to say about this, but I’m drawing a super helpful blank. Are the people of Sweet Lips, Tennessee, going to burn me at the stake if I walk up to a complete stranger and ask if I can read his bones?
I cringe at the thought. Even if they don’t string me up, I sound like a freakin’ serial killer with a line like that, or a really bad prostitute. I go over the options in my head for how to approach the lone figure in the booth, without looking like I want to take him home or cut him up into little pieces, but everything I think of makes it seem like I’m going to try and sell him something. He doesn’t look like the type who needs lipstick that never wipes off or a pretty new set of earrings, so I abandon that line of thought and start stressing about how to even help him if he lets me. Will it be as simple as a reading? Will there be more to it than that?
“What can I get you to drink, miss?” an older woman with a kind face asks me.
“Oh. Uh...do you have Michelob?” I ask, embarrassingly frazzled.
“I do, hon. That’ll be four dollars.”
Shit.
I tap my pockets like I’m going to somehow magic money there, but I didn’t even think to grab my wallet, and my phone with my emergency credit card isn’t tucked anywhere on me.
“I got it,” a deep and annoyingly familiar voice announces, his strong arm rubbing against mine seconds later as he presses next to me at the bar.
I release an exasperated breath as I look up into moss-green eyes, and I shake my head in frustration. “Where’s Hoot?”
“Asleep in the car. I cracked the windows,” he states evenly, ordering something for himself and handing over a twenty. “Keep the change,” he tells the obliging bartender, but instead of it making her more endeared to him, a suspicious gleam enters her hazel eyes. I decide I like her right there and then.
She hands me my bottle of beer, and I pull a small sip from it, enjoying the cool liquid and the light taste in my mouth before I swallow it down. “Well, I hope someone breaks your windows because they think you left a dog in the car to die,” I tell him with a tilt of my bottle in a faux cheers, and then I leave him at the bar and approach the man in the booth.
Here goes nothing.
11
I take a deep fortifying breath, and then without working myself up any more than I already have, I slide into the booth on the other side of the man. He looks up at me, confused, and quickly shoves something in his pocket.
“Nice night for a drink,” I tell him, taking a sip of my beer and internally wanting to flick myself in the eye.
Really, Lennox? That was the best you could do?
“It is,” he agrees awkwardly, looking around for a moment before his gunmetal-blue eyes land back on me.
“How’s your night going?” I ask at a loss for how else to approach this. Maybe he’ll just come right out with whatever is going on with him.
“Listen, as flattered as I probably should be that someone that looks like you is talking to someone who looks like me, I saw that big guy come in after you,” he tells me, gesturing to Rogan at the bar with his sweaty glass of half-drunk beer. “I’ve been married long enough to recognize a woman who’s cheesed off at her man, and I’m not interested in getting in the middle of whatever the two of you have going on,” he finishes, taking a quick drink from his mug before setting it down and slowly spinning it, once again appearing to be lost in thought.
“Who? That guy?” I ask, feigning bewilderment as I turn to look at the bar. It doesn’t help that Rogan is watching us like a cat watches birds that are playing on the other side of the window it’s perched in. “He’s just my stalker, you don’t have to worry about him,” I explain dismissively. “And he’s not why I’m here,” I add.
The man studies me for a moment, and I take in the d
ark circles under his eyes, the limp plaid shirt that’s hanging from him like he’s lost a bit of weight recently. His golden-brown hair is dull, and he keeps spinning the mug in his hands like if he stops the world just might crumble all around him.
I find myself unknowingly reaching out to him with my magic. He’s definitely a Lesser, and his bones don’t reveal to me any kind of illness or cause of the deterioration I sense, but there’s a deep-rooted exhaustion there that makes me want to sing him a lullaby and stand guard over him while he sleeps for a month.
“Then why are you here…”
“Lennox, my name is Lennox, but you can call me Leni,” I supply, and he nods once. “I’m here to help you,” I tell him simply, and a flash of shock moves through his features before moroseness regains its hold on him, and his face sags with gloom.
“And how do you think you can help me?” he presses, the skepticism bleeding out of his words.
“I’m not sure yet, I just met you…”
“Paul,” he provides, and I offer him a kind smile in exchange for his name.
Paul leans back against the cracked pleather of the booth seat, and I can feel that he’s sizing me up, trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing here and what he wants to do about it. “Why would you want to help me?” he questions, and there’s such raw vulnerability in the question that it makes my heart ache for him. I don’t know who he is or what he needs from me, but I can feel that he thinks he’s unworthy, I can feel in that moment how painfully broken he thinks he is. It breaks my heart.
“This will probably sound weird, but I felt pulled here. I felt with everything in me that you needed something or maybe someone, and I just couldn’t walk away from that feeling. So here I am, a complete stranger, sitting in your booth, here to help you with whatever is going on.”
Emotion wells up in Paul’s eyes, but he doesn’t let it escape. I watch quietly as he wrestles with what he’s feeling, and I wonder what has this man feeling so shattered. He looks maybe a handful of years older than me, and although I don’t get the impression that life has been easy, I don’t sense that it’s been overly hard either.
“My Phoebe was like that,” he tells me, his voice cracking on the name. “I’ve never seen a kinder, more compassionate person in all my life, and there are some good people in these parts. She would bend over backward for anyone. It used to drive me nuts, but now…”
It hits me then why Paul is feeling so crushed. He’s lost someone.
“But now...you miss it,” I provide, filling in the blanks from where he trailed off. He nods solemnly, staring at the mug he keeps twisting in his hands as though it’s a lifeline.
“Came home once, and our couch was missing. I thought maybe we’d been robbed, but Phoebe informed me that an elderly woman moved in down the way and she didn’t have a lick of furniture. So what did she do? She gave her some of ours. Then she went around to our neighbors to see what they could part with.
“I’d just gotten home from a ten-hour day. I was ready to shower, put my feet up, and eat some dinner, but just as quick as I walked in, she told me that we needed to trek across town to pick up a mattress for Ms. Briscoe,” he tells me with a hollow chuckle and a shake of his head. “I was so mad at her, but she wouldn’t hear it. Someone was in need, and that just never happened on Phoebe’s watch.”
“She sounds like the best of souls,” I offer.
“She was,” he agrees, and the battle with his emotions starts anew.
I give him time to grieve, silently lending my support in whatever way I can. I don’t say anything, not wanting to minimize his suffering with useless phrases like I’m sorry or It’ll be okay. I know how I felt when my dad died, and there wasn’t a single thing that anyone could do or say that made it hurt any less.
A flash of me sitting in a bathtub, staring dead-eyed at the wall, pops up in my head. Working with Rogan to undo the jinx on Tad unloosened the memory, and now it wants attention that I don’t have the time for. I push the image and thoughts of my father away and focus on the man hurting in front of me as he tries to compose himself.
The velvet pouch of bones warms at my side, and I reach down and untie them from my belt loop. “Paul, can I do a reading for you?” I ask soothingly, tamping down on the nerves that surface as I pull the bag of bones into my lap.
“Like you want to read me a scripture?” he asks, confused and a little testily, and I quickly shake my head.
“No, um...so…it’s more...” I stammer, uncertain how he might take what I’m going to say.
A lot of people think things like this are bad. They get it in their head that it’s voodoo or the work of the devil. Grammy Ruby had way too many stories of people flinging their vitriol at her and what she did. Unfortunately, there’s just no telling where Paul will fall in the spectrum of fine with it or offended. I know if I offer help and he refuses it, my job here is done, but I’m surprised to feel just how vehemently I’m hoping he’ll accept it.
“It may seem a little odd or even unconventional, but I’d like to read my bones for you,” I tell him straight up. I’ve spent a long time resenting magic, of keeping as far away from this world as I could. But it’s time I stop avoiding it or thinking of it as a bad thing myself. It’s time to own it. Good or bad, I’m a Bone Witch.
I place the purple velvet pouch on the table, and Paul stares at it for a moment before his eyes fill with mistrust. My heart drops a little.
“There’s no charge. I don’t want anything from you,” I hurry to explain. “I know this may seem even stranger than a stranger sitting down across from you, but what do you have to lose? I can see that you’re hurting, what if in some small way this can help?” I ask him, gesturing to the waiting bones on the table, my eyes pleading with him to trust me.
His pain-filled blue gaze moves from the purple bag up to me, and after a moment of scrutiny, he sighs and gives me a shrug. “Fine, do whatever.”
Elation slams through me, helping to drown out my worry. I have no idea what this reading will tell him, but I know he needs it. I loosen the strings, opening the pouch. “I’ll need three things from you, Paul, things that mean something to you. I’ll give them back just as soon as I’m done, but it helps me interpret what the bones need you to know.”
He hesitates for a moment, his eyes wandering around the room like he’s wondering who’s watching or what they might think of this whole exchange. I almost think he’s about to change his mind and tell me to get lost, but just as I’m about to try and plead my case again, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a worn-looking penny. Then he pulls a chain from around his neck until a dainty set of rings appears. Carefully he unclasps the chain and pulls the soldered set of rings from it.
I feel tears well up in my eyes at the sight of what I know is his wife’s jewelry, the symbol of her commitment to the man in front of me. I work to blink them away. If Paul can keep it together, then I will too. He gives me the penny and Phoebe’s rings. And then he looks at his hand for a moment before pulling off his own wedding ring and handing it to me.
Despair pours out of his eyes, and I close my hand around his precious totems, my toffee-colored gaze never leaving his. Silently I try to convey how grateful I am that he’s trusting me with these items, with this whole situation in general. Goosebumps crawl up my arms, and I promise Paul with my gaze that whatever happens, I’m here for him. Paul’s breaths come a little quicker, and I can see that he’s losing the battle with his grief. I give him a reassuring nod, and then I get to work.
I place the rings and the penny in the bag and cinch it shut. I close my eyes and shake the bag, imbuing it with my plea to help Paul with whatever it is that he needs right now. I shake until a sense of peace comes over me, and that’s when I know the bones are ready.
I’ve watched Grammy Ruby do this for me and others probably hundreds of times, but just before I open the bag and pour the bone pieces on the table, I’m hit with an overwhelming feeling of purpose and wo
rthiness, and for a moment, it steals my breath away. This is right. This is what I was made for. Grief and appreciation bloom in my chest, but this is not about me right now. This is for Paul, and it’s time to guide his way.
I open the bag and upend the contents. Bone pieces and Paul’s items pour out onto the table in front of me. I give them a moment to settle and for Paul’s gaze to move from the bones back to me, and then I start.
It takes me a second to get my bearings. I’m not sure what to expect, but just like with the other times I’ve needed to use magic, it just seems to come to me. The bones have arranged themselves into little groupings, and I take in the symbols that are showing and where they’re located in relation to Paul’s objects.
Around his wedding ring is every bone that signals death, loss, and emptiness. But the ring itself is sitting on bone that has a rising sun carved into it. I take in the positioning of the grouping and give a little gasp, my eyes shooting up to Paul’s.
“You’re going to kill yourself,” I announce quietly, and his eyes don’t even widen with surprise as his head dips into a nod confirming, with no emotion, what I just accused him of. I want to argue with him about why he shouldn’t do it, but I feel the bones warm slightly, and I dutifully turn my attention back down to them.
I trace the death runes and move the circle of symbols surrounding them. “You’re going to take poison or maybe pills,” I tell him. “They won’t work right away like you’re hoping they will though. You’ll be in the hospital for weeks before your family pulls you off life support.”
I look up at him as I say this and don’t miss that his hand drops to his pocket. He looks troubled by this information, but it’s as though I can see him forming another plan instead of being deterred from killing himself all together. I drop my eyes to the bones again. I trace the symbols, and the bones show me flashes of images as I go, helping me to piece the information together.
