Playing With Fire

by Adrienne Woods et al.

  I shake my head. I can’t believe what he’s telling me. Our Benandanti leader is the father a woman destined to become a witch. “What about Maggie’s mother?”

  He heaves a long, slow sigh. “When we fell in love in college, I had no idea about her family. She never talked about her background. She never introduced me to her parents. We were still in school when she got pregnant. She died shortly after she gave birth to Maggie. Maggie was raised by her grandmother.”

  When his eyes moisten, he blinks back tears. The guy obviously had strong feelings for Maggie’s mother. He’s still a little emotional about her death.

  “Rita didn’t want me involved in Maggie’s life. As difficult as it was, I obeyed to her wishes. Maggie’s mother and I were never supposed to be together. I would have complicated Maggie’s life.”

  Benandanti witch hunters aren’t supposed to have personal relationships with witches. And intimate relationships are strictly prohibited. We can’t do our jobs policing the supernatural world if our objectivity is compromised.

  That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel for the guy. I can’t imagine knowing that I had a daughter and not being able to have any kind of relationship with her.

  At least now I understand why he feels so protective of her.

  Any feelings I may have for Maggie need to remain buried. Deeply. And they need to stay there. I’m already on shaky ground with the Benandanti. The last thing I need is to break one of their cardinal rules.

  Chapter 7

  MAGGIE

  I wince in pain as my grandmother and Tia guide me up the walkway towards my grandmother’s house. Still bruised and banged up from the crash, I’m moving at a snail’s pace.

  Opal stands on her porch gawking at us as we pass by. Does the woman have anything better to do with her time?

  “Ouch,” I complain as they help me up the stairs and onto the porch.

  “We’re almost there. You can do it.” My grandmother sounds like a cheerleader, which is so unlike her.

  She must be worried about me.

  She never locks her front door. She says she’s never felt the need to. She believes in karma. She says if someone breaks in and steals something, their actions will come back to them tenfold.

  When I was in graduate school studying to be a counselor, I did an internship with a service center for juvenile delinquents. One of the teens I counseled told me that he was extremely upset that someone stole all his CDs and the CD player out of his car. He couldn’t believe someone would do something so terrible to him. Then it came up in the conversation that he had stolen his CD collection from someone else. Not only did he lose the CDs he stole when someone else took them, he also lost his CD player.

  That’s karma in action.

  My grandmother’s house is nearly as chaotic as her Curiosity Shop. Every nook and cranny is filled with knickknacks and souvenirs from her travels around the world.

  My grandmother and Tia lead me towards the guest bedroom. When I was a teenager, I couldn’t wait to leave my grandmother’s house and go to college. Now there’s something very comforting about being back here. I feel like an injured bird taking refuge in its parents’ nest.

  They help me into a canopy bed that makes me feel like a princess. Although the brothers Grimm would have relegated me to life as an evil witch in their stories.

  “How’s that?” my grandmother asks.

  “Fine.” I give her a forced smile that I’m sure she can see right through. But it’s the best I can muster right now.

  “Tia and I will give you some time to rest. I’m sure the trip back home took a lot out of you.”

  Home. My grandmother’s house was my home for the first eighteen years of my life. Then when I met Nick and got married, he and I made a home together.

  I’m not sure where I belong anymore.

  As soon as my grandmother and Tia exit, my eyes start to flutter shut.

  As I start to doze off, I have a vision. I’m watching in a dreamlike state as the black sedan with the broken headlight drives by. It’s the men who forced me off the road. I struggle to make out any details I can. Despite my best efforts, I can’t quite see their faces.

  I’m startled awake by a dream that I’m falling. I’ve heard people say that if you fall to the ground in a dream that you’ll die. That’s why people often wake themselves up when they dream that they’re falling. I’ve never hit the ground in a dream, and I don’t think I want to test the hypothesis.

  I wipe the sweat from my brow as I rise from the bed. I open the drawer of the nightstand and remove the book of Spells and Incantations.

  I plop myself back down and sit crossed-legged as I flip through the pages.

  I need to figure out if there’s a way for me to see more clearly the men who tried to run me off the road. If they really do want me dead, I want to stop them before they try to kill me again. Next time I might not get so lucky.

  The sound of loud laughter catches my attention. It’s coming from outside my bedroom window.

  I slide off the bed and head to the window to check it out.

  I can see right inside Opal Opre’s kitchen window from the guest bedroom window. Normally I would feel awkward peeking into someone’s private life, but Opal is always gawking at me, so I consider this karma.

  Opal is standing in front of her stove. On one burner sits a small black cauldron that’s bubbling like a witch’s brew.

  I watch as she removes what looks like a wedding photo from a lovely white frame. Then she grabs a knife from the counter and slices the photo in half. She stares at the picture of her ex-husband for several moments.

  Because my grandmother’s house and Opal’s home are built so close together, I can hear her when she starts to chant.

  “If I can’t have you, no one will. If I can’t have you, no one will.”

  She removes a match from the counter, lights it, and sets her ex’s photo on fire.

  As the photo burns over the cauldron, she continues to chant, “May you feel the pain you caused me, and may you feel it tenfold.”

  When she finishes chanting, she tosses the charred remains of the photo into the brewing cauldron.

  I wince when I get a shooting pain in my temple. Then I receive a vision, like I’m watching an old movie being projected on a screen.

  I recognize Duane Opre, Opal’s ex-husband. He’s cuddling on an overstuffed leather couch with a young woman who looks like she’s in her 20s, while a romantic fire burns in the fireplace in front of them.

  Then suddenly the fire goes out. As if it has been switched off like a light.

  “I want my fire back,” the young woman whines.

  Duane nuzzles and kisses her neck. “We don’t need the fire, Jess. You’re hot enough for me.”

  Jess heaves a long, slow sigh then pouts like a five-year-old who just got told she can’t have dessert. “I want the fire.”

  Duane rolls his eyes as he rises from the couch. “Fine. I’ll get the fire going again. Whatever it takes to make you happy.” He removes a poker from the stand next to the fireplace and jabs at the burnt logs. But nothing happens.

  So, he grabs a box of matches from the mantel. Lights one. Tosses it into the fireplace.

  Just as the logs start to blaze, Duane loses his balance, trips and falls right into the flames. He lets out an ear-piercing scream as his flesh burns.

  Jess is so disturbed by what she is witnessing, she passes out.

  Then the vision goes black as if the movie playing in my mind has ended.

  That was horrifying. To me, anyway. Opal looks happier than a pig in mud. She’s dancing around her kitchen, grinning for ear to ear, and humming to herself.

  Did Opal place a spell on her husband that caused him to burn? Is that what havoc she wreaked? It looks like she is practicing the dark arts that my grandmother warned me against.

  Several flashes of darkness streak past my window. Just as I move closer to get a better look, several more flashes of darkn
ess streak by.

  I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that something bad is about to happen.

  I can see what is going on in Opal’s living room behind her, but she can’t because she’s facing the opposite direction.

  I wave my hands to try to get her attention, but she’s too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice I’m watching her.

  A group of men, all dressed in black, have entered Opal’s house and have gathered behind her. Each of them is carrying a heavy-looking wooden stick, longer and thicker than a baseball bat.

  Panic surges through my body when I realize what they are there to do.

  “Opal,” I scream through the window. “Opal!” But I’m still not able to get her attention.

  I dash out of the guestroom and hurry down the hallway to my grandmother’s room.

  I pound on her bedroom door until it finally cracks open. “What is it, Maggie? What’s wrong?”

  I’m so upset I can barely get the words out. “Opal. Next door. She’s in trouble. We have to do something.”

  My grandmother seems unnaturally calm as she shakes her head.

  “You don’t understand,” I screech. “There are men in her house. With huge sticks. They are going to her hurt.”

  “I know,” my grandmother states matter-of-factly.

  “We have to phone the police.”

  “They are the police.”

  I frown as her words sink in. They are the police. What does she mean? “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s nothing we can do.”

  As my grandmother reaches for my arm, I pull away. “I have to do something.”

  Before she can stop me, I hurry down the hallway.

  I run as quickly as I can to the front door then I dash outside. I hurry over to Opal’s house and burst inside her front door.

  I immediately realize that I’m too late.

  The man in black are gone and Opal’s lifeless body is lying in a pool of blood on her living room floor.

  I’ve never seen anyone so badly beaten in my life.

  I dart out of the house and just make it outside before I vomit all over Opal’s perfectly manicured front lawn.

  My head is spinning as I stumble back into the grandmother’s house. My limbs tremble as I slide onto my grandmother’s well-worn couch.

  My grandmother hurries into the living room with a tray of tea and cookies. “This will make you feel better.”

  She pours a cup of hot tea and hands it to me.

  “Why didn’t you do anything to help Opal?”

  My grandmother takes a seat next to me on the couch. “There was nothing I could do to help her. All actions have consequences. I told you that. Opal was practicing dark magic. She had to reap what she had sown. The greater one’s power, the greater one’s responsibility to use that power for the greater good. Opal didn’t use her power to serve humanity. She only served herself.”

  My hands are still shaking as I lift the cup and take a small sip of tea. The warmth of the liquid and the smell of chamomile are soothing. But I can’t get the image of Opal’s crumpled body out of my mind. “It was so awful. What those men did to her.”

  “Opal did things that were just as awful. She had to pay the price for her actions.”

  I take another sip of the tea. “You said something about those men who beat her. You said they were the police. What did you mean?”

  “The Benandanti are witch hunters. Just as folk magic has been in our family for generations, witch hunting has been in their families for generations. They are like law enforcement for people who practice magic. If we step out of line, if we practice dark magic and harm other people, they make sure we’re punished for it. Many of the Benandanti work in actual law enforcement by day. They’re police officers, FBI agents, DEA or ATF agents. And at night they enforce supernatural laws as witch hunters.”

  I try to make sense of what my grandmother is telling me. It sounds so fantastic.

  “There’s another world, Maggie, that most people don’t know about. A supernatural world that coexists with our natural one. You’re a part of that other world now.”

  I rise from the couch. “I think I need to go upstairs and lie down for a while. A really long while.”

  Before I exit, there’s a knock on the front door. My grandmother answers it.

  Standing at the threshold is Detective Carson Conner. Behind him in the distance, crime scene workers head into Opal’s house with cameras and evidence bags.

  “What can I do for you, Officer?” My grandmother eyes him.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Carson removes a notepad and pencil from his pocket.

  “How well did you know your neighbor, Ms. Opal Opre?”

  “Not very well.”

  “You lived next door to each other for twenty years.”

  My grandmother gives him a cold stare. “Why don’t you get to the point? The real reason you’re standing on my doorstep.”

  Carson closes his notebook. Then places it in his jacket pocket. “And what do you think is my real reason for being here?”

  “You’re sending a message to the residents of Raven Circle. If we break the rules, if we use our powers to do harm to others, we’ll end up like Ms. Opre.”

  “What about your granddaughter?”

  My grandmother crosses her arms in a defensive gesture. “What about her?”

  “Has she come into her power yet?”

  I gulp. How does Carson know that I’m next in line to inherit my grandmother’s witchcraft?

  “I think you already know the answer to that question, don’t you? You don’t need to worry about Maggie. She watched Ms. Opre die. That was enough of a warning.”

  Carson looks like he wants to say more, but he heaves a sigh instead. “Have a good night, Rita. Tell Maggie I said hello.”

  “Have a good night, Detective.” She slams the door on him.

  When my grandmother turns around, her eyes widen when she sees me standing there. “I guess you heard the conversation.”

  I nod. “He seems nice.”

  “Don’t let his charming exterior fool you. He’s a witch hunter. If the Benandanti decide that you’ve broken the rules, you’ll be as dead as Opal Opre.”

  I toss and turn as I attempt to fall asleep. My mind races with thoughts of the Benandanti and what they did to Opal. Granted, putting a spell on her ex and burning him alive was horrible, but clubbing her to death was equally vicious.

  As I start to doze off, I have a vision.

  I’m in the living room of my house. I’m lying on the floor. The two men from the black sedan are standing over me. One of them holds me down while the other one punches and kicks me.

  The images are so vivid, and feel so real, it snaps me awake.

  My entire body is shaking, and I can barely catch my breath. I remind myself that I’m safe in my grandmother’s guest room. There’s no one here but me. I pull the covers up to my chin in a feeble attempt to protect myself.

  It takes every ounce of energy I have in order to drag myself into the kitchen the next morning. I feel like I have gone ten rounds with a championship boxer.

  My grandmother is seated at the counter eating toast and reading the newspaper when I enter. “Are you hungry? I can fix you a plate.”

  “Just coffee.”

  My grandmother pours me a cup as I plop down on the stool next to hers.

  I take a generous swig of the brew before I turn to my grandmother. “I need to find the men who pushed my car off the road. They’re going to try to kill me again. This time they’ll make sure they finish the job. I need to be ready.”

  “How do you know they’re going to come after you again?”

  “I had a vision. It felt so real.”

  “Your channel to the spirit world is opening up.”

  I down the remainder of my coffee. “I need to do this.”

  “Just be
careful. You haven’t settled into your power yet. For a while the magic is going to be volatile and unpredictable.”

  Chapter 8

  BEN

  Burt is staring at me when I wake up. He’s giving me a look that says, “Get your ass out of bed. I’m hungry.”

  I didn’t realize that Maggie’s grandmother lived right next to Opal Opre. And I didn’t think Maggie would be watching us when we punished Opal for practicing the dark arts and causing harm to others.

  My stomach is still in knots from what we did to Opal. I realize that it’s the job of a witch hunter to ensure that karmic justice is served, but that doesn’t mean that I ever get used to doing it.

  If I had known at twenty exactly what I’d have to do as a witch hunter, I might have thought twice about taking the vows of the Benandanti. But at the time, I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice. Every male in my family going back for generations has served humanity as a witch hunter. What would it have said about me if I didn’t take the same vow that my ancestors did?

  But I can’t get the look on Maggie’s face out of my mind. It wasn’t just disgust, which is bad enough. She was terrified of me and the other witch hunters.

  I’m supposed to be the good guy. I’m supposed to protect and serve. I’m not supposed to horrify and repulse people.

  As I roll out of bed, I stare at myself in the mirror over my dresser. There’s a dark spot over left eyebrow that I must have missed when I washed my face last night.

  As I wipe it off, I’m horrified when I realize it’s Opal Opre’s dried blood.

  “There’s an FBI Agent waiting for you in the conference room,” Alex tells me as I approach my desk.

  “Did he say what he wanted?” I hand him a small box of donut holes.

  “He wasn’t volunteering any information and I didn’t ask.” Alex tears open the box and pops one of the tasty treats into his mouth. “Thanks for the food,” he mumbles, his mouth full of donut.

  “Just don’t tell your wife you got the snacks from me.”