by M K Mancos
Rallie nodded slowly as she chewed on a meatball. After a sip of red wine, she wagged her finger. “Right after Kells was born. Her mother brought her over for me to see—and in her own way, I guess, bless the child. My great-grandmother was here. Gemma was her name. She held Kells for a long time, whispering words no one else could hear. Kells, for being only a few weeks old, never took her attention from Gemma, as if absorbing every word.” Rallie smiled at the memory. “They were thick as thieves from that time until Gemma passed.”
A small shiver went down my spine. I could only wish my family had been that open about magic. Not my family in general, but my immediate family. My mother—the one who carried the Doran genes—had never once uttered a spell, curse, or entertained the idea any of it was possible. She found the practice of witchcraft undignified.
I respected her view. Didn’t agree with it, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Where she saw the need to suppress that side of her nature, I found it a way to help, and balance the universe. What was the use in being given these gifts if I didn’t use them for good?
And then it hit me.
I knew a way to narrow down the time frame Kells had been taken. It was so simple and had been staring me in the face the entire time.
Both Rallie and Colvin picked up on my excitement.
Colvin stalled with his fork halfway to his mouth. “What?”
“A time amulet. I used one to try and ground Maddie in this dimension. I can adjust the spell on one to try and hook Kells to come back.” I wiped my mouth on my napkin and stood. “I need a paper and pencil.”
Rallie stabbed her fork in the air in the direction of my unfinished meal. “You need to sit your ass down and eat. You won’t have the strength for such a spell unless you refuel.” She gazed at me with knowing eyes. “You already used too much trying to keep that car on the road tonight.”
She was right. I had used more than physical and mental strength, though how she read that, I didn’t quite understand. Talk about having powers. Hers were edgy and a bit off the rails. She’s what I would call an intuitive.
I blew out a breath and sat back down.
“Now, I don’t want you to shovel it in. Eat, taste, enjoy. There is great ritual in the act of eating. A time to focus and center, be a part of the moment. Rushing from one task to the next does nothing but wear you down.” She sat up straighter as if demonstrating the correct posture for proper food digestion. “You have to accept the fuel and take it in, be thankful for it. You won’t be able to help Kells if you don’t care for yourself first.”
I glanced at Colvin who lifted a shoulder as if to say she had a point. Damn it, I knew she did. Everything she said made sense.
I lifted my fork again and took a deep breath in, letting the scent of tomato, basil, oregano, and meat fill my head. My mouth started to water, my stomach rumbled again. Slowly, I stuck my fork into the noodles and began to twirl it under Rallie’s watchful gaze.
Something interesting happened as I began to pay attention to my meal and the experience of eating it. I fell into a state of pure joy. Rallie didn’t just make food for the body, but for the soul. It filled my stomach and replenished the energy I needed after that trip through the mountains.
I sipped my rather excellent wine and drank some water that tasted as if it came straight from a mountain stream. Even though I was under the gun on finding Kells before the shadow realms grabbed her, I couldn’t say when the last time was that I enjoyed or needed a meal more.
Fourteen
Kells
I didn’t sleep well the night before. My dreams were a jumble of the past, present, and future—though, in my case, the definitions were murky. My past was the future, but the present was the world’s past. I tried not to think too hard on it, or my brain might seize up like a motor that choked out.
Malachi Sayer featured prominently in the dreams, rushing through the windows made by time wells. He was always rain-drenched and frantic. Searching.
I went to the bathroom and washed my face, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair, pulling it back up into a ponytail. If there was one thing I hated, it was having my hair in my face while I tried to work. The shop would open soon, and I had duties to perform before the shutters came off.
Bea and Mathilda were already down there bustling about with their morning routine. The kitchen was warm and scented with the smells of baking bread, cinnamon, and bacon. My stomach growled, and I grabbed a cup of coffee from the percolator on the stove.
I poured a bit of cream into it and stirred.
“How did you sleep last night, my dear?” Bea hurried into the kitchen and opened the oven door to check the progress on her baked goods.
I paused with the cup halfway to my mouth. “Not well. And you?”
“It was a rough one.” She rubbed her temple. “I kept getting flashes of premonition. Nothing that came in clear enough to act on.”
“Did you recognize anyone, or the surroundings? If there’s a scrap of something, you can at least tell the person involved to be cautious.” I took a sip and nearly choked. The coffee tasted like roasted hell. I set the cup on the counter and turned to Bea.
“Only flashes and nothing that stayed in my mind long enough to hold onto. It’s most disconcerting.” She scratched her head then looked to the stove and checked it again.
She had to be out of sorts if her confusion in the kitchen was any indication.
“What does Mathilda say about it?”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. “She’s not one to dwell on things. If she has a problem, she sits down and figures out how to fix it.”
“And what do you do?” I indicated the kitchen. “Bake?”
“It calms me. Usually. Today, everything is off. Like there’s a break in the fabric of magic somewhere.” She shook her head as if clearing water from her ear. “Now I’m rambling.”
I did the only thing I could think to help. I gave her a hug and a kissed her on the cheek. “We’ll figure it out. You’ve helped me, given me a place to live, and a job, I can’t stand here and let you suffer.” I gave her a final squeeze and pulled back. “But this break in the magical fabric, that sounds serious.”
“Hmm.” She gave a nod to go with the sound effect. “It’s hard to explain. Like the heartbeat of the world skipped a beat or two.”
It sounded to me as if time had either tried to reset itself or someone out there knew how to finesse it to their own ends. Neither prospect appealed to me. As a matter of fact, it made me downright nervous. Time manipulation wasn’t the same as time wells. A well could be stepped through and used as a portal or means of time travel. Manipulation was just that—a nudge or bump along a certain timeline to alter the direction of history.
Arguments abounded that time wells could be used for the same purpose due to those who walked through doing something that created a shift. However, a manipulation was more an outside influence, where someone creating a paradox—like myself—was an internal influence.
Splitting hairs, yes, but it’s a very important distinction. The way Bea described the situation, someone had bumped time. Most practitioners were not even powerful enough to take on so big of a project. It took a lot of energy and raw power.
It took the kind of power that was able to raise multiple portals throughout the whole of New York City.
I finished my coffee and stole a cinnamon roll when they came out of the oven, then went to the front of the shop. I spent the majority of the morning filling the glass containers that held all manner of herbs like candy in jars.
The apothecary did a brisk business, and I kept busy filling orders from customers who already knew what they wanted, while Mathilda handled the consultations. It seemed everyone in the City had a problem that day and needed a little herbal remedy to take the edge off.
Right before time for the shop to close, the phone in the kitchen rang. I heard Bea answer, but didn’t pay attention to the conversation. They often got calls about a
ll manner of business and social matters. I’d have thought telephones weren’t popular in homes in this era, but apparently, I’d been wrong when it came to witches who owned their own business.
The dandelion root was running low, so I went to the storage room to get more. Why there was a run on that, I had no idea. Phase of the moon, stray energy in the air, rain in the distance. I’d never been all that good at remembering which herbs did what or to whom.
I returned to the main showroom and stopped. Bea and Mathilda were huddled in the corner, their faces heavy with concern.
“What’s wrong?” I set the dandelion root on the counter.
“Jane is missing.” Mathilda rubbed Bea’s shoulder in an absent, yet comforting manner. “She never arrived for work at the shirt factory this morning.”
“What could have happened to her?” I took off my apron and set it on the counter. “Do you know where she lives?”
Bea started shaking her head. “You aren’t thinking of going over there, are you?”
“Of course, I am. She’d do the same for one of us.” Not that I knew her that well in order to anticipate her reaction in the event one of us were missing, but it seemed a reasonable response.
“Gemma is on her way over there.” Bea failed to look convinced me going there was a good idea. “Be careful. If you step into another time well, no telling where you’ll end up. And I’ll be so worried.”
I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thank you. That means the world to me.”
Mathilda handed me a pentagram, sage, and a couple of candles. “Here, in case you need a quick safety perimeter.”
I stuck the items in my pockets and gave her a kiss too. Bea handed me the address she’d written on a slip of paper. 14 Periwinkle St. NW. I hadn’t heard of a Periwinkle in New York, but that wasn’t saying much since I wasn’t from the area. In a century, the name might have changed a few times.
It took me about fifteen minutes and several wrong turns to find the apartment Jane called home. More of a tenement than what my mind pictured a proper apartment for a young woman in the 1920s. Then again, what did I know? She had to live where she could afford.
A woman in a flowered apron and not so flowery scowl stood on the porch sweeping a stoop that looked clean enough to eat from. She turned that laser-beam scowl my way and narrowed her eyes until they were little slits.
“What are you lookin’ at?” she growled.
“It’s more about who I’m looking for. I came to see Jane Porter.”
“She ain’t here. And if she’s skipped out without telling me, I’m going to have her hauled off to jail.” She turned and spit onto the sidewalk.
“Can I at least go to her room and see if she left a note?” Not that I believed for one moment this person would actually let me into the house to search.
“I didn’t see no note. Just some charred marks on the floor where she damn well nearly burned my house down.”
My breath caught. “Please. You have to let me up there to see. She might be in danger.”
She parked her hand on her hip. “I don’t have to let you do nothin’, missy. And if she’s in danger, it’s her own damn fault.”
Anger filled me to overflow. Seriously? This woman had found Jane lacking? How was that even possible? Jane was the sweetest, most even-tempered of the coven. She’d have been a model tenant. Lord knows she worked enough hours to hardly ever be there except to sleep.
Then it hit me. I wasn’t looking at the landlady in her true form. I’d seen what I wanted to see and had totally missed the signs. But it was there when she moved, and the sun hit her a certain way. Lines around her body blurred with the scenery. Some dark entity had either taken over this woman’s body or constructed it from scratch. Personally, I didn’t care at the moment. I just needed to figure out a way to get around it.
Where the hell was Gemma?
As if on cue, a window opened above the porch and a pail of water was emptied onto the faux landlady. A screech born of pain and anger, loud enough to split eardrums and stop traffic, filled the street.
A strong scent of burnt herbs rose from the immediate area as the constructed body began to smolder. Gemma looked down from the upper story window and smiled at me. She waved me up.
I hurried by the construct as it danced to try and relieve itself of its burning form. Too late, the damn thing popped like a water balloon, bathing me and the surrounding porch in a foul-smelling, hell-spawned goo.
At that point, I begged for death. I damn sure smelled like it. I swallowed again and again to keep from tossing cookies right there in public. Passersby who had witnessed the unusual manner of death had stopped, shaking their heads as if they had woken from a dream, before going on about their business. Gemma’s doing, no doubt.
I entered the tenement and walked up the stairs to the room Jane let. A reek of ghastly stench followed me. It had permeated my nose hairs and coated my tongue. I’d never get the stink out of my senses.
“I wish you would have given me a warning to move,” I said by way of greeting Gemma. “My hair. It’s in my hair.”
She made a face, pulling her lips back in revulsion. “Honestly, I didn’t think it would stink that bad.”
“It was a dark entity. They very rarely smell good.” Not that I knew from experience, but I could extrapolate.
I took the towel she handed me and started wiping off what I could, though it was a losing proposition. Nothing short of bathing in bleach was going to rid me of the smell.
“At least you’re still here. I’m not sure what to make of this.” Gemma pointed to the scorch marks the entity had mentioned.
Thinking on that particular conversation, I found it odd that it would actually divulge such a thing to an outsider. Unless it was used as bait to get me up to the apartment where it might collect more witches. I shuddered at the thought but put up my guard.
I put down the towel and crossed the room to squat and study the marks. The dual lines were spaced about a foot apart. One end was a gradual deepening of the burn, the other an abrupt end as even and straight as a ruler.
I placed my receiving hand on top of the mark, letting magic flow through the burnt wood and filter through my talent. “Time well energy. No doubt about it.”
Gemma narrowed bright green eyes as if not quite believing my assessment. “A time well opens up in Jane’s room? I don’t buy it.”
“Too bad, that’s what I’m selling.” I pushed to my feet again and moved my hand in an arc to see if I could feel any residual energy from the well. “What I want to know is why they grabbed her—and judging from the scorch marks, that’s exactly what happened—and where they took her?”
“I can probably guess why. Jane was the strongest practitioner of us all. It’s going to be a lot harder to open up a portal without her.” Gemma set her hands on her hips. Her brow furrowed into a worried frown. “You think she’s all right?”
“Depends on where they took her.” Not to mention why. I kept that notion to myself for the moment. First things first. “We need to see if she left us any sort of clue as to what happened. If she even had time.”
We spent a few minutes looking around the room. Everything seemed to be in its place, which was beyond frustrating. The situation gave rise to images of the Scooby-Doo Gang waiting to stumble upon a clue left behind by Old Man Whittaker at the haunted amusement park. I could almost hear the theme song rolling through my mind as I searched.
What would Scooby-Doo do?
All right, that thought made me laugh. I had reverted to a twelve-year old boy and laughed at an inadvertent poop joke.
“What’s so funny?” Gemma snapped as she lifted rugs and checked cabinets.
“Nothing. You really had to be there.” No sense in explaining the there was late twentieth to early twenty-first century.
I went back to work with a vow to keep my amusement to myself, especially in such a dire situation. Truth was, if Jane was taken by the dark forces and they f
igured out her level of power, her very soul was at stake. And I didn’t mean that in a religious framework, but a metaphysical one.
“Hey, I might have found something.”
I stopped looking through Jane’s nightstand and crossed the room to where Gemma rifled through a small bookcase.
“She had a book of shadows she wrote her own spells in.” Gemma held up a fairly new looking dime store tablet. “This isn’t it, but it looks like she might have started a new one.”
I took the book she offered and skimmed the first few pages. Strange symbols written out in equation form covered the page. If I didn’t know better, I would believe it was higher math—I mean really high math—the kind used to conquer time-space in a science lab.
The thought had me on my butt on Jane’s sofa with my head between my knees. We stood at the very threshold where magic and science met, and poor Jane had fallen through the rift.
“Hey, kid. Don’t fall apart on me.” Gemma took a seat beside me. “Jane can take care of herself.”
I lifted my head and stared at Gemma as if she’d sprouted an extra noggin. “Kid? I might be a few years older than you at this point.”
She just gave me that knowing smile. “Weird, huh?”
That was as close as we got to discussing our blood relationship. But she’d hit the nail on the head. Weird didn’t even begin to cover it.
I sat there stinking of rot and staring at the scorch marks left on the floor when the shadows nabbed Jane, and wondered what in the hell they’d wanted her for?
Fifteen
Malachi
After a hot shower and good night’s sleep—or as well as I could manage—Colvin and I met Rallie at her home to see if I might use the mosaic of Kells to locate her, and the charm to anchor her once found. The spell wasn’t something I’d practiced often but was fairly confident if used as an anchor and focus, I might be able to at least pinpoint her location.
