This is the last of the personal mementos. Couldn't really organize them, but nothing of value found – Best Ronda
Abby left the note and peeled back the cover on one of the boxes. She lifted out two notepads scribbled with Sydney's small cursive, glancing at grocery lists, which mostly included wine and chocolate, and various phone numbers. The packer of the box had put in a few paperbacks, probably random reads that Sydney had tucked away and forgotten in funky places like behind a box of cereal or on top of a cabinet. There were pictures bound by rubber-band and the first that Abby saw made her stomach lurch painfully. It was Abby as a young girl, maybe five, with her hair twisted in a french braid. She sat on Sydney's lap, her arms tight around her aunt's neck while the woman whispered conspiratorially in her ear. Abby could not see the picture taker, but she guessed it was Harold by the slightly lopsided image, as if he'd taken the shot to capture the boat on the lake behind them, rather than his wife and niece.
Outside, the wind began to pick up and Abby shuddered at the branches scraping across the garage's single window. As a witch, fear felt different. She didn't fear people anymore, but other things, darker things.
As she stood in the lonely garage, Abby realized that she had hoped to encounter Sydney's ghost in the house. Spirits, though still unnerving, at least offered contact. Abby wanted so much to see her aunt, but it was only the memory of Sydney that the house contained. Her spirit had departed.
She had no idea what she was looking for, but the sense that she was close grew inside her. Claire had told her to follow the smoke. Abby did not know what she meant, but she knew that something drew her to Sydney's home.
She pulled out a jumble of keys and looked at the little colored tags attached to each--house, speed boat, storage shed and Rod's loft.
"Rod's loft," she said, touching the key.
Abby had only visited the loft twice. Both were short trips running in to grab Sydney's forgotten bathing suit or sandals.
Now she felt an almost magnetic pull toward the small silver key.
After she pawed the contents of both boxes, she wandered the house aimlessly, fighting the urge to call out. There were guides she knew, guides in the spirit realm, and those energies conjured by the elements, but Elda had explained them in a very peculiar way.
'The spirits are often mischievous, arriving at the most inopportune time with some jumbled message that you spend so much time deciphering, you lose sight of your task. The other energies, those of the earth, arrive only in your most desperate hour, like the lake pulling you during the Vepar's death ritual. It called out to you and your body called back. It doesn't listen to your voice, but to your spirit.'
Elda had been attempting to discourage Abby from too much blind faith in forces beyond herself. The lesson was in self-preservation and Abby had listened closely. Brushing death made one a diligent student.
****
Oliver stared into the fire, sipping his scotch, and ignoring Dafne who'd followed him in. He had not chased Abby into the woods despite every atom in his body screaming to do so. Instead, he had taken Victor safely back to his car and stayed with him until morning. Abby knew that he would, otherwise she never would have abandoned her friend. Oliver tried to talk to Victor, but the witch had been poisoned and, in his groggy state, could barely remember Abby's name. Oliver finally left him when the young witch grew clear and alert and insisted that he was fine.
"She's not gone forever, Oliver. Surely you know that," Dafne said, staring him down from across the room.
He said nothing, but continued to watch the flames dance and pop wildly. He had told his coven nothing about the night before.
"Elda believes that she probably reconnected with some of the witches that she met at Sorciére. Apparently she made some friends there." Dafne snorted as if that were hard to believe.
He shot her a dark look and drained his glass.
"What do you want, Dafne?"
She threw her hands up and walked closer to him.
"I want you to be you again. I want you to stop sulking and obsessing over Abby. I want our life before Abby and Sebastian!" Her voice rose as she spoke and Oliver noted the faintest edge of hysteria.
He could have calmed her. He had done it a thousand times in the past because Dafne lived just one crank away from panic twenty-four/seven. Instead he ignored her.
The library door opened and Lydie walked in. She looked disheartened.
She sat on a pillow between Oliver's legs and rested her head on his knee. He stroked her hair and ignored Dafne who looked even more exasperated.
"Any word?" he asked Lydie who had been hovering around Faustine since Abby left.
"No. He told Elda earlier that he's struggling to make a connection with any of us, even here in the castle. He thought it was All Hallow's, but now..." Lydie trailed off and Oliver heard a tremor in her voice.
"It's okay, Lyds," he reassured her, continuing to pet her hair.
The fluffy orange cat that Lydie had named Garfield jumped from a couch and planted himself in Lydie's lap where it rolled belly up and purred a demand that she pet him.
"Hi, Garfield," she said to the cat lifelessly, running her fingers over his soft fur.
"This is ridiculous," Dafne started again, pacing in front of them. "Witches do this their first year, you guys. They try different things until they find what fits."
"Yeah, but Abby's boyfriend died," Lydie interrupted. "Sebastian died, Dafne. She left because she's sad."
Lydie was not aware that Oliver had killed Sydney, which was also why Abby had left. Faustine and the others would never reveal it. Only Oliver could disclose that secret and the mere mention of Sydney's name made him shudder remembering that night. He tried to shake the memory, but suddenly it fell on him again as it so often did in his nightmares...
At Faustine's urging, Oliver had ventured to Sydney's house to see if the Vepars still lurked nearby. Perhaps they would lie in wait for Abby and Sebastian to return there.
Oliver had watched the woman with blonde hair climb from the lake. She pulled a towel from a chair back, drying off naked beneath the luminous moon. She was older than him, in her forties at least, but a beauty nevertheless. Her breasts were too large to be natural and they tapered down to a smooth, flat stomach and shapely legs. She was short and her blue eyes were piercing, even in the dark. She was related to Abby, he could see that, but there was something darker in her, a shadow that hovered just beneath the surface.
He knew from Elda that Abby's aunt was supposed to be on vacation, but he had no other explanation for this woman, clearly acting as if it were her home that she traipsed around so confidently. He glanced back toward the house, watching each window, but detected no movement inside. Her husband was either sound asleep or gone. Gone, Oliver thought, because he could not detect any other presence there.
The woman strode across the porch and slipped on a sundress. She began to turn toward the house and then paused, meaningfully. She stepped into a stream of moonlight and faced Oliver , staring at him directly as if she could see him clearly despite the leafy shroud of the tree that he waited in. His throat constricted and he bit his lip against the urges that washed over him. He usually had such control, but something about her made his pulse quicken. He felt the blood surging into his temples and he shook his head with a jerk from side to side.
The woman lifted a hand and beckoned to him with a single finger. She turned and disappeared inside.
"What the hell?" he asked out loud. He understood as surely as he knew the earth beneath him that he should not move toward that house. Every fiber in his body was pulling him towards her, but the energy that existed in a realm beyond human desires cautioned him to stay away. Without thinking, he started to move out of the trees toward the house and then caught himself, surprised.
"What are you doing?" he whispered and retreated quickly, hoisting himself into a tree and scampering to the top.
He chewed on a switch of pine, whi
ch grounded him. When he felt stable, he turned to gaze at the house. He could see her moving from room to room, turning off lights. She stopped in an upstairs room, drew the curtains wider, and then began to light candles. He saw bits of her as she moved around the space, but already his jaw tightened and he felt his heartbeat grow more rapid. He fought it, calling forth his element and communing with it deeply. In his mind, he softened into the tree, feeling his legs melt into bark and his torso grow strong and sturdy like the trunk. He fixed his eyes on the ground far below him and waited.
Hours passed in silence. Oliver sensed that the woman lay awake in the house waiting for him. He should have left, gone searching for a scent in the woods, but he had been unable to shake the feeling that the woman's home held the answers that he needed.
When her scream pierced the silence, he nearly plummeted to the ground below. A fat branch that he caught with his hand, rather painfully, stopped him and he clutched it only briefly before climbing quickly and silently to the ground. He moved across the yard near the beach, ready to slip into the water for concealment. Nothing raced through the darkness and when he lifted his nose to the air, he did not smell a Vepar nor did he sense the tar-like energy that they oozed into the space around them.
The door was unlocked and, as he crept into the house, he pulled the steel dagger from his pant leg and held it firmly in his fist. He had left his bow and arrow in the forest, knowing that anything he encountered within the house would be a close-range fight. He might not have sensed a Vepar, but they were master concealers and he would show no mercy if one came upon him. He wanted vengeance for the young witch Devin and, more so, for Abby. He wanted to return to Ula and triumphantly tell Abby that he had saved her aunt.
He took the steps two at a time and kicked through the door to the bedroom that the woman had gone into. She stood in a corner, her dress clinging to her body, her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders.
"I called for you," she breathed.
He watched her and tried to maintain control of his body's desire. Something inside of him let go.
He strode across the room and scooped her into his arms, tossing her onto the bed. She released a low guttural moan and he grasped the back of her head, lifting her face to meet his. She kissed him desperately, releasing his belt and forcing his pants down. When she parted her legs and he moved inside her, his entire body trembled with pleasure. His lips sought her breasts and she dug her fingernails into his back as he thrust into her.
His mind had shut down. The witch Oliver, for those several minutes, ceased to exist. When a sharp pain pierced his right side, he barely noticed, so lost in the carnal pleasures of her exquisite body. The second time, alarm bells sounded in his head. He pushed away from her and looked at the blood gushing from the wound below his rib cage.
The woman held his dagger in her hand and her eyes glowed with malice . She sprang from the bed and the knife clattered to the floor. Oliver, dazed, reached for it, not fully grasping that this woman he'd been making love to wanted to kill him. She snatched a bucket from her bedside table and threw it in his face. He recoiled and sputtered as gasoline burned his eyes and coated his lips.
He saw the small box in her hands and her fingers closed on a single red-tipped stick. She started to slide it but, before she could set the match on fire, he thrust his blade into her chest. It went in so easily. It slid through her delicate breast bone. She cried out and dropped her match. Her eyes locked with his and now, again, they were blue and innocent and terrified. She fell to her knees, both hands grasping at the blade.
He reached forward, holding her shoulders as she crumpled back to the floor. Blood began to ooze from the wound and tears fell in thick streams from her eyes. She put a bloody, trembling hand into his and, when he heard her sob, his own throat constricted and he started to pull the knife from her chest, thinking irrationality that he might save her.
As he found a solid grip on the slippery handle, a booted foot slammed down on the blade from behind him and drove the dagger through the woman. Oliver heard it hit the wood floor beneath her. He started to twist around, but the flames caught him first. He felt the fire lick the back of his shirt. He stood and dove through the open window into the night. He hit the roof and rolled.
Above him, the mysterious Alva, the Vepar who created Tobias, lifted another bucket of gasoline and flung it out over Oliver as he plunged to the earth. The fire seemed to eat him alive. The pain was blinding and deafening and he rolled and twisted, but through it all, he saw the woman's pale blue eyes and the deep sorrow etched into her irises as she faded away.
Oliver stumbled blindly. He screamed and raked at his clothes, trying to pull them away from his skin where the fire consumed him. When he saw Alva moving across the porch towards him, he shut down his senses and he fled. In his confusion, he went in the wrong direction and staggered through woods. He dropped and rolled in pine needles until the fire was extinguished, but still he burned. The blisters on his skin already felt like balloons, expanding outward and ready to burst.
He knew that Alva drew close and with a single, silent thrust, he drove himself towards the water and splashed in. He swam clumsily into deep water. To his horror, a hand grasped his ankle. He looked down to see the dead woman, a gaping hole in her chest and her eyes blazing. She pulled him under the water. He fought her, but her small hands dug into his calves and held until his vision started to fade. A thousand dead things writhed beneath her, waiting to pull him into their pale, almost fleshless arms. He closed his eyes and allowed the darkness to swallow him.
"Ollie...Ollie." Lydie's strained voice came to him and Oliver blinked and then rubbed furiously at his eyes where the image of the woman was still fading away.
"Sorry, hon," he told her. "Got lost in my thoughts, I guess."
Dafne watched him curiously, but said nothing.
****
"Well, she's in tip-top shape," the man told Abby, kicking the tire with his sneaker-clad foot and wincing slightly. "Never died on me once."
Abby surveyed the burgundy two-door Saturn and pretended to consider. In truth, she didn't give a damn about the car so long as it started and got her down the road. She needed a vehicle if she was going to get around the city without creating a rumor of a wild woman living in the woods. Her own car sat in the warehouse near Lake Superior, unavailable to her without the assistance of the coven.
The man, Darcy, had posted the Saturn for sale in Trager's free weekly newspaper and she didn't want to arouse his suspicions by handing over a wad of cash without, at least, appearing to weigh the decision.
"Well, I've been saving for a while and it seems like a pretty good fit," she said. She pulled a stack of hundreds from the Pure Michigan beach bag she had purchased earlier that day at a downtown boutique.
Darcy grinned and Abby tried not to stare at the chocolate smeared across his front tooth. When she'd knocked on his door, he had been scarfing the last of a chocolate doughnut and she saw now that some of it had also made its way to the front of his Fish Whisperer t-shirt.
"Well, you two seem like the perfect pair," he added, taking the money and quickly shuffling through it. She saw that he no longer looked at her at all. Money did that to people. She waved a quick goodbye and got in the car.
She set off down the road, grimacing at the pungent aroma of the air freshener called Black Ice hanging from the rear-view mirror. She plucked it off and shoved it into the glove box, vowing to pick up something a bit less abrasive, like strawberry.
She circled Rod's building twice before she cut the engine a block away and pulled her hood tight over her ball cap. She knew that the outfit was a bit extreme. Hat, sunglasses and hooded sweatshirt, all at once like some paranoid celebrity hiding from crazed fans, but Trager made her uneasy. It wasn't her own near death that unnerved her, but the murder of Sydney and the attack on Oliver that made her skin crawl.
She didn't want to think of Oliver. She knew in her heart that killing Sydney
had been an accident, but still, was there no way to avoid it? And why all of the lies? In a coven of witches who supposedly valued honesty, the truth seemed strangely absent.
Next to the car, a group of older women, clutching wine bottles, laughed and moved down the street. They represented the last of the autumn tourists, visiting the wineries outside of Trager and frequenting the downtown shops and stores that had not yet reduced their hours for the coming winter.
She stepped from the car and stuck close to the building, listening keenly to every voice and sound. Her gaze, behind her sunglasses, darted across the street and peered quickly into parked cars, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing aroused her suspicions and, when she finally slid the key into Rod's door and stumbled across the threshold, the vice on her lungs loosened and she sucked in a deep breath of stale air.
The windows were closed tight and the space held an aura of abandonment. The loft's disarray was likely a combination of Rod and Sydney's trip to the Cayman Islands combined with the later police investigation, though Abby had the impression that when Vepars murdered, no real investigation occurred.
She paused and took in the enormous photo collage of Rod and Sydney that hung on a brick wall opposite the door. She felt the flower in her chest bloom and immediately wither. She slid down the closed door and gripped her knees, her eyes spilling over with tears of grief. Sydney was dead and Sebastian was dead and, in her despair, Abby wished more than anything to join them. She hiccuped and wailed and her nose ran into her sweatshirt. She didn't care if other tenants in the building heard. She had only to jump out the window and run like hell to be gone in minutes. She realized that it was sort of like being a superhero. Right then, she understood their tragic stories much fully than when she'd read comics as a child. They were always plagued by some misfortune that brought loneliness and isolation into their lives. She could feel the pit of that loneliness deep in her stomach.
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