by Karen Ranney
Two walls were filled with built in cabinets, each door and drawer locked. Where were the keys?
A table on the third wall reminded him of the one in the family room behind the couch. Tall and narrow, it was about six feet wide and looked like an altar.
He opened the door in the far wall to find that it was a deep walk-in closet filled with trunks and a few pieces of furniture. Not one sign of Lionel’s possessions.
There wasn’t a light switch near the door, but there was a fixture on the ceiling toward the back. He pulled the chain, flooding the space with light.
Moving the chair allowed him to get to a large rectangular black chest. He opened it and the space was filled with a dusty, perfumed smell. He was instantly reminded of a trip they’d made to Cairo. Because of Lionel's contacts he and Breanna had been given private access to the museum and objects the public didn’t see. One of them, a newly discovered mummy, had a similar odor.
From what he knew of Lionel he wouldn't put it past the man to have imported a mummy or two to the Crow’s Nest simply because he was interested in them. The chest wasn't large enough, however, to house a mummy. Perhaps he’d only purloined a few wrappings.
Grabbing the brass handles on the end of the chest Derek pulled it into the middle of the room, returned to the closet and grabbed the chair and placed it next to the chest.
Once seated, he opened the chest, the bright overhead light allowing him to see the contents better.
His hand hovered over a large book with Breanna Adams inscribed in gold lettering on the cover. He told himself that opening it would be a violation of her privacy. Curiosity was a necessary trait in a reporter, but a sometimes irritating facet in a husband. He wasn’t a husband anymore. He was a widower.
He opened the book and began to read:
August 27 — my projection was more on point this time. I find that if I abstain from food and drink for at least four hours I have more concentration. Perhaps I should only work to strengthen the wards when I’ve been fasting for twelve hours or more.
August 28 –- I encountered obstacles in testing the wards this morning. It shouldn't have happened. I need to check the property line to the west and see if anything is different there.
August 28 –- later that day –- I'm concerned about the protection spell. The lake Daddy put in might be preventing a complete envelopment of the property.
August 29 –- I can't dislodge this feeling then I’ve failed. I feel disaster coming closer. I’ve worked with G to increase the wards, yet I wonder if that’s enough.
August 30 – I wish Derek was more open to certain concepts. I should have told him long before now. I don’t want him harmed.
August 31 – The wards were weak again this morning. I’ve increased them, but I’m worried. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to Derek.
Breanna died on September 1.
He sat there unmoving for a long time.
Breanna was a scientist. He was trying to wrap his mind around the idea that she would believe in magic. It didn’t make any sense. He’d always admired her scientific mind, her way of being able to take complex subjects and pull them apart until they could be understood in atom-like particles. What the hell was she doing dabbling in magic? And not just dabbling since she’d evidently set aside a room in her house devoted to the practice.
He’d never believed in magic. Yet he couldn’t discount the web he’d felt at Grace’s house. Or the explosion, although he doubted that was magic as much as someone wanting to blow him up. The web, though, that had been a freak show. Unless Grace had somehow hypnotized him to believe that he’d felt something sticky that held him in place. He wasn’t sure he believed in hypnotism, either. Maybe she’d put something in his coffee, some kind of drug that made him susceptible to suggestion.
What about the doorknob? He hadn’t imagined that.
He pushed those thoughts aside and occupied himself with investigating the other items in the chest. A hand bell heavily inscribed with Latin words, a leather bound book nearly a foot thick with blank pages, two rods about six inches long that he first mistook for chopsticks. They had the same type of inscriptions as the bell. A dozen glass pots filled with what looked like dry herbs. Another three or four had liquid in various colors. At the very bottom of the chest was a folded black cloth with a silver border. He opened it to find that it was about a foot wide, ten feet long, and was embroidered with numerous symbols.
He and Breanna hadn’t lived in each other’s pockets. They’d each had fully formed careers, friends, and a life before meeting each other. They didn’t stop what they were doing to concentrate on the other to the exclusion of everything else. When Breanna said she had something to do he accepted that she had something to do and that was it. When he had an assignment in Austin and stayed overnight they called each other, missed each other, but he didn’t feel guilty about his job.
How many times had Breanna come to this room when he was in the house?According to the journal he’d read at least every day. Maybe more than once. Was the mythical sister, Susan, a practitioner of magic as well?
Grace had been proven right about Breanna thinking she was a witch. Was she right about anything else? Someone was definitely out to get him. What about someone giving Breanna the assignment to get close to him?
Something else he didn’t want to think about right now.
There were two more chests and one humpback trunk in the closet. He didn’t bother opening them. He was certain he wouldn’t know what their contents meant. Nor was he in the mood for any more revelations at the moment, such as Breanna was into blood sacrifice or the worship of Ba’al. He didn’t know how much more he could absorb at this point.
In his job he liked nothing more than untangling a puzzle. However, he could do without a mystery in his personal life.
He turned off the light in the closet, strode across the onyx floor, leaving the chest and the chair in the middle of the room.
15
Derek left the third floor and headed toward his study, surprised to see through the window at the end of the hall that it had gotten dark. He turned on the TV to hear the sound of other voices. The quiet had never bothered him before Breanna’s death. Maybe it was knowing that there wasn’t anyone else here.
He began to walk the house, checking the eleven exit doors, finding comfort in the routine. Even though they had a security system it was a habit he and Breanna had gotten into, holding hands as they checked each door lock, speaking about the events of the day. Breanna told awful puns and he’d grown to anticipate them. Some he carried to work. Some he made her promise never to repeat.
This walk-through was harder than the one the night before. Last night he hadn’t any questions about Breanna. He hadn’t any doubts about who she was or what she believed. He’d always thought she was an open book, that she revealed everything about her life just as he had. Yet she’d held back secrets, hadn’t she? Not just secrets, but essential parts of themselves. She hadn’t told him of her interest in magic, that she’d met Grace, or that she thought he was in danger. Nor had she mentioned anything about being pregnant.
The circle was done. He was back at the front door. He tested the bolt, turned and noticed the book he’d placed on the entryway table. His first thought was to carry it into the kitchen and put it into the compactor. The second was to take it to his study, read it, and see if he could figure out why magic intrigued Breanna.
His back was beginning to rebel from a week of using the couch as a bed. Plus, sleeping only a few hours a night was having a direct deleterious effect on his mood. Maybe he should have asked his father for another one of his sleeping pills, but on the whole he didn’t like taking drugs for anything.
Tonight was the last night he was going to sleep in the study. If he couldn’t tolerate the master bedroom suite he would simply appropriate one of the guest bedrooms.
After a half hour of watching some mindless sitcom he fell into a restless do
ze, waking when the sitcom changed to a police procedural and gunshots were fired. He should turn off the TV, a fleeting thought as he fell asleep again.
He was shocked awake when something jumped on him, dug knives into his shoulder, then yowled in displeasure. Derek vaulted up from the couch and stood there looking down at it, trying to figure out what had just happened. He was grateful that the TV was still on and there was enough light to see.
What the hell?
A paw stretched out behind the couch and batted at him.
It was a cat.
A Siamese cat.
An angry Siamese cat with an attitude. This one had a pink collar with the name Bubbles inscribed on a heart-shaped tag.
The cat hadn’t been a stowaway in the Uber car. How the hell had Bubbles gotten into the house? He’d checked all the doors. Granted, he hadn’t examined all the windows, but there were alarms on each. Plus, there was a motion detector on the ground floor and in the hallways for the upper floors.
He grabbed his phone from the charger, saw that it was only three in the morning, but dialed the number anyway. If Grace was as attached to her animals as he thought, she’d be worried about Bubbles.
Unless, of course, she was standing outside his house and had sent the cat inside to reconnoiter. How, by magically walking through doors?
He wasn’t getting enough sleep.
She answered the phone on the first ring, which was a clue that she’d been awake. So, too, her greeting.
“Is she there?”
His life was getting stranger and stranger. Was there a certain point when it went full circle then reverted back to normal?
“If you’re referring to Bubbles, she is. Did you bring her here?”
“Where is here, Derek?”
“To my house.”
“I don’t even know where you live. How could I bring Bubbles there? Why on earth would I?” Her words bristled, as if each separate letter was adorned with a porcupine quill. “Give me your address and I’ll come and pick her up.”
She was in her sixties. It was three in the morning and he’d heard thunder in the distance.
“I’ll bring her back myself later,” he said. “Any idea how she got here?”
“Bubbles accepts magic, Derek. I have no idea, but I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
He was about to hang up when she said, “You're in danger, Derek. Please be careful.”
If nothing else, the explosion would have given him a clue.
"I must've rubbed someone the wrong way," he said. "It happens."
"It's not what you did, Derek. It's who you are."
Not that again.
"I'll bring her back tomorrow."
When she hung up he opened up the security system app on his phone to find that nothing had been triggered. Somehow, the cat had gotten into his house, up the stairs, and through a closed study door without setting off the alarm. He just didn’t know how she’d done it. She was still behind the couch, no doubt waiting until he let his guard down to attack him again.
Grabbing his robe he put it on, tied the belt, then used the bathroom adjacent to the study.
When he returned Bubbles was sitting on his pillow, calmly licking one front paw.
He’d grown up with dogs, labs mostly. He didn’t know what to do with Bubbles until he took her back to Grace. The cat might be hungry and she might have to go to the bathroom. Even if he did have something he could use as a litter pan, he didn’t have any sand or gravel that she might think acceptable.
If he let her outside would she escape or come back? She wasn’t his, but he felt responsible for her anyway.
He noticed the green book he’d brought upstairs and picked it up. The cover shimmered in a way he hadn’t seen before. He turned it one way and then another, suddenly able to decipher the title.
Introduction to Magic.
He tucked it into his robe pocket and opened the study door. Bubbles shot out from behind the couch, and down the corridor, hesitating at the top of the steps. She looked back at him as if chiding him for being so slow.
Every third step she stopped, waiting for him, looking up with a definite air of impatience.
“This isn’t Grace’s house where you’re the boss. It’s mine.”
She sent him a look that he didn’t have any trouble deciphering as contempt.
When he got to the bottom of the stairs she was waiting. She wound around his legs as he attempted to walk into the kitchen, nearly tripping him.
“Are you hungry?”
She meowed in response.
What did cats eat? Fish. He walked into the pantry, saw a solitary can of tuna, and grabbed it. When he was opening it Bubbles jumped up on the kitchen counter. He pointed to the floor.
“Off, or you don’t get any food.”
She sent him a disgusted look, but jumped down from the counter.
He was sure that he was probably going to get lectured by Grace and told that tuna wasn’t the best thing to give Bubbles. Unfortunately, he was all out of cat chow or whatever they ate.
Bubbles inhaled the tunafish and drank half the water he gave her. After that, he walked her to the back door.
“Look, I’d rather you didn’t disappear. I promised Grace I would bring you home in a few hours. So, go and do your thing and come back, okay?”
He could have sworn the cat nodded. He deactivated the alarm on the keypad beside the door, and bent to unlock the doggy door Breanna had had installed for Marshall.
One thing about Bubbles, she wasn’t stupid. She bounded out the door without a backward look. Not one meow of thanks. If she didn’t come back he’d go out and look for her. The last thing he wanted to do was have to explain to Grace that he’d lost Bubbles.
His birth mother would probably put a curse on him. Or turn him into a frog.
After staring into the refrigerator for a few minutes, he made himself a sandwich. Thankfully, Paul had taken most of the casseroles home. There was a list somewhere of who had brought what. He’d have to make sure that everybody got a thank you note and their dish back. Another task on his list.
He got up from the stool, got himself a beer, and returned. After a long swallow he pulled out the book from his pocket. Chapters included love spells, friendship spells, finding money, personal success and growth, fertility spells, protection spells, unlocking locks, moving things, blessings, and healing spells.
He had the feeling that magic was nothing more than a pyramid scheme, something dreamed up by a wacko, then promulgated as a religion. He couldn’t help but wonder how much all the stuff in Breanna’s secret room had cost.
What had Grace said? Something about magic having chosen him.
What a bunch of crap.
Just for grins he turned to the last spell. There was a paragraph of explanation, then a spell written in Latin.
Moving objects, also known as telekinesis, is not for the amateur practitioner. Much care should be taken not to disturb the environment of other objects or people. Nor should any attempt be made to perform this spell other than in a safe, undisturbed location. Practice on light objects first, such as feathers, prior to building up to any articles of density. After a few months your abilities will astound you!
What a crock.
He didn’t have any expertise in Latin and although he tripped over the words he enunciated them as he thought they should be pronounced.
The beer bottle went skidding across the granite countertop of the island and fell to the tile floor, the glass shattering in an explosion of sound.
It took a few minutes to clean up the mess. He swept the floor a second time, then a third. He didn’t want Bubbles to get glass on her paws.
He'd evidently knocked the bottle with his hand inadvertently. That's all it was. There wasn't any magic involved. He hadn't done anything supernatural. A bunch of Latin words didn't change physics.
To prove it he went to the refrigerator, grabbed another beer, then realized he was going to h
ave to go to the grocery store one of these days. Maybe he could talk Mary into going for him. Or maybe he needed to hire a full-time housekeeper, someone who would care for the oil tycoon's house the way Breanna had.
He'd often caught her running her fingers over the top of the mahogany sideboard in the dining room. Or the twelve foot table with the throne-like chair Lionel had designed, with the other eleven chairs in a similar design. Derek had to admit that they were the most comfortable chairs he’d ever sat on. When he said that to Breanna, she smiled.
“Daddy had to attend all of these formal dinners. He was determined that the dining room would be comfortable. That and he would never have chicken à la king again as long as he lived."
He grabbed the beer, returned to the bar stool and placed the bottle almost defiantly in the middle of the six foot wide island.
“Let's see you fall now, you bastard."
He lost track of how long he stared at the second beer bottle. Maybe he was trying to hypnotize it. He was a little leery about saying the spell again. What if it happened a second time?
It wouldn’t. Maybe he didn’t even need to try it out.
What if there was something to this after all? Breanna was an intelligent woman, a biochemist, someone who could understand both complex theories and things at a cellular level. Was there something to what she believed?
Then there was the web thing. He still hadn’t figured out how to explain that. He’d been well and truly trapped, but Grace had walked through the archway unimpeded.
Grabbing the book, he found the page he needed and spoke the words quietly, glancing at the beer bottle at the end of every sentence. He kept his elbows tucked tight to his side. He wasn't going to make the mistake of accidentally brushing the bottle off the island.
Halfway through the spell nothing had happened. Not a damn thing. The bottle stayed where it was, condensation running down the neck and onto the granite.
