Bad to the Crone

by Amanda M. Lee

  “In an ideal situation, yes.” She put her hand to the girl’s shoulder and watched as she flinched ... and whimpered. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have been outside, though. You know better.”

  “It’s probably better for us that she was outside,” the other woman noted. “Now we know that they’ve found us ... again.”

  “She’s hurt.”

  “It’s not the first time. It won’t be the last.” She sighed and forced a smile for the girl’s benefit. “We’ll heal you and then get moving. Just ... hold still. This is going to hurt.”

  The screams started again, forcing me to close my eyes. When I finally opened them again, the wound was gone. All that was left was an oddly-shaped scar, one I recognized.

  Instinctively, I reached toward my own shoulder and frowned when I traced the exact same shape that marred my skin. That’s when reality hit me, although part of me already recognized what I was seeing.

  This wasn’t some random child, or a scene from a long-ago horror. This was me ... and it was from the time before I was abandoned at the fire station. It was the only memory I had of my life before everything changed.

  The realization sent me spinning, and when I pulled out of the memory I was falling backward to the floor. Raisin, completely healed, chased after me with wide eyes as she tried to catch me.

  She was already too late.

  “What’s wrong?” Bonnie asked, confused. “I don’t understand. What just happened?”

  That made two of us who didn’t understand. I closed my eyes in an attempt to shut out the world. I didn’t want to deal with this ... especially now.

  “What’s going on?” I recognized Gunner’s voice as he entered the bar. “What happened?”

  “I’m healed,” Raisin announced, and I could practically see her grinning even though my eyes remained closed. “I think Scout did something to herself while healing me. She fell over.”

  “So you guys just left her there?” Gunner’s fury was palpable. I felt him growing closer and it sent a shiver down my spine. “Hey.” He gentled his voice as he slid an arm under my shoulders and tugged me to a sitting position as he dropped to his knees. “Hey there, superstar.” He forced a smile as I slitted my eyes. “I know you’re awake. You need to do a better job if you want me to believe you’re asleep.”

  I didn’t initially speak. I couldn’t. I had no idea what to say.

  “Scout, tell me where it hurts.” His fingers were gentle as they brushed against my face. “Please, I need to know what’s going on here so I can help you.”

  “What happened to her?” Graham asked, striding into the room. “Is she dying?”

  He didn’t sound broken up at the prospect, which was enough to get my juices going. I opened my eyes the rest of the way.

  “I’m fine,” I rasped, frowning at how ragged my voice sounded. “I’m fine,” I repeated, trying to clear the phlegm from my voice. It didn’t work.

  “You don’t sound fine,” Gunner noted, forcing a smile for my benefit as he brushed my hair from my face. “You sound sick.”

  “I’m fine.” I was determined to prove it, so I fought to remain upright. “I don’t get sick.”

  Gunner didn’t look convinced. “Everyone gets sick.”

  “I don’t. Well, other than hangovers. I can get a hangover like everyone else. Other than that, I’ve never been sick a day in my life.”

  He looked dubious. “That’s not possible.”

  “Yeah, well ... .”

  “You’re warm,” he pointed out, pressing his hand to my forehead. “I think you might have a fever.”

  “She probably overloaded,” Raisin said sagely. Now healed, she’d gone back to her exuberant self in a matter of seconds. “Maybe she absorbed all the pain I was feeling. That’s a thing, right? I’ve read about empathic witches who take on emotional and physical pain. She took what I was feeling and absorbed it into herself.”

  “Is that what you did?” Frustration lined Gunner’s handsome face. “You really shouldn’t have done that. The ambulance is in the parking lot. They could’ve fixed her.”

  “That’s not what happened,” I gritted out, making a face when Graham joined his son on the floor and stared at me. “Stop looking at me as if I’m a circus freak,” I barked. “I didn’t absorb her pain. That’s not how it works.”

  “How what works?” Graham asked his son.

  “I’m not sure,” Gunner replied. “She’s put on quite the display this evening. Her magic is ... I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know anyone who has as much power. She was fine when she walked into the building.

  “I was only outside with you a few minutes,” he continued. “In that time she healed Raisin and somehow did this to herself.”

  “I’m fine,” I repeated, the dregs from before slowly receding. “Don’t worry about me.” I was determined to put on a brave face, so I slapped Gunner’s hands away. “I don’t need to be coddled.”

  “You’re weak,” he shot back. “It’s not coddling when you’re taking care of someone who is genuinely sick.”

  “I’m not sick!” I thought I would explode. Instead, I rolled to my feet. Sadly, my legs were shaky, as if I was walking on pudding. “See. I’m fine.”

  “Your hands are shaking,” Graham noted. “I don’t think you’re fine.”

  “Well, I am.” I needed to get out of this place, put some distance between me and the others so I could reflect on what I’d seen in the vision. It was the first time I’d seen myself before the fire station. There had to be a reason I was dragged back to that time and place now. I couldn’t think about it in front of an audience, though. “I’m going to head home. If you need me to make a statement, I can come into the station tomorrow.”

  “You’re not driving like this,” Graham argued. “It’s not going to happen ... especially since you have a motorcycle. You’ll crack open your head on the highway.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not.”

  “I am.”

  Graham refused to back down. “I will arrest you if you try to drive.”

  Oh, well, he was going to be like that, was he? “Fine. I’ll walk.”

  OKAY, I’M OBSTINATE.

  That’s the one thing everyone who has ever met me can agree upon. I’m stubborn to a fault and refuse to back down, even on occasions when I would be better off admitting I’m wrong. In this particular case, I couldn’t do that. My obstinacy was the only thing holding me upright when I stormed out of the Cauldron.

  The parking lot was full of cops and an ambulance. I skirted the side of the building and headed toward the path in the woods. I knew where it led — and it was nowhere near my cabin — but I had to get away.

  I didn’t think about spriggans lurking in the dark. If they attacked I would fight them off. A quick bout of violence might be good, wash away what I was feeling. I was convinced I wouldn’t get that lucky, but when I heard noises behind me my heart skipped a beat and I readied myself.

  Instead of an unknown enemy, I found Gunner trailing me in the darkness ... and he didn’t look happy.

  “I’m fine,” I repeated, my voice cracking. “Don’t worry about me. I ... I’m fine.”

  “You’re pretty far from fine.” His tone wasn’t accusatory, just matter-of-fact. “I’m not letting you wander around in the dark on your own.”

  The sickness from earlier rolled through me. “I’m fine.”

  “Stop saying that!” His eyes flared with annoyance. “You’re the exact opposite of fine. Just ... tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “Something bloody well did happen. I don’t know what, but I felt you shaking. Your whole body was quaking to your bones. That’s not normal.”

  “I was just weak from expending so much power.” I said the words, but they weren’t exactly true. I’d expended double the amount of power on a variety of different occasions and never once felt weak. The reason I was reacting this way w
as mental ... and that shamed me for some reason.

  “It’s something else. Tell me.”

  “I ... .”

  “Tell me.” He refused to back down and instead invaded my personal space as he gently wrapped his hands around my arms. “If you tell me, I’ll do everything in my power to help. Please ... I need to know.”

  He sounded so sincere I couldn’t ignore his pleading. “I saw something.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” That was the truth, although it felt like a lame answer. “We need to keep walking.” I gestured toward the dark pathway. “I can’t sit still. It’s too much.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t object. He also didn’t allow me the chance to escape, grabbing my hand and linking our fingers before I could drift too far in front of him. “Let’s walk.”

  I stared at our joined hands for what felt like forever and then, because there was nothing else to do, I started walking.

  “This is weird,” I said after a few minutes.

  “Walking in the dark after the night we’ve had? I agree, totally weird. You need to decompress. I find walking is the best way to decompress.”

  “Not that.” I gestured toward our hands. “That!”

  “People hold hands all the time.” He didn’t back down. “I happen to like it. You’ll get used to it.”

  He sounded sure of himself, which set my teeth on edge.

  “Tell me what happened.” This time when he spoke his tone was gentle. “I want to hear it.”

  I heaved out a sigh. There would be no getting out of this. He wouldn’t allow it. “I don’t know what happened. One second I was healing Raisin. I know better than to slip into memories when I’m using that particular magic, but I think I was a little tired because my defenses were down and I accidentally slipped through realities before I realized what was happening.

  “I saw what happened to her earlier,” I continued. “The fear was close to the surface for her, the memory was right there, so I saw it. It’s happened before. It’s not ideal, but I’ve never had trouble turning it off before.”

  “Something changed tonight,” he prodded.

  “I ... .”

  “I won’t judge you,” he repeated. “I want to help. Don’t put up a wall now. That will only tick me off.”

  He sounded so frustrated all I could do was laugh. It was a weak chuckle, but it loosened one of the knots in my chest. “We wouldn’t want that.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  “I started in one memory and then hopped to another,” I volunteered. “I don’t know how to explain it. I just ... hopped to a different time and place.”

  “I don’t understand how you do any of it, but I believe you’re extremely powerful. I’ve seen you in action. You can do anything,” he said. “What was the second memory?”

  “Me.” My voice was barely a whisper.

  “You? Are you saying you saw yourself going through Raisin’s ordeal in her place?” He looked stricken at the thought.

  “I’m saying that I slipped from her memory to one of mine. The thing is, it was from before.”

  “Before when?”

  “Before I was dropped off at the fire station.”

  “Oh.” His face drained of color. “Oh.” He gripped my hand tighter. “Seeing Raisin abused by her father made you remember something. God, I don’t want to know what that something is, but ... if you need to tell me ... .” He left it hanging.

  “That’s not what I saw,” I corrected quickly. “I saw myself as a child. I was hurt, my shoulder was bleeding. There were two women with me. One was staring out a window, talking about some enemy we had to run from. The other was trying to treat my wound.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound terrible,” he said. “They weren’t yelling at you or anything, right?”

  “No. But I was crying. I was in pain. They insisted on healing me.”

  “They had healing magic, too? You know that’s not a normal gift, right? In fact, I’ve never heard of a witch having the power to heal. I’ve heard of kitchen witches who could brew powerful remedies, but what you pulled off today is entirely different.”

  “I researched my gifts when I first joined Spells Angels,” I countered. “There were witches in the past who could heal people. It’s one of those gifts that have sort of disappeared over the years, probably because medical science has advanced.”

  “I don’t know that I believe that, but it’s hardly the most important thing to focus on this evening,” he said. “They healed you and then what?”

  “Nothing. It hurt. It hurt more than what I did to Raisin. I screamed again – or little me did, to be more exact – and it was shocking to hear that coming from ... me. It was weird, like I was an interloper in my own life. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “I don’t blame you for feeling weird. I don’t know what I would do in similar circumstances.”

  “It shook me, but the worst part was when I saw the scar. I still have that scar on my shoulder.”

  By now we’d made it to the neighborhood on the other side of the pathway and were standing under a streetlight. Gunner motioned for me to slow down and then inclined his chin toward my shoulder. “Show me,” he prodded.

  “It’s just a scar.”

  “Show me. I want to see.”

  Because I needed to share my ordeal with someone, I pulled my hand from his and tugged on the neckline of my shirt, dragging it to the side so he could see the scar. His fingers lightly traced the puffy residue of an old injury I didn’t remember getting until this very night, his expression grave.

  “That’s a distinctive scar,” he said finally. “It looks as if you were stabbed with a jagged knife.”

  “I don’t remember how I got it. I don’t even remember healing from it. What I saw was from a position outside the memory. It didn’t really belong to me ... and yet it did.”

  “Well ... .” He broke off, clearly unsure what to say. Instead of finishing, he rubbed his hands up and down my shoulders and leaned forward to rest his forehead against mine. “You’ve had quite the night.”

  “Yup.”

  “I don’t know how to help you, but I’m going to figure something out. Clearly there is part of you that is trying to remember what happened.”

  “I never really thought about it before,” I admitted. “It was too painful. I got this buzzing in my ear when I tried. But tonight seeing myself was sort of a revelation. It made things more real.”

  “We’ll figure it out.” He pulled me in tight against him and brushed his lips over the corner of my mouth, causing me to freeze in his arms as a tingling sensation rushed through my body, like a magic beacon of warmth taking me over. “Don’t do that,” he admonished. “I’m not going to pressure you to do anything. I just ... felt the urge to kiss you. That wasn’t a real kiss anyway. It was only half a kiss.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it wasn’t a full on-the-mouth kiss.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Not that. Why did you feel the urge to kiss me?”

  “I have no idea.” He chuckled as he pulled back and stared into my eyes. “I’m feeling a lot of feelings I can’t explain.”

  “It’s probably the adrenalin,” I said hurriedly. “Those feelings will fade.”

  “I don’t think so, but we’re definitely not talking about that tonight. In fact ... .” He trailed off, and when I tilted my head I realized he was staring at someone else entirely.

  Even though I’d barely registered it, we were in front of All Souls Church ... and Cecily was standing in the parking lot watching us. She didn’t look thrilled with our sudden appearance.

  “Hey.” Gunner offered her a lame wave. “Nice, night, huh?” He took a step in her direction. I had no idea what he had planned. Instead of crossing the border of the church’s property, he smacked into an invisible barrier that bounced him back. “What the ... ?”

  I was as confused as he was. “What is that?” I extended my fingers, frownin
g when they ran into something hard, something that was somehow transparent and solid at the same time. “It’s a force field of some sort,” I murmured.

  “I noticed.” Gunner drilled a smug-looking Cecily with a pointed look. “What’s going on?”

  “He is the resurrection and the light,” Cecily replied. “Only true believers may pray with us. You’re not true believers.”

  “Yeah, but ... do you really think no one is going to notice … this?”

  “He doesn’t care who notices. He only cares that we do his bidding. We have, so ... nighty-night.” She gave us a finger wave before climbing into her car. All the while, she laughed like a loon.

  “Okay, that was creepy,” I muttered, watching as she pulled out of the parking lot and drove in the opposite direction. Whatever the barrier was, it clearly didn’t stop her from leaving … just us from crossing over and invading their territory. “What do you make of that?”

  “Nothing good.”

  Twenty-Six

  Gunner and I spent thirty minutes trying to breach the barrier surrounding the church to no avail. I had a few ideas, but I wanted to rest and recharge before unleashing them. Besides, it was getting late and Gunner wanted to check on those we’d left behind at The Rusty Cauldron.

  By the time we returned, the place was mostly empty. Only Graham, Rooster and Whistler remained, all drinking whiskey at a table.

  “I wondered if you were coming back,” Graham said before he downed a shot. “I guess I lost that bet.”

  Whistler snickered and held out his hand. “I told you they’d be back. Where’s my twenty bucks?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Graham’s expression was hard to read as he dug in his wallet and came back with a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “I thought maybe you two decided to work out your frustrations together.”

  I was mortified by what he insinuated. “Excuse me?”

  “Ignore him,” Gunner instructed, his expression dark. “He’s not digging at you. He’s digging at me.”

  “Hey, I’m just glad you’re finally showing interest in a woman,” Graham drawled. “I thought for sure there were no grandchildren in my future. My worry, however, is that this particular woman apparently has the ability to blow Hawthorne Hollow off the map.”