We stared at each other as the last shimmer of the mist subsided. Then Aurora, her hair settling on her shoulders like a mantle of fire, her voice seething with outrage, shouted, "And what are you doing with my book?"
Chapter 4
"Mother spare me amateurs and the foolish!" Aurora, wearing Kylie's robe, continued to glare at me. I couldn't say I blamed her. I said again, "I had no idea anything would happen. I don't believe in this kind of thing."
"I was busy, you know. You can't just grab a person—"
"I didn't think I was doing anything. I wished for an apple."
"Oh, please."
"I'll show you the page, and I thought of an apple. It was a test, because I don't believe in it."
"So you say, over and over, but here I am."
"You could go home."
"Not without my book."
"It must have been delivered here by mistake."
"If you don't believe in it, how come you can read Goddess Hand? I didn't think they taught that in college."
"Is that what this is?"
She blinked. The book lay on the kitchen table between us, and she had yet to touch it. "If you don't know Goddess Hand, how did you read it?"
"I don't know. At first I thought it was blank, then I realized I could see characters by firelight, and then I'd wake up hours later with a backache."
Her mouth opened for a moment, then she shut it again without saying anything. Her fingers drummed the tabletop, then that stilled, too.
"Are you sure you don't want some tea?" I was glad of the hot cup in my hands. I was feeling more drained by the minute.
"No, thank you. You've never been initiated? You've never danced the spiral? Called the moon?"
"I don't believe—"
"Stop that, of course you do. How did I get here?"
"You don't understand. Superstition is—"
"I am not a superstition or a hallucination."
"I'm so tired and scared and worried that maybe you are." There had to be a perfectly logical explanation for everything, I thought. There had to be.
"Give me my book back, and you won't have to worry about doing something truly foolish."
"It's yours. Take it." I swallowed back tears of exhaustion.
"No, you've read it and used it. You have to give it to me."
I pushed it toward her. "There."
She picked up a cotton tea towel, felt it between finger and thumb for a moment. "You don't have a square of silk, do you?" I just stared. "Okay, this will do. Wrap it in this and hand it to me."
"And if I don't?"
"It'll go on tempting you to try what you don't understand and can't control. I inherited that book and sent it to... a friend... to have the binding repaired. I've only used it twice in five years. Thank goodness you've only used it once."
I didn't want to tell her about the dream spell. I wrapped it in the tea towel, my hands shaking. "Here, then."
She wouldn't take it until I was facing her, and I looked her in the eye. With a hard swallow, for something in me did not want to give it up, I extended it toward her.
Her hands rested on top of mine for a moment and she gasped as something that felt like static electricity seemed to dance on the surface of the book. I snatched my hands back and then she had it. From within the folds of Kylie's robe I saw her necklace shimmering with light.
"You used it more than once."
"Twice, but the first time I thought it was a joke."
"You shouldn't fool around with what you don't understand. You might as well play with electricity."
I'd had enough lectures. Tired, cold and feeling more tied in knots by the minute, I said, "Can we continue this discussion tomorrow?"
"As long as tomorrow you won't pretend it never happened."
"I'm sure there's an explanation. Something that makes sense."
"The most obvious explanation does make sense." Something flashed in her eyes that made my heart pound. "There was a time when a safely delivered, healthy baby was considered an act of magic. Then science explained it. The moon would blot out the sun—magic, until science explained it."
"What's your point?"
"Just because science can explain something doesn't mean it's still not magic. Everything around us is magic. Just because science can't explain it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, either. Atoms existed before the electron microscope. Science, reasoning and comprehension are gifts of nature. Understanding magic does not rob it of the goddess's power."
I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "Oh please. Don't tell me you hanker for the good ol' days of matriarchy. Matriarchy is a construct, just like patriarchy. It's what its believers created to give order and sense to their world."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," she snapped back. "I believe our world is magic. I visualize that magic and the order behind it as the female divine. I don't care how others view it. It works for me."
"But if I don't then I'm an idiot."
"Believe what you want." She clutched the book against her chest and turned abruptly to the kitchen door. I had always thought Kylie's fuzzy blue slippers were amusing, but on Aurora's feet they were abruptly very, very sexy. "You don't have to believe in an apple for it to ripen."
"Then how did you get here?" The last thing I could handle right now was her talking like a fortune cookie. I didn't know why we were fighting but I didn't want it to be my fault. She was the one who thought that crazy book was ... real. I couldn't believe it.
"How should I know? I haven't gone wading through this book like a kid on an egg hunt."
Stung, I shot back, "That's not what I was doing. It made me read it!"
"Oh, and how does a book do that? An ordinary book, isn't it? Isn't that what you think?" She abruptly lowered her voice. "I'm sorry, I forgot about Kylie."
"She's not here. I had to take her to the emergency room."
"Oh, no." Aurora left the door, skirting the table to reach for me with a gentle touch on my shoulder. I could feel the nearness of her and the book all over my skin. "Is it serious?"
"It's all serious." I tried to shrug lightly and failed. "I thought... I'm so tired. I don't know why I'm so tired."
"You did a major spell working, for starters. It takes energy."
"It's not like I had any left." There was a fatal quivering in my chin.
"Adrenaline, then. You must be so worried."
"Yes." I didn't want to cry in front of her, but a lone tear broke free of my eye. "I don't believe in that damn book, but I thought if it were real, I thought, what if... I'm such a fool to let that nonsense give me hope."
I cried for the second time that night, but this time with the warmth of Aurora's body holding mine. Kylie's robe did a lousy job of hiding every curve of her that I had glimpsed earlier. Her neck was lightly scented with rose and the heavy silk of her hair, too, blanketed me with warmth. I wanted to crawl inside her and get lost for a long time, but I couldn't do that. Kylie needed me.
After a tissue was found and used, she said gently, "You tried to find hope. That's not nonsense."
"So that book has no spells for curing cancer, bone decay or synaptic meltdown?"
"Not that I know of, no." She abruptly let go of me. "I should go."
"It's late. I'm sorry. I disrupted your night."
"I was in the middle of something, yes, but I can recapture it another time."
"Dancing?" I could not stop staring at her shoulders and tracing the swell of her breasts with my eyes.
"Some might call it that." She took a step backward. "I really should go."
Her insistence hurt a little, but I understood. It was now closing in on the real witching hour, three a.m. "Are you a witch?"
"Yes. Got a problem with that?"
"No. Not tonight. Tomorrow I'll be cranky and confused." Tonight I wanted to be back in her arms, held close and safe. Why a near stranger should make me feel that way I co
uld not explain. Snuggling was not all I wanted, either.
"Tomorrow I'll be less argumentative. I'm sorry for being so prickly." She went to the door again, hand back on the knob.
"Will you be okay? It's very cold out there."
"I'll run. Thank you for giving the book back. That it let you read it means you could have kept it, so thank you." With a blast of cold air, which drew a painful gasp from her, she was gone.
The scent of her lingered, gentle rose and that mix of aromas that are so female. I inhaled all I could as I stood to set my mug in the sink. A bang at the kitchen door nearly caused me to drop it.
"I'm locked out!" Aurora slammed the door behind her, robe askew, slippers dotted with snow. "It's fr-freezing out there!"
I did the only thing that made sense, which was to put my arms around her to warm her up. "You didn't put a spare key outside somewhere after this morning?"
"Not yet." The book was pressed between us, giving off heat that I couldn't help but enjoy. "There's an upstairs window slightly open."
"I've got a ladder."
She shivered. "Hayley..."
"Stay here tonight," I murmured and then, because she tipped her head back and her eyes were velvet with tenderness, I kissed her.
She breathed my name again, between our mouths. I wanted to stop because, yes, she was attractive, and yes part of me wanted her in a very basic, earthy way. But I was so tired and if we didn't stop we'd end up doing more than kissing and I was... disheveled, weepy, exhausted. If I went to bed with her I at least wanted to be clean and full of energy.
One of her hands was twined in my hair, and it slipped down to cup my neck. I couldn't help but open my mouth to hers. We kissed until the snow on her slippers had melted.
"We shouldn't do this," I finally whispered.
"Why do you think I was trying to go?" She opened her mouth to me again.
I was submerging into the heat of her, the femaleness of her scent, her eyes, her mouth, soft blended with strength, sweet mingled with fire. "You have to stay now."
"Hayley..." The robe was slowly coming undone.
I could feel the chill of the door on my arms as I pressed her against it. The book was gradually sliding toward the floor as she moved in small waves of response. "Stay, please."
"Hayley... I want to." She arched slightly into me, and my body answered with a brushing of my thigh between hers. "We can't... it's not... right."
"It feels right to me." My clothes felt as if they were tightening on my body. The next kiss worked over my mouth like a slow, sensual drug. "It feels incredibly right. I don't know why."
"I do," she murmured. "We have to stop."
"We will. Eventually." My hands slipped from her waist to her hips, and I pulled her more firmly against my thigh. The book was
getting in the way now. It was warm, tingling even, but I wanted her fire and nothing else.
"Hayley..."
I loved my name on her lips. "I won't call you Rory."
"You've been in my head since I hit you with my car." She laughed a little, but gasped when I nibbled at her lower lip. "Hayley... Gaia help me, stop, please."
"Why?" I was swollen with wanting her, heavy and ripe.
"I put a spell on you."
She was sprawled in a tangle of blankets on the sofa in my study when I slipped in to get my assignment book for morning class. I didn't know if she had a class she was about to miss, and I didn't care. I'd barely slept and it wasn't just the events of the night that had kept me awake. Visions of her naked, dancing for me in ways that had nothing to do with music, had tormented me.
"How dare you?" I'd demanded.
Beet red, she'd fired back, "But you don't believe in it."
"You do!"
"It wasn't supposed to lead to this. It was just a fantasy."
"Some fantasy!"
"Yeah, and I'm here because you weren't thinking about me? Don't think I don't know how that summoning spell works. You were thinking about me, plenty."
"At least I didn't mean to do anything. But you did!"
She'd said, in that calm smug way of hers, "Only to myself. Being here with you was none of my doing."
I was not at all happy that somehow the situation was my fault. "Oh, so your little spell wore off on me, is that it? A fantasy and eye of newt? Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble?" She was right, I didn't believe in it, but it was the mere idea of it all that bothered me so.
She had pressed her lips together at that. "I'll sleep anywhere if you'll just give me some blankets."
With one last look at the creamy bare leg that emerged from the pile of down and flannel, I tried to begin my day. Another call to the hospital yielded no new information. I'd leave my cell on, and make apologies to my classes should it ring.
I was two steps out the front door when I knew I had to go back. I hadn't slept well, and was up earlier than usual. I had just enough time to wake her and offer help with the ladder.
At my first touch her eyes flew open and I was bathed in that rich, river green. I kicked myself, hard, and made myself picture her bending over a cauldron, cackling Shakespearean rhymes. It might have worked had my vision of her included any form of clothing.
"I don't know if you're late for anything."
Seeming remarkably lucid, she glanced at the clock on my desk. "Nearly."
"Do you want that ladder and some clothes?"
She nodded. "Thank you."
Okay, we'd be coolly polite this morning.
She took the offer of a pair of my boots and a running hat, but claimed the robe was enough to cross the yard. I think she was sorry when the first knife of icy wind hit her, but she'd opted to be the stoic;
Once the ladder was unfolded and against her house, under the window she said she'd left barely ajar, I took pity on her. "Why don't you go back to my kitchen and I'll wave from your kitchen door and let you in."
She was going to refuse, but a chance stab of wind blew open the lower half of Kylie's robe. Her legs were gorgeous, I couldn't deny that, even if they were mottled with red from the cold. She clutched the robe closed and bolted for the house. "Thanks," she called over her shoulder.
Climbing the ladder was easy but I went carefully because my hands were stiff on the frozen metal. The window was indeed ajar, but I could barely work my fingers under it. Finally, it gave another inch, then all way. I slithered over the sill and closed the window firmly behind me.
I had thought I'd be in her bedroom, but the room was nearly empty. A large round area rug of deep red covered the hardwood floor. In the center of the rug was a candle, burned down to a hardened puddle of wax in a crystal bowl. I followed my nose to the other crystal bowl—it was filled with fragrant rose petals.
I stood again and then blushed hotly. On the far side of the rug was a red towel, and just protruding from under it was a vibrator. The only other object in the room was a CD player in the corner, plugged into the same outlet as the vibrator.
I couldn't help myself. After I pressed play the room filled with a quiet, rhythmic drumming, quickly joined by the tuneful humming of women's voices. Obviously, Aurora had been having a very private dance when I had interrupted. I was chagrined, embarrassed, even. This was crazy—she was crazy. I didn't have time for her or how I felt, but I was grinning ear to ear.
I don't know, I guess that her calling herself a witch was so foreign to me that it was nice to see she was wholly a woman, with needs and desires I understood. Needs she took seriously enough and tended to by devoting an entire room and considerable energy to a night of solo passion. That vibrator was the kind with wow, oh wow, and splat on the ceiling settings—and a match to the one I had at home.
She was alive, I mused as I hopped down the stairs, and I felt alive when I was with her. More alive than I'd felt since... since Kylie's cancer diagnosis.
I came to a stop at the foot of the stairs, all the humor draining out of me. Kylie was
dying and I had no right to be wasting my time on sex rooms and Aurora's body. I should have called the handyman about Kylie's bed. I needed to call the hospital again, and again. Kylie counted on me.
Aurora was peering across the distance separating our kitchen doors. My wave was solemn. She was pink when she reached me, the book clutched to her stomach, and it wasn't all the wind. She knew what I had to have seen.
We stared at each other awkwardly. Finally, I said, "I've got a class."
"So do I."
I was washed over with a vision of pushing her up onto her kitchen counter so I could open her legs and run my hand through the luxurious red hair I'd glimpsed last night. I knew I would find her eager. She was breathing hard. So was I. A magic spell? I don't believe in it, I don't, I can't. But I do believe in lust and we were both under the influence. I viciously reminded myself that even if she felt it, Kylie couldn't act on it. So how could I?
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "It's the kind of spell that's a wish more than anything else. It hasn't... run its course."
I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking of the many delicious ways we could complete each other. When I looked at her again there was a hint of tears in her eyes. "I have to go."
"I noticed you're moving furniture."
I paused, hand on the doorknob. "Kylie can't go up and down stairs anymore."
"I'm free at four if you need a hand."
I was grateful. "Thank you. That's a big help." I left before I would let myself think about how much I wanted to be in her company again.
Insane woman, crazy lady. Had she bewitched me somehow? The last twenty-four hours made no sense, I thought. Kylie was supposed to have more time. I'd conjured Aurora into my study. There was no explanation except the one that Aurora offered and I could not accept it. Superstition and hocus pocus played no part in my career, my life, and least of all my heart. I kept repeating that to myself all the way to my first class.
I started awake and looked up in time to see the lunch cart pass the open door of Kylie's room. The hospital seemed oppressively quiet and the moment I'd sat down I'd had trouble staying awake.
Kylie made a soft noise, like she was trying to surface out of her meds-induced haze.
Bell, Book and Dyke - New Exploits of Magical Lesbians Page 22
