Beacon's Spark (Potomac Shadows Book 1)

by Jim Johnson

  I clasped my arms around my chest, uncertain of what to feel. Finally, I lifted my gaze off the floor and glanced at Miss Chin. “I’ll…I’ll have to think about it.”

  She spread her hands, as if in welcome or benediction. “My door is always open, Rachel. Visit me any time.”

  I met her eyes, seeing nothing but truth and openness there, and I broke off the contact because I didn’t like the feelings it raised in my heart. I headed for the steps and got up a couple of them, but stopped and stared at her from across the room.

  She had resumed her seat on her little stool in the center of the room. Mister Parkour was sitting up straight on top of the tallest stack of boxes, lording it over the basement with his imperious demeanor.

  “You’d let me walk up these stairs and out the door without stopping me, wouldn’t you?”

  She shrugged. “I would. But I know you’ll be back.”

  God, she was so infuriating! “And what makes you think that?”

  She raised an elegant eyebrow and inclined her head toward Mister Parkour. “Because, like a certain feline, you can’t help it. You’re too curious to stay away. That’s why you went after that woman’s soul in the nursing home, and that’s why you’ll come back to me. Even if you left now. It is in your nature to chase the unknown.”

  I stared at her, trying to dredge up some snarky comment or clever riposte to her statement, but…I had nothing. I was too tired from the day before, and honestly, just damn tired of running away. Enough was enough.

  And dammit, I think she was right.

  I back-stepped down the stairs and then took a couple steps into the basement toward her. “Fine, damn you.” I crossed my arms over my chest again, and bit the inside of my cheek, looking for the words I wanted—needed—to say, but figuring out how to say them left me tongue-tied.

  I thought about everything that had happened to me since that first encounter at Branchwood, about what Malcolm had done yesterday, and about all the messed-up things going on in my life that had to do with magic, ghosts, and glowing blue energy threads.

  Finally, I focused on her and pushed the words out. “Miss Chin…I need your help.”

  Chapter 29

  MISS CHIN SAT UP STRAIGHT ON her stool and rested her hands on her knees. Precise actions, precise movements. She said one word. “And?”

  I gnawed on my lower lip. “Uh...” Not the most profound of responses I could have made.

  Miss Chin raised an eyebrow.

  I flailed my right hand around. “Uh, and I want you to train me? I don’t know if there’s much more than that.”

  She pursed her lips, and then focused on me with her big brown eyes. “Why do you want me to train you?”

  My teeth found my lower lip in between them again and I found a little flake of skin to nibble on before biting through it. Was she intentionally making this hard? I stared at her like I had vapor lock, which honestly wasn’t all that far from the truth.

  She made a slight ‘tsking’ sound in her throat. “Usually when a student comes to a teacher, the student has some idea why they want to learn what the teacher might be able to offer them.”

  I nodded. “Yes, exactly.” I gestured toward the ceiling. “You know a lot about the crystals and the occult and ghosts, and...”

  She raised a hand, which stopped me mid-thought. “I tend not to use the word ‘occult’. Some consider it semantics, but the work I do here and the skills I possess are significant and they are real.” She nodded toward the crystal pendant hanging around my neck.

  “This is real, Rachel, what we Weavers do. Not ‘hocus pocus’ or stories of boogums told in the night to scare stupid children or clueless minds.”

  I nodded, feeling like I was about ten years old all over again. “I get all that.” I hated the defensive sound of my own voice.

  She continued. “I felt the need to emphasize it. What we do is very real, and dangerous. These are significant energies you are dealing with, and, if you’re not careful, you could very well find yourself lost on the wrong side of the Holding before your time, or worse.”

  A flash of Malcolm melting that handgun sprang to mind. No kidding that the power we were messing with was no joke. I needed her to train me so that I could put a leash on Malcolm. I didn’t think he’d go freelance again, but honestly, I barely knew the guy.

  Miss Chin leaned in toward me and again it was like her presence made her seem three times her size. She dwarfed me with her sheer sense of will and self. Having Mister Parkour stare at me from atop his box perch made the moment all the more ominous.

  “Please listen carefully, Rachel. I say these things not to scare you, but to warn you. The life of a Weaver can be a kindly, even friendly and positive world to be pulled into, but it can kill you more surely than even the mundane world. Perhaps even easier.”

  She was off the stool and across the room toward me in the blink of an eye. She reached out and clamped a hand over my closest wrist. Her skin was smooth and warm, but her grip was like a dog’s on a bone. I winced, terrified. “How…how did you move so…?”

  Her eyes grew larger, commanding my focus. “I need you to understand, Rachel. This is not a movie using clever chicanery and a mood-inducing score. This is your life, my life, and the lives of all we interact with, both past and present.”

  A chill slithered down my spine. “O…okay.”

  “So again, I must ask you. Why do you want me to train you?”

  I stared into her brown eyes, and opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I closed my mouth and thought carefully about the question. I thought about Malcolm, standing there with me in the nursing home and getting pushed back into the wall. I thought of Grandpa shut away in a place that seemed to have some serious problems, both with the living and the dying.

  And then I thought of the souls I had seen, the ghosts here and there. The more I thought about everything, the more I was comfortable with the truth. Talking to Bonita hadn’t hurt either. And I saw that old woman’s face I had followed, and the black woman with the caved-in face in the alleyway the other night.

  Both of them had been ghosts, of course, but as I recalled them, seeing them in my memory, they had something else in common, something I could identify with all too well.

  I turned my hand over and caught Miss Chin’s hand in mine and held it tight, finding a bottomless well of strength in that touch.

  Haltingly, I said, “I know why I’m here, Miss Chin.”

  She raised both eyebrows. “Yes?”

  The tears started to well up again, and I could feel my throat starting to tighten—I had to get this out before I couldn’t talk any more. “I’m...I’m lost, just like those souls out there. Lost, like the woman at Branchwood…and the woman in the alleyway.”

  I started to feel my confidence returning. I kept hold of her hand. “They’re lost, no clue of where to go next. Being called to some place they don’t understand, or lost, left to wander the alleyway where they had died. And that...that’s so sad.”

  She nodded slowly. “It is. Especially when you have the ability to guide them back onto their paths.”

  I shook my head. “But how? I’m just as lost as they are and I’m alive. Is this some sort of ‘blind leading the blind’ thing?”

  She offered a slight smile. “You’re not blind, my dear. Just inexperienced. ” She sighed. “But, you admit you are lost. This is good.”

  I frowned, not quite making the connection. “It’s good that I’m lost?”

  Her smile broadened and she squeezed my hand. “Of course. Self-awareness is a powerful component of what we do as Weavers. If, as you are working, you are able to retain a clear image of who you are, you will be very hard to interfere with.” She let my hand go. “As long as you know who you are, at the deepest essence of your being, you will never be lost again.”

  I nodded, not sure I understood at all.

  “So, I ask you again, why do you want me to train you?”

  I considered her
question, and then nodded, finally accepting the truth that had been nagging at me for a long time. “I want you to train me, Miss Chin, because I want to help. As a lost soul myself, I want to help others find their ways home. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find myself in the process.”

  She was silent for a long time, how long I was never sure. It seemed like time had just decided to go off and take a lunch break.

  Finally, she smiled and her expression softened. “It would be my pleasure and honor to train you to the very best of my ability, Rachel Farran.”

  Chapter 30

  MISS CHIN COULDN’T START TRAINING ME right away, of course. She and I talked another hour or so, and then she had to beg off due to a dinner date. She gave me some pointers on how to start meditating with the crystal. After I told her about Bonita, she agreed that I could get a lot out of working with her and suggested I continue.

  We traded cell phone numbers and I promised I’d get in touch in the morning so that we could set up our first training session. It felt kind of unreal, but I was excited to be moving forward with trying to make sense of my strange new world.

  On the walk home in the unexpectedly comfortable afternoon, I thought about the conversation I’d had with Miss Chin, about my realization that I was a lost soul myself, looking to help others find their way home. The more I thought about it, the more I had to accept the truth of it. Miss Chin had said as much—as long as we were self-aware enough to admit our shortcomings, we might be all right to help others.

  Lost in thought, I reached home without really remembering the walk through the neighborhood. I didn’t hear anyone in the house, though both the dishwasher and clothes dryer were running and the comforting aroma of baking bread permeated the whole house.

  I knew Penny liked to bake. It was apparently therapeutic for her, and if that really was the case, I wished she would do a whole lot more of it. If anyone besides me needed therapy, it was her.

  I peeked into the oven. There were a pair of loaves baking—a sourdough and a multi-grain. Penny, for all her faults, did love to cook for other people and was usually more than willing to share her creations. My mouth watered as I inhaled the mixed smells. Delicious.

  Her sourdough bread was particularly tasty with butter and spicy jelly, and we still had a couple jars of pepper jelly left over from our last trip to the Del Ray farmer’s market.

  And besides, freshly baking bread just smelled so good. I heard faint voices filtering in through the open windows from the back yard, and glanced out the kitchen window.

  Penny and Cooper were seated next to each other in folding chairs, their legs propped up on the small patio table, sharing a thick blanket draped over their laps. They each had a bottle of beer in hand and were chatting about their day. They both looked happy, which strangely comforted me even though neither one of them was high on my list of favorite people.

  I decided to leave well enough alone and snagged a bottle of beer out of the fridge and a banana off the hook on the counter, and headed upstairs.

  The door was slightly open and all the lights were off. It was just after six, and Abbie had clearly not gotten home yet, so I guessed her job was really keeping her busy. A glance at my cell phone showed no messages. I thought about calling her, but decided that I’d wait till she got home. I wasn’t quite as fired up to tell her everything as I had been before, but I knew we needed to talk.

  I changed into some comfortable clothes—flannel pants, blue fuzzy slippers, and a long-sleeved t-shirt emblazoned with a weathered iron-on image of Strawberry Shortcake.

  I flopped onto the bed. My crystal pendant swung around on its chain and I rotated to sit cross-legged on the bed, and caught the pendant mid-swing.

  I thought about curling up under the comforter with my beer and a book, but I stared at the crystal and thought about what both Bonita and Miss Chin had said, and decided to try some of the meditation exercises they had suggested. If I could figure out how to meditate and calm down, maybe I could help Malcolm.

  I fished out some unscented candles and a gas lighter from the knick-knack drawer me and Abbie kept in the bottom of our tall chest, and placed them around the bed and lit them as I went. I didn’t trust myself to use my ley powers to light them—the last thing I needed was to lose control like Malcolm and burn down the freaking house.

  The handful of candles lent a soft, pleasant light to the room, casting odd shadows here and there. I turned off the room’s lights completely, feeling more comfortable in the little circle of light I had made. Bonita had told me to get comfortable in my favorite place, and while the floor would have been the more effective place to work from, I was most comfortable in bed. So I crawled onto the bed and resumed my cross-legged position, and rested my hands palms-up, on my knees.

  I sat there quietly for some time, letting the distant drone of Cooper and Penny’s voices fade from hearing, slowly breathing and finding some measure of peace in the soft candlelight.

  It was weird to take this sort of time for myself. Usually I hated sitting still, and I rarely enjoyed quiet. I needed music, or people to talk to, or even just the guttural chugging of a transit bus to keep me occupied. Solitude and quiet were nearly alien concepts to me.

  But somehow, I found some peace of mind sitting there in the candle-glow, in the presence of no one but myself. I started slow rhythmic breathing, following the advice Bonita had given me, working toward finding my center and my focus.

  As I drifted along, I sensed a muffled buzz at the edges of my hearing, and focusing on that brought voices to mind, though they were far off, like a television on downstairs that you can hear is on but can’t make out the words. A shiver coursed down my spine when I realized that these were voices, more voices of lost souls, wandering the mortal world.

  Waiting for me, or someone like me, to guide them home.

  I sighed and forced myself to breathe deeper, to focus inward. I didn’t know how to answer those voices, other than to whisper that I’d try to help, when I could. I had no training, no experience… But I needed to focus.

  I created a soundless wall between my mind and the chattering voices and visualized an endless spiral. I tracked it inward, arc after arc, following the path downward farther and farther, strolling deep within myself, not so much looking for my center as finding a peaceful, quiet space.

  As I followed the arcs, mentally moving clockwise down and around and around, the path below my virtual feet gradually started glowing with a soft blue light lined in silver. Bonita had told me that everyone had an aura with a unique color, and I knew that silver was mine.

  I continued to follow the never-ending path, finding a deep solace within myself that I had never felt before—never really given myself the time to explore. It was quiet, and peaceful, and I could very easily have lost myself forever in the gentle blue and silver light flowing all around me.

  “Rachel?” The word was so softly whispered that I would have missed it had it not been so utterly silent in the bedroom.

  I slowly opened my eyes and felt myself rising back up to the surface, out of the pool of glittering light. I felt a strange sense of longing at leaving it.

  Abbie was leaning against the door jamb, staring at me with a strange expression. She nodded toward my chest. “How…how are you doing that?”

  I blinked, terrified, because I knew what she was seeing. I glanced down to confirm my suspicion. Sure enough, my little crystal pendant was ablaze with bright silver light, illuminating the room around me. I gaped in wonder. My meditation had triggered it again. I lifted my eyes back toward Abbie.

  To her credit, she just stood there in the doorway staring at me, a mix of fear and wonder on her face. “God, Rachel…I don’t know…”

  “Come in and close the door behind you.”

  She hesitated, glanced down the hallway, but then nodded and stepped into the bedroom. She reached behind her and closed and locked the door. She placed her briefcase on the desk chair and then moved over to th
e bed and stood outside the circle of candles. I scooted over to give her some room on the bed, but she didn’t move, keeping her distance from me.

  “Are you making that thing glow?”

  I thought about trying to focus on it to make it stop, but so far I hadn’t tried to do that and wasn’t even sure if I could. I shrugged, tired of lying to her. I met her eyes again. “Yes. Does…does that scare you?”

  “I…I don’t know if ‘scared’ is the right word.” She frowned. “It’s not normal, is it?”

  I shook my head. “No, not normal at all.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I mean, does it run on batteries or is it solar-powered, somehow?”

  I kept my eyes locked on hers. “Neither. It’s powered by my own aura and etheric energies. The more I work at it and relax into meditation, the brighter it glows.”

  She bit her lip and glanced behind her at the closed door, then turned to focus on me again. “This is the same crystal that supposedly talked to you, right?”

  I nodded. “Yes.” I was surprised at how calm I felt. “It’s a special crystal. It’s…it’s helping me learn things about myself. Things that I had avoided admitting to myself.”

  She raised an eyebrow at that and then glanced at the circle of candles around the bed. “Can…can I sit on the bed?”

  “Hang on a second.” I might as well go for it—if she wasn’t running out of the house screaming from the glowing crystal… I focused my Eye and the etheric energies under my control, and manipulated the threads around me and willed all the candles in the circle to extinguish at the same time. Our bedroom was plunged into sudden darkness, save for the bright glow of my crystal.

  Abbie gasped in surprise, but to her credit, still didn’t run out the door. “Was that you, or the crystal?”

  “That was all me.” I took a deep inhale, the air charged with the smell of the burned-out candles. “One of the things I’m learning.”