Beacon's Hope (Potomac Shadows Book 2)

by Jim Johnson

  I blinked, not realizing that the journal had thought me as kind. “I dunno. Some days I’d say maybe, but most days he’s just a pain in the…uh…pain in the rear.”

  I think I understand. My brothers were also…pains.

  “I bet your brothers didn’t hold onto the family purse-strings and keep your portion of the money from you.”

  My family was poor. We didn’t have any money for my brothers to hold back from me.

  “Oh.” I stared down at the book, embarrassed for my comment. “I didn’t know. What did your family do?”

  The smile turned to a frown. “My mother and father were freed blacks, which made my brothers and sisters and I also freed blacks, but Alexandria City and, later, Washington City were not always the best places for free blacks to live.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, friend, but I don’t know history all that well.” Saying that made me pause, then I asked, “Hey. I don’t know your name. Mine’s Rachel Farran.”

  The smile returned to the pages. Rachel, I am most pleased to make your acquaintance. My name was Charity. Fourth daughter of my mother and father and the second to grow into adulthood. I lost two brothers and two sisters to childhood diseases, and the others moved on after the war.

  “Charity. I don’t quite know how it is you’re talking to me, but I’m pleased to meet you too. If you were a Beacon like me, I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about.”

  I am confident of that. I am uncertain where exactly to begin.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know either. How about tell me what you know about the ley threads and the ley grid, from your perspective as a Beacon. Maybe we can trade notes.”

  Another smile from the journal pages, rather, Charity. As I said earlier, the ley grid was built by the fathers of our country, though my understanding is that the underpinnings of it existed well before then, perhaps even built or at least protected by the indigenous tribes who were on this land before the Europeans arrived and before the slave ships arrived from Africa.

  My eyes widened. “The grid has been around since the Indians—sorry, Native Americans—were here, living on their own?”

  Possibly before then, too, but I am uncertain. I do remember that one of the tools I used to use was a bone wand, also known as an athame, that had been made by a, as you say, Native American shaman. The person who gave you this journal, did they also give you the athame?

  “No, she didn’t. Is it important? Should I ask her for it?” Idly I wondered if Miss Chin was maybe holding out on me, or if she didn’t have the thing after all.

  The journal made that little quirk again, which felt like a sort of shrug. Important to my curiosity as to its fate, perhaps, but not a critical thing. It has a long heritage with the ley threads and ley grid, and is a useful tool for opening and closing the Veil, simply because of its long use for that purpose.

  Charity paused, as if to catch her breath. Perhaps asking for it might prove useful. It is possible that it has been lost over the years, either in your world or in the Holding.

  “Like a lost soul…” I mused.

  Perhaps. Charity didn’t sound all that certain. Souls that find their way to the Holding, or those that are guided there, occasionally still lose their way and become lost, but items brought into the Holding are usually brought there for a reason. I would be surprised any of them are lost in the same sense, though I can see how it is possible.

  I held up a hand, then felt silly because I doubted Charity could see my hand gestures. “Wait. You can put things in the Holding and they’ll stay there?”

  Of course. Have you not secreted items within the Holding for safe-keeping?

  I stared at the journal, then cleared my throat. “No. I had no idea such a thing was possible.” But now that I thought about it, a few pieces clicked in my head. Of course it had to be possible. If I could physically enter the Holding and move around its shadowy streets, and interact with things like the forms of doors and rooms… Why not store things in there as well?

  I focused on the pages of Charity’s journal. “Have you stored things within the Holding?”

  The pages smiled up at me. Of course. It was part of the training my own Warden bade me complete. Taking trinkets into the Holding, placing them in a secure place, and then returning at a later date and time to retrieve them. My Warden even took items into the Holding and hid them there for me to find. That was harder.

  “Why?”

  I often did not know what the Warden hid, so I was required to also try and use my other ley senses to try and detect subtle changes in the weave of the Holding so that I could track and find the hidden items.

  I stared, somewhat slack-jawed, at the journal’s pages. “You can do that?”

  The half-smile returned. I was able to, yes. Can’t you?

  I frowned. “No, I don’t think so. Not really, anyway. My training hasn’t gotten me that far yet.” I gnawed at the inside of my cheek, then added, “My Warden isn’t exactly up on all the ins and outs of training a Beacon, honestly.”

  Charity’s smile turned into a frown. Well, no matter. Consider it a preview of things you will soon be able to do. I will be more than happy to train you in these respects, Beacon Rachel.

  My cell phone started to blare out a chime as my alarm went off, the one telling me that I had half an hour to get to work.

  I reached outside the circle to disable the alarm. I sighed and then glanced at the journal, at Charity. “Look, I gotta get to work, but I want to continue this chat soon. Will you be around tonight?”

  As soon as I asked it, I mentally slapped myself upside the head. What a stupid question.

  To her credit, Charity simply chuckled, the image of her lips smiling up at me once again. I am part of the journal for as long as the journal exists or I decide to leave for the Holding myself. I’ll be ‘here’ whenever and where ever you happen to be with the journal.

  I nodded. “All right, then. I’ll look forward to talking with you more soon, Charity.”

  I closed the book on her strangely comforting double smile, and caught just the slightest hint of a sigh as the pages folded back on themselves.

  I extinguished the dozen candles making up the circle with a quick wave of my hand and a flexing of the ley thread that powered them, then got to my feet and tidied up the room.

  I stepped into my shoes and tossed the journal into my satchel. For some reason, I felt fiercely more protective of it—it wasn’t just an old book with yellowed pages and an old cover—it was almost like a person, someone who I wanted—needed—to talk to and learn from.

  I gathered up the rest of my stuff and bounded down the stairs and out of the house, a sudden dark thought trailing behind me. Did the Spinner know anything about the journal? If not, what would he do if he did learn of it?

  Given the things Charity had hinted at knowing, the things she said she could teach me, I decided that I’d do all I could to keep her—the book—out of his hands.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THE BUS AND TRAFFIC GODS WERE kind to me today—I got to work at Bonita’s without too much effort and within five minutes of my start time. Even thought I was an unofficial employee and sort of paid under the counter, and great friends with the owner, it was important to me to be reliable. Bonita appreciated it, and even though I knew I could take advantage of my friendship with her to be late if I needed to be, it was more important to be a good friend and a good employee.

  I walked into the store, wishing I had thought to stop by the coffee shop, but my mind had been so full of what the journal, rather, Charity, had told me, plus all the other stuff going on with the Lincoln Memorial and Malcolm, that I just went on auto-pilot and headed to the store without thinking.

  Bonita was perched on her stool behind the counter, a well-loved romance novel in one hand and a paper cup of coffee in the other. She glanced up as she heard the little bell attached to the door chime as I walked in, and smiled as she saw me. “Hey, Rachel, right on tim
e. Your coffee should still be warm.”

  My ears and nose perked up. “You got me a coffee?” Abbie buying me a phone and Bonita buying me a coffee—if only Robert had bought lunch, then it would have been a perfect week for me. Ah well.

  Bonita nodded. “I did, and it’s right here. Come and get yourself some empty calories, chica.”

  I grinned and headed over to the counter, noting at a glance that the shop was empty. “Slow day?” I asked as I tossed my satchel and jacket behind the counter and then pulled the second, mismatched stool around to the front of the counter.

  She flipped the cover shut on her paperback and put it on the counter behind her. “Yeah. Had a couple people in this morning buy a few things, and a couple drop-offs, but nothing stellar. Maybe a hundred bucks in sales?”

  “Not bad for a Thursday morning.”

  She shrugged. “I guess. The weekend is almost here and I hope it picks up. The weather should be decent, anyway.”

  I took hold of the coffee she got for me and held it up to my nose and inhaled the lovely aroma of a peppermint latte. It was well past the holidays, but the shop down the street would still make the holiday favorites if you knew who to ask and, probably more importantly, dropped them a nice tip.

  I took a sip and sighed happily. “You know the way to this girl’s heart.”

  Bonita snorted before taking a drink of her own coffee. “If that’s all it takes, honey, you need to up your game. Otherwise someone is liable to steal you from Abbie for the price of a coffee.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “I don’t think so. Abbie upped the stakes.”

  Bonita raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What did that clever congressional staffer do now? Box seats at the Redskins-Cowboys game?”

  I smiled and pulled my new smartphone out of my hoodie pocket. “She added me to her cell phone plan and got me a new phone.” I raised a hand. “I’ll pay her back for it, of course.”

  Bonita’s eyes widened slightly and she made that little ‘oooh’ of impressed surprise. “Nice! What happened to your old cell phone?”

  I pocketed the phone and leaned on the counter. “Can you keep a secret?”

  Bonita glanced at the front door then back to me. “Of course I can, silly. You know you don’t even have to ask.”

  I took a fortifying sip of minty coffee. “The abilities I have with the ley threads?” I prompted her, and she nodded. I continued. “Turns out that the ley threads don’t play well with electronics.”

  She leaned back a bit and frowned. “I don’t get it. You told me you blew up Robert’s phone.”

  “Yeah, I mean again. I was checking out a tip from a…from someone about some things going on, like, etheric things, and it turns out that ley threads mixed with electronics result in dead electronics.”

  Realizing I had repeated myself, I shook my head. “I mean, I was using the etheric energies to do…stuff, and my phone got caught up in it, and then…you know, poof.”

  She stared at me as I told this poor little story, then held up a hand. “Hang on a second, sweetie, go back. And then back again. I’m missing the thread here. What did you do with the etheric energies?”

  I blinked, then gave a little laugh. “Of course. Sheesh, it’s been a long couple of days, Bonita. Let me explain…” I thought about it, then giggled. “No, it’s too much. Let me sum up.” I added a little quasi-Spanish inflection to my voice, doing my best Inigo Montoya impression.

  She snorted. “Go on.”

  “I told you about Detective Bello, right?”

  “Sort of. Tall dude, Anthony Mackie hot, but creepy and mysterious, and not in a sexy way.”

  “Right. So he comes up to me in the alley one night…”

  Bonita raised her eyebrows. “Chica! Whaaat?”

  I shook my head and waved off her concern. “Not like that, come on. So he comes up to me in an alley one night, and is all like, ‘Hey Rachel, I’m all mysterious and shit hanging out in this alley for no reason’.”

  “And I’m like, ‘Okaaaay, why are you here?’ And he’s like ‘Just chilling out here and oh, by the way, if you’re into weird ghost stuff, go check out the Lincoln Memorial’.”

  Bonita shook her head. “Okay…so he chats with you for some strange reason and then suggests you go check out the Memorial? While standing in an alleyway.”

  I nodded. “Something like that. He’s really weird, Bonita. I think…” I glanced at the closed door then back to her, feeling a bit paranoid. “I think he knows more than he’s letting on.”

  “What happened?”

  I took another sip of coffee. “I took off after he left, and it took me another day to get around to checking out the Memorial, and I got there last night, and man, it was weird.”

  She reached out a hand and pressed it against my forearm. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, girl. What happened?”

  “I pulled some ley threads to give me strength, and I remembered something Miss Chin had told me, that I don’t use my abilities often enough. So I sort of threaded the etheric energies into my inner Sight, and the whole freaking Memorial lit up with the light from the ley grid.”

  She stared hard at me. It was clear from her expression that she didn’t understand. I tried another angle.

  “I mean, woven throughout the marble facings of the floor, walls, ceiling, pillars, everywhere…the energies from the ley grid and the ley threads were glowing, I mean really glowing, and if I didn’t have this Sight to work with, I would have never seen it.”

  She nodded, a degree of wonder in her eyes. “I had no idea. I’ll have to give it a try sometime. It sounds like I don’t have anything near the Sight you do, but I bet if I spend the right amount of time meditating, I might be able to see some.”

  I offered a little giggle. “Bonita, I see them all the time.”

  She took another swig of her coffee. “We’re all connected to the Other in various ways. If it was as pretty as you seem to suggest, then I’m actually a little envious.”

  “You have no reason to be. I hear the stuff you do all the time as a doula and a midwife, and that’s real life-saving stuff, Bonita. I’m envious of that. I can make blue glowy stuff appear on the walls; you’re bringing new lives into this world.”

  She shrugged, but had a smile on. “And you guide lost and tired souls home to their final rest.” She chuckled. “I guess between us we’re the beginning and the end, in a non-Biblical sense.”

  I raised my half-full cup of coffee. “Here’s to us, the alpha and the omega of life.”

  We shared a laugh and drained the last of our coffee. She nodded toward me. “You didn’t finish your story. What else happened at the Memorial? Did you see that guy, Bello, again?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet, no, but if he can show up in an alleyway near my house, I bet he’s keeping tabs on me. I suspect I’ll see him again.”

  She shook her head and fixed me with a warning look. “I don’t know, Rachel. Stalkers shouldn’t be messed with. Never know what might happen.”

  I nodded, though her comment and recent events made me wonder. I frowned as I started to work out permutations in my head.

  She must have seen the look on my face because she leaned in, conspiratorial-like, and said, “I know that pensive, devious look. What are you thinking?”

  I stared at her, then looked away, actually sort of embarrassed to be thinking what I was thinking. I took a breath, then said, “Remember when I told you I had torched my brother’s phone? And then my phone last night? Well…I’m wondering if ley threads can be used to torch electronics, you know…what could they do to a person? Like as a weapon?”

  Bonita stared hard at me. I suspected that wasn’t the thought she expected to hear.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  BONITA GOT REAL QUIET AND REAL serious. “It’s fine to think about this stuff on a theoretical level, Rachel, but you have to be careful. This is a slippery slope not easy to get off of.”

  I frowned. “I was just wonde
ring.”

  She raised a hand. “I know, and I was just saying. Using the ley threads to enhance your inner Sight to see things beyond mundane means, and to use it to open and close the Veil between worlds and to guide lost souls toward something better? Those are definitely all good uses of your talent, most very much on the white magic side of the spectrum. Enhancing your sight isn’t necessarily good or evil, it’s just utilitarian.”

  She shook her head. “But to use the abilities to harm someone? That’s moving toward dark magic, black stuff, you know?”

  I nodded. “I didn’t mean I was going to go out and hit anyone with it.” I thought of Malcolm and his burning hands and the harm he’d done so far, and blanched.

  She patted my arm again, which I found a little annoying this time, weirdly enough. “I know you didn’t but think about it. You’ve already used the ley threads to effectively attack a cell phone and you nuked it. And then your phone a little while later, which required you to get a replacement.”

  She focused sad eyes on me. “I’m confident that what we’ve talked about and what Miss Chin taught you was sufficient to give you good control over your abilities, but still. Two phones in two days is a little worrisome. Especially now that we’re just talking about what would happen if the threads were to be used against someone.”

  I frowned and then drained the last of my coffee and tossed the cup into the trash can. “Maybe I should just stop there. I think you’re getting a little carried away. I was just curious.” And I was sounding defensive. I hate doing that.

  Bonita shook her head and then took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I didn’t mean to lecture you or come across hard. I feel strongly about this and I love you and I worry about you.” She rested her hand on top of mine. “I trust you know what you’re doing, okay? I’m sorry.”

  I looked into her eyes and nodded, then moved my hand out from under hers and patted the top of her hand.

  The bell on the door chimed, and we both turned to look at the door as it opened. Abbie walked into the room with a smile on her face that I saw falter as she saw us standing together at the counter.