by Karen Ranney
Holy crap. I was in the middle of a menopausal breakdown. Janet was losing it and her anger was directed at me and no one else. The only problem was that I had no clue where Dan was.
She threw her hands up in the air, directed her gaze to the domed ceiling, painted with cherubs, gods, goddesses and a beautiful blue sky adorned with white fluffy clouds.
"By St. Widden’s Cross, I promise I will not let her live!"
Everyone in the room stopped talking.
The waiters, who were bringing in trays of food, halted in their tracks. The ushers, who were directing people to their seats, turned to stare at her. Uncles, aunts, cousins, business partners, employees looked wide-eyed at the two of us.
Embarrassment swamped every other feeling until I was drenched in the flop sweat of the truly humiliated. Seriously, was I supposed to stand there and take this?
"I don't know where your son is," I said, irritated beyond measure. "I do know that wherever he is, he is not expecting you to trash Thanksgiving."
My voice was rising with each word. I could feel my emotions increase until power was pulsing in me. I stretched out my hands but kept my palms toward the floor to prevent my aura from rising and to stop me from pointing my fingers at Janet and zapping the hell out of her.
That would be one for the reunions, wouldn't it? Can you remember when Marcie laid out Janet? God, that was funny.
I doubted that Dan would see it quite that way.
"Instead of venting your spleen at me,” I said, "why don't you put your not inconsiderable energy to use finding Dan? You’re a witch. Don’t you have some kind of directional finder in your bag of tricks?"
I don't know if the gasps I heard behind me were because people didn't know that Janet was a witch or if they just weren't expecting someone to be super pissed at her.
Not only had I been stood up last night, but now I was being accused of doing something with the guy who had stood me up. I don't get all dressed up for bed for just anybody. Not that I was going to make that comment to Janet. Sometimes, I had enough sense to keep my mouth shut.
“By the way, I want all my stuff back. I can understand why you stole my brush, but my Kindle? And I need my phone.”
I had the pleasure of seeing Janet’s mouth open. Not a word came out. The blood drained from her face.
I didn't say another word to her. All I did was turn and head for the door, thinking that this Thanksgiving was even worse than some of the ones I had at home and that was saying something. But at least I could leave and thanks to my goddess powers, nobody tried to stop me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
We Were Flying Blind Here
No one followed me, thank God. I could barely control my emotions. I didn’t want to accidentally hurt someone. I made it out of the banquet hall and to the stairs without being stopped by anyone. At the top step, I looked around, grateful that no one else was on the roof.
Maybe this place was off limits to everyone. Maybe it was Dan’s place to come and survey his domain. Whatever it was, I was glad to be alone.
I walked in between the hedges to stand where Dan had stood last night. I wrapped my arms around my waist, looking at the same view he’d studied, only bright now with the noon sun. Although late in the season, the cicadas were still going strong. The temperature was probably going to get to seventy today, the memory of hundred plus days not that distant. The earth seemed to cling to the heat as if afraid of the chilly days to come.
Daring myself, I walked closer to the edge. From here I could see the cars filling the road leading to the gate. Each vehicle represented a guest or two in the banquet hall. Dan had opened his home up to his employees, his relatives, his friends, and his business associates, eager to share what he had with others. I’d always known he was generous. Look how he’d treated me from the beginning.
When I first met him, I thought he was a vampire, but he’d only been working for Maddock and assigned to me as a bodyguard. Now I knew why he’d gone to work for the master vampire: to learn what he could about his sister’s disappearance.
I suspected, from the beginning, that he was different. I never guessed that he was a wizard, but then my knowledge of wizards was somewhat lacking. I was going to have to learn more and quickly.
If I hadn’t shown up, if I hadn’t begun to dissolve the cloaking somehow, would he have ever changed? Would he have wanted to become a wizard again?
I wanted to do it on my terms. I didn't want any special favors or special powers. And now? Now he didn’t have a choice, did he, because I’d done something.
What the hell had I done? How had I done it?
Where was he?
This morning when I’d awakened to the dawn being revealed above me, I’d known. I’d felt it. Something warned me. Something felt wrong and now I knew what it was. I was suddenly so sad I could barely stand. Emotions flooded over me. I knew, but I couldn't tell you how I knew, that something terrible had happened. A corner of my world was crumbling. Some safe place had disappeared and would never return.
Dan.
I couldn’t feel him, and until this moment I hadn’t realized that I always had. There wasn’t a warm spot, a feeling of protection, a safe zone in my heart or maybe my soul. Something elemental was missing and I needed it to live. I needed him and I’d never been the type of person to need someone else so desperately it felt as if air had been stripped from my lungs.
Come back. Wherever you are, come back.
I was getting a sick feeling, like having morning sickness but not localized to my stomach. This involved the whole of me, heart, soul, body, and mind. I’d never been as terrified, not even when Maddock had drugged me. Then, I could anticipate what was going to happen and be afraid. This was worse. This was like standing at the edge of the abyss and seeing into the darkness, but having no idea what would come next. Nor how I would be able to face it.
He said he didn’t need GPS to find me. Maybe I didn’t need it to find him, either.
After I closed my eyes, an act that took its share of courage, I stretched out my hands on either side of me, palms up. In seconds, my aura was surrounding me like a capsule or a balloon of light. I stretched out my hands, my fingers splayed, and extended the aura outward until it was the size of Arthur's Folly. I sent my thoughts to every room, known or unknown, every corner, every wall, every ceiling, every floor, every cubic inch of the massive castle. I thrust the aura into the sub-floors, feeling for Dan’s presence, his essence, his warmth.
I saw his smile in my mind’s eye. I felt the touch of his hand on my arm, his kiss on my lips. I breathed in his air and stroked the bristly curve of his cheek. I whispered his name into his ear, recalled those moments when he effortlessly brought me bliss.
Come back to me. Dan.
Only emptiness met me.
Slowly, I allowed my aura to expand, over the lake, the gazebo, the flower gardens, and the invisible fence near the access road. Even farther, over the cars, the gate, the mesquite trees with their twisted trunks and branches spotted with mistletoe. Over the earth, scaring a family of armadillos, startling jackrabbits, and a few tortoises sunning themselves on a flat rock. When my aura threatened to dissipate into nothing but gold tinted air, I fueled it with my fear, with wishes, hopes, and the memory of our passion. I sent it flying, strengthened, over the bison of today, the whining eighteen wheelers speeding down IH-10 on their way to San Antonio.
He wasn’t there, either.
The world was empty, black, and joyless.
I opened my eyes and let my aura creep back to me, exhausted and weakened. I had failed at the one time I couldn’t fail.
I wanted to weep. No, I wanted to scream.
Turning, I saw Janet standing there. At that moment she wasn’t a powerful witch, but a woman in the depths of grief. She had already lost one child. Losing a second would destroy her.
“How did you know?” she said. “How did you know I’d taken your belongings?”
Oh, hel
l, I didn’t want to have that conversation, but it looked as if it were inevitable.
"The same way I know that Dan’s a wizard," I said, watching her carefully.
I didn’t tell her that Dan had told me in this exact spot. For some reason, I felt like the revelation would hurt her feelings. I may not like Janet, but I didn’t want to be the one to cause her any more pain. I wasn’t a mother yet, but I was already protective of the child in my womb. I couldn’t imagine the anguish the loss of her daughter caused her.
The fact that I couldn’t feel Dan, that I couldn’t locate him, scared me. That no one else had seen or talked to him was adding to my fear. I didn’t know where the hell he was.
"I saw you," I said. "Talking to Dan.”
“What do you mean?”
For a powerful witch, she was being a little obtuse.
“Dan called it remote viewing.”
She stared at me. “You have the ability to transport?"
That term didn’t seem quite right, either.
"I guess," I said.
She looked away, her gaze on the horizon.
Why couldn’t we just be honest with one another? We were both afraid. We were both worried about Dan. Why couldn’t we share what we were feeling?
I decided to go first.
"I can’t sense him," I said. "It's as if there's a wall between him and me."
I didn’t tell her that, until a little while ago, I hadn’t realized that he was always in my consciousness. Just a little to the side, standing back as if tucked into a corner just for him. The feeling of warmth was missing now, as if the world were newly cold and strange.
She turned her head. I avoided looking in her eyes. I couldn’t see her pain at the moment. I was trying too hard to contain my own.
“Would you try again?”
“I don’t think it would help,” I said.
“Please.”
I’ve run into people who are so sure of their own opinion that there’s no room for anything else. I ran into that problem a lot with older men in the insurance industry. They thought they’d seen it all, could anticipate anything I asked and consequently never answered the question the first time. They didn’t even wait for me to finish asking in their rush to answer. I would have to bite back my irritation, then circle back around to the real question once more.
I had a feeling that Janet was just like those older men, not accepting my word for anything. I knew nothing would come of trying again, but I also knew I couldn’t refuse her.
Without a word, I turned and walked back into the middle of the hedges. I replicated my movements, spreading out my arms. This time I added a prayer to my aura, sending it spinning over the landscape, stretching out farther than I had before until I was nearly sick with the effort.
I don’t know how long I stood there. I sent thoughts of Dan over the twisted trees, sparse grass still not recovered from a dry summer, trickling streams, and the last of the horny toads in this area. Time itself meant nothing as I called out to him in words only he could hear.
Dan, answer me. Where are you? Send me a message. Give me a word. Let me know where you are. If you’re safe. Please.
I only heard the echo of my own voice.
My stomach suddenly cramped, shocking me. A moment later I doubled over in pain.
Janet led me to one of the chairs as I collapsed. I wrapped my arms around myself, holding on, terrified and trying not to remember the two miscarriages I’d had in the past.
No. It was the only word I could think. No. It was a command, a prayer, an entreaty. No. I couldn’t lose this child, even if his father was gone.
Pain squeezed me until I felt cut in two. I closed my eyes, forcing my panic down. I breathed in deeply like I had before I’d been turned, letting the air out slowly. Again, and then again, until I was calmer. I wasn’t going to think the worst. I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to twist myself into knots. I was going to get through the pain until it eased.
“Are you all right?” Janet asked.
I nodded, forcing a smile to my face in response to the genuine concern in her voice.
She sat beside me, pressing her hand on my arm.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just a cramp,” I said, close enough to the truth.
“Shall I say a spell?”
The last thing I needed was to have to protect myself from a powerful witch’s spell.
“No,” I said. “I’ll be fine in a moment.”
To my surprise, she withdrew her hand, sitting quietly beside me. The pain wasn’t as bad as it had been just a few minutes earlier. I tried to remember those other occasions, memories I’d avoided until now. This had been a sharp pain, not what I’d experienced before. After the first miscarriage, I hadn’t read any books about pregnancy. I hadn’t wanted to predict or discover anything before it happened. A good thing, as it turned out. Now, however, I wished my ignorance wasn’t quite so deep or pervasive.
Or maybe no book could answer questions about this pregnancy.
Maybe I’d been stabbed by a fang.
I closed my eyes, said another prayer, hoping that God wasn’t too annoyed at me. Not a fang, God, please. Let it be a little wizard hat that had poked me in the uterus.
"It's the cloaking," Janet said. "It prevents you from feeling him.”
I pushed back my anxiety and looked over at her. She was feeling her own panic, and in that moment it united us.
“Dan said it was fading."
She didn’t look surprised at my words. “Perhaps if we removed it completely, you could sense where he is.”
“Can you do that?” I asked. “I thought once he was cloaked, it couldn’t be removed.”
She waved her hand in my direction. “That might have been true once, but since you appeared in my son’s life, Marcie Montgomery, a great many things have changed.”
What the hell did I say to that? Nothing that wouldn’t have raised her hackles once more. I wasn’t in the mood to fight with Janet.
“How does an uncloaking happen?” I finally asked.
At that, she stared off into the distance.
“I will have to consult with some of our elders.” She stood and glanced down at me. “Will you lend your power to our coven?”
At the moment, I wasn’t feeling the least bit powerful, but I nodded.
“Is it safe?” I asked. “If someone has restrained him or taken him, is it safe to uncloak him now?”
She frowned at me. “What do you think will happen once his power is revealed?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never met a wizard.”
“You might have,” she said. “And never known. After all, you lived among witches all your life.”
She was right about that, but that was a recent revelation. I was hesitant to tell her that. Or to admit how limited my knowledge of witchcraft was. I was flying blind.
Janet left me, no doubt to go and talk to the elders. Was she going to summon them to a holographic meeting? Was she just going to send them text messages? How technologically advanced were the witches? I know that whenever my grandmother texted me, which wasn't often, it startled me.
Or were they all here in the castle, come to celebrate Thanksgiving? Do witches acknowledge holidays? See how much I don’t know?
I sat there until the pain subsided completely, probably a quarter hour. Finally, I stood, taking inventory. I no longer hurt. There weren't any pains anywhere, only a hollow emptiness that seem tied to my sadness. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out I was missing Dan.
The strangest feeling came over me then. I knew things were going to be all right. Not everything. For example, I didn't know where Dan was or if he was safe and well. I didn't know about the man who had come into my room or the organization he represented. I didn't know about Mike or my mother or my relationship with Kenisha or what would happen to Ophelia if anything happened to Charlie – both events I avoided thinking about. I didn't know what was going to
happen with my relationship with Nonnie.
One thing I did know, the one thing that had worried me down deep, was that my child was going to be fine. I didn’t know who his father was, but I knew my son would live. He might have fangs or he might have wizardly powers or he might have fangs and powers. That was not yet decided. Or perhaps it was decided long ago and I just hadn't figured it out yet.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Not A Combination To Warm The Cockles Of My Heart
I wasn't going to return to the banquet hall, even though Janet and I had made a sort of peace between us. I was a little hungry. If someone showed up in front of me with a few tacos, I could eat. But I didn't want to sit in a room filled with people who were watching me surreptitiously. I didn't want to pretend to be pleasant, not with Dan missing. I wasn't that good an actress.
I didn't want to return to Dan’s suite of rooms, either.
There were a great many places I could go at Arthur's Folly – the library on the first floor, the Great Hall, the courtyard. The chances are, each one of them would be occupied and I didn't want to be around anyone right now.
I found myself standing in front of the door to my old suite. It felt like home, even though it had been invaded by a stranger. I placed my hand on the plate to the left of the lock, heard the click as it identified me. I opened the door, smelled my perfume, and walked inside, closing the door behind me. Daring myself, I walked into the dressing area. I couldn't see the secret panel and I wasn't going to try to find it right now. All I wanted was to make sure I was alone.
There wasn't anyone here but me.
I sat on the end of the chaise, wrapped my arms around me and let the tears fall soundlessly. I felt as if I were melting inside. Something was dissolving. Maybe my optimism or my belief in happy endings. Or maybe the last trace of my innocence.
I’d had an eventful few days. All I needed now was to be confronted with Maddock or one of his minions to make my stress complete. Just kidding, God.
