by Kait Nolan
“Yeah...my first business. Did I tell you I’m working on another?” She shook her head. “Not the time for that. I’m trying to fill you in—”
“On a family that I never knew was so crazy. Jeez...this is actually making a lot of sense. Like those comments Dad has always made to Mother. Remember where I found you and what I saved you from. Things like that.”
Calla’s face grew red. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Your father is an asshat.”
“Hey!” Delia exclaimed. Then in a quieter tone, “My mother is a liar.”
Calla nodded, her eyes serious. “She never developed her abilities. She wanted to forget them entirely, especially after she met your father. Her blood became a liability once he wanted to run for office.”
“I don’t get this,” Delia said. “I have never felt any abilities. How could I not know?”
Calla shrugged. She didn’t break eye contact, like she knew that Delia needed that tether to rationality right now. She needed to be talking to another human being about this. Her thoughts were foreign and unsafe.
“I’ve known since I was little, so I have no idea. Maybe you want to check with your mom...but according to blood you should have as much natural ability as I do. And I’m one hot magical cookie, if I do say so myself.” Calla buffed her nails on her shirt in an attempt at humor that Delia wasn’t ready to appreciate.
“This necklace—the garnet stone.” Delia held it out for her cousin’s perusal. “Is this magical? I thought I was going nuts!”
“Ooh, has it already made itself known to you? Didn’t Grandma Elle just gift it yesterday? That’s fast—it was obviously meant to be yours.”
“Given in the knick of time,” Delia muttered.
“Knick of time for what?” Calla asked. “It sounded like Grandma Elle was worried about your ex. Did he do something that I should make him pay for?” She put a hand on a well-rounded hip, her blue eyes unyielding.
“He signed me up for this weird virtual boyfriend app thing on my phone. Which would be bothersome enough, but it seems like he also shared my location with the fake boyfriend, and called the news media when I left my apartment last night.”
“Are you kidding? I didn’t think Shaun was crazy, but he’s proving me wrong. Damn it—I’m usually such a good judge of character.” Calla seemed genuinely put out that she hadn’t called Delia’s husband as a psycho, though they’d only met twice.
“Not kidding. I don’t know what to do. We can’t get the thing shut off until Monday.”
“We?” Calla said, her sharp ears a thorn in Delia’s side.
“Oh...me, I guess.”
“Then why did you say ‘we’?”
Delia sighed. “My friend Cole was over last night.”
“Didn’t you just get divorced yesterday?” Calla crowed. “Damn, woman! You move fast!”
“It. Is. Not. Like. That.” Delia gritted her teeth. “Now you sound like my mother.”
“Ouch!” Calla laughed. Then she sobered. “Sorry...I’ve just never gotten along with your mother.”
“Neither have I,” Delia agreed. “She’s impossible.”
And it turned out that maybe part of that was misplaced guilt over family associations that she could not control. Maybe Delia had been unfair to her mother. But she could have avoided that with the truth.
“What’s been happening with the stone?” Calla pointed to the garnet.
“It keeps warming up. Once it got really hot, and I thought it was going to burn me.”
“What was going on when that happened?”
“We had just parked after driving past my building and seeing the TV news camera.”
“That’s it?”
Delia thought back to last night, Cole’s parked car... “Actually, I’d just received another text—it said that he knows where I live. That’s when I touched the stone and it was really hot.”
“Okay, I do not like that one bit.” Calla bit her lower lip, worrying it as she thought.
“What does it mean?” Delia asked.
“It’s a partnership, De. I can’t tell exactly what a message from the stone means to you or for you...you’ll have to get to know what the stone is conveying on your own. I’m not even good with stones; it’s the herbs and other plants that speak to me. But from what you’re saying, I think you know that whoever is texting you is not just annoying—they’re dangerous.”
Delia nodded. “It’s irrational to be as nervous as I am over a few messages on my phone, but I can’t seem to help it.”
“Idiots often call intuition irrational. Who cares? To those of us who are intuitive, it would be irrational to ignore the signals our subconscious gives us.”
Delia didn’t know what Calla was talking about now, and she didn’t have any time for esoteric thoughts.
“What should I do?”
Calla shrugged, her eyes wide. “Avoid whoever that is like the plague,” she insisted. “For now, hang out with your badass cousin, and your slightly-less-than-badass-because-she-just-had-a-stroke grandmother. And try not to be alone until you get this all resolved.” The last was said with a twinkle in her eye.
Delia gave her a sharp smack on the shoulder. “You have a dirty mind!”
“What?” Calla said innocently. “I didn’t say anything dirty.”
“But you were thinking it.”
“Prove it!” Calla cackled. “The fact that you’re sure I’m thinking it just shows that you’re thinking it. And if you’re thinking it, you should obviously do it…”
“Oh, shut up! I just got divorced. You’re impossible.”
“All the awesome sex has been my favorite part of my divorce! In theory.” Calla grinned. “In reality...the twins keep me too busy for the awesome sex. Dang it.”
A chime from her phone broke into the banter, and Calla glared at the phone as Delia removed it from her purse to check the screen.
CRAIG: Good morning, beautiful. Who’s your hot date?
It must have been Calla’s presence, but Delia cracked a smile at the text. Oh, this guy was so screwed once she figured out who he was. He thought he could target her—that she was weak?
Delia Harris was not weak. Calla had just told her about another strength she’d never even known she possessed, and while the knowledge should rock her very foundations, instead she felt herself taking it on like a mantle she’d never known she was meant to wear.
This Craig coward thought he could drag her down with his drama? Not gonna happen.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Calla asked, stepping closer so she could see the screen of Delia’s phone.
Delia opened her text program and typed the first response she’d ever sent to this creep. She tilted the phone so Calla could see the exchange.
DELIA: I thought you were supposed to be my hot date.
She hit send.
“Jeez. Taunt much?” Calla grumbled.
“Yeah, I’m tired of this.”
CRAIG: I didn’t know you leaned lesbo.
Calla sputtered. “That fucker is here, isn’t he? And what a dick!”
DELIA: I guess I won’t be needing your services after all.
It didn’t take five seconds for him to ping her back.
CRAIG: We have a one-month contract.
Calla was glancing around the parking lot like she could spot the bastard. Delia had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that simple.
DELIA: Which I will be canceling ASAP.
CRAIG: You’re prepaid for the rest of this month.
“God damn it,” Delia whispered.
“Deflection, deflection, deflection!” Calla chanted. She grabbed Delia’s arm and led the way back inside. “Let’s find a quiet spot, I have something I want to try.”
Chapter Nine
The only quiet spot they had access to in the hospital was the first floor ladies’ room. An elderly woman was washing her hands, and gave them both suspicious looks as neither of them actually needed to use the restroom. After
she tottered out, Calla rolled her eyes and flipped the lock on the door. She opened her purse and began pulling out all sorts of odds and ends, arranging them by the sink.
“Tell me again when this started happening? And how often does it seem like he’s close and watching like that?”
“It just started yesterday. I met Shaun to retrieve the divorce papers, and he tinkered with my phone and signed me up for this thing.”
Calla looked up and met Delia’s eyes sternly. “So you’d never heard of Craig twenty-four hours ago? Does that seem at all odd to you? I mean...assuming he’s getting paid to do a job with this Virtual Match company, why would he dive straight into being so weird?”
The whole thing was weird, but Delia hadn’t thought of it from that angle. “I don’t know—”
“De, it seems to me that the only reason for how strange this guy is being is that he knows you some other way than just through these texts.”
“What? You think I know him...personally?”
Calla went back to perusing the contents of her bag—which looked way too small to hold everything she’d already pulled out—while Delia stood with mouth agape, considering the ramifications.
Her breath hissed out from between her teeth as a startling possibility occurred to her. “It’s Shaun!”
The words rang true in her ears, and Delia’s pulse raced with fury. How dare he? Was he such a small man that he had to use any method to mess with her and scare her? An edge of sadness tinted her rage, but she wouldn’t let herself feel it. So Shaun had chosen to be a complete, unforgiveable asshole. Just one more blow to the image of the man she thought she knew when she married him.
“If I have any say over it, we’ll find out who it is soon enough,” Calla said. She’d thrown all but three items back in her purse.
She placed a small deity statue with a rounded bowl at its base on the ground in the center of the small, antiseptic-smelling space. She set a small hand-held silver mirror next to it.
The third item, a small burgundy purse drawn shut with a black ribbon, she opened and removed a corked vial of herbs and a darker, squat bottle.
“The fresh herbs would be best, preferably blessed thistle and bay in addition to the rosemary, but sometimes you have to make do,” Calla muttered, considering the objects in her hand. She straightened and met Delia’s eyes. “Now...do you agree to participate in this ritual?”
“Um...I don’t know what we’re doing. What kind of participation are we talking about?”
“Mostly I just need your focus. Your energy, if you’re adept enough to work with it.”
“Huh?” Delia raised her hand unconsciously to the garnet, but it was cold as a rock should be.
Calla shook her head. “Okay, here’s how it works. First, we control our breathing and do a couple of minutes of meditation. Then we create the circle, call forth the powers, and make our request.”
“As long as no one needs to use the restroom,” Delia joked.
Calla took out her phone and opened some app that made the screen glow softly, like a night-light. “Please turn off the light.”
Delia did as her cousin asked, wondering if she ought to just open the door and run from whatever this was instead.
Calla popped the cork off the vial of dried herbs, and poured some of the mixture into the basin at the feet of the deity. Then she stood and opened the other, darker bottle.
“What is that?” Delia asked suspiciously.
“Rosemary oil. A very powerful protective herb.” She dripped some from the bottle onto her finger, and drew a crescent on Delia’s forehead with the substance, and repeated the same on her own brow. Then she clasped Delia’s hands. “Breathe with me.”
The rosemary oil filled the small space with a potent spicy scent. She could feel it tingling in her nostrils. But she joined her cousin in the breathing. She’d taken yoga; this she could do.
Soon Delia was lost in the endless rhythm of breath. She hadn’t slept well last night, and she almost felt like she could drift off on the slightest breeze, carried to a place far away, where nothing threatened and she could nap on a cloud.
“Ahem,” Calla cleared her throat. “This isn’t naptime.”
“Oh, sorry!” Delia pulled herself back from the sleepy-place. Her hands tingled, and the garnet hung heavy and hot against her chest. “What now?” She opened her eyes to concentrate on Calla’s face.
Calla was staring at the stone Delia wore, and saying something under her breath. After a moment, she began to move clockwise, and Delia followed her as she traced a circle with her footsteps, moving three times around the small space surrounding the deity statue. At the end of the third circle, she made a slight cutting motion with her right hand, and stood still, Delia to her right as she faced the deity statue.
“Horned God of the green spaces, hear me.
Beloved Mother of the deepest springs, answer my call.
Hear me, as I call upon you now.”
She bent and stirred the herbs at the base of the deity.
“I offer these herbs to cleanse and purify.
Accept them as both offering and token.”
Next she picked up the mirror, and moved to stand just to Delia’s left. She handed her the mirror, making sure to wrap Delia’s fingers around the mirror stem so that the reflective side pointed away from them both.
“With this, you will send the negativity you’re experiencing back to its source. As we continue, picture the threatening energy returning to its source—not to your attacker, but to the source of evil itself. In this way, even with this one who is harming you as we are sworn against, we hold to the creed to harm none.”
She stepped behind Delia and guided her to face East, and hold up the mirror that direction. “Repeat after me.”
Delia nodded.
“I command you, all evil and unbalanced powers that come from the East,
Return to whence you came.”
Delia’s voice shook at first, but it grew in strength.
“I command you, all evil and unbalanced powers that come from the East,
Return to whence you came.”
They turned to the South.
“I command you, all evil and unbalanced powers that come from the South,
Return to whence you came.”
Delia repeated, more confidently this time.
“I command you, all evil and unbalanced powers that come from the South,
Return to whence you came.”
When Calla turned to the West, Delia joined her, imitating Calla’s posture and commanding tone as their voices rose in unison.
“I command you, all evil and unbalanced powers that come from the West,
Return to whence you came.”
With the final compass point they completed the circle, and the stone Delia wore flared to life, glimmering with red light.
Chapter Ten
Calla gasped. She held her palm about an inch and a half from the garnet, her eyes wide. “Beautiful. It may be new to you, but this is definitely your stone, De.”
Delia felt a slight pushing sensation as though Calla’s hand was touching her chest instead of just approaching the stone.
“Let me try something else. Give me a second to think.” Calla kept staring at the garnet, her brow furrowed.
After a minute of the intense scrutiny, Calla said, “Aha. That should do. Repeat after me.”
Calla took Delia’s hands in hers and began to speak. Her voice dropped into the low tone she used for chanting, and Delia echoed every line, their words seeming to swim in the air, all echoes and warbles. What was happening to her? She felt crazy, out of control, and yet the mysteries of what she was seeing pulled her along.
“May this stone’s power aid me;
Truest motives I must see.
‘Round them with a glowing light,
Make me see so I can fight.”
A pulse of light zinged into Delia’s hands from where her fingers were entwined with
Calla’s, and she felt it like electricity. And that was it; the feeling of strangeness began to fade and Delia found herself wondering what the big deal was.
Calla’s expression was guarded as she put away her things. “If it worked, you will see some visual sign around the person causing you distress. Some shades of red and pink are particular ones to look out for…basically, if it makes you feel negative, scared or angry, listen to that intuition.”
She held the small goddess statue reverently for a moment before tucking it in her bag.
“I don’t really understand what you mean.” Delia flipped on the light.
“More explanation isn’t going to—”
Delia jerked back and ran her hip straight into the door knob, but even the pain from what was sure to be a nice big bruise couldn’t distract her from what her eyes revealed.
A violet haze surrounded Calla, enveloping her from head to toe.
“Oh!” Delia whispered, her heart in her throat. It was as if she could see Calla’s personality rising up out of her body, like it was too much for her physical form to contain.
“Are you seeing my aura? Sweet!” Calla whooped. “What color am I?”
“Purple. A lovely, light violet shade. Your aura makes me feel...right at home.”
“As it should. You know me well. My aura should not come as a surprise; it should match your earlier perception of me.”
“So if ‘Craig’ is someone I know, how will the spell help me find out who if the auras match what I expect?”
“The same will not be true for someone hiding something malicious from you. Their aura will be a surprise; it will feel malevolent and wrong.”
“How many times have you done this?” Delia asked.
“Oh...never. I’ve only read about it.” Calla gave her a goofy smile. “I’m surprised you’re seeing mine—that wasn’t the purpose of the spell, but sometimes these things turn out as they want to turn out.”
“So am I going to see everyone’s aura now?”
“I guess so...probably. We’ll end the spell once you have what you need.” Calla gave her a smile meant to boost her confidence, but Delia’s nerves were jangling. “Ready to rejoin the world and check it out? Grandma Elle is going to wonder where we are.”
