Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  "But Maria said we owed her a legal marriage license with a legal name and a child raised as a full-fledged unquestioned Morgan with all the rights and appurtenances thereto. Dan liked her and thought he could make a go of it. Sex ain't rational, boy. Always remember that. Sometimes they got along fine. You wouldn't have two sisters if they hadn't. Call it fifty-fifty, heaven and hell, and no possibility of divorce. That was Maria, nothing in between. Sometimes I purely hate that Dragon."

  Ben stared down into the amber depths of his mug, and shook his head. "Now you know more about your parents than any person ought to know. I hope you've got the decency to never breathe a word of it to Peggy or Ellen."

  Gary forced himself out of his chair, still clutching the blanket tight around his shoulders. The coffee had given him false energy, and the dose of whiskey had shot it straight into his legs. He couldn't sit, even though he couldn't really stand, either. The dark passages pulled at him, offering time and space to think.

  "Sit down, boy. You're in no condition to go for a hike."

  Gary looked over at his father. "What am I supposed to call you?"

  "Same as before. Just 'Ben.' And living or dead, Dan is still 'Dad.' He's earned it."

  "Dad's still alive."

  Ben's hand jerked, splashing whiskey. He stared at his mug for an instant, blinking, and then solved that problem by gulping the rest of his drink. "You sure? You talked to him?"

  "The Dragon told me. He broke his bond with her, to protect us."

  "I didn't know that was even possible. Did she say how?"

  "No."

  "If he broke his bond, how the hell does she know he's even alive?"

  "She didn't say. It felt like she would sense an empty space, after all those years of contact."

  "Damned women! That Dragon is worse than Alice Haskell!"

  For a man with such a passion for women, Ben sure seemed to have mixed feelings about them. Gary added that to his long list of puzzles. He needed peace to chew on them and time to try and digest the strange meal of this day. He tugged the ancient oak door open, staring down into the darkness of the stair.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. Ben stared into Gary's eyes, shaking his head. "Be careful, boy. Alice and her friends don't know everything. We can't afford to lose you."

  Gary thought about the icy black water of the Dragon's pool. He shuddered. But that was the only choice he knew.

  As if reading Gary's mind, Ben shook his head again. "Don't do it, boy. If you die, we'll never get Dan back. Promise me you won't go diving down there again."

  The Dragon had hidden from him. She demanded strength and proof. Slowly, reluctantly, Gary nodded.

  "I promise. I won't dive in the Dragon's pool."

  Ben let him go. Gary climbed slowly down the stone steps and took a tunnel at random, letting the dark and silence soak into him. He needed to be alone to chew over the things he'd learned. Dad alive, Ben actually Gary's father, Caroline his sister — his head spun.

  No, he wouldn't dive in the Dragon's pool. He'd already proven there wasn't any point to that.

  But a man could come out of the Dragon's pool without diving into it. The tide had to come from somewhere.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Alice stared at her computer screen without seeing it. Ben had posed a pretty problem with that question about the tunnels under the Pratt compound. Haskell chants and Haskell records mentioned them, but no specifics. Naskeags hadn't been involved in carving them. The Pratts had brought in hard-rock miners and quarrymen in groups of two or three, housed the men away from the village, shipped them home when the work was done. Or maybe dumped their bodies in the bay with waste stone chained to their ankles. There had been dark speculation on that, back in the 1800s and again during Prohibition.

  But she had other ways of finding out.

  Her computer got bored with her and switched over to Caroline's latest screensaver, a sign that announced "I ATE'NT DEAD" in scraggly letters floating slowly from corner to corner across the monitor. A high-pitched peeping from her left also reminded her to get back to work, demanding payment for services rendered. She picked a mealworm out of the cup on her desk and tossed it towards the ceiling of the parlor.

  Scarface launched herself in a flurry of wings, trapped the mealworm in mid-flight, performed two neat barrel-rolls in the process of transferring her snack from wing membrane to mouth, and swooped back to hang upside-down from her curtain valence. The bat groomed herself contentedly.

  Big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, dark brown fur as soft as velvet and black wing membranes that had the touch of warm silk. Scarface was the matriarch of the colony since Whitespot had died over the winter. Alice couldn't cure herself of naming the colony's spokes-bat, even though it was the colony that was the true unit.

  Just like with the beehives out in the apple grove, bodies might be born and die, each living but a short time, but the colony was nearly immortal. Scarface's ancestors had lived in the house's attic since the first rafters cut off the sun. Long exposure to the spring had made the colony members somewhat . . . different. Besides keeping the bugs to a tolerable level, the little night-fliers had other uses.

  Alice twitched her trackball to wake up the computer and then entered a few more figures. She probably had the only 3-D CAD program in the world that used bat wing-beats as a unit of measurement. The wire-frame model on her screen sprouted more yellow lines, a tunnel leading from the red of a metal door. Ten beats across, fifteen high, a hundred long, all mapped out in terms of a tiny spy flying in the dark. Three additional red rectangles spotted the walls of the cave, hard smooth echoes that were the way a bat would "see" connecting doors.

  Amazing, how much knowledge you could tuck into half an ounce of body and a brain a little larger than a BB. Bats had a spatial memory that defied logic. Their sonar tracked gnats through starless night, mapped textures, guided swoops and rolls between trees while avoiding thorns that could shred delicate wings, brought the bats straight home across miles of countryside to a roost opening smaller than Alice's hand.

  "Is that where they're keeping Dad?"

  Alice jumped slightly. She'd nearly forgotten about Ellen sitting in one corner of the parlor, quietly cringing away from the "Eeeuw, ick!" factor of mealworms and bats. The girl would have to learn to deal with worse than that if she really wanted to be a Witch.

  Besides, bats were delightful creatures once you got to know them. It was a damned shame there were so few in Maine. You'd think with all the bugs there would be more, but it was the killer winters and lack of natural caves.

  "That's one of several possibilities. My little friends wouldn't know your father if they heard him, but something was breathing inside that middle door."

  Ellen looked dubious. She probably still thought bats were horror-movie vampires, or would get tangled in her hair.

  Alice decided it was time for another lesson. "Come over here. You won't believe in this stuff unless you see how it works."

  The girl looked like a doe caught in the apple orchard — twitchy and on the edge of running, but severely tempted. She sidled towards the desk, carefully keeping Alice between her and the bat.

  "Be calm. Do your breathing exercises. You'll never be able to rule the universe if you can't control your own heartbeat."

  Ellen closed her eyes and relaxed, nodding her head slightly with her heartbeats as she used them to time her breathing. Alice could see the child's face relax as she emptied her mind.

  "Now lift your right arm. Hold out one finger, as if you're pointing with it. Keep your thoughts on your breathing. Keep your thoughts on your heartbeat. If any distractions cross your mind, watch them calmly as they float from darkness into darkness and leave you centered. Think about your breathing. Think only about your breathing."

  Scarface tilted her tiny head sideways and then dropped from the curtain in a whir of wings. The colony had learned, over generations, that a human standing like that meant free food. An instant la
ter, the tiny bat hung from Ellen's finger, folding those silken wings around her body.

  The child was a natural. She didn't twitch a muscle. Alice could remember the first time Aunt Jean had taken her through this exercise. First she couldn't clear her mind enough, then the prickle of tiny claws had made her jump and the bat had tumbled away with an angry chitter. It had taken Alice three days to turn into a decent perch. She'd been too twitchy at that age. Caroline had needed three tries, in one day.

  "Keep your eyes closed. Think only about your breathing. Empty your mind. Build the room around you. Place me in your thoughts. Place the windows in your thoughts. Place the fireplace in your thoughts. Concentrate on your breathing. Concentrate on your heartbeat."

  Alice was leaping ahead, skipping steps. The House seemed to press her with a sense of urgency. Ellen needed to have faith in these things, needed to believe them now.

  "How far am I? What direction?"

  Tension flickered across Ellen's eyelids and then calmed away. She kept her breathing regular and slow, her eyes closed. Scarface cocked her tiny head towards Alice. "Two. The small sun is there, in the right eye."

  "How far to the fireplace and the chimney flue? What direction?"

  "Ten. To the stone face and down."

  "Open your eyes."

  Ellen did. Her glance darted to the tiny bat hanging from her finger, and she started to tense.

  "Think about your breathing. Concentrate on your breathing. Feel your finger. Tell me what you feel."

  The girl calmed again. Then she giggled. "It tickles!"

  Scarface unwrapped one wing and started to nibble gently at the membrane, grooming, as if she was trying to look cute and harmless. Alice could almost see the wonder spreading across Ellen's face, looking at this tiny mammal with the bright eyes and pointed ears and soft short fur.

  "Those numbers you gave me, those were beats of her wings, how far she'd have to fly. The small sun is the floor lamp in the corner. That's how a bat measures her world."

  "Her world?"

  "You'll learn to feel the difference. The females are smarter. Now take your left hand. Move it slowly, don't startle her. Rub gently across the top of her head. She likes that."

  The bat leaned into Ellen's finger like a cat accepting an ear-scratch. The tiny pink tongue flicked out, tasting her new friend. Scarface cocked her head again, and peeped gently.

  "She'd like another mealworm. Then she needs to sleep."

  Judging by Ellen's face, that was asking a lot. She set her jaw and reached gingerly into the cup on Alice's desk. Her hand jerked back and then reached again. She scrunched her eyes shut, concentrated on her breathing exercise, and pulled out a single mealworm. She reached blindly over to her other hand, offering the pale, squirming grub.

  "Just toss it up in the air. She prefers to catch her food on the wing."

  Ellen's hand jerked upwards, and the bat swooped after her prey. The girl wiped her hand on her jeans, shuddering. Still, she smiled as the tiny body looped through the air and then disappeared up the chimney.

  Another movement caught Alice's eye. She glanced out the window, then did a double-take and grinned like a maniac when she saw that familiar bulk striding up the driveway. Kate! Now she could get those wires checked out, rather than cringing every time she flipped the breaker on for a few hours. Get the broken plaster and glass patched up. Damned telephone company had said it would be a week before they could check out their lines. Maybe Kate could fix that, too.

  And there was some other unfinished business, too. She found herself smoothing her hair and straightening her blouse.

  She remembered Ellen. That kid already knew too much for her age. "I'm through here. Why don't you go help Caroline and Peggy clean up in the old house? Then you can both go down in the cellar and talk with the spring."

  The girls could feel the health and power of the women's waters. They loved to sit in the dark, mysterious cellar with the lamps turned down to an orange glow, dreaming of brown-skinned women and the strength of the House. It was a natural refuge to them, healing the scars and pain they'd suffered in the last few weeks.

  Ellen vanished like smoke in a breeze. Alice smiled, then caught herself primping again. Silly schoolgirl. Besides, there was no point in camouflage. Kate knew what she was getting.

  Alice headed towards the door, trying to hold her grin in check. Funny she hadn't heard the truck, though. The big oaf must have walked, five or ten miles. That was the kind of thing she'd do, rather than spar another round with her damned junker Dodge. But would she let Alice invest in a new truck? No way.

  Kate was stubborn as a mule and dumb as a stump. Numb as a hake, but good with her hands. All those Downeast cliches. Alice was blithering to herself. Dumb or not, it was good to see the big moose. Kate might know what she was getting, but then, so did Alice. She didn't care. Near as she could tell, love was like that.

  The house felt skittish, and the side door stuck when Alice went to open it. Damned if the old place wasn't getting jealous. And then she was face to face with Kate, smiling tentatively, wondering how to tell her friend that the silly babble of that phone message had been cute. Cute was not an attribute you normally connected with Kate Rowley.

  Kate just stood there, impassive, with her traffic-cop face on. Alice felt her smile die. She stared for a moment, waiting for the mood to break, and then stood aside to wave her friend through the door. "Come on in. Don't just stand there with the rain dripping on your head." No matter that the sun was shining out of a cloudless sky.

  Kate lumbered through the door, walking even larger than usual. She brought the smell of fresh dirt and old leaves with her, probably off a cellar hole at another construction site. She glanced around the kitchen, taking in the oil lamps and the smoke stains by the counter outlets.

  Alice felt a chill run through the house. Something was wrong.

  "Alice Haskell, I have a court order for the custody of two minor children. Are Ellen Morgan and Margaret Morgan in this house?"

  Alice swallowed acid. Kate knew her face too well for her to make a lie stick. Maybe Caroline would hear, would tuck the girls in the hidey-hole. Even with all her work around the place, Kate didn't know about that. Nobody but the Haskell Witch or her designated heir could open it.

  And Kate had come for two children without her truck? Stall. "Where's this court order?"

  "Are Ellen Morgan and Margaret Morgan in this house?"

  Something was very wrong. "Show me your court order. Come on, Kate, you know the rules."

  "You don't deny that Ellen Morgan and Margaret Morgan are here?"

  "Kate Rowley, I'll deny that the sky is blue and the sun rises in the east until you show me a warrant 'particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.' Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, adopted December 15, 1791. Cut the crap!"

  Alice backed into the room, away from Kate, towards a certain corner of the kitchen. Laws didn't matter, friendship didn't matter, love didn't matter. She had a blood oath to obey.

  Kate towered after her, striding forward, her head brushing one of the lamp globes that dropped below the beams of the ceiling. Damned moose always forgot to duck. Alice felt as if she was shrinking, the difference between their sizes growing until she was a mouse in front of a cat.

  "Kate, get out of here!"

  "You invited me in."

  "And now I'm inviting you out! Unless you have a warrant, get the hell out of my house!"

  She remembered flashes of her Seeing, flashes of Kate with the faceless man who was the enemy. She backed up again, her voice rising to a scream. "Show me the goddamned warrant!"

  Her hand groped around behind her, in the corner next to the counter. It found cold metal, and grabbed it. The shotgun lay heavy in her hands, and they took over from her mind. They jacked a shell into the chamber and pointed the worn metal cylinder at Kate. "Get . . . out . . . of . . . here!"

  She felt li
ke a zombie, her own hands taken over by the House. The House thought Kate was a puppet ruled by the Peruvian brujo. Kate sneered and shoved the shotgun to one side, her hand sweeping on to knock Alice sideways like it was brushing off a fly. The big woman shouldered her way past to the parlor door. Alice stumbled back and smacked her head on the corner of a cabinet. Stars and tears filled her eyes. She lined twinned shotguns up on the back of twinned heads. The safety clicked off without any help from her.

  "STOP, DAMMIT!"

  Kate took another step, through the door into the parlor. The shotgun bucked and Alice fell backward. She watched as she fell, deafened and horrified. White and red and gray chunks burst from Kate's head, floating forward and up from the shattered skull like some gruesome slo-mo of a movie finale.

  *~*~*

  Alice blinked. The cracks in the ceiling looked like a map. Southern US, perhaps, with Florida pointing to the right. That old grease stain was Cuba. Have to get Caroline to wash the ceilings, patch them, paint them. That was what apprentices were for, wasn't it? No, Kate would do the repairs, the painting.

  Coolness touched her brow and then moved on to dab at the side of her head. That woke pain. She tried to grab the cold thing, push it away, but her hand missed.

  "Don't try to move."

  "Kate . . ."

  "Just keep quiet."

  "But I shot . . ."

  Alice forced herself up on one elbow. Caroline blocked her view of the parlor. The shotgun lay to one side, an empty shell casing next to it on the floor. She couldn't remember pumping the action after firing. Reflex.

  Powder smoke and sewage fouled the air. Bodies usually stank — God knows she'd handled enough of them, between the ambulance and the ER. "Death with dignity" was just a catchphrase for people who'd never seen the real thing.

  She forced herself to roll over and climb the cabinets, knob by knob, until she stood swaying with both hands braced on the counter. Closing her eyes seemed to help. That way, the world stayed still around her. The parlor door waited. One hand after another, she worked her way along the wall and reached the door casing.