by Karen Leabo
“I’d say so.”
“She was buried in this little graveyard at a church in Sudbury. The whole school turned out for the funeral, including me.”
“You remember where it is?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Sudbury’s not that big. Unless you can come up with a better idea. Let’s do the occult shop first, though.”
Nate wholeheartedly agreed with that suggestion.
Tess found the shop in the Yellow Pages. It was only a few blocks away, on Inman Square, and it was open till nine on Tuesdays. They decided to walk.
Inman Square was lively, the eclectic mixture of trendy nightspots and eccentric little shops drawing students, young professionals, and older, longtime residents. It was a pleasant night, so the streets were busy. Soft saxophone music rolled out of one of the clubs as the door opened to admit a scruffy group of students. A rare-book store had a lively sidewalk sale going on. Laundry hung in the alleys tucked away behind fashionable restaurants.
Nate spotted the occult shop first. “Over there, in that corner. That’s it.”
Tess squinted in the direction he pointed. The Dragon’s Lair. She could just make out the letters on the old-fashioned sign, which was supposed to be shaped like a dragon, but which looked more like a friendly salamander to Tess. She stepped off the curb toward it.
She felt the hot breath of the approaching car before she saw it. In the same instant she sensed danger, she was jerked backward by the arm so hard that she stumbled and fell onto the curb, bruising her elbow. A huge black Lincoln Continental roared past unapologetically, missing Tess’s foot by centimeters.
Nate dropped down beside her. “Tess, you okay? Tess?”
She was surprised and dazed, but that was all. “I think so.”
“The nerve of that jerk,” Nate muttered. “He didn’t even stop. You could have been killed!”
A small crowd of concerned bystanders had gathered around Tess. She allowed Nate to help her to her feet and brush her off. Her elbow throbbed, but it was probably just a bruise. “I’m fine, really,” she assured everyone.
“He didn’t even have his lights on,” someone commented.
“Came out of nowhere,” someone else said.
Nate put his arm protectively around Tess. “Sure you’re okay?”
She nodded. “Let’s go. I’m not letting anything stop me now. The curse will have to kill me if it wants to prevent this spell from being cast.”
“It damn near did!” But he continued with her to the occult shop. He was quiet, thoughtful. Maybe he was wondering if there wasn’t something to this curse stuff after all.
That was good, Tess decided. She wanted the full power of his belief behind her—along with his fear, and his desire to conquer the curse.
Many years had passed since she had entered an occult shop. Her mother had dragged her to more than a few when she’d been a little girl, though. This particular one had a warm, friendly feel about it—nothing overtly geared toward black magic. No skulls or bats or voodoo charms, or any of the other nonsense that sometimes graced the hokier shops.
Nate and Tess were the only customers. A large, round, earth-mother type greeted them from behind the counter. She had long, frizzy hair halfway down her back and a wreath of flowers on her head.
Tess pulled the shopping list from her pocket. “Hi. Maybe it would be faster if I just gave you this?”
“Certainly,” the woman said, adjusting her wire-rim glasses to peer at the crumpled piece of paper. “Hmm.”
“You have most of those tilings, right?” Tess asked anxiously.
“Well, yes. All but the ash leaves. I’m out of those. But I can tell you where an ash tree grows.” She continued to frown at the list, making no move to fetch the ingredients.
“I’ll also need a chalice, an athame, and a censer of some kind,” Tess said, hoping to prompt the woman into action.
At that request, the woman looked up sharply. “You don’t already have those things? Not that it’s any of my business, but any witch worth her sea salt would recognize that these are ingredients for a spell to counteract black magic. A complicated ritual, given the length of the list. Please don’t tell me this is the first spell you’ve ever tried to cast.”
“I studied the Old Religion from my mother’s knee,” Tess hedged. “I’ve been out of it for a while, so I’m rusty, but not a rank beginner.”
The woman looked relieved. “Well, okay then. I’ll just gather these things up for you.” She grabbed a straw basket from behind the counter and began poking around in various jars and drawers, humming tunelessly.
Tess leaned against the scarred oak counter. She was suddenly unbearably tired, and her elbow throbbed. She flexed it a couple of times, hoping to prevent it from getting stiff. Then she chanced a look at Nate, who had been unusually quiet ever since their encounter with the Continental.
He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring toward the floor, several feet away.
Tess followed his gaze. There crouched a skinny Siamese cat, teeth bared, tail switching.
“It’s growling at me.” Nate barely breathed the words. “Hear that low rumble? What is the deal here? Animals normally like me.”
Tess didn’t bother to answer the question. Wasn’t it obvious to him what was going on? Cats were highly intuitive creatures. That was why witches for centuries had been choosing them for their familiars. This cat, like Judy’s, sensed the vibration of the curse.
The shop’s proprietress returned to the counter, her basket filled with plastic bags and tiny glass vials containing various powders, crushed herbs and flower petals, and exotically colored liquids. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the cat hissed, issued an earsplitting yowl, and streaked for the back of the shop.
“That is so strange,” she said, staring after her retreating pet. “He’s normally the sweetest cat, loves everybody.” With a shrug she pulled out a receipt book and started writing up the purchases. Nate paid for them without a word, casting a wary glance now and then as if watching for the cat to reappear.
The woman gave them directions to the ash grove, which was right in the Boston Common, and they walked back out into the cool night.
“What next?” Tess asked, injecting a note of light-heartedness she did not feel into her voice. “The ash grove, or the cemetery?”
“Ash grove,” Nate answered immediately. “I say we postpone the cemetery until tomorrow morning. It’ll be a lot harder to find the grave we’re searching for in the dark.”
“Okay,” Tess agreed. She wasn’t really looking forward to the graveyard, but she hadn’t wanted to be a baby about it. Apparently Nate wasn’t all that eager to visit such a grim place at night, either. They would have to face it tomorrow night, of course. But tomorrow night, she was determined to squelch all fear.
“I know it’s getting late,” Tess ventured as they strode determinedly back toward Nate’s apartment, “but could we squeeze in a visit to Judy? I don’t want her to think we’ve abandoned her. I’ll go by myself if you’d rather not.”
“You’re not going anywhere without me. Not with that nut Tristan Solca still out there somewhere, and strange Lincolns trying to run you down.”
She didn’t argue with him. It made her feel warm from the inside out to know that Nate worried about her safety.
“We can take the T,” he said. “Then we don’t have to worry about parking.”
Or car accidents, Tess added silently. Or running out of gas, or engine problems or flat tires. All in all, the T did seem the safer way to go.
That was before the power went out on the subway, leaving them stranded in a tunnel in a dark, dead train.
Tess couldn’t help it. She screamed—not a bloodcurdling horror-movie scream, but something between a yelp and a shriek.
Nate’s arm immediately went around her. “It’s okay, Tess. It’s just a power outage.”
“This doesn’t happen during a normal power outage,” she pointed out. “They h
ave backup generators for that kind of thing.”
“Then maybe there was an accident—a derailment or something. I’m sure it’ll start up again soon.”
Fortunately the car wasn’t crowded. Those few passengers who were there grumbled uneasily, but no one panicked.
“What if we did this?” Tess whispered. “What if the curse caused a subway car to derail? What if people are killed?”
“Just because we decided to ride the T? Tess, be reasonable. I know you believe the curse is powerful, but if it could kill people indiscriminately, people who have no connection with the Cat statue, then we ought to notify the Pentagon. It’s the best weapon since the Ark of the Covenant.”
He was right, Tess told herself. She needed to calm down. She took several slow, deep breaths, but only succeeded in convincing herself that without the ventilation system, the car was running out of oxygen. “I still think this is no coincidence. The Cat is trying to slow us down, prevent us from casting the spell—ow!”
“What?”
“Someone bumped into me and stepped on my—my purse!”
“Someone stepped on your purse?”
“No, they stepped on my toe and stole my purse.” She felt all around her, hoping she was mistaken, but her vinyl bag was nowhere around.
Just then the lights flickered back on and the car lurched forward. She looked around at the other passengers accusingly. None would meet her eye.
“There,” Nate said, pointing to the aisle. Her bag lay open on the floor, its contents spilling out. “Maybe you just dropped it.”
Tess stepped out of her seat to retrieve the purse, scooping the contents back inside. Her billfold was open, she noticed. Checking it, she found all of her cash gone.
“No, I was robbed.” She cast withering glares at the other passengers, hoping she would shame the guilty party into returning the fifty or sixty bucks she’d lost. They all ignored her.
“Hell,” Nate muttered. “What else can happen?”
“Don’t ask.”
Nate wanted very badly not to believe in curses. But their luck went from bad to worse. Tess twisted her ankle when they got off at the Charles Street/Mass General T-stop. She limped the two blocks to the hospital but insisted they didn’t have time to waste with medical treatment for a minor injury.
When they arrived on Judy’s floor, things went from worse to wretched. Judy’s condition had been downgraded from serious to critical. She had dropped into a coma.
“But she could still be okay, right?” Tess asked, almost desperately.
The doctor who’d been kind enough to fill them in shook his head pessimistically. “Once this syndrome advances to this stage, the prognosis is very bad. I can tell you that she’s comfortable, but her vital signs are gradually growing weaker.”
Tess’s eyes filled and her lower lip trembled. “H-how long does she have?”
The doctor shrugged. “I don’t have that answer.”
Tess’s eyes flashed with sudden intensity. “Until tomorrow night. You have to keep her alive until tomorrow night. Is that possible?”
“Again, I don’t know.”
As soon as Judy’s parents took a break from visiting their daughter in ICU, Tess and Nate were allowed a brief visit. Nate was shocked at how much Judy’s appearance had deteriorated since the day before. It seemed that her cheeks were hollower, her skin and hair duller. And she was so still.
“Listen to me, Judy,” Tess whispered urgently as she leaned close to the fragile-looking form in the bed, though she touched nothing. “You hang on until tomorrow night. We’re going to fix it for you. Right after midnight, I promise, you’ll start feeling better.”
She looked up at Nate. “Say something to her. I know she can hear us.”
On the spot, Nate stumbled through a quick, insincere speech. But he finished up with a sentiment that was a hundred-percent truthful. “Judy, I don’t know you very well, but you strike me as a fighter. Now’s the time to fight, kiddo. Hang in there for Tess.” His words came out thick. He had to swallow back the lump in his throat.
“That was really good, Nate. Thanks.”
“Well, I try. Do you think you could … I mean, what would happen if you touched her?”
Tess shook her head. “I don’t want to. I’m afraid I would feel … nothing.” Her eyes teared up again.
Nate longed to reach for Tess, to comfort her. But by now he knew enough that his touch was anything but comforting to her. He didn’t want to add to her ordeal.
Then she surprised him. For the first time she reached for him. She sought his embrace. He welcomed her into the shelter of his arms and let her cry against his shoulder.
A nurse hustled them out of ICU. They met with Judy’s parents briefly, offering a few encouraging words, then escaped into the cool, dark night.
The Public Garden, where the ash trees were purported to grow, was only a short walk from the hospital. Actually locating the grove among the fifty-plus species of trees growing there, however, was more of a challenge. When Nate finally spotted it, the grove of four trees was enclosed by a little fence that fairly shouted “Do Not Touch.”
But Nate wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. “Wait for me here.”
“Nate, you can’t—”
He was over the fence in seconds. He tore his jacket on one of the spikes, then disturbed a pair of snoozing geese, which had the gall to chase him a few strides before waddling away.
The trees were tall and spindly. Nate looked up. “Aw, hell.” No way to reach any leaves without climbing. Even the ground beneath the trees was recently raked. With a sigh, he did his best imitation of a monkey, hugging the trunk with his feet and knees, inching his way upward to the lowest branch.
He heard Tess whisper something urgently from the fence, but he couldn’t quite make out the words. From his precarious perch, he searched frantically for her. Was she in trouble? The park was deserted this time of night.
All at once he was blinded by a flashlight beam in the face. “And what would you be doing up there, Tarzan?” a husky, very unfriendly voice asked. Figuring this was his last chance, he grabbed a handful of leaves and crammed them into his pocket before swinging down from the tree.
“Uh, evening, Officer.” The uniformed patrolman he faced was at least six-four and a solid wall of muscle. Tess stood trembling beside him.
“You’re trespassing. Destroying public property.”
“Yes, well, I know, but I didn’t intend any harm.”
“What were you doing up there?” the officer asked.
“He was gathering some leaves from the ash tree,” Tess broke in. “For me. These are the only ash trees we know of in the area.”
“And what do you need them for?”
“A, um, botany project,” Nate interrupted. If Tess started spouting anything about spells or magic, the cop would haul them in for sure. “She’s a student, and she has this big project due tomorrow.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
Tess’s eyes widened, but she didn’t contradict him.
The cop rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you college kids stay in Cambridge where you belong? All right, get out of here, the both of you. Since it’s near the end of my shift, I’ll let you off.”
“Thank you,” they said together. Then they scurried away before he changed his mind. Nate’s breathing didn’t return to normal until they were riding the ancient wooden escalator down to the Park Street T Station.
Tess stood stiff and tense next to him as they stepped onto the subway car. The lights flickered, as if the Crimson Cat were reminding them that it hadn’t forgotten about them. Nate had to resist the urge to jump back off the car before the doors closed.
“Did you see that?” Tess asked, clinging to him.
“Yeah.” He stifled a tremor.
“I feel like the curse is toying with us, letting us know that it could stop us any time. For good.”
It’s just coincidence, Nate said to himself. A long, serious stre
ak of bad luck. Nothing more. He breathed a huge sigh of relief when they made it home alive. At least they hadn’t seen any more of Tristan Solca.
Tess didn’t make even a token suggestion that she should go home, for which Nate was glad. He didn’t want to spend the night alone any more than he imagined Tess wanted to, and he certainly didn’t want to venture out again to see her home. By silent agreement he helped her fold out the sofa bed. He gave her an old football jersey to sleep in. It covered her much too decently, all the way to her mid-thigh, except he thought he could see the shadows of her nipples through the pin-sized holes that peppered the jersey fabric.
He tried not to stare as they settled at the dining table with cups of hot chocolate.
“I’m scared,” she said. They’d avoided talking about anything consequential since the subway. “I hope you’re not. You seem so solid, so unflappable, and that’s a comfort to me.”
“No, I’m not scared. Apprehensive, maybe.” Worried about the toll all this magic preparation was taking on Tess. Dark circles marred the translucent skin beneath her eyes. She’d hardly eaten all day.
And she trembled. Like a little bird, or a frightened puppy.
He was worried about Judy. Hell, he hardly knew the woman, but he felt unaccountably close to her anyway, because of his involvement with Tess. He worried about how Tess would react if the spell didn’t work, if they lost Judy despite their heroic efforts.
And, okay, he was just the tiniest bit worried that he would have to live the rest of his life—however brief that might be—shadowed by a curse.
“I know I need to sleep,” Tess said, “to gather my strength, but I’m not sure I can.”
“I’ll stay with you if you want,” he offered, knowing full well that if he lay next to Tess, he would be the one who didn’t get any sleep.
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean—that is, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to—”
“You’d be safe. Much as I want to make love to you, I’m taking this virgin thing pretty seriously.”
The color flooding her cheeks only reminded him how pale she was looking without the blush.
