by Isobel Bird
“We don’t expect you to be just like us,” her mother said, sounding confused.
Kate looked at the therapist. Was she supposed to say something back, or were there rules to this exercise like there had been to the last one? Dr. Hagen simply nodded at her, so she guessed she was allowed to respond.
“Yes, you do,” Kate said. “You might not say it, but it’s what you want. You’re happy as long as I think the same way you do about things.”
“Just because we don’t want you getting mixed up with this witch nonsense doesn’t mean we expect you to think just like we do,” said her father defensively.
There, it was out in the open. No one had said the W word since all the trouble had begun. Now that her father had actually uttered it, Kate’s feelings spilled out like water from a bursting dam.
“It isn’t nonsense!” she said. “It’s real, and I like it. Being involved in Wicca has changed my life. Mom, you said it yourself. I’ve matured a lot since I began studying it.”
“You’re just growing up!” her father objected. “It has nothing to do with that crap.”
“It does,” Kate said. She was trying to calm down and not let her emotions run wild. She didn’t want her parents to think she was being hysterical. “It’s completely changed how I look at things. It’s made me a better person.”
“You’ve dropped your old friends. You’ve dropped a really great boyfriend. You call that changing your life for the better?” her father asked her.
“I dropped one friend,” Kate said. “A friend who tries to ruin other people’s lives because she’s so insecure. And I’ve made two fantastic friends. As for Scott, you liked him more than I did. You haven’t even given Tyler a chance.”
Her father threw his hands in the air. “You don’t get it, do you, Kate? Your mother and I are trying to stop you from making a big mistake.”
“What mistake?” asked Kate. “What mistake, Dad?”
Her father looked at her mother. “Teresa, will you talk to her?”
“You haven’t said anything yet, Teresa,” said Dr. Hagen. “How do you feel about what Kate has said?”
Mrs. Morgan sighed deeply. “I don’t know what to think,” she said simply, shrugging her shoulders.
“What do you mean, you don’t know what to think?” said Mr. Morgan irritably.
Kate’s mother turned to her father. “I don’t know what to think, Joe,” she said. “You know Kate has never done anything to make us distrust her judgment.”
“Until now,” said Mr. Morgan.
Kate’s mother turned to the doctor. “I don’t understand what this class is that Kate has gotten involved in,” she said. “I don’t understand why she’s interested in it or what they do. That scares me. As her mother I want to protect her and keep her safe, and my inclination is to pull her away from anything that is potentially dangerous.”
She paused a moment, then looked up at Kate. “But Kate’s right. She has changed over the past few months. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it is just getting older.” She looked at her husband. “But maybe it’s not.”
“Teresa,” Kate’s father said. “Don’t tell me you’re buying this stuff.”
Mrs. Morgan shook her head. “The other night, when Kate came home so mad at you for taking her by that accident, I went up to talk to her,” she said.
So that’s who shut my door, Kate thought. Her mother had seen her doing her meditation. Why hadn’t she said anything about it?
“Kate was sitting in the middle of her room with her eyes closed,” Mrs. Morgan continued. “I wasn’t sure what she was doing, so I watched her for a while.”
“What were you doing, Kate?” Dr. Hagen asked.
Kate hesitated. Should she admit that she’d been doing a kind of ritual? She knew that might make her parents freak out. But she didn’t think now was the time to be covering up the truth.
“I was doing something we learned in the study group,” she said. “It’s a meditation for helping you focus your energy.”
“I thought we told you we didn’t want any of that in our house,” her father said, responding exactly as Kate had feared he would.
“It was just a meditation!” she said.
Mrs. Morgan held up her hand. “Please,” she said. “Let me finish.” She looked at her daughter and her husband to make sure they weren’t going to interrupt her. Then she continued speaking. “I watched Kate doing her meditation,” she said. “I probably stood there for four or five minutes. While I watched her, she changed.”
“What do you mean, she changed?” Mr. Morgan asked.
“It’s hard to explain,” Kate’s mother said. “At first she looked really angry. But then her face relaxed. Her whole body relaxed.”
Kate listened to her mother. Had she really noticed a change in Kate while she was doing her meditation? What she was describing really was how Kate felt when she was doing that ritual, but she’d never imagined that someone watching her could tell what was going on inside of her.
“I didn’t know what she was doing,” Mrs. Morgan continued. “I almost told her to stop. But the longer I watched her, the happier she looked. It was like all of the anger inside of her was melting away. By the time she was done she had an expression on her face that I knew I’d seen before but couldn’t place. It took me a long time to realize what it was.”
“And what was it?” Dr. Hagen prodded her after she’d stopped talking and seemed to be thinking about something.
“It was the look I used to see on her face when she was a little girl and I would check in on her after she’d fallen asleep,” replied Kate’s mother. “It was a look of total contentment, like she was in a place where she felt safe and loved.”
Dr. Hagen looked at Kate. “Is that how you were feeling, Kate?”
Kate nodded. “I’ve never thought of it that way before, but it’s exactly how I felt,” she said. “I was really angry at my dad, and I decided to try to calm down by doing the meditation that Sophia taught us. It helped a lot.”
“Joe, how do you feel about what you’ve just heard?” the therapist asked Kate’s father.
“I’m glad Kate has found a way to control her anger,” Mr. Morgan said. “But I don’t see why she can’t just stick with this meditation stuff. Why does she have to get involved with all the other business?”
“That is the other business, Dad,” said Kate. “Wicca is all about learning to focus your thoughts and your energy. It’s not what you think it is. Don’t you remember what Sophia and the others did for Aunt Netty? They used their energy to help her heal.”
“That was medicine, Kate,” her father said. “That ritual had nothing to do with it. See, this is why I don’t want you mixed up in this stuff. It’s confused you. You think witchcraft is responsible for everything, when really it’s just a lot of superstitious gobbledygook.”
“How can you say that?” Kate asked. “You don’t know. You’ve never been to one of our classes or to a ritual—well, except for that healing ritual we did for Aunt Netty. You think you know what we do and what it’s all about, but you really don’t.”
Kate leaned back in the chair and groaned. They weren’t getting anywhere. Her mother sort of got what her meditation was about, but Kate didn’t think she entirely understood it. And her father was just being his usual stubborn self, refusing to listen to her or even consider changing his mind now that he had it made up.
“Kate, what if you gave your parents the opportunity to find out what Wicca is about?” Dr. Hagen asked unexpectedly.
“What do you mean?” Kate replied. “You mean give them some books to read?”
The doctor nodded. “That would be a start,” she said. “But I was thinking more along the lines of letting them observe firsthand what you do in class or at a ritual.”
Kate stared at her. Was she serious? Her parents attend a ritual? She almost laughed just thinking about it. There was no way her mother and father would ever go for that.
&nb
sp; “I don’t know,” Kate said hesitantly.
“Joe. Teresa. If Kate can arrange it, are you willing to go see what it is she does with her group?” the doctor asked.
Kate’s father snorted. “Why bother? I’ve seen one of their so-called rituals already, when they visited my sister-in-law in the hospital. I think I’ve seen enough.”
“Teresa?” Dr. Hagen said.
Kate’s mother thought for a moment. “I don’t know that I believe in this any more than Joe does,” she said.
“I knew it,” Kate said sulkily.
“But,” her mother continued, ignoring Kate’s comment, “Netty has expressed a great deal of faith in it since her recovery, and I can’t deny that Kate seems to get something out of it. I’ve never seen her so attached to something, so I know it must mean a great deal to her. I can’t say I understand why, but if she wants to try and show us, then yes, I’ll go to a ritual or whatever they’re called.”
Kate was speechless. Her mother had just agreed to attend a Wiccan gathering. But what about her father? He was still sitting there, scowling. If he wasn’t willing to give Kate a chance, there seemed to be little point in fighting anymore.
“How about it, Joe?” the therapist said. “Will you go to one event? Just one?”
Mr. Morgan looked at Kate. His gaze was piercing, and he seemed to be trying to see right through her. “Is this that important to you?” he asked her gruffly.
Kate looked back into her father’s eyes without blinking. “Yes,” she said. “It’s that important.”
Mr. Morgan let out a long sigh. “All right,” he said. “I know enough to know I’m never going to win a battle against two Morgan women. I’ll go to one of these whatever-they’re-called.” He looked at Kate again. “But that doesn’t mean I’m giving you the okay to get back into it,” he said. “I still think it’s a lot of garbage.”
“Kate, does this all sound fair to you?” the doctor asked her.
Kate nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I think it sounds fine.”
“Good,” Dr. Hagen said. “Then Kate will arrange for the two of you to attend an event with her group. After that you can decide whether you feel that Kate’s continued participation in the group is acceptable to you. And Kate, if after that your parents still insist that you refrain from any involvement in Wicca, you agree to abide by that decision, correct?”
Kate nodded. She knew that Dr. Hagen had just won her one chance to prove to her parents that Wicca wasn’t something they had to be afraid of. One chance. Would it be enough? She took a deep breath. What was she going to take them to? One of the study group classes? A ritual? She didn’t know.
“Okay,” said the therapist. “That’s our time for this session. Now, I’ll be away next week, so we won’t see each other until November the fifth. I hope you’ll have been able to arrange things by then, Kate, and we can talk about how everything went.”
They all stood up, and the doctor walked them to the door. Kate’s parents shook Dr. Hagen’s hand as they exited the room. When it was Kate’s turn the therapist leaned over and whispered “Good luck” into her ear.
Kate looked at her, surprised. During their sessions together Dr. Hagen had never once offered her own opinion about Kate’s interest in witchcraft. Now she seemed to be saying she thought it was a good thing. Kate was hoping she would say more.
But all she did was wink and say “See you in two weeks.”
CHAPTER 10
“You’re the girl who lived in this house?”
Annie nodded. Grayson Dunning was standing in the doorway of the living room, bags loaded with groceries still in his arms. He hadn’t even had a chance to set them down before Becka told him what had happened to Annie.
“I’ve always wondered what you were like,” Mr. Dunning said. “I asked the neighbors, but they wouldn’t tell me much. Nobody really wants to talk about the fire.”
Neither do I, Annie thought. But she was going to have to tell Mr. Dunning something to explain the way she had behaved earlier. She was wishing now that she had just run out. But Becka had persuaded her to stay. All Annie had told her was that she’d heard voices and that she thought they belonged to her parents. She hadn’t told her that she thought her parents were angry at her, or why.
Mr. Dunning put the groceries on the floor and came into the living room. Despite being tired and frightened, Annie couldn’t help but look at him. He was, after all, one of her favorite writers. She’d never thought she might be sitting in his living room one day—and especially not that his living room would be her old living room.
Grayson Dunning was younger than she’d expected him to be. She figured he was probably the same age as her Aunt Sarah. His black hair was cut short, and his face was handsome in a way that made Annie feel as if she could trust him. As he came and sat down across from her, she found herself wondering where Becka’s mother was. Mr. Dunning wasn’t wearing a wedding band, and Becka had never mentioned her mom. Were Becka’s parents divorced? Annie wondered. Was Becka’s mother dead?
“Excuse me for asking these questions,” Mr. Dunning said. “It’s just that I’ve wondered for so long about what happened here. Finding you sitting in my living room is sort of like something out of one of my books.” He laughed, and the sound made Annie’s fears abate a little bit. “But I should ask you how you’re doing first, right?”
Annie smiled at his earnestness. “I’m okay,” she said, although she was still rattled by having heard the voices.
“These voices,” Mr. Dunning said. “Becka said you’ve heard them before.”
“Yes,” said Annie. She sighed. “I think it’s my mother and father.” She knew what Mr. Dunning wanted to ask her, and she spared him having to do it. “They’re the ones who died in the fire here.”
He nodded his head. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I knew it was a young couple who had owned the place, and that they had a daughter, but nobody would tell me much more than that. The realtor said that there were rumors that the place was haunted. The kids on the block were terrified to come near here, and I figured people were just spooked by that.”
Annie wondered why people had said that the house was haunted. Had they seen things there? Had her parents been living there as ghosts ever since their deaths? Thinking about that made her sad. She didn’t want to think that their souls might have been wandering around the charred remains of their once-beautiful home. And all because of her. No wonder they were angry at her now. No wonder they were chasing after her.
“Actually, there were two daughters,” Annie said. “But my sister, Meg, was so little that people might have forgotten all about her.” She paused a moment, wanting to ask a question but not sure if she should. “Becka told me that you’ve seen ghosts here,” she said finally. It felt funny talking to someone whose books she’d read. It was even stranger talking to him about ghosts and hauntings and knowing that he might really believe in such things.
“Well, we haven’t exactly seen them,” Mr. Dunning said. “It’s more like we’ve felt them. We’ve both had the feeling from time to time that we’re being watched. Sometimes we wake up at night and think we see something or someone just leaving the room. But nothing more than that.”
“I’ve heard them whispering,” Becka added. “But nothing like what you heard this afternoon.”
“But you didn’t hear it yourself, right?” asked her father.
“No,” Becka said. “I didn’t hear anything at all. Only Annie did.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, why do you think your parents were calling to you?” Mr. Dunning asked Annie.
Annie took a deep breath. Should she tell him the truth? She sort of felt as if she owed him an honest answer, if only because he had to live in the house with her parents’ ghosts.
“I think they’re mad at me because I started the fire that killed them,” she said quickly, before she could back out.
Mr. Dunning looked surprised. “You started the f
ire?” he asked.
“Not on purpose,” said Annie. “It was an accident. But yes, I started it.”
Becka let out a low whistle. “No wonder you were freaked,” she said.
Annie looked at Mr. Dunning. “You write about things like this,” she said. “Do you really believe them?”
“People ask me that all the time,” said Becka’s father. “Usually I tell them that I don’t disbelieve them. But the real answer is that I believe in them very much. You see, I’ve seen ghosts, too.”
“You have?” Annie said.
He nodded. “My wife died shortly after Becka was born,” he said. “She drowned while we were at our summer home. Not long after that I began to experience things I couldn’t explain—hearing voices, catching glimpses of faces in mirrors, that kind of thing. I thought I was going crazy.”
Annie thought about how disorienting it had been for Cooper when the ghost of Elizabeth Sanger had appeared to her. She imagined Mr. Dunning must have felt even more confused, since he didn’t have a group of witches around to help him figure things out.
“One night I woke up convinced that someone was in the room with me,” Mr. Dunning continued. “I looked around and saw my wife standing outside the window, looking in at me. I was so scared I couldn’t move. But then she smiled at me, and suddenly I knew everything was all right.”
“Did she say anything to you?” asked Annie.
Mr. Dunning shook his head. “She just turned and walked away,” he said. “I went to the window and saw her walking into the lake. Then she just disappeared like the mist that covered the water. I’ve never seen her again.”
Annie looked at Mr. Dunning’s face. His mouth was in a small, wistful smile, as if he was remembering something both pleasant and sad at the same time. She knew a little bit about how he must feel. She felt that way sometimes when she remembered the good times she’d had with her mother and father.
But she wasn’t having a good time now. She just felt scared. She’d come back to her house hoping to make peace with what had happened, but her parents’ ghosts didn’t seem to want that. They seemed to want her to go away. But why? Hadn’t they told her to come home? She was confused. She’d thought that her parents had wanted her to return to San Francisco. But it was as if they’d been trying to warn her away ever since she’d made the decision to come. Why hadn’t she listened? Why had she insisted on stirring up old memories just when she was starting to accept them?
