by Delia James
“I know that’s what you want to believe, but unless you can find your mom’s laptop or her phone, or something else definite, you knowing isn’t enough.”
Rachael leaned forward and grabbed my wrist. “But, Anna, you know it was Cheryl, too, don’t you?”
My fingers prickled. Something warm slipped around the outside of the shields I’d raised before I walked in.
Oh, no.
Slowly, I pulled my hand out of Rachael’s grip. Our eyes met. Please, no. You did not just try to use your magic on me.
But the color had drained from Rachael’s cheeks, and I knew that was exactly what she’d done. If I hadn’t had my shields in place, it might have worked, too.
Maybe she meant to say something. Maybe I did. We’ll never know which one of us would have broken the stunned silence first, because right then a loud buzzing cut through the room. Someone wasn’t just ringing the clinic bell; they were leaning on it.
In a heartbeat, Rachael was on her feet and darting out the door. I followed behind as fast as I could, my hand diving reflexively into my purse to reach for my wand.
Jeannie had beaten us both to the lobby. She had the front door cracked open and was talking to a wild-eyed woman who was clutching what looked like an empty towel in her hands.
“I’m so sorry,” Jeannie began. “You’ll have to—”
“No!” shouted the woman. “Please! You have to help me! She’s dying!”
37
“IT’S ALL RIGHT, Jeannie.” Rachael moved forward and took the towel from the woman’s arms. Inside the folds, a sweet little tuxedo kitten blinked blearily up at us. The rims of her eyes were red, and even I could see her breathing wasn’t right. The fur around her jaw was matted and tangled.
“Please! Can you help? My little Mittens . . . ,” the woman sobbed.
“Of course. Bring her into Room 3,” said Rachael.
Jeannie shot her a look. I remembered that Rachael hadn’t actually gotten her license yet, and I wondered if Jeannie was going to call her out.
But all Jeannie did was take the woman by the shoulders. “This way,” she said as she steered the distressed cat owner toward the room.
“Anna?” said Rachael softly. “I have no right to ask, but would you wait here? I might . . . that is, Mittens might . . . need your help.”
There was no way I could refuse a request like that. So, when Rachael disappeared into the exam room, I sat on the bench in the empty lobby. I flipped through a cat magazine, until I got to the fourth ad with Attitude Cat sitting beside a scratching post, or a bag of kibble. I dropped the magazine and started pacing from the bench to the door and back again.
“Merow?”
I looked down. It was Alistair. He curled around my ankles. I stared for a second, surprised; then I remembered that Rachael had been undoing her mother’s wards. The clinic was officially open for familiars, even when the exam room door was closed.
“Oh, big guy.” I scooped him up at once and hugged him close. I needed to get my head together. The tangle around Ramona’s death was getting to me.
Rachael’s explanation for the broken wards made a lot of sense, especially since I could see for myself that she’d been busy painting over all the circles her mother had woven around the clinic. But there was still her vehement insistence that it was Cheryl who must have committed the murder. Her suspicion was understandable. It might even be right. But now I had suspicions of my own. Like that she might be setting me up to help make sure Cheryl got arrested, whether she was actually guilty or not.
“What do we do, big guy?” I whispered to Alistair. “If Rachael’s the one who planted those beads, and maybe took her mother’s books, she’s covering up for someone. But who? Kristen? Aunt Wendy? Pam? No, not Pam. Pam’s the only one with an alibi.” That I knew about, anyway.
The door to Exam Room 3 opened. Alistair’s ears twitched, and he vanished a split second before Mittens’s owner walked out with Rachael and Jeannie following close behind her.
“I don’t understand . . . ,” the woman cried. “I don’t. She never goes outside. I told Dr. Forsythe that—the other Dr. Forsythe, I mean. I’ve been so careful . . .”
“I know,” said Rachael soothingly. “This is not in any way your fault, Ms. Lewis. You have to believe me about that. Mittens is going to be fine. We’re just going to keep her for a couple of days until we’re sure the crisis is over. You’re welcome to call at any time to check in on how she’s doing.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Ms. Lewis sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “I . . . I’m sorry. I’m such a mess.”
“It’s all right.” Rachael had put a lab coat on in the exam room, and now she pulled a Kleenex out of the pocket and handed it to Ms. Lewis. “She’s part of your family. It’s natural that you’re upset. Is there maybe somebody you can call to help you get home okay?”
“I, um, no, I’m fine.” I could feel the effort Ms. Lewis was making to rally herself. I kept my breathing as steady as I could and tried to muster some healing energies. I could just imagine how upset I’d be if that was Alistair in there.
“Go with Jeannie,” Rachael told Ms. Lewis kindly. “She’ll make sure you’ve got all the information you need.” Rachael smiled encouragingly. She also shot me a glance and jerked her chin toward the exam room.
Jeannie led Ms. Lewis to the reception desk. I waited until they were both turned away before I ducked into Room 3.
“Anna, listen to me,” Rachael said urgently as she closed the door. “I’ve got no idea what you must be thinking about me right now, but I need your help.”
I had no idea what I thought about Rachael either, but the urgency in her voice was real. “What’s the matter?”
“We need to do a healing ritual.” Anger tightened Rachael’s face. “That kitten . . . She’s been poisoned.”
“Poisoned!”
“Cyanide.”
A shudder shot through me.
“The good news is Lisa got her to us in time. There is effective medical treatment, so we’ve got a decent chance, but Mittens is so small . . . I want to do everything possible.” The exam room had a back door with a big square window. Through it, we could see into the main treatment area. Jeannie was there, carefully adjusting little Mittens’s position in a padded box and checking the IV bag on its stand. I gulped.
“Right,” I said, trying to steady my voice—and my nerves. “What do you need?”
“You, and Alistair if you can get him here . . .”
“Merow.”
Just like that, Alistair was sitting bolt upright on the examination table. Rachael didn’t even seem startled. She just pulled the shade on the back door down.
“Do you have your wand?”
“Of course.”
This was evidently not the first time Rachael or her mother had done ritual work on the premises. Rachael unlocked a drawer under the exam room’s sink and pulled out a black velvet cloth decorated with an elaborate circle of blossoms, moons and Celtic knot work woven in blue, green and gold. She spread this across the sterile examining table, then brought out a cup, which I filled with water from a bottle in the room’s minifridge. She also got out a lacquered box of salt, a green candle, a dish of dried apple and rose blossom incense and an amethyst geode.
Alistair sat on the edge of the table, his eyes wide and unblinking. Rachael dimmed the lights and pulled a pack of matches out of the drawer, and then a wand. It was simpler than mine, just a length of dark wood polished so smooth it gleamed in the candlelight. A silver thread spiraled around it.
She lit the green candle and the cone of incense in its dish. We breathed the mingled smells of smoke and blossoms. Alistair started to purr, a steady, hypnotic thrum. I felt my thoughts focus. My hands and arms began to prickle as the energies inside us rose and spread.
“In need I call, in hope I ask
. . . an’ it harm none, an’ it harm none . . . ,” Rachael intoned.
I raised my wand. Alistair’s purr deepened.
“I call upon the spirits of the north, the spirits of the earth from which all life comes.” Rachael touched her wand to the amethyst geode. “I ask that you lend us your deep and steady strength for the healing that we seek.”
Moving clockwise around the circle, Rachael touched each of the symbols in turn, invoking the spirits. The prickling in my hands and arms intensified. As Julia had taught me, I pictured curtains of colored light rising from our circle: shimmering black, gold, rich red, a deep blue like the color of the morning sky. I pictured them swirling together, warm with life and clean energy.
I lost all sense of time. I couldn’t even feel the wand in my hand or the floor under my feet. The light, Rachael’s chant and the underlying thrum from Alistair all wound together—bright, vibrant, powerful, calming and exciting all at once.
Then, as slowly as it had built, the magic began to ebb. I began to settle back into my own blood and bones. I could distinguish individual sensations again, including Rachael intoning the words that would close the spell.
“So mote it be,” I said with her. “An’ it harm none, so mote it be.”
It was over. Despite everything that frightened and worried me about Rachael, we still grinned at each other. She held up her hand, and I slapped it in a witches’ high five. The gesture was only slightly marred by the fact that I really, really needed to sit down now.
“I’m just going to check . . .” Rachael didn’t need to finish. She just slipped back into the treatment area. I sat on the bench, trying to recover my breath and not shake, or wolf the battered granola bar I dug out of the bottom of my purse.
“Merowp.” Alistair jumped into my lap and head butted my chin.
“I’m fine. I’m good,” I told him. I also stroked his back so he’d settle down, because having his head pressed right up under my chin made it difficult to eat the granola bar, which at the moment was tasting better than it had a right to.
“Merow?” He pawed my purse and jumped down to nose at the granola crumbs. “Merp?”
“Sorry,” I said around my mouthful. “I don’t have any nibbles.”
“Merow!” he announced, making it perfectly plain what he thought of this gross negligence on my part.
Fortunately, just then Rachael came through the room’s back door, a huge, relieved grin on her face.
“We did it! Mittens is breathing better and she’s sleeping peacefully. She’s going to be fine.”
We hugged, a spontaneous expression of delight and triumph. Rachael passed me a fresh bottle of water from the fridge and cracked open one of her own. We toasted each other and both took long swallows. It was almost enough to make me forget what had happened before. Almost.
I lowered my bottle. “Rachael . . . ?”
Rachael, however, was not in the mood to talk. “You should probably go get some rest. That ritual was pretty intense.”
“Right. Sure. But. It’s just . . .” I was hesitating. There was something I hadn’t asked yet, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Then I did.
“Did you take her books of shadow, too?”
“What?” Rachael pulled back, startled.
“Your mother’s books of shadow,” I said. “They’re not in her apartment. Did you take them, too? When you broke the wards?”
“Oh. Yes,” she said slowly. “Of course I did. I have them at home.”
She looked at me, straight and steady and not blinking at all. “I’m sorry, Anna. I’m going to have to ask you to go.” She held open the door. “I’ll call you later, but right now I’ve got to help Jeannie take care of things, and then I really should call Aunt Wendy and . . . well, there’s a lot to do still. You understand?”
I understood, maybe a little better than I wanted to. I gathered up my things. I also held out the apartment keys for her to take. Our eyes met one more time. Oh, I understood all right. Rachael wanted me gone. She didn’t want to hear the other questions I had.
At least not until she had a chance to plan how she could answer them. Because every instinct I had told me that Rachael had just lied about the books of shadow. She didn’t take them. And if I had to bet on it, I would lay money on the fact that until I told her, she hadn’t even realized they were missing.
38
WORKING MAGIC TAKES energy. The stronger the spell, the more effort it requires. This is why every witch I know keeps some kind of snack handy.
But despite the granola bar, I was still starving. I was also seriously uneasy. Rachael Forsythe was not telling me everything she knew about the mystery surrounding her mother’s death. She’d been so desperate for me to believe that Cheryl Bell must have been the one who killed her mother that she’d actually tried to use her magic to influence me. Did that mean she was the one who’d planted those beads under Ramona’s bed? Or just that she knew who did?
How on earth was I going to find out which it was?
Thinking on an empty (and grumbling) stomach was never something I was much good at. I thought about the state of my refrigerator at home and decided to head for the Pale Ale.
• • •
IT WAS A slow time for Portsmouth tourism, but thanks to Martine’s creative menu, plenty of locals were ready and willing to fill the Pale Ale’s dining room at lunchtime. Men and women in business suits crowded the dining room, discussing their days and making their deals over salads of crisped pumpkin shreds and wilted winter greens, accompanied by what I presumed was local beer or one of the tavern’s signature cocktails.
Sean was behind the bar, hat pushed back on his head. He was engaged in pouring something from a Boston shaker through a strainer and into a highball glass with the kind of concentration normally reserved for brain surgery.
I slipped onto a stool. Sean didn’t even look up. He set the shaker down, flicked a stray grain of salt (unless it was sugar) off the side of the glass, garnished it with a sprig of mint (unless it was basil) and set the creation lovingly on the server’s tray. The freckled brunette server beamed at him, then saw me. We beamed at each other, more than a little awkwardly, and she took the drink to her table.
“For the record, I did notice you come in,” Sean told me.
“I know,” I told him. “Busy day?”
“Steady,” he said. “Can I get you something?”
My stomach rumbled in a highly unladylike and indelicate fashion. “A menu?”
Sean grinned and handed me one from under the bar. “The special’s a delicious beef stew with winter vegetables over fresh noodles. If you’re really hungry . . .”
Right on cue my stomach growled again. “You may take that as a yes.”
Sean slapped the bar in approval and typed my order into the sales terminal. “How about some warm cider to go with that?”
“Sounds perfect.” My hands weren’t exactly blue, but they were getting close. Something in my New Englander’s bones told me we were in for more snow soon.
I am not a serious drinker of any sort, and Sean knows that, so the steaming mug with the cinnamon stick in place of a straw or stirrer was fresh-pressed cider, not hard. It was, however, mulled with clove, allspice and citrus zest. I sipped. I sighed and the troubles of the world melted away, at least for a minute.
“Rough morning?” Sean asked.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “It really has been.”
“Should I ask?”
I stirred the cider restlessly with the cinnamon stick. I also glanced around me. I was the only person at the bar. Everybody else was sitting at their tables, deep in their own conversations or enjoyment of their own lunches. No one was paying attention to me and Sean. Yet, anyway.
“It’s kind of a long story,” I said reluctantly.
Sean followed my gaze around the
dining room and nodded. At the same time, the swinging door behind the bar opened, and a man in a white jacket and apron came out and set a bowl of stew and noodles on the bar. It smelled divine. I reached for my fork.
But not before Sean picked up the bowl and the cider mug.
“Hey! That’s my lunch!”
“And this is my break time. Let’s go.” He jerked his chin toward the swinging door behind the bar.
“But—!”
But Sean wasn’t paying any attention. He just carried my lunch through that door without a single backward glance. I followed because I had no choice. The fact that I still had the fork clutched in my fist is not something we really need to discuss.
• • •
I HAD NEVER been in the Pale Ale’s wine cellar before. It was dim and cool, with arched brick doorways and a flagstone floor. State-of-the-art coolers filled with bottles lined the walls. Beside them stood stacks of wooden crates printed with the logos of local breweries and distilleries.
Sean set the cider mug on the top of a cooler and stood an empty crate on end in the center of the room. He set another on its side and dusted it off.
“Well, you certainly know how to sweep a girl off her feet with the atmosphere.”
“Do not mock the man holding your lunch.” He gestured for me to sit. I did, fork poised in case I needed to do some actual damage.
Sean set the bowl down on the crate that was taking the place of a table. I dug in immediately. He was right. It was delicious.
“So,” I said around my mouthful as Sean put the cider mug on the table. “You always take your break in the basement?”
“Mostly, I go outside, or to our very nice break room in the attic, but it’s November and I got the idea you wanted privacy.” He pulled a crate up to the makeshift table. “Now. Talk to me, Anna.”
I sighed and stirred my noodles and rich broth with my fork. I tried to remember that Sean and I had only just started dating. He didn’t need all the crazy details. I was taking this slow. I was still getting over my last (disastrous) relationship. But I looked up in his blue eyes and my resistance wafted away on a cloud of cider-scented steam.
