by Mindy Klasky
David was silent as he drove us home, retracing the tree-lined roads until we drove over the Key Bridge, working our way through Georgetown’s cobbled streets. He again applied some warder’s trick to find a parking space directly in front of the Peabridge. As David helped me to sit up, helped me to maneuver out the car door, onto the curb, onto the flagstone garden path, Neko skipped ahead.
My familiar opened our cottage door with his own key. He hovered in the living room, suddenly solicitous, but David shook his head. “I’ll help her,” he said. “Go to sleep.” Neko shrugged before heading down to his basement lair.
“I’m fine,” I said, but a yawn betrayed me, and I sounded like a cross child.
“It can be exhausting, entering a safehold for the first time.”
“You could have warned me.”
“No,” he said seriously. “I couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed to. You needed to meet the Coven on your own. Those are the ancient ways.”
He led me toward my moon-washed bedroom. I remembered the first time he had done this, the first night that I had ever stretched my powers beyond their natural strength. As if David had a cat’s night vision, he removed my fused glass necklace, eased my earrings from my lobes. He loosened my hair from its precarious chignon.
In the past ten months, he’d had occasion to put me to bed a dozen times. He never took advantage of the situation, never brushed against me in a way that conveyed anything more than strictly professional interest.
Not that I wanted him to. He was my warder, not my boyfriend.
But I couldn’t keep from leaning against him, couldn’t help but turn my face toward his as he helped me out of my dress.
If he’d kissed me, I wouldn’t complain. Hadn’t complained, in fact, in the past, the one time he had kissed me. The one time he’d made my belly swoop lower with a sudden, gasping desire. The one time I’d tasted honest, magical potential on his lips.
What was I thinking?
He was my warder. And given my disastrous luck with men, I’d ruin everything if I ever thought of him as anything more than my magical protector. Besides, I was the recipient of a more recent kiss. Graeme Henderson’s.
Against my better judgment, I giggled.
“What?” David asked, and I could hear patience in his voice as he waited for me to slip out of my bra. I turned away, suddenly shy in front of him.
“Nothing.” But I giggled again, thinking of my secret romance. My Mystery Date, just like the ancient board game that Gran had bought for me when I was a kid. Graeme was no “Dud Date.” That was for sure.
I was going to laugh again. Laugh out loud. For real. I had to think of something serious. Something scary. Something to keep from telling my romantic secret to my warder, who would likely never approve of the new man in my life. Of any man, distracting me from my studies. “Haylee,” I blurted.
“What about her?” he said, easing my nightshirt over my head.
“She’s strong.” I took a few deep breaths, clearing my thoughts.
“Yes.”
“Stronger than I am.”
“Better trained,” he said. There was something about his tone, something about the very careful placement of the words that cut through my suppressed laughter.
“But not stronger?” I slurred the last word. I might as well have drunk a pitcher of mojitos, for all the precision of my speech.
“No,” he said. Again, I could hear there was a story there. There was something he wasn’t telling me, something beneath his standard warder reserve.
“Teach me,” I said suddenly.
“What?” His hands were gentle against my shoulders, but they were irresistible as he eased me back on my mattress. My pillow was like a cloud under my head, a cottony bridge to sleep.
“Teach me what Haylee knows. Help me to be a good witch, so that Teresa Alison Sidney likes me.”
“Teresa Alison Sidney already likes you.”
“Ha!” I sounded like a drunk now, and I wondered how my hand moved all by itself, how it stabbed the air.
“Well,” he amended. “Teresa Alison Sidney respects you.”
“Teri…” I whispered.
“What?”
“That’s what Haylee calls her. Teri.”
David pursed his lips in the silver moonlight. “Haylee’s known her for a long time.”
I clutched at his hand, pulled it close to my heart. I could feel the pulse beating through his wrists, beneath my gripping fingers, slow and steady and unexcitable. “Promise me,” I said.
“Promise you what?” He might have been humoring a small child.
“Promise me that you’ll teach me enough to impress Haylee. Enough to impress Tere—Teri.”
He shook his head. “Jane. You can’t learn magic just to impress someone. It’s not a toy. Not an act. You should know that by now.”
“Not just to impress her. Them.” The popular girls. All of them. From college age to senior citizenship—all the Coven women who had gathered that night. I knew what I was trying to say; I just couldn’t get the words out. “For the safehold. For the centerstone.”
I could feel the tension in his hands, the wire-taut intensity that corded his wrists and set his shoulders. “Jane—”
“Promise. Promise that I’ll be stronger than Haylee. I need that. Or I’ll never pass.”
He sighed, and I felt him give way. “I promise,” he said.
I relaxed against my pillow, and my lips curled into a smile. It wasn’t often that I won. Not often at all.
Even as I relished the victory, though, I remembered the man with the sword. I remembered the moonlight glinting on the naked blade, and the silver star that had flared up over the doorway. All that power, all that tradition…I had so much to learn.
Sudden tears rose in the back of my throat. I shuddered, afraid to look out the window. Afraid to see what might lurk in the shadows. Self-doubt. Or something worse. “What happens if I fail?” I asked.
“You won’t.”
“But if I do?”
David was silent for long enough that I almost drifted off to sleep. When he finally did answer, his words were hard, as sharp as the stone that made the walls of Teresa Alison Sidney’s luxury home. “You know this. We’ve discussed it. Your collection is forfeit. The books, the crystals, the runes. Everything in the basement. They’ll belong to the Coven.”
Even in my exhaustion, my drunken fatigue, his words froze my heart as if I were hearing them for the first time. I had to force my lips to stretch around another question. “And Neko?”
“Gone.”
“And you?” He refused to answer, only shaking his head in the moonlight. “David,” I whispered. “Stay here tonight. Please.”
He passed his hand over my forehead and smoothed back my hair. I closed my eyes, but I could not still my terrified shivering. “Sleep,” he said.
“Here,” I whispered, trying to pull urgency into the word, wrestling it free from my exhaustion. “Please,” I said again.
“Sleep,” he repeated. And then he took his hand from between mine.
I heard him tug at his shoelaces, heard his wingtips hit the floor. I felt him take off his suit jacket, remove his silken tie. There was a faint jangle as he emptied his pockets, the key to the amazing Lexus jostling with change on my nightstand.
I wanted to open my eyes. I wanted to see if he unbuttoned his shirt all the way or if he pulled it overhead. I wanted to watch him step out of his trousers, hang them neatly on my chair, settling them precisely so that they wouldn’t wrinkle. I wanted to see if he wore boxers or briefs.
But I was too tired.
I felt him pull my sheet up over my shoulders, all the covers that I needed on a sultry night. I felt him lie down next to me, on top of the sheet. I felt him punch my extra pillow, wrestle it into a more comfortable shape. I felt him breathing beside me, slowly, deeply.
And his breath evened out my own. It calmed me. Soothed me.
And I slept.
<
br /> 8
I pushed my French toast around on my plate, using my fork to chase it into a puddle of maple syrup. My headache was pounding in time to the gospel music that echoed in the Corcoran Gallery’s central courtyard. Clara had been responsible for choosing our brunch location this month.
Ordinarily, I would have been enchanted by my surroundings. The Corcoran’s brunch offerings filled a dozen tables, with choices ranging from cold cereal to omelets made to order. One entire table was given over to fresh fruit, and another threatened to collapse under the weight of assorted desserts. A gospel choir enriched the air around us, the women singing loud enough to wake the dead.
Or to wake me, as the case might be.
I’d spent the entire day before—a perfect, work-free Saturday—sleeping off the aftereffects of my meeting with the Coven. David had left before I awoke. The only hints that he’d actually stayed the night were the impression of his head on my extra pillow and the faintest whiff of a woodsy scent that might have been soap, or maybe shampoo.
I’d gone back to bed and dozed away the afternoon, the evening and all of Saturday night. Even this morning, I’d tumbled out of bed only half an hour before I was supposed to meet my mother and grandmother at the museum. I’d cursed my way through a rapid face-washing and hair-brushing, and I’d pulled on a light khaki skirt with a sleeveless blouse to match—twin concessions to Gran’s dislike of my mostly black wardrobe. I suspected that the color washed out my cheeks; my green eyes would definitely have benefited from a careful application of mascara.
Clara’s had.
Clara and I shared the same eyes. Even the manager had commented on that as she showed us to our table upon my belated arrival at the museum. “Mother Daughter Sunday, is it? Have a wonderful meal!”
Both Gran and Clara had descended on the food as if they expected never to eat again. Each of them had gone back for two additional helpings, while I was still trying to commit to my French toast. My stomach had rebelled at the thought of my customary Eggs Benedict (even now, the notion of runny yolks made me swallow hard), although I had managed to gnaw a few strips of bacon. The greasy salt tasted good to me, like hangover remedies should taste.
Not that I was actually hungover. I was just floored by witchcraft.
Gran came back from the dessert table, bearing a slice of cheesecake the size of the Flatiron Building. She graciously accepted a refill of her coffee from a passing waiter before she reached out to pat my arm. “Now tell us, dear. Where were you last night? Some exciting party, I hope?”
Sarah Smythe eternally hoped I’d attend exciting parties. That desire must have been the side effect of listening to me moan my way through junior high and high school. I could barely remember those long-ago weekends when an absent invitation to a make-out party drove me into the slough of despond. Or the pit of despair. Or whatever other deep, dank dungeon of misery I’d inhabited through my teens.
“Yes,” Clara chimed in, as if there could be nothing more exciting than my nightlife. I had to hand it to her. She really was trying to make these monthly get-togethers a success. I’m sure she only meant the best as she added, “You do look a bit bedraggled this morning. You should have taken a moment to purify your aura—a lavender wash would do that for you, you know. Just a spritz of the essential oil in the steam from your shower—”
“I didn’t have time for a shower,” I said, cutting her off at the holistic wellness pass.
Gran’s face creased into a frown. I wasn’t sure if she was disturbed by my interrupting, or by my failing to bathe. “What did I tell you while you were growing up, dear? One quick shower, and you can conquer the world. Even when you have the flu, there’s nothing better than hot water. Hot water, shampoo, a brisk rub with a facecloth. Far better than lying in bed for another few minutes of sleep.”
“I met the Coven Friday night.”
There. That cut short the Shower Rhapsody.
Gran darted a look at Clara. If I hadn’t been watching closely, I might have missed it. I might not have recognized the conspiratorial gesture for what it was, an admission of guilt. Guilt and complicity.
“Coven?” Clara tried.
“Coven,” I repeated grimly, as the “Rock of Ages” crumbled into gospel silence behind us. Diners’ applause echoed off the marble walls, and I took advantage of the chaos to exclaim, “How could you have met them without telling me? I thought we were all in this together! Why is that so goddamned hard for the two of you to believe?”
All right. I had to admit that I thought the clapping would last a little longer. Or that my voice would be a little quieter. Or that the silence wouldn’t echo quite so loudly after my last angry exclamation.
I felt the families on either side of us lean away, pretending overwhelming interest in their own desserts and coffee. A waiter scurried over and thrust a fresh cloth napkin into my hand, as if starch and cotton would bring me back to my senses. “Can I get you anything, madam?” he asked, and I heard his plea for me to lower my voice, to behave myself in this very proper public place.
“Just the check,” I said, keeping my eyes on Clara.
Her choice of venue. Her turn to pay. She fumbled in her hippie backpack and pulled out a wallet, slipping her credit card to the nervously dancing waiter without meeting my gaze.
Gran, as always, attempted to smooth things over. “Jane, dear, it’s not like we intended to go behind your back.” Well, that protest was enough to release Clara from my glare—I turned my hot eyes onto my grandmother. She waved her fingers above her coffee cup, as if she were sprinkling invisible bread crumbs onto the surface. “We didn’t choose to go there, dear. They summoned us. They made us meet them.”
Clara nodded and said earnestly, “It was a month ago. When the moon was full. They brought us out to a house—it was way outside of the city, in Virginia.”
Gran backed her up, as if she were suddenly compelled to tell the story, as if she needed to free herself from the memory. “They sent that nice man to drive us. I was so relieved—I never would have found the place on my own. And those narrow roads—I’m not even sure that the Lincoln could have made some of those turns. Best-looking car on the road, that’s for sure, but it’s not made for those little rustic byways.”
Clara was preparing her next line of inane conciliatory babble, but the waiter returned with the credit card slip. He set it down on the table directly in front of Clara and handed her the pen, as if he were afraid that she might delay signing. He clearly did not want to chance another outburst from me. I resisted the urge to snarl at him, to curve my fingers into claws and lash out at his tuxedoed chest.
“Have a wonderful day, ladies,” he said as Clara finished the formality of paying. “Enjoy the sunshine.”
Sunshine. The calendar had slipped to September, but we were still going to melt as soon as we left the museum’s air-conditioned cavern. I thought about asking the waiter for a few frosty bottles of water—he probably would have come up with them, if he’d thought it would get me away from the brunch any faster.
Soon enough, we were walking down the museum stairs, past a pair of enormous bronze lions. I led the way through the noontime swamp, taking advantage of a green traffic light to cross the street and strike out across a dusty park.
I didn’t really intend to get away from my family. If I’d wanted to do that, I could have outpaced them easily enough, left Clara caring for my grandmother as I strode off toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
No, I wanted to finish the conversation that I’d begun. I wanted to find out exactly what they knew and when they’d learned it. I wanted to know what the Coven had told them. And I wanted to know why they’d kept silent, why they’d left me to face the witches on my own.
Skirting a row of vans selling everything from hot dogs to fake FBI T-shirts, I collapsed onto a park bench, only to sigh with all the passion of an aggrieved teenager when I needed to shift over to make room for both of them.
“Don’t you under
stand?” I finally said. “If I’d known that you’d already been out there, I could have been prepared. I wouldn’t have felt quite so much like an idiot. I would have had a chance of making a good first impression.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Gran rushed to assure me. “You always make a good first impression.”
I resisted the urge to look back toward the Corcoran. I hadn’t wowed them there.
At least Clara had the good sense to stay quiet. We both remembered what sort of impression I’d made on her when we first met. I’d practically fled Cake Walk, I’d been so eager to get away from my own mother.
I took a deep breath.
I was a librarian. My job was to research information and communicate what I learned to patrons. I should be able to speak to my own grandmother, to my mother, and manage to keep a civil tone.
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “It was all so unnerving. I felt like they were all watching me. Testing me. It was like they spoke a language that I didn’t know. It was frightening and embarrassing. And if I’d known that you two had already been out there, it wouldn’t have been quite as—” I struggled for the right word and then gave up “—as bad as it was.”
Clara shook her head. “Jeanette,” she started to say, but then she caught herself. My mother was the only person who ever called me Jeanette. That had been my original name, before she hied off to Sedona, leaving me with my far more practical, down-to-earth grandmother, and the name I’d used for twenty-five years. Jane.
Jeanette still rang strangely in my ears—it was the name of an exotic French beauty. Or a pampered American schoolgirl. Not me. Never me.
Clara tried again. “I just don’t understand what was so unnerving about the visit. You stay up late all the time so the midnight hour couldn’t be the problem.”
Gran chimed in. “And the women themselves, the—” She was actually having trouble bringing herself to say it. “The witches—they were absolutely charming. Why, that Teresa Alison Sidney couldn’t have been nicer if she’d been serving on the board of the concert opera.”
I wasted a moment trying to picture Teresa Alison Sidney among Gran’s superannuated opera compatriots. The classiness of the image worked, but there was something else that just wasn’t right. Teresa Alison Sidney was just too…hard. Too driven. She had her own agenda, and she’d spare nothing—and no one—to achieve it.
