The Trouble with Magic

by Madelyn Alt

  I never made it to the mausoleum that long-ago day; I never even made it through the cemetery gates. I had not thought of it in a very long time. Strange how things, memories, slip away from you. Maybe that was for the best. In the case of the voices I'd heard that day, unknown whispers that halted my progress and made me turn away in terror, I'd say that was definitely for the best.

  I would not think of it now.

  I forced myself to get out of my car. Forced my feet to move. Forced myself to take one step after another. It wasn't so bad once I got going. I could ignore the voices. They were faint, no more than whispers really. Much better than when I was a little girl. I could also ignore the feeling that I was being watched. It was probably just Steff, checking to be sure I was still following.

  One foot after another, Maggie my girl…

  There is a certain timelessness to cemeteries, a sense of being outside the everyday world combined with the perpetual passage of ages that I had nearly forgotten. Perhaps it would have been easier to remember were I not surrounded by the remnants of eons' worth of dead bodies.

  Stony Mill, Indiana. Population: 6,841 living; 12,309 living-challenged.

  I tried not to think of that. In fact, I tried not to think of anything at all. Reaching Steff's side, that's what I made my focus. It wasn't easy. Every time I paused, I could feel the energies creeping up on me, trying to get near.

  When I reached Steff, I looped my arm through hers, as much to keep myself there as to let her know I had arrived.

  We had stopped just outside the entrance to the mausoleum. I was glad for it, that I was spared the necessity of being inside that place of death that had once so terrorized me. Standing twenty feet from it was more than enough. I could scarcely hear the somnolent words of the minister as he spoke of Isabella's life. All the ridiculous things they say when someone dies.

  She has gone to a better place.

  No more pain.

  No more suffering.

  Taken in the prime of life. The Good Lord called her home.

  Ours is not to question why…

  Pointless, meaningless, empty cliches.

  I let them flow freely from my head, instead checking out my fellow mourners. The first thing I noticed: The elaborate closed coffin from the viewing was gone, replaced by a large, polished alabaster jar. It could only mean that Isabella must have opted for cremation. Not quite the norm around these parts, but hey, Isabella didn't exactly seem the type to be afraid of standing out in a crowd. At least, not if what Ryan Davidson said was true.

  Speaking of the urbane Mr. Davidson, there he was now, hovering near the Harding family. Jeremy Harding looked the part of the mourning husband in a well-tailored black wool suit. He wasn't paying any attention to his daughter, Jacquilyn, nor the stocky young man wagging his tail so eagerly beside her. I didn't recognize him. He certainly appeared to be on friendly terms with the Ice Princess. This could only be the fiancé Steff had spoken of.

  There were several people among the mourners whom I did not recognize—relatives, maybe, or friends, or even coworkers, I imagined. One I did recognize, however, was the unmistakable Jetta James. Attending the viewing had been bad enough, but hovering by the grave seemed oh. so much worse. I wondered if she realized how cheap and ambitions that made her appear.

  Then again, maybe she just didn't care.

  The minister droned on. Most everyone appeared to be listening, or were at least pretending to, and were making appropriate sounds of lamentation punctuated by the occasional enthusiastic Amen. As with most services, my mind tended to wander. I resorted to people-watching to amuse myself and to keep my mind off other, more anxiety-producing things.

  People da the most amazing things when they don't think they're being observed.

  Jeremy Harding, I discovered, kept surreptitiously checking his watch. Places to go, people to see, doncha know.

  Jacquilyn. lovely, warm person that she was, looked more like a statue than a living, breathing person. Maybe her mother's death was finally hitting home.

  Ryan Davidson pulled his credit card-sized cell phone from his pocket to check text messages no less than three times Ah. the joys of living in a technologically advanced society.

  Jetta James possessed the distinctive habit of pulling at the hips of her tight skirt, which kept inching its way up her legs every time she moved. Her fingernails, I couldn't help but notice, were at least an inch long. The mind boggles.

  The fiance—who Steff had earlier ID'd as Roger Foley—kept his hand on the small of Jacquilyn's back, and at first glance he seemed to be quite comfortable playing the part of supportive mate. Then it became evident he was darting glances at the hemlines and breasts of every other female present. Including me, despite the fact that I was wearing slacks and a loose, bulky sweater. Until his roving eyes hit upon Steff standing by my side. Then he went as stiff and pale as a corpse, turned his face away, and tried to pretend neither of us existed.

  No one else appeared remarkable in any way.

  At least, not until a flash of movement caught my eye as Jeremy came forward to place a rose beside the urn. Unobtrusively I let my gaze drift sideways, seeking the cause. When I couldn't immediately locate a source, I thought it must have been birds swooping from tree to tree. As a matter of fact, I saw a number of large crows hanging out atop gravestones and strutting across the grass. It could easily have been one or more of them that I noticed out of the corner of my eye.

  Satisfied, I turned back to the proceedings and waited, wistfully, for them to be over.

  But then I saw a long shadow stretching across the grass, loosely attached to another shadow cast by the trunk of an old red maple. The morning sun cast both shadows westward, extending them into almost mythic proportion.

  A man was hiding behind that tree. I was sure of it.

  Why would anyone come to a funeral only to hide behind a tree rather than to be seen out in the open with the rest of the mourners?

  With a cue from the preacher, voices lifted all around me to the deep, sonorous lyrics of "Amazing Grace." I let my lips form the words, but all of my attention was focused on that lone maple. Who was it? Why did he come? To say good-bye? Or could it be to admire the results of his handiwork?

  I stared so hard my eyes burned with the effort, but I could not look away.

  "I see him, too."

  Steff was staring at the tree as well. Together we kept a silent vigil while the hymn's solemn chords swelled around us. waiting for the private surveillant to let down his guard.

  As the hymn drew to a close, the minister intoned the customary closing words over Isabella's alabaster place-of-rest… Ashes to ashes, dust to dust… which in Isabella's case turned out to be somewhat more appropriate than usual… and stepped back so that the Harding family might claim the remains. My attention jerked back to the proceed ings momentarily as, for one bizarre moment, neither Jeremy nor Jacquilyn stepped forward. In fact, neither seemed to be overly excited about touching the jar at all. Finally, Jeremy reached out and gingerly carried the jar into the shadowy depths of the stone mausoleum.

  He scurried out of the place as if his heels were on fire.

  I was just thinking that I couldn't really blame him for it when Steff dug her elbow into my ribs.

  "Look."

  As the mourners began to wander back toward then cars, the person behind the tree cautiously tried to keep the trunk of the tree between him and them at all times. Thanks to our vantage point, we were able to catch a glimpse of him—it was a man—before he noticed us and ducked into hiding once again.

  I didn't recognize him, but one feature was unmistakable: He was wearing the starched white collar of a man of God.

  Could this be the Reverend Baxter Martin?

  I started looking for a way to get from the mausoleum to the greater vicinity of the red maple without traipsing through an army of tombstones. But before I had plotted even the first leg. Steff and I found ourselves waylaid by a cool blonde
who was being trailed closely by her frowning pet monkey.

  Brought up short. I nodded a greeting. "Ms. Harding."

  She stared at me. Her blue eyes were as warm as chips of ice. "It was Miss… O'Neill, wasn't it?" Her gaze flicked to the left to include Steff, dropped down assessingly, and narrowed as her gaze returned to Steff's pretty face. "And Miss—?"

  "This is a friend of mine. Stephanie Evans, this is Jacquilyn Harding. Ms. Harding's mother—"

  "Never mind that. My mother's funeral is not a freak show, Miss O'Neill. Close family and intimate friends only. And since you are quite frankly neither of those two things, I'm afraid I will have to ask you and your friend to leave us to our sorrow."

  My cheeks burned with the full impact of her rudeness. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude."

  "Oh, I'm sure you didn't." Like the Ice Princess I'd pegged her for, she turned on her sturdy, sensible heels, summoning her man with the snap of her fingers. "Coming, Roger?"

  Jacquilyn's yes-boy lingered long enough to direct an unpleasant leer in Steff's direction, then he scampered along behind his fiancee.

  Steff's lips were pressed together in a rigid grimace of distaste. Her fingers tightened on my arm. "Come on, Mags, let's go," she said, loud enough for Jacquilyn and Roger to hear. "It's quite obvious Ms. Harding is out of her mind with grief."

  We turned to leave. Slowly. There was something about Jacquilyn and her high-handed attitude that really scorched my buns. I wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of hieing myself away like some flunkee to do her royal bidding.

  By that time, the mysterious cleric had long since disappeared. We looked, but there was no sign of him. Quietly we made our way back up the lane toward Christine. With only Jacquilyn and Roger and a few cemetery personnel remaining, I had no reason to want to stay, and yet something made me hesitate.

  "I don't think I've ever met a more disagreeable woman. The way she spoke to you. Ugh!" Steff paced back and forth in the gravel, her black ankle boots churning up little whorls of limestone dust. "I can't believe it. I just cannot believe a person could be so unutterably rude! Who does she think she is?"

  "Forget Her Royal Highness. Were you able to get a good look at that man hiding behind the tree?"

  "I think I'd recognize him if we happened to see him again. That collar is a dead giveaway."

  "Reverend Martin?"

  "I'd bet my date with Danny on it."

  Now that was serious business.

  We were interrupted by the sound of tires on gravel and the rush of an engine as a black SUV blew past us on the narrow lane, leaving a plume of dust in its wake.

  The blonde behind the wheel was unmistakable.

  "Damn!" I choked. The taste of dirt coated my throat and mouth, and it pissed me off. Royally. "What is the deal with her?"

  "Maybe she needs to kiss a frog. Or even two," Steff croaked. "I get the feeling she could use a little magical assistance. I don't suppose you have a bottle of water?"

  When she was in her element, Steff was rarely without a fresh bottle of Aquafina. I, on the other hand, usually made do with some sort of coffee bean and water combo. I happened to have just such a concoction on hand, but for some reason, a two-day-old latte in a soggy paper cup didn't sound like much help. Not even to me.

  I shook my head. "Sorry."

  "I'm almost certain I brought one."

  While Steff dug around in my backseat, I found myself turning once more to look back at the stone Mausoleum. The cemetery staff seemed to have disappeared in the last few minutes, and in that moment I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to return to the gravesite.

  Something was calling to me. Calling me back.

  My feet started to move of their own accord. Before I realized what was happening, I found myself walking slowly back up the lane. It was nearly noon, and the sun was high overhead. Vital, golden, blissfully normal, the bright sunlight should have reassured me. Instead it only served to highlight the strangeness of the moment. What was I doing? I did not want to go back there. Why couldn't I stop? But my feet just kept up their steady pace forward.

  For the duration of the funeral, at least, I'd found plenty of distractions that helped to temporarily shelve my fears and prevent my thoughts from turning inward. Perhaps those distractions had also lulled me into a false sense of security. Now that nothing else stood in my way, all my fears and anxieties came rushing back into my head lite rainwater gushing through a storm drain, sweeping me out of my comfort zone and smack into the realm of the unknown.

  Dread—the good, old-fashioned, get-your-heart-racing variety—pumped vigorously through my veins.

  From what seemed a million miles away, I heard Steff's voice calling me. I couldn't answer. My vision narrowed until I could see only the open gate and the yawning space beyond. It was as though I were walking through a long tunnel and the Mausoleum was the only possible end result.

  Strange, unearthly sounds filled my ears as I took that last step through the open gateway. Shadow closed in around me and the temperature dropped noticeably. I paused, shivering and blinking, just inside the door and waited for my common sense to return so that I could get the hell out of Dodge.

  The air inside the tomb smelled stale with misuse, but not rank. Not… dead. Thank goodness. I hovered there in the doorway, wondering why I didn't just turn around and walk out, back into the light of day. Back to normal life.

  So why then did I step farther into the darkness?

  The whispers I'd managed to hold back were getting louder. Little more than susurrant undertones at first, they began to take shape. To form words.

  touch it… touch it… touch it… touch it… touch it., ,

  The lump of ice sticking in my throat got bigger.

  I took a shaky breath and tried to get my feet to move. I wanted to go back, but they refused to budge. Around me, the quality of the air changed, from stale vapors into something tangible.

  Something with shape.

  Something with hands.

  A lot of hands.

  Oh God…

  As if they belonged to someone else, I watched with a mixture of fascination and horror as my own hands stretched out toward the open bay. I could just make out the shape of the alabaster jar situated deep within the hollow in the wall. The sheer number of other such hollows, now closed, each with their own brass name plate affixed to the marble façade, made my blood run even colder. I tore my thoughts away from such worries and made myself look at the jar that held Isabella's ashes. A shimmer of light glinted along the upswept curve, just beneath my hovering fingers—so tantalizing, I ached to catch it in my hand. The flesh on my palms grew warm and began to vibrate, as though I had placed them on the casing of a computer monitor. Electricity, or something quite like it, tingled from my fingertips and up my arms. Such a strange sensation…

  Screwing my eyes shut, I closed the distance.

  The instant my hands made contact with the cold, polished surface, I felt it—sadness and anger in a sudden onslaught that came from so deep inside me that it might well have originated from the innermost caverns of my soul. With it came a cold, so vast, so profound, that I could feel it inside me, filling my lungs, clenching its icy fingers around my heart.

  Murder… murder… murder… murder… murder…

  I felt the word as much as heard it. Aftershocks rumbled through my body, so powerful that for a moment I worried they might tear me apart. Aghast, I tore my hands free of the smooth alabaster and scrabbled blindly for the door. A scream ripped upward but caught in my throat and stuck there. Gagging, I broke free of the tomb and stumbled out, collapsing to my knees at the base of a headstone fifteen feet away. My breath broke free from me at long last; I hadn't even realized I'd been holding it until it came shuddering out. I sucked in fresh air, only to choke again over the taste of the tomb, still coating my tongue and throat.

  When I had regained enough presence of mind to ask questions, one very large one came to mind: What the h
ell was that?

  "Maggie! Mags! Oh my God, are you all right?" Steff's footsteps thundered across the grass toward me, but I didn't have the strength yet to turn to her. Her hands closed around my trembling shoulders. "I saw you go down. What happened, honey? Why were you in that place? Did you trip over something? Fall? Are you hurt?"

  As she shotgunned questions at me, her hands traveled over my feet, my ankles, searching for signs of injury. Finding none, she sat back on her heels, nonplussed, and took my hands in hers, "Maggie, honey? Maggie, look at me," she coaxed calmly. "Come on, just look up…"

  I couldn't do it. I couldn't move, not an inch. I couldn't even lift my head. Whatever burst of adrenalin had carried me safely from that place of death was gone, and in its place was a total absence of lite and an overwhelming sense of regret. In my head, I kept hearing the same refrain, over and over and over again, an echo that had followed me out the door of the crypt. Letters, my tetters, my letters, letters…

  Whatever that meant.

  I didn't understand what had happened—was happening but did that really make a difference? Not understanding didn't lessen the impact. I needed help.

  I took another shuddering breath, reeling as the staleness of the tomb filled me again. My stomach clenched, "Call Liss—" I rasped with difficulty.

  Steff took one look at my face and lost her nurse's air of unflappable professionalism. "Stay right there. I'll—I'll get my phone. Don't move."

  As if I could.

  She tore back toward Christine, scrambling around stones and over graves to get there. She was back in a jiffy with her cell phone in one hand and my purse in the other.

  "You must have her number in here somewhere, right?" she prompted, unzipping it and unceremoniously dumping the contents upon the grass in front of her.

  I blinked, the closest I could come at the moment to a nod.

  If only the roaring in my ears would stop___I was trying not to breathe any more than I had to. I just couldn't face that taste, the foul taste of decay. The short supply of oxygen in my lungs was making me even dizzier, but that was a small price to pay in my book.