Serena's Magic

by Heather Graham

  I couldn’t lie to him, Marc, she pleaded silently. He would have known I was lying, and that would have been much worse.

  Suddenly corridors and columns and glass merged before her, and she was drifting again. It wasn’t Marc who touched her, but him, and it was that marvelous feeling of being exactly where she belonged, as if she had known a thousand years. She was secure; there was nothing to compare with the security of his complete possession.

  But then that euphoria drifted away; a flush of blood suffused her cheeks, and she felt weak and horrified with shame. It couldn’t have really happened; surely it had been a dream. Dear God, she was a nice person, and nice people simply didn’t do things like that.

  A new horror hit her at that moment. Salem was small; too small. Most visitors were tourists, and she ran a tourist attraction. There was more than a sound possibility that she would run into the man somewhere. She had been so concerned with hiding her own identity, she hadn’t bothered to discover his.

  He was just passing through, she tried to assure herself. And mine certainly isn’t the biggest tourist attraction; I’m being ridiculous, I will never see him again.

  Oh, Lord, what must he think of me?

  And then she was angry, wondering why she should have to feel such terrible guilt and humiliation. He probably didn’t feel a thing—men were supposed to be able to do macho things like instantly hop into bed—or earth, as the case might be—on a moment’s notice. But a woman! No, no, no! That made her terrible.

  I would have thought it terrible myself until today.

  “Serena!”

  She felt her arm gripped sharply and realized she had made a complete circumference through the revolving glass doors.

  “I brought you to help!” Marc hissed in her ear. “And first you make us late—then you won’t support me. And now I’m not even sure you’re with us anymore!”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Serena murmured quickly, forcing a quick and overly radiant smile to her lips as she noticed Kloon over Marc’s shoulder watching their interlude with a dry, suppressed grin. She hurried her steps to match with the men’s, keeping that smile plastered to her face. “I do love a good piña-colada, Mr. Kloon,” she said easily. Kloon was an extremely pleasant man; it was no difficulty to enjoy his company; she was simply finding the situation difficult.

  “Ahhh, Serena, I thought you might have gone for the smoking brew. I understand that you run a witchcraft museum and shop. Are you a practicing witch yourself?”

  Serena laughed. “No, Mr. Kloon, I do not practice witchcraft, but I have a number of customers who do! All white witches, to the best of my knowledge.” Her smile became more serious. “Witchcraft is a very important business in Salem these days. The city survives off the tourism—and off our good witches! These days, the practices are a lot like any other belief in the raising of the conscious—” She paused and shrugged at a lack of words for the explanation she needed. “Something like yoga, or T’ai Chi, or meditation! The women I know who are involved care about nature, herbs and plants and animals—and people! And being the best that they can be!”

  “You come on well in their defense,” Kloon observed as they entered the lounge, a pretty place with a well-done South Seas flavor.

  “Of course.” Serena laughed. “I’m not a fool!”

  She glanced at Marc, who now seemed pleased with her as he smiled and pulled out a chair, seating her silently before pulling his own chair close.

  “Serena is a wealth of knowledge.” Marc laughed. “She’s almost like having a living and breathing encyclopedia.”

  A waitress appeared; drinks were ordered. As the menu promised, they arrived steaming and frothing, and the threesome laughed as they tried to keep talking through the slowly diminishing haze. But the haze reminded her of the mist that night had brought to the pond, and she discovered that she was wandering once more.

  “Serena really tells the story better.”

  She glanced at Marc blankly with horror. He took a deep breath and said with impatience lying just below his pleasant tone, “Eleanora, Serena.”

  “Oh … ah …” She took a sip of her drink and harshly warned herself to stop daydreaming and to pay attention. “There really aren’t too many records available on her—just the notation that she was among the accused who disappeared and that she was nineteen at the time, the wife of a certain John Hawk, first owner of the Golden Hawk. He was more than twice her age, but it wasn’t unusual at that time for a young girl to be married to an older man of means. Anyway, John was terribly in love with her, but long before the witchcraft trials began, he had begun to suspect her of adultery. He took to following her each time she would leave the house.” Serena hesitated only a moment, then continued, “He discovered that she did have a lover, a sea captain she had stumbled into at the pond near her house. He had been watering his horse, or some such thing, while looking for land. Legend has it that he was young and handsome and charismatic and strong—all things that the elderly Hawk certainly wasn’t. And he fell head over heels in love with Eleanora. The two lovers made plans to run away. But Eleanora was accused of witchcraft. It’s believed her husband secretly instigated the charge. Eleanora was terrified—several had already been hanged at the time—and with her lover away on the last voyage before their intended escape together, the poor lady turned to her husband, who pretended a desire to save her. He told her she must hide in the hidden staircase, and that when the house was searched it would be believed that she had already fled.

  “When the sea captain returned, John Hawk informed him that Eleanora had fled with another man. Betrayed and desolate, the sea captain was beset by other trials: as Eleanora’s known lover, he was accused of witchcraft before he could escape to his ship. Chained in his jail cell, he became desperately ill with a strange malady. He died, deliriously cursing his treacherous mistress, swearing he would find his vengeance.” Serena lifted her hands in a poignant shrug. “Eleanora’s bones weren’t discovered until almost a century later—when the stair well was broken into by a grandson of Hawk and Eleanora during the Revolutionary War in order to hide certain leaders when a British attack was believed imminent.”

  Serena lifted a brow delicately in Mr. Kloon’s direction. “She is known, of course, to be the inn’s most vocal haunt. There is a strong rumor that her screams echo through the stairwells. She does make a perfect ghost, don’t you think, Mr. Kloon? A beautiful young girl betrayed by husband and peers and bereft of a lover?”

  Kloon laughed. “A wonderful sales pitch, Serena. A romantic and tragic story. I believe—”

  Suddenly, Serena wasn’t listening any more. She had lifted her eyes from Kloon, and they had fallen across the room.

  On a man.

  Tall and dark and elegantly but ruggedly distinguished as he entered the lounge with a stunning brunette on his arm.

  She barely noted the woman.

  She was too shocked at seeing the man.

  He wore the casual dinner jacket beautifully; he was terribly broad of shoulders with trim hips and waist. Even at a distance she could feel the power that radiated from his most simple flicker of movement. He looked completely at ease, and yet he looked as if he could suddenly rise and toss over the heavy wooden tables in a fit of primitive anger.

  What a stupid thought. He was laughing as he bent his head to hear something the woman was saying. He appeared totally civil, even tempered, and alert with those deep crystal eyes sparkling in the dim light.

  It was just that she knew what lurked beneath that elegant shield of evening attire. Flesh and blood and sinew … ruggedly, roughly, beautifully combined.

  He didn’t need to look her way. Even while her mind pleaded that it couldn’t be, she knew that it was. Shocking that her jock weight lifter could appear so at ease and intellectual and charming; but he could … he most certainly could. …

  “Serena!”

  It was not Marc who called her name with concern this time, but Jerry Kloon
. She heard him, but she didn’t seem to be able to tear her eyes away from the apparition turned real before them.

  “Serena …”

  She fought as if from a swirl of mist. Her lips moved, but she couldn’t evoke sound. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to snap out of the horrified shock.

  “I—I really am terribly sorry,” she stammered to both Marc and Jerry. “I must be overtired tonight. …”

  “It’s the story,” Marc was saying suddenly. “I shouldn’t have had her tell you that story, Jerry. I told you she has a sense of ESP—I believe that she can feel for Eleanora, that she actually picks up the emotions and horrors of the past. If she ever chose to concentrate, she could probably see those lovers at the pond.”

  It was all she could do to keep from breaking into hysterical laughter. Oh, Marc, you are an absolute fool. I’m not feeling a thing in the world except for a sense of humiliation that’s about to explode me into a million tiny pieces. And, oh, Marc, I can close my eyes and see lovers, and that’s why I think I want to die at this particular second.

  Serena coughed and took a sip of her drink. “Marc, please!” she said aloud. “I’m fine, I’m really just fine. Just tired,” she murmured brightly.

  “Shall we leave?” Kloon asked solicitously.

  Marc stared at her pleadingly. An agreement hadn’t been met yet.

  I can’t sit here! He could turn around; he could glance my way.

  Marc’s hand met hers under the table. Squeezed. He needed this deal. She was torn again with terrible guilt. She supposedly cared for Marc, and even if she hadn’t as yet decided how deeply, as a friend she should be helping.

  I can’t sit here, Marc. You don’t understand. And if you did, you really wouldn’t understand. They had been dating almost a year; they had shared kisses and touches and warm evenings and days at the beach. They had come close to being lovers, and yet she had always drawn away, not certain that she could begin such a relationship so soon.

  So soon.

  If he ever knew, he would think her the worst hypocrite in the world. How could she ever explain what she didn’t understand herself? I didn’t know his name, but something was there that was natural, inevitable, right … destiny, magic, I don’t know.

  How ridiculous it all sounded in her mind.

  Oh, Marc, I’m sorry; you deserved more from a woman than that.

  She forced a smile and dipped her head to finish her drink. “I’m fine, really, and I’d just love another one of these!”

  “Great,” Jerry Kloon said agreeably. “We’ll order another round.”

  Jerry and Marc began talking. Serena was vaguely aware that they were beginning to discuss terms, and she was thrilled—but then panicked.

  The first time the men’s steaming drinks had arrived at the table, the entire room had turned to laugh and speculate.

  The incredibly real weight lifter had his back to her at the moment, but surely he would turn.

  The ladies’ room; that always worked. But even as she began to rise, she saw that she was too late. The waitress was coming.

  Oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, helllll.

  She saw him turn with lifted brows and a wry smile in his strong angular face as the waitress began her smoking journey. As the waitress kept approaching, she blanked, then desperately dropped her purse from her lap. She ducked after it.

  “I’ll get it, Serena,” Marc murmured.

  “No, no,” she gasped. It wouldn’t take long enough for her to merely retrieve her purse. She hit the clasp with what she prayed was an unobtrusive motion and allowed its contents to spill out. She closed her eyes for a second as she heard the clink of glass upon the table.

  But then the waitress was asking if she could help.

  “No, really!” Serena called up from the floor brightly. “I just about have everything.” She was sure Marc was thinking her crazy now—and wondering why the hell she had picked this particular evening to apparently lose her grace and dignity. But things could be far worse.

  “What are you doing down there?” Jerry demanded.

  “My, ah, lipstick rolled.”

  It really had. Serena slipped from her chair to reach far beneath the table. She began to shimmy back out, then noted with horror a pair of boots on the other side of the table. Somehow she knew before she heard the voice.

  “Excuse me, but what are those things?”

  Jerry Kloon laughed and beckoned the waitress to return with the drink menu. And Serena froze.

  Marc dipped his head quickly during the exchange.

  “Serena! Would you get off the floor!” he hissed.

  He noticed the interchange. “Have you dropped something? Allow me.”

  She tried to get to her feet, but her heel caught her dress. She was still on the floor as he came around. She was forced to slowly, slowly meet his eyes as he knelt before her.

  He didn’t say a word; the shock registered in his eyes. She gave him a look of raw horror that mixed once more with the electrical impact of feeling him near once more.

  She literally wanted to die.

  But some self-preservation instinct suddenly rose to save her. She accepted her lipstick from his frozen, outstretched hand and managed to get to her feet. “Thank you,” she mumbled before dashing out an “Excuse me” and finally making good her retreat—a mad dash out of the lounge and into that sanctity of sanctities, the ladies’ room.

  It was the coward’s way out, she chastised herself. She should have had some cool. She should have thought of something to say—she should have managed to pretend she had never seen him before in her life. Right now she should set her chin high and waltz back in to regain her seat with calm and poise.

  No way.

  She remained in the ladies’ room for a good ten minutes. Even for Marc, even for the cause of his book, she couldn’t walk back into that lounge. Her mind began ticking; she prayed that the man would retreat with his knowledge of the drink. They were in Boston; he might be staying in that hotel. Maybe there was a weight lifters convention, a Mr. America contest going on. He had only been on a day excursion to Salem; she wouldn’t run into him again.

  Marc and Jerry would eventually have to leave the lounge.

  Marc was probably going to want to kill her.

  But so, apparently, did he, Joe Jock. She had seen it in his shocked stare. And he was definitely the worst of two evils.

  No, no, no, she was not going back in the lounge. Not if the devil rose from hell to drag her in.

  She began to wish that she were a practicing witch, that she could cast a spell that would make the ground open beneath his feet and swallow him up in a single bite. Or that she could cast a spell that would glue his tongue to the roof of his mouth, make each of those defined muscles of his weigh a ton and drag him halfway through to China.

  Oh, God! How had a single day turned her life into a nightmare?

  She washed her face with cool water and gritted her teeth as she ventured out into the hallway. Thank God. Jerry and Marc were walking from the lounge toward her. Marc looked puzzled and not a little angry; Jerry Kloon merely looked concerned. Serena looked carefully for anyone behind them, but they were alone. She waved a hand. “Here I am.”

  She walked toward them with an apology on her lips. “Please, forgive me. I must be coming down with something. The room was beginning to sway on me.”

  Jerry Kloon interrupted her to assure her that it was he who should apologize; he had made the night a long one. “Go home and get some sleep and take care of yourself. Marc is going to need your help with that ‘ghost’ novel of his.”

  Serena swallowed with relief. Marc had gotten the contract.

  But Marc hadn’t said a word to her. Nor did he as good-byes and thank-yous were exchanged. He didn’t speak until they were in his aging Cutlass and on the highway headed home.

  Then he exploded. “What the hell were you trying to do to me? You know how desperately I needed this contract! Christ, Serena,
it was as if you were going out of your way to make the night a disaster! And we can’t all have been lucky enough to have married for money—especially an older spouse kind enough to die quickly—”

  “Marc!” The sick horror of his anger-spurred accusation snapped her from all other thoughts, and the exclamation she gave him was a sure sign that he had stepped too far, that his words were unforgivable.

  His jaw tightened as he drove; he blinked painfully. “I’m sorry, Serena, I really am. I should never have said that, and believe me, honey, I didn’t mean it. It’s just that I can’t begin to understand you tonight. What is the matter with you?”

  Torn between anger and guilt, Serena bit down on her lip with no reply. Marc decided to give her silence meaning.

  “It was that story about Eleanora, wasn’t it!” he exclaimed exaltedly. “It does bother you. I know, Serena, that you sense things, know things. Don’t you see how you could be helping me? If you gave me the slightest bit of assistance, Serena, we could do wonderful things—”

  “Marc!” Serena hissed out. “Stop it! I mean it! I don’t see things and I don’t sense things and I don’t want my life or my home turned into absurdities! You caused tonight! You know that I don’t believe in ghosts, that I’ve never heard a thing in the Golden Hawk, and you were trying to get me to lie to that man! I won’t do it, Marc—and you’ve gotten your almighty contract! Leave it be!”

  They both fell silent. Serena’s aggravation with him was such that she was beginning to wonder why she felt so terribly guilty.

  Because in his way Marc had been wonderful; he had been an undemanding companion. He had been there over the last year when she needed him, and yet when she calls a stop to his needs, he laughs and tells her a time will come.

  “Oh, Lord,” she moaned suddenly, “do I have a headache.”

  They rode in silence again; then his hand reached out to clutch hers in sympathy. “Serena,” he said finally, softly, “I’m sorry. I realize you’re tired, I realize I tried to twist your hand. Thank you for tonight, and forgive me.”