Witch Wants Forever

by Victoria Danann

  “I need to talk to you about what happens when you fly away, sweet girl,” Elspeth said.

  “Okay,” Rachel answered in between licks, completely unconcerned.

  “Sometimes you may see things that…” Elspeth glanced at Gale, “are not nice.”

  Rachel nodded. “The ghoulie goblins.” Elspeth locked gazes with Gale for a second. “Can I go down to the river?”

  “In a minute,” Gale replied.

  “Aren’t you afraid of the ghoulie goblins?” Elspeth asked.

  Rachel shook her head. “No. I’m a lot faster than them. Can we do this every day?”

  Ignoring that, Elspeth said, “You must be very careful to stay away from the ghoulie goblins, Rachel.”

  “I know.”

  “How is it that you know that, sweetheart?”

  Rachel shrugged her tiny shoulders. “I just do. They’re sad.”

  Elspeth and Gale exchanged a look again. “They’re sad?” Gale asked.

  “Uh-huh. They think that if they can catch me they can be like us. Can I go down to the water now?”

  Gale started to say no, but Elspeth put her hand on her daughter’s forearm to stop her. “Go ahead,” she said, “but don’t fall in.”

  “I won’t.”

  While Rachel ran down to the water, Elspeth said, “That was phenomenal. She’s like a golden child.”

  After a brief hesitation Gale said, “The Eddie Murphy movie?”

  “Yes. But witchy. Not Buddhist.”

  They both snickered.

  “How old were you when you started traveling?” Gale asked.

  Elspeth barked out a laugh. “Twenty-two.”

  “Well, that’s not going to give me much insight into how to raise a little flyer and keep her safe.”

  “We’ll figure it out together. In this case, I think it really will take a village.”

  Indeed the entire colony did worry over the dangers of Rachel’s magical specialty as she grew, but she was also considered a treasure beyond compare.

  By the time she was an adult they had devised all sorts of means to keep her as safe as possible. When she was out of her body, it was critical that she not be disturbed because the result of moving her body, even a touch, might mean that she couldn’t find her way back. Because of that, precautions had been taken to insure that the risk was minimal. They’d built Rachel a vault that was, effectively, the world’s most state-of-the-art safe room.

  Three other people had the code to enter. Dash. Harmony and Elsbeth from the elders council. They didn’t want to give Dash a code, but Rachel insisted he could be trusted with her body and soul. And in fact, that was exactly the issue. The danger of being trapped in a state of limbo, unable to either reenter her body, or cross to a higher plane.

  Dash and Rachel were the furthest thing from party animals. They led a quiet life and reveled in it.

  At the end of the day, they had wine and grilled on the patio. Sometimes they lay together in the canvas hammock that hung at the edge of their terrace, where it overlooked hill country cedar and cypress, and the river. Sometimes they would spend an hour or more quietly rocking in the hammock, not even speaking.

  If Dash had been asked to describe his life, he might have said it was perfection. He hadn’t been asked that question, but that was certainly the way he felt. He loved his wife. He loved his work. He loved his home. He loved the community. So far as he was concerned, he’d put his full weight down and planned to grow old doing exactly what he was doing. With Rachel.

  He would have loved to simply freeze the moment in time. Their days were spent in service to the community, which came with the reward of a heart filled with satisfaction. Their nights were spent tangled in white sheets and each other’s bodies, murmuring the sweetest of nothings, pressing the sweetest of kisses, delighting in the fact that their passion wasn’t waning, but growing with each new day together.

  Rachel was perfect for Dashiell.

  Dash was perfect for Rachel.

  And both were determined to squeeze every ounce of enjoyment from their good fortune until they were parted by death. In bed together in the middle of the night they swore that even that would not separate them permanently, but only for a time.

  CHAPTER Two.

  “Three days!?!” Rachel said.

  On the one hand Dash hated that she sounded distressed about him going to Denver. On the other hand, he would have hated it more if she’d been indifferent to the prospect of him being gone.

  He sat on the end of the bed and pulled her into his lap and nibbled on her earlobe. “It will come and go before you know it. Willem asked me to go.” She huffed at that. “And I might be moved to tell my family I’m an old married guy. Have to see how it goes.”

  She didn’t huff at that. “You’re going to see them?”

  “In my mind I’m pulling my big boy pants up and getting ready for the siege that will be laid to my psyche.”

  “It’ll really be that bad?” she said quietly.

  He nodded. “There’s a reason why I don’t go often.”

  “Because of me?”

  He sighed. “No. Because of me. I don’t belong there. I belong here. If they have a problem with you, me, or us, that’s their problem and not our problem.”

  She laughed. “You made a rhyme. You’ll see your lover before bedtime.”

  He fell back on the bed with her still in his arms. “Your prediction already came true. See how powerful you are? You’ll be challenging Harmony for prima seer.”

  She laughed again, but later she said. “I wish you could tell them that you didn’t marry beneath you.”

  “Rachel, I would have married you if you were human.”

  “You would?”

  “Of course, crazy. And if you were human, I still would have married up.”

  She smiled and gave him the kind of kiss that sort of pronouncement deserved. “I’ll miss you so much. This house is going to seem too big.”

  “You want to come?”

  She ducked her chin and shook her head so that he could feel it against his chest. “You know I want to, but…”

  “I know you don’t like being away. And I get why. Your safety’s more important than anything. I just wanted you to know you’re welcome.”

  On the Wednesday before the conference, Dash flew out of San Antonio, only because the time worked better. The panels, lectures, and workshops had all been thoughtfully scheduled for Thursday and Friday so that people coming from other parts of the country could use their own weekend time to enjoy some Rocky Mountain high according to individual preference, whether that was shopping on 16th Street, extreme mountain sports, history-themed sightseeing, or partaking in a cannabis ‘tasting’.

  He happened to be in a window seat on the left side of the plane, which began its approach pattern at Pueblo. It was a clear day which meant that he had a spectacular view of the entire front range of the Rockies as he flew north at parallel past Pikes Peak. He loved New Orleans. Loved Wimberley. And hadn’t realized he’d missed Colorado at all, but there it was. An unmistakable little twinge that said home.

  Dash’s family were old money in Denver terms. They might be nouveau riche in Massachusetts, but in the mile high city they were fourth generation natives and third generation society. That counted for something.

  The Fonteneaus owned a food service company that supplied grocery stores, restaurants and schools. As his father loved to say, “No matter what the four horsemen bring, people have to eat.”

  That had turned out to be a sound business philosophy taken seriously by his grandfather, who had turned Dash’s great-grandfather’s chain of two small grocery stores into a Colorado empire.

  When he told his mother he was coming for a meeting, she made a point of sounding unpleasantly surprised about that. Because, of course, they hadn’t known he was working. They must have supposed he was living on trust and up to nothing either productive or remarkable.

  She’d insisted that
Dash didn’t need to rent a car. He could use one of theirs and he knew all too well that it was a good idea to practice picking battles with his mother. So he thanked her and she arranged to have a car left at the airport with the key waiting for him in the President’s Club.

  The Fonteneau house was almost nine thousand square feet nestled among blue spruce on almost two acres of the most valuable residential real estate in Denver. It was worth a few dollars short of eight million. He knew that because his parents had briefly considered selling and had called Sotheby’s for an appraisal. That was before the great marijuana migration had arrived and clogged the highways, so that estimate was outdated and likely way under current market.

  Though built in 1932, it had been updated and had two elevators, a gym, wine cellar, greenhouse, and landscaping redesigned by Jeff Vogel. It wasn’t easy for a Denver house to have views of the Cherry Creek Country Club with the downtown skyline beyond and the mountains as a backdrop to that. The trifecta of viewing pleasure. But his family managed it.

  When he pulled up in front, he took in a deep breath. The imposing red brick with Tudor facade was three stories tall with a roof pitch at a forty-five degree angle above that. The result was imposing even for someone who grew up in the house. It couldn’t possibly be more different from the Greek revival he lived in with Rachel.

  He’d fallen in love with their house the first time he saw it. He could have built a different house if he hadn’t liked it, but there was no desire. Rachel’s house reminded him of the Garden District homes in New Orleans that he’d seen from the street car hundreds of times. On rainy days, cool days, sweltering days, and more rainy days.

  Late nineteenth century might be a little frufru for a lot of guys, but not Dash.

  Maybe the French blood? he mused before deciding the French had been diluted with other European heritages to the point of unimportance in any way except the name that had endured.

  For Dash, the Wimberley house was a physical representation of what love would look like if it was a wood structure. When the thought flitted across his mind that maybe Rachel had bewitched it, he smiled. He didn’t know and he didn’t care.

  He turned off the car and sat on the drive, making no move to open the driver’s side door, even though he knew that eventually he was going to have to get out of the car, walk to the door, and face the dragon nest.

  Looking at his watch he took comfort in the fact that it was late in the day. All he had to do was get through dinner then he’d be gone to the conference early in the morning.

  For Dash it meant spending two nights at his parents’ house. Friday morning he’d have his bag packed and in the car so that he could go straight to the airport. He’d say his goodbyes, and wouldn’t be back for… well, the longest time possible. He was already anticipating coming home to Rachel. And he’d just arrived.

  Taking a deep breath he took long-legged strides to the front door where he hesitated. He couldn’t decide whether to ring the bell or walk right in.

  It was home, but it wasn’t.

  He finally opted for walking in. He tried the massive brass door handle and found it open. The foyer was laid with black and white marble tiles set in a diagonal checkerboard pattern. The stark black and white contrast might have seemed cold if not for all the polished rosewood that was featured throughout including the impressive ten-foot-wide stairway with curved banister. The entry ran the length of the front of the house ending in a huge formal room at one end, a leather and trophy bar at the other, and several perpendicular hallways dividing the first story by function.

  He stopped and listened. Hearing nothing, he said, “Hello?”

  A maid that he remembered hurried toward the front of the house with a big smile. He grinned in return. “Maggie? Is that you?”

  “Yes, indeed,” she said. “How are you, Mr. Fonteneau?”

  “Good. Seems quiet around here?”

  She shook her head. “Not for long. Dinner in an hour. Your mother is here. In her study. Your father and brother will be here by the time food is being served.”

  Dash leaned toward her conspiratorially. “Anything I need to know? Come on. Don’t throw me to the wolves unprepared.”

  She chuckled. “Good household help sees and hears nothing.”

  “And you’re…”

  “Yes, sir. Good at this job.”

  “You are no help at all.”

  “Well, I did up your old room for you. That’s some kind of help.”

  Dash smiled. “Thanks, Maggie. Where is she?”

  “Her study.”

  “Her study?”

  “Oh. Guess that was done since you’ve been gone. She converted the sunroom.” He nodded and started toward the interior of the house, feeling like he was a warrior facing a battle he couldn’t win, but must fight for honor’s sake. “Dinner in an hour.”

  “What are we having?”

  “Your mother had us make all your favorites.”

  That surprised him. Maybe it shouldn’t have. He just wasn’t expecting his mother to go out of her way, at all, to make him feel welcome.

  The former sunroom French door was open. Dash’s mother was typing on a keyboard. Instead of immediately making her aware of his arrival, he stood in the doorway and watched.

  Adrienne Fonteneau was still beautiful, turning fifty later in the year, and concentrating on something as if it was a job she depended on for survival. She’d lightened her light brown hair with highlights so that it was currently an attractive mix of brown, gray, and blonde. When he cleared his throat her gray eyes jumped to lock on his.

  Just before she assumed her austere composure, he thought he saw a moment of pure pleasure bordering on delight. At seeing him?

  She immediately stopped what she was doing, rose from her desk, and walked around to give him a hug.

  “And there he is. The prodigal son.” She smiled. “Come in and let me have a good look at you.”

  Dash returned her smile and hug, but didn’t let down his guard. Outwardly he was warm. Inwardly he was wary. Parents have the power to uplift and thrill. They also have the power to smash and burn.

  “So this is the study now?”

  “Not the study,” she said. “My study. Don’t you know that the study is always shorthand for his?”

  Dash chuckled. “I’d never thought about it. You looked like you were really into something.”

  She looked back toward the desk like she’d forgotten what she’d been working on. “Oh,” she waved, “it’s just a fundraiser for the arts foundation.”

  “Yeah? Well, they’re lucky to have you on their side.”

  “They are, aren’t they?” She put her arm through his and guided him into the hallway. “We’re having dinner at seven thirty. Your brother is coming. And your dad, of course. Everybody wants to hear all about your adventures.”

  “Adelaide, too?”

  “No. Just Zane. We decided to make it a core family night. Us four. No more. As we used to say.”

  Dash tensed slightly, understanding the potential for ambush. “I see. And are we dressing for dinner?”

  She grinned. “I see you haven’t lost that unique sense of humor. Or else you’ve been watching reruns of Downton Abbey. I still have a strong preference for shirt and shoes at dinner if that’s what you mean. Other than that, it’s wearer’s option.” Her eyes drifted over his clothes. “That’s a nice jacket.”

  “Thanks.” He managed to stop himself just before blurting out that it was a present from his wife.

  “You want to get settled? Your old room has been freshened up.” When they reached the bottom of the staircase, she said, “You know the way. Feel free to use the elevator if you want.“

  He smirked. “Maybe in another forty years or so.”

  He watched something unusual flit over her face. “I know that to you that sounds like an impossibility. But forty years will fly away and be gone before you feel like you’ve begun to make progress on Life 101.”
/>   Dash cocked his head, grew serious, and gave his mother a long look. “Is that how you feel, Mom? About your life?”

  She smiled brightly, her mask firmly in place once again. “Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

  Walking away, toward the kitchen, she said, “We’re having Shepherd’s Pie for dinner. I’ll never understand where you got the penchant for pub food. Maybe a former life.”

  Dash pulled his bag inside. When he reached the bottom of the staircase, the climb looked more daunting with a large four-wheeled suitcase. Looking around to make sure nobody saw, he headed for the elevator.

  The wing of the house where he and his brother had grown up was full of memories; the ghosts of adventures and mischief flooded his mind as he stood in the hallway absorbing what it meant to have turned the page on one of the biggest chapters in life. If he turned right, he’d enter his own room. Zane’s was to the left.

  He stepped inside. It had been a warm day for early fall and Maggie had left the double casement windows open, but darkness in Denver means temperatures going south fast. He walked over and closed the window then stood transfixed, feeling a little like he’d entered a time capsule. Trophies. Photos. Banners. A hockey stick that was broken, but kept because it had won a playoff game.

  Every surface, including the walls, reflected a life that felt like it belonged to somebody else. He held that person’s memories, but found it hard to relate to that younger version of himself.

  He threw his bag up onto the second twin bed that he’d never slept in, the one reserved for cousins from Telluride or other guests. He pulled out toiletries and stashed them in the adjoining bath, which had been updated with new fixtures and tile. He couldn’t imagine why.

  Then he sat down on his bed and called Rachel.

  The call went to voice mail.

  “Hey,” he said. “I had a minute and, ah, just wanted to hear your voice. Having dinner soon, but I’ll call you again later tonight.”

  Ending the call he let the phone slide to the bed just before he heard stomping coming down the hall. He smiled in spite of himself knowing what was coming next.