Burning for You (Blackwater)

by Lila Veen

  I drop Michelle back off at the hospital but don’t come back in with her. Armed with new information, I call Gwen telling her my intention to take the rest of the afternoon off, to which she is sympathetic and understanding. Then I call Theo and tell him what I learned from Michelle about the wrist and ankle bands. “I’m wondering if we can find that ankle band at Heidi’s,” I say.

  “It’s a possibility, but I doubt she would be that clumsy,” Theo replies. “What are you doing right now?”

  “Going home,” I say. “Do you want to come over?”

  “I’m dying to see you, so yes. I’ll be by this evening if that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine, see you then,” I reply. When I hang up, a rush of fervor collects in my stomach at the thought of seeing Theo. Remembering him making love to me in my bedroom makes me blush and long for him. Despite feeling like I’m betraying Ash, I need Theo to be with me right now. I miss Ash terribly, though, and have attempted to call him a few more times since this morning. Since the one time he picked up, he hasn’t answered again.

  Thoughts of the Lavanne family flood my head as I drive back to my house, beyond Ash and Theo and to Lisette. Michelle comparing me to Lisette has me slightly terrified. Four husbands, all dead. Did she love every one of them equally? She had to feel as connected to them as I am connected to Ash and Theo. Horror fills me as something else strikes me – is there another Lavanne brother who could be my catalyst? Is the pain over yet? Will anyone have to die in order for me to live my life with all of the people I yearn to be with?

  I think of how ridiculous that sounds. There must be more to Lisette’s story about why she’s been widowed repeatedly. I don’t know her well enough to ask her but I’m dying to know everything. Lisette must know the similarities we share. She mentioned as much at dinner the other night. I decide I will speak with her when I get a chance, because I want to hear her side of the story and understand everything she’s been through. Maybe she can help me to understand what this Ash and Theo triangle means and where it’s heading before someone gets hurt.

  Ash is already hurt, though. He was hurting the night I met Theo, and a muddy session in a vineyard proved that much. His leaving Blackwater was the cherry on top. I miss him so terribly I ache, thinking at least a phone call and his voice would send me some comfort right now. I want him with me, and I can’t have him. I’m not surprised when my field of vision blurs and the road ahead of me fogs away with my tears.

  A car is in the driveway, a dark blue Land Rover, and I realize it’s Heidi’s car. My heart freezes to a halt when I think Heidi might be at the house. After scoping out what might have happened with the kidnapping, I can’t even look her in the eye. I sigh and grab my purse and get out of Betsey. When I set foot in the house, I’m surprised to hear a male voice coming from the hallway. “Jack, you’re actually here,” I say, stepping foot into the living room.

  The replacement chandelier my mother has picked out is curiously devoid of glass and made of iron, except for the light bulbs. I joked about how she should just go with candles, similar to the huge chandelier in the hallway at Normandy. “With your fire elemental? Are you crazy?” she replied to my suggestion. Maybe she’s right.

  Jack looks terrible, as though he’s seen a ghost or his dead grandmother rise from the grave. Or perhaps he let Heidi cook for him. “Come sit down, Leah,” my mother says softly, patting the sofa next to her. “Jack came over to tell me something, and you should hear it now too. You’ll hear it all eventually anyway.”

  “What’s going on?” I wonder, sitting down next to my mother and tucking a leg underneath me. I see my mother cringe because she hates to see me sitting any way other than a lady should. I notice in horror Jack’s hand is wrapped up in white surgical tape, stained with dark red blood.

  “I came home today because I forgot a folder,” Jack says wearily. “I took my briefcase, but I forgot to put the folder back inside. I was looking at it last night. I just forgot.” I wonder where this is going.

  My mother moves it along. “Jack, just jump to the chase. You came home early.”

  He nods, and I can see him visibly swallowing. He’s trying to hold himself together, and it’s not working at all. “Gabe’s car was in the driveway. He’s been visiting a lot since J.J. came. Heidi suggested making him a godparent and I was on board. Little did I realize he’s been fucking my wife.”

  I sigh and close my eyes, wondering why Mondays always suck so hard lately. “I saw them,” I say in a shaky voice. “He was kissing her at her front door.”

  Chapter 29

  “Leah!” my mother exclaims. “How could you keep this from Jack?”

  I shrug, wondering if she means Jack or herself. I have no real loyalty to Jack, but I agree that it would have been the right thing to do. “I’ve had a lot on my mind too, Mother. I only saw them a couple of days ago.”

  “That’s no reason-“

  “It’s okay, Ursula,” Jack says, jumping in. “I’m not sure I would have believed it until I’d seen it anyway. Seeing it is real. Hearing about it from a sister who never really got along with your own wife doesn’t give me the same level of confidence in the truth.” He looks directly into my eyes. “No offense, Leah. I know you and Heidi have always had difficulty getting along in the past.”

  “None taken,” I reply. “I understand.” I hesitate before asking the next question. “Jack, do you think that the adoption was completely legitimate?”

  Jack rubs his eyes with a shaking hand. “I didn’t really suspect anything until now. I trusted Heidi so completely, Leah, you have to understand. But now, everything is starting to seem suspicious. Like…”

  “Like what, Jack?” my mother wants to know, leaning forward.

  “Like the car seat,” he says.

  I practically jump off the sofa. “What car seat?” I want to know, recalling Gabe at Cookie’s, Cribs and Carseats.

  “It was strange,” Jack says. “I bought Heidi a car seat and put it in her car before she left to pick up J.J. from Pennsylvania.”

  “She never actually told me where she went to get him,” I say. “I remember when I asked her, she just glazed over details.”

  “She told me Pennsylvania,” Jack confirms. “I was curiously called out of Blackwater on business that I couldn’t avoid.”

  “What kind of business?” I want to know.

  “A mutual client of Gabe’s and mine,” Jack says flatly. “He needed a legal document put together and finalized in order to allow a particular real estate deal to go through. At the time it wasn’t very suspicious, but now I wonder if Gabe had anything to do with that.”

  I nod emphatically, convinced Gabe has been behind everything. “Leah, please,” my mother says, giving me a look so sharp that it causes me to shrink from her a little bit. “So continue, Jack. You put the car seat in Heidi’s car before she left,” she prompts.

  Jack nods. “I remember I’d selected one that was gender neutral,” he continues. “I didn’t know whether we were having a boy or girl. I went with a bright yellow seat.” He pauses and stands up, walking over to the bar where my mother keeps crystal decanters full of various alcohol for times like these. “Ursula, may I?”

  “Please, Jack, help yourself,” my mother replies.

  I stand up when I hear the crystal decanter in Jack’s bandaged hand clink against the glass. His injured hand can’t grip the decanter very well and he’s shaking all over. I’m sure my mother won’t be thrilled to have any more glass breaking in this room. “Let me help, Jack,” I say, and he stands aside to let me pour him a glass of bourbon. I help myself to one as well.

  “Thanks,” Jack says. “So the seat I bought and installed was yellow. I made sure it was installed properly before she got J.J. otherwise she would have been out of luck. Heidi would never be able to install a car seat on her own and I didn’t think she’d have any help. The baby came home in a blue seat.”

  “Did Heidi say she picked it up out there?”
I ask, though I’m pretty sure she did not.

  “She said that the baby came with a car seat. I’ve never heard of a deal like ‘adopt a baby, get a free car seat’, but I was so excited to see J.J. that I didn’t get a chance to really ask anything else, or care.” Jack gulps down half of the glass of bourbon, and I had poured it generously. “I had to take her car in for a service the other day. Just an oil change, really. You know those little stickers they put in the upper corner of your windshield to tell you the mileage that you need to get your next change on?” My mother and I nod in unison. “Well it’s about every 3000 miles to get your oil changed. Heidi doesn’t drive very much, just around town. I was worried about her driving so far to Pennsylvania and back by herself when I found out I couldn’t go with her, but she assured me that she would be fine.”

  I take a large sip of the bourbon myself. Based on how slowly and deliberately Jack is telling this story, it could be a while and I might as well be drunk. I put the glass down on the table and my mother picks it up and downs the rest. I have a sneaking suspicion she feels the same way.

  “I did the math,” Jack continues. “Heidi probably averages about fifteen miles a day, driving wise, and that’s being generous. According to that theory, she should only need to get her oil changed every six or seven months.” My mother and I nod, not really following his math but trusting that his abilities with numbers would be much better than our own, considering we’re not really that fond of math. “I figured that she was overdue with a thousand mile round trip, so I took it in, but her mileage since her last oil change was trending with what she had driven on a regular daily basis.”

  “So what did you deduce from that?” my mother wants to know, asking the very same question I have in mind.

  “There was no trip to Pennsylvania,” Jack says. “She didn’t drive her car anywhere, although it was gone.”

  The three of us sit silently for a minute, pondering this information. “So the switched car seats and the mileage on her car all point to suspicious,” I finally say. “Did you ever find the yellow car seat?”

  “I did today,” Jack replies. “After I caught Gabe and Heidi…I left the house and punched the window of Gabe’s BMW. That’s what this is from,” he says, holding up his bloody bandage. “His windows are tinted. Had I not punched in the window, I never would have noticed the yellow car seat.” He runs his good hand over his spiky grey hair. “She took that baby,” he says, his cerulean blue eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know how I can prove it, but that baby doesn’t belong to her. He’s Eleanor and Drew’s, I’m sure of it.”

  “I believe you, Jack,” I say. I look at my mother. She nods. “We already knew.” I tell him about the wrist and ankle bands and Michelle, explaining how she crafted them to prevent babies from being kidnapped. “I think the proof is the ankle band that the baby was wearing when he was taken.” I can’t bring myself to use the name “J.J.” that Heidi and Jack chose. I know the baby’s name is Phillip, after Eleanor’s father, but it seems cruel to call him that in front of Jack.

  Jack nods. “I don’t pretend to know anything about…crafting,” he says, trying the word out in his mouth. “I didn’t really grow up around much of it. I know Heidi did but she doesn’t talk about it. She’s never told me much about her childhood, but I get the impression that she is completely removed from it, and you two are deep in the heart of it. Ursula, you’ve always known things before they happen. Leah, I guess you are the same way, based on what I saw from you the other night.”

  “I’m not quite as perceptive as Mother,” I reply. Then I look up at the chandelier and can’t avoid smiling. “I make up for it in other ways.”

  “Gabe and Heidi have a connection,” my mother says, ignoring my last comment. “Maybe like you and Ash…or Theo,” she adds, looking directly at me with no amount of scorn that I can detect, though she makes my heart pound from the mention of the two of them. “They relate to each other because they both despise crafters, and they have connected through that.”

  “Well that’s just great,” Jack says. “My wife has gone off the deep end because of her deep seeded resentments from childhood. She would talk about your husband, Ursula, in ways that made me uncomfortable. I never met him, and I would never say anything negative about someone I know, but she would claim that he left her alone with you and Leah because crafting was more important to him than family.” I look at my mother, who is completely still, looking far off in the distance. She is no doubt dreaming of a man who is lost to her, pining for the part of her that was severed when he left. “I thought it was strange for a thirty year old woman to feel such hatred for something that happened when she was so much younger, but she lets it run her life. She’s never gotten over her anorexia, did you know, Ursula?”

  “Mother has always been in denial about Heidi’s eating disorders,” I say. “She thinks they never existed.” My mother says nothing. She sits quietly on the sofa, hands folded in her lap, almost in a catatonic state. “She felt like it made her look like a bad mother to have a daughter who wouldn’t eat and a daughter who wouldn’t give her the time of day.”

  “Ursula, I’m sorry for bringing all of this to light,” Jack says, apologizing as though he were the one who did everything wrong, when it was my sister and my mother’s daughter that cheated on him. “I had to go somewhere and tell someone. I think you and Leah are the only ones who can help.”

  “Heidi is with Gabe now,” my mother says quietly. “Leah, we have to go to them. We have to get that baby.”

  “Mother, what do you see?” I ask her. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re going to run,” she says. Her eyes are glazed. “We have to catch them now, or they’ll run.” She breaks from her trance and stares at me with her ice blue eyes filled with tears. “Gabe is Heidi’s catalyst.”

  “What? How?” I ask. I look to Jack, wondering if he even knows what she means, but he looks confused, though hanging on her every word.

  “Gabe reaped the ankle band,” my mother says. “He is the only person who could remove a craft like that without the fire elemental.”

  “What does that mean?” Jack asks. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

  “She means he was able to undo whatever craft was contained in the ankle band to get the baby out of the hospital,” I say. “I’m wondering how he managed to walk out of the hospital. Even if there were sirens, Gabe wouldn’t have heard them.”

  “Gabe walked out with that baby,” my mother says. “I’m sure of it.”

  I nod. “I believe you,” I say. “There was the nurse locked in the closet and drugged, too,” I recall. “But what do we do about it?”

  “We go to the Order,” she says, standing suddenly. “We have to go, now, before it’s too late and that baby is gone forever.” She looks over at me, and I haven’t moved a muscle. “We need to go now!”

  “Okay,” I say, scrambling to my feet. “Jack, do you want to come with us?”

  “No,” my mother says. “They’ll kill him. You need to stay here, Jack.”

  “Theo is supposed to come over soon,” I say to neither one of them in particular. “Jack, when he comes, tell him where we are. Where are we going, anyway?” I ask my mother. “Where is the Order?”

  She smirks. “The Methodist church,” she says. “Think about it.”

  Chapter 30

  I drive like a sixteen year old who just got a license. My mother and I head directly for the Methodist church that I’d passed many times in my life, but never really gave much thought to its existence until now. Witch trials four centuries ago were conducted by Methodists, and it makes all too much sense that the Order would take up in the very same place that their ancestors gathered together to decide eradicate Blackwater of witchcraft. Blackwater United Methodist Church stands lonely on the corner of Dextro and Amethyst, and while it’s the largest church in Blackwater with the largest congregation, I’ve never been inside. It’s a simple white brick building wit
h a tall steeple and stained glass windows that are visible from the front. My mother and I pull in to the parking lot, which has a few cars peppered through the lot, including Gabe’s white BMW with the smashed window. I wonder if they brought the baby over in the yellow car seat with the broken glass scattered around. It doesn’t seem safe, but I’m pretty sure that broken glass is the least of my worries with this baby. From the moment I set foot on the lot, I know Heidi is here.

  Inside the church appears to be a single room with pews enough to seat six hundred people, though I’m pretty sure that no more than two hundred attend on a regular basis. The pews have a few people I don’t recognize scattered around, but no one pays my mother and I any attention as we enter. Jesus Christ on the cross greets us as we go in. I never really liked seeing that image. Jesus always looks so pathetic and malnourished to me, and I really would just like to offer him a sandwich. His eyes are always rolled up so he looks a bit like a zombie.

  One of the people in the pews stands and turns, and my breath falls short when I see it’s Gabe. He does have a keen sense, because it’s as though he knows we’re here. His yellow eyes glow as he casts them our way, and I feel my mother shrink back. I grab her arm to keep her from turning and leaving me here with Gabe alone. He strolls up to us and smiles, twisting his face into a look so horrifying, I begin to shake. “I assume you want to see Heidi,” he says quietly in his strange voice. I have no recollection of him walking over to us, and now he’s right here, face to face. I now know why his voice has the unusual tone and accent, and I wonder how he learned to speak so well to the point where I didn’t know he was deaf until Theo told me. “You can follow me.” He turns and we follow him down the aisle, approaching zombie Jesus and going to a small door on the left of the front of the church. Gabe opens the door to reveal a long and twisting wooden staircase leading down. He keeps walking, and I grab my mother’s hand and start to follow him. Pictures line the spiraled wall as we plunge below. The first one I see is of a woman tied to a cross and burning, with snakes slithering away at her feet. Early witch trials in Blackwater, I note. The next picture is a man bound and suspended over Blackwater Lake by solemn people dressed in black, apparently about to be drowned. The third one is a body, covered with a sheet and hanging from a rope by their neck tied to the center of a cross. The last painting is a hand coming out of a grave with a stake marking it. I feel sick just looking at that one. Burning and drowning seem like tame deaths compared to being buried alive. Perhaps I can relate to burning and drowning because of my own elementals.