by Alex Gordon
“There was nothing to fear from the ointment. Amanda has her pride.” He frowned at her fresh bandaging, then fell in behind the others.
“You’re making a mistake.” Corey followed them to the door. “Leaf Cateman is the liar. He has his own reasons for every damn thing he does, and if you think they include what’s best for Gideon, you’re crazy.” He stood in the open doorway, hands braced on the sides of the jamb, and shouted into the dark. “Is this it? You’ve picked your side?”
“They’re gone, Dylan.” Lolly stood and walked to the coffee table by the couch, where the liquor bottles had wound up. “Leaf tells them things they want to hear. Anything that happens is someone else’s fault. If we throw the right body over the side, all will be forgiven and the crows will return. The Lady’s grace will shine upon us once again, and a new age will dawn in Gideon.” He grabbed the whiskey and splashed a healthy shot into his glass. “Might even get a casino.”
“Lolly.” Waycross shook her head.
“Virginia.” Lolly downed his drink, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You think if you talk reason to these people, they’ll listen? You think if you lay out the facts, they’ll suddenly wake up and realize that just because ol’ Matt was a rotten bastard didn’t mean he was wrong?”
Zeke nodded toward Lauren. “Dammit, Lolly, the man’s daughter is sitting right there.”
“Yes, she is, and if she came here to get the facts instead of a fairy tale, that’s what she should get. Given what happened to her today, I’d say the time for facts is here.” Lolly sauntered over to Lauren. “Ask Leaf if you can see his wall. Everything you need to know is there. Hell, your daddy helped build the damn thing.”
Waycross’s measured alto filled the room. “I think now would be a good time to step back and take a deep breath.”
“I agree.” Lolly held out his hand. “I’m sorry about your daddy. Not about Matt, but about whatever it was in him that allowed him to make a family.”
Lauren’s hand vanished in the man’s winter-rough paw. His coverall exuded garage smells, cleaning solvent and gasoline, his breath a hint of peppermint that the liquor failed to vanquish. “You were his friend once. I found your picture in his book.”
“‘Friend’ is pushing it.” The light in the man’s eyes flickered. “Sometimes you gotta work with the tools at hand, even if they aren’t the best.” He smiled, displaying a ragged row of tobacco-stained teeth, then released her and trudged over to Waycross, planting himself in front of the woman’s chair and staring down at her until she met his eye. “And then there were two,” he muttered. Then he ambled to the door, handing Corey his empty glass along the way.
The few remaining Gideonites rose, collected their coats and scarves and handbags, then formed a line in front of Waycross, bowing low enough for her to place her hand on their heads. Phil and Zeke, Dylan Corey, eight or nine others.
“Leaf should be here.” An older man in jeans and a sweatshirt took his place in front of Waycross. “Master and Mistress together, as it should be.”
“I asked him like I always do, Seth. And like he always does, he declined. Had Jorie write the note this time, which is a first.” Waycross stood. “Dylan has organized a search team to check the river,” she called out over their heads. “Seven o’clock tomorrow morning. We meet again in the evening to plan next steps, depending on what we find.”
“Any plans to call the sheriff?” asked a heavyset man holding a lunch pail, the name RUSTY sewn across his shirt pocket.
“Think it would do any good?” Phil shook his head. “If the light didn’t find her, she ain’t around to be found.”
Lauren stood and watched them leave, the unlikeliest coven she could have imagined. Closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them to find Corey standing in front of her.
“That could have gone better.” He scanned her face, and reddened. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you.”
Lauren cataloged his cuts and bruises, his haggard appearance. It had been a rough day in the woods, in more ways than one. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is. I should have brought you here instead of taking you to my place. But I was in a hurry.” Corey stepped closer. “You feeling okay?”
Lauren caught fresh scents, sea and soap and clean clothes, calming and quiet. “What did Judith mean? About Mullins and a curse on Gideon?”
“You should talk to the Mistress about that.” Corey took her hands, wincing when he caught sight of the bandaged wrists. “But you’ve been through a lot. If you ask me, you need to take it easy for a few days.”
“Judith told me I was staying here.” Lauren fought the urge to pull away as Corey’s tangled emotions zipped along her skin like tiny shocks. Confusion. Fear. Anger. Will this happen every time I touch someone? Whatever this new talent of hers was, she didn’t like it. “All my stuff is in my car.”
Corey released her with a smile and started toward the front door. “I’m going to follow Lolly to the garage, pick up what you need. One suitcase?”
“And a couple of shopping bags.” Lauren fell in beside him, rubbing her arms to erase the residual tingling. “I left Seattle in a hurry. Had to buy things along the way.”
“I’ll just bring everything, let you sort it out.” Corey opened the door partway, then closed it. “I think I know why Deena—I flirted with her once in a while. Only at the diner, never anywhere else. I mean, she’s a kid—I’ve known her since she was—” He held his hand to his waist, let it fall. “You might need to bug Lolly about your car. Otherwise, the week’ll go by and he won’t have touched it. He’ll complain if you ask about it, but he’s just one of life’s complainers.”
Lauren nodded. “I will.”
“I’ll mention something to him, too.” Corey opened the door again, and edged outside. Shuffled his feet. “Well. Good night.”
“Good night.” Lauren watched him get into his truck and drive away. Closed the door and started back to the living room, and found Waycross standing in her path, Connie’s glove in her hand.
“I gave Connie these for her birthday, seven years ago. Special order from a place in Chicago. Her hands were so small that she could never find the really good work gloves in a store. Always wound up with ones made for children, flimsy cloth things with bears or flowers all over them.” She inserted her hand halfway, as far as it would go, then pulled it out and pressed the glove between her palms. “Anytime you’re ready.”
Lauren imagined Connie standing beside them, hands in her pockets, worry etched in her face. That tiny woman, surrounded by the darkness and decay. “She’s the one who told me he’d come back. She said to tell you that she’s sorry about the horses. And the space between is getting thinner and there’s nothing she can do.”
Lauren set a cup of coffee on the kitchen table next to Waycross’s elbow, then added a healthy shot of the whiskey. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that.”
Waycross wrapped her hands around the cup, held it to her nose, and breathed deep. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” She studied Lauren through the steam. “Forget that. No one would have believed you.”
Lauren sat across from her. “Why not?”
“Because you apparently met Connie on the other side, and you brought something back.” Waycross placed a hand on Connie’s glove, which rested on the table between them. “You don’t bring things back. It’s like raising the dead. You’re trying to bring back something that isn’t part of this world anymore.” She sipped the spiked coffee, grimacing as she swallowed.
“You believe me?” Lauren bit into her toast, which was Waycross’s prescription for her jitters and pounding head. “After what happened today, I didn’t think anyone would.”
Waycross regarded her, eyes not quite soft with sympathy. Still chips of ice floating in the mix. “That last morning, she was helping me here. I asked her questions she didn’t want to answer, and she tried to distract me by setting my horses to fighting.
No one knew about that except her and me.” She nodded toward the glove. “It feels wrong to me. Like it has grease or dirt ground in, and no matter how many times I wash it, it will never come clean. She’s not in a good place, poor thing. How did she look?”
“Tired. Worried.” Lauren thought back to the strange dark waters and the rustling in the bushes. “Determined. Like she was going to win no matter what.”
“That’s my Connie.” Waycross smiled. “She’s in the borderland, the boundary where this world and the next meet. She told you about the milk, flour, and eggs? I’ve heard that from her before. She used to call it ‘the scientific explanation.’” She drank a little more coffee, then set the cup aside.
“She was having a hard time finding a safe spot.” Lauren mimed Connie’s finger-rubbing examination. “She kept dipping her bare hand in the water, feeling it. Then she’d move one way or the other. I think she was watching for something on the opposite bank. I heard rustling in the bushes.”
Waycross picked up the glove. For all she claimed it felt wrong to her, it was her friend’s, and she couldn’t leave it alone. “Why did you bring this back? Did she ask you to?”
“No. I tried to give it back to her, but she told me to take it. She said she didn’t need it anymore. I think she needs to keep one hand bare to test the water.” Lauren finished eating, then poured herself coffee, waving off Waycross’s offer of the whiskey bottle. “She must have dropped it on her way to the river. I found it on the bank, near the remains of an old house.”
“A house?” Waycross’s brow drew down. “What kind of remains?”
“A foundation slab. A chimney. Some scattered bricks.”
“Almost sounds like the old Mullin place. What’s left of it.” Waycross got up and walked to the sink with her cup. “But it’s nowhere near the river. They lived west of the square. There’s a no-name street with a couple of small houses.” She dumped her spiked coffee down the drain, then started rinsing cups and plates and putting them in the dishwasher.
“My dad’s house?” Lauren rose and carried her dishes to the sink. “What happened to it?” She tried boosting herself up onto the counter, but her ribs complained, and she settled for leaning.
“It burned. A week or so after Matt left.” Waycross switched on the dishwasher, then returned to the table. “Place was vacant. Mark and Becky, Matt’s parents, your grandparents, they died a few years before in a car accident, and there were no more Mullins around to claim the place.” She sat heavily, closed her eyes for a moment before continuing. “Fire chief blamed squatters.”
“You don’t sound convinced.” Lauren waited for Waycross to say more, but the woman toyed with Connie’s glove instead. “Wasn’t my dad too young to live by himself?”
“Fifteen going on forty.” Another smile, that faded quickly. “It wasn’t easy for him here. Leaf Cateman took it upon himself to look after him. Gave him odd jobs, made sure he stayed in school.”
“That was good of him. That doesn’t jibe with what I heard out there.”
“Leaf Cateman never does anything without a reason. If he isn’t trying to pull something, he’s laying groundwork. He’d had an eye on your father for a long time.”
“Why?”
“Power.” Waycross played with her wedding ring, pulling it off, putting it back on. “Main reason Mullins get blamed for all the bad that happens here is because of the power. It’s in your blood.” She glanced at Lauren, then away. “Matt always said the hatred built the anger, and the anger built the power. I used to think it was just his own anger talking. Lady knows, he was filled with it.” She paused. “I’ve no experience with children—the Lady didn’t choose to bless me in that way. But I’m a good listener. If you need to talk to someone, I’m here.”
Lauren watched the woman fidget. You loved him. She didn’t need supernatural power to figure that out. “I’ll be okay.”
“I’m not just asking to be nice.” Waycross flipped from kind to stern in a blink. “My home is threatened. The children of the Lady who look to me for guidance and protection.”
Lauren followed Waycross back to the table, and sat. Food had cleared her head, and questions tumbled like numbers on a wheel. Which one to ask first? “Who is he? Blaine? I call him Parking-Lot Man because that’s the first place I saw him, the lot outside my condo. I sensed him tracking me through the streets. At the time, he looked like he wore modern clothes.” She thought back to that first sighting. It seemed like months ago instead of days. “But he’s old. His clothes are old. Whatever happened, it happened a long time ago.”
Waycross toyed with the plastic butter dish, popping off the lid and snapping it on. “We burned Nicholas Blaine at the stake almost two hundred years ago for a crime he didn’t commit. It was the word of a Mullin that condemned him.” She set the lid one last time, then pushed the dish aside. “Since then, things haven’t gone so well here.”
“No crows.” Lauren saw them in her mind’s eye, the feathered escorts that turned up at every stop. Until they didn’t anymore. “Tom Barton tries to lure them back with possum parts, but it doesn’t work.” She looked across the table at Waycross, who regarded her with head-cocked puzzlement. “The Lady’s birds—”
Waycross snorted softly. “I know what they are.”
“I didn’t mean—I read it in Dad’s Book of Endor.”
“I know what it’s called.” Waycross picked up the glove and draped it over her hand.
Lauren quieted. Slow down. She couldn’t afford to alienate Waycross. The woman didn’t have to put her up. She would have been perfectly within her rights to send Lauren to a hospital and then on her way. “Blaine told me that I held his life in my hands.” She watched Waycross for any signs of irritation. “He said my father killed him.”
“Your father made sure he stayed buried.”
“Did Emma have anything to do with it?”
Waycross’s lips thinned. “You have been busy.”
“Everyone knows who she is. There are pictures of her all over Dad’s book.” Lauren retrieved the book from the living room, tucking in torn pages along the way. “Connie asked if she was my mother.” She held out the book to Waycross, but instead of the Emma portraits, the woman fixed on the sketch of a rose.
“What happened to him?” Waycross took the book from Lauren, lingered on the rose for a few moments, then turned pages as though she were looking through a photo album.
“Lung cancer.” Lauren struggled for some detail to soften those hard, hated words. “It was fast.”
“Like an avalanche, you mean. No time to get your feet under you.” Waycross swallowed hard. “And your . . . mother?”
“She died last April. Heart attack.”
“Did she practice?”
“You mean, was she a witch? No.” Lauren took her phone from her pocket. “Everyone says I take after her.” She hunted through stored photos until she found her favorite. Her mother, dressed in summery yellow, standing in the middle of her garden holding an armful of freshly cut hydrangeas. “Angela Olivetti Reardon.”
Waycross stared at the phone, then set the glove aside and took it. Her eyes widened when first she saw Angela’s image. Eventually, she nodded. “Long, dark hair. That was his type.” She handed back the phone. “So you have family, back in Seattle.”
“Not really.” Lauren took a last look at her mother’s smiling face, then closed the photo app, tucked the phone away. “They never had much to do with us. My grandfather didn’t like Dad.”
“Fathers usually didn’t.” A corner of Waycross’s mouth twitched. Then she sombered. “He changed his name. Changed his life.” She closed the book, placed her hand on the cover as though taking an oath. “And he never told you anything about any of this. Never trained you. Never tested you to see what you were capable of.”
“I think he always knew.” Lauren sat back, massaged sore knees, an aching shoulder. “During the drive here, I had a lot of time to think. I used to have nightmare
s.” She told it all, slowly, haltingly, the doctors and the investigation and her mother’s tears. That final talk with the social worker, when Lauren held her hand and told her what she wanted to hear. “I think that scared Dad. I think that when he stroked my hair, he did something. Cast a spell? Whatever he did, it stopped the nightmares. But it stopped the feelings, too. They started coming back after he died.”
Waycross remained silent for a time, eyes on her hands, still settled atop Matt Mullin’s book. “Nasty talent to have, that feeling sense. I can see why it worried him.” She opened the book, slipped out the torn pages, fit them back where they belonged. “Same thing happened with Betty Joan, didn’t it? Whatever Deena didn’t want to tell me about what passed between you.”
Lauren nodded. “If her husband’s name is Rudy, I don’t think he’s going to be her husband much longer.”
Waycross’s brow arched. “You need to learn to control that before someone takes a shot at you.” She sighed. “Still, it was no excuse to leave you in the dark.”
Lauren stood, stretched her sore back, then paced the small kitchen. “Dad fled Gideon for a reason. He changed his name for a reason. Maybe he hid me for the same reason, and now that he’s gone, and his wards have weakened—”
“You know about wards?”
“I picked up a few things over the last week or so.”
“Over the last week or so.” Waycross put a hand to her mouth and shook her head.
“I realize that doesn’t make me an expert.”
“I’m glad you realize that.”
Lauren stopped, stared at the floor, forced herself calm. “The woman who died back in Seattle, the one who tried to help me, she was a witch. I think she had an idea about what was happening, at least from my end, and that was why she died. She came to see me afterward—”
“After she died.”
“Yes.” Lauren returned to the table. “She told me not to come here. She said that was what he wanted. She was talking about Blaine. He wants something from me. He will cause pain in order to get it. I need to find out what it is.”
