by Rain Trueax
To Speak of Things Unseen
By
Rain Trueax
Nothing is ever what it appears ‘TO BE’
To Speak of Things Unseen
Hemstreet Witches Book 2
is an original work of Rain Trueax.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2016 Rain Trueax
ISBN: 978-1-943537-10-5
Ebook
Prepared and presented by:
Seven Oaks
Monmouth, Or.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Mellow Yellow Boutique—Tucson, Arizona
July 19, 2014, Friday
“Ms. Hemstreet?” the young woman’s voice quavered with uncertainty as she came from the summer heat into the cooler air of the shop.
“Yes, may I help you?” Elke asked. The girl was wearing flip-flops, shorts and a t-shirt that said normal people are so weird. Nothing looked new. Hardly likely, she could afford any of the clothing in the shop as she glanced at the racks of designer knock-offs. When her gaze met Elke’s, she blinked several times.
“Does the incense bother you?” Elke asked.
“The girl shook her head. “I just…”
Elke waited. She wasn’t surprised the girl had realized she was in the wrong shop.
“I’ve been told… that is… I heard you are a witch.” Her voice grew a bit stronger.
Elke let out a breath. “Goodness, wherever did you hear such a thing?”
“It was a friend of Mr. Braddock. Do you know Mr. Braddock?”
“Distantly.” She narrowed her eyes as she studied the young woman. How much did she really know about the punishment dealt out to that perverse wizard?
“Well. He used to… That is he sometimes did favors for people and could make others do what they might not want to do.”
“Then go visit him. I am not someone who wants to make anyone do what they don’t wish.” Elke noticed the storm clouds were darkening the sky. Had this girl come accompanied by a spirit? She looked toward the door, sensing nothing to tell her. The shop was protected by wards, but they’d been broken through before. Tucson sheltered spirits and humans of all types—the seen and the unseen. Burglar alarms didn’t work for everything.
“I was told that Mr. Braddock had a stroke. He can’t… that is he’s not… I am desperate Ms. Hemstreet. I truly need help right now. I need a spell.”
“Who told you such a thing about Mr. Braddock or me?”
The girl’s demeanor changed from placating to sly. It would not be the first time the local newspaper had sent someone to try to get a story. Since the murders of the late spring, there’d been nothing much to sell papers. With the heat reaching epic proportions, the city felt drained. Those who remained, who couldn’t escape to the north were quiet, hiding from the heat, and often in rotten moods.
“I could pay you, if you are worried I’d be asking a favor,” the girl said. Now Elke felt sure that she was not who she was pretending to be. The question though was-- what was she?
“Everyone knows witches don’t exist,” she said as a test.
“They do exist, and they can even do curses if someone can pay them.” The girl’s voice turned more strident. Amazing how quickly someone could go from being a supplicant to an attacker. Not the first time Elke had seen that.
“You have been misinformed. And you are looking for the wrong thing if you seek a spell or potion to manipulate another.”
“You don’t understand.” Tears ran down her cheeks.
She was good. Elke would give her that. She should be in the little theater. “Even if such a thing were possible, not saying I believe it is, it would come back to hurt you.”
“I am hurting now.”
Determined. “Looking for magick answers to earthly problems avoids what led to them in the first place.” Torre would have been better at handling this. Elke knew herself too well. She quickly grew impatient with those looking for a shortcut in life.
“You don’t understand.”
Elke resisted the loud sigh. Would the story she was about to hear be true or created to deceive? She was sorely tempted to use her psychic powers, but it would be for a selfish purpose, using magick to solve a problem, which she had just told the girl was a mistake.
“Where did you hear that I was a witch,” she asked as she handed the young woman a cup of water.
“It’s out there on the street.”
“Where is there?”
The girl watched her and then the tears started again. “Alan said he loved me and then… now he’s marrying Michelle.” There was a loud sob. “I know he doesn’t love her. He loves me. I need something to make him know it too.”
“What is your name?”
“Jessica. I think Michelle put him under a spell. I need a more powerful witch, and I heard your family is powerful.”
By now, she knew it would do no good, but she tried again. “Heard from whom?”
“Just… the er street talk.”
“Well, you heard wrong. I sell clothing.”
The girl looked up, wiping away tears. “Could you make a potion to help me not care? I’d pay you.”
Elke shook her head. “Affairs of the heart have nothing to do with witchcraft.” Why was saying something once never enough? “Even if I was what you thought, it’d be a terrible injustice to interfere.”
“I went to El Tiradito, the wishing shrine. I put my candle there like it said to do and made a wish. I went back in the morning and it was still burning. Doesn’t that mean I get my wish?”
Elke worked to restrain her instinctive, snarky retort. “Then you have no problem.”
“You really won’t help me.” The young woman’s voice turned strident and angry.
“It would not be a help—even if I was what you’d been told.”
Jessica handed back the drained paper cup. “You just don’t want to help,” she snapped as she hurried out the door Denali had just opened.
“What was that about?” Elke’s older sister asked watching the young woman stalk away.
“I am not sure. Maybe a reporter. Maybe love gone awry. Maybe a spy.” She gave a little laugh.
“My, you are suspicious.”
“It’s a personality trait. So what can I do for the new bride?” She tried not to put a caustic twist to it. She wasn’t really jealous, but Denali getting married had taken her best friend away from her.
“Actually I need a dress and something to travel in. Nick has two openings, which apparently I must dutifully attend as his wife—and to keep all the little fans from trying to steal him away.”
Elke chuckled. “Fat chance of that. He’s totally enamored—for now.”
“Don’t give me a bad time.”
“Of course not. Well...” She rubbed her hands together with pretend glee. “How much can we set you back for?”
“I thought as a sister, I’d get a discount.”
“What?” she asked with mock shock. “You need to take advantage of your poo
r sisters’ shop when you are married to a wildly successful painter?”
“It was worth a try.”
An hour later, with two dresses on hangers and protected by plastic, from what looked to be a promised afternoon thunderstorm, Denali was out the door, and Elke went back to tagging new merchandise.
She thought about her visitor who had very quickly turned from supplicant to antagonist. Instincts told her the girl had no boyfriend and either worked for someone trying to prove the Hemstreets were witches, or was a reporter hoping for a story. She regretted not getting her last name. Of course, it likely would have been a lie.
Although Tucson had been a tolerant city, where it came to spirits and spirit workers, a new zeitgeist seemed to be growing—one that operated on fear. It had grown with the help of two, seemingly unsolved murders—murders with a touch of the macabre to make them even more horrifying. Fear of the unknown was one of the most powerful forces to manipulate people and force through agendas that went against their own best interests. Fear overrode commonsense.
She wished more people grasped the true nature of the spirit world and the consequences of tampering with it. Natural witches, such as her family, understood the responsibility, to which they had been born. Their goal was always to make the world a better place. Their purpose was to neutralize or eliminate those who would misuse earth and spirit powers. More humans needed to understand there were good entities out there but also those who would destroy if given a chance.
She had just finished reading a book filled with adventure, monsters, abusive humans, demons, and a hero who fought with the same values she’d been taught. In between the action, the writer had scenes that argued for the obligation to use spiritual powers when the cause was just. Vislogus was fiction, of course, but the powers were anything but. She would have to talk to her mother about it and see if she had read it. It had gone up the bestseller lists, but when she had looked, there appeared to be nothing about its author—beyond his name.
Barrio Viejo – Tucson, Arizona
In her upstairs apartment, Elke changed into shorts and a t-shirt, turned up the air conditioning, poured herself a chilled chardonnay, and opened a box of leftovers from the last meal she’d had at Mi Nidito. She tried to remember how old they were, but they smelled safe. After two hours at the gym, to burn off her frustration, she was too tired to cook or care and set them in the microwave.
Her love of Mexican food had led her to experiment with pretty much every such restaurant in Tucson. The nopalito enchilada at this one had proven her favorite. The date that night had not been. The fact that Asa Taggert had as little interest in her as she had in him hadn’t been a surprise. It had been a surprise when, after an event to discuss development in the barrio, he had asked her to dinner. Perhaps, his hope had been she might support his political career. Lots of luck with that. He might be a rising star in his party, which was not hers, but his stand on growth was more oriented toward making money than preserving history and culture. She wanted to see the barrios maintain their dignity and identity. He seemed more interested in development and dollars.
No one would deny Asa was exceedingly handsome, dark, saturnine, well dressed, lean, and surprisingly muscular. He hadn’t gotten that body eating at fundraisers. If she hadn’t realized how important politics could be to a community, and felt a responsibility because of her family’s investments in Tucson’s businesses, she’d have never attended another. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.
As she ate, she watched as a bicyclist pedaled down the street. She could almost see the sweat dripping off him. Crazy to be out in this heat, even at dusk—and risky given the drunk drivers. She saved her exercising for the gym where she could work out in air-conditioned comfort—with any sweat coming from her exertion.
She had purchased her condo on the second floor of what had at one time been one of the barrio’s fine mansions. It now provided three homes. She had the entire second floor to herself. Beyond the street, she could see ‘A’ Mountain. To the south, black storm clouds were piling up. Maybe there was hope for a wet storm. The first storms of the monsoon season had blown past, and Tucson was waiting for the next. Only storms would cool the night-- short of the arrival of October.
After polishing off the leftovers, she refilled her wine glass and went out onto the deck that overlooked the enclosed lush backyard. It benefited from the main floor residence of Maya Rudolph, a woman of uncertain years, who loved flowers. She knew the right ones to draw birds and butterflies. The garden was alive with activity. Even in the wicked heat of summer, Maya found a way to keep her flowers blooming and not withering. This was a delightful advantage for Elke, who admired gardening but had no sense of how to do it. All it required from her was a wave and smile when Maya was in her garden. Since evenings were generally when Maya watched her favorite television programs, the garden was generally exclusively Elke’s to enjoy, to watch the sky turn crimson beyond the Tucson Mountains, to feel the air shift and gentle breezes cool the night.
In the distance, she heard mourning doves cooing. A street over, someone practiced a piano. The pianist was having a hard time, stopping, missing a note, starting again. She could imagine groans to go along with it.
In the smaller condo below, fragrances of something delicious wafted up. Tony Tremaine had suggested she come for dinner a time or two, but she wasn’t interested in dating a neighbor where it wouldn’t work out and then how embarrassing. Better to stay distant acquaintances.
She settled into the soft lawn chair, after checking to be sure that no scorpions had taken up residence. She thought again about Vislogus. How could the author know so much about magick and its potential for good or evil? She’d read many books where the authors had no clue about the reality of the world she knew. Mitchell Ford did.
All her attempts to learn more about the reclusive author had hit dead ends. Didn’t authors want publicity, go on book tours, try to be on television shows, but he’d done none of that. His book had caught some kind of sci-fi/fantasy zeitgeist and soared high, without the author appearing to have lifted a finger. That made him mysterious and a source of speculation. Beyond knowing he lived in Arizona, her research had turned up nothing. Two online tabloid photographs had been at such a distance it left him unrecognizable. He was hiding away from the prominence that naturally went with such a popular novel. The question was why?
She had even gone so far as to break one of her personal taboos. Holding his book, she had closed her eyes and tried fruitlessly to conjure up the creator’s image. It had been for purely selfish reasons. She had tried to convince herself that her motives had been pure—needing to understand the source of the wisdom in the book. She had fooled no one, least of all herself.
Tapping in her mother’s number, she heard the phone ringing, almost closed it.
“What do you want, dear?” her mother asked in that deep, almost sexy voice even when talking to her daughters.
“Are you familiar with Vislogus?”
“Isn’t everyone?” Her mother chuckled.
“What do you know about its author?”
“Why?”
“I am impressed with the book, have been considering whether it could work into a play for our little theater.” She hadn’t even said that in her mind, but she knew it had been back there.
“I’d say that was quite a longshot.”
“Why?”
“Mitchell Ford has not let anyone use it. I have been told that a major studio offered an unheard of sum for the rights, and he just laughed at them.”
“Do you know him?”
“I have seen him at a meeting once, but no introduction and did not talk to him.”
“What does he look like?”
Her mother laughed. “It was awhile back. I can just say he’s extraordinarily tall.”
She had a feeling her mother knew more than she revealed. “I’d like to arrange to meet him.”
There was a silence. “You would? For what
purpose?” She recognized that tone. Her mother was projecting, way beyond what she was asking. That could only mean matchmaking. With one daughter married, her mother was plotting overtime to see the rest with a mate-- next would be wanting grandchildren.
“I told you the purpose,” she said restraining her annoyance. After all, it was logical a mother would want her daughters happily married and at twenty-seven, some were married with babies-- nothing that was on Elke’s own agenda—especially not the baby part.
“As it happens, I do know someone who knows him well enough—if he wants to get involved. I’ll see what I can do and get back to you.” She could hear the smile in her mother’s voice, as she hung up. Fine, let her imagine all she wanted. Elke’s purposes had nothing to do with a romantic interest—or so she told herself.
When it cooled off enough for sleeping, she stripped, shoved the sheets down, and contemplated how easy it would be to fall asleep. She tried to push the book from her thoughts but it was there, the scenes, especially the hero, Adolfo Lupan.
As a wizard, he had been called to a mysterious place, undefined in the book, but there were dangers there, beings such as she’d never seen, perhaps no one had. He had fought a deadly battle, nearly been killed, but he had succeeded in bringing order to the region by killing and forcing to leave whoever the enemy had been. As Ford had with the setting for the book, he’d kept the details of the beings vague. Aliens maybe? She wasn’t sure. Vislogus ,also, never described what Adolfo looked like. That part wasn’t important. It was what he could do, like shapeshifting, and that was very in tune with what Elke knew was possible—that and much more.
Adolfo paid a high price for his heroism. Each time he used his powers, he drained his strength, which required a time to build back up—if he had that time. Despite his magick powers, he put his life at risk. He was the warrior and sacrificial hero all in one. Powerful obviously, but also noble in his desire to make the world a better place, at any personal cost.
