The Witch and Warlock MEGAPACK ®: 25 Tales of Magic-Users

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Chapter Ten

  “You have company,” the doctor said, rising. “I’ll go.” But Lucian barred his way. “Ah, the Herr Doktor Brun,” he said with a tinge of mockery. “Don’t let us disturb you. I was just dropping Lucy off. I’ll be on my way.”

  “Stay awhile, Lucian,” I invited, hoping he wouldn’t, but he promptly sank down in a lawn chair and tilted it back comfortably.

  “Please don’t leave, Dr. Brun,” I begged. “I’ll bring more lemonade for everyone. Rowan dear, would you go see if Cari is awake, and if she is, bring her down?” Rowan had returned with the baby by the time I came outside with lemonade and cookies. She seated herself cross-legged at Lucy’s feet. Lucy sat prim and nervous on the edge of her chair, her short skirt tucked in neatly under her bare thighs, thin hands clasped about her knees. Dark blue veins showed through the transparent white skin of her face, and the great round spectacles framed her myopic eyes, giving her an owlish look. Certainly she didn’t resemble her father. Perhaps she took after her mother. When had she died? What a lonely life the child must have had, brought up mostly in the care of housekeepers!

  “Mother and her lemonade!” Rowan was protesting. “Wouldn’t you rather have soda, Lucy?”

  “N-no, this will be fine,” the girl murmured uncertainly, as if she were afraid of offending me. I went back to the house to get glasses. When I returned, Rowan was speaking to Lucian.

  “Mother thinks Iris is a witch! I wish you’d tell her that’s not so.”

  “I never said that!” I protested, passing the tray to Lucian. “I did wonder how you countenance her dabbling in the occult.”

  He cleared his throat. “It’s hard to explain, I know. I myself had doubts about her at first. But she has convinced me she uses her—er—talents for God’s purpose. She doesn’t do it for money and it’s what she knows best. Sometimes one must fight fire with fire. Through her qualified use of astrology and palmistry, she manages to get close to her young friends and steer them into—into right thinking. She’s really quite remarkable.”

  “Then it doesn’t bother you for Lucy to hang around her shop?”

  “On the contrary. I’m grateful that Iris is kind enough to provide Peacehaven with an unofficial youth center.”

  “I was afraid of Iris at first. Sometimes she talks in a funny language, but Daddy said the Disciples did that, too, so I wasn’t afraid anymore,” Lucy blurted out. A bright pink suffused her fair skin and her pale eyes blinked behind the thick lenses, making her look more owl-like than ever.

  Her father was obviously annoyed. “She means Iris talks in tongues,” he explained.

  “Yes, Rowan mentioned something about that to me,” I said.

  “Do you pray in tongues?” Dr. Brun asked suddenly.

  “No,” Lucian admitted. “The good Lord has never given me the gift.”

  Dr. Brun leaned forward. “What does talking in tongues mean to you, Lucian?”

  A wary look came into the minister’s eyes. “Since I’ve never done it, I’ll have to describe it the way Iris does. She says she suddenly finds herself praying—or praising—in words whose meaning she doesn’t know. She just knows it’s God’s language and He prefers to hear that rather than any other.”

  “If she doesn’t know what she’s praying about, how does she know she’s praying for something good or, for that matter, that she’s even praying to God?” I asked.

  “By the exaltation she feels,” Lucian answered. “It’s certainly a Christian phenomenon. Paul lists the gift of tongues in that same chapter in Corinthians you once cited to me, Martin.”

  Dr. Brun absentmindedly tore off a tendril of trumpet vine and began toying with it. “It is a problem to which I’ve given much thought,” he said. “I know there are many sincerely religious people who think they have the gift of tongues, and perhaps they do. Yet, according to the Book of Acts, Pentecost was the coming together of people of many nations, cultures and languages to be of one spirit, one religious mind, and through this miracle, all languages became one. It seemed to each man that everyone else spoke in his own language. They knew what they were talking about; the Bible says so explicitly. ‘And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?’ It is my prayer that someday we will attain Pentecost again—the power of universal understanding. But when we do, I think we, as well as God, will know what we are praying about. Unintelligible gibberish could be the utterings of demons, you know.”

  The lines at the corners of Lucian’s mouth were drawn down. “Are you trying to say Mrs. Faulkner’s gift isn’t genuine? That it comes from Satan?”

  Dr. Brun set his drink aside and stood up, silhouetted against the western sky so that tongues of flame seemed to emanate from the tousled white hair. “I do not speak of individual cases,” he said. “Nor do I make accusations. I merely gave you my interpretation. Now I must go. An old man gets long-winded and tiresome at times.”

  After he’d left, Rowan took Lucy up to her room to listen to records. Soon the decibels were flying out the window and I suggested to Lucian that we take a walk and give our ears a break. As we came around the house to the west side I saw Dana stooping over something below one of the windows. When she straightened, I saw she was holding a tiny blue bird in the hollow of her hand.

  “Did it hit the window?” I never could shake a sense of personal guilt when my house brought death to one of these creatures.

  Dana nodded, manipulating its miniscule breast. Lightly she breathed into the parted beak. After a long moment, the eyes opened half way. She continued to stroke it, murmuring words in what I supposed was Winnebago. The eyes became two round black beads in a violet-hued head. The azure wings fluttered. Dana looked up with a smile.

  “The heart is beating again. Now I will warm my little brother with my hands so he does not die of shock. See, he struggles. That is good. The wings aren’t broken because he doesn’t drag them.” She set the indigo bunting on a sunny ledge, where he teetered back and forth groggily on the warm stone. In the sunlight his feathers shaded from sapphire to peacock blue, with elegant black tips on his wings—a living jewel.

  “Isn’t he beautiful?” I exclaimed, gently touching his throat. His tiny black and white beak investigated my finger and for one moment I imagined he recognized me as a friend, but he spread his wings, tested them a second, then flipped himself into the air. Dana laughed at my disappointment.

  “Never expect gratitude from a wild bird,” she said. “Think how you’d feel if you woke up to find a giant stroking your throat.”

  “We run a wildlife rescue squad here,” I explained to Lucian, who was scowling at Dana’s retreating figure.

  We had reached a mound of shelf rock that formed a natural bench at the edge of the bluff. Just a few feet away the weathered column of Tomahawk Rock reared from the base of the cliff. Below, beneath a canopy of elms and maples, the townspeople were going about their business. Farther out, the river lay like a gilded serpent in the late afternoon sun. Closing my eyes, I let myself go limp against the stone, yet my nerves remained alert—sensually aware of the man beside me. I was conscious of his hand lying next to mine, not quite touching. Why did I have such ambivalent feelings toward both him and Greg? Yet it was not quite the same. I was undeniably drawn to Greg, as I had once thought I never would be to any man but Owen, but I couldn’t banish the sensation of some force—or forces—outside us both keeping us apart. With Lucian it was the opposite. Lucian-the-man repelled me and Lucian-the-minister irritated me. It was only that other personality of which I caught occasional glimpses that held an almost sinister attraction. Which one was sitting beside me now? His little finger crossed mine. Such a slight, innocent gesture! And yet somehow I felt violated—partly because of the response deep inside my own body.

  “I’m glad you brought Lucy today,” I said, withdrawing my han
d.

  “It’s been lonely for her without a mother,” he said. “There’re just the two of us. Mrs. Soames, our housekeeper, isn’t very congenial. She’s a stubborn old soul. For some odd reason she has a hang-up about Iris. Lucy invited her to dinner and Mrs. Soames refused to cook it.”

  Well, chalk one up for Mrs. Soames! I thought.

  “She reminds me of Dana,” he went on. “She eavesdrops.”

  “Dana never does that!” I was indignant.

  “Why was she hanging around just now? You can’t tell me it was that bird.”

  “If anyone has a right here she has! She probably came over to look in on Cari and Macduff. She’s awfully good about that.”

  “You like her, don’t you?”

  “Yes, very much.”

  “Well, if I were you I’d go slow with her. There’s a lot we don’t know.”

  I turned on him angrily. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Lucian, so you’d better go slow with me, too. I hope you’re not one of those foolish people who think she’s a witch!”

  “Did I say that?”

  “No, but you’ve heard others say it and you believed them, didn’t you?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t trust her. She’s not a Christian—”

  “She believes in Christ—she said so.”

  “I doubt it. Although I hope, for her sake—and yours, that it’s so.” He smiled. “Let’s not quarrel, Mitti. Even though you’re very beautiful when your eyes flash like that.”

  He caught me off guard. I wanted no flattery from him and quickly changed the subject. “Has anyone ever told you the legend of Tomahawk Rock?” I gave him no chance to answer. “The Indians say it was put there by Earthmaker, to be a protection from tornadoes and other natural disasters.”

  “It hasn’t managed to keep the river away,” he observed.

  “Maybe its protection begins up here. Do you realize that rock’s only a few feet from us, but the drop in between makes it miles away? Sometimes I’m tempted to build a bridge out to it.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “That would be cheating.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s good to have a solid example of the unattainable. God should have some places where He alone can stand.”

  Unwittingly, I had flung down the gauntlet. A curious light came into his eyes and I thought how very unlike a clergyman he looked at that moment.

  “You know,” he said slowly, “I think I could ju-ust make it.”

  “Lucian, you’re not serious!” He crouched low. “Don’t! You’ll fall!”

  But he was already running and now he sprang—over the void between the face of the bluff and the flat top of the rock. The jump was a good one—if he could check his momentum, if he didn’t slip. Visions of his body toppling over the other side and hurtling down onto the sharp rocks below flashed before me, but he landed lightly and surely, swayed dizzily a moment, then regained his balance. He turned around slowly and faced me triumphantly.

  “Now it’s mine as well as God’s!” he cried. “I’m standing on the pinnacle of the temple just as Christ did.”

  “Yes, and the Devil put him there!” I shouted back. Now what could he do? The rock had no running room for a return leap. He seemed oblivious to danger, standing with arms uplifted as the setting sun enveloped him in flaming robes. His eyes sought me out, but this wasn’t Lucian. Simon Magus preparing to fly came to my mind. But that was an apocryphal tale—remote and unreal, while the scene before me had roused a sensation of having been personally involved in some ancient drama, of having known this man eons ago.

  “I’m in God’s place!” he shouted. “Now do you know me? I am God! Why do you not fall down and worship me?”

  I was too shocked to answer. A sudden rage shook him and a spate of unintelligible words spewed from his mouth. Though I couldn’t understand their meaning, there was no mistaking the venom in them. Then a cloud drifted over the lowering sun, divesting him of his robes, turning him back into Lucian again—a slight man in red sport shirt and pants. His mouth had gone slack, his face ashen, and sweat was beginning to break out on his brow as for the first time he seemed to realize where he was. He hunched down to make the return jump, lost his nerve and lowered himself cautiously to all fours on the tiny island in the sky.

  “I—I can’t do it,” he gasped, gripping the stone.

  “Don’t try! I’ll go for help.” I started for the shed to get the extension ladder, but Dana was already coming with it, and Dr. Brun was sprinting toward us with a coil of rope. He tossed one end to Lucian and called to him to tie it around his waist. The other end Dr. Brun fastened to an oak tree nearby. Then the three of us hoisted the ladder across the void and held it fast.

  Lucian crawled out on it, but the ladder sagged with his weight and he scrambled back.

  “Don’t worry, it will hold,” Dr. Brun assured him. “If not, the rope will keep you from falling.”

  Again he tried and again he pulled back.

  “You must trust us,” Dr. Brun persisted.

  Lucian’s eyes darted from face to face. I don’t suppose that in all of Peacehaven he could have found three people he trusted less. He shook his head and clung to his pinnacle. Dr. Brun lost patience. “Very well, if you won’t let us help you, get off the way you came.” He walked to the tree and began to work with the knot in the rope.

  “No, no,” Lucian shouted, “I’ll do it! Don’t leave me!”

  Slowly he inched his way across while the ladder creaked and swayed and we kept the rope taut.

  “Don’t know what could have made me do that,” the minister muttered shamefacedly when he was safely back on the bluff.

  “I told you—the Devil,” I teased, then felt sorry. It was really indecent to unman him any further. In his chagrin Lucian was more likable, if not lovable, than he’d ever been. “At least you may have established a record,” I consoled him. “You’re probably the first person ever to stand on Tomahawk Rock.”

  “You won’t say anything about this, will you?” he asked anxiously.

  “Why should we?” Dana flung back at him as she and Dr. Brun started away. “Winnebago boys do it all the time at the Dells.”

  “What language were you using?” I asked after they’d gone. “I couldn’t understand a word.”

  “Language?” he puzzled, then his eyes lighted. “Do you suppose I was talking in tongues? That must be it—the Holy Spirit’s come down upon me!”

  “It really didn’t sound like the Holy Spirit talking—you were too angry. Right at first, though, you spoke in English—said you were God and wondered why I didn’t worship you.”

  He caught my wrist. “I said I was God? Oh, my dear Mitti, I must have given you a terrible shock for you to imagine any such thing. That would be blasphemy!” He stroked my hand. “I did give you a turn, didn’t I?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ladybug, Ladybug!

  At last you are home!

  But where are your children

  While with witches you roam?

  So now I had a bad poet on the line, I thought, more amused than frightened. The phone had been ringing as I came in the house after a long day of driving in the country with Dana. We had gone out to Aunt Bo’s old farm so that Dana could deliver her herbs to Dylan, the new owner, for his witchcraft shop in Madison. Then we’d stopped by the Hobbs farm to drop off some groceries for old Ruby Hobbs, who couldn’t drive and who’d lived alone since her brother’d died two years before. Half-deaf, unkempt, and suspicious of strangers, Ruby was the embodiment of the stereotype witch. In Salem she would have swung without the hysteria. Her farmhouse was typical, too—no plumbing, no electricity, rooms filled with junk and festooned with cobwebs. Her one luxury was a telephone. I ask
ed if I might call Rowan to tell her to put the meatloaf in the oven.

  “If you pay me twenty cents,” she answered tartly. Then a slow red crept in under the grime on her cheeks as she caught the reproach in Dana’s eye. “Sorry—guess I shouldn’t have said that—you bringin’ my things like you did. It’s the sheriff that makes me mad. Now he’s renting my barn, he thinks he can use my phone all he pleases, and I have limited service.”

  After leaving Ruby, Dana and I had dropped in at the Redd farm—what a contrast!—to see Esther and the new baby, and then came home. Now this sinister phone call—the first in weeks. Who could know about our visit to Dylan’s “witch” farm? I’d said nothing about it to either Rowan or Esther.

  My fingers tensed on the instrument. Someone at the other end of the line was listening. So was I, a smell of fear in my nostrils. By now Cari and Macduff should have come tumbling to greet me. And I didn’t hear Rowan’s cassette playing upstairs.

  As I started to hang up the phone, the listener spoke again:

  Ladybug! Ladybug!

  Have you no care?

  Look the house over—

  They’re not anywhere!

  Macduff was howling in the play yard outside, but the interior of the house was a black hole in space. “Rowan! Cariad! Don’t play games! Where are you?”

  My search finally led me to the tower, where I picked up the phone and started to dial Jim Willard, then checked myself. This wasn’t—I wouldn’t have it be a police matter! I mustn’t think about Susie Toothaker. I dialed Darcy’s number. Marion answered. No, they hadn’t seen the girls. Alison next—no, neither had she. Nor had any of Rowan’s friends. I tried Greg, but there was no answer either at his apartment or at the newspaper. I felt an unreasoning anger at his not being available when I needed him most. Lucian was home, but could give me no information. Nor could Elspeth. Did I detect gloating in her voice? Muriel Toothaker sounded genuinely worried and begged me to call the moment I found them. My anxiety must be showing, I thought. Finally, reluctantly, I called the Patch. Edna Bradbury, Iris’ assistant, answered.