Spells & Stitches

by Barbara Bretton

  “See?” he whispered against the curve of her ear. “I always win.”

  She liked that in a man.

  18

  LUKE

  “She’s gone,” I said as I settled the bed tray across Chloe’s lap.

  Her sleepy eyes widened. “Elspeth?”

  I snapped my fingers, then winced as the baby whimpered softly. “Just like that,” I said, in a whisper. “I’m hoping it was something I said.”

  “She may not be really gone,” Chloe reminded me. “You know she’s always doing that cloaking thing.”

  “I think she’s gone. No more waffle stink.”

  Chloe let out a long, luxurious sigh. “It’s been so long since we had the cottage to ourselves. I mean, really to ourselves.”

  I gestured toward our sleeping infant. “We’re not exactly alone anymore.”

  “She’s family,” Chloe said, her smile lighting the room. “That’s different.” She took a sip of orange juice. “Speaking of families, have you told yours that the baby’s here?”

  I grinned and reached for my coffee. “The screams blew out my right eardrum.”

  “They’re excited.”

  “You could say that. Bunny went into question-machine mode. My old man got choked up. I asked them to spread the word.” I took another sip of coffee. “I had to convince my mother that we didn’t need visitors tonight.”

  “Or tomorrow,” Chloe said, eyes wide. “You did tell her that, didn’t you?”

  “I said we needed a week.”

  “A week is good,” Chloe said. “Two weeks would be better.”

  “There’s no way they’ll wait two weeks to see their newest grandchild.”

  “Next weekend is the Presentation ceremony.”

  I went blank and it showed.

  “We take the baby to the green, where she’s welcomed into the magick community.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, there’s some singing involved and a little bit of speechifying, but that’s pretty much it.”

  “Nothing weird?”

  “Maybe a little weird,” she admitted. “Midge will probably read ‘Desiderata’ while George accompanies her on the recorder. That’s when our equivalent of a godmother is chosen.”

  “Now you’re getting a little too Rosemary’s Baby for me.”

  She grinned and ate some more toast. “There’s cupcakes.”

  “No presents?”

  “Hello,” she said. “Remember the baby shower on Halloween?”

  “So when is this singing cupcake party going to happen?”

  “Sunday.” She paused for a moment. “Oh, no! Don’t tell me. That’s the day your family is coming.”

  “You guessed it.”

  “When?”

  “Around noon.”

  I could see the wheels spinning inside her head. “That should work out. The Presentation is always at sunrise. We should be finished by then.”

  “Sunrise is around seven,” I said. “How the hell long is the Presentation anyway?”

  “You don’t want to know,” she said with a quick smile. “Let’s just make sure we keep our worlds from colliding.”

  But I think we both knew that collision was coming at us fast.

  I told her about my conversation with Meghan.

  “I wouldn’t be too hard on her if I were you,” she said, sipping at her hot, sweet tea. “Your family can be overwhelming.”

  “To an outsider,” I said. “Meg should be used to it by now.”

  “Give her a break,” Chloe persisted. “From what you’ve told me, she isn’t very happy.”

  “Not happy?” I started to laugh. “I love her, but Meggie does what she wants, when she wants to do it, and expects everyone else to stop everything and pick up the pieces.”

  “Okay.” Chloe shrugged. “Forget I said anything, but I still think you need to cut her some slack. She’s a grown woman.”

  “Who said I lectured her?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  We ate for a while in silence. I’d already scarfed up a half dozen slices of toast while I was putting together the meal so I paced myself while Chloe devoured a heaping plate of scrambled eggs with hash browns and toast.

  “The family wants to know her name.”

  Chloe finished a piece of buttered toast with blueberry jam and gave me a quizzical look. “It’s Laria. How could you forget?”

  “I thought we agreed on Sarah.”

  “Too common,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “As soon as I saw her, I knew she was definitely Laria.”

  She pronounced it “Mariah” but with an L.

  “Is there some kind of . . . magical significance to the name?”

  “Nope.” She took another bite of toast. “I just like it.”

  “Do I get any say in this?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Laria.” I let it linger in the air, then said it again. “Laria.”

  “It’s uncommon,” she said.

  “You’ve got that right.”

  She poked me in the side with the back of her fork. “Uncommon in a good way.”

  I looked down at the six-pound, twelve-ounce, nineteen inch bundle of controversy sleeping contentedly in the middle of our bed and felt myself melt. A name as uncommon as our sorceress/mortal child. Maybe there was something to it after all.

  “Laria,” I said again as a grin spread across my face. “I could get used to it.”

  Chloe yawned against my shoulder and I settled her back down on the pillows.

  “You’d better sleep while you can,” I advised her. “Babies keep to their own schedule and it’s not usually a good one.”

  I still remembered what weeks of sleep deprivation did to new parents. It wasn’t pretty.

  She nodded and was sound asleep before my words faded away. We had already decided the crib could wait a few weeks so I brought the bassinet Janice had dropped off into the bedroom and set it near Chloe. Laria didn’t open an eye as I placed her on the mattress. Her tiny mouth moved in what looked like a smile and then she dipped deeper into sleep, like a diver aiming for the ocean floor.

  “Just like your mom,” I whispered, bending down to kiss her on the forehead. Chloe slept like it was an Olympic event and she was going for the gold and it looked like her daughter took after her.

  I was filled with love so strong, so powerful that it knocked the breath from my body. I stood there looking at the two of them and for the second time that day knew there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep them safe.

  I had felt this way when Steffie was born, but I was younger then. I didn’t understand how fragile life was. Even though I was a cop I still hadn’t learned that life didn’t always play fair, that sometimes shit happened that you couldn’t see coming, couldn’t stop no matter how hard you tried.

  Love wasn’t always enough. That was the hard, sad truth of the matter.

  Sometimes love just wasn’t enough.

  Laria had a healthy appetite for someone not even twenty-four hours old.

  I was tapped into her frequency and I was up and by her side with each whimper, checking her diaper for activity, then delivering her to Chloe for another meal. I was pretty much running on autopilot at that point while Chloe struggled to wake up long enough each time for the baby to latch on. I caught up with the Pats on my cell phone while Laria nursed, then burped her and returned her to the bassinet.

  Neither one of us was sure how much colostrum Laria was actually getting at this point, but Lilith and Janice (and probably every other female in Sugar Maple) would be stopping by in the morning to help Chloe master the fine points of breastfeeding. I wasn’t sure if magick made a difference or not. Then again, there was a hell of a lot about the subject I didn’t know.

  Mostly I stared up at the ceiling, hyperaware of every sound within a five-mile radius. This was Sugar Maple. Walls and windows and alarm systems didn’t mean a hell of a lot around here. The protect
ive spell kept human dangers out, but what about evil hidden within? I had firsthand experience dealing with supernatural evil, and let me tell you, it was nothing like what you saw on TV. They fought dirty and they fought to win and there were just so many times a man could get lucky.

  I was glad Elspeth was gone, but something about her abrupt departure gnawed at my gut. Let’s face it, there was gone and there was invisible and a world of difference in between.

  The troll could cloak better than the Klingons in Search for Spock. She could be sitting at the foot of the bed right now, dressed in her yellow-and-white-striped nightshirt, and I wouldn’t know it.

  Hard to sleep with that image in your mind.

  And then there was Chloe’s snoring. Nobody could sleep through that.

  Okay, so maybe I wasn’t going to get much rest after all. I could deal. Sleep was overrated anyway. I’d catch up after Laria went off to college and I could retire the dragons, drain the moat, and invest in heavy-duty earplugs.

  Chloe stopped rattling the windows a little before dawn. The baby was full, dry, and deeply asleep. The room was comfortably warm and quiet. My guard slipped and I felt myself sinking into something halfway between sleep and a coma, when a high-pitched cry pierced the fog.

  I was instantly awake, but I couldn’t move. At least I thought I was awake, but I might have been trapped in one of those dreams that make you think you’re awake but you’re really not. Whatever it was, I felt like a human panini, being squeezed by an unseen press. There was no pain, no discomfort, nothing except the fact that I couldn’t fucking move.

  Just beyond reach, Laria’s cries grew more frantic while Chloe kept right on sleeping. What the hell was going on? Had I been hit with a massive stroke overnight?

  The pressure on my chest and back increased. I could move my fingers and toes. I could breathe on my own. I could see clearly even if I couldn’t turn my head. But I was still trapped.

  My heart beat fast and hard and I tried to force deep, calming breaths into my lungs. Waffles? I took another deep breath.

  Elspeth was somewhere in the room.

  What the hell was she doing here? I thought she’d gone back to Salem for good. Was this her way of getting back at me for pushing her out the door?

  My adrenaline kicked in and next thing I knew I was out of the bed and at Laria’s side.

  Her tiny body was rigid. Her face was red and scrunched in a parody of infant outrage. She was still bundled tightly in her burrito blanket, but the soft peach cap Chloe had knitted for her was lying off to the side, exposing her down-covered head to the night air. I touched her gently, running my hands lightly over her, making sure she was all in one piece. I went to place the cap back on her tiny head and noticed something weird. The vulnerable soft spot visible beneath the silky strands of pale golden hair seemed to glisten in the glow of the night light and at the center I saw a tiny red mark.

  Had that been there all the time? I didn’t remember noticing it, but I had been preoccupied with things like blood and breathing and counting fingers and toes and I hadn’t paid much attention to the top of her head.

  I did remember thinking she was perfect when I placed her in Chloe’s arms. So perfect she had seemed like an angel, not an (almost) human child. But didn’t all new parents think their kids were perfect? The kid could have a pelt like a mountain lion and the parents would be bragging about the thickness of the fur.

  I was sure that red dot hadn’t been there before, but it was there now and I didn’t like it.

  “What’s wrong?” my mother asked the instant she answered the phone a few minutes later.

  I told her in as few words as possible. I was sitting in the kitchen with Laria asleep against my shoulder while I talked.

  “Sounds like a scratch,” Bunny said around a yawn.

  “It’s not a scratch.”

  Silence, followed by another stifled yawn. “Could be an angioma. Sometimes newborns have them. Nothing to worry about.”

  “It wasn’t there when we put her down around nine.”

  “Or you didn’t notice it.”

  “It wasn’t there.”

  I could almost hear her shift from mother to nurse. “When did you first notice it?”

  “About ten minutes ago. She started crying, crazy crying, and I jumped up to see what was going on. Her cap was off and—”

  “Well, there you go. Her cap was off. She definitely scratched herself.” She yawned again. “Has anyone clipped the baby’s nails yet?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She probably scratched herself when the cap came off. Those little nails can be amazingly sharp.”

  “It doesn’t look like a scratch. It looks like a red dot.”

  I could hear my old man’s sleepy grumbling and the sounds of bedclothes rustling. Was I beginning to sound like a paranoid asshole or just a freaked-out new father? The jury was out.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing, honey,” my mother said. “Get some sleep, then take a look in daylight.”

  “It’s something.”

  “Why don’t you e-mail me a photo later and I’ll take a look.”

  “I’ll do it now.”

  “Honey, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m not getting up at”—a pause while she checked her bedside clock—“five fifty-three in the morning to look at a photo of a red dot that I am sure is absolutely nothing to worry about. Now put the baby down and get some sleep.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve raised seven kids, if you don’t count your father. I think I know when it’s time to worry and when it isn’t. This isn’t the time. Kiss the baby, kiss Chloe, tell them we love them, and e-mail me a photo later.”

  She hung up without even saying good-bye.

  19

  MEGHAN

  The sex haze started to lift the night her niece was born, although you couldn’t prove it by the bruises on her body from his lovemaking. He was big and powerful. She told herself he didn’t know his own strength, that they were love marks that would fade by the time their fling ended, and sometimes she actually believed it.

  She also told herself she didn’t know how to say no and make it stick.

  First James went out in search of provisions, and then her brother called to tell her about the baby, and the next thing she knew the real world was hammering at the door, demanding to be let back into her life.

  They had been up at the cabin for almost two weeks now. She had called in sick to Hot Yoga and, while the boss said all the right things, Meghan knew the end was in sight. By the time they got back to New Jersey, there’d be a new instructor in her place and a small severance check taped to her locker door.

  Which was okay. It was time to move on. She hadn’t meant to stay in New Jersey this long. But the question of where to go next stretched ahead of her like miles of empty highway leading nowhere.

  Meghan wasn’t a big fan of reality. Life continued to roll on, no matter what you said or did or thought, so why not roll along with it in a nice fuzzy state of denial? And she was good at it, too. All of that yoga training had taught her how to empty her mind of everything but the moment.

  “Put down the phone and come to bed,” James said. “How many times can you look at those pictures?”

  How much time do you have?

  She slipped beneath the comforter and flashed the screen at him. “My new niece is beautiful,” she said, beaming in his direction. “Tell me that she’s not the most beautiful six-day-old infant you’ve ever seen.”

  For a second she thought she saw a flicker of interest.

  “She’s cute,” he said with a shrug, “but it’s not like I have anything to compare her to.”

  “Seriously, this is a beautiful baby. She’s the Miss Universe of babies.”

  He grabbed for her phone and tossed it onto the pile of clothes on the floor.

  “Hey!” She made to reach for it, but he was quicker and rolled her under him.

  “We’re running o
ut of time,” he said. “The roads are plowed. We can start back to New Jersey in the morning.”

  No doubt about it. Some of the sex haze was finally lifting.

  “You really want to go back to New Jersey?” she asked as he grew hard against her belly.

  “I thought you had to go back,” he said, lifting his head so he could meet her eyes. “You said you were worried about your job.”

  She made a face. “I don’t think I have a job anymore.”

  “Sorry, babe. What are you going to do?”

  She wanted to say “Move in with you for a while,” but she didn’t. She always made that mistake with guys, moving too fast, exposing too much, needing more than she should.

  “I was thinking about going up to Vermont tomorrow to see Laria.”

  “Laria? What kind of name is that?”

  “A pretty one,” she said. “I was thinking maybe we could drive up there together. We wouldn’t have to hang out long with my family, just long enough for me to meet the baby. I looked at Sugar Maple on the map and we could jump right over into Canada afterward if we wanted. Or if that’s no good, I mean, we’re in Vermont! There are two resorts within ten miles of Sugar Maple. We could get in some skiing before we go back to New Jersey. You said you liked to ski, right? I’m more cross-country myself, but . . .”

  She was all over the place and she knew it. Scattering romantic buckshot like a crazed hunter, hoping she’d hit something.

  “Hey, listen,” she said. “I’m just thinking out loud. Why would you want to drive all that way to see some kid? It was just a crazy idea. Forget I said anything.”

  Say yes, James. I need you to say yes. Don’t make me show up there alone like the loser I am. I know you’re not my boyfriend. I know this isn’t going to go anywhere. But couldn’t you pretend for just one day?

  “Okay,” he said. “We’ll do it.”

  Her spirits soared. “Are you serious? You’ll come with me to see my new niece?”

  “Yeah,” he said with the kind of smile that could melt gold. “Why not?”