Women on side-by-side treadmills talked to each other. On the exercycles, the women wore headphones, listening to their own music. Most of the women seemed to be looking inward and not paying attention to the others.
“This is the workout room. The locker rooms are through there. Do you want me to explain the equipment to you? I can demonstrate it,” said Jayjay.
Matt stared at a woman on one of the weight machines. She lay on a seat tilted back at a forty-five-degree angle, her feet on bars like motorbike footholds. She wore an intensely turquoise T-shirt and black bike shorts. Her hands gripped the handles of an assembly that V’ed above her. She pushed up from the shoulders, and a stack of weights in a slot to her side rose as she lifted, lowered as she lowered her arms. Her face gleamed with sweat. Her short dark hair was plastered to her head.
“That’s our BodyMaster reclining chest press,” Jayjay said. “Would you like to—”
“Thanks. Excuse me.” Matt walked past spread-legged women touching their noses to their knees on the floor and stood next to the woman in turquoise.
After a moment, the woman noticed her.
“Matt!” she yelped. She let the weights down slowly, though, so they just clinked at the end of their descent. She jumped to her feet.
Terry. She had grown taller, and she looked sleek, muscled, and more mature, but she didn’t look like a grown-up, really. Still, she stood a head taller than Matt now.
“Wow. You sure grew up good,” Matt said.
“Hey!” Terry hugged Matt. Terry smelled sweaty, but not bad. Some of her dampness transferred to Matt’s black shirt. “Dang. Sorry about that,” Terry said, stepping back. “Hey! Look at you! You almost look like a girl now!” Terry touched Matt’s hair, which had grown out to about an inch, and was inexplicably curly. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to find you.”
“You did? You did? Oh, boy! Where have you been? What have you been doing? Oh, boy! I’m so glad to see you!”
“Guess this means you don’t want a demo,” Jayjay’s chipper voice said from behind Matt.
“No,” Matt said, and turned to smile at her, “but thanks a lot.”
“Anytime. Come on back if you want to sign up.” Jayjay wiggled her fingers in the air and headed for the stairs.
“I’m just about finished here,” Terry said. “Let me wash up. Want some coffee? Want something to eat? I can’t believe this! It’s so great!” Terry led the way to the locker rooms. Inside the doorway was a row of sinks below a big mirror, a drinking fountain, a wall of lockers, and a doctor’s office-type scale. Another doorway led somewhere else, and there was an alcove lined with more lockers to the right, and a couple of cubbyhole rest rooms.
Terry turned on water and washed her hands, then splashed water on her face. “Are you staying someplace? Want to come home with me? I’m still living with Mom in the same house. I don’t want to take a shower till I get home. I didn’t bring a change of clothes. Sorry if I stink.” She dried her hands and face on a towel.
“You smell fine,” Matt said.
“Really?” Terry peeked at her sideways, grinning. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“I’m glad to see you too,” Matt said at last. Terry was so bubbly! It was a lot different from the last time Matt had seen her. “What are you doing still here in town? I thought you’d be out taking over the world.”
“Really?” Terry raised her eyebrows. “Hmm. You know, you don’t actually have to leave home to take over the world.” She laughed a villain’s laugh: “Muahahahahah!”
Matt took a step back.
“Kidding! Just kidding,” Terry said, her eyes sparkling and her smile wide. “The world’s too big. I don’t need the whole thing. I find plenty to do right here. Want to see my base of operations? Would you like to come home with me?”
“Can my boyfriend come too?”
“You have a boyfriend?” Terry whooped and hugged her again. A woman changing into her bathing suit in the locker alcove peeked out at them, smiled, and pulled straps up over her shoulders.
“Hey, hey,” Matt said as Terry released her.
“Oh, no. Was that too friendly?”
“Just surprising.” Matt smiled and shook her head. “Different. I’m not used to huggy people.”
“I’ll try to control myself. You have a boyfriend? That means you’ve changed too, right? What kind of person is he?”
“He’s downstairs waiting for us. He’s someone you already know.”
Terry’s blue eyes widened. “Whoa. Who could I know that you would—” She frowned for a moment.
“Come on,” Matt said, heading back across the workout room.
“Wait,” Terry called from behind her. “I have to get my stuff.”
Matt paused behind the treadmill women. All these women fighting it out with machines to get fit. There was something very strange about using all this energy and not accomplishing work with it. Probably it wasn’t handy for them to go somewhere and unload trucks or help people move or actually ride bikes on roads or bike paths. Maybe it was too scary, with rapists and whatever out there. Or maybe they didn’t like weather? It stayed cool in here, and it didn’t rain. That did make it more comfortable for exercise. And you could pick how much weight you were pushing around and set your own schedule.
She edged over to the free weight stand and touched the rack that held the hand weights.—Hey,—she said.
—Hey!—It sounded boisterous and delighted.—Want to play with some weight?—A five-pound weight wiggled in its slot.
—No, thanks.—
—How about two?—A pair of four-pound weights swayed in unison. —They’ll dance with you. They’ll make your arms strong!—
—No, that’s okay. Thanks.—
Terry touched her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Checking things out,” Matt said. Terry had a red gym bag over her shoulder now.—Bye.—
The swaying weights subsided.—Awww.—
“Come on.” Terry took her hand and pulled her away from the weights, They ran down the stairs. “Bye, Kitty,” Terry said to the woman behind the desk.
“Bye, hon. Bye, Matt.”
“So who’s this guy?” Terry asked as they pushed out the door.
Matt led her to the car. Edmund leaned against it, his arms crossed over his chest. He smiled wide at Terry.
Terry froze, staring at him. “No way!” she said, She glanced back at Matt, who nodded. “Hey, buddy. Where the heck you been? How the heck are you?” The next minute she had dropped her gym bag and was hugging him. “I can’t believe it! What a day!”
“Hey, Terry.”
“This is so unbelievable. Matt! Edmund’s your boyfriend? Outstanding!” She checked her watch, a big black sports watch on a woven turquoise band. “Oh, what am I thinking? My meeting’s not till tonight. You guys want to come to my house? I have to take a shower, but then I want to find out where you’ve been. Are you hungry?”
“What you got to eat?” Matt asked suspiciously. Ten years earlier Terry had favored cottage cheese, nonfat milk, unsalted breads, and way too much tomato puree on everything. A meatless, fatless, salt-free diet might work for Edmund, but Matt didn’t like tasteless food unless she had no choice.
Terry laughed, then stopped, then sighed. “I was hard on you. I’m sorry, Matt. I was such a bitch.”
“More like a brat.”
Terry hunched her shoulders, then relaxed and sighed. “Okay. I still eat carefully, but Mom has a lot of regular food in the house. Or we could pick up some takeout on the way over. Or order a pizza. How about it?”
“Sure. We could visit,” Edmund said, exchanging glances with Matt.
“Matt, you remember how to get to my house? Oh heck, probably not. Just follow me.” She went to a black Miata and got in, started it, pulled out, and waited until Edmund and Matt got into Edmund’s car and lined up behind her, then off they went.
“How’d it go?” Edmund asked.<
br />
Matt shook her head. “She was so happy to see me. Really honestly happy. I wonder what I was worried about?”
A small black oval beach stone dropped from the dashboard into Matt’s lap.
“Whoa. Spirit?” Matt said. Edmund’s spirit usually didn’t speak to her directly. Matt picked up the stone and studied it. She glanced at Edmund. “What does it mean?”
“What meaning can you find in it?”
“It’s a rock.”—Rock?—
No answer from the stone. It was a natural thing and didn’t speak her language.
“A beach rock gets the edges smoothed off by sand over time,” Edmund said.
Matt held the stone up and stared at it. “But the inside stays the same?”
“Could be.”
Matt pressed the stone between her palms for a moment.
“Thanks, spirit,” she said, and put the stone back on the dashboard.
She watched Spores Ferry go by. She had spent more than a month here following Terry around. Terry had dropped a tether spell on her that made Matt sick every time she got more than half a block away from Terry, and it had driven Matt crazy. Being trapped by anything was one of her greatest nightmares. Fortunately, Matt had had lots of things to talk to. She had gotten to know the furniture in Terry’s house pretty well.
She shoved her hand deep into a pocket in her army jacket, draped over her seat back, and felt for one of her traveling companions. It was a small carved stone monk all curled up, his face buried in his hands, and his knees up to his ears. She had found it on Terry’s twin sister Tasha’s dresser while Matt was staying in Tasha’s room, and the monk had given itself to Matt. Tasha wouldn’t mind, the monk had told her. At the time Matt had been desperate for friends and allies. The stone monk fit perfectly into her hand, and had whispered comfort when she felt worst.
“What have you got?” Edmund asked.
Matt slowly opened her hand so the monk sat on her palm. “This used to be Tasha’s. I took it.”
His eyebrows rose as he glanced at it. “Wow. What an aura. What is it? A walnut?”
Matt laughed. “It’s a little guy.” She closed her hand around it again. Its stone felt smooth and warm, comfortably heavy. “He was my friend when Terry was really bugging me.” Matt touched the monk to her cheek.—You still awake in there?—
—I’m here. How can I help?—
—I don’t know if I need help right now.—She remembered nights on the road, nights under bridges or bushes, nights when she had held him and slept all right. Sometimes he told her about the other people who had held him; there had been five, after the man who had carved him in Indonesia. He had only spent a little while with Tasha. Matt had gotten better Tasha stories from other things in the house, enough to make her wish she could meet Tasha.—We’re going back to where I found you.—
—I’m here,—he thought.
—Thanks.—She tucked him into the pocket of her jeans.
Terry turned onto Greenbriar Street. Matt sat forward, looking at the neighborhood. Yep. There was the house with the gnomes in the petunia bed out front, and there was Mr. Potts’s 1936 Ford parked in the street, still sparkling. There was Terry’s house, a beige two-story a lot like the other houses along the street, which had all been built in the early sixties. You couldn’t tell from looking at Terry’s house that a witch lived there. Terry parked and got out of her car, and Edmund parked right behind her.
“Do you want us to bring anything?” Edmund asked as he climbed out. “We have food in the car.”
“We’ll find something in the kitchen,” Terry said.
They went inside. The house smelled familiar to Matt. Rebecca Dane, Terry’s mom, must still be using the same pine-scented cleaner. Maybe she’d even talked Terry into helping with the housekeeping, and Terry was using it now. There was a smell of boiled potatoes, too, and a faint sharp undertone that was new.
“Hey, Terry. You got a job?” Matt asked.
“I’ve got two. I run a home-based business, and I do some tutoring at the university in cultural anthropology. That was my major,” Terry said as they went through the house. “Hey! Mom! What are you doing home?”
An older version of Terry, with chin-length dark hair, blue eyes under black brows, beautiful sculpted cheekbones, and handsome mouth, sat at the kitchen table. She looked up. “What am I doing home? I live here, Theresa. Visitors? Why didn’t you call and tell me?”
“I thought you had a meeting.”
Rebecca rose from where she had been drinking coffee from a huge mug and working on a crossword puzzle in the newspaper. “Excuse me,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting company—Matt!”
“Hi, Rebecca.”
“Hey! Matt!” Rebecca came and hugged her.
For the first time Matt let herself remember how strange this was. She was always walking away from people she knew, and she almost never went back to them. She had returned to the haunted house and Nathan: a first. Now she was back in Spores Ferry, actually back inside Terry’s house, where once upon a time her whole being was absorbed in longing to leave.
Rebecca had been great, though. “Hey,” Matt said.
Rebecca released her, glanced at Edmund, leaned forward and stared. “Edmund?” she said. She held out her hands to him.
He took them and smiled at her. “Hi, Mrs. Dane.”
“Welcome to my house. Goodness! How long has it been?”
“Pretty long,” he said. “I’ve never been to this house before.”
“Well, that makes it at least ten years, probably longer. We moved here right after my divorce. You don’t look a day older.” She squinted at the lines at the outer corners of his eyes. “Well, maybe a day.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I never know what to say to that.”
“It’s supposed to be a compliment.” Rebecca smiled, then looked puzzled. “Where did you two come from? Do you—” She glanced at Matt, then at Terry. “Red flag?”
“Sure. Mom, Edmund is a witch.”
“Oh, good.”
“Red flag?” asked Edmund.
“I didn’t tell Mom I was a witch until I was seventeen,” Terry said, “five years after it happened. So when she meets somebody I knew while I was a witch but before I told her about it, she wonders what kind of person they are. Most of my friends were normal. But she can’t tell.”
“Oh. Code talking.”
“Right.”
“So when you visited us in Atwell,” Rebecca said, “it was witch business? I did wonder about you, Edmund. Most teenage boys I know wouldn’t be caught dead hanging around with girls four years younger, unless they were up to no good. You never seemed to be up to no good.”
“Depends on your definition of good, I guess.” Edmund said. “We were comparing notes. We all turned into witches at the same time.”
Rebecca shook her head. “I must have been wearing blinders back then. I was worrying about all the wrong things! So much going on I just didn’t know about.”
“Seems like all parents of teenagers say that,” Matt said.
“But I had more reason than most.” She ruffled Terry’s hair. Terry shook her head: red touched her cheeks.
“I told these guys we’d feed them, Mom,” Terry said. She opened the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and stared inside.
“We could go out,” said Rebecca. “We’re low on food right now. We haven’t done our weekly shopping yet. We always go on Saturday.”
Terry checked the lower part of the fridge. “There’s plenty of yogurt.” She turned with an evil grin and held out a container of plain, fat-free yogurt. “Yum, yum, Matt.” She jiggled the container.
“Yuck!”
“Kidding.” Terry put the yogurt back.
“She still eats the worst food. It’s like she thinks flavor will make her weak,” said Rebecca.
“I do believe that,” Terry said seriously. “Flavor is a distraction. Fewer distractions means better concentration.”
&n
bsp; “What do you find, Edmund? Does flavor make you weak?” Rebecca asked.
“Nope. Or maybe I just haven’t noticed. I don’t need to be strong most of the time.”
“You people are witches. I don’t understand why you can’t just conjure up a perfect meal. Terry doesn’t seem to get much joy from what she does. Do you?”
“Me?” Edmund tapped his chest. ‘Yes. I love it.” His eyes glowed. “Sometimes, when I listen well, I can feel my connection to everything. It’s the best feeling in the world.”
Rebecca smiled slowly. ‘You’re a different kind of witch from Terry, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“He used to be the same,” Terry said. “We could all three work the same spells. But I get the feeling—Edmund, did you know Tasha ran off to be a priestess of air?”
“Matt said she left and you were upset, but I didn’t know that part.”
“She started a completely different kind of training and turned into this—” Terry’s face went sour, as if she’d bitten a bad pickle.
“She’s very sweet, and I’m proud of her,” Rebecca said.
“Yeah,” said Terry, her face still twisted with distaste. “She’s all sweet and good. A pod-thing sister. You have those kind of vibes, too.”
“Gee, thanks,” said Edmund.
“It’s sickening.” Terry grinned. “Well, I’m going to take a shower. Mom, could you order a pizza or something?”
“We’ll figure something out,” said Rebecca.
“Excuse me. Later, guys.” Terry left the kitchen.
“But seriously, why can’t you conjure up a feast? They were always making magic food in fairy tales, weren’t they?” Rebecca said.
“Yeah, guuuuy, Edmund,” said Matt.
He held his hands up. He waved them in strange gestures above the kitchen table. “Alakazam,” he said, and the cooler and the bag of groceries from the back of the car appeared.
“Well, that’s disappointing,” said Rebecca. “I thought it would be swallow’s tongues, passion fruit, and roast pheasant on a bed of peacock feathers under glass domes. Bird’s nest soup? Escargots? Radishes sliced to look like roses? A cake with a sugar palace on top? Couldn’t you at least come up with golden dishes?”
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