by Megan Hart
Somehow, that final thought convinced her more than anything else had that she wasn’t losing her mind. How could she be crazy when she was so practical?
Nick was real. The question wasn’t why, for that she could guess pretty well. She’d come back to the beach house, and so had he. They were tied together, even after all this time. Unfinished business. Or something else. Some emotion she didn’t want to admit. Something stronger than lust.
The question wasn’t why, but how. For the first time since Nick had come out of the water to kiss her, she thought she might be ready to think about how it had happened.
She’d never been inside Bethany Magick, but the sign caught her attention on the way home. Bess pulled into one of the narrow parking spaces in front of the shop. The outside was painted red and purple, with gilt-edge windows and doorway. Glass witches’ balls hung in the windows above displays of candles, tarot cards and other mystical paraphernalia. Books, too, and that was what she was interested in.
Inside, the shop smelled like rosemary, and Bess took a deep, long whiff. Small pots of it grew along a sunny window-sill behind the cash register. She wondered if she could grow some in her living room.
“It’s rosemary,” said a voice from behind Bess. “For remembrance.”
Bess turned to see a woman about her own age. She didn’t wear the expected flowing gypsy skirts or dangling earrings, but rather a pair of faded, comfortable-looking jeans and black flip-f lops, along with a form-fitting T-shirt with a skull on the front. The skull’s eyes were hearts outlined in glittering rhinestones.
“Yes,” Bess said. “It’s one of my favorite smells.”
The woman beamed. “I’m Alicia Morris. Have you been to Bethany Magick before?”
“Hi. Bess Walsh, and no.” She glanced around. “Is this your store?”
“Yep.” Alicia smiled proudly and moved behind the counter. “Look around. If you have any questions, let me know.”
“Thanks.” Bess had plenty of questions, but she wasn’t quite sure how to ask them. “I’m just browsing right now.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
Bess had no idea what she was even looking at, much less what she should be seeking for, but she made a slow circuit of the shop. Comprised of two rooms with an open arch between them, Bethany Magick had something, it seemed, for every taste. Close to the front of the shop and the cash register were shelves holding Magic 8 Balls, Ouija boards and inexpensive novelty items like unicorn-shaped candles, plastic gnomes and boy wizard glasses.
“The good stuff’s in the other room,” said Alicia from behind the novel she was reading. “I keep that stuff around for the looky-loos and tourists. But you’re not either, are you?”
Bess put down the feather-topped pen she’d been examining. “You can tell?”
Alicia grinned. “I had a fifty-fifty chance of being right, didn’t I? I couldn’t lose. If you really are a local you’ll be glad I didn’t confuse you with one of those dad-gum tourists, and if you’re a vacationer you’ll be flattered I think you’re a townie.”
Bess laughed. “I’m sort of both, actually. I used to live here during the summers years ago, and now I have my grandparents’ old house, but I haven’t been back in about twenty years.”
“Twenty’s a nice round number.” Alicia’s eyes sharpened with interest. “Which house, if you don’t mind my asking? By old you must not mean one of those mondo-mansions going up all over.”
“No. It’s on Maplewood. The one with the wraparound deck. Gray shingled siding. There’s a huge new house just behind it, so you can’t really see it from the street anymore.”
“I think I know which one you mean. You can see it from the beach.”
“Yes.” Bess touched the fuzzy, brightly colored hair on a small plastic troll. It was cute, but wouldn’t help her. “So what do you mean by the good stuff?”
“Let me show you.” Alicia put down her book, a romance by the look of the cover, and led Bess through the archway. The beaded curtain clicked like whispers as they brushed through it.
This room was dimmer and lit by fiber-optic lights set into the ceiling. Shelves and small tables draped with velvet held an array of interesting items. Sacks of smooth stones, packs of cards, gleaming pendants on chains.
Books filled one wall floor to ceiling, and a small waterfall splashed and tinkled in the corner. A curtained doorway led to another room not visible from the front.
“I do readings back there.” Alicia pointed. “Tarot, palm, runes. By appointment only, though, since I can’t leave the shop unattended.”
“Of course not.” Bess had heard of tarot and palm readings, but not runes. She lifted a sack of stones from one of the tables. “Runes?”
“Runes are a system of divination. Like tarot cards.” Alicia demonstrated, shaking out a number of small, smooth stones from a velvet bag onto the table. She lifted one, marked with what looked like an upper-case P. “This is the Wynn rune. Usually symbolizes joy or luck, or something being resolved happily.” She gazed at Bess evenly. “Ring any bells?”
Bess laughed, self-conscious. “I’m not sure. I’m in the midst of a divorce, actually. That doesn’t seem to fit.”
Alicia rubbed the rune between her fingers and studied her. “Are you sure?”
Bess laughed again. “It’s a situation being resolved, anyway.”
The woman grinned and pulled another rune from the bag, holding it up. “Wyrd.”
“What’s that one mean?”
“Fate. Destiny. An unknown outcome.” Alicia clinked the stones together in her palm.
Bess swallowed hard. “That’s…”
“Incredible?” Alicia shook her head and slipped the runes back into their small velvet bag. “You should have me read for you sometime. Really read for you. I’ll give you the local discount.”
It was Bess’s turn to grin. “Really? Thanks.”
Alicia tipped her head to study her for so long it should have become uncomfortable, but Bess didn’t feel that way. “What did you come in here for?” she asked at last.
“I’d never been in. It looked interesting. And,” Bess admitted, with a smile designed to downplay her answer, “I thought I might like to learn about…spirits.”
“Spirits?” Alicia’s smile again thinned, but didn’t disappear. “Why?”
Bess stumbled on her answer to the blunt question. “I’m interested?”
The shopkeeper nodded and went to the bookshelves, where she pulled out a thick hardcover volume. “The Other Side is a good reference source without being too heavy.”
“Ghost stories?” Bess laughed awkwardly as she took the book.
“Some. More like encounters. Theories. Experiences of trained mediums, trying to explain why some people can’t seem to leave this plane.”
Bess flipped through a few pages. “What about those who…come back?”
She looked up when Alicia didn’t answer. The other woman stared, mouth slightly pursed. “Come back?”
Bess shrugged hastily. “Do they ever come back?”
“Do you mean a near-death experience? Tunnel of white light, that sort of thing?”
“No. I mean someone who’s died but their spirit doesn’t come back right away. Maybe not for a long time.” Bess closed the book but grasped it tightly.
“I’m not an expert on spirits,” Alicia said thoughtfully, “but I’m sure there are accounts of spiritual manifestations taking place over long periods of time that would make it seem like the spirit went away, only to return. But I’m not sure if that’s what you mean.”
“Oh, I don’t really mean anything.” Bess laughed and held the book to her chest. “I’ll take this one. Do you have anything else?”
Alicia tapped a few volumes, then pulled down one more. She didn’t hand it to Bess right away. “Is the spirit malevolent?”
“Malevolent? Oh, no! Oh, wow. No.” Bess shook her head vehemently. “I’m just interested—I don’t actually, you know…have a
spirit.”
Alicia didn’t laugh, though her faint smile remained. She handed Bess the book, called Beyond the Grave. “You might still find this one interesting.”
The cold shudder from earlier crept down Bess’s spine, but she took the volume. “What’s it about?”
“Harmful spirits.” Alicia smiled then, a real smile, and the tension eased. “Read it with the lights on.”
“Thanks.” Clutching both books, Bess followed Alicia to the cash register. “Are you a trained medium?”
Alicia looked surprised as she rang up the purchases. “Me?”
“You said that The Other Side had experiences from trained mediums in it. I didn’t know you could train to be a medium.”
Alicia laughed and bagged the books in a shimmery silver sack, tucking Bess’s receipt inside. “You can train to be anything, I’m sure. But, no. Not exactly. I’ve been practicing Wicca for about fifteen years now, and I’ve had training in that.”
“You’re a witch?” The word sounded funny.
“Yep.” Alicia reached behind her to break off a long twig of rosemary from one of the pots. She sniffed it, eyes closed, then smiled as she handed it to Bess. “Here. Rosemary. For—”
“Remembrance,” Bess finished with her. “I didn’t forget.”
They both laughed.
“Come back again. Get that reading.”
“I will,” Bess promised as she took her bag and headed back outside.
The air had cooled considerably since she’d entered the shop. Clouds now danced across the sun, not all of them dark, but enough to turn the sky from blue to gray.
Gray.
Bess put her bag in the car and drove home faster than she knew was safe, but even so the first boom of thunder was already cracking overhead when she pulled into the carport. Rain lashed the earth a moment later, and she sat in her car for a minute after keying off the ignition, just watching the sheets of water turn the sand to mud.
The wind whipped at her dress as she opened the trunk and pulled out bag after bag, running to put them safely in the small hallway at the bottom of the stairs. Only when she’d unloaded everything did she go inside herself, locking the door behind her and grabbing as many sacks as she could carry. She dropped them at the top of the stairs, which emptied directly into the living room, but she didn’t bother going back for the rest.
“Nick?”
There was no answer but the rain on the deck outside, and the rumble of thunder. She went to the sliding doors and pressed her face to the glass. Rain had already sliced the beach and churned the waves. An abandoned umbrella tumbled end over end and hit the water. She watched it move farther out, pulled by the waves, before she turned to the living room again.
“Nick? Where are you?”
Stay calm.
“I’m sorry I was so long. I had to get a lot of things.”
He wasn’t in the kitchen, which she could see from where she stood. He wasn’t downstairs in the small laundry room or the smaller bedroom that had once been hers. That left the three upstairs bedrooms.
“Nick! This isn’t funny!”
But would she laugh if he popped out from a closet, shouting “Boo!”? Yes, she would, if only because it meant he was still there. Bess called his name again, her voice hoarse and drowned out by the rain.
She flung open the door to the smallest of the upstairs bedrooms. Two sets of bunk beds, one either side of the window, made a narrow path and reminded her of summer-camp cabins. The closet door hung open, the space inside empty.
“Nick!”
The second room had a double bed and full-size futon. Nick wasn’t in either one of them. Not in the closet there, either, though when she flung the door open her heart stopped in preparation for the scare. It started beating reluctantly when she opened the door to the bathroom the bedrooms shared. The room was only big enough for the tub and shower, sink and toilet, and had no place to hide. She pulled back the shower curtain, getting ready to scream. No Nick.
That left her bedroom and its attached bath. She wanted to see him so badly that at first, she did. The glare of lightning lit the rumpled mess of her bed, making her believe the pillows and blankets were a body. She was already flipping on the light switch and striding to the bed before her eyes adjusted and she saw the truth.
Bess let out a low, sobbing breath and then stood straighter. She shook herself. Bathroom. He had to be in the bathroom. Except he wasn’t. He wasn’t anywhere, and as she went back to stand in the middle of the living room, Bess listened to the silence even the storm couldn’t deafen.
Nick wasn’t there.
CHAPTER 18
Then
“Want a drink?”
Bess had been scanning the room for the sight of Nick, but the hand holding out a plastic cup aslosh with beer didn’t belong to him. She shook her head. The boy offering her the beer shook his head, too, and handed the cup to the girl who came in behind her. Turning back to the keg on the floor just inside the door, he pumped the handle up and down and held the small black hose over another cup.
Bess moved away from the door to make room for more people coming in. Nick’s apartment wasn’t very big, and it didn’t take many guests for it to feel crowded. Even so, though she knew he had to be here, she didn’t see him.
The music thumped, loud enough to make speech worthless. She stood at the short end of a rectangular living room. Two couches, a desk and a weight bench lined the walls. Directly in front of her was an opening through which she could see a table with chairs, and directly behind that, the open door to a small bathroom. She presumed the kitchen was that way, too.
“Bess!” Brian, giggling, blundered away from a group of girls playing quarters, and grabbed her hand. “Hey, honey! You made it! I told Nick you’d come.”
“He asked?” Bess let Brian drag her toward the coffee table, around which a bunch of people sat watching a girl and a boy with their hands on the planchette of an Ouija board.
“You’re pushing it,” the girl complained, and took her hands away, while her partner protested he wasn’t.
“They’re fucking with the spirit world,” Brian said. “Come sit with me on the couch! Don’t you need a drink? Hey, someone get Bess a drink!”
“I’ll get my own drink.” She tugged herself from Brian’s octopus grasp. Fortunately, his attention span seemed pretty limited at the moment, and she had no problem getting away.
She found Nick in the kitchen, holding court for a bevy of giggling girls with bikini-top tans and drinks in their hands. He looked up when she came in, and raised his bottle toward her.
“Hey! You made it!” He didn’t hop down from the counter, but pointed toward the fridge. “I’ve got soda in there, if you want.”
She ought to have been pleased he knew her that well, but all at once Bess didn’t want to be so predictable. So good. She looked at the bottles of vodka, rum and tequila on the counter. Usually these parties were BBTS—bring booze to share. She’d picked up a box of buttered crackers on the way over, more to make sure she had something in her stomach than anything. She put the box on the table among the detritus of chip bags and empty cups, and helped herself to a can of cola, a cup and a healthy shot of rum.
She looked up before she took the first sip, to find Nick watching her. His dark eyes gleamed as he grinned and tipped his beer toward her in a silent toast over the heads of his ad mirers. Bess raised her cup to him and drank.
Her eyes watered and her throat burned, but the second sip went down much smoother. The taste of it wasn’t so great, especially not mixed with store-brand diet cola, but though she wasn’t much of a drinker herself, Bess had been around plenty of people who were. The more she drank, the better it would taste.
There was no place for her get close to Nick, but somehow that didn’t matter. The look he’d given her had told her that. She was here; that was what mattered. Taking her drink, Bess left the kitchen and went back to the living room.
The crowd
was still gathered around the Ouija board. The planchette moved faster than it had before, so fast Bess didn’t see how anyone could believe it was being moved by spirits. She couldn’t see what it was spelling out, but from the awed looks it must have been something interesting.
“I’m telling you,” Brian said. “They are fucking with the spirits. That is not good, Bess. Not good.”
“You’re drunk.” She sipped more rum and coke.
“Honey, yes I am!” He snapped his fingers in the air and burst into a flurry of giggles, then tried to kiss her.
Bess turned her head at the last minute, so his mouth landed on her cheek, but she did suffer his full-body hug without trying to get away. Brian snuggled against her. After a minute, his mouth moved along her neck, though, and she jerked back.
“Brian!” She had to fight not to laugh; he’d never stop if she did that. “Jesus, I’m your boss! And a girl!”
“I know, I know.” Brian looked unapologetic. “But you’re just so yummy, honey, and nobody else here is as accommodating.”
“That’s a big word. I’m surprised you can say in your intoxicated state.”
“Oh, ho, ho!” Brian wagged a finger. “Look who’s talking?”
“Dude. Are you hitting on Bess?” Nick’s amused voice slipped straight to Bess’s gut, and lower. “Don’t you know she sort of has a boyfriend?”
Brian snorted, but backed off. “That asshole?”
“Is he?” Nick and Brian both turned to look at her.
Bess shrugged, but said nothing.
“Interesting answer,” Nick murmured.
Brian, for once, seemed without words. He looked back and forth between the two of them, shook his head and moved off toward the kitchen.
Bess turned to Nick. Tonight he didn’t wear a ball cap or a bandanna. His hair fell slightly forward over one eye and lay in shaggy feathers over his ears and the back of his neck. Bess wanted to run her hands through it.