Skunk Man Swamp

by P. D. Workman

  But Damon was right. Asking them for something was bound to backfire like it always did. Making wishes or using magic for one’s own ends always seemed to result in something terrible happening to balance the benefit. Or something that was ten times worse than the benefit; it didn’t seem to be balanced.

  “I won’t.”

  “Come to the Spring Games,” Damon urged Wilson. “If you decide you don’t want to be there, or someone says that you shouldn’t be there, then you can come back here. But can’t you give it a try?”

  Chapter Forty-One

  In the end, they wore him down more than anything. Maybe after being in the Everglades for fifty years, Wilson was just ready to move on to something else. Reg knew she would have been bored long before that. No matter how many interesting creatures and plants there might be in the park, she didn’t think she could have stayed for more than a few weeks before getting tired of it. Marshes just weren’t her thing.

  There were a lot of logistics. They needed to pick up Wilson’s things, go back to the hotel in Miami to get the company’s things, and Damon had phone calls he needed to make before showing up at the Spring Games with Wilson. There were the magical equivalent of affidavits and other legal documentation to be sworn and filed.

  They decided to drive during the night rather than spend another night at the hotel and risk losing Wilson again, since he wanted to go nowhere near where he had seen Weston and Harrison.

  It was a long trip and Reg knew that she was being irritable and unreasonable by the time they reached the end of the road. All she wanted was to go home and go to bed. Damon could take care of everything else. He could put Wilson in his spare room and file all of the rest of the paperwork he hadn’t managed yet. He could collect on the reward and just bring Reg her half when he had it.

  Sarah had left the outside light of the cottage on for her. Reg felt so glad to be home again that she could have knelt down and kissed the doorknob. But she didn’t. She opened the door and stepped into her little home, letting all of her stresses and troubles fall away. She was home, and that was all that mattered.

  Starlight jumped off of her bed in the bedroom. Reg heard him thump to the floor.

  “Starlight! I’m home! Come see me.”

  Starlight came dashing through the kitchen and to the door. He rubbed against Reg’s legs, making inquiring purr-meowing noises. He wound around her so affectionately that she was hardly able to take a step. She didn’t want to kick him or to push him out of the way.

  “Star, you wouldn’t believe how much I missed you! No more quests for a while. I need to be home in my bed with my cat!”

  He continued to vocalize and rub against her. Reg dropped everything else on the floor and picked him up, cuddling him against her face.

  “Do you know that you helped me in the swamp even though you weren’t there?” Reg asked him.

  He rubbed against her face, and Reg told him all about the panther who had been curious about Reg’s memories of her house cat and had followed her in the swamp and helped her out when needed.

  Starlight squirmed to be put down, and when he jumped with a plop to the floor, he started meowing and rubbing against the refrigerator. Reg understood what that meant too.

  “You’re hungry? I’m sure Francesca and Sarah have already been by to feed you. Probably more than is good for you.”

  But he kept telling her how he was starving. She gave in, finding some tuna in the fridge and putting it into his dish. When she put it on the floor for him, Starlight wasn’t there. Reg looked around, irritated. “Hey, I thought you were hungry?”

  She found him digging into her duffel bag to see what she had brought home for him.

  “I didn’t bring anything. It’s just all the same stuff as I took with me. Except that it’s sweaty and dirty now.” Which, of course, was perfume for cats. The smellier, the better.

  Reg went over to her duffel with Starlight’s hindquarters sticking out, and pulled him free.

  “Hey. I got you tuna. Eat your tuna.”

  He tried to grab something from within the bag as she drew him out of it, and when she saw his face, his mouth was slightly open, like it was when he smelled something funky—getting high on her stinky clothes, no doubt.

  Then she saw the leaves inside the duffel bag and was immediately concerned. “Oh no! You’re not supposed to be getting into stuff like that. It might be poisonous to cats!”

  He squirmed to get out of her grip and huffed when he landed on the floor. He looked at her bag, his mouth still open slightly, then went to the kitchen to eat his tuna. Reg bent down and picked up the leaves that had been left in one of her pockets. She examined them, trying to remember where they had come from and why she had them.

  A few minutes later, Reg was knocking on Sarah’s back door. She heard Sarah’s invitation to “come in,” and entered. She knew that Sarah had said numerous times before that she could just go in, but didn’t feel comfortable with that. She found Sarah in the living room, sitting in a comfy chair with a cup of tea beside her and a book in her lap.

  “Ah, you’re back,” Sarah observed. “How was your trip?”

  “Well… it was eventful.”

  “And did you find Mr. Wilson?”

  “Yes. I did. He’s with Damon. I’m going to let him handle all of the red tape. I’ve done my part.”

  “Good for you. That must feel good.”

  Reg nodded, uninterested in that line of discussion. She sat on the couch close to Sarah and held out her hand with the leaves in it. “Do you know what these are?”

  Sarah looked at the leaves, then bent over to smell them, not touching them. “I would guess… sweet bay leaves. Laurel. Did you get them in the Everglades?”

  “Yes. Corvin gathered some herbs for us to do a smudge. For the Seminole ghosts. That was one of them.”

  Sarah nodded. “That’s a good choice.”

  “They told me that I should keep some of this one. In case I needed it.”

  “And you want to know what you’re supposed to do with it.”

  “Yeah. That, and whether it would be poisonous for Starlight. I don’t want him to get into anything that might hurt him.”

  “They could be. But probably he would just smell or it and leave it alone. They are quite pungent, and the leaves very sharp. I can’t imagine him wanting to eat any amount.”

  “Okay. Yeah. So what do you think I’m supposed to do with them?”

  “Like most herbs, they have many applications. They were one of the sacred herbs of the Seminoles. But they didn’t really have prescribed uses for each plant. It was up to the medicine man or woman to discern what a patient needed and then prepare the remedy. Maybe something to be eaten or drunk, maybe a poultice or a totem. It would depend on what the practitioner thought the best application was.”

  “So when she gave it to me, does that mean she thought I needed to take it? She didn’t tell me what to do with it, just said that I might need it.”

  “What did you go to her about? Were you sick or did you have any concerns at the time?”

  “No… we went to the Lost Village to see whether Wilson had been there, or if they might know anything about him.”

  Sarah thought about that. “So… what’s wrong with Wizard Wilson?”

  “I don’t know if there is anything wrong with him, other than that he doesn’t remember anything. I think… that Weston gave him the waters of Lethe to make him forget.”

  “Ah.”

  “The ghost said that… he had giant sickness. Is that what she meant? She said that people with giant sickness go to another land, and wander in the woods. Could she mean… did Weston actually take Wilson to another land to give him the waters? To the underworld? And Wilson did wander—for fifty years. We found him near a plane crash, one that has been missing since the Second World War. But I have no idea how he got there.”

  “Then perhaps this herb is what he needs to treat this giant sickness.”

&n
bsp; “But she didn’t tell me how to use it.”

  “Then I would start with the most basic methods. Maybe a smudge and a tea. See if either of those makes a difference to his memory.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Reg decided she wasn’t going to go out again that night. She wanted her own bed and her own space for a while, and it wouldn’t make any difference whether Wilson got his memories back that night or in the morning. Or if he didn’t get them back. In fact, he would probably rest better if he didn’t have a flood of memories about his former life and his family to deal with. It could be pretty traumatic to suddenly remember everyone and everything he had left behind.

  So she felt justified going to bed without informing the others that she might have a remedy for Wilson’s amnesia. She had a warm bath and then got into bed, Starlight cuddling up against her and purring away loudly. Reg scratched his ears and chin.

  “I missed you too. I hope you weren’t too upset about me being away for a few days. Francesca and Sarah took good care of you, right?”

  He just kept purring, and Reg didn’t have any feelings of reproach or anger from him, so she supposed he was okay with having been left alone.

  She fell asleep quickly to his soothing, rumbling purr.

  Her early bedtime made it easier for Reg to wake up at a somewhat reasonable hour of the morning. She texted Damon as she went through her morning rituals of putting on the coffee, feeding Starlight, and eventually finding clothes for herself for the rest of the day. It was a while before Damon responded, so maybe he was having a slower, “recovery” morning as well.

  He texted that he and Wilson would come by in an hour or two so she could try the bay leaf remedies.

  Reg was dressed and had replenished her coffee levels by the time the two men got there. Starlight was asleep, sprawled on his back in a patch of sunshine. He opened his eyes curiously at the arrival of the guests, but then just squirmed to get some more of his tummy in the sunbeam and purred quietly.

  Wilson looked around. He seemed agitated and uncomfortable. Reg had expected him to be happy to be out of the park, but maybe it was too far out of his comfort zone for him to be able to relax. He looked as if someone might jump out of the woodwork at any moment and attack him. Reg did her best to make him feel calm.

  “There’s no one else here, just you and me and Damon. And the cat. You don’t mind cats, do you?”

  Wilson cast a glance over at Starlight as if he weren’t quite sure.

  “I don’t mind,” he confirmed after a moment. Starlight opened one eye partway, then closed it again.

  Reg motioned for Wilson to take a seat, but he continued to pace anxiously. Reg let him walk. Damon sat down on the couch.

  “So, Damon told you that I have a Seminole remedy that might help you with your memory?” she asked carefully.

  “Yes.” Wilson turned and walked back across the room again. “But there isn’t anything wrong with my memory. The two of you think that I can’t remember because I don’t have your Jeffrey Wilson’s memories, but that’s just because I’m not your Jeffrey Wilson.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little strange that two men named Jeffrey Wilson would get lost in the Everglades?”

  “I wasn’t lost; I was touring. Just seeing the sights. Assuming that I’m the same Jeffrey Wilson as the one who disappeared there fifty years earlier? That’s the theory that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “So you remember things from your past. Your childhood. Your family. Everything that has happened to you.”

  There was a slight hesitation, but very slight. “Yes,” Wilson insisted. “I remember everything.”

  “How long were you there, in the Everglades?”

  “Just a few weeks. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “How did you know where the plane wreck was?”

  “I just stumbled across it. What’s surprising is that no one else ever did. Sure it’s a big park, and not everyone goes off of the trails, but someone should have found it long ago.”

  Someone should have, Reg agreed, but they hadn’t. Only Wilson had found it. And she had no idea when he had found it or how he got there when he wanted to visit it. Despite his assertion that he wasn’t the wizard Jeffrey Wilson and didn’t have any magic, she knew something was going on there. There just wasn’t a good non-magical explanation.

  “But you’re willing to try this remedy.”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Why not. If it will convince you that I’m not the guy you’re looking for…”

  He might say that was why he was willing to try the remedy, but Reg doubted it. He wasn’t going to take an unknown Seminole remedy just for the sake of proving who he was. He didn’t want to get his hopes up that it might be the answer. He was protecting himself in case it failed.

  “I don’t know the way the sweet bay leaves are usually prepared for this,” she warned. “It may take some experimenting… and I don’t know if it is the solution or not. Sarah suggested smudging and a tea. Does that sound okay?”

  He shrugged and nodded. Reg took some of the dry bay leaves in her hand and kindled a small fire.

  She knew that as a brand-new firecaster she wasn’t supposed to be lighting fires without Davyn there to help temper them, but she’d used her fire a few times in the Everglades and nothing bad had happened.

  Wilson’s eyes widened at the sight of her kindling and holding fire in the palm of her hand. Reg let the flame die down and the leaves started smoking. She waved the smoke around. She turned in a circle and offered it at each of the four points of the compass, unsure whether the spell required her to offer it in a specific direction. Then she stood close to Wilson and waved it in his direction. He reared back a little, but then inhaled the woodsy, savory smell and seemed to relax a little. His shoulders dropped down. He inhaled again, then looked at Reg, shaking his head.

  “It’s nice,” he said. “But I don’t… I don’t know anything I didn’t know before. Nothing has changed.”

  Reg nodded. She was disappointed, but she had known that there might be no change.

  “We can still try the tea,” Damon pointed out.

  “Right,” Reg agreed.

  She moved into the kitchen, where she disposed of the ashes. She had already crumbled bay leaves into a teacup for the second part of the experiment. They were surprisingly sharp and tough. She’d gotten a little cut on her thumb trying to break them up into small enough pieces for the tea. She should probably have gone to the big house to ask Sarah for her mortar and pestle thingies to crush it properly. But what was done was done.

  Reg turned on the electric kettle. As it was heating, she gestured to the small amount of lemon juice she had collected by squeezing fresh lemons from the tree in Sarah’s front yard. “Sarah said that lemon juice would make it more palatable. I couldn’t believe how good these fresh lemons smelled. Like those lemon drop candies. But I know they won’t be sweet like that.”

  Damon and Wilson nodded politely. The kettle started to whistle. Reg poured water over the bay leaves and then added a little bit of the lemon juice. She took it over to Wilson.

  “Just let it steep for a few minutes first. If it needs more lemon juice, just let me know…”

  He took the cup from her and looked down at the tea. The tea smelled similar to the smudge smoke, only more floral, and was almost overpowered by the smell of the lemon juice. Reg worried that she had put too much lemon juice in it. She didn’t want to make Wilson drink something so mouth-puckeringly sour.

  “I can get you some honey to go with that.”

  She gestured to the coffee table where she would typically put down the tea service. “Do you think you can relax enough to sit down for a few minutes?”

  Wilson walked over to the couch and sat down at the opposite end from Damon. Reg put the tea things on a tray. “Do you want some tea?” she asked Damon. “I didn’t even think to ask.”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  They watched Wilson, trying to l
ook as though they were not staring at him. Maybe the effects of the smoke were delayed, and they would start seeing changes in a few minutes. When he drank the tea, would it have an immediate impact? Would it be dramatic, or would his memories come back bit by bit?

  Or maybe nothing at all would happen and she was just kidding herself.

  Starlight suddenly sat up, ears perked, voicing a little meow. He was looking past Reg, and she immediately looked behind her to see what he was looking at. Harrison. He was wearing something that looked like a prison jumpsuit but appeared to be made from light green silk.

  Wilson gave a little yelp of surprise. He looked at Damon and Reg, searching for an explanation. Damon cocked his head slightly, eyeing Harrison with suspicion. Reg felt bad for Wilson; she knew that he was afraid of the immortals—or at least, she suspected it—but there was nothing that she could do to keep Harrison from entering her home. Wards wouldn’t work against him, and she normally wanted him to be able to come and go, so she had never asked Sarah or Corvin if there were something that would keep the immortals out.

  “Uh, Harrison… it’s not a good time.”

  He raised one brow and looked at her. He glanced around the room in a circle, taking in her other visitors.

  “Regina.” He sounded disappointed instead of cheerful like he usually did. “You should not interfere with things that you know nothing about.”

  “What do you mean? How am I interfering?”

  Of course, she knew what he was talking about, but she wanted to stall him until she could figure out what to do.

  “This is not your domain.”

  “This is my home.”

  “Not that.” He made a motion sweeping any talk of her house to the side. “This.” He pointed to Wilson.

  “Damon hired me to find him. I’m just doing my job. Why? What does it matter to you?”

  “The wizard is a danger.”

  “A danger? How? He certainly can’t be a danger to you!”