“Okay, I’ll count on it.”
But why did Tobias have to be a witch?
13
Tobias
All he wanted to do after the weirdly tense interfaith meeting was to take a shower, put on some sweatpants, and crawl into bed with a book. The meeting had turned into a session with Aiden where they alternately planned ways to gain justice for every homeless camp in Portland and Aiden asking him nervous questions about the craft.
At least he’d gotten another kiss out of the man before they parted ways. Tobias grinned at the memory of it as he slipped his key into the retro lock on the heavy front door. When he saw what was inside, he stifled a groan. His housemates.
Oh great. Just what he didn’t want.
As soon as he stepped through the door, there they were, sitting on the green couch, smoking marijuana, eating what looked like a pint of mint chip ice cream, and watching Doctor Who. As usual.
Tobias so hadn’t planned on dealing with this situation now, but he knew he shouldn’t put it off, either. He stopped, dropped his messenger bag on the floor, and unbuttoned his coat.
“Hey, Tobias!” Freddie said, not taking his eyes from the flat screen.
Tobias just stood there, waiting for his housemates to turn their heads. Peter Capaldi was too engrossing. They cackled at some dinosaurs doing Goddess-knew-what on the screen. Tobias thought science fiction was about the future, so he had no clue what dinosaurs were doing on the stupid show.
He finally realized they must think he was watching along with them. Tobias couldn’t stand around all night, waiting for two stoned people to figure out otherwise.
“When were you going to tell me about the deal?” he finally said.
“What are you talking about, dude?” Freddie asked, glancing his way, and delicately tamping out the blunt into an ashtray.
“Can you turn that off for a second?” Tobias asked. Reece grabbed the remote and paused the show. Tobias could tell she wasn’t happy about having her cozy, lazy night interrupted. Well, tough shit.
Tobias squared off between the television cabinet and the sofa. “The deal you made with my father, asshole. To get what turns out is a pretty sweet deal on this house.”
A deal he should have known was too good to be true in this rental climate. So much for his business being in the black. Damn it. How was he going to pay a rent increase here, and for his office space? He shouldn’t have scheduled with Dr. Greene. No way was he going to be able to afford therapy. Not without a serious miracle.
Reece paused, a spoon loaded with ice cream half way to her mouth. “Shit,” she said. “I told you we should have said something.”
“Shut up, Reece,” Freddie snapped.
She dropped the spoon into the pint carton and smacked his bicep.
“No, Reece, don’t shut up,” Tobias said. “Tell me all about it. Tell me about how the two of you colluded with my snake of a father and didn’t bother to let me know.”
“It’s just cheap rent, Tobias. What’s so wrong about that?” Freddie replied. “I figured your dad just wanted to give you a present without you knowing about it.”
Tobias dropped into one of the black, fake-leather armchairs across the coffee table, angled between the TV cabinet and the bookcase. He held his head in his hands for a moment, trying to get his anger under control.
He sat up. Freddie flinched. Good.
“You know I barely talk to my father. You knew I would never agree to this. Isn’t that right?” He kept his voice low, even. His fingers gripped the bonded faux-leather chair arms.
“We’re not going to lose the place, are we?” Reece asked.
It was a reasonable question, Tobias supposed. He clenched his molars.
“Well, my father is certainly going to raise our rent, now, isn’t he? Now that he knows he can’t manipulate me back into the life he wants.”
Tobias stood again. “What the hell were you thinking Freddie? Men like my father never give anything away for free. They don’t give gifts, they issue promissory notes! And this is one I never even got a chance to sign off on.”
“Dude. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
No, Freddie wouldn’t. He’d quit his MBA at Reed because it was too boring, and joined his own dad’s investment firm where he did Goddess knew what. Reece was a perpetual student and wrote poetry. Mostly, they both just smoked pot.
But Tobias was the one without ambition.
“Sit back down,” Freddie said. “We’ll talk it out. I’m sure it’ll all be fine. I can call my dad.”
Tobias held up a hand. “Just…don’t. Not right now. I’m going to call the Tenants Union sometime this week and see if we have a leg to stand on, which we probably don’t, seeing as it’s my fucking family. But I don’t know that for sure. And whatever they say, we’re going to do it.”
He picked up his messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder. “And if we have to? We’ll move.”
“But…” Reece protested.
“I’m done with both of you for tonight. I just…can’t. We’ll talk more later.”
Tobias walked up the stairs to his room. If he hadn’t left, he might have been tempted to punch Freddie, and Freddie wasn’t the one who deserved to be punched.
His father did.
Or maybe Tobias did, for being so stupid, and thinking everything was going to be all right if he just worked hard enough and believed.
Welcome to the real world, Tobias. Right. There was that. He could have been sleeping on the sidewalk, except given his background, it was highly unlikely. He didn’t know what the statistics were that an educated, middle-class white guy would end up on the streets, but the odds still had to be leaning toward him being okay.
Didn’t they?
Shutting his bedroom door, he looked around. He really liked this place. It felt like home. But if he had to leave it, he would. There was no way he would be any more beholden to his parents than he already was.
He hung his coat in the closet, dropped his boots to the floor, and flopped down on the bed.
Then he closed his eyes, body trembling from anger, and tried to slow his thoughts and emotions down enough to pray.
14
Aiden
“Damn, it’s still freezing,” Stingray said. The bus bumped through the neighborhood, past bungalows and grocery stores. Aiden had to agree. The cold had settled in. It hadn’t snowed since December and he hoped it wouldn’t again. Rain was hard enough on houseless people. Snow? Almost impossible to deal with.
The inside of the bus smelled like damp wool and BBQ corn chips, and the skies were a brooding dark gray outside. They were en route to an encampment, hoping to make it there in time.
They’d been at the De Porres House kitchen when Stingray picked up the call. The cops were about to raid the big camp under the 205 freeway. People needed help.
There was a pretty big crew of volunteers that day, so Stingray left Reggie in charge, and called some folks at the community house for backup. Then she and Aiden grabbed their coats and they took off, catching the bus for the short ride from the industrial area near the river, where the kitchen was, to the more populated area of old working-class, southeast Portland.
“Thank you!” Stingray called out to the bus driver before swinging off the bus. It rumbled down the street, passing them by as they hurried the last few yards up to Foster Boulevard.
Cars whooshed by them, and the freeway roared as they approached, stinking of exhaust and cold winter air. Aiden could see the bright red and blue domes of some of the larger tents under the 205 overpass. This was one of the better established camps. It was in a great spot—out of the way, well protected by big boulders, a strange sort of dry-scaping the city had installed under the freeway, for what purpose, Aiden wasn’t sure. As a consequence, you could barely even see the camp was there. It had been one of the nicer camps he’d visited. Well protected from the elements, it was cozy place for people to make a home.
“That’s
Ghatso’s car!” Stingray said, pointing at a battered old Toyota parked nearby. Good. That meant the community house had rallied and some of the other kitchen workers were already there.
“I hope they’re able to save the camp,” Aiden replied.
Aiden was worried. He was still feeling strange, and Stingray had given him the option to be the one who stayed behind at De Porres House. But he knew he had to be out here; the fire inside him compelled him. Someone had to help these people.
Then he saw the white NorthWest Services truck. Damn it. That meant they were carting people’s stuff away. It seemed like the cruelest punishment to people without a house, to take their few belongings. Even though they were supposed to be catalogued and saved for thirty days, if a person had nowhere to go in the interim, they were often turned into garbage, forcing people to start over, again and again.
The rage was back. It was a sourness, filling his chest and belly. His fists clenched inside his fingerless gloves. Over the noise of traffic, he heard shouting, and a woman screamed.
Stingray looked at him with wide eyes and broke into a trot. Aiden followed, boots striking the sidewalk. It felt good to run. The cold air singed his lungs, but the fire inside him wouldn’t quit; it drew him towards the camp.
As they got closer, he could see between the boulders. It was a mess, a melee, NorthWest workers with their orange vests and white jumpsuits, and the cops in their dark uniforms, heavy, puffy, navy-blue winter jackets, struggling with houseless people over their meager belongings. Some people cried, others shouted. Some just stood, slumped with resignation.
He could see some of their community friends trying to intervene. Ghatso and Renee had placed themselves between some of the people and their tents, and the cops, but there just weren’t enough of them to really help. One other De Porres community member, Brad, a tall, burly man with red hair poking out from his black watch cap, was screaming in a cop’s face.
Aiden groaned. Who put Brad on negotiation? He was a firecracker, and never had a calm head. But in this situation, who could? Aiden found that he couldn’t. He looked around, still trying to figure out what to do. How to help.
He turned to Stingray, who had stopped dead still. “What do we do?” he said. “There aren’t enough of us.”
“I don’t know, but we can’t just let this happen,” she said. She ran over to Brad and put a hand on his arm. Aiden saw Brad jerk his arm away and turn his anger on her. She held up two placating hands, one towards Brad and one towards the cop. The cop looked like an immovable rock. He wondered if he even had a heart or brain. That was the rage talking, for sure.
He looked around in the confusion. There was so much movement happening everywhere. They needed a strategy, but it was too late for that. So what to do? He recognized some guests who ate at De Porres house regularly, packing up their stuff.
“Oh God, I hate this!” Aiden said. “What are we gonna do?”
Then he saw it, a tiny, skinny white woman in a ragged coat, the stuffing of her puffer jacket leaking out of holes, green cap askew on the top of her head. She was tugging on a tent, trying to pull it out of this one cop’s hands as she screamed and cried. Aiden ran towards her. He started to help pull.
The cop yelled at him, “Get off!”
“Why are you taking her stuff?” Aiden yelled.
“Get off, sir. This is none of your business. We need to clear this camp.”
“Why? It’s freezing out. This is all these people have.”
“They can go to a shelter.”
“You know the shelters are full.”
“They can go to a warming center.”
He glanced at the woman. The tears were freezing on her face. “If she could go to a warming center, don’t you think she would?”
He let go of the tent then, filled with a sudden, calm resolve. He walked around the tent and stood right in front of the cop.
“You need to leave these people alone.”
“And you need to step back sir,” the officer said. “We gave them twenty-four hours to clear, and they disregarded the order.”
“Disregarded the order?” His throat was tight with trying not to scream in the cop’s face. “You need to leave these people alone. This is their home. What if someone told you to leave your home? What would you do then, huh? Where would you go? What if you didn’t have a fat savings account and a pension? Or a job? Or a family to take care of you? Where would you go then?”
Aiden took another step toward the man, who was broader and taller than he was, white face red with cold, green eyes flickering between anger and panic.
“I told you sir, you need to step back.” The cop’s hands were up, warning him away. Aiden stepped again. The cop shoved him, hitting his chest, hard. Aiden’s arms wheeled out, grasping at nothing. There was only cold air.
He tried to catch himself but his boots hit a patch of ice on stone.
He heard his head crack on a rock, Shit, he thought, as he blacked out for the second time in a week.
15
Tobias
Tobias was in his office, Ibeyi on low, the two women’s voices chanting devotional songs to the Orisha, in time with drums and synthesizers. The scent of fresh herbs wreathing his head was undercut by the sharp tang of the alcohol he used to make his tinctures. He was feeling a little more back in the groove this morning. The candles were still burning on his altar. He’d had quite a talk with Brigid this morning, asking for help.
He felt the power of her hammer, already pounding him into shape. He had no idea how that was going to turn out, but was attempting to let the process happen.
Meanwhile, he had work to do. He had clients to help, and he realized it didn’t really matter how he felt about it. It was his work and the work needed to be done; people needed him even if he was angry, and sad, having a minor crisis of faith, and stuck between the hammer and the anvil of a Goddess he thought he knew, but had really just been avoiding.
So he was feeling okay. Not great, but okay. Well enough.
Tobias’s hands were used to the work, used to picking the proper herbs in the proper amounts, used to grinding them in his mortar and pestle. His body knew what his heart sometimes rejected. The herbs talked to his skin and bones, and to the energy that flowed around his body.
He particularly loved the feel of the wooden pestle in his hand and holding the mortar steady with his other, letting the scent rise as the leaves broke down and the oils were released. He really loved the tactility of this work—it grounded him. Since he tended to be so fiery—hot emotion, quick to seek change—working with the herbs made him slow down. It was kind of funny that he’d become an earth witch, instead of a fire witch. But Raquel said we always seek out balance, we seek out that which we need most to teach us, and the plants were that for him.
The music helped him focus. He let the the sound of drum and voice move through him as he worked. He couldn’t help thinking of Aiden and that meeting. He still wondered what in the world he could do to help. That wasn’t clear yet.
Aiden seemed to want him on his team, to actually go out and do physical protection. Tobias wasn’t sure about that. Despite his emotional volatility, he’d always tried to keep out of trouble, and not step too far forward. It had been strange enough figuring out he was gay when he was eleven. He’d come to terms with it pretty quickly. But of course, not everyone around him did. He was lucky to have had some good friends, even to have a crush on a boyfriend or two. But still, he wasn’t one of those people that shouted to the world who they were in a state of defiance. He knew that was an easy way to get killed.
But he’d defied his father anyway. He’d had to. It was either that, or lose his soul.
At any rate, here he was now, an adult, and successful enough despite the added worry of not knowing if he was going to lose his home.
Despite his questions, he even had a purpose. Herbs and helping people were his purpose. His calling. But Tobias also wondered if there was something mo
re. Talking with Aiden only increased his sense that he wasn’t doing enough.
And the challenge from his parents to give it all away? To focus on nothing more than making money for other rich people? That was actually clarifying. That was not a way to forge justice from the fires of love. If he allowed his father to manipulate him back into being a good boy, he knew he’d lose it all. Coven. Aiden. Healing. Love. And whatever it was that Brigid was trying to teach him now.
He’d become just another cog in the machine designed to chew up people’s lives and spit them out again.
His phone buzzed on the countertop. He looked at it—Aiden. He answered the phone.
“Hey Aiden, this is a nice surprise.”
The man’s voice was weak on the other end of the line. Barely audible. “Are you okay? I can barely hear you.” Aiden spoke up and Tobias dropped the pestle from his right hand. It crunched against the St. John’s Wort in the mortar. He was paying attention now. Oh no. It sounded bad. Really bad.
He glanced toward his altar. The candle flame in front of Brigid’s cross flared upward and then died back down into a steady glow as he listened to Aiden’s story. Aiden slurred his words slightly. Did he have a concussion?
“Did the cop hit you?” No. Shoved him. He’d hit his head on a stone. Tobias’s fist clenched.
“Okay, I can come visit, and I’ll bring you some herbs. Is there anything else you need? Soup or something? I don’t know. What can I do for you?” Tobias grabbed a sheet of paper and scribbled down Aiden’s address.
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes, maybe forty minutes tops. Let me do a couple of things and get some get some herbs together and I’ll be right there. Sit tight. Okay.”
He set the phone down and exhaled, then turned to the altar again. He felt a flash of anger and worry. Walking to the altar, he picked up his athame, his double-sided, black-handled blade, and then his wand, a long, strong, dark piece of hawthorn, sanded and polished.
By Flame Page 7