Don't Stop Believing

by Eve Langlais

  “I think he met someone,” Marjorie confided.

  Shy Orville? I had a hard time imagining it. He was a gentle giant. Gruff, yet soft spoken with a heart of gold, always insisting on walking me to my car the days I came for dinner alone.

  Marjorie left with our orders, and Trish jumped right to it. “Rumor has it you had a visit from Kane and his mom.”

  “How did you know?” I still hadn’t quite gotten used to how quickly news moved in a small town.

  “Someone saw her car parked outside your shop. What did she want?”

  “To warn me off of her son,” I said with a laugh. “She thinks Kane and I have a thing going on.”

  “Do you?”

  “No!”

  “Protesting much?” Trish arched a brow. She’d tamed her hair for work, pulling it back in a bushy pony wrapped in a bright strip of cloth that matched the hue of her shirt.

  “I do not have a thing for Kane.”

  It was over eggplant lasagna, with ground beef, mushrooms, and tons of cheese, that I managed to mumble, “Any recommendations on where I can buy some cute underwear? I think I’m ready to get rid of my granny panties.” Comfortable to the extreme, up to my waist, cotton, loose. But not exactly the sexiest thing.

  My BFF didn’t bat an eye as she said, “The kind that is cute but functional, or that screams, take me, I’m yours?”

  “Both?”

  “Things must be getting serious between you and Darryl.” Trish nodded with approval. She’d been team Darryl from the start.

  “I think so. He came by the store today just to say hi.”

  “Only hi?”

  I blushed. “We’re taking things slow.” Mostly by circumstance. I was ready to ignore my previous trepidation and go for it.

  “Slow can be nice,” she said. “Although I expected that more of Jace than him.”

  She referred to my reticent neighbor, who lately appeared to be keeping to himself. The brief occasions I’d seen him, he’d been skulking in the shadows, dragging around that axe of his. I used to wonder why until I met some of the monsters that lived in the forest around Cambden.

  “What are you two chatting about?” Marjorie arrived with coffee and slid into the booth beside Trish.

  “Darryl popped in to say hi to Naomi today.”

  “Oh, how cute. You and Darryl are adorbs,” she declared.

  “Thanks.” We did have a lot in common being just normal, blue-collar folk. About the same age. We both knew the words to eighties music. I flashed for a second to Kane. Slightly older, a jet-setting architect who’d been pictured intimately with models. I’d never be able to compete.

  Wait, why would I want to? Kane and I were nothing. I had Darryl. A guy I was over the moon for.

  “So when are you planning for Darryl to see your underwear?” Marjorie asked, and I spewed coffee.

  Choked for a good minute while Trish killed herself laughing.

  “Not funny,” I managed to complain in a raspy voice. “Almost drowned.”

  “If you’d seen the look of panic on your face.” Trish snickered.

  “Don’t tease her too bad. It’s not easy getting your feet wet after a bad relationship,” Marjorie, whom we sometimes called Jojo, chided.

  “She’s got to get on that horse sooner or later,” Trish remarked.

  “I will. I am. Soon.” Should I tell them he planned to spend New Year’s with me? Hopefully I wouldn’t chicken out. Having nice panties was all well and good, but I also had to show him the rest of me. Stretch marks. Loose skin. A history etched on my flesh. I wasn’t a woman in her twenties but one creeping up on fifty.

  Life left its mark. Surely Darryl would understand. After all, when I first met him, he’d been a bit overweight and unkempt, too. I liked to think his attention to his appearance started because of me.

  “Soon means we need to get it done.”

  “I’m not working tomorrow,” Marjorie stated.

  “Since it’s Friday, I can close the municipal office early. It’s not like people are stampeding for town services right now.” Trish worked as a clerk handing out permits and information.

  “I’m surprised you’re not busy. Seems like the town is crowded lately.” A glance around the diner showed it packed. The faces all new to me.

  “Lots of new folk moving in, plus we got a few that showed up to be a part of the New Year’s Eve event.”

  “What event?”

  Marjorie blinked her heavily mascaraed eyes at me. “How have you not heard about it? The one at the mill. The party?”

  I shook my head.

  “The mill is throwing a New Year’s Eve bash. Catered food. Drinks. And the whole town is invited.”

  “I already have plans to spend it with Darryl.”

  “Doing what?”

  I’d actually not thought that far ahead. “I don’t know.” Other than I’d assumed it would involve sex at one point.

  “You’re going to the party,” Marjorie declared.

  “I should talk to Darryl first.”

  “He’s probably assuming it’s a foregone conclusion.” Trish tag-teamed with her girlfriend. She did technically know him better than me.

  “Okay. I guess we’re going to the mill.”

  “Do you have an evening gown?” Marjorie asked.

  Trish snorted. “I’ve seen her closet. She’ll need a dress along with the lingerie.”

  Marjorie clapped her hands. “This is sounding to me like a girls’ day at the mall that ends in dinner.”

  It did, and it delighted me to be a part of it. “Sounds like a plan. Say midafternoon tomorrow?”

  “Yes. And be sure to invite Winnie.”

  “I will.” Although, given her new friend, I had my doubts she’d come.

  As for Geoff, I hoped he’d understand. At least he had the Christmas gift he could play now. Although I did wonder how long he planned to stay. He’d arrived Christmas Eve and had yet to tell me when he planned to return home. I didn’t dare ask, mostly because it seemed odd he hadn’t spent the holidays with his fiancée. As a matter of fact, other than stating she had to work for the holidays, he’d not mentioned Helena to me once. Had something happened?

  I wanted to ask, but I chickened out. For me, it was enough Geoff had sought me out. We’d not had the best relationship in the last decade or so, but I was ready to start over.

  Finished with dinner, I left my friends with a wave and promises to meet by the ice cream place in the mall the next day at three. Since Orville wasn’t at work, I had to walk by myself to the alley by my shop. Once I’d have been a nervous wreck, with fingers white-knuckled around my car keys. I had this belief that danger lurked in every shadow. That bad things would befall me.

  That was the old, scared Naomi.

  Now, my head remained high, my gaze steady, and my nerves calm. I’d faced many challenges of late. Some of them deadly. And you know what? I’d come through them all. Even fought back in some cases. I wasn’t weak or cowardly.

  It made me think of a meme I’d seen about a woman entering her don’t-give-a-fuck forties. That was me. I’d survived so much. I could handle anything.

  Even a dark alley. An alley that got darker the more steps I took. My anxiety tickled inside me. Trepidation prickled my skin. The air frosted, my breath white puffs of steam. My lashes iced.

  This wasn’t the first time an uncanny chilliness came after me, but I’d been studying the sigils in my house and online. Identifying the magic hexes used to defend and in some cases attack. I also travelled armed with chalk just in case I needed to use my new knowledge.

  I knelt on the ground, a piece of chalk in hand. Not that I’d need it with frost limning the asphalt. Perfect for drawing. I traced in it, doing my best to ignore the ominous creeping presence—until it made a noise!

  The scrabble of feet momentarily distracted and a quick glance showed several sets of eyes glinting at me. High. Low. Ominous.

  I finished drawing the symbol and
felt it fluttering to life when I placed my hand on it. It wanted to act. It just needed a little more motivation. I spit on it. Blood would be more potent, according to my internet research; however, I wasn’t keen on cutting myself every time I wanted to use magic.

  Bodily fluids. That was what the marks demanded because it somehow linked a witch to the magic. At the combination, the sigil flared, its shape giving it a direction and purpose, only needing a push from me to complete it.

  I whispered intent into the spell. “Give me some light.”

  Brightness oozed from the mark to dispel the darkness. The eyes fled, uttering keening cries that receded. All the shadows burned away. I squinted and closed my lids against it. Too bright. Too fucking bright.

  Where was the switch to turn it off?

  Poof. That suddenly, the light went out. The bulbs reignited as electricity was restored. The frost faded. The faceless and nameless evil that kept coming after me was gone. I still didn’t understand why it attacked, but finally, I knew how to fight.

  I stood and smiled. Maybe I could get the hang of this witch thing. But I drew the line at riding a broom.

  5

  My car, which was a perfect-condition Hyundai Pony, chugged as I headed home. Navy blue vinyl seats matched the dash. The exterior was a cream color. There were four doors with roll-down windows and no AC.

  Be jealous of my vintage ride—unless it was stinking hot in the summer. I remembered my grandma always putting a towel down on the seat so I wouldn’t burn myself on hot plastic. Vinyl proved to be easy to clean but horrible for comfort. Maybe I’d get some car seat covers. A present to myself to celebrate my magical victory. I’d flouted The Chill without anyone’s help, not Jace or my house, nor did Kane ride to my rescue.

  I could defend myself. The knowledge made me eager to learn more. What did the marks in my house mean? They were etched all over: windowsills, doors, the beams that formed the roof in the attic. My grandma’s old recipe book used to have them too, but the darned thing had disappeared on me again. I had it in my car, and now it was gone. Book snatched!

  Good thing I had a few pictures stored on my phone. Zooming brought forth some examples. I did a reverse image search on the squiggly sigil I used this very night, the one for light, and I found a forum dedicated to witches and sorceresses. Warlocks, too, but they, for the most part, appeared to be rather pompous asses.

  I devoured the thread on my light sigil. People actually discussing how the magic of it worked. They were frank about their successes. Chalk was good, as it wrote on most surfaces. Liquid could run and distort lines, making the sigil a dud. They even discussed how the curvature on it would strengthen or diminish the amount of brightness. Like a switch. Good to know for next time.

  Because there would be another attack either by The Chill or more winged minions of darkness. Since my arrival, the feints against me had been constant. They’d also failed, and now I found myself suddenly pumped by the idea of not waiting for them to come after me. I should hunt the evil down.

  How dare it keep attacking. What had I done to it? My faceless enemy owed me an explanation, maybe an apology, and then I’d hex their ass. There was a mark to do it. Supposedly it gave the hexed a hairy, boil-covered butt.

  But taking down my enemies in cruel ways wasn’t the only thing I studied. I avidly followed a discussion started by the KingofKnaves69, which itemized the various fluids that could be used to access magic, blood being the most powerful of what they called the necro magic. That was followed by spit then urine. Even cum, both male ejaculate and female fluid, could pack a punch, making orgies especially potent.

  I preferred to cut myself rather than become the filling in a sex sandwich. I was more of a one-person-at-a-time kind of gal. So sex magic was out. Nor did I ever see myself using menstrual blood. Used tampons belonged in the garbage, not to mention there was an argument that the unfertilized lining had adverse effects on spells, while others said the raw potential in it added a richness.

  All the witches agreed that amniotic fluid trumped all, with men unable to tap it. The fluid could only be used by the mother.

  But that wasn’t the case with blood. A witch could sacrifice someone else for the more powerful stuff. Apparently, a witch gang—known as the Baker’s Coven—bragged about how they only used the blood of their enemies for their spells.

  Fucking witch gangs. I wondered if they got to wear cute jackets and went on cruises.

  As I drove, I thought about the other things I’d learned, such as that the gene for magic was hereditary, more often passed on via the female branches. Knowing my grandma had powers, I now was curious. Did my mother have magic, too? As for my dad, he must have known, and yet he never told me. He moved me far away from my grandma when I was a young girl. By the time I returned after his death, my eyes and ears were closed to the truth.

  Not anymore. I am special. And I wanted to know what it meant. Such as, did my kids carry the witchy blood, too? After all they were both mine. Mine, but one of them wasn’t Martin’s, according to my grandma’s book. I’d inherited the genealogy book from her. The leather on it was smooth, the tree etched on the cover a prelude to what was inside.

  I’d finally figured out how to read it. It contained the names of my ancestors. Pages of them, going back centuries, branching in ways that boggled the mind. It took flipping to the very rear and the last few empty spots to find the lineage I was looking for. The Rousseaux family. I traced the names with my finger, recognizing those of my great-grandparents, who had two children. Their son died without heirs, leaving my grandma, who’d had two daughters. The oldest died young. My poor grandmother, outliving both her children. My mom had only me. I popped out two babies.

  Geoff first, with the line for father oddly blank, and then my daughter with a name filled in under father that I didn’t recognize.

  Even now, the recollection of what I’d seen in that book had me tightening my hands on the wheel. White-knuckling it. Stressed, too. A part of me wanted to forget what I’d seen. Obviously, the person who’d written it in was mistaken.

  I didn’t know a Berith. And who had only one name?

  A lie. At the same time, I couldn’t ignore it. After all, Grandma was a witch. She knew things, and many of those things were in the books I’d inherited. There were three of them in total, differing in appearance and content. One a book of kitchen remedies passed down, essentially a grimoire of spells that could be whipped up at home—although I was having trouble collecting tears of joy from a murderer.

  The second book contained the Rousseaux family tree.

  To round it out was a third creepy book, bound by some strap and unwilling to open. It made me wonder what was inside.

  I mean look at what I’d discovered in the lineage book. So many stories of my ancestors, male and female alike. Some generations needing only a paragraph to summarize their accomplishments, others taking pages. The writing was tight, faded, and in a language I couldn’t read until the entries of about a century ago.

  My great-great-grandmother had a short passage where I’d gleaned she considered herself the guardian of Cambden, and especially of the lake. What the summary didn’t explain was what she guarded and why, only that she took the task seriously. One of her daughters, great-aunt Mathilda, died young but managed a line that said, Died to fulfill the terms of the pact.

  What pact?

  My grandmother was the only person of her generation to stay in Cambden. All her siblings and cousins left. Their lines died out. My grandmother had an empty spot where her life summary would have gone. My mother’s section had a few shaky lines done in handwriting I recognized. My grandmother had left some words.

  May she find peace in the next life.

  Even my dad had something for his. He should have known fate would drag her back.

  My gaze kept going back to Grandma’s blank summary. Who was supposed to write it? Her children were long gone, and I never realized my grandmother was a witch. I�
�d been so blind to everything until I came home.

  But more disturbing than the blank spots for Grandmother and the cryptic messages for my parents was the fact I knew who wrote in the wrong name for Winnie’s father. I knew that handwriting. Very neat despite its cursive whorls. Impossible. My grandmother died before either of the children was born.

  Obviously, the book worked off some kind of magic. It didn’t mean it was true. The claim was crazy. I’d never cheated on my husband. Never even thought of it

  Yet this book had the name Berith inscribed. I wondered… Flipping back through the pages, the generations, I noticed no other incidents of the sort except for a great-great-great-something aunt, who had a different father for each of her kids. But those men all had proper names.

  The book obviously got the wrong information. But who would have lied to it?

  Thinking about that stupid book made me miss the entrance to my driveway. It meant turning around at the next house. As I pulled in so that I could turn around, I noticed my neighbor had the curtains on his place drawn tight. Usually Jace skulked around the woods, a master at spooking me. Him and his axe. For a short while, I’d thought him interested in me given how often he appeared when I was in trouble, a hero to save me. But of late, he was nowhere to be seen. It was like he’d disappeared and along with him the constant suggestions I leave and never come back.

  I reversed and managed to find the right driveway. Look at me, I arrived home intact. No tree falling on my car. No sudden slick roads and spooky shit sending me spinning into ditches. All hail Naomi, conquering the commute.

  I parked by my garage, with carriage house doors that I freaking loved, and eyed the expansive window on the second story. New since this morning.

  Please let it be a studio. I’d discovered a love of art. Not a skill, I should add. My attempts were atrocious in most cases, and yet that didn’t stop me from wanting to create.

  I entered the house, and the only one to greet me was my cat. With a strident meow, Grisou came running out of nowhere and slammed into my legs. He’d gotten awfully big. Winnie joked I’d adopted a Maine Coon, which apparently got to be huge.