by Sarah Dreher
Her eyelids were too heavy to keep open. She let them drift shut. Just a few minutes, she granted herself. A few minutes to rest and then I’ll be able to...whatever it was I came in here to do.
Look something up. That was it, find the notebook on spells and curses.
But she couldn’t find it, and then she couldn’t find her reading glasses. She looked over every corner of the living room, her reading room, the kitchen. She asked the others, no one had seen them. No one recalled her wearing them since yesterday afternoon. Started upstairs but remembered she hadn’t read in bed last night, too tired. She had worn them at the Esbat, to read that newspaper article. She checked the pockets of her cloak. Not there.
She’d lost them. She never lost her glasses. She was known for not losing things, and now she’d lost her glasses.
Slipping away. That was what it was, slipping away. Away and away and away...
That was when she sat down to rest.
How long could she go on this way? Useless as a bag of sand in a drought. Never been useless before. Didn’t like it. Made her feel like garbage, garbage too worthless to even collect flies.
Suddenly she wanted Grace. If she was dying, at least let her die with the face of her lover in her mind.
She tried to get up to reach the telephone, but she was too tired, too heavy to move. Later, when she’d had a little nap. Just a little nap.
It was two in the afternoon by the time she awoke, a dampness at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Leaking tears in her sleep, drooling. Senile and brain-dead, she thought with disgust at her own body.
How had it happened so fast? In weeks, she’d fallen completely apart. Women didn’t do that. Men did, they suddenly let go, everything at once, overnight practically. But women eased into old age gracefully, gradually, able to savor each change, to know it and wonder at it if they were so inclined.
Hermione was inclined, or had been. Now they’d taken that opportunity away from her.
Tears of self-pity rose in her eyes and made her hate herself even more.
She’d been on the verge of hanging up the phone when Grace answered. “Grace.”
“Angel,” Grace said when she heard Hermione’s voice. “How are you? I’ve been worried sick. I’ve dropped in on you, astrally, a dozen times in the last week, but you’re always asleep.”
“That’s what I am, most of the time. I’m sorry I haven’t returned your visits. It seems I just don’t have the energy.”
“Tell me what’s going on. All of it.”
Hermione described the new tiredness and the new confusion and the depression and the Esbat and Mogwye and Cutter and the tasteless pie and her missing glasses...
“Run that last one by me again,” Grace said.
“I’ve lost my reading glasses.”
“And you last had them where?”
“The last time I remember was at the...” She broke off.
Grace waited.
“At the Esbat,” Hermione finished, hope sparking a little. “Mogwye has them.”
“Which is why she could get the drop on you,” her lover said. “She has your possession in her possession. It’s the only way a left-hand-path two-bit, poor excuse for a witch could possibly out-hex you.”
“I’m not hexing her, Grace.”
“Well, maybe you should.”
Hermione smiled. Grace was like the Goddess Demeter, soft as summer when everyone behaved. But she could winter all over you if you harmed someone she loved. “I’m not going to hex her,” she said.
“Of course you’re not.” Grace sighed lovingly. “But that says nothing about what I might do.”
“Grace…”
“What are the chances of you getting a wee snippet of something of hers?”
“Slim, I’m afraid. I’m not very good at breaking and entering.”
“But your friend Cutter is.” When Hermione, disapproving of using a third party in Magic business, didn’t answer, she went on. “For the love of the Goddess, Angel, it’s only for two days. Until the Soul Retrieval. And it’s not to hurt her, it’s to protect yourself. Now, how much can that hurt Cutter’s karma? And what if it is his karma to do this sort of thing? Do you really want to interfere with that?”
“You’re always turning things upside down,” Hermione said in exasperation. “Why do you always confuse me?”
“It’s a Leo thing,” Grace said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Are you sure it’s not an Italian thing?”
“That, too. You wouldn’t understand that, either.”
“I miss you, Grace.”
“I miss you, too. But I’ll be there tomorrow, unless you want me to come tonight.”
“Tomorrow’s fine. I feel better.” She really did feel better. But Grace always made her feel better. Something told her it wouldn’t last.
“How’s that niece of yours? Making any progress?”
“I’m afraid not,” Hermione said. “She still doesn’t want to touch anything psychic.”
“Slow and stubborn as a mule,” Grace said. “Is she coming to the Journey?”
“To it, but maybe not on it. I don’t know if she’ll participate.”
“She has to move at her own pace, I suppose. Can’t make a plant grow by stretching it. Well,” she said with finality, “I’m going to put away my groceries. You save enough energy for a good romp between the sheets.”
Hermione grinned. “Will do. Who with?”
“With the Goddess, of course. All acts of love and pleasure are her sacraments. Mine, too.”
Mogwye didn’t like the looks of this one. For one thing, she was tall. Tall and Spanish-looking. Mogwye didn’t trust tall, Spanish-looking women. Never had. She didn’t know why, probably something the dreams had warned her about.
She had a cold, aloof, expressionless face, and it was hard to tell if she was looking down her nose, or just tall. The face of a tax collector, or one of those licensing people from the state who were always sniffing around. Mogwye tried to pick up something psychically but couldn’t, which felt like tax collector for sure.
The woman said she was from New York City, and rattled off a list of names of people who’d recommended Mogwye’s services. Most of them she’d never heard of. A few were “celebrity psychics” who got themselves interviewed on television. When Mogwye wondered aloud how they could have come by her name, Señora said someone knew someone who’d been to her, and had told friends she was good at her work.
Mogwye wished she kept better records so she could trace it back. But if she wanted to spend her life that way, she’d have been a bookkeeper.
Señora claimed someone was stealing from her. She needed to know who it was and what to do about it.
What was she doing in this part of Massachusetts? Mogwye wanted to know. She busied herself with lighting candles and getting out her cards, to make it appear like a casual, conversation-making question.
The tall woman settled herself gracefully in a chair and placed her handbag on her lap. She was on her way to the Colrain Conference Center, she said.
The Clean Living Center, Mogwye always called it to herself. A bunch of Earth-worshipping, weed-eating, non-smoking makers of prayer wheels pretending to be Indians. Who made their “guests” wash the dishes and charged a pretty penny for the privilege. Self-righteous, self-proclaimed New Age types who chanted over their dinners—holding hands, of course—and told themselves they were Healing the Earth. All this a half mile down the road from the defunct, rotting nuclear power plant.
It was a little hard to visualize Two Spanish Eyes in that place, but you never knew. All sorts of people showed up there.
Meanwhile, La Dama was quietly waiting for her to speak. For pearls of wisdom to cascade from her lips.
Mogwye closed her eyes. “I think this question is not for the cards,” she said. No question was ever for the cards. She didn’t use the cards. They were too confusing, what with their spreads and reversals and Major Arcana an
d Court Cards and God knows what. If she used the cards, she’d be looking things up every three seconds. “Is there something I could hold? Something you usually wear or frequently handle?”
The woman searched through her purse and pulled out a fresh lace-embroidered handkerchief and offered it to her.
“It would be better with something you use,” Mogwye said.
Doña Española smiled in a modest way. “But I always carry this with me. Always. It’s handmade, you see. By a relative, now deceased. It’s very dear to me.”
Well, that was no surprise. This one’s nose probably never dripped. It wouldn’t be seemly.
Nodding solemnly, Mogwye took the handkerchief and held it between her hands. Picking up vibrations. Again, there was nothing. Was the woman dead? A zombie? She frowned. “It’s someone close to you,” she fudged. “No, someone who is no longer close to you. Someone angry. A woman.”
That was safe enough. There was probably not a woman alive who hadn’t had a falling out with another woman at some time in the past.
“It isn’t your money that she wants,” Mogwye went on. “She wants… she wants to get your attention. She wants you to notice her so she can apologize. She wants to be your friend again.”
She opened her eyes. “Does that sound like anyone you know?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it does.”
“Reach out to her,” Mogwye said. “Let her know you also want to be friends. Or don’t you?”
“I do. Very much.”
The woman stood up and retrieved her handkerchief. “Thank you so much. This has been very helpful.” She dropped money in the bowl by the door and left.
Jesus H. Christ, where do they come from?
Mogwye was exhausted. It was as if she’d been reading non-stop for days. Muchita Bonita was a real energy sucker.
For the first time in years, Mogwye wished she had a television set, so she
could just vegetate.
“There you go,” Grace said as she handed Hermione her glasses and began stripping off her formal clothes. “Let’s get sacramental.”
Chapter 10
“All right,” Elizabeth said, “before we start is there anything anyone needs to say or ask?”
Marylou raised her hand. “Do you make a lot of enemies in this work?”
Elizabeth frowned, puzzled by the question. “Enemies? Not that I know of. People come to me for help. If the spirits can help them, they’re usually grateful. If not, they accept it.” She contemplated for a moment. “I’m curious. What makes you ask that?”
“Your jewelry.”
The shaman looked down at her necklace of turquoise and her bracelets of silver and tourmaline and rough wooden beads. “I don’t understand.”
“You wear so much jewelry. A witch told me that meant you were trying to ward off a lot of curses.”
“Oh, Marylou,” Aunt Hermione said in a sadly exasperated tone.
Elizabeth didn’t even smile. “That could work, if you believe it.”
“It’s hogwash,” Aunt Hermione said roughly.
Stoner’d never heard her aunt talk like this before. She felt a wave of sick despair.
Grace tugged at Aunt Hermione’s sleeve. “What’s the matter with you? Are you possessed?”
Aunt Hermione blinked and seemed to come to herself. “I’m sorry. I’d never discount someone else’s beliefs. Marylou, Elizabeth, my apologies.”
“Forget it,” Marylou said.
Elizabeth turned to the rest of them. “This is what we frequently see in cases of soul loss. Changes of personality, impulsivity. As if the shadow/unconscious had taken control of the rest of the psyche.”
“Good God,” Aunt Hermione muttered. “A Freudian shaman.”
“I think we’d better start as soon as possible,” Elizabeth said. “But, Marylou, to address your question, my Power Animal protects me from curses and spells. The jewelry is a reminder of past Journeys of power or significance, or suggestions from my guides.”
Marylou nodded.
“The tourmaline, for instance, was recommended by a guide who calls himself Hebrew Prophet. It takes incoming negative energy, focuses it, and directs it back to the sender.”
“Clever,” Marylou said. “I wonder if it would work against airline ticket agents.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Try it.” She looked around. “Now, if there are no other questions, I suggest we take a bathroom break. Once we get going, we don’t want to have to stop. Then we can collect our items for the altar.”
She set about preparing the room, shading the windows, setting up candles, clearing space for them all amid the hundreds of rocks and crystals and feathers that were scattered—but probably not really scattered—about on the floor, on the couch, on chairs. She brought in bowls of water and laid out two colorful blankets side by side. Placed small pillows at one end of the blankets, and topped them off with bandannas folded for eye shades.
Stoner watched her for a while in silence. “Elizabeth,” she said after a while.
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I want to do this.”
“Still have reservations?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Elizabeth stopped what she was doing and sat beside her on the couch. “It’s perfectly safe,” she said. “The spirits won’t come near you unless you ask them to, and they certainly won’t come near you if you ask them not to.”
“I know.” It still felt wrong.
“You don’t even have to be in the room. You’re only here to welcome Hermione’s soul parts home. That happens after the Journey. Gwen and Marylou and Grace will be here with you. They’re not going on the Journey, either.”
She looked up. “I can do that? It’s not cheating?”
Elizabeth smiled. “It’s not cheating.”
“I feel like such a baby, not wanting to do this.”
Elizabeth touched her hand. “It’s not your time, Stoner. Maybe it’s not even your lifetime for this. If something’s holding you back, you should trust that feeling.”
Stoner wrapped her fingers through Elizabeth’s. “You must think I’m really silly.”
“No,” Elizabeth said, “I think you’re very wise. You just don’t know how much you know.” She gave Stoner’s hand a little squeeze. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”
She could see what they were doing through the French doors that led from the living room into Elizabeth’s Journey room. Aunt Hermione lying on one of the blankets, her eyes covered. Marylou and Grace and Gwen lounged at the back of the room. Elizabeth shook her rattle as she circled Aunt Hermione. Now and then she’d whistle, or do a kind of wordless singing.
Stoner stroked the cat, whose name this week was a sharply-spoken “In!” The table in front of her was decorated with crystals Grace had provided, silver jewelry from Marylou, a deer hide medicine bag Gwen had made for the occasion, photographs of Aunt Hermione at all ages, and food. Small sandwiches and candies (in case the soul piece that returned was a child), licorice, cookies, and cherry pie. Lots of cherry pie. That had been Marylou’s idea. In case Aunt Hermione decided to stay wherever it was she went, she said, they’d have something to lure her back.
There was Aunt Hermione’s favorite casserole, a marvelous concoction from the ’50s made of wide noodles, tuna, onions, and Velveeta cheese. Crab Rangoon and egg rolls and a mountain of Dragon and Phoenix from the Chinese take-out. Beans and potato salad from Bub’s Bar-B-Que. Collard greens and corn bread from Dot and Mel’s Soul Food Heaven.
Marylou had claimed she was going to lose her lunch right on the spot. The nameless casserole was bad enough, but boiled collard greens were the icing on the cake.
Gwen pointed out that Marylou relished canned smoked oysters, and you couldn’t get any more vile than that, they stank right through the can.
Marylou had fumbled for a response, failed, and decided she had to oversee the iced tea.
Elizabeth had stopped circling and rattling
and chanting and had turned on the shamanic drumming CD. She stretched out on the other blanket, hip to hip with Aunt Hermione, and covered her eyes.
Stoner leaned back against the pillows and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving that she hadn’t had to be in there. Nothing much was happening except the drumming. At least nothing she could see. But it felt much safer out here with “In!” She resisted the temptation to snitch a Crab Rangoon, and let her eyes drift shut.
Rapid drumming brought her awake. She felt rested, more rested than she had in weeks… had it only been weeks? It felt like months. As if she had slept without dreams, without fear, without worry. Deep, luxuriant, safe sleep.
Yet, now that she was awake, something nagged at her. There was something she had to do, something she had forgotten. She tried to track it down, but it wouldn’t come.
Elizabeth was helping Aunt Hermione into a sitting position, placing her own cupped hands over the top of her head. Then she began to circle her again, rattle in hand.
Bills all paid? She thought so.
Maybe the car. Was I supposed to bring the car in for an oil change or inspection? About that funny squeaking sound when you step on the accelerator? Did I leave something in the trunk that’s melting or rotting or getting ready to blow up?
She didn’t think so.
The others were clustered around Aunt Hermione, laughing, and patting and kissing her.
Elizabeth slipped through the door and came to sit on the edge of the table in front of Stoner.
“How’d it go?” Stoner asked.
“Good. And not so good,” Elizabeth said. She was obviously troubled. “We did retrieve some soul parts, but I don’t think they were all that significant. I wanted to talk to you before the rest come out. Hermione needs to rest and incorporate what we’ve done. I don’t want to worry her at this point.”
Stoner felt enough worry for both of them. “What can we do?”
“Several things. I’ll outline them along with the others.” Elizabeth glanced toward the Journey room. “The problem is, I couldn’t find out what happened to this missing piece. Usually, whether they choose to return or not, I can find out where they are. But there’s no trace. Now, I could do another Journey, or try an extraction in case it’s not a loss we’re looking at, but an excess of negativity that’s built up. But I really don’t think that’s it.”