She had no doubt Zion was an empath who would need training any day now. Raquel wanted to wait a few more years, though she’d taught him some basics of shielding and some other energy management techniques. Brenda hoped she didn’t wait too long on the other stuff. The kid was growing up fast. And growing into himself.
“’Night, Brenda. Tempest. Cassie. Alejandro. Selene.”
“Good night, Zion,” they chorused.
Brenda reached for a piece of cheddar cheese and a cracker. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Lucy should be here already. Moss had one last-drop off, and I have no idea where Tobias is.”
There was a knock on the front door, followed by the sound of thumping and rustling in the foyer.
A minute later, Tobias and Lucy both walked in, sans jackets and shoes.
“We brought more wine!” Lucy hoisted up a bottle of red. She wore her typical work shirt and jeans, and colored paint speckled her dark brown hair.
“Hooray!”
“You know where the glasses are,” Raquel said. “And bring in a couple of chairs from the kitchen if you want them, otherwise, there’s the poofs.”
Tobias ducked his head back into the living room, a wry grin in the center of his neat beard. “Did you just call me a poof?”
Raquel threw a cloth napkin in his general direction. It didn’t go very far.
“If the description fits,” she said.
Brenda was so happy to be here with her family. She felt a huge weight lift from her chest, as though maybe everything would be okay. More likely, though? This was the calm in the center of a rolling storm. A bright spring sky before more rain came.
You feel this good because you’re avoiding what comes next.
That was the trouble with doing all this spiritual work: you ended up busting yourself sometimes. Brenda had trained hard to become honest with herself. It was the right thing. But it didn’t mean she had to like it.
Brenda looked around at her friends. Activist Moss, who hadn’t arrived yet, was the coven’s conscience and Lucy, a Latinx house painter, backed him up by cutting through the bullshit every time.
Tobias, their resident white, gay hipster, was a talented herbalist, and redheaded Cassiel spoke with ghosts. Selene was as skilled in operative magic as anyone Brenda had ever met, even willing to do things like bindings and curses. Things that Brenda usually tried to avoid.
Each person in the coven had their skills, talents, and their role. Brenda hated that she was questioning her own role all of a sudden. But that was the other thing coven was good for. If you were feeling off, or avoiding something, you’d best bring it to the coven, and they would help to set you right again.
The newcomers made up little plates piled with olives, salami, and cheese. Cassiel handed around the bottle of wine, filling glasses. Brenda sighed. She wanted nothing more than to hang out for a while, and plan this month’s ritual.
But that wasn’t going to happen. She had to tell the coven what was going on with her. Arrow and Crescent was founded on honesty. The witch needed to be honest with herself, and honest with her coven, otherwise, the magic began to fall apart.
She’d already gotten “the look” from Raquel, and Tempest of course was already well aware that some “weird shit”—as she would call it—was going on.
Lucy and Tobias handed wineglasses to those who didn’t have them, dragged out a couple of leather ottomans from the corners of the room, and folded themselves down in front of the food-laden, square coffee table.
“Shall we start with a quick check-in while we wait for Moss?” Selene asked, sweeping their long black hair back. Their face was always so pale, their lipstick perfect. Brenda knew it took effort for Selene to always look so good. They had to. It was part of their armor against a world that all too often didn’t treat them very well.
The coven was gathered to plan their Spring Equinox ritual. Brenda knew what she had to tell them was going to take a lot longer than a quick check-in, but she was also aware that they couldn’t go into a cross quarter ritual without knowing why she was so off balance.
Having one of the coven founders leading a ritual about the balance of day and night, winter and summer, when she was barely holding her shit together? Not so great.
She cleared her throat. “I need to go last, I’m afraid. I’ve got something going on that I need help with, and you all need to hear it.”
Raquel nodded, and Tempest reached out and squeezed her foot.
“Well shit,” Alejandro said. “I was hoping we had a break from…” He waved his hand in a circle.
“Yeah. I did, too, believe me,” Brenda replied.
The front door opened, and Moss came in, shucking off his jacket to reveal a tattered Earth First T-shirt.
“Hey brother,” Alejandro said, “come get some wine and cheese. Brenda has something to tell us.”
Guess there wasn’t going to be a quick round of check-ins after all.
What in Diana’s name was she going to tell them?
“Tempest? Any clue where I should start?” she asked.
Tempest shook her head. “I could tell them about our customers coming in the shop this week, saying they hear voices, then bursting into tears, or running away. Or about you all of a sudden looking sick and pale, like you’d just been poisoned. Or about whatever it was that was going on yesterday with our gem distributor, and the new halo you have around your head, but…”
“Halo?” What the hell was she talking about?
“Come on, Brenda. I know you feel it. But, what I was going to say was, there’s a bunch of stuff going on with you that I know you haven’t talked about. So no, I don’t know where you should begin.”
Tempest sounded pissed off. Brenda didn’t blame her. She must be worried. I don’t really have a halo, do I?
“Oh, Goddess. I honestly don’t know what to tell you all.”
“Just try,” Raquel said.
Her oldest friend in the Craft looked at her with a steady, unflinching gaze. Her eyes were kind, but no way was Raquel letting her off the hook.
“I can tell you what I see,” Cassiel said. “I see an angel behind you.”
“That’s impossible,” Brenda said. That woman, Caroline, said I looked like an angel…
“Maybe so, but I don’t think so.” Cassie’s voice was gentle.
Brenda set down her wineglass and put her face in her hands. She just needed the pressure on her forehead and her cheeks. Taking three deep breaths, she steadied herself.
“Eat some hummus,” Moss said, holding out his plate, his brown eyes concerned.
Brenda’s stomach lurched. “Oh no. I’ve been puking off and on for two days. I can’t.”
“So take another sip of wine and tell us…something.” Raquel said. “Anything. You know we have a ritual to plan and you know we can’t do that until we figure out what the hell is going on with you.”
Raquel sounded sharp. Impatient. Brenda knew both things were true, but she also knew that without that, she wouldn’t have the courage to say a word. Raquel knew her so well.
She took another drink of wine, took three deep breaths in, allowing her belly and chest to expand. Then she set her feet flat on the floor, sat up, and began.
“There’s a voice. It isn’t my intuition. It’s not one of my Guides. It keeps telling me things about people. And people keep telling me things that other voices have been telling them. And it all feels connected. But I don’t know how. People are in trouble. The voices are only part of it. There’s…something.” She shook her head, seeking the threads that felt just out of reach.
“I’m not sure yet. But it feels larger than just a new spirit guide, or the usual people coming to the metaphysical shop for help. It’s…deeper. More troubling. And it’s having a physical effect on me. Making me feel ill, but also strangely energized. Buzzing and humming with energy. It’s weird.”
Alejandro stared at her intently, sweeping his eyes around her body and he
r head. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to read her. In this sort of situation, coven members all had permission to read one another. It was part of how they kept one another in check, and made sure no one was going off the rails.
“Tempest is right,” he said.
Brenda froze. Nonononono.
“I think there is some sort of angelic presence around you. It’s actually trying to enter your auric field. No wonder you’re having the symptoms you are.”
Brenda shoved herself past Tempest and the others, and ran for the half bath under the stairs. Shoving the toilet seat up, she flung herself to her knees and heaved out a wash of red wine. She kept on until she was empty, stomach cramping, sour taste in her mouth.
“Brenda? Here. Let me help you.” Raquel’s hands were on her, helping her to sit back. There was the sound of water running and then Raquel was next to her again, wiping her face gently with a damp washcloth.
Brenda leaned into her friend’s shoulder and began to cry.
“They’re right. They’re right. There was a shaft of light in my kitchen. I walked through it. It…”
“Shhh. It’s okay. It what?”
Brenda took the washcloth and wiped her face again.
“It made me feel so afraid.”
10
Caroline
The Road Home was truly magical. Walking through the door was like walking into the woods. The walls and ceiling of the shop were painted with a tall canopy of trees. Slender trunked birches with all-seeing eyes peering out from the white bark seemed to follow Caroline as she walked by, as though they were alive.
Caroline breathed in the scent of apple blossoms and cinnamon, a strange combination, but one that made her feel at ease. Taken all together, everything in the shop seemed designed to spark imagination. She would have loved a place like this as a teenager. It was just enough Tolkien fantasy mixed with the spice of real adult magic that it would’ve appealed to her younger self.
Caroline needed more magic in her life. That was why she started with the gems. Not only did the stones speak to her, she wanted them to speak to her. She wanted a life a little bit outside of the ordinary.
You’re far from that now, aren’t you? Instead of courting the extraordinary, you married a handsome man who wanted to keep you safe. But really all he wanted was someone to control.
Caroline shook off those thoughts. She was sick of them. Then she took in a deep breath, and coaxed a smile onto her face. Hand on her rolling case, she trundled into the shop. Frankly, smiling in a place like this wasn’t hard. Fairy dolls flew among the display cases, dangling from the ceiling on clear filament. It looked as though they swooped and fluttered among the trees. When she turned the corner, she saw a small, red-capped gnome peering out from between two bookcases. One of the cases held books with illustrations of mythical creatures and mythical lands.
It was funny, she’d been supplying The Road Home for years, but had never really thought about what sort of shop it was. There were a lot of businesses like that; she just filled their orders and didn’t give it much thought. When had she stopped wondering?
She was caught by a display of scented oils. The Rose Queen. Mystic Buttercup. Abandon Sorrow. Choose Love. Her right hand hovered between Abandon Sorrow and Protect Yourself. She probably needed both.
“May I help you with something?”
Caroline turned. The speaker was a mid-twenties white dandy wearing a crimson brocade vest, white shirt, black trousers, and crimson shoes. Perched on his dark hair at a jaunty angle was a top hat. Strands of dark hair curled out under the hat. They matched the mustache and goatee surrounding his ruby lips. What a character. Delightful.
Caroline let go of the rolling case and held out her hand. “I’m Caroline from Amethyst Gems. I took a detour after the Vegas gem show and wanted to stop by.”
“Caroline! How wonderful!” He eyed her case. “I see you brought some stock. What a treat! Come back, come back.”
He led her through a labyrinthine warren. How large was this place, anyway? Some kind of remixed Renaissance music piped softly through the shop.
A long wooden counter curved around the back corner of the shop. There was a ruby velvet curtained door to the left.
“If you want to set some things out on the counter, I’d love to see them. It’s a slow day today, and even if were disturbed, I can always take a break to help any random customers who wander in.”
The shop was a prime piece of real estate. It was off the main street but that worked to its advantage, she imagined. It was on a corner, so while it looked as if you were walking into a dark warren at first, actually the back of the shop was quite bright. A bank of windows with stained glass strips at the top opened up onto a residential street.
“My name is Joshua, by the way. I figured you knew that but it also seems rude to not properly introduce myself.” He doffed his top hat and gave quarter bow.
“Well, it’s good to meet you, Joshua.” Caroline couldn’t help but smile now. The day was looking up.
As she bent to unpack the rolling case, she thought about the fact that ever since she arrived in Portland, she’d been shown nothing but kindness. How had she allowed herself to become so isolated? She barely even saw her parents anymore. Once they made it clear how much they disliked Rafe, it had just became easier to stay away.
You’ve lived ten miles from your parents all these years, she thought, and you only see them what, four times a year? How did you let this happen, Caroline?
“Do you want the good stuff first?”
“Yes please!” Joshua actually rubbed his hands together. Caroline laughed.
“You look like an excited child.” She smiled up at him and started lifting out soft velvet bags from the case and setting them on the wooden countertop.
“Feel free to take things out of the bags,” she said. “I should’ve asked if you wanted to see gems first or jewelry. The ones I just handed you are set gems.”
He drew a piece of large labradorite, chased and banded in silver, out of a bag and gasped, holding it up to the light coming in through the windows. Caroline paused to watch; she loved the way the peacock striations of the feldspar mineral caught and captured the light.
“That’s a particularly nice piece, isn’t it?”
They oohed and ahhed over gems and jewelry for the better part of an hour, Joshua pausing a couple of times to help some customers. Once Joshua had made his selections, she started packing up some of the things he wasn’t interested in.
Caroline realized she hadn’t felt this good in a long time.
Sydney had told her to take it one day at a time, and Caroline knew that was sound advice. That was really all she could do. There was no way to know what in the world was going to happen, what Rafe was going to do, or, she realized, even where she was going to end up.
So far, Portland seemed like a jewel itself. A place she could see herself making a home. But she also knew that that was getting ahead of herself.
And Brenda is here. The thought came, unbidden, as she rolled some stock up in Bubble Wrap, making certain it was secure. She shook her head at herself again. She had no time to think of love right now, not when it felt as if her life was going through a slow-motion implosion.
“Why don’t you look around the shop before we settle up?” Joshua said. “It’s always nice when my vendors can get a sense of who we are and what we do here.”
“I need to stretch my legs anyway,” Caroline said, and besides, she was pretty fascinated by this shop. She still couldn’t put her finger on what kind of shop it was exactly. It was part fantasy bookstore, part metaphysical shop, and part pure whimsy. She strolled through the displays and books, pausing at a standing glass-and-wood display case filled with small icons, and pieces of silver and wood jewelry.
There were illuminated saints, halos picked out in gold leaf. There was St. George, slaying a dragon, and other figures, pointing upward or looking serene. Caroline didn’t recognize
most of them. She had been raised nominally Buddhist, but had had a couple of Catholic friends growing up, and now, running in New Age circles, she had definitely known some people into things like saints and angels.
Caroline? For her it had always just been about the stones.
A large silver oval caught her eye. The raised pattern in the center of the chunky medallion intrigued her. She wasn’t certain, but it looks like a flaming sword crossing a large swan’s wing.
“Did you see something you like?” She hadn’t heard Joshua come up behind her, which was a little strange, but she wasn’t paying as close attention to her surroundings these days, she guessed. Sydney’s husband, Dan, would say that if she was going to remain safe, she had to change that. Well, she should work on that tomorrow.
Pointing to the medallion in the case, she asked “May I see that one?”
Joshua unlocked the case with the tiny key, and drew out the medallion, resting it inside her palm. “That’s a powerful piece,” he said. “It’s tuned to the Archangel Michael.”
“Are there stories about him? Or…I don’t know, particular qualities he has? Like some of the rocks do?”
“He’s a protector and a challenger. He often comes to people when they need him most.” Joshua paused, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t mean to intrude, and please tell me to mind my own business, but…”
“But you’re wondering if I’m in some sort of trouble.” Caroline sighed.
He nodded. A ray of yellow light from the stained glass shifted up and down on his cheek as he did so.
“I suppose I am. What tipped you off?”
“Well, I noticed you went for the Abandon Sorrow and Protect Yourself oils, out of the two dozen special blends made by yours truly. And then Michael? He’s the big guns, you know.”
Caroline didn’t reply. She just stared at the pendant. It was truly beautiful. Modern. And she didn’t want to let it go.
“In other words, you didn’t come in here looking for gnomes and sprites.” He walked back to the long wooden counter and unlocked a canted display case, drawing out a shimmering fall of silver. It was a heavy, close-linked chain. “This one suits the medal, and I bet it will rest just above that amethyst tip of yours. May I?” He held out his hand for the medallion, slid the chain through the loop, and said “Turn?”
By Wind Page 5