Maybe Caroline’s fortune was changing. Something had given her the courage to smash that tracker and head north. And something had enabled her to fight Rafe for the first time in their relationship. She didn’t even realize she was deciding; she just found herself doing.
Almost as though they responded to her thoughts, the amethyst point and the angel medallion warmed and began to hum again. Caroline felt a ray of light surround her heart. It felt like the light she’d seen around Brenda’s head and shoulders.
She took a sip of tea, trying to buy herself time. To take it all in. She had angels now, and whether they came in the form of a shopkeeper, a coven of witches, or actual beings made of swan wings and light, it didn’t seem to matter. What was clear was that her life was going to be different now, if she decided it was going to be.
Whether she’d ever assimilate these changes, she wasn’t sure, but damn it, Caroline was determined to not go back to Silicon Valley, and to Rafe, and to hiding in the shadows. Never again.
“Are you okay?” Sydney asked.
“Well, I can’t deny that this is all strange, and a little bit scary. But it also feels right, you know? I feel as though for the first time in my life…” She paused, searching for the words. “For the first time in my life, I think I’m ready to be free.”
Dan raised his wineglass, and Sidney did the same. They both waited, looking at her, until she raised her mug of tea.
“To the possibility of freedom,” Dan said.
“To freedom,” Caroline said
To freedom, she thought. And maybe even love.
23
Brenda
The windstorm finally calmed down, leaving behind leaf-clogged streets and rain. Corvus Corax was playing their medieval music over the sound system at the Inner Eye; the scent of myrrh and lavender filled the air.
Brenda was weary, and confused. It was strange. She hadn’t felt confused like this in years. Confused about her magic, about the coven, about this shaft of light that was following her around. About Caroline, though she was less confused about that every day. Even though she’d just met the woman, and barely spent any time with her, it was clear that she wanted to. Badly.
That said, Brenda never thought she’d reach the age of forty-one questioning so many things at once.
She dusted the shelves, keeping an eye on the couple of customers in the store. I’ve been a mentor and a teacher for years, she thought. Why all this, and why now?
Thrust into a situation where the coven actually had to curse and bind someone… That was happening more and more lately. She wondered if it was because they were well-trained enough now. She and Raquel had worked hard to get the coven to this place, but neither of them had expected it would lead to the sorts of magic they been doing the past few months.
Stability meant power, and power meant meant more responsibility. You say that your students all the time, she thought. She said a lot of things, even meant them. And now she just had to find the ways in which those truths and maxims were coming to play in her own life.
Her throat felt raw, and she hoped she wasn’t coming down with a cold. The stress and tension of the week, of rescuing Caroline…of kneeling in that parking lot in the howling wind and rain, protecting the woman who had collapsed in her arms.
She had wanted nothing more than to keep her safe. Brenda had held Caroline in her arms for a long time, body hunched over her, rocking her gently. She’d barely paid attention as the rest of the coven took care of Rafe. He had kicked and fought, until they finally subdued him, and Caroline had said she didn’t want the police called in.
And before they had arrived, it was clear Caroline had done something, too.
Lucy said there were strange burns on his fingers. That even as he fought them, he kept trying to protect his hands.
Brenda needed to ask Caroline what had happened. What she’d done. There’d been too much to do the night before, so they hadn’t had a chance to talk. Maybe Brenda could see stop by to see her tonight, after work.
The bells over the shop door jangled and Brenda looked up. A well-dressed, middle-aged Black woman walked through, hair perfectly coiffed despite the rain. She slid her umbrella into the stand just inside the door. A long, red raincoat was buttoned up all the way to a beautiful red-and-purple patterned scarf that twined around the woman’s neck. She looked vaguely familiar, though Brenda couldn’t say where she might’ve seen her.
Brenda smiled. “Just let me know if you need anything,” she said, before turning back to the display of Buddhist statuary she was dusting.
The woman walked directly towards her, high-heeled pumps striking the bamboo floors. Brenda straightened and turned to face her.
“Are you the proprietor?”
“I am. My name is Brenda.” She held out her hand. The woman hesitated for one moment, then held out her own. As soon as Brenda touched her fingertips, she understood the hesitation. Something was very, very wrong. Brenda let go and looked around the store. Tempest was helping someone with the crystals; another person browsed some divination tools. Brenda didn’t want to sit in chairs near the book section, that was too open.
She led the woman back to the nook where she did readings.
“Let’s go sit down,” Brenda said over her shoulder. “It’s clear you have a lot going on. We’ll see if I can be of any help.”
The woman’s shoulders slumped a bit, in relief. She followed Brenda to the cozy little table and two chairs tucked into an alcove. As soon as they were seated, Brenda pulled out one of the Tarot decks that was always in a basket on the table. She slid the deck from its silk bag and started flipping through the cards. They felt right in her hands, cool and smooth. The energy began to gather, the way it always did when she was about to do a reading.
The woman hadn’t asked her for a reading, not yet. But Brenda knew better than to question her impulses when it came to magic. She wasn’t a psychic for nothing. This, she wasn’t confused about at all.
Brenda looked at the woman’s face. She was very beautiful, with smooth dark skin and a narrow nose that flared out around the nostrils. Her lips were painted a deep mulberry. Her eyes looked terrified, and furrows marred her brow.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
The woman looked around, making sure no one was close enough to hear. She leaned towards Brenda. “I’ve been having dreams,” she said. “And…and there’ve been voices.”
Brenda’s hands stilled around the cards. Not the voices, not again.
:Trust this, too. Seek the pattern, find the light,: the Voice said.
I keep hoping you’ll leave, she thought.
:I am the messenger of all that is,: the voice replied.
Yeah, yeah. One more thing to deal with.
She addressed the woman, who kept playing with her hands, first clasping them together, then pulling them apart.
“I want you to know that I hear and see many things that people think are strange. And I’ve heard and seen enough of them that I know they aren’t.”
“You can’t tell me this stuff is normal.”
“Maybe normal isn’t the right word, but dreams, visions, even voices, are not uncommon. What are they telling you?”
The woman held her fingers to her lips for a moment, and swallowed. She wouldn’t hold Brenda’s gaze. That was fine, give her time.
“They’re terrible,” she whispered. “Women. Young girls. They’re all terrified. Screaming. They’re being raped. Tortured.” The woman darted her eyes up at Brenda, then back down at the table. “And they want something from me.”
Brenda’s fingers started shuffling the deck again. The cards slipped and slid against one another. The diamond-patterned back of the deck winked in and out among the brightly colored images. Here was the Devil. The ten of swords. Three of swords, piercing the heart. The ace of wands. Temperance. All of them sliding past, moving beneath her hands, like the old friends that they were.
“And what d
o you think they want from you?” Brenda asked.
“I don’t know! Well…I…”
“Take your time.”
“They keep asking me to help them. But I don’t know how.”
That sounded right to Brenda, but it didn’t feel as though it was the whole story. Something else was going on here.
“Are you sure you don’t know how to help?” The woman did look at her this time, dead on. Fear and anger warred for precedence on her face.
“How am I supposed to help them? I don’t even know who they are! Or if they’re even real.”
The light surrounded Brenda then. She felt it, as though someone had wrapped a warm sweater around her shoulders. The cards slipped and slid, slid and slipped, snapping beneath her fingers as she switched to a classic poker shuffle.
She tapped the cards. Shuffled again. The air buzzed with power.
“Close the curtains,” she said, not stopping.
She felt the woman rise, heard the soft clatter of curtain rings on the rod, felt the alcove grow closer. More intimate. The power built. The sense of the light increased.
Finally, the cards stilled beneath her hands. “Touch the deck,” Brenda said. “And say a prayer to whomever you usually call on. Ask for their help, and for the cards to show us what we need to know.”
The woman slid her hands across the table, and Brenda placed them gently on the deck. The woman bowed her head. When she raised it again, Brenda saw that she still looked frightened, but also ready for whatever messages were about to come through.
And come through they would. Brenda could feel the information pushing at her skin, ready to burst forth. If the cards hadn’t been so insistent on playing their part, Brenda could have just read the woman with no props, no tools, with nothing but the taste and scent of the air between them, and the thoughts shimmering and racing behind the woman’s eyes.
But the cards must have their say.
“Cut them into three piles, and choose which pile goes back on top.”
Once she was done, Brenda took the deck and began to lay out the cards.
High Priestess, reversed. A woman on a throne, crowned with a crescent moon, sitting between black and white pillars, a scroll on her lap.
The three of swords again. The long blades piercing a heart.
Ten of swords. Waking from a nightmare.
Justice reversed. The scales, balancing.
The Ace of Wands. A single club. A torch. Clarity of purpose.
Seven of cups. Confusion. Illusion. Delusion.
Judgment. The dead, rising to the sound of Gabriel’s trumpet.
“Who are you?” Brenda whispered. Before the woman could respond, she held up a hand. “Wait. Don’t answer that. It’s all around you. The images. The story.”
She tapped the cards. “There is a person with a broken heart who thinks she is a priestess, holding the scroll of wisdom. But the broken heart is driving her forward. The priestess is unbalanced, reversed. So whatever justice she seeks is also reversed. Whatever she does, her actions don’t have the desired effect. She is prey to delusion. Desperation. But her soul is on fire with the truth. What she wants is true, but everything around her is confused.”
Brenda was barely reading the cards at all. She simply used the imagery they provided to tell the story forming inside her head, as the words tumbled from her lips. She rocked slightly, forward and back, as the energies in the small alcove increased.
“This woman is sending you the nightmares. And the voices you hear are the voices of traumatized women, seeking justice. Whoever this person is, she is the one behind it all. Do you know who she is?”
Tears ran down the woman’s face and her body shook. Her breath came in small pants. An acrid scent hit Brenda’s nose. The woman’s fear, seeping from her pores.
“I don’t know,” she said. And Brenda knew with a flash the woman across the table was lying.
“I asked before, but now I want to know. Who are you?”
The woman gasped, then swallowed, hard.
“I am…” She cleared her throat and tried again. “I am Judge Anita Ratner, U.S. District Court.”
:She is the key.:
“Well, judge, someone from your past surely wants your attention. And a whole lot of women want to have their say.”
Brenda swept the cards back together, and began to shuffle them into the larger deck.
“I’d ask yourself what case you heard where a woman was wronged and didn’t get justice.”
24
Caroline
It felt too soon to be going to a meeting like this.
The church function room was pleasant enough, Caroline supposed. Formica floor, cold fluorescent lights. An industrial coffeepot set up on a table against the white wall. A corkboard was covered in posters about worship services and concerts, fliers for meetings, and next to it hung a big, inspirational collage that read “Healing is always possible.”
She’d never been in a place like this, but she supposed it was typical. She had certainly read enough about them, and seen people standing outside of churches talking. She always figured they were waiting for their AA or Al-Anon meeting to begin.
And now here she was, a woman who hadn’t set foot in a church since her own wedding years ago, at her first domestic abuse survivors meeting. She sat in an uncomfortable, molded plastic chair, one in a circle of fourteen or so. Other women drifted in, and some men, too, which surprised her. Maybe it shouldn’t. Anybody could be a victim, she supposed. It just seemed that women bore the brunt of it.
Two women greeted a man over by the coffee pot. Friendly. As if they’d known each other for a long time. As if they knew the drill. Others, like her, headed straight for the chairs, shucked off their raincoats, and sat, scrolling through phones, or closing their eyes for a few moments’ rest before the meeting was called to order.
Caroline held a cardboard coffee cup in her hands. It looked watery and didn’t smell very good. The only creamer was the powdered kind, which she hated. Besides, her head still felt funny, and she wasn’t sure if she should start back on caffeine so soon.
She’d gotten the coffee just to have something to do. Caroline wasn’t a hundred percent sure why she was here, except that Sydney and Brenda both thought it might be a good idea, so after tea and conversation with Sydney and Dan, Caroline had driven herself here.
Brenda said she would try to meet her for dinner this evening. Caroline hoped she could.
They’d all deemed Caroline safe enough, now that the binding was done and her old phone was gone. Alejandro had taken care of that, disabling it, clearing its memory. Getting it ready to be passed along to someone else who needed it. Her new phone was clean, he insisted. Untraceable unless someone got into the hardware directly. Rafe certainly couldn’t trace her phone again. She was no longer on the family plan that had given him access in the first place. The bastard.
You’re done with him now, she told herself. Except she wasn’t. There was still a divorce to get through. Meetings with lawyers. Injunctions. Luckily, she had her business account, and was glad she had slowly syphoned small amounts of cash into it, month after month. Fortune.
Rafe hadn’t noticed the slow accrual, because he’d never seen the money in the first place. As long as she put enough money into their joint account to pay the bills, he let her run her business on her own. He never knew how much she made from her “hobby.”
Caroline wished she could have seen Brenda this morning, and felt a little crestfallen that Brenda had to work, but she also knew it was time to take the reins of her life into her own hands. Maybe this meeting was the start of that, or maybe it wasn’t. It didn’t really matter, she realized. She just had to try.
A woman with blond, curly hair and ample hips sat next to her. Caroline looked up and gave her half a smile, not sure what the protocol was here, and not really certain she wanted to talk to anybody.
“My name is Sharon.” The woman held out a hand, silver rings
on two fingers. Caroline shook it, reluctantly. There was something slightly off about the woman. She had the feel of an old-timer about her, the same feeling Caroline got from the people still in conversation at the coffee pot. As though she’d been coming here for a long time. But that wasn’t what was off. There was something…brittle about her. And a strange, hectic look danced around her hazel eyes.
“Caroline,” she finally responded.
“First time?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure if I’ll stay. But some friends suggested I check it out. See if it might help me.”
Sharon fussed with a heavy, red leather purse, dragging out her phone and checking something before putting it away again. Caroline caught a glimpse of something that look like the stack of papers as she rummaged through the leather monstrosity. Flyers? The woman paused, noticed her glance, and pulled out one of the sheets.
Sure enough, it was a small, postcard-sized flyer.
“Well, you won’t get any justice here, that’s for sure, or in the courts,” Sharon said. “I didn’t, with my husband. And my sweet daughter certainly didn’t, three years ago, after her rape. But at least you’ll find some people who might understand what you’re going through. Sometimes that’s all we get, you know?”
Caroline didn’t know. But she felt like she shouldn’t say anything. Caroline just wanted to get her own life in order, not help a bunch of other people. Maybe coming to this meeting was a mistake.
“If you’re interested, here’s a flyer about a project I’ve been working on for the past four years.”
The woman held out the small sheet of white paper. An offering. The black lines of printing looked strange to Caroline’s eyes. It was as though they were moving, and had a life of their own. She hoped that wasn’t because of the headache that was still a dull presence in the back of her skull.
By Wind Page 12