Sorciére

by J. R. Erickson

  "Sebastian?" Sebastian asked, but again something familiar in that name. "Am I Sebastian?"

  "Well, that's your name, anyway..." the woman told him, shooting a dirty look towards the man at the front, "...though I'd hoped to work into that a bit more gradually."

  "Sorry, Adora," the man called."

  "It's okay, Roderick," she replied curtly.

  "Rod," he shot back, but she only rolled her eyes.

  "So what the hell is going on here? Have I just been kidnapped?"

  "Ha," Adora smirked. "No, you were just about to be kidnapped back there." She pointed out the back windows that were blacked out with paint. The man that you were having an afternoon stroll with did not have your best interests at heart."

  "Why, what do you mean?"

  Adora smiled and patted his knee.

  "Trust me. You just avoided a truly horrible fate my friend, but for now let's get started with bringing you back to you. Take these." She held out two small greenish capsules.

  He shrunk away and shook his head.

  "No, I don't think so. I mean you may be someone that I know, but I'm not taking some pills so that I can wake up in a bathtub tomorrow without a liver."

  Rod laughed, but Adora only looked concerned.

  "Sebastian, I don't want to overwhelm you with your life right now because, frankly, it's probably going to scare you, a lot. Not only that, it will just be words. Until we start to clear out whatever is blocking you in there...," she pointed at his head, "...none of it will make any sense. These pills are not going to knock you out. They're not poison. They're herbs. They help to purify, and once you take them, whatever toxic energy that's in your body will begin to dissolve at least a little. There's no way that I can help you if you refuse my remedies."

  Sebastian stared at her and then at the pills. Fear did not prevent him from taking the pills. Instead, he felt plagued by a sudden and strange desire to simply choose the blissful ignorance of previous weeks. If he took those pills, what would he discover?

  "It's okay, man," Rod called from the front of the van. "I promise you, we're friends. You'll remember soon enough."

  Sebastian took one more second to consider and then, before he could change his mind, he grabbed the pills and threw them to the back of his throat, swallowing without water. Adora handed him a thermos.

  "Tea," she said. "Wash them down."

  He did and they drove on in silence.

  They arrived at a secluded sandy brick colonial-style house. Its gabled roof was dotted with moss that glowed in the setting sun.

  Rod held open the door as Adora led Sebastian into the foyer, which smelled sweet and homey. A fire burned in a kitchen hearth and an older man stood at a block of wood, cutting vegetables and humming some barely audible tune. He glanced up as they walked in and then returned to his cutting.

  "So you found him then? You are a clever sleuth." He did not direct his comment at anyone in particular, but Sebastian sensed that he spoke to Adora. "And you've given him the Anamnesis?"

  "Yes on both accounts, though we arrived only in the nick of time," Adora added, opening a cupboard and pulling out a tea kettle, which she filled with water and set on the stove.

  "I thought so," the man told her, still not addressing Sebastian at all, but concentrating on the garlic bulb beneath his fingers. "When Patty told me of a meeting in the afternoon, I suspected that we would be too late. And how about you, Roderick? Beginning to question your desire to know more?"

  Rod only grinned and shook his head.

  "Not for a minute. My Sydney didn't die in vain." He still smiled as he spoke, but a hard gleam had come into his eyes and something like sorrow crept into his voice.

  Julian nodded and sighed.

  "Well, you have something in common then." He nodded toward Sebastian as he spoke.

  "I would love to join this conversation but, honestly, I don't know who the hell any of you are," Sebastian retorted, suddenly sick of the cat and mouse. "Did you drive me to this house in the middle of nowhere just for kicks, because at least back at Isabelle's I didn't feel like anyone was toying with me."

  "No, man, it's not like that," Rod told him quickly. "I get where you're at though. They just can't tell you everything until your memory starts to come back."

  Sebastian rolled his eyes. "And you think some pill is going to make that magically happen? I've been wandering around a foreign country for weeks and have yet to remember my own damn name, which you claim is Sebastian, and I don't have much choice other than to take it. Right? For all I know, you guys don't have a clue who I am and this whole weird ass thing is some kind of set-up."

  Adora took the kettle off the stove as it started to whistle. She took four mugs out of the cupboard.

  "Your name is Sebastian," she said sternly. "And to be truthful, I barely know you, and Julian doesn't know you at all." She pointed at the older man. "But Roderick does know you and, more importantly, we know of you. We know where you came from and we know that every minute you remain in this forgetful haze, you are in grave danger."

  "It's Rod," Rod told her, before turning to Sebastian. "Those pills will work. Think of this guy as an alchemical genius okay?" He nudged an elbow toward Julian. "And her..." waving at Adora now, "...as something of a saint. Right? She saved me, now she's going to save you too."

  Adora looked uncomfortable at this comparison, but remained silent.

  "The pills are magic, Sebastian. That's why they work," Julian said, this time looking directly into Sebastian's eyes. Julian's eyes were such a light blue that they appeared white. "But they're not instantaneous. Prepare to have a very vivid night in the dreamscape. You will be encountering yourself."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "He likes to call us Urban Guerilla Witches," Kendra told Abby as the three of them stepped off the elevator. She slid the metal grate closed behind them and gestured to a funky wooden coat rack.

  "I like it," Oliver said, surveying the apartment.

  Kendra grinned and looked at Victor who'd barely turned from the enormous flat screen computer monitor hanging in one side of the loft. Steel cables held it firmly in place. Victor's fingers flew across a large glowing tablet that hung below the monitor. On the screen, Abby watched different areas on a city grid lighting up.

  She had not seen Victor since the night that Oliver rescued them from the Vepar's lair. She had apologized to him for running, but he insisted that he understood. Abby did not intend to bring it up--at least, not right away.

  "So what does that mean?" Abby asked Kendra, following her into the open kitchen resplendent in black and stainless steel. "To be an Urban Guerilla Witch?" Kendra pulled them each shots of espresso.

  "Well," Kendra said, taking out a small frothing wand and adding steamed milk to their espresso. "It's all about motion in meaningful ways. Too many covens have become these petrified power centers. They're filled with ancient potent witches who have slowly withdrawn from society and all of their work happens within their coven instead of the world. We spare little, if any, energy on our group. We come and go as we please. There's no constant ritual keeping us together. Instead we expend our energy in communities that need it. We're also plugged into modern reality." She cocked her head toward the computer as she handed an espresso to Victor and Sebastian. "We use the internet, cell phones, tablets, GPS--you know, all that technology that witches think they're supposed to live without because of their superior intuition. It seems more like pride than productivity that lies at the heart of this refusal to participate in the world as it is now."

  "Exactly," Victor chimed in. "How can we do good in the world if we can't even communicate regularly at the most basic level. There are three year olds in contact with their cousins in Spain. We're an advanced species of witches and we can while away days sitting in a cave waiting for another witch to show up with information."

  Abby sensed that Victor and his group had spent a great deal of time trying to understand and define their pu
rpose in the world. She appreciated it, but always felt a bit taken aback by any group that elevated themselves too high over others. Especially when the others had spent thousands of years creating the world that they believed in.

  "What about learning?" Oliver asked, intrigued. "How did you learn what you could do?"

  "How could we not?" Kendra retorted, smiling. "I started manipulating air when I was sixteen. I could shift storms before I turned twenty. But let me not pretend that we didn't have help. We were all discovered by elder witches tracking our blood lines."

  "I believe we'd have discovered it for ourselves, anyway," Victor said simply, turning away from the computer.

  "Maybe," Kendra said carefully, "but I can't imagine how difficult it would have been to make sense of it all."

  "We stand on the shoulders of giants," Oliver said, watching Victor's response.

  Abby knew that Oliver held a fierce loyalty to Ula, and specifically to Helena, for discovering him and introducing him to the coven. Victor's obvious disdain for the elder witches did not sit well.

  "Yes, exactly," Kendra jumped in, also sensing the rising tension. "Our progress has been greatly influenced by the witches who came before us and paved the way. Our tinctures alone are hundreds, if not thousands, of years in the making. To begin from nothing...well, I don't even want to think about it."

  Victor nodded, but returned to his tablet.

  "This is Chicago," he said pointing towards the screen. "We've created this grid so that we can see the separate areas where we're working. Everything from planting gardens, with a bit of magic of course, to opening free clinics for basic healthcare. Everything is run by residents, non-witches, but we use spells to bring it all together and ultimately hold it all together."

  "Urban farming?" Oliver asked, tuning into a video on the tablet of a giant community farm surrounded by high-rises. "I've been reading a lot about that. It looks like you guys have done a great job with it."

  "It's real," Victor said. "It's not hiding from the world and wasting decades chasing Vepars."

  "Not that those aren't legitimate too." Again Kendra kept the peace. "But we don't want to be reactionary and fear-based. We're trying to make a difference in real time, you know?"

  "Huh. It's great, but I'm curious then why you felt the need to take Abby back to that Vepar's lair? I mean if you're not interested in hunting them and all?" Oliver's acidic tone left Abby momentarily speechless.

  Kendra gave Victor a funny look, but said nothing.

  "That's a long story," Victor replied, looking apologetically toward Kendra. "And I didn't mean to insult you, Oliver."

  Oliver looked vaguely mollified.

  "I guess I'm still curious how you protect yourself and your community?"

  "The same instincts run in our blood that run in yours," Victor told him.

  Abby realized that Victor's pride may have been more injured in their late night outing than his body.

  "We do our best," Kendra interrupted him. She took his hand and slipped him a small turquoise stone.

  Abby recognized it--Amazonite. It was only one of the hundreds of stones that she'd sifted through at Ula, recording their properties and trying to experience their affects first-hand. When Sebastian had been acting strangely, she even tried putting Amazonite under his pillow to calm him and open the lines of communication.

  Victor did not look at the stone, but Abby noticed his hand tighten around it and then he nodded and gave her a little smile.

  "The truth is that we want to make a difference, that's it. We're like every other person stumbling around out there trying to find their purpose and improve the world some in the process."

  Abby nodded, agreeing completely. She wanted nothing more than to help in some way. She hadn't felt useless at Ula because she'd only just discovered her gifts months earlier, but another year or two and the status quo may have become an issue.

  Oliver rubbed his jaw. His eyes lit up with excitement and maybe even envy as he looked at the enormous digital grid, but she also saw his continued reluctance to get on board.

  "But you're not here to learn about us," said Victor. "You need help."

  "Yes, we do," Abby agreed. "We're in the middle of something that we can't quite understand and we need information."

  "That is our specialty," Victor told her, wiping his hand across the tablet so that the monitor showed only a blank white page and a small search box. "What are we looking for?"

  "A connection, or maybe a curse," Oliver began, grabbing his bag from the coat rack and pulling out several newspaper clippings. "It's at least one hundred years old and it originated, we think, in Trager. There's some kind of group up there who knows about witches and is writing about their findings and have been for a long time. We're trying to find out who they are and what this curse is all about."

  Kendra walked beside Victor and placed a hand gently on his back. He turned and kissed her lightly on the forehead and Abby felt a twinge of sadness. She could not afford to think of Sebastian in that moment--it hurt too much--but she found the pain, always dormant, waiting to rear its ugly head at the slightest show of affection.

  The elevator slid open and the other three witches, who Abby had met at Sorciére, ambled off. Their loud voices echoed around the apartment. They knew that Abby and Oliver would be there and had brought sustenance.

  "Pizza and beer," Dante chimed in his high feminine voice.

  Kendra cleared an enormous round coffee table and the witches gathered around it to eat and discuss. Abby and Oliver spoke first, explaining everything they'd learned and what they searched for. The other witches looked intrigued and excited. Only Victor appeared mysterious in his thoughts, his expression rarely giving him away. His secretiveness was not lost on Abby or Oliver.

  "I met Sebastian," Marcus said out of nowhere. "Only briefly but, yes, I remember him and you know, I did sense some cloak hiding him. I didn't probe it. He seemed very happy, Abby."

  He smiled at her warmly and Dante squeezed his knee. She realized that they were lovers.

  "Where did you see him? Was he with anyone?"

  "By the wishing fountain," Marcus continued. "The one in the smaller Ballroom. When you dropped your wish in, a star floated up and imbedded in the sky overhead. It was really spectacular."

  "I saw the wishing fountain too," Oliver added, "but he wasn't there then."

  Abby took a drink of beer and closed her eyes tightly for a moment.

  "I know that his death..." her voice choked a bit at this word, "...is a part of this. I know it, but I don't understand how..."

  Ezra slid close to her and rubbed her shoulder gently. Abby struggled for a moment not to cry and then, with a long exhale, she released the grief clamoring for her attention.

  "Well, let's find out then, shall we?" Victor said. He called a voice command to the giant computer and it came back to life. From across the room he directed it to find any pieces of news from Trager City in the previous three months and then every piece of news from the year 1908. He then added a command that the computer intelligence system, which he referred to as Jax, find correlations. "While Jax is working on that, let's get started on this."

  He began grabbing boxes of paperwork and hauling them to the table. Abby and Oliver had brought many of the totes from Rod's crawl space, along with information that Abby had gathered from her mother's basement. Victor handed each person a box. Then he walked to a large silver drafting table, rolling up plans and stacking them on the side.

  "Find the links. You come across the same name, pile them together. Let's start to make sense of this."

  Oliver nudged Abby and smiled his approval. He'd been apprehensive about coming to Victor's apartment, especially after the incident with the Vepar caves, but he gave in when Abby insisted that they needed back-up, not to mention fresh eyes. She could see his relief at having help.

  The first hour passed and no one spoke. On the computer screen, words whizzed by, pages flashed and disap
peared. At one point, Abby looked up and saw Devin's wide green eyes for only a moment before the photo vanished, replaced by a map and then another news article.

  She trudged through a box from her mother's basement that held family memorabilia. Photos lay strewn about, tucked between old receipts and greeting cards. When she passed a postcard, she almost passed it by, but the word 'curse' popped out at her as it had in Stephen's home. The postcard showed a Native American man, a medicine man perhaps, drawing images in the sky. On the back, only a single line was written. The curse is buried.

  ****

  Sebastian hoisted himself onto the tall loft bed at the very front of the house. It pressed against a wide window that looked out on the choppy waters of the sea. The white caps frothed and rolled over the gray rocky shore and, as he watched, he felt the first stirrings of familiarity. Not a memory per se, but a sense of calm that all of the mysteries of his life lived in such water and that, as he drifted off to sleep that night, some water nymph or magical sprite would come to his room and whisper the tales of his forgotten life. He felt sort of giddy at the thought and laughed out loud, not minding the sound of his voice as he lay alone in the bedroom. For the first time since standing on that deserted road, he did not feel lost, but found. As though the three people whom he had only met hours earlier genuinely did hold the key to the locked doorway of his mind.

  "Sebastian." He said his name and stared at a lighthouse perched at the end of a craggy pier beyond the house. "Sebastian, Sebastian, Sebastian." It didn't feel like it belonged to him, but then again, maybe it did.

  He heard the floors creaking in the hallway outside his room. The man named Rod called out 'good night' to his other house mates. Rod did not fit with the other two. His goofy demeanor had an edge. Rod harbored some kind of anguish, a grief that Sebastian sensed in his own heart when he turned the full light of his awareness towards it.

  ****

  Sebastian woke and fought the covers away from his neck. They seemed to be strangling him. The thick embroidered fabric felt heavy like the sand that Claire used to pile on top of him when they would go to the beach. She would dig a long hole and insist that he lay in it and then proceed to scoop plastic bucketfuls of sand onto his legs and torso and arms until only his head emerged from the shore. She must have turned the heat up in their apartment. He stumbled out of his bedroom and into the hallway, but then the hallway was gone and he realized he'd been sleeping on Sydney's couch. He stared up the stairway to where Abby slept. Photos lined the stairway wall and he looked at them quickly as he walked up to Abby's room. He could hear her crying and he pushed the bedroom door open, starting to step in, but caught himself just in the nick of time. Beyond the doorway, the world fell away. A hundred or more feet below, along a jagged rock cliff, water crashed. He teetered for a moment, grasping the wooden door frame and feeling it give, splinter, and then let go. He plunged into the starry night sky, arms and legs flailing, as the water rushed up to meet him.