A Catastrophic Theft

by P. D. Workman

  “That’s good. I was afraid something had happened to you.”

  “Nothing happened,” Sarah said querulously, “I’m capable of taking care of myself, you know.”

  “Yes, dear,” the woman agreed, taking Sarah’s hand to shake and patting it with her other hand. “Of course you are perfectly capable. Are you ready to go?”

  Sarah looked at Reg. “I don’t want to go out anywhere. I’m much too tired. Maybe another day.”

  “Well…” Reg looked at the new woman, not sure what to say. “Maybe Sarah’s not feeling up to it today.”

  “We’ll go back to the house, then,” the woman said, giving Sarah a little tug on the hand she was still holding. “Come on.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Just to your house, so you can rest,” the woman soothed, and Reg was suddenly overcome with the desire to climb into her bed and rest her own weary bones. She was still in her pajamas, and she looked toward her bedroom with longing.

  Then Reg remembered who the woman was. Marian. Another psychic, one of Reg’s competitors. Reg didn’t know her specialty or all of her skills, but Marian seemed to have a remarkable ability to influence the desires of people nearby. She had previously attempted to nudge Reg toward getting intoxicated at the community dance.

  Marian’s power over Sarah seemed to be effective, as the old witch was attempting to get to her feet. Marian leaned over to put her hand under Sarah’s elbow to try to get some leverage. She managed to hoist Sarah up to her feet, then supported her around the waist as they walked, even though Sarah had been able to get around under her own power just an hour earlier.

  “We’ll get out of your way, then,” Marian told Reg. “You look like you could use a rest too.”

  A surge of weariness went through Reg. She glared at Marian. “Don’t do that!”

  Marian raised her brows. “Don’t… what…?”

  “Don’t try to push feelings onto me.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Marian moved more quickly toward the door.

  “Isn’t there some kind of rule against making people feel emotions or desires that aren’t their own?”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing. How could there be? How could such a thing ever be tracked or determined?”

  “If you do it to me again, we’re going to find out.”

  Marian’s eyes met Reg’s for a moment, cunning and challenging, and then she looked away. “You have a nice day now, dear. You don’t find that offensive, do you? Or a smile, intended to brighten your day? People influence others’ moods all the time, in all different ways.”

  “Like I said, you’d better not try it with me again.”

  Marian stopped. “You are the newcomer to Black Sands. If you don’t like the way things are here, maybe you should just leave. I’m sure that wherever you came from is far more sophisticated and enjoyable for you than Florida.”

  The vitriol hung around her like a black cloud. She hated Reg. There could be no doubt of the fact. Why, Reg wasn’t sure. Certainly there could be two psychics in town without professional jealousies breaking out. There was plenty of work to go around, and Marian and Reg weren’t the only ones in town with psychic powers. Reg had no idea why Marian disliked her so much.

  Reg chewed on her lip, waiting for Marian to go, not engaging with her any further. No point in pushing her luck. Reg didn’t need yet another person running to the police and pointing an accusing finger at her because she was jealous of Reg’s success.

  Or maybe Marian was the unnamed second witness who claimed to have seen Starlight in Sarah’s house.

  Despite the feeling of heaviness Reg was left with after Marian’s departure, she forced herself to shower and dress and eat something, and before too long, she was feeling more like her normal self again.

  She hadn’t been to Letticia’s house before, but she felt like it was important to go see her and see if there were anything she could do for Sarah. Letticia should already know how the witch from her coven was faring, but maybe she didn’t know how quickly she was going downhill, or she could tell Reg some way to help Sarah or to get her finding skills back.

  The address was in the old-fashioned black address book Sarah had left in the kitchen drawer for the use of whoever rented the cottage from her. It was much more useful for tracking down particular practitioners than an internet search, as many of the old-school witches didn’t adopt modern technologies. Some of them didn’t even have landlines and could only be contacted by mail, in person, or through some messenger service. In the magical community, it wasn’t unusual to send a message through a real bird rather than Twitter.

  Reg input the address into her GPS and let it guide her to the outskirts of town, where she soon found herself in a dark forested area that could have come straight out of Hansel and Gretel. The GPS lost its signal in the canopy of the trees, and Reg stared at the sketched lines on the screen, trying to match them up to the rough roads cut through the dark green forest. The other option was to turn around and follow her electronic breadcrumb trail home. But she wasn’t ready to give up without at least giving it a try.

  Letticia’s house was somewhere off the edge of the map. Reg decided to just keep following the road she was on until she couldn’t go any farther. If she didn’t find the coven leader, she would go home.

  The road got smaller and rougher until it was barely a track through the trees. When it finally came to an end, Reg was within sight of a little cottage.

  It wasn’t the gingerbread house of Hansel and Gretel. It was more like the thatched houses of Three Little Pigs, but it looked like it had been there for a very long time and had at least stood up to the weather.

  Anxiety crawled in Reg’s stomach. She was completely out of her element. She was a street-savvy, city-bred girl, used to looking after herself in the urban jungle, but being out in the Everglades was something different altogether. She was all alone, approaching a house that might or might not belong to a powerful witch. She was by herself and had no experience in how to protect herself from harmful magic. The little house in the woods might just as easily belong to an evil huntsman or recluse serial killer.

  The door opened, and at least one question was answered. Letticia stood in her doorway, her face pinched and disapproving.

  “Are you just going to sit in that contraption all day or are you going to come in?”

  Reg cleared her throat and forced herself to climb out of the car to face the witch. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure if this was the right place and was just trying to decide how to find out…”

  “The way people have found out for hundreds of years. By walking up to the door and knocking.”

  Reg nodded, feeling the red flush creep across her face. “Yes, of course, you’re right. I just… I was a little nervous.” Reg stopped for a moment before crossing the threshold into Letticia’s house. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  “Come in.”

  Reg steeled herself and entered.

  The house was small, but neat and well-appointed. In the kitchen area, there was a black cast-iron stove that Letticia must have used to make her meals and potions and to warm the house when the temperature dropped too low outside. And it was not, Reg didn’t think, large enough for her to crawl inside.

  “How is she this morning?” Letticia asked.

  Reg was startled. “Sarah, you mean?”

  “Is it not about Sarah that you came?”

  “Well, yes… of course… I just didn’t think…”

  “Why else would you come here? Sarah is your friend and your landlord, and she’s dying.”

  There was a lump in Reg’s throat. “Don’t say that. Don’t say she’s dying.”

  “Everybody must die sooner or later. Sarah has had a long and productive life, and it would appear that it is time for it to come to an end. While none of us want to see her go, she has to follow her destiny.”

  “So… you don’t have any s
uggestions? There’s nothing I can do to help her? There’s no potion you can make for her?”

  “I have many helpful rejuvenation charms, creams, and tonics, but none of them will stop death from coming for Sarah.”

  Reg sat down on an upholstered chair Letticia waved her toward, her knees giving way. Even with what Corvin and Jessup had told her, it hadn’t really hit her that without her emerald, Sarah wasn’t just going to die. She was already dying.

  “She woke me up this morning chasing a cat out of the yard,” she told Letticia, wiping a tear from the corner of her eyes. “She was yelling and scaring the crap out of some poor stray that had wandered into her garden. Trying to beat it to death with a broom!”

  Letticia smiled understandingly.

  “But then after I got her to stop trying to kill the poor thing… she just seemed to fade away. She looks worse every day. Her mind seems to be wandering. I just… I feel so bad watching her decline.”

  “Death is rarely seen as a kind deliverer. Old age is not for the faint of heart. But maybe it is time for Sarah to stop running from it.”

  More tears squeezed out of Reg’s eyes and her nose started to run. “I was just getting to know her. She has been so kind to me since I came to Black Sands. She just took me under her wing without knowing anything about me, treating me like her own family. I never had a grandma. But that’s what she’s been like to me. Like a grandma or a mother… and a friend.”

  “The best thing you can do now is to be with her. Spend some time, before she fades further.”

  “There’s no way to stop it?”

  “Only by finding the emerald, and I fear that it becomes less and less likely that anyone will find it in time. Even now, it may be too late for it to have any kind of effect.”

  “Somebody took it. Somebody must have come into her house and taken it away.”

  “Perhaps,” Letticia agreed.

  “How else could it had disappeared? It’s not in her house. It’s not in my house. And no matter what anyone says, it was not stolen by my cat!”

  Letticia didn’t agree or disagree.

  “Letticia…” Reg sat on the edge of the chair, leaning forward toward the witch. “Is it okay to call you that…?”

  “It is my name,” Letticia said dryly.

  “I know… but it seems disrespectful to call you by your first name. Is there an honorific…”

  Letticia gave a smile that seemed to smooth the hard ridges of her face for just an instant.

  “Letticia is fine, Regina. No special title is needed. Witches don’t have a hierarchy. I am no more important than Sarah or than you. We are all children of the earth.”

  “Okay. Letticia. How could anyone have gotten into the house to steal the emerald? I thought that she was silly not to have it in a bank, and to be relying on her parrot to attack anyone who tried to steal it from her. But… didn’t she have wards and protections to keep anyone from breaking into her house? I mean, she put wards up at the cottage to keep Corvin from coming in uninvited. Surely she must have even better protections on her own house and on something as important and valuable as the emerald. If it is what keeps her alive, wouldn’t she have done everything she could to protect it from thieves?”

  “Yes. She does have wards and spells in place to protect herself and her home. And the emerald.”

  “Then how could anyone steal it?”

  Letticia sighed, shaking her head. “As you said, it would have to be someone she had invited in.”

  “Someone she trusted and thought was a friend.”

  Letticia gave a solemn nod. Reg leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, her heart aching, causing her actual physical pain.

  “May I get you something?” Letticia asked softly, and she got up and went into the kitchen area without waiting for an answer. Reg didn’t know what to say. There was nothing Letticia could say that would heal a broken heart.

  “How could anyone do that to her? How could someone she loved betray her like that? Taking away what was left of her life?”

  Letticia put tea into cups and switched on an electric kettle.

  “Maybe it was someone who felt it was her time to go. She has been resisting it for some time. Some of us have noticed certain declines in her mental faculties even before the disappearance of the gem.”

  Reg shook her head. “No. She was so kind and she was always on top of everything. She didn’t just take care of herself, she was always mothering me too.” Reg sniffled. “She was on top of everything.”

  “No. Not everything. In time, she would have had to let go of the emerald. I wish that she had done it of her own accord.”

  Letticia poured the tea and took a cup to Reg. Reg sniffed the tea, not sure what herbs she could smell. A hint of licorice, maybe. Erin would have been able to identify it immediately. A never-fail party trick. Reg sipped it and a warm feeling spread across her chest, easing the knot of tension slightly.

  “No one took it just so that she would get old and die,” Reg insisted, sure of this fact. “Someone took it because it is powerful. They wanted to harness the power for themselves, one way or another.”

  Letticia just looked at Reg.

  “It wasn’t me,” Reg snapped.

  “I did not say that it was. Do not put words in my mouth.”

  “Sorry. The police searched my house last night. Corvin is saying that it was me. Someone else too, I think maybe Marian the psychic. It feels like everyone thinks I took it. Even Sarah. Because that’s what Corvin told her.”

  “The warlock is a force to be reckoned with. But he can only influence her while he is directly with her. The same is true of Marian. Her skills are strong when she is present, but over a distance… she isn’t like you. She cannot reach out to someone or something that is not in the same room.”

  “So if neither one of them is there with Sarah, she won’t believe that I took it?” Reg tried to swallow the lump in her throat. What did it matter whether an old lady believed her or not? Reg hadn’t taken it. That was all that mattered.

  “They can only directly influence her when they are with her.”

  “Okay. That’s something, at least. And there isn’t anything I can do for Sarah? Other than to find the emerald?”

  Letticia shook her head. “No. And I believe you’ve already tried to seek it.”

  “Why didn’t it work? I can find things that don’t matter. I can find things that I’ve never seen or touched before. Why can’t I find something that’s so powerful and important?”

  “I think you already know the answer to that.”

  Reg’s head whirled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean that in all likelihood, if you look deep down in yourself, you’ll understand why you are not able to find it.”

  “I’ve already done that. I’ve done everything I could to see it.”

  “Except look at yourself.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “You have that power inside you. You know you do. And you are the best one to know why you can’t access that power.”

  “It must be because of Calliopia,” Reg said. “Nothing has been the same since she brought me back from the shadow realm. I’ve been so mixed up and things have been happening around me, but I can’t find. I can’t find anything.”

  “Fairy magic is unpredictable. And a fairy who has just come into her own is both powerful and unpredictable. It takes a few decades for them to settle in and get used to their powers. Like a horse or a teenager filling out after shooting up.”

  “So she could have had an unexpected effect on me. She might have… enhanced some powers and taken others away.”

  “Taking powers away would be very unusual. Other than witches and warlocks like Corvin Hunter, there are not many things that can take a practitioner’s powers away. It’s more likely suppressed than removed.”

  “What’s the difference?” Reg snapped.

  Letticia opened her mouth to explain, and Reg
waved the explanation away. “I know the difference between being suppressed and removed. I’m just saying that for practical purposes, it’s the same. Either way, I can’t find the emerald.”

  Letticia nodded. She looked down at her wrist. “I’m afraid I have an engagement I must get to. I’ve been asked to observe a…” She trailed off, looking at Reg.

  “What?”

  “You need to be there too. Weren’t you informed of Corvin’s appearance before his coven?”

  ⋆ Chapter Fifteen ⋆

  R

  eg’s heart thudded. “Is that today?”

  Letticia raised her brows.

  Reg wasn’t really surprised she had forgotten the date of the hearing. She hadn’t looked at her calendar in a couple of days, and she didn’t want to think about the hearing and had pushed it as far as she could from her mind. She was surprised that it had arrived so quickly. Didn’t both sides need time to prepare their cases? No one had questioned Reg ahead of time as to what she was going to say. She didn’t feel at all prepared to testify.

  “Uh… yeah. That’s today, isn’t it? It’s just that with everything going on, I kind of forgot.”

  “Do you know your way there?”

  “I… I’m not sure where it is.”

  “Do you want to follow me? I would suggest going together, but you won’t want to come all the way back here to get your car after.”

  “Yeah, that sounds good. What do you drive?”

  “Not a broomstick or a horse-drawn carriage,” Letticia said dryly.

  Reg’s face warmed. “I never suggested that.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first. I have a car. Stay close, and I’ll get you there.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Reg took another long sip of her tea but didn’t finish it. She returned the cup to the kitchen and went back out to her car. She waited for Letticia to appear with her station wagon or whatever kind of boat she drove.

  A low riding, sleek white convertible pulled around the cottage. Letticia looked back at Reg, large dark glasses on and a scarf wrapped around her head to prevent her hair from getting windblown. Reg thought she detected a hint of a smile on Letticia’s sharp face.