by Laura Emmons
Fiona, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. She wondered out loud, “we don’t need to really change the aura he emanates, either. We just need to change what Seers perceive of it using their gift.”
“Yup, that’s it.”
“I wonder if there are any amulets or charmed objects which might do such a thing?”
Suddenly, I heard someone tug on the screen door at the front of the cabin. Half a second later, the front door pushed open. “Hey, is anyone home?”
I poked my thumb in the direction of the foyer. “Why don’t you ask him, I bet he knows? I have to go put clothes on now.”
“Didn’t I just suggest clothes?” grumbled Fiona.
“Yeah, but I don’t care if two old ladies and my baby brother see me braless in my spaghetti-strap tank top and undies.”
Rose frowned, “What do you mean ‘old ladies’?”
Fiona shrugged, “Well, I am an old lady.”
I chuckled and skirted back to the bedroom through the living room, while Evan approached the dining room from the kitchen.
Once I’d brushed both my hair and teeth and had put on real clothes, I returned. “Did you ask him yet?”
“Ask me what?”
“No, we needed to discuss something else. Please sit. You whippersnappers are giving me a crick in my neck.”
I smiled at her. I might be paying for the ‘old ladies’ crack for a while.
Rose returned from the kitchen with two mugs of steaming peppermint tea.
I took mine gratefully.
Fiona started. “Evan, do you know of a way to subdue the gold from a person’s aura?”
“Huh? No, why would you want to take someone’s magic away from them?”
I jumped in, “No, we wouldn’t want to take away a person’s magic. We’d like to hide it from their aura. Have you ever seen the magical layer of someone’s aura change all of a sudden?”
“No, that just doesn’t make sense. You can’t lose your magic.” Then after thinking for several long heartbeats, he snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute. I remember something. I have seen that happen before. It was the weirdest thing. We freaked.”
“What happened?” Fiona prompted.
“On a field trip in ninth grade, we went to the Museum of Geology and Natural History in Morgantown.”
“Okay,” I urged.
“This guy in my class stood next to a huge boulder of coral and his magical aura disappeared!”
“So we started walking around the museum, taking turns standing next to different rocks. The rocks affected the colors in a person’s magical aura, in the third layer.”
“Rose, find out what hours this museum is open and get directions. I think a trip is in order for these young people.”
***
Two hours later Evan, Corey, and I sat in his Jeep driving along the interstate heading toward Morgantown. Fiona and Rose had funeral details to attend to, so we were on our own.
Corey still looked sleepy. I don’t think he slept well at all. This field trip was a good idea even if the only thing it did was keep him from focusing on his grief for a while.
It was good for me too. The drive to the little museum on the edge of the Cheat Lake Valley took two and a half hours, but the scenery was breathtaking. From the highway you could see rolling vistas of farmland in the valleys and densely forested mountains. I kept Evan busy with a barrage of questions about the high school I’d be attending in a week.
***
After the long drive, it felt really good to get out of the car and stretch my legs. Corey insisted on food first, so we stopped at a pancake house.
The boys teased me about eating pancakes for lunch, but I didn’t care. There is no bad time of the day for blueberry syrup.
***
The trip to the museum didn’t go as well. Even though we had fun, none of the rock and mineral specimens on display in the museum had any effect on the gold in Corey’s aura. The pyrite made his entire aura look bigger and the sphalerite (or maybe the quartz) increased the amount of gold. We gave up and headed back home.
***
As we got close, I gave Fiona a call. She and Rose were catching up on work at the store she owned in the heart of Berkeley Springs, the Queen of the Night Boutique. We headed there instead of the cabin. We hid out in the Jeep until the store closed so no one saw Corey. After Fiona locked the front door, we smuggled him in the back.
Corey’s had never visited the store, so I showed him around. We looked at all of the herbs and herbal remedies in the herb shop. I showed him the books, DVDs, CDs and associated items in the bookshop. We skipped past Fiona’s secret room which contained supplies for magical rituals and her treatment-slash-exam facility for treating people with energy touch therapy. I promised to get Fiona to show it to him later, when she wasn’t so busy. Lastly, we went down to the jewelry and clothes section of the store, since I thought he’d enjoy them best. Corey browsed and I looked at t-shirts. Evan joined us.
“Whoa,” he said.
“What?” Corey and I looked up in unison.
“Corey, take two steps back.”
Corey did as Evan ordered.
“Now, take two steps forward.”
“I’m not going to dance with you.”
“Just do it. Honestly, you Stewart kids are impossible to work with.”
“Hey!” I said, offended.
Corey complied.
Evan looked at me. “Did you see that?”
“Did I see what?”
“Maggie,” he was getting exasperated. “Look at him.” I opened my healer vision and focused on my brother. His aura had only a faint glimmer of gold.
“Cool!” I exclaimed, “Corey, step back.”
He sighed heavily but stepped back. The gold haze flared to life.
“What’s going on?” Fiona walked into the room.
“It’s the geodes and spheres. They’re affecting his aura. What’s in them, Fi?”
“It could be a combination of all kinds of minerals,” she shrugged. She pulled a large blue ball-shaped rock down from the shelf. She held it next to Corey.
“Yeah, that’s it.” Evan and I said at the same time.
“Hmmm,” Fiona looked over the object, “This one is mostly lapis lazuli, I think.”
“What we need is a collection of all different minerals and rocks in one place. We need each sample to be pure. Where can we find that?” I asked.
“Doesn’t the Smithsonian have like the largest collection in the world of different rocks, gems and minerals?” Fiona asked.
“Yes, but they’re all behind glass cases with heavy security,” Evan noted.
“Oh, right.”
“Why don’t you just go to that bead store in Hagerstown?” Rose had entered the room and had heard the tail end of our conversation.
“What a wonderful idea,” agreed Fiona, “You can go first thing tomorrow,” she added.
***
The five of us went to the yellow house next. Fi and Rose called it the ‘town house’. I was pleasantly surprised when Ginger and Rock greeted us at the door.
Fiona explained, “I thought you guys could use a bit of help around here. Rock and Ginger have wanted privacy for a while, so I asked them if they would like to live here.”
Everyone looked at me expectantly, as if I had any say in the matter. It occurred to me Ginger and Rock must be an item. How sweet. “What a wonderful idea.”
Everyone smiled.
Corey wasted no time making himself at home. He went straight to the kitchen.
I followed to chastise him with sharp words about how there’d been no time to do grocery shopping. I never got the chance. The kitchen table was set with leftovers from Fiona’s Christmas dinner. The Brownies had even lit a couple of candles. Once I’d picked my jaw up off the floor, I happily joined Corey and served myself.
Ginger and Rock had done a fabulous job of making the house inviting. After dinner we said good night to Evan and Fiona
. Rose told us the satellite connection wouldn’t be installed until after New Year’s Day, but Corey and I amused ourselves by setting up the entertainment center in the den anyway. I grabbed a pillow off of the couch which still had my mom’s scent and took it upstairs with me. Then I unpacked a bunch of boxes in my new bedroom. For the first time in what seemed like forever, I slept in my own bed with my own bedding.
Chapter Nine
Saying Goodbye
To my relief, the next morning I had access to my whole wardrobe, so I pulled on a favorite sweater and a pair of corduroy pants. Elastic bands allowed me to draw my chocolate brown locks into a pony tail before heading downstairs.
Evan had already started making muffins with Ginger. Rose promised to go grocery shopping while we shopped for beads. She slipped Evan a bunch of money and told him to stop by the mall to get us clothes for the funeral. I’d forgotten about it and felt guilty about finding moments of pleasure.
Evan looked straight at me and said one word only. “Don’t.” It was like he could read my mind. He crossed the room and stood in front of me. With two fingers he lifted my chin and made me look straight into his eyes. “Your mother would be happy you’re settling in here.”
I nodded and tried to hold back the tears. A few of them escaped and rolled down my cheeks.
“Oh Maggie,” Evan sighed and grabbed me in a huge bear hug.
I squeezed my face into his chest gratefully.
“Oh, disgust me!” Corey had entered the room and stood just behind Evan. He’d put his finger into his mouth and made gagging noises.
Evan let me go. One of these days I really was going to smack my brother. He looked like he’d finally gotten a good night’s sleep, so I forgave him his snarkiness.
“Can we go now?” he said impatiently.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Corey grabbed a muffin and we headed out the front door.
***
The bead store was a fantastic business dedicated to the craft hobby of making jewelry with beads. A rainbow array of natural stone beads hung on hooks all around the walls of the large space. Cabinets, which reminded me of old-fashioned typesetting cabinets, sat side-by-side on the floor. Drawers with cubby separators held thousands of different beads. Corey was a trooper and posed for Evan and me with almost all of them while we checked to see how each type of stone affected his magical aura. Of course, he struck various movie star and superhero type poses, so other shoppers and the store clerks looked at us with trepidation, but we didn’t care. In the end we found a unique combination of stones that repressed the magical layer from Corey’s aura.
We ended up buying strings of beads made from lapis lazuli, black lava stone, white turquoise, conch fossil, and sponge coral. The gold flecks of pyrite in the lapis made his entire aura slightly larger, but the black lava made it smaller, so the combination worked well. We figured we could make up a story about Corey liking patriotic jewelry since all the beads were red, white, blue or black. If that didn’t fly we’d tell them we were from southern California and shrug like that explained our behavior.
Afterward, Evan took us to a mall and we found clothes our mother would have approved of for this most solemn occasion. Corey complained the entire time. I knew he hated shopping, but his angry behavior had little to do with clothes. The mundane task irritated me, too. I just wanted to crawl in a corner and alternate between bouts of crying and sleeping. That’s why Evan patiently urged us to keep going. In the end, we got dress shoes to go with Corey’s new suit, since he’d grown out of his old ones and didn’t return home until dinner time. After dinner, Rose showed me how to do the knotted silk thread method of creating a beaded necklace and Evan went home. I finished unpacking my boxes and realized, as I crawled into my bed, we only had one day left to emotionally prepare ourselves to say goodbye.
***
I had to walk down to Fiona’s store around midday to pick up more supplies for Corey’s necklace. Madison, a pretty twenty-something store clerk who had a thing for Evan, gave me a dirty look from behind the counter. I ignored her.
***
By late afternoon, I’d found a solution. Corey had to wear strings of beads as ankle bracelets on both legs. He hid them under his socks. He put two more strings in each of the front pockets in his pants and he wore the necklace. With the combination of stone energy, his magic was completely camouflaged.
***
Reverend Pruitt, the Episcopalian minister from Holy Trinity, dropped by to go over the details of Mom’s service with Corey and me. We listened dutifully, until the reverend got to the part of the service held graveside, and then Corey blew up. “I don’t want to go!” he shouted. “Why do I have to see her put into a hole in the ground?”
I looked at Rose for an explanation.
“Because it’s your last chance to say goodbye,” she said tersely. “You’ll regret it someday if you don’t.”
“I didn’t say goodbye to Dad,” he grumbled.
“And do you regret it?” she asked softly.
He slumped forcefully back into the couch cushions. His expression glowered at her, even as the tears poured down his face. The reverend continued to talk about what we could expect.
***
After dinner, Corey and I curled up together on the couch in the den and watched Mom’s favorite DVDs back-to-back until we couldn’t keep our eyes open.
“We managed to keep going after Dad,” I squeezed his hand and said quietly.
“I know,” he replied. Then he yawned hugely, and we both went to bed.
***
I woke up the next morning with a scream lodged in my throat. The nightmare faded quickly, but bits and pieces stuck in my mind. Arianrhod, with her silver skin and long navy hair, chased me. Her gown, made from the nighttime sky, flowed around her. I was standing on top of Bald Mountain and she chased me down the mountainside. I kept slipping on the loose shale. Several times I tripped and fell, but I scrambled back up and kept on running. Sweat dripped off my face and strung my eyes. A silver hand reached out to grab my shoulder and I woke.
Shaking off the fear still gripping me; I padded out to the bathroom and ran into Corey.
He looked at me. “I feel like doggie doo doo,” he said.
“I know bud,” I said empathetically, “but we’ll get through it. We have to.”
He nodded sadly. Then he looked into my face. “You look like doggie doo doo.”
“Nuh uh!” I gasped and peered around him to look at myself in the mirror. Fiona had said the whole clan would be at the service.
Corey barked a single chuckle. “Gotcha,” he said and sauntered out, leaving me alone with my fears and my reflection. I knew he only teased to distract me from my grief. It wouldn’t work.
***
Evan and I had discussed his role in advance. He intended to keep his distance from me at the funeral. It wouldn’t help me to assimilate into the Berkeley Springs High School culture if gossip had already been spread about how I chased Evan, a Seer, as my mom had chased my dad. The clan strongly believed Healers and Seers should not mix. They wouldn’t accept we were only best friends at face value. Therefore, he would not show any emotion or make any gestures which might be misconstrued as romantic in front of the clan. I’d agreed. Today I would be strong by sheer will alone.
***
The choir stood in front of their special pews in the chancel before the altar. The organ played its first notes and they started to sing. I am the Resurrection and the life sayeth the Lord. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
I looked at the casket with my mother lying in it. She looked at peace, so beautiful, but her eyes were closed. When I’d first walked into the nave and saw the open casket I’d instinctively turned on my healer vision. It had been irrational hope. Mom had no aura. She had gone. Only her body remained.
Reverend Pruitt said, “The Lord be with you.”
The congregation replied, “And with thy spirit.”
The minister continued. “Let us pray.”
We bowed our heads.
“O God,” he intoned, “whose mercies cannot be numbered. Accept our prayers on behalf of thy servant Shannon, and grant her entrance into the land of light and joy…”
I let the words wash over me. My mind filled with a myriad of memories of better times, laughing and crying, teasing and yelling. A badly spliced home video ran through my head. Every once in a while a phrase from the service penetrated my brain.
“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more…” I remembered Mom telling me about Dad being killed in action.
“…and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
I remembered the last family picnic we’d had with Mom and Dad before he’d shipped off to war. How much they’d loved each other.
Rose was standing at the pulpit now. I barely processed what she said. “…He that heareth my word, and believeth in him, hath everlasting life…”
I hoped she and Dad were together and happy now.
Fiona stood on the pulpit. Her voice rang strong and clear. “…I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die…”
Tears started to drift down my cheeks as I remembered: Mom dancing in the sand, barefoot on the beach, running away from the waves because the water was cold. We carried on after Dad left, and eventually we found the ability to enjoy life again.
The minister spoke, “In peace let us pray to the Lord…”
I let the tears fall unchecked. I remembered when Mom and I fought because I didn’t want to go to Cacapon for the summer. It seemed so stupid now.
“Grant to all who mourn a sure confidence in thy fatherly care, that, casting all their grief on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love.”
The congregation responded, “Amen.”
I remembered the day my father came home carrying a shriveled, red face in a blue blanket to meet me. I remembered how tired but happy Mom looked and how ugly Corey looked, how his tiny hands clutched into fists.