But through it all, we tiptoed through the house to avoid making Jason’s migraine worse. The only place he could avoid feeling as if someone dug at his eyes with a spoon was lying flat on the floor at the center of the pentagram with an icepack over his face. Either G or one of his companions sat with him. Sometimes quietly reading his homework to him. Sometimes chanting healing spells.
In those days of waiting, he visibly lost weight, his once lustrous dark hair—so like his dad’s—grew lank. His eyes looked like black holes in his skeletal face. Dancing revived him some. But on Friday evening for the next to last performance, his exuberance flagged. He jumped and leaped only as high as the other boys. He barely needed makeup to create the image of a ghoul, or a skeleton. In the “Ritual Fire Dance,” he played a spark and nearly glowed on stage, dancing as he usually did.
“This is more than eyestrain,” I whispered to G Saturday morning while Jason rested in the attic and George chanted something soothing to him.
“I know.” He clamped his mouth shut, unwilling to say more.
I was tired of his secretiveness, his need to protect us by keeping silent. “It’s D’Accore, isn’t it?” I wanted to sound angry, but the words came out deflated, resigned.
G reared his head up in alarm. In that moment I caught a glimpse of a proud stallion, wary and ready to fight to protect his family. I also saw the determination of a ram or billy goat as he lowered his head, jutting it forward, ready to butt anyone in his way with his solid horns.
“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” he finally said.
“Oh, come off your pedestal, G. I know that D’Accore wants her son’s eyes to replace her own. I know that Fire is her element, so he revives a little when dancing that role.”
“When did she get her hooks into him?” he asked. “We’ve been so careful to keep him separated from her.”
I shook my head in bewilderment. “Wait a minute.” My brain fought through the murk of worry. “The day of the bake sale, you and Jason had to fight off D’Accore’s minions. Did any of them touch Jason? Could she have sent some kind of binding or compulsion spell through one of her boys? And there was the night BJ shot at him backstage. . . .”
“What about it? The boy’s aim was erratic. He didn’t hit anyone.” He avoided speaking about the first encounter. That might very well be the source of the problem.
“But when Jason tackled BJ, and trapped him around the neck with his crossed legs, did BJ touch him in any way?” I decided to humor him while clinging to my first suspicion.
“There were a couple of seconds when they landed that they were all tangled together.” G’s eyes brightened and his frown deepened. “I’ll be damned. BJ wasn’t supposed to actually shoot anyone, only cause chaos so he could plant a magical worm on Jason.”
I shuddered at the thought of magical energy wriggling and squirming under my skin, finding my bloodstream and attacking. . . . The same scenario fit the first encounter. I’d seen glimmers of the headache before the night of the shooting. “What can we do?”
“That’s an Italian gardener’s spell.” He dashed for his super computer and pulled up a database. He scrolled down and down the entries.
“Is that the list of D’Accore’s victims?” It was more extensive than I thought possible.
“No, the full registry. Ah, here’s the Italian entries. And . . . and . . . There’s an early victim of D’Accore’s. An old winemaker in Tuscany, retired twenty years ago, but still on the rolls. He died of a heart attack the week after D’Accore escaped from the dungeon. Tuscany is an easy hop from the Languedoc. He had a talent matching bees to pollen. He created some marvelous wines from hybrid grapes by cross-pollinating. He coaxed bees to the flowers he wanted them to gather pollen from and deposit it elsewhere. But he also had a spell for a magic worm to seek out disease and rot in vulnerable roots. I hate to think of the damage it could do if unleashed on a human mind.” He shuddered and gulped.
“The bees-to-pollen spell is how D’Accore is snaring young men, including BJ, into following her,” I mused.
“Maybe Giuseppe didn’t have a heart attack after all.”
“Did he have a wand?” I asked. Something . . . something eluded me.
“A shaft of entwined grapevines.”
“Like the wand Shara stole from the greenhouse safe and then D’Accore stole from the ballet prop room. She’s still got it. But how did it get from Tuscany to Eugene?”
“Giuseppe gave it to me a week before he died. He wanted me to keep it so no one in his family could mistreat it and that I’d know who to give it to when I met him. He was not well. I kept it as a remembrance of our friendship. He was a grand old man and gave me a bottle of wine at the same time. I should have ceremonially burned it and scattered the ashes on his grave. But something about his last request compelled me to bring the wand here. Some budding magician is out there seeking a wand, and now I’ll never be able to pass it on.” Sadness made his shoulders slump. He buried his face in his hands. “I didn’t, couldn’t strip it. I thought that keeping it in the safe would be all I had to do.”
“Except your daughter found it and felt compelled to bring it out into the light of day. She said one or all of the wands called to her requesting release.” I let silence grow between us almost to the breaking point. “Then how do we get it back?” Regret began to engulf me. If only I’d known! If only he’d told me the truth. If only . . .
No time for regrets. We needed to figure this out before tonight.
Suddenly, my brain kicked in, and I began plotting my revenge. I just hoped I’d have time.
Forty-One
I KNEW HOW TO make an astringent patch that would draw out a tick embedded in the ear, or a bee stinger from anywhere, or even hair-fine barbed blackberry thorns. But a magical worm? I let my wand help me. Without thought, both the wand and I knew I needed to start with baking soda and some herbs I’d gathered blindly while browsing the greenhouse. Stripping a blackberry cane for the thorns took some ingenuity. Finally, I resorted to Belle coaxing them to release their hold on the vine and drop into my collection dish. They burrowed invisibly into the baking soda, almost gleeful at the trickery I planned.
“G,” I called up the stairs as soon as I returned to the kitchen. The acoustics in the house guaranteed my voice would find him.
“What now? I’m busy?” He appeared in the doorway to the basement. He and Zeb had taken the monster computer down there for some Guild-related purpose and to keep it away from party guests.
“Get your healing hands person over here, ASAP. I’m going to draw that worm out of Jason’s head before he has to dance again. Before the pain drives him blind.”
He pulled out his phone and speed dialed without question. “She is very professional and abides by her oaths of confidentiality.” His eyes avoided me and I knew, just knew, he’d had sex with her at some point. Strictly professional on her part, I was sure. Still . . .
I swallowed the creeping ick of emotions at having to meet one of his women.
“Drive him blind?” G’s eyes brightened and lifted to meet my own. “D’Accore drove herself blind with her attempts to release herself from a straitjacket. She didn’t damage her eyes by clawing at them, as Jason is about to do. She’d fried her nerve endings and brain synapses, not her eyes.”
The one time I’d seen her, her eyes appeared normal, except her gaze was fixed.
“G?” He looked up from his phone, gaze centered on me as if seeking answers to all his problems. “Even if D’Accore could rob Jason of his eyes, would she be able to see? I mean if it’s not her eyes that are the problem, but her brain?”
“Good point. I’ll work on that. Once in a while logic does penetrate her obsessiveness. What else do you need from me?”
“Not you, George. I need to know if Keeli will eat worms, now that she’s eaten every rodent within half a mile.�
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“Maybe not eat that particular worm, but probably carry it to the river and drop it in the swiftest part of the current.” He disappeared again.
Moments later, I heard ghostly moans and witch cackles coming from hidden speakers all over the house.
Judi the massage therapist arrived ten minutes later. A tall woman with a no-nonsense bob of brown hair, devoid of makeup, and wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed to the world “Physical Terrorist.” Her long-fingered hands looked strong and capable. She shook my hand with forthright neutrality. Strictly professional.
“G said I wouldn’t need my table. It’s in the van if we do need it. I’ve got aromatic oils in here.” She patted a square black box with shoulder straps.
“We’re working outside today,” I told her.
“It’s raining.”
“It’s October. The air will be refreshing after the stuffiness of the house. And we are between squalls. Nothing more potent than drizzle for the next hour and half. Besides, we’ll be beneath the awning on the flagstone patio.”
She nodded abruptly. “Heard about your affinity with weather.”
The Community might not socialize much, but their gossip network seemed as finely tuned as Flora’s.
Then Judi marched through the house and out the back door. G and George helped Jason walk out there, supporting him, guiding him so he didn’t have to open his eyes, and steadying his balance.
Jason sat on one of the little white wrought-iron chairs, long legs sprawled in front of him, back slumped. I’d nursed him through childhood fevers, strained muscles, and bewilderment after being bullied. But I’d never seen my boy so helpless, so depressed. So vulnerable.
I was convinced the worm thrived on that vulnerability.
Sing joined us with one of his wooden flutes. This one was longer, carved from some dark exotic wood. Its tones came out deeper, feathery soft, and timed to coax an erratic heartbeat back to normal.
I breathed deeply, relaxed by the music and the fresh, moist air.
Judi took up a place directly behind Jason, fingers gently massaging his neck and shoulders.
Jason tensed, as if her very touch inflamed every nerve ending in his body. The toes of his bare feet curled against the cold flagstone, preparing to endure.
Before I lost my courage, I slapped some of my astringent paste onto each temple, rubbing it in as deeply as I dared.
“Now we wait,” I said.
Judi continued her massage, moving her fingers up to the white patches, working the skin around them, touching the center occasionally. Sing continued his flute work. George gently drummed the picnic table with his fingertips.
Shara grabbed her father’s hand. “I’ll take you through the maze of blood vessels to the worm’s head,” she whispered.
Then Belle appeared and took her hair stick out of her bun and waved the jade charms across each of her brother’s temples.
Magical energy tingled against my skin, just a small amount. It rose in a dome around us, all of us working to help Jason. I heard a sizzle when a stray raindrop touched it near the edge of the patio. Bright blue lightning arced outward, nearly blinding me.
G continued chanting. Judi continued rubbing. And the music deepened. Not so much louder, as touching more than ears, binding souls with a mission to rid my boy of the dreadful worm.
“Found it,” Shara whispered.
“Got it by the tail and pulling,” G added in the same tone.
“Come on, you little bugger, let go. Release your hold,” Judi said. The whiteness around her knuckles told me she pressed harder.
“Follow me,” Belle sang. “I am your love, your life. You need to come to me, follow my trail. Come to me.” She waved and shook her jade charms in time with George’s drumbeat.
And then I saw it. An angry red tendril of magical energy. Darker than fire. More like old blood, knotted and clotted. Two of them. One on each astringent patch. They wiggled as if looking around and started to withdraw.
“No, you don’t,” Judi pressed her fingers harder around the patches, as if squeezing a giant abscess.
“Don’t be afraid. Come to me.” Belle separated the charms from the hair stick and dangled one on either side of her brother’s face.
Jason gritted his teeth. His features contorted into a grimace of pain.
“Keep coming. Don’t break apart, keep sliding out, slide smoothly,” G chanted.
Amazingly, the worm obeyed the enticement and the commands. I held the bowl with the extra astringent beneath it. First on the left, the larger and fatter knotted strand dropped into the bowl and writhed. Then the skinnier but darker worm slithered out of the right side of Jason’s face. It tried to ooze onto his cheek and down to his chin. I scootched the lip of the dish beneath the pulsing strand of ugly energy and forced it to join its brother. They writhed and twisted away from each other. Two negatives repelling rather than opposite poles attracting.
G slowly dropped the dome of energy. The flute music faded, the drumming eased away, still echoing the rhythm of a heart.
Judi kept massaging Jason’s temples, gradually working her way down to his neck and out across his shoulders. With each pass she flung her hands outward, shaking away the negative energy.
Keeli screeched above us, her voice clear and excited now that it wasn’t muffled by the dome. I held the bowl up. But George elbowed me aside and held up his gauntleted arm for her to perch. She swooped in on silent wings and dug in her claws through the thick leather encompassing George’s wrist and forearm. She took a moment to rub her head against his face in a loving caress. Her eyes zeroed in on the writhing mass of magical energy in my bowl. Delicately, she plucked both worms out with her curved beak, winked at me and flew off.
And Jason opened his eyes. “Mom, what’s for lunch?”
I had never before heard more beautiful words.
Forty-Two
AT THE END OF OCTOBER, sunset falls early this close to the forty-fifth parallel, even before going off Daylight Savings Time. The first mob of small children dressed in costumes from the latest Disney movie rang the doorbell at five minutes after five. Twilight, not full dark yet.
I’d just walked in the back door with an armload of Jason’s gear from his last performance. He’d shone and leaped and smiled just like his old self. Belle, dressed as the pied piper, opened the door to a hail of “Trick-or-Treat!”
A steady stream of children followed, getting taller as the night wore on. Raphe seemed to be having a good time. In his homeless rags and ghoulish makeup, he rose from behind a fake tombstone, moaning at the older children. Zeb dressed as a Western sheriff, complete with white Stetson and a real revolver on his hip, patrolled the grounds front and back. Gayla, dressed in glow-in-the-dark white draperies over white thermal underwear, drifted around the fake cemetery keeping a wary eye out for stragglers and interlopers.
G had copied Zeb’s costume but wore a black Stetson and had heels on his western boots. Heels that hid tiny blades that sprang out when he stomped. I didn’t ask what he’d dipped those blades in.
Hopefully, they were left over from some previous job, and he wouldn’t need those blades tonight.
George wore fringed buckskin and a fully feathered warbonnet—some of the feathers looked like Keeli’s. He still carried his little hand drum and a rattle that he shook at some of the better costumed adolescents. Sing had changed into flowing black pants and a red silk shirt with a standup collar and matching skullcap. Both were resplendent with embroidered golden dragons. I was pretty sure that thread shimmered with more than just high-quality manufacture. The primary dragon on his back had red jeweled eyes that blinked at me.
Shara was still only ten and clung to her fluffy pink princess dress and plastic tiara, probably for the last time. The dress was approaching miniskirt rather than ball-gown length.
When Te
d showed up, he looked like he always did: worn jeans, plaid flannel work shirt, and tool belt. He’d added a hard hat. I guess you could call it a costume, as in a uniform of any kind can be a costume.
And me? I decided that if I was fully fledged witch now, I might as well dress the part. Flowing black draperies, green skin, green-and-white-striped leggings with black boots, a tall black hat, and—of course—a prosthetic nose complete with wart. I didn’t have enough hands to carry a broom. But I had one, in a corner of the attic. My wand was tucked into the back waistband of my skirt, small enough to be unobtrusive, ready to telescope out. By next week, I expected I’d be able to pocket it like G’s pen.
And through it all, the hidden speakers, inside and out, played sound effects and many, many, many repeats of the “Monster Mash.” But not a note of “Alakazam, Magic Slam.” I think my house was the most popular haunting in town that Halloween night.
By eight, the trick-or-treaters had dwindled, and the dancers, their parents, my friends, the kids’ friends, and schoolmates had arrived for the party.
No sign of BJ or his parents. Yet. BJ was still in psych lockup. I’d heard from some of my customers who were deserting the Chambers’ election campaign that BJ’s parents would try to use that as a justification for burning us out. A conservative Christian movement against immorality was one thing. Burning houses and people were too much for my informants. According to Bret Sr., they bailed to the dark side, engulfed by evil. In my mind, the dark side had begun to look like the bright side of the Force. Or the Farce. I wasn’t sure which.
I added a bottle of vodka to one bowl of punch and made sure no one discovered the “special cookies” I’d created for D’Accore’s unwanted minions. Those I hid in the back of the walk-in pantry just inside the mudroom door. And I showed them to Jason so he’d keep everyone else out.
A Spoonful of Magic Page 31