Except for the fact that Reg wasn’t sure if she could avoid her siren instincts being triggered if she went to such activities. And after Sarah had just stood up for her in front of her witch friends, Reg didn’t think it would be such a great idea for them to see her in that state.
“Uh… I think I have something else going on,” Reg said. She looked down at her schedule, which she knew was blank. Sarah was the one who often set up appointments for her and kept her on schedule, so Sarah knew very well that she didn’t have anything on.
“Come on, Reg,” Sarah coaxed. “Let’s go out and do something fun. You don’t need to hide around here all day, trying to stay out of sight. That will just encourage people to treat you as an outcast. Be confident and get out there, and people will forget what they’re supposed to be afraid of.”
It was a lesson that Reg had learned early in her life. Bluster, brag, be confident, never let people know when she felt vulnerable, or they would know she was weak and take advantage of her. If she put on a brave face, they would see she was strong and leave her alone. Hopefully. With Sarah’s words behind her, people would soon forget their prejudice about Reg’s parentage.
“It’s not that,” Reg said, although her reluctance to go out at all and be seen around town did have something to do with trying to avoid people’s judgment and the possibility of eggs or rocks being thrown at her the next time instead of at her house. “It’s, umm… I don’t think I should be that close to the water. Until I’m sure I have a good handle on this.”
“It won’t hurt you just to be close to the water. We’ll have dinner in the marina and go out on the yacht. You won’t be in the water.”
“Even just the spray of water was a problem in the Everglades, I had to make sure I sat out of the way… I just don’t want to be having to figure out what all the triggers are and avoiding them during an event like that. If it was just a couple of close friends, maybe, but with a group… especially a group that we’re trying to convince that I am not a danger…”
“I suppose,” Sarah said grudgingly. “But I want you to get out there. I don’t want you sulking around here all day, with an empty schedule and nothing to do.”
“I won’t. I was in the garden for a while earlier… I’ll go for a walk. Maybe drive up the coast a bit. I guess it’s my opportunity to do all of the sightseeing I never did when I first got here.”
Sarah nodded. “There are so many things to see in Florida. And many of the locals never see them.”
“Yeah. I looked at some brochures when we were in the Everglades. There are all kinds of attractions. Maybe I’ll spend a couple of days in Miami.”
“Good. Well…” Sarah looked down at her black dress and cloak. “Time to get out of this nightmare and into something more comfortable.”
Sarah had a houseful of clothes; Reg didn’t see why she had to wear something she didn’t like to her coven. Even if she were required to wear black, and Reg didn’t think she was, there was no reason it had to be a stuffy, uncomfortable dress.
“Okay. I’ll see you later.”
Sarah nodded and went on her way back to the big house. Reg watched her go, letting out a deep sigh. She really would have liked to go with Sarah. The marina was beautiful at night, and she longed to feel the wind from the ocean and to see the shimmering ripples of the dark water. But she had to be careful. She had to stay in control of herself, and that was getting harder and harder.
Reg turned on the TV and sat on the couch so that her back would be to the door and window when Sarah left the house. Not that Reg could see out of either one. The window was still blocked by cardboard, as Sarah hadn’t been able to get anyone in to install a replacement window so quickly. And Sarah would be leaving by her front door, not visible to Reg from the back of the lot. But Reg didn’t want to know when she left, either by the lights going out in the house or by her sense of Sarah’s presence in the house, which she couldn’t help monitoring.
She flipped through the various options and found a channel streaming classic scary movies. Maybe she would pop some popcorn and enjoy a movie night. The campy black and white horror movies were sure to distract her from everything that was going on in her own life. It was hard to believe that they had once been considered frightening. The melodrama, the cheesy special effects… it was nothing compared to what a computer could generate. Yet those were the classics, the ones that everyone remembered and referenced.
Starlight checked out his bowl to see if anything interesting had materialized there, crunched a few bits of kibble, and joined her on the couch, cuddling up to her so that Reg didn’t want to move and disturb his purring meditation even to get popcorn.
Maybe falling asleep to horror movies was not the best idea. Reg awoke sometime in the night, disoriented and trying to remember where she was and how she had fallen asleep on the uncomfortable couch. She shifted around, waking the black and white cat so that he put back his ears and looked at her with a grumpy expression before stalking away to his food dish. It took her some time to blink away the weird nightmares of monsters and snakes and gangsters with funny hats and guns and to remember where she was, why she was there, and even the tuxedo cat’s name.
She used the bathroom and staggered to her bed to go back to sleep where it was more comfortable and, hopefully, she would not have any more dreams.
Chapter Twelve
Of course that wasn’t the end of the dreams. Reg tried to sweep them away as she woke up in the morning. Just dreams. Nothing she needed to remember. Nothing portentous.
The cat stretched and meowed and jumped over to the bed. Reg scratched his ears, looking at him for a few minutes.
“Star,” she said finally. “Starlight.” She shook her head. “What is wrong with my head? It isn’t even like I was drinking last night. What is going on with me?”
Starlight looked back at her, his eyes steady and expression serious.
“It must be something Corvin did to me. That’s when it all started, when I had dinner with him. Did he slip something into my drink? Plant a suggestion in my mind? I don’t know what’s going on.”
Starlight meowed and led the way to the kitchen. Reg laughed. For a cat, everything began with what was in his food dish. How could one expect to solve the world’s problems without a proper breakfast?
She followed him out to the kitchen and he indicated his bowl and rubbed against the fridge. Reg checked the fridge and found some fish for him. He supervised while she plopped a couple of spoonfuls into his bowl, and then chowed down.
Reg looked around her cottage. It all seemed familiar and new at the same time. As if she had visited it once or twice before, but it wasn’t really hers. Was that because it belonged to the witch in the big house? Or was there something else going on that she didn’t understand?
She looked through the other containers in the fridge but didn’t see anything that interested her. As if someone else had stocked the fridge with foods that she didn’t particularly like. She pushed the button on the coffee machine and put a cup under the spout just in time to avoid it spitting coffee out all over the counter.
There was a phone ringing in the other room. Reg ignored it. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. Whoever it was would have to wait.
The cat continued to wolf down his food. Reg watched him thoughtfully as she waited for the coffee machine to finish filling her cup.
It was good that she had a familiar. The cat would help her to focus her energy. The third eye marking on his forehead suggested that he had psychic powers, which would be helpful.
The coffee machine finished dribbling into her cup, and Reg was soon leaning against the counter, sipping the hot, bitter liquid, and wondering where she would go to pick up a newspaper. There didn’t seem to be any around the cottage. There was a knock on the door. She decided it wouldn’t be polite to ignore it and, since she was up anyway, she might as well answer it.
The blond woman on the steps had gorgeous curls spiraling down
to her shoulder and a charming French Creole accent.
“Reg,” she trilled. “How ees it? Sarah was telling me about your trouble lately.” The woman stopped to look at the door, surveying the whole thing as if she might find a flaw in it. She nodded. “No eggs today.”
Reg shook her head at the non-sequitur. She tried to remember what she knew about the woman. They knew each other because of the cats. Reg’s black and white tuxedo and the woman’s pure black female, who she let wander all over the neighborhood, unlike Reg’s cat, who was an indoor cat.
Nicole?
Reg opened her mouth to greet the woman, then closed it again. No. That wasn’t right. Nicole was, she thought, the cat’s name. She could hear the woman’s lilting voice as she pronounced it. Nee-cole.
“Francesca,” Reg blurted as it finally came to her.
Francesca smiled and raised her brows. “Reg?”
“Sorry. I haven’t had my coffee yet,” Reg laughed off the blunder. “How are you? And Nicole?”
Francesca was happy to answer and went into some detail about both her recent activities and her and the cat’s health. Reg studied her face, trying to remember more about her, but couldn’t access much of those memories. Black cats. Singing. Nee-cole. She couldn’t seem to put it in any order.
“And you?” Francesca was inquiring. “I guess things have been difficult.”
“Yes,” Reg agreed. She rubbed sweating palms down her robe. She stopped and looked at it. Why was she still wearing a robe in the middle of the morning? She should have been showered and changed by that time. “I really don’t want to talk about that right now, though. We should focus on… the positives.”
Francesca nodded wisely, as if this were something she often counseled. “Yes. The positive,” she agreed. “Not enough people express gratitude for the good things in their lives.”
“Exactly,” Reg concurred. But she wasn’t counting her blessings. She was trying to figure out what the heck was going on without giving away her current deficits to anyone else. In a few minutes, when the caffeine had reached her brain, everything would be back to normal. It was just the previous night’s dreams that had not yet left her.
Reg’s thoughts flashed back to the dreams. She had tried to push them away and forget them, but all at once, she saw images from several of her dreams almost simultaneously. They were too quick for her to process them one at a time, yet she saw them all clearly.
A man with a claw-like hand. Snakes underfoot, their rattles making her suddenly leap back in alarm. Dark shapes moving in the darkness. She heard words as if they were coming to her from far away.
The venom.
Bring me what I need.
There is no other way.
It was all from watching the movies the night before. She should have known better than to watch horror movies before bed. To fall asleep with them still playing in her ears. Her subconscious brain had picked up on the themes and was bringing the images back to her as if they were her own thoughts instead of echoes of what she had seen on the screen.
“Could I get you something?” Reg offered Francesca, interrupting whatever it was Francesca was going on about. “Coffee or tea?”
“Tea, yes, if you don’t mind.”
Reg opened and closed cupboards and found a supply of both commercial tea bags and jars of loose-leaf tea and herbs. “What kind do you want?”
Francesca perused the selection over Reg’s shoulder. “Just… English Breakfast, I think.”
Reg grabbed one of the tea bags and opened another cupboard to find some mugs. She put the bag into the mug and fumbled with the high-tech kettle, trying to figure out if she were supposed to put it on one of the elements on the smooth cooktop or if it worked by itself.
Francesca took it from her and pressed a button. She sloshed it to make sure there was enough water in it, then put it down on the counter to heat. Reg studied it.
“It’s new,” she remarked.
“It looks the same as the last one,” Francesca countered.
“Yes… but there are a few differences.”
Neither of them said anything for a few minutes, listening to the ticking of the kettle as it warmed. Reg scratched the back of her neck.
“Where would I go to get a newspaper?” she asked.
Francesca’s look became even more bewildered. Reg decided she had better stop asking questions and showing herself to be so unbalanced.
“Are you… okay?” Francesca asked delicately. “I know you were not feeling well; perhaps you need to…”
What Francesca thought Reg needed, she wasn’t sure.
“Just a little foggy this morning,” she said, trying to wave away Francesca’s concern. “I’m sure I’ll be fine once the coffee kicks in.”
“Is this something to do with… what Sarah said…? About how you are partly…” she trailed off, and Reg was left to wonder. Partly what?
“It’s nothing,” Reg told her again. “Don’t worry about it.”
There was a trilling noise from the direction of the bedroom. Francesca looked around. “Is that your phone?”
“It can wait.”
Francesca’s eyes grew wider and rounder at this suggestion. There was a lag in the conversation as they both listened to the phone ringing in the other room. Whoever it was, they were very persistent. Reg didn’t like phones. It was reprehensible the way that young people were always glued to their phones, ignoring everything going on around them. They needed to just put them down and get out there in the real world. Quit hiding from everything outside their own doors.
“Why don’t you look up the news on your phone?” Francesca asked. “Isn’t that what you usually do?”
Reg considered this. But she wasn’t sure what it was she usually did. Just that there were not any newspapers around the cottage. Not even in the garbage bins of varying colors under the kitchen sink.
“Yes, of course,” she agreed. “I just felt like… I’d like to be able to see everything spread out in front of me, instead of crammed onto that tiny screen.”
“Oh.” Francesca nodded politely. “Of course.”
“Not everyone likes reading on their phones.”
“No. That’s true. I just always thought you were… a phone person. You’ve always got yours with you, and you haven’t seemed interested in… books and newspapers.”
“I made a resolution. For the Spring equinox. I want my life to be more balanced, so I decided to quit relying on the phone for everything. To have a better, more well-rounded life.”
The kettle whistled. Francesca turned it off and poured water over her teabag. She looked around the kitchen and found sugar in the cupboard and a small carton of milk in the fridge. Then she nodded her head toward the wicker furniture in the living room.
“We should sit. Enjoy the tea like civilized people.”
Reg nodded her approval at this. She carried her coffee cup over and sat down in one of the chairs. Francesca sat down with her tea. Reg appreciated the calm, unhurried atmosphere. Much better than gulping the hot drinks down and rushing off to something that seemed so much more important but was really just an excuse for not visiting properly.
“So, how long since you moved to Florida?” Reg asked.
Francesca looked at her, frown lines appearing between her eyebrows. “Just when I moved here to Black Sands. Right before we met.”
“Oh. Right. I was thinking you had lived in Orlando first. I’m not sure why I thought that.”
“No. When I left Haiti, I came here. I had only lived here a couple of weeks before… that business.”
That business?
Reg smiled and nodded her confirmation. Of course.
The tuxedo cat—Starlight—wandered into the living room and went to Francesca for attention. Then rather than going to Reg, he hunkered down a few feet away from her and just stared at her. Reg snapped her fingers beside her chair.
“Come here, Starlight. Come on over and say hi.”
Starlight didn’t budge. He just sat there in the shape of a bread loaf, unmoving, and looked at Reg.
“He is sleepy this morning too?” Francesca suggested in a light tone.
Anger flared up inside of Reg. She didn’t like Francesca’s tone or the suggestion that Reg’s explanation hadn’t made sense. Francesca thought that there was something wrong. Wrong with Reg and wrong with the cat.
Why did the stupid woman come forcing her way into someone else’s house with all kinds of expectations? She wasn’t in charge of Reg. They weren’t best friends. They had spent some time together, and now the little witch thought that she had the right to pass judgments over Reg’s life. And her cat. What kind of person did that?
Francesca’s eyes narrowed. She drank another sip of her tea. She looked toward the door as if measuring her chances of a quick escape.
“You can leave whenever you like,” Reg snapped. “Don’t feel like you have to stay.”
Francesca looked as if she would argue, putting a determined smile on her face and making demands, but then she apparently thought better of it.
“I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” she said graciously. “I’m sorry, I should have called first.”
Her words hung in the air, and Reg wondered if she had, in fact, called first, and that had been one of the calls that Reg had ignored, leaving the phone in the bedroom where she didn’t have to deal with it all the time.
“It was nice to see you,” Reg offered up a platitude.
“Yes, always a pleasure,” Francesca returned woodenly. There was no warmth between them. Reg simmered at Francesca thinking she could just show up out of the blue and would be welcomed with open arms.
Reg escorted her to the door, still smiling in a way that stretched her face unnaturally. Francesca cast a couple of quick glances in her direction.
“Let me know if you need anything,” she said in a low, urgent way, as if someone might overhear them. “Just give me a call; I would be happy to help.”
Without Foresight Page 7