by J. P. Sloan
I shook my head. My brain was feeling fuzzy. Cheap beer. Go figure.
Edgar snickered and moved back to his sales counter by the reagent rack.
“Where are you going?” Wren asked.
“I just reminded myself I was going to look for a business card for Dorian.”
I nodded. “Thanks. Oh, I have that contractor’s card in my wallet.”
I pulled my wallet out as Wren cawed, “You’re finally getting that balcony fixed? Who are you and what have you done with my husband?”
I opened my wallet and fished through the credit cards for Andreas’ business card. My head throbbed. Another headache was coming on. I thumbed my Druid Hill member card, looking behind it for the business card. The pain lanced sharply through my temples and I grunted.
“You okay, man?” Edgar asked.
“Yeah. Headache. Good one.”
“Sucks.”
Wren grabbed my arm and twisted me at my waist.
“Can I help you?” I mumbled.
She gripped my shoulders and kneaded them expertly.
“Never mind,” I added.
“Two years of massage therapy school and all I got was this useless certificate.” The pain subsided as she worked on my shoulders and neck. “Been getting these often?”
“Not that often. Just started a couple weekends ago. Figured it was just some migraine.”
“What triggered it?”
“Well, that was the day I almost got shot in the face. I figured I was just feeling stressed because, you know, I almost got shot in the face.”
Wren stood up and wandered over to the sales desk. “You know, all of this talk about feeling worked over, migraines, depression. Sounds to me like you just need to cleanse and center.” She began rifling through the drawers in front of Edgar. “I want to smudge you.”
I smirked at Edgar. “You hearing this? Your wife wants to smudge me. I didn’t know you two were into that.”
Edgar grinned as Wren pulled out a large, phallic bundle of dried sage.
“Ass,” she grunted as she pulled a lighter from the top drawer. “A smudge is a cleansing course of herbal smoke meant to pull off dead energy and psychic gunk.”
“I’ve been practicing hermetic arts my entire adult life, Wren. I know what a smudge is.”
She smacked the side of my forehead with her open palm.
I winced. “Headache. Hello?”
She lit the end of the sage bundle, allowing it to rise into a tall flame before blowing it out into a slow smoldering ember. White smoke poured up into the store and she tapped my foot with her boot.
“Arms up.”
I dropped my wallet onto the table and lifted my palms up to the ceiling. “All right, just be gentle. I promise not to clench.”
She passed the smudge in front of my chest and waved it in slow lines up toward my chin. “Just try to center your energy. God, you’re just like Edgar. Throwing your aura all over the room like you own the place.”
“I thought he did own the place.”
Edgar lifted his hands and backed away from the two of us. “Hey man, don’t get me into a fight.”
Wren lifted the smudge to the front of my face. The sweet, earthy aroma of the burning sage filled my nostrils. I closed my eyes and relaxed, allowing it to calm me. I pulled in my mainline and tried to concentrate it.
I felt a warmth near my forehead. Something bright filled my vision behind closed eyelids. I opened up to it, frankly staggered that Wren was bringing some real magic.
The light intensified as did the smoky odor. When I heard Wren shriek, I knew something was wrong.
I opened my eyes in time to see a flaming mass of sage drop to the ground in front of me. I stomped it out, scattering tiny dots of smoldering herb across the concrete floor.
Wren pulled away, gripping her fingers. Edgar rushed to her, jerking his spectacles up to his head to inspect her hand.
“I’m okay,” she rasped, breathing heavily.
“Go run it under cold water,” he murmured with remarkable calm.
“What happened?” I asked, standing up to check for remaining embers.
Wren whispered, “Whole thing just went up.”
“Go,” Edgar urged, pushing her toward the stairs.
Wren gave me a long, considered stare, then moved upstairs.
I looked over to Edgar, who was rubbing his ample chin.
“Seriously, Edgar. What the fuck?”
“That was weird.”
“What, did it just explode?”
Edgar crouched down and picked up some of the ash. There was no actual sage left. He sniffed his hand and shook his head.
“Just burned down all at once.”
“What are you putting in your smudges, Edgar?”
“Nothing that would do that.”
“Maybe some dragonsblood got mixed in?”
Edgar gave me a scolding look. “Dragonsblood doesn’t explode. That was more like gunpowder or something.”
“Think the kids maybe messed with it?”
“Possible, but I really don’t think so. They know better than to screw with my business stuff.”
He trotted over to the reagent rack and began pulling tiny wooden boxes out and lining them up on the glass display. He bent over to smell and touch each of the boxes.
I kept my distance, rubbing my temples from the migraine, though it was beginning to subside.
Footsteps boomed from the spiral staircase, and I turned to find Wren rushing down the wrought iron, a small wood box in her hand.
“You okay?” I asked.
Her eyes were sharp and low. She meant business. “I need you to stand with your arms out away from your body.”
I searched for a smartass remark, but her quick, sharp movements made me think twice.
Edgar peered up from his display counter and snapped his spectacles back.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She set down the box. Cedar, by the look of it. She opened the tiny lid and pulled out a small point of smoky quartz suspended at the end of a silver chain.
Pendulum.
She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “I’ve seen this before,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering open with another short breath.
I held my arms out several inches from my sides as she dangled the pendulum in the air in front of my stomach.
“What, a smudge caught fire?”
“Yep,” she whispered, turning a slow circle around me.
“I was helping a young couple in Hyattstown with a house cleansing. They were having problems with a poltergeist, or something like it. I smudged their bathroom, and my censor burst into flames. I had pierced an energy well and didn’t know it. Turns out the woman had this ritual of telling herself how fat and ugly she was in the mirror every morning. Lovely, right?”
“Sounds like a great way to feed something.”
“Bingo. Some entity latched onto it and stayed in the mirror like some fat catfish, sucking up all the―”
I felt a light tap on the back of my head.
“What was that?”
I received no answer.
Edgar stepped slowly around the display case, his eyes wide.
“Trippy,” he muttered.
“Guys? Seriously.”
Wren stepped around, her eyebrows pulled up in the middle. She held the smoky quartz point in space directly in front of my eyes. The pendulum slowly pulled through the air toward my forehead, tapping it lightly, drawn as if toward a magnet.
“Oh, that’s not good,” I said.
“Dorian, you’ve got something on you.”
“No way. I would know if I had a charm on me.”
“Really?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but closed it. She had a point. With a shrug, I pulled away from the pendulum, which fell limp on its chain.
“I’m telling you,” Wren pushed, “there’s a charm on you. Right around your head.”
Charmed. I
was charmed. How was that possible? I would have known. I should have known. This was my God damned trade. How did someone manage to put a charm on Dorian Lake without him knowing it?
Edgar offered, “Maybe this is part of your being so weird lately? Maybe you’re not such an asshole after all?”
“But people still love me, right?” I inspected my person, looking over my shirt, my vest, my slacks, and my shoes.
“What are you doing?” Wren asked.
“If this is a charm, then it has to have an anchor. Something that keeps it active, and tied into my aura.”
“Hang on,” Edgar declared, a finger held in the air. “I have an idea.” He rifled through his display cabinet until he produced a long, slender black case. He brought it to me and opened it, revealing a tuning fork.
“Here, pick this up.”
I complied, and he trotted back to his wares.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Hold the handle with one hand, and put two fingers on the tines with the other. Then concentrate. Try to get it to tune into your vibrations.”
“Vibrations?”
“Just do it, man.”
I capped the ends of the tines with my fingers and closed my eyes, centering once more. I extended my aura out onto the tuning fork and sent my will into it. This was kid’s play. Actually, this was part of my typical charm making ritual, and that’s as much of my ritual as I’m willing to divulge.
Edgar returned with thick black gloves on his hands.
“What the hell are those?”
“Rubber gloves.”
“Why do you need rubber gloves?”
“I use them when I handle artifacts that I don’t have a history on. Helps keep energy transfer to a minimum.”
Edgar. In his own Hawaiian print fashion, he was a genius.
He took the fork and smacked it against a marble top table nearby, and ran it up and down my person. The lower he got, the louder the hum rang.
“Shoes?” I ventured.
He passed the fork over my feet, but the tone diminished. With a fresh crack against the table, he moved it up my leg. The tone increased, then decreased once it passed my knee.
“I don’t have any screws in my knee, honestly.”
Edgar pulled away and pondered the situation. As he crossed his arms with the tuning fork hanging under his elbow, it suddenly jumped in pitch. He turned slowly, and let the tuning fork slide across the coffee table in front of the sofa.
Directly toward my wallet.
I hopped onto the sofa and opened my wallet, emptying its contents piece by piece. Several hundred dollar bills and smaller denominations. My driver’s license and social security card. My healthcare card. Three grocery store cards.
A picture of Carmen.
I leaned back and gave Edgar a meaningful look. He passed the tuning fork over the picture, but the tone slowly fell into silence.
He shook his head, and I opened my wallet again.
An old fishing license from New York State that I had never managed to throw away. I pulled up the flap of my wallet and thumbed out my Druid Hill card.
The headache drove pain through my eyeballs with such alarming speed that I actually dropped the wallet.
Edgar reached out and slipped the card out on the table. With a fresh whack of the tuning fork, he slowly lowered it toward the old, filthy laminated card.
The tone slowly faded.
I rubbed my eyes and shook my head.
“The Club. That’s where it started. The headaches. It has to be the card.”
“That’s not it, man.”
“Try again.”
He did so, but again, the tuning fork faded into silence.
“Maybe I need to charge it again?”
Edgar shook his head. “It’s not the card.”
He reached for my wallet, and the tuning fork hummed on its own.
“There’s something else in your wallet,” Wren whispered with a tone of dread.
I opened it and inspected it. Nothing.
“It’s empty.”
“No,” Wren spat. “There.”
“Where?”
Edgar held out his hand, and I placed my empty wallet into his palm. He reached in with his thumb and made a quick motion. The pain swelled into unspeakable intensity. I fell over onto the couch, gripping my head. I blinked at darkness and dancing lights. The migraine was literally blinding.
“What is this?” Edgar mumbled.
I sucked in slow breaths, trying not to vomit. “What… is what?”
Wren muttered, “Looks like a ticket stub.”
I tried to blink away the lights and force my eyes open, but it hurt too much.
“I don’t have any stub in my wallet,” I growled through gritted teeth.
Edgar swore under his breath, and shuffled away quickly. A wood drawer slid from his reagent case. He hustled back on padded steps.
I heard a rush of something on the table.
And my headache vanished.
Tears filled my eyes. I wiped them away with my hand, and found I was lying face-first on the sofa. After several long breaths, I composed myself and pushed up into a sitting position. My eyes still watered, but my brain was calm. My stomach stopped doing flips, and I laid my palms flat against the cushion beside me.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, clearing my throat.
“Yeah?”
“What did you do?”
I looked over to the table to find a small mound of white crystals, and a box of Morton’s Kosher salt.
Edgar exhaled. “I killed it.”
“Killed what?”
“The charm.”
“Salt? Good job.”
“Hey, I’ve been Collecting my entire adult life. I know how to kill a damned anchor.”
I put a weak hand on Edgar’s shoulder and shook it.
Wren cracked her neck and leaned back. “Dorian? You’re better than cable, you know that?”
I reached over to the mound of salt and dug into it.
Wren gasped, “Wait. Sure that’s a good idea?”
“Don’t worry. The salt would have completely nullified any charm on that small of an anchor.”
“You sure?”
“Really sure.”
I pushed at the salt until a piece of faded lavender and blue paper poked out. I snatched it delicately with my fingers and pulled it up to my face.
“Must have been in my wallet for years. Never even saw it.”
I squinted at the faded print. It was hard to decipher, but once I did, I gritted my teeth.
“Gounod.”
“The what now?” Wren asked.
I didn’t respond.
I closed my eyes, and for a moment…
I remembered.
“It was a memory charm.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was meant to forget. I was made to forget. Son of a bitch.”
Everything.
Everything for the past two years suddenly made sense. It spilled back into my head. The missed phone calls, my neglect of my properties, my relationship with the Swains.
I was made to forget them all.
“Someone put a memory charm on you?” Edgar asked. “Shit, man. That’s harsh.”
“No kidding.”
“Do you, like, remember now?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“I know exactly who did it.”
“Who?”
I stood up and gathered the contents of my wallet, including the ticket stub.
“The only man who could have done it.”
“So, who is he?”
I gave Edgar a weary look.
“Thanks, guys. Really. Thanks for sticking with me.”
Wren popped up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Dorian? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just have something I have to do.”
“What? Where are you going?”
<
br /> I slipped my wallet back into my pocket and moved for the front door. I waited for Edgar to plod forward and unlock it for me.
“Here, Dorian,” he whispered as he held out a folded scrap of notebook paper. “His name is Gene. I think he lives in Manhattan.” I unfolded the note to find the name Gene Bollstadt, and a phone number.
I nodded to Edgar, and then to Wren. He wrapped his arm around her with unconscious concern. They were both so well-matched.
“Thank you. You know,” I added, “you two are pretty much everything I have now.”
They looked at each other, their faces drawn in concern.
“Uh, thanks?” Edgar replied.
“I’ll call you later,” I added, before plunging into the dark, cold evening air.
I did have unfinished business. Business I had forgotten about.
Business I was forced to forget.
With any luck at all, it wouldn’t be too late. It was two years late, but maybe, just maybe, my karma wasn’t completely ruined yet.
hursday morning.
Three days until Carmen’s soul would hit open market.
But Carmen was the last thing on my mind as I opened up the top drawer of my bureau and delicately plucked the gold dragonfly lapel pin from between my dress socks with a pair of tweezers. I dropped the pin into a black velvet pouch I’d found in my writing desk, and pulled it closed by its thread drawstrings.
A light, misting rain spattered against my bedroom window in waves as a frigid gust blew down Amity. It was going to be a miserable day. Pulling on my dark gray trench coat and dropping the sachet into its deep pocket, I muscled out the door and rushed to my car. I eyeballed the corner café as I drove past, feeling tremendous temptation to stop for a mind-warming shot of java. But visiting hours started in ten minutes, and I needed to see Clo as soon as possible. There would be time for coffee later.
I had to park a distance from the Johns Hopkins hospice. I bundled my collar up to my ears as I plowed through the drizzle. Once I hit the shelter of the old colonial stoop leading into the hospice hallway, I brushed off my trench coat and tried not to let my shoes squeak as I progressed along the linoleum hallway to Clo’s room.
My watch showed two minutes until official visiting hours, but none of the nurses were around this particular corner of the hallway, so I just let myself into Clo’s room.