Beacon's Spark (Potomac Shadows Book 1)

by Jim Johnson

She settled onto the bench and pulled me down to sit next to her. She put a companionable arm around my shoulders and leaned in. “Don’t say anything for a few minutes. Just breathe.”

  I glared at her but did as she suggested. Sometimes she knew just what was good for me, even if I didn’t particularly want it. I took a few breaths and sat with her on the bench and watched the throngs of tourists and business people and government workers work their way up and down the Mall and the various roads around here. I took in the endless streams of cars moving in all directions, grateful I didn’t drive, that I could take public transit, even if it cost.

  I leaned against Abbie and sighed. “Thanks, I’m starting to feel like myself again.”

  She gave me a peck on the cheek and then smiled. “Glad to hear it.” She paused, then asked, “Wanna talk about it?”

  I lifted my hands and let them drop to my thighs with a double slap. “Don’t know that there’s much to say. Robert pissed me off, is all.” I gestured at the envelope still in my hands and fumbled with my satchel to stow the money. “Five hundred, Abbie. I don’t know how we’re going to get by with so little.”

  “It’s not so bad, Rachel. Between that and my salary, we’ll be all right.”

  I stared at her and forced back the tears that were threatening to well up. “Are you sure? You bought me lunch. I’m tired of not pulling my share of the weight.”

  She shook her head and squeezed my hand. “Don’t think that, sweetie. You’re no burden to me and I think you’re doing great. I love being with you.” She lifted up my hand and kissed my palm. “We’re a team, remember? We’ll work this out.”

  I mumbled my agreement to that, but looked away, glum that I just couldn’t bring myself to let her in, not yet. And that made me feel crappy all over again.

  After a long silence of watching traffic crawl by, she shifted on the bench and turned toward me. “Is there anything else going on, honey? I know money issues get you wrapped up but this feels different.”

  Uh-oh. I mentally bit my tongue. My girl knew me better than I liked to admit.

  I glanced away, making like I was watching a bus drive by. “No, it’s all right. It’s just…” I glanced at her. “Money, my brother, my grandpa, Penny. You know.”

  She stared into my eyes as a little line of worry appeared between her brows. “All right. If that’s all…”

  I met her eyes but couldn’t sustain the look. I turned away, wincing inwardly. She knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t telling her everything. “It’s all right, Abbie. I just…need to think some stuff through.”

  She covered a look and if I had to guess, I’d guess she was hurt. She said, “I hear you. You know you can talk to me, right?”

  I focused on her and rested a hand on her leg. “Abbie, of course. I trust you.”

  Didn’t I? Some little part of me wasn’t so sure, and at that moment, I hated that little part of me. Hated it with a passion.

  She stared at me and then nodded, and glanced at her little silver watch. “Look, I gotta get back to the Hill. Will you be all right?”

  I glanced down Constitution toward the Capitol building, then re-focused on her face. “Yeah, I’ll be all right.” I leaned over and gave her a big hug and a kiss. “Thanks for being with me at lunch, and thanks for trying to help with Robert. I really appreciate the moral support.”

  She returned the hug. “Any time, sweetie.” She returned the kiss and then stood up, holding my hand briefly and then letting it go. The look on her face told me all I needed to know—she wasn’t happy about my not telling her everything, but she wasn’t going to push, as much as she might have wanted to.

  “Anyway, have a good afternoon. I’ll be home usual time.” She put on a tired smile. “Got plans for your afternoon?”

  I shrugged and returned the smile. “Think I’ll head back home and see if I can clear my head, maybe poke around in the job listings. Can I use your desktop computer?”

  She nodded. “Of course. Any time.”

  “Okay.” I glanced up at her. “I love you, Abbie.”

  She leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips. “I love you too, Rachel.” She stood up straight and gave me a little grin, the one I loved so much. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything more and ruin the little bit of a moment we had going. She turned and headed toward the Capitol.

  I watched her go, then frowned as another Metro bus slid past me in traffic. I could just go home and fire up the computer and figure out how to pull together a resume and start job hunting… but what I really needed now, more than anything else, were some answers.

  Chapter 15

  “SO I’M REALLY SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE that all this is real? Crystal powers, the glowing curtain in the stairway, me torching my brother’s watch?”

  Miss Chin paused her cleaning long enough to glance at me. “Correct.”

  I stared at her as she resumed dusting a shelf loaded with crystals of various sizes, my mind awhirl. I had gone back to her place right after saying goodbye to Abbie, and had pretty much spilled it all out, except for mentioning Malcolm. I’d decided I’d save that for some other time.

  Once she finished dusting, she picked up a stack of unshelved books and then glanced at me. “Come, now. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I opened my mouth, closed it, then thought hard for a moment or two. The best I could come up with was, “Ghosts are real too?”

  She moved over to one of the bookshelves in her sitting room and started to move some of the books onto the shelves. “Real? In as much as a ghost can be real, yes. They don’t live in our world in a way you’d think would be real. They’re real to themselves, though.”

  I shook my head. “You’re sounding like Yoda. Can’t you give me a straight answer?”

  She shrugged as she shelved another hardcover. “Sometimes a crooked answer must do when there are no straight answers to be had.”

  I frowned, puzzling over that one. “You sure have a strange way of looking at the world.” Idly, I reached out and relieved her of a couple of the books, and found their places on the bookshelf.

  She gestured toward the crystal pendant hanging from my neck. “Spend enough time studying and using the crystals and you might change your point of view, too. There’s more to be seen in this world than can be seen with the mortal eye. Too many people go through life blind to the truths around them.”

  Okay, now she was getting creepy. As if it was saving me from more weirdness, the phone in my hoodie pocket buzzed.

  I raised a finger. “Hold on a sec, Jedi Master.” I pulled the phone and checked. I’d gotten a text from Malcolm.

  Hey Rachel, gimme a call. Something happened at Branchwood.

  I frowned at the message, tempted to just respond with a text. I barely knew Malcolm and wasn’t even sure why I had given him my number, even though we had shared a pretty intense moment. But, he had family at Branchwood too. A chill started to work its way up my spine. Had something happened to Grandpa?

  I glanced at Miss Chin. “I’m really sorry. I have to make a call.”

  She waved off the concern and picked up the empty tea pot. “Call away. I’ll make some more tea.”

  I stood up and headed for the living room I’d seen when I had walked in. I pulled up Malcolm’s number and hit the call button. While I waited for the connection, I scanned the shelves in Miss Chin’s living room.

  Mostly random bits and bobs of things, a few plates decorated with Chinese dragons, a lot of quartz and geodes and other pretty rocks and baubles, and even a baseball-sized crystal ball on a black base that looked to be some sort of polished wood or stone.

  The call beeped through. “Hello?”

  I focused on the phone. “It’s me, Rachel. What’s going on at Branchwood?”

  “Hey, Rachel. Sorry to bother you, but I thought you should know what’s going on.”

  I sat down on one of Miss Chin’s tapestry-uphols
tered wooden chairs. It creaked a bit as I settled in. “Is it your grandma? Maybe my grandpa?” A million terrible possibilities rushed through my mind.

  “What? No, they’re fine as far as I know. I just...the receptionist there called me and said there had been another death in the upstairs ward last night.”

  I frowned at the phone. “I don’t understand.”

  Malcolm sighed. “That makes three in the last three weeks and the second in two days. They called me to say this was just natural, that sometimes residents just die in quick succession. I wasn’t so sure, but it didn’t sound like either my grandmom or your grandpop were in any danger.”

  Suspicion rose in my mind. “Did they say who died?”

  “No, man. They don’t give out that kind of information. They just know that sometimes the families talk, and they wanted to assure me that there wasn’t a concern.”

  I snorted. “That’s not very reassuring.”

  “That’s what I said.” He chuckled. “So, anyway,” his voice turned serious. “I’m gonna call my grandmom and check in on her.”

  I sighed. “I’ll check in with my grandpa too. Can I do anything to help you?”

  Malcolm made a humming sound, then said, “I don’t know. I think I’m all right. I just…I dunno.”

  I frowned again. “What’s up?”

  Malcolm cleared his throat over the phone. “Are you feeling okay after the, uh, you know…the thing at Branchwood?”

  I bit at my fingernail and shot a glance toward the hallway. I didn’t see Miss Chin, though at one point Mister Parkour poked his head into the living room, as if he was keeping tabs on me. I lowered my voice and whispered into the phone. “I don’t know. Maybe? How about you?”

  He coughed into the phone and then his voice dropped as well. “It’s really hard to explain. And I don’t think I want to do it over the phone, you know?” After a long pause, he added, “Would you be willing to meet up with me tomorrow? Like a park or a restaurant?”

  “Why?” I had only met him the one time, and while he seemed decent enough, there had been something about him that hadn’t felt quite right.

  “I want to tell you about what’s been happening with me, you know, maybe put our heads together and figure things out. I’ve seen some weird stuff over the last couple days and it’s really kinda freaking me out.”

  Join the club, right? I nodded into the phone. “Okay, I can do that. What’s a good place for you?”

  “How about Branchwood, say tomorrow morning around ten? Is that good for you?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. I can take the bus there easily enough. Anything else?”

  “No, man, thanks. Thanks, Rachel.”

  I signed off with some affirmative noise, not entirely sure what he was talking about. I pocketed my phone. I stared at the crystal ball, wondering if it could tell me what was happening.

  As if on cue, Miss Chin entered the room with two steaming mugs of tea. She offered one to me. “You have time or you have to go?” She was studying my face closely, looking for something I couldn’t guess at.

  I shook my head. “Ah, no. Everything’s fine. Just...my grandpa is in a nursing home and someone there called to tell me one of the other residents had died last night.” I shrugged. “Nothing to worry about.”

  Miss Chin pursed her lips but didn’t say anything. I glanced at the tea cups in her hand and nodded. “I have time for one more cup, but then I should get back home. It’s getting late.”

  She smiled at that and handed me one of the cups, then rested the other one on a small side table long enough for her to pull a matching chair up to the other side of the table. She settled into her chair and picked up her tea.

  I just had to know. I indicated the crystal ball. “Does that thing actually work?”

  She glanced at the item in question and then back to me. “Of course it works. I would not waste time with a seeing stone that could not see.”

  The steady, confident tone in her voice poked a hole in my belligerence. I forced myself to not slouch back into my chair. I asked the only question that came to mind. “So you’re a witch, then?”

  She stared into my eyes, and then burst out laughing. Long, loud peals of laughter, strong enough to rattle our tea cups.

  I wasn’t sure what was so funny, but the tears streaming down her cheeks and the fact that her entire little body was shaking with laughter was infectious. I even chuckled once I realized how ridiculous the question was.

  Finally, after several gasping attempts, she regained her senses and her voice. She had to cough a couple times to clear her throat, and then leaned over and rested a hand on my forearm.

  “No, no, of course not, Rachel. I’m no witch.” She patted my arm. “My talents lie in a somewhat different direction.”

  I lifted my head to look into her eyes, a sense of foreboding scratching at the back of my mind.

  She gave me the strangest smile. “I’m a Weaver, a Warden of the Veil. And I think you are too.”

  Chapter 16

  I STARED AT MISS CHIN. “I don’t understand.”

  “I suspect not. The Weavers are barely known outside Weaver circles.” She sipped her tea and then returned the cup back to its saucer. “The Weavers are an ancient order, some say dating back in some form to even before recorded history.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “That’s a long time, like thousands of years, right?”

  She nodded. “Well before the Greeks called us Fates, before the Norsemen had their Valkyries. Even before the Egyptians had their various and sundry gods and goddesses.”

  “Still not quite tracking here. Are you saying I’m some sort of god?” I made no effort to hide the skepticism in my voice.

  She shook her head emphatically. “Good heavens, no. We’re no gods.” She paused, glanced at the ceiling, then shrugged. “Well, perhaps to some, much as a modern piece of technology might look like magic to someone from two thousand years ago.”

  I shook my head again. “Keep going, Yoda.”

  She sighed and lifted her shoulders slightly. Mister Parkour sauntered in from the hallway and took a seat next to Miss Chin’s chair. “We are not gods but we can wield significant power and use particular abilities that, to the uninitiated, might appear god-like.”

  “Ah, ok. So we can do some sort of magical stuff, and you’re saying that normal people who see us doing it might think we’re gods or witches?”

  She made a see-saw gesture with her hand. “Close enough. However, what is normal?” Her eyes narrowed in challenge.

  I met her gaze and then focused on Mister Parkour’s paws, which were industriously kneading the rug beneath him. “I guess…normal is subjective.”

  “And?”

  I met her eyes. “What’s normal for one person might be magical or godlike for someone else?”

  “Exactly. What I can do and what you can do is normal, for us and for our kind, but extraordinary for those unable or unwilling, or for those who are simply unaware of what they are capable of.”

  I forced myself not to slouch again, and took a gulp of my tea, now lukewarm. “You mean people have the ability to perform magic but don’t know about it?”

  She snorted and gestured toward my pendant. “A couple days ago you didn’t know what you were capable of, did you?”

  I pushed my chin down to glance at my pendant. “I guess not.” I focused back on her. “But what am I capable of? You said earlier that you thought I could help that ghost woman, Kareena?”

  Miss Chin nodded. “While I am confident you are a Weaver, I suspect you’re also a Warden, as I am. However, we won’t know for certain until I do some research and we begin training.”

  I snorted into my cold tea. “So you really are my Yoda.”

  I got a withering glare as an answer. She cleared her throat. “I am no such thing. The Force is fiction. What we do,” a mischievous gleam glittered in her eyes, “is so very real.”

  I was unable to look away. “Real? Like, real
ly real?”

  She held my eyes with hers and nodded once, slow. “Real as a shimmering curtain in a stairwell, as real as a lost soul in an alleyway looking for peace, and as real as you shorting out your brother’s watch with a tiny burst of etheric energy.”

  I blinked, breaking the connection between us. My eyes got wide as I started to work out the possibilities. “Damn.”

  She sat back and drained her tea cup. “Indeed.” She placed her cup back on the table and steepled her fingers in front of her chest. “And what you need to decide now, Rachel, is whether you want to know more."

  I thought about that for a few moments, the cat tendency inside of me scratching and clawing away to get at the new, shiny information. I glanced at the ancient grandfather clock set against the wall behind Miss Chin. Crap.

  I focused on her. “I do, Miss Chin. I really do want to learn more, about all of this. But, it’s after six and I really need to get home. I’m sure my girlfriend is wondering where the hell I am.”

  “Of course. You’re welcome back any time. You know where to find me.”

  I stood up and brushed my hands off on my hoodie, then awkwardly reached a hand out toward her.

  She stood, her head barely higher than my chest, and smiled and reached out and gave me a little hug that felt awkward but was actually warm. “It’s good to have met you, Rachel. I hope to see you soon.”

  I returned the hug. Mister Parkour stood up, stretched out his front paws one by one, then stepped over to me, sniffed my jeans, and then just barely rubbed his whiskers against my leg. I raised an eyebrow and glanced at Miss Chin.

  Miss Chin nodded toward her cat. “Mister Parkour shows his approval, tentative though it may be.”

  I chuckled. “I guess all is right in the world, then.”

  Miss Chin gave me a strange look that suggested otherwise, but I decided to call it good there. I headed for the front door. “Thank you for the tea, and for…for the information, I guess. You’ve given me a ton to think about.”

  She saw me to the door. “Take care, Rachel. I know it is much to process. I was tired for a week when I first found out what and who I truly was.”