Hex Marks the Spot

by Madelyn Alt

  I saw his gray eyes flicker toward the store, the flicker that advised caution before all else. He didn’t often step over the threshold into Enchantments, but in my opinion it was high time he saw that the store, and Liss, were not threats to his world.

  “All right. Sure. A cup of coffee would be great.”

  Yay! A baby step was, nevertheless, a step in the right direction.

  I saw the curtain move as we headed toward the storefront. “Careful, it’s bad form to step on the audience,” I said as I pushed through the door. “Excuse us, people, coming through.”

  Evie had the good manners to blush at having been caught. The boys were looking anywhere but out the door. Tara, on the other hand, stared Tom down as though he was the enemy storming the gate.

  I smiled at her. “I thought I’d buy Deputy Fielding a cup of coffee before he leaves.”

  “Why? He doesn’t make enough to buy his own coffee busting people for perfectly honest misunderstandings? I mean, geez, Maggie. Why’d you have to bring him in here?” She turned and stormed off toward the office.

  I looked to Evie for an explanation, but she just caught her lip between her teeth and shrugged her shoulders.

  Charlie cleared his throat. “I, uh, think she’s a little worked up about the boys Deputy Fielding took out of school for questioning.”

  “But I thought—yesterday she seemed to think—you mean she thinks they’re innocent?”

  “I dunno ’bout that. She does, um, think the cops act before they fully investigate.” Charlie gazed toward Tom. “Sorry about that.”

  Tom, to his credit, said nothing.

  Tony looked around the assembled group. “So, uh, I think I need to get going. Places to go. You know.”

  “You need a ride?” Charlie asked him. “I think I’ll stick around a little while, otherwise.”

  “Nah, dude. My mom works at the courthouse. I’ll just catch a ride with her.”

  I couldn’t say that I blamed them. “Hey, Tony, thanks for your help today. Here, we want you to have this as a token of our appreciation. We couldn’t have done it without you.” I pressed some money into his hand, holding it there when he tried to refuse it. “Really.”

  When he had gone, I headed over to the counter to grab a coffee for Tom. “Evie, where did Liss go?”

  “Oh, she’s upstairs. Looking for a place to put the armoire.”

  I raised my brows. “She wants it to go upstairs?”

  Charlie whistled. “Maybe I should call Tony back here, huh?”

  “Well…” I let my gaze drift toward Tom.

  Tom sighed. “The big thing out front?”

  “Uh-huh. Wow, that’s so sweet of you to help us!” I said, following Tara’s example. I patted Tom’s arm as he passed me. Nice, strong…perfect. Just what we needed.

  Tara emerged from the office just in time to witness my slick female maneuverings. I glanced over at her as Tom passed me, and had to smother a laugh when she gave me a big thumbs-up. Good, that meant she’d risen above her huff.

  The trip from the truck into the store was even more eventful than the trip from Louisa Murray’s house to the truck. Several oooofs, a muffled curse, and a mashed thumb later, Tom and Charlie had managed to push, pull, and force the armoire through to the main aisle, but no farther.

  “Dear, dear. This is going to be a little harder than I had anticipated,” Liss said, watching the proceedings from behind the safety of the counter.

  “Maybe we should rethink the loft idea,” I suggested.

  Tom and Charlie both nodded emphatically.

  Tara and Evie had taken up perches on top of the counter, out of harm’s way. Evie sat gracefully with her legs bent to one side, looking delicate and feminine to the max. Tara, with her darker hair and nimble frame, sat alarmingly cross-legged in her short skirt and dark tights, her elbows resting on her knees and her chin resting on her hands. A pixie by nature if I ever saw one.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Tara said, a wicked gleam in her eye. “That place in the loft was pretty perfect for it.”

  Tom and Charlie glared at each other. “Yeah,” Tom said, “right here is good, I think.”

  “Couldn’t be more perfect,” Charlie agreed.

  They leaned against the sturdy wooden piece to catch their breath and rest their aching muscles.

  “Eli certainly does make sturdy furniture, doesn’t he?” Liss marveled, admiring his craftsmanship. She stepped around the counter and ran her hands over it. “It really is beautiful. These carvings that Luc Metzger did, too…”

  Tara slid off the counter and came nearer. “Hex symbolism again. What is it with all the hex symbols around here lately?”

  Liss pulled her glasses down from the top of her head and slid them into place as I moved in closer. “Well, Great Goddess, I do believe she’s right.”

  “Wait. What?” Tom leaped away as though the carving was burning itself into his skin. “What did you say? On this thing, too?”

  Charlie looked at us as though he was seeing us in focus for the very first time. “Hexsymbols? What d’you mean, like curses? And what d’you mean, too?”

  Tara shrugged. “There’s different kinds. Not all are bad. Most are just protective markings. Ask me later, and I’ll explain everything.”

  Six people standing in a circle around a piece of furniture. I’ll bet that from the outside we looked pretty strange. The view from where I stood wasn’t much better. I studied the carvings more closely, but they just looked like carvings to me. A pinwheel spiral here, a roped chain of ivy there. Plump-bellied birds, four-leaf clovers, and star-bursts.

  Liss turned her back on the lot of us and retrieved the thick encyclopedia of magical symbols from beneath the counter. “Sigils, symbols, iconic talismans of magical purpose. Of course each magical tradition and region of origin seems to breed new and different meanings. Luc’s carvings on the armoire seem to be most similar to the Pow-Wow folk magick. There are several major and recurring themes, but with faint differences.” She thumbed quickly through the book until she came upon the section she was looking for, flipped the book open so that the cover lay flat, then spun it around for the perusal of all.

  “Hexes,” Tom said in a flat voice. “Magical. Symbols.”

  I nodded. He needed to understand as much as we needed to talk things out. “According to Eli, the Metzgers hailed from the Amish in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, area. Eli said that the carvings Luc preferred were much more ornate than anything he or any other Amish furniture maker from this area would ever include on furniture. A difference in theologies. I guess I’m as guilty as anyone else, thinking that Amish are Amish are Amish.”

  “Wow,” Charlie muttered, unable to stop looking back and forth between the book on the counter and the carvings in the wood.

  Poor kid. I got it. I did. “Charlie, you don’t have to stay if this is making you uncomfortable. Really. We know it’s a lot to absorb.”

  We should have been more careful, but Tara had never been reticent about running her mouth with the strength of her convictions, and they were indeed a power to behold.

  Charlie cleared his throat and darted a glance at Tara. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe I’d better get going. It’s late, and I’ve got a calc test tomorrow.”

  “’Kay.”

  Tara walked with him toward the door, but their voices drifted back to us. You didn’t miss much in the store’s controlled space.

  “Hey, y’know, we should study together sometime.”

  “’Kay,” she said, a little brighter.

  “Like, uh, may be this weekend?”

  “’Kay.” Even brighter still. In fact, Tara was practically glowing. “Yeah, this weekend. We could do that.”

  He grinned and took her sleeve delicately between his thumb and forefinger, rocking her arm gently back and forth. “’Kay. See you at school tomorrow.”

  “’Kay.”

  She practically floated back to us when he was gone. I’d never seen Tara, my
favorite Goth girl, float before. It was actually kind of nice—it lit up her entire spirit. Evie and Liss and I smiled broadly, watching her. When she noticed, she retreated back within her usual dark and dangerous persona, and scowled.

  “What?” she demanded. “Geez, you’re like the Goodwill Ambassadors or something. Haven’t you ever seen someone leave before?”

  I didn’t tell her how nice it was to witness something normal in the midst of all the weirdness. How wonderful it was to see the two of them grab a little bit of romance from the blackness that had threatened to descend upon them last winter. Surely there was hope for us all.

  Tom was feeling much less benevolent. “So, now that the kid’s gone, anyone here want to tell me what all this hex symbol stuff means? First there’s the one at the crime scene, which I have to tell you wigged me right out, and now they’re all over this piece of furniture, and—”

  “And have you ever been out to the Metzger farm?” I asked him in a calm voice, cutting into the tirade.

  Confusion. “Well, no. Not me personally. Chief went out to talk to Mrs. Metzger that night because I was tied up at the scene. It was on my list. Why?”

  I struggled to put my thoughts into words. “I think that Mrs. Metzger might be the person responsible for the hex symbol on the tree.” I held up a hand as he opened his mouth. “Just an idea,” I said before he could challenge further. “I was out at their farm with Eli and the dog—which proved to belong to the Metzger family, by the way, how weird is that?—and I noticed that the Metzgers have quite a number of pretty unusual signs on their barn siding. I’ve never noticed them around here before, but I suppose I could be wrong. And since they’re from the Pennsylvania Amish community…”

  I let my voice trail off, hoping he would make the same connection I was still formulating in my own head.

  His eyes searched my own for hidden meanings, but I didn’t often play those games. “So, if Mrs. Metzger is responsible for the hex symbol and maybe, possibly, hex magic, are you saying she knows something about Luc’s death as well, just because she knew about his affairs? Because if you’re saying that, then I have to tell you—Mrs. Metzger has an alibi, Maggie. Airtight. We’ve checked it out: upside down, left, right, and sideways. The entire Amish congregation was there that evening, as well as her kids, and later several women from the Amish community whose husbands were out there looking for Luc when he didn’t come home.”

  An airtight alibi. Was there such a thing when magic was involved? Could a very strong hex have brought about Luc’s murder somehow? Or could it be that there were other forces that could have been employed by one skilled in Pow-Wow magic that perhaps none of us were aware of?

  “Wait. Did you just say that Luc had another woman?”

  Tom faltered a moment, then his face closed down instantly, as though someone had suddenly slammed the shutters over a bright window. Not good enough, though—because few shutters are successful at completely blocking out all the light from the other side. Glimmers flash between the cracks, peek around edges, squeeze through from the top and bottom, and I could see. And feel. And know.

  “He did, didn’t he?” I said, closely evaluating the play of emotion I saw in him. “I mean, I had wondered that myself, but to know for sure…”

  Tom shook his head. “We don’t know for sure. We’re guessing ourselves. All we have to go by are the suspicions Hester Metzger put forth in a letter to her husband. No one else has stepped forward.”

  “You didn’t say anything about a letter before.”

  The blinds behind his eyes flickered once, and then closed again. He glanced over at Liss and the girls, who were trying to look busy and failing miserably.

  “Is there some place we can talk privately?”

  Liss cleared her throat. “There’s always the loft,” she offered helpfully.

  I nodded. Silently I led Tom down the short hall and up the stairs. There was a bench there against the gallery railing. I took him by the hand and guided him over.

  He sat on the edge of the bench, his spine ramrod straight, as he took in the surroundings. “It doesn’t look much different than it did last October.”

  I looked around, too. The loft was one of my favorite indoor places in the whole world. There was a sense of extreme peace here, a sense of sanctity not often found outside the walls of a very old church. There was energy here, too, of the most benevolent kind. Liss had once told me she’d placed Invisible Threshold wards around the area she used for casting—not even I approached that space without invitation.

  “Less broken glass, perhaps,” I said with a half smile.

  “Less danger?”

  I met his searching gaze without hesitation. “Much less. There is nothing to worry about here, Tom. Trust me.” Trust me. Open your mind.Trust in my friends. Because for me that was the truth at the heart of all this, wasn’t it?

  “Maggie, I’m trying to. Despite the fact that your boss and her beliefs make me real nervous. But you’re going to have to understand that I’m a cop. Sometimes there are going to be things I’m not allowed to talk about. Evidence in a murder investigation being one of them.”

  “Like the letter.”

  “Yes.”

  “That Hester wrote to Luc. That you found somewhere, or were given.”

  Something was making me push those buttons, making me press harder. Maybe I needed him to open up his mind just a little bit. To know that he could. Because I knew that if he couldn’t do that much, then I would never be able to completely open my heart and soul to him.

  I needed to know, one way or the other.

  Exasperated, he leaned back against the railing and just looked at me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. His true feelings were coming through so loud and clear, I didn’t have to put out any special effort to intercept them. I was picking them up—and more—without any help.

  “You were given it,” I said, watching his face. “Maybe in his wallet, I’m guessing. Which I wasn’t aware you’d found. Unless you were given that, too.”

  Crossing his arms, Tom shook his head. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. “If you’re trying to impress me—”

  “I’m not.”

  “—then you’re not doing a very good job. What, you took psych in high school, right? It’s not all that impressive. The science of body language.”

  I shrugged. “If that’s what you want to call it. Yours is saying a whole lot right now, by the way. You’re closing yourself off. No, that’s not it. You never opened yourself up to begin with. You don’t trust me. You don’t trust anyone, do you, Tom?”

  “It has nothing to do with that,” he started to scoff, but I knew better.

  “Doesn’t it? There are people connections that go beyond rules and regulations. Beyond science as we know it. Forgive me for saying this, but if we’re ever going to mean anything to each other, I really need to know that we have that kind of connection. Or, at the very least, that we have the potential to get there some day.”

  He was silent a moment, considering my words.

  “Tom, listen very carefully, because I have something important to tell you. Whether you believe in them or not, there are things in this world that might frighten you—people with abilities, and so much more—but that doesn’t mean they’re evil, or guided by evil, or even affected by evil. People can be psychic and empathic, and some can even speak with the dead, but still be a part of the goodness that balances out the dark.”

  “That’s what you believe, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know these people. Because I know their hearts.” It was time to admit the truth. For better or for worse. “And because I’m one of them.”

  He stared at me, and then, little by little, his mouth dropped open as though he would speak but couldn’t form the words.

  “Isense things. And the sensing, sometimes it gives me information that I otherwise would not have. Feelings. Sometimes the motiva
tion behind a feeling. Like right now, I can feel the fear creeping along your skin, but I know that you’re trying very hard to hide it behind bravado because you don’t think a man should be afraid of anything. Are you afraid of me, Tom?”

  A moment’s pause, and then he shook his head. “No.”

  “Do you believe me when I say that you can trust me? That I would never abuse whatever you might tell me in confidence? Honestly. Most of the time, it’s probably going to go in one ear and out the other. You know that, don’t you? I don’t want to feel like you’re intentionally being cautious with every little thing you say to me. I don’t want to feel like you’re weighing every word, assessing every moment. That’s not trust.”

  Then again, neither was allowing another man to kiss you…but I pushed all thoughts of Marcus away.

  “No,” he said, watching me. “No, it’s not.”

  “Is that what we have?” I asked him quietly.

  “I hope not,” he answered, just as quietly.

  “Do you think you can trust me, just a little bit, despite what I am?”

  He took a deep breath, taking my hand as he let it out slowly. Still I could feel the struggle within him. “You were right. We were given the wallet. One of the boys admitted that they had it, but he swore up and down that they’d found it in the woods where they hang out. He as much as admitted to the assault on the other Amish man, but not on Luc Metzger. Wanted to cut a deal with me for handing it over.”

  I searched his eyes. “Do you believe him? That they’d only found the wallet?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have enough evidence either way, yet. Suspicion is pretty compelling, though, considering the method of the assault was the same. They had the other man’s wallet in their possession, and now they had Luc Metzger’s, too. I don’t like coincidence.” He took a deep breath. “The letter was with the wallet. It was written by Hester to Luc, begging him to leave off the love affair he was engaged in, once and for all. We don’t know who he’d been with. No leads there yet. Now,” he said, squeezing my fingers tightly, “since we’re sharing here, tell me why you suspected he’d had other women.”