She gasped and had to stop the car. Something else, another memory, fluttered back into her mind:. . .Alicia brandishing a blue light that glowed, Orlando passing electricity to David, only to be brought back to life. . . .Poppy took some deep breaths. She wished that her mother was here with her, but she had had to work a double at Rosie's Café, so she was on her own. She could certainly use her mother now. Where had that memory come from? Why were Alicia and Orlando using magic? Why did no one mention any of this to her? There seemed to be far too many secrets surrounding her right now; Orlando and Alicia's magic, whatever was happening to her, the secrets that danced behind Lucia's eyes, the secrets that Alicia seemed to be carrying, what was wrong with her, and the Harrow House that had shaken. She still didn't know what had caused that, but was sure the house held the answers. But that was part of the problem. Too many questions and not enough answers. Well, hopefully, today she would get some answers. The unanswered questions covered her like a shroud and she wanted to shed some of the weight. She could remember the feeling of the magic under her skin and the memory of it sent shivers down her spine.
She pulled up in front of the de Bruyn household and parked her small sedan. Alicia had given it to her as a present, but Poppy rarely drove it. She felt uncomfortable behind the wheel of a car, it made her nervous. Too many things were making her nervous lately. Getting out of the car, she was struck with how beautiful their house was. Cookie cutter houses surrounded her on either sides but the de Bruyn's was pretty, quaint. There were shutters on the window, a lovely garden and a row of bushes to cover the ugly brown stucco wall. The house seemed loved by the people inside. She was glad she had someone to trust.
Naomi came to the door when Poppy rang the doorbell. She had her short hair dyed an attractive colour of blonde and there were streaks of red running through it. "Your hair looks lovely," Poppy said.
Naomi smiled. "Thanks, I got it done yesterday. Come in, you must be curious about your father."
"More than that."
"More than that? What do you mean?" Naomi brought her into the living room.
"I have questions. . .other questions." Poppy was nervous. This wasn't coming out as well as she had hoped. "I know you're both Witches," she said.
"That's where you're wrong, dear," Cecelia said behind her. She was seated in her chair by the window, a basket of knitting on her lap. "We're not both Witches."
"Oh?" Poppy was momentarily crestfallen. She had hoped that these two would have answers for her.
"No, indeed. Naomi IS a Witch, as you have already guessed." She smiled and looked at her granddaughter. "She comes from a long line of Witches, actually."
"Then would that not make you a Witch?"
"Oh, no dear, I'm much more than that." She smiled. "I am an Oracle," she said.
* * * * *
Poppy thought she had misheard. "Excuse me, you're a what?"
Cecelia smiled a patient smile. She stood and came towards her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'm an Oracle, dear."
"Like seeing the future and all that?"
Cecelia smiled. "More or less."
Poppy felt faint. "Maybe I better sit down; this is all a little too much to think about." Poppy sat in the leather arm chair looking up at Cecelia, the leather creaking around her. "It's quite a lot to wrap your brain around."
"Isn't it?" Cecelia said.
Poppy regarded her through eyes that had become slits. "Why would you tell me this?"
"Because the future has already shown me doing so."
"What?"
"Because I have seen this conversation in the future. I know we are right to have it, that it is right to tell you."
"You don't do anything unless you see it happen?"
"It's not really that simple," she said. Cecelia sat down in her chair again, pulling it closer to Poppy. Naomi sat on the couch against the wall, so that she could converse with the other two comfortably.
"I'm much like the Delphic Oracle from Athens," Cecelia said. "She too was able to see the future."
"Wasn't she the one married to a god?"
"The very same. She could only see bits and pieces of the future. . .she would sniff the sulfur that rose from the earth and have hallucinations. She would make vague predictions from what she saw. She was very renowned; people would come from thousands of miles away to hear her judgments."
"But they wouldn't always relate to the people?" Poppy said.
"Not really," Naomi said. "They would listen to her speech, and interpret it for themselves. She may have said something like ‘woman wears band of silver’ and the woman may have taken that to mean she was getting married."
"When in reality, it may have meant something else?"
"Anything else. . . ." Naomi shrugged. "No one can say for sure whether or not the Delphic Oracle was a shaman or the real thing."
"But you believe," Poppy said.
Cecelia nodded. "Yes, we do. Just as we believe in Cassandra, the woman destined to see the downfall of Rome. The world has been full of seers and Witches. We believe in all of them. They are our sisters. They have marked the path for us; all we have to do is follow."
"So. . . ." Poppy said. "What does an Oracle do?"
"I'm doing it," Cecelia said. "We help, offer guidance when we can and look into the future when necessary. Instead of vague images and guesses, though, I'm able to see whole scenes. They may not make sense when I see them, but they will later. The one I had about you, about sitting here, didn't click until you mentioned you knew that we were Witches. I see bits and pieces but they're more helpful than wisps and nothings."
Poppy turned to Naomi. "Are you a psychic because your grandmother is an Oracle?"
"Nope. My mother was a Witch before me and I'm a Witch like her. We all have our own traits; the use of magic differs from person to person. I'm good at finding things. Cecelia can see into the future, my mother could turn back time."
"Turn back time?"
"Oh, not quite as glamorous as you'd think. She could only turn back time to the past hour. But it certainly came in handy quite often. She got into great fun." Naomi smiled. "My mother was a real mischief maker."
"So what does that make me?" Poppy said.
"What do you mean?" Cecelia asked. "Have you felt magic?"
"Felt it?" Poppy said. "How about done it?" Briefly, she told them about what had happened on Valentine's Day, about Jethro and what she had done to him, how the blue light had flared up from her fingers, her palms. She told them about moving into the house, about the powers that lived in the House on Harrow Hill and how the house had tried to warn them about Jethro. Then she started telling them about what had happened recently, that she had unleashed magic again during the earthquake inside the house. She told them what it felt like, that it fueled her dreams as well as her mind. "I haven't slept well for a week," she said. "Every time I close my eyes, I'm flying. Every time I dream, I'm flying."
"What are you flying as?" Naomi asked.
"I don't know." Poppy shook her head. "I wake up every morning not remembering anything. I can't remember anything about the dream, but I remember flying," she said. "I remember flying."
There was a chill in the air. Cecelia spoke. "We know what you are."
Poppy waited for her to continue. When she didn't, Poppy looked at them. "Well?" she said.
"It's not that simple," Naomi said. "There should be someone watching you, someone keeping an eye on you, your Guide—"
"My what?"
"Your Guide. Only they're allowed to tell you what's going on. She or he is the one who guides you through life and. . . certain difficulties. It's out of our hands, we can't say a thing."
"It's not that we don't want to," Cecelia put in. "Only that there are laws among witches preventing us from doing so. Even in magic, certain things must be done by the book."
"My Guide?"
"Your Guide is chosen for you at birth." Naomi placed a hand on one of Poppy's. "I'm sorry, I can't say m
ore. We risk expulsion by the Coven should we say any more. We both want to help as much as we can."
"Then if you can't help me find out who I am, can you help me find my father?"
"That I can help with." Naomi smiled. "I was able to concentrate on your mother's hair, the sense of her and was able to focus on a name. Kyle Machino. I tried to concentrate harder, but can't get anything else."
"Kyle Machino," Poppy whispered. The name was like an elixir to her. "I can always talk to Honey and see if she can talk to her private detective friend. Honey's the one who helped me find Lucy." She hugged both women. "Thank you so much for all your help."
"We only hope it's enough," Cecelia said.
Chapter Fourteen
Dreams Demented
That night, her head full of rampant thoughts, her mind a long corridor with many windows and dead ends, Poppy dreamed. She had not told Alicia what the de Bruyn's had said, had kept it to herself. She was keeping her own secrets now. There was something that told her not to reveal their conversation about witches. It had something to do with her feeling that Alicia was keeping something from her. On the other hand, she wanted her own secrets. She did tell Alicia about the name and that she would contact Honey in the morning. In the meantime, Poppy dreamed: The crow had appeared. Darkness streamed around her, clouding her thoughts. She was in a room, the walls around her white as sugar. The walls had a grainy sense to them, as if, when she touched them, they would fall away from her fingers. Poppy locked eyes with the crow through the thin glass of her bedroom window. A shiver always passed down her spine when she saw it and she felt it now; cold, icy. Intoxicating. Even fear could be an aphrodisiac. She wondered what it wanted from her. It came to her window ledge day in, day out. It made no sound but a fluttering of wings and black feathers, a rustling of shadows and darkness. Part of her wanted to open the window and let it in, but she was wary to do so. There was something about the crow, perhaps the intelligence in its eyes that chilled her, even as it excited her. In fact, the crow made her slightly horny.
Poppy put her left hand against the glass, palm flat, fingers spread out, as if she could reach through the glass and ruffle the birds' feathers. The crow cocked its head to the right, blinked and began to peck at the glass. She kept her hand there, hoping, for some unknown reason, that the carrion bird’s beak would break through and pierce her skin, the blood from her palm sliding across the glass. She envisioned secrets pouring from its beak into her bloodstream, filling her head with dreams and visions. She would become a visionary, much like the Delphi Oracle, revealing bits of the future by telling parts of the past.
The crow looked at Poppy with dark red eyes, cawed once and smashed a hole through the glass. It happened so fast; Poppy was shocked to see that her fantasy had come true. She was bleeding from a deep, round gouge that the crows' beak had made in the centre of her palm. The blood trickled down towards her wrist and, without thinking; she put her hand to her mouth and licked the wound. The crow cawed again. She could hear the wind blowing outside, the sound made more eerie by the hole in the glass. To Poppy, it sounded as if spirits had come to her, whispering their secrets to her, though she could not understand them. Her hand began to throb and sting as if it had fallen asleep and she had shaken the blood within it. Her blood tasted dark, seductive, and sexual. She looked at the blood that now ran down her arm and ran her tongue from elbow to palm in hopes of swallowing, tasting, herself. She felt that she could eat herself whole, from the inside out, revelling in her own blood for the sake of becoming something other than herself.
The throbbing in Poppy's hand dulled and was replaced with a low grade hum. A subtle mmmmmmmmmmmm that filled her bones with warmth; like Honey poured over her skin, Poppy felt as if she were inside a womb, a bubble. Her skin began to grow hot and sweat began to pour off her brow. "What's happening to me?" she said out loud. That sounded clichéd, even to her. "What's going on?" No, she thought, that was no better. She would not fare well as a horror movie heroine, she thought wryly. The hum sounded like the buzzing of bees, or like electricity thumping through her at full volume. Her body seemed to pulsate with that hum, those vibrations. The crow still stared at her with its red eyes. It cawed again, as if to say it knew exactly what was going on.
"Then tell me, damn you," Poppy said. The crow blinked back at her and remained silent. "ANSWER ME!" She screeched, her voice raising several octaves, the smokiness of her voice becoming shrill and crass until it wasn't a voice at all. She was cawing. With a clarity that bordered on awe, Poppy realized that she was different, that she was changing. She was becoming. The hum that ran through her body began to scream; pain shot up her arm and slashed into her head with a sound not unlike a police siren. Poppy fell to the ground, clutching her head in her hands, blood now running from her eyes like tears. She felt that her entire body would explode from the inside out.
Make it stop, she thought. It became a mantra, all running together. Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop. And, with a brilliant flash of light, her wish was answered. Poppy opened her eyes to discover everything that had been in colour was now in shades of black and grey and white. It was as if someone had popped out her eyes and placed a black and white television in her sockets instead. The world was devoid of colour. The crow cawed at her from the windowsill. It smashed its beak into the glass, making the hole in the pane larger. Her blood decorated the serrated edges of the glass and the crow stuck out its little black tongue and licked, no, savoured her blood. When the crow’s tongue made contact with Poppy's blood, a sound, a clack, resounded inside Poppy's head. The world seemed a little bit clearer. A little bit more bearable. Something was different. The wind whistled past the hole in the window. Except now it sounded like music, notes hung in the air falling to the ground and shattering around her. She looked down at herself and cawed in surprise. She had grown feathers. And clawed feet. And she heard voices.
No, that wasn't quite right. It was a voice, repeated a million times. It was as if the owner of the voice didn't know which voice he was comfortable with, or as if the voice itself was surrounded by water. There was a rush of air before the voice spoke. . . .Waking from her dream, Poppy was covered in sweat. In a daze, she opened her bedroom window, Alicia moving beside her. She watched her lover sigh in her dreams, something troubling her. Poppy brushed a hair out of Alicia's face. She smelled the cool air and her panic disappeared. Calmed, she settled back to sleep, only to forget the dream in the morning.
* * * * *
Daphne McGowan drove slowly down Bronson Avenue. She had never driven past her previous employee's house and she didn't want to miss it. She hated this neighbourhood. So different from her polished house in the Glebe, the houses here looked downtrodden, neglected. She sniffed her nose in disgust. Then she saw it, that house, and felt her world shift out of focus. She was living in the Coven House! She nearly crossed herself before it occurred to her that she wasn't Christian. If Poppy was living in the Coven House, not even Poppy's soul could save her. Her grandmother had told her stories of the Coven House, how John Harrow had led a cult of Witches to their deaths. They said that the spirits of the dead flowed between the walls still, that it was on the crossroads of reality and magic. The rumours that surrounded the house were more plentiful than urban legend.
That Poppy would live here, Daphne laughed. It was too much to be a coincidence. She chuckled to herself. Her boss would love this. She would have to update the Boss on what she had found. She would be very interested to hear about this. Daphne looked at the house one more time and let a shiver run through her. Fear to her was like chocolate. She could not believe their luck, the first Shape Shifter to be born in more than a thousand years and she lived in the Coven House. The irony was not lost on Daphne. She began to laugh; smoke began to float out of her nostrils and the back of her mouth. She let out a loud "HA!" that was followed by a small bust of flame that flew out from between her lips. It curled like a tongue, singeing the air in front of her. Smiling to herself,
smoke still curling about her head, Daphne McGowan drove on.
* * * * *
"I don't know if this is such a good idea," Moe said.
The house was quiet around them, Poppy and Alicia asleep in their room. Monica looked crestfallen. She had brightened when Moe had come through the door. She hadn't seen him since the house had erupted; they hadn't wanted to risk anything, in case the house reacted again. Moe was of the opinion that it had something to do with Monica.
Monica looked up at him from her bed. "And why not?" Her tone was huffy.
"Last time we talked, the house lost it, remember?"
Monica scoffed. "How could I not? I live here too, remember?"
"I just don't know if keeping us a secret is a good idea." Moe shrugged. "I'm going to talk to Alicia."
Instantly, Monica was off the bed. "NO!" she said. "Don't do that! Please!"
Moe put his hands on his hips. "And why not?"
Monica hung her head. "I'm not ready to meet anyone living yet. I can't, not yet, Moe. I've lived here for hundreds of years and no one knew I existed. Can’t I just have a few days more?"
Moe sighed. How could he argue with her? "Alright," he said. "A few more days. I still think we should tell them that you're here though."
"Why are you so keen on turning me in?"
"Why are you so keen on hiding?"
"All I've ever done is hide! I can't leave this room!" she screamed at him.
"Why can't you leave here?" He asked. "How did you die, Monica?"
She shook her head. "You wouldn't understand. You don't care." She threw herself on her bed and began to cry.
Moe, moved by her tears, moved to her. "Don't cry, Monica," he said rather feebly. He had never been good at sentiments. "Why are you trapped here?" He asked.
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