“So mote it be!” the rest of us sang out in unison at the queue.
After a double beat of quiet, the two girls released hands and turned their backs to one another. Jennifer went into motion first, Shari remaining steadfast in place until her sister was on the opposite side of the circle, whereupon she set out in the opposite direction. They pranced, almost fairylike, as they made the circuit. It was obvious that they were enjoying the task at hand and loved being in the spotlight. This time around they passed one another at the southernmost point of the group, again continuing about us until meeting once again in the south.
Repeating their earlier posture, they clasped hands.
R.J. canted toward me and I leaned in to hear him whisper, “They’ve been planning this for three weeks, ya’know.”
I grinned at him as he stood there shaking his head.
“Guardians present…” Shari’s voice met our ears.
“…We count now one,” Jennifer followed.
“Demands of you…” Shari again.
“…We shall make none,” Jennifer said.
“Now our quest, is but to ask…”
“…If in fire’s glow, we may bask.”
Again, a momentary lull followed their chant as we all anticipated what would come next.
“Watchtower of the south…” Shari said.
“…Element of fire…” Jennifer followed.
“…Guardian of flame…”
“…Bringer of warmth.”
“…We invite you to…”
The twin’s conjoined voices were unceremoniously interrupted by an evenly spaced staccato of piercing electronic beeps. An extremely brief interval of silence ensued, only to be followed by a second set of the annoying tones that increased in volume by at least half. A third set barely got off the ground as an abbreviated chirp. What quickly followed was my friend’s embarrassed sounding voice.
“Sorry ‘bout that. Thought I’d set it ta’ vibrate,” Ben apologized meekly as he scanned the face of his pager.
“Is it the sitter?” Allison asked, leaning closer to her husband to have a look at the device.
“No,” Ben answered then shot his glance my way. “But I’d better answer this. Row, ya’ think maybe I can use your phone?”
“Help yourself.” I nodded. “You know where it is. Feel free to use the one in the bedroom if you want.”
“Ummm, I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, but I’m kinda unfamiliar with this whole deal. Do I need to bow or genuflect or somethin’ before I leave?”
The innocent seriousness of his question brought a round of chuckles to the group.
“No, nothing like that,” I explained with a smile. “We aren’t actually casting circle here at the moment, and besides, even if we were, you aren’t actually in circle with us. You can come and go as you please. Just come on back out after you’re finished, it won’t bother us, as long as you’re quiet about it.”
“Thanks,” he told me as he started toward the door of the atrium. “Sorry I interrupted the deal here everyone…”
“Crap occurs.” Randy offered his family friendly version of the popular phrase with a grin.
“I think we’ll survive,” Felicity said. “It’s not the first time.”
“But Detective Storm,” the twins called after him simultaneously.
“Yeah?” he turned back, his hand already on the doorknob.
“Just don’t let…” Jennifer said with a giggle.
“…it happen again,” Shari finished, tittering as well.
“Jeez,” I heard Ben laugh as he went through the door, shaking his head, “you two are a piece of work.”
My shoulder was seriously starting to ache from the cold, and as my friend shut the door behind him, I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck and a dull throb begin at the base of my skull. The pain was apparently starting to expand, and I rolled my arm a bit to get comfortable.
“You okay, Rowan?” R.J. whispered to me.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I nodded as I answered. “Shoulder.”
He shot me a grimace and nodded his understanding of my one word explanation.
“All right, everyone,” Felicity announced. “Are we ready to move on?”
I thought for a second about excusing myself but elected not to say anything. I decided to give it a few more minutes and see how things progressed. Worse case scenario, after the next tower was hailed I could go inside and down a handful of aspirin.
Everyone settled back in, and the twins completed their abruptly truncated hail of the Southern watchtower before once again engaging in their opposing orbits around the circle.
“Watchtowers doubled…” said Jennifer as they joined at our west.
“…now stand in a pair,” chimed Shari.
“Guardian of fire…”
“…and guardian of air,”
“We beckon you now, come join the rest…”
“…with ebb and with flow, as you do the best.”
“Watchtower of the west,” Jennifer’s voice stepped in behind the lull.
“Element of water…” Shari continued.
“Guardian of ocean, sea, lake and stream…”
“Giver of life.”
Their voices doubled together, “We invite you. Please join us this night and watch over us in our circle. Blessed be!”
“So mote it be!” we answered aloud.
Jennifer and Shari executed their dance for a fourth and final time, coming to rest in the north, and very close to their original positions in our circle.
“Thrice we’ve bid…” Shari began.
“…to watchtowers tall…” Jennifer completed.
“…And each have answered…”
“…our humble call.”
“Now at last, we come to four…”
“…The final tower, there are no more.”
“Watchtower of the north…”
“Element of earth…”
“Guardian of the land…”
“Mother of all…”
And together they harmonized a last time, “We invite you. Please join us this night and watch over us in our circle. Blessed be!”
And as one, we all answered, “So mote it be!”
The girls rejoined our ranks as we spread out to accommodate them, and they stood almost dancing in place, excited grins plastered across their faces. As they clasped hands with the circle, we could all instantly feel the intense level of energy they’d raised between themselves and were now sharing with us. It was no wonder they couldn’t seem to stand still.
A warm feeling coursed through my body, and though my shoulder was still bludgeoning me with discomfort, I decided I could bear it awhile longer provided it didn’t get any worse.
“The wheel forever turns, spinning in harmony with nature; with the Lord and Lady; with the elements and all that is,” Felicity said, picking up where Jennifer and Shari had ended. “It spirals through the seasons, bringing with it the balance of the cyclic birth, death, and rebirth of all.
“Winter solstice is both an end and a beginning. This longest night brings to a close our solar year, and with the dawn brings to us the hope and mystery of the next. It is a time when that which is spent is laid to rest, and that which is new and untouched bursts forth with wonder and promise.
“This is a time for new beginnings. This is a time we call Yule. It is a celebration of the cycle and the rebirth of the Sun God. In honor of this time, we celebrate with a pyre in its name.”
The last sentence was my queue; I released hands and stepped forward into the center of the circle. Digging in my pocket, after a moment I withdrew a wooden match. Kneeling down, I struck it against the deck and shielded the flame from the wind with my cupped hand. I reached into the open fire pit and touched the small fire to a few strategic points. The dry kindling caught quickly, then I stood and stepped back into place with the rest of the circle.
The wood and pinecones crackled as the fire began to spread
and consume them as fuel—an act of birth and death in and of itself. Flickering light cast outward to illuminate us in a yellow-orange glow.
Nancy knelt down, and when she stood up again she stepped forward holding a medium-sized oak log, decorated with pine boughs. She carefully lowered it into the rapidly growing conflagration and allowed it to fall the last few inches, jumping back as a shower of embers plumed upward.
“The Yule log represents the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.” Felicity continued her recitation of the ritual. “Tonight, this pyre will light our way through the darkness; give us warmth to stave off the cold; and remind us of our good fortune past, present, and future as we welcome the rebirth of the Sun God. Blessed be!”
“So mote it be!” we answered her.
Felicity looked solemnly around the circle as a cloud of smoke billowed outward from the fire pit and lofted upward on the cold breeze. The sappy pine boughs had begun to burn now, and their pungent odor was filling the air, riding on the back of the blue-white smoke.
“Well, let’s make this thing safe, so we can leave it alone for a while,” she stated. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to eat. It’s going to be a very long night.”
I gave R.J. a friendly nudge and told him with a grin, “I’m appointing you fire tender. I’m getting too old for this all night stuff.”
* * * * *
After we’d placed the lid on the portable fireplace and closed the screens, we all started back inside for the feast. I had eventually become so caught up in the ritual that it was my sole focus for the last several minutes. Until now I’d almost completely dismissed the fact that my shoulder was flaring up. I was suddenly reminded of it in no uncertain terms by a sharp twinge that drove inward and then hung a quick right to shoot down my arm, ending with momentary numbness in my fingers. I decided then and there that I was going to need something to take it down a few notches if I was going to make it through the rest of the night.
Something else I’d forgotten was that Ben was already in the house making a phone call. He had apparently just finished as we all filtered into the living room and began hanging up our coats. I heard the door to our bedroom open as everyone was heading back into the kitchen and dining room to help get everything set out for dinner. I hung back a moment and waited.
“Hey, Tonto,” I greeted my friend as he came around the corner and up the short hallway. “You missed all the fun.”
“What? Oh, yeah, sorry ‘bout that,” he answered me, voice thick and betraying a noticeable sense of distance to his thoughts. He looked pale, which considering his dusky complexion was alarming in and of itself.
“Something wrong?” I queried, feeling the hairs on my neck snap to attention once again.
“No. Nothin’. No big deal.” He shook his head.
I was unconvinced. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” He shook his head a little too vigorously. “It’s nothin’.”
“Ben…”
He shot me a hard look and half whispered, “Not right now, Row. Drop it. It’s nothin’”
“Okay.” I shrugged and held up a hand to let him know I got the message. “No problem. Sorry.”
I stood looking at him for a moment and could almost visibly see the wheels turning. Something was up, but for some unknown reason he was going to keep me in the dark about it. I didn’t like this situation at all because something deep down told me that whatever it was that Ben was laboring over, it definitely had something to do with me.
The earlier rampant fear that I had perhaps killed Paige Lawson myself now returned to the forefront with extreme prejudice. Everything Helen had said to convince me otherwise went instantly out the window, and I became my own prime suspect once again.
I couldn’t take it.
“Am I a suspect?” I blurted.
“Do what?” Ben shook his head as if he’d misheard the question and stared back at me with a look of incredulity.
“You heard me, Ben,” I rushed the words out before my brain could convince me to shut up. “Am I a suspect in Paige Lawson’s death?”
“Hell no.” He stared at me and screwed up his face in confusion. “Where the fuck’d’ya get that idea?”
“I don’t know,” I shook my head as I sighed. “I was there… All the stuff that’s been happening… Now you’ve obviously got something bothering you—presumably because of that phone call—and you’re keeping whatever it is from me…”
“Gimme a break, white man,” he said. “Hell, I don’t even tell my wife everything about work, okay?”
“Yeah, maybe so, but I’ve got a feeling that whatever that phone call was about, my name got mentioned in there somewhere.”
“Listen…” he sent a hand up to massage his neck and gestured at me with the other. “You’re just gonna hafta trust me on this. That call is prob’ly gonna turn out to be nothin’, but even if it doesn’t, I just can’t discuss it with ya’ right now. Okay?”
“Probably going to turn out to be nothing,” I repeated his words. “So it does have something to do with me then?”
“I told ya’, I’m not goin’ there.”
“But if it has something to do with me…”
“Row, drop it.”
“Ben…”
“Now, Row.”
I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him, that much was obvious. I was also breaking the cardinal rule of not pushing Ben Storm into a corner, and I knew better. I decided I’d better heed his advice.
“Yeah. Okay. Sorry. You know how I am…”
“Yeah,” he harrumphed. “No shit.”
I cocked my head in the direction of the dining room and changed the subject. “So everyone’s getting ready to eat.”
“Great,” he nodded. “I’m starvin’. You gonna tell me what we’re having yet? It smells good.”
“I think you’ll like it.”
“Okay, but what is it?”
“Food, Ben. Trust me, you’ll like it.”
“Well, if I don’t, at least I’m covered.”
“You didn’t really bring a sack of belly-bombers, did you?” I asked.
“No, but I got a coupl’a frozen pizzas out in the van. All I gotta do is borrow your oven and I’m good ta’ go.”
I shook my head and grinned at him, “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Hey, a man’s gotta eat.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the back of the house. “By the way, did you say your deal was over with out there?”
“We’ll officially cast circle a bit later, but that’s not for a while yet. So except for tending the fire through the night and clearing the towers later, yeah, it’s pretty much done. Why?”
“So it’s all clear for alcohol?”
“In moderation, yeah, sure. Since you aren’t participating, you’ve pretty much been clear all along.”
“Shit, wish I’d known that, ‘cause I need a Scotch like right now.”
“Yeah, me too. Do me a favor and pour me one while you’re at it,” I said as I stepped past him. “I’ve just got to hit the restroom first.”
“You sure you wanna drink? I thought ya’ said alcohol wasn’t allowed in the circle thing, and if y’a still gotta do that later...”
“I’ve got awhile yet. Besides, in this particular case I don’t think the God will mind if I relax a little bit.”
“Okay. You’re the Witch.”
“Yeah. Don’t remind me.”
The hairs along the back of my neck were still on end by the time I returned to the dining room. It was becoming more obvious by the second that something very bad was waiting in the wings for its chance to overturn my world.
And I hated not knowing what it was.
CHAPTER 17
The sun was riding a southern arc in the cloudless sky, casting its brightness across the cityscape as I hooked my truck onto Clark Avenue and then a couple of blocks later found myself a parking space directly in front of City Police Hea
dquarters. After easing between the diagonal lines, I levered the vehicle into park and paused a moment. Finally, I took off my sunglasses and tucked them between the headliner and passenger side visor then switched off the engine.
December 24th had stealthily arrived as a follow-up to our celebration of the winter’s solstice; sneaking into the fold as it always did each year, no matter how prepared you thought yourself to be. Two entire days had passed since the party, each of them an almost indiscernible fraction of time longer in lighted hours than was the day before. The Sun God had been reborn, but the new solar year had still brought with it the issues left unresolved during the previous turn of the wheel.
However, as if in honor of a secretly declared cease-fire, the 48 hours had passed with nothing blatantly out of the ordinary happening to me. No dreams, no uninvited visions, no sleepwalking. Not even the barest twinge of a waking nightmare. In Felicity’s estimation, and that of others around me, this all appeared to be a display of my progress; an outward indication that my psyche was on the mend. I wished that I could agree with them, but I’d had a similar experience before, and the outcome had been less than pleasant.
To me, this period of supernormal silence was more frightening than anything that had occurred to date; very simply because I could feel the foreboding that they could not. Still, as I said, it was nothing horrific; nothing that was overtly driving me as had the events of recent past. This was merely an indefinable aggravation that would tickle and itch, doing all that it could to irritate me, asleep or awake. Each time I would think it had finally gone away, it would pop up in a different corner of my brain, tempting me with shaded emotions that hinted at a future it had no intention of actually revealing in advance.
The sense had been with me ever since Yule, bolstered in part by Ben’s cryptic attitude following his secretive phone call. Deep down inside I knew this was a harbinger of things to come and these fleeting days were merely the calm before the storm. What I feared the most, however, was that if this level of calm turned out to be directly proportionate to the intensity of the coming squall, then I could never be prepared for what I would have to face. I was truly afraid that in the grand scheme of things, everything up until now had been the metaphorical equivalent of nothing more than a spring shower.
Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 21