by Josh Lanyon
He said quietly, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
I had known this reckoning was coming. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I knew there was no avoiding it. It wasn’t as though a few hours and a couple of drinks would erase the look I’d seen on John’s face when I’d tried to interest the chief and mayor into taking a closer look at the Reitherman investigation.
I said, “I don’t think so. No.”
“What the hell was that all about?”
“I think there could be a connection between these cases. Does it hurt to take a look?”
“Does it…” He tried again. “I don’t understand you. I specifically told you—requested—that you not stick your nose into police business. And you agreed.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“You…shouldn’t…have?”
“No. I shouldn’t have. This isn’t about you or me. People are dying. I have information that could be useful to the Witch Killer investigation. You care about justice. I would think you’d want that information shared.”
“What I want is for you to stay out of police business. How would you feel if I started telling you how to run your shop? Would you feel that maybe I crossed a line?”
“This is a false equivalence, John. I’m not telling you how to do your job. You’re not personally investigating this case. I’m pointing out facts that have so far been missed in the investigation. Even if Seamus’s murder isn’t connected to these others, things are being overlooked. An athame being mistaken for a boline. Two members of the same coven being targeted—”
“You’re guessing these things. You don’t know them for a fact.”
“I know they need to be double-checked. And if you would have listened to me, I wouldn’t have felt compelled to take matters into my own hands.”
That was the truth, but to say it out loud was probably a mistake. No, it was definitely a mistake.
He considered and discarded several responses before saying, tightly, tersely, “I’m not going to tell you again. Do not further embarrass me in front of my colleagues. Stay out of police business. Stay out of my business. Do you understand me?”
I’m not sure why that was the breaking point. I had successfully been rationalizing his demands up until then, and he had certainly said worse things to me. But all at once, I’d had enough.
I snapped, “I understand that you have a narrow and bigoted frame of reference.”
He shouted, “Bigoted? I went ahead and married a kook who thinks he’s a goddamned witch.”
I yelled back, “I don’t think I’m a goddamned witch. I am a witch.”
Chapter Ten
The reverberating silence that followed was even louder than our raised voices.
I was shocked and horrified by what I’d done. Even so, I wouldn’t have taken it back even if it had been possible. As sick as I felt, I was—weirdly—almost relieved that it was finally out.
However, it didn’t have quite the effect I was expecting.
After a moment, John said dryly, “I see.”
Still angry. I matched him, arid syllable for arid syllable. “No, you don’t.”
You will.
There was malice in that thought. I rejected it at once, ashamed. I was angry and hurt, but I’d die before I hurt John.
His lip curled. “Yeah, I do. Only too well.”
“Except you don’t.” I nodded at the amber chandelier, and the light went out.
From the shadows near the front door, John said wearily, “Jesus. You actually coordinated this little display?”
I snapped my fingers, and the lights flared back on. “Seriously? You think this is a-a parlor trick?”
“I think this is staged. Hell, yes.” His smile was derisive. “Am I now supposed to believe you have magical powers?”
My mouth fell open. I mean, skepticism was one thing. This was… He couldn’t really think I had…what? Wired the room? Did he honestly believe I was that much of a kook?
I bit out, “Table rise before his eyes.”
The peanut dish still sitting on the coffee table rattled as the table in the sunken living room began to rise.
John watched, unmoving and unmoved, as the table rose to the height of the surrounding railing.
As the table hung there in midair, John’s gaze flashed to mine. “Land it on the sofa,” he ordered.
I looked at the table and pointed to the sofa. The table floated down again and landed lightly on the gray sectional. The peanut dish slipped off the edge and fell to the floor, cracking in half and scattering nuts.
John moved to the railing and stared down at the tableau below us. Coffee table sitting drunkenly on the sofa, broken dish, the peanut-dotted carpet. His face was absolutely expressionless. I could barely see the rise and fall of his chest.
Finally, he looked me square in the face. “Move the brass bed upstairs down here.”
I glanced overhead and then toward the dining room. “There’s not enough room.”
His voice was as hard as the crack of gavel. “Move it.”
“As you wish,” I said haughtily.
But it had been a long time since I’d tried to move anything large or complicated.
Bed appear
Right over here.
Nothing.
I closed my eyes, picturing our bed, and whispered, “Frame speculum sphærulæque per singulos, et ex aere fabricabis, per tempus moveri per spatia. Hie mihi copulare.”
Nothing happened.
I said more firmly, “Frame speculum sphærulæque per singulos, et ex aere fabricabis, per tempus moveri per spatia. Hie mihi copulare.”
Nothing.
“This is embarrassing,” John said.
I ignored him, taking a step forward and staring at the ceiling. I concentrated with all my might. My heart sped up, sweat broke out on my forehead. “Frame speculum sphærulæque per singulos, et ex aere fabricabis, per tempus moveri per spatia. Hie mihi copulare.”
The amber chandelier near the door began to swing. The bed appeared in the open walkway between the dining room and the living room. The image wavered, faded, and then the bed settled, knocking over a side table, pushing hard against the living room railing, which groaned and bent beneath the pressure.
John stared at the bent railing, stared at the bed. He said nothing. I’ve seen statues show more emotion.
“You don’t think this is something you should have mentioned earlier?” he said at last.
Some of my defiance faded. “I… It’s forbidden.”
“You’re telling me now.”
“You’re my-my beloved consort now. I didn’t want this between us.”
His hawkish gaze flickered at that. “I see.”
I wondered uneasily if I had short-circuited his brain. I said, “You saw my collection of grimoires. You knew I—”
He said harshly, “You know goddamned well I had no idea of this.”
I flinched.
“What else can you do?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s the full extent of your…your powers?”
I faltered. “I… I mean, that’s not an easy question to answer. I try not to use—”
“Can you fly on a broomstick?”
I said, “I… It’s just… Why would I want to?”
“Can you?”
“Yes, I guess I could.” I also guess I could have explained that broom riding was an early exercise to teach children control and balance, but was not—and had never been—a normal means of transportation. I mean, who wants to smack into a bird or get bugs in their teeth and hair if they don’t have to?
“Do you use a cauldron?”
“For what? Making soup? I use the same Cuisinart stainless-steel cookware you do.”
“Have you used magic on me?”
I swallowed.
He repeated in a voice as cold and relentless as a Highland winter, “Answer the question. Have you tried to control me with magic?”
/> I said quickly, “No. No, it wasn’t like that.”
“You’re lying. I told you, never lie to me.” As he said it, his face changed, grew even more frightening as he remembered. “The night of our rehearsal dinner…when you tried…” His gaze grew bright and hostile. “You were trying to cast a spell on me?”
“I wasn’t trying to control you. It was never for my own gain.”
“You used magic on me?”
I moved my head in assent. “I’m sorry. It was wrong. I knew it was wrong. I was…desperate.”
Desperate not to lose you. I managed not to say it, but it was the truth. I saw that now. At the time I had tried to tell myself I had to protect the Abracadantès; in fact, the whole consortium of witchdom. I had reassured myself it was for both our sakes, but no. I had done it for myself. If I had really had the best interests of witchdom at heart, I’d have called off the wedding.
I’m not sure he even heard me.
“And that wasn’t the first time. You did something earlier that day, after you faint—” He stopped, and I could see him trying to remember. No, not trying. He was remembering.
My heart sped up with genuine alarm as I saw the final confirmation of what I’d suspected for a while: that when John consciously exerted his will, he could throw off the effects of magic. Weeks later, he was brushing off the fragile remnants of that first forgetting spell.
The old wives’ tales about witch hunters were true. Some of them could even resist or overcome magic.
“You didn’t faint,” he said. “You were hit by a piano falling out of…nowhere.”
“I—yes. That was Ciara. She believed I killed Seamus, and she was trying to avenge him. She didn’t realize you were there, of course. She’s reckless, but not that reckless. She wouldn’t have—that’s why I know she’s innocent…”
I recognized that I was babbling to fill the dreadful silence between us, and shut up.
John stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time.
Which, I suppose, he was.
“How did I end up marrying you?” For the record, that wasn’t an insult; it was a sincere question.
“You weren’t—aren’t—under a spell.” The temptation to leave it there almost undermined my courage, but I couldn’t fail him this time. I made myself say, “I had it removed the morning after Seamus was murdered.”
Something terrifying crossed his face. Emotion turned his eyes yellow, and he said thickly, “You—” and stepped toward me.
“It wasn’t me.”
He looked like he hated me. For one moment, I truly thought he would kill me. I stumbled back, crying out, “Transcendet ostium, ut iubes.”
I had wondered how it could be that such an old house had no postern, and I saw now that the doorway predated the house. Latin turned the key.
I fell through and landed several blocks away.
For a time I knelt there panting, sick, in a triangle of lamplight.
I hadn’t been wrong to tell John the truth. I had been wrong in the way I did it. I had blurted it out in anger and frustration, and of course he was shocked. Of course he did not understand.
I did not blame him. I blamed myself.
Which did not change the fact that I was afraid of him. Afraid to go back.
The minutes passed. A bus rumbled past. I grew calmer. The night air cooled the perspiration on my face and body. I listened to the chirping of crickets, the distant city sounds.
Anyway, what was I going to do? Hide in the bushes? Huddle in a bus stop all night? I had to go home. I had to face John.
We had to talk.
I closed my eyes, thinking of his face in those final moments.
But no.
He loved me. He would not hurt me. I believed that. However angry he had been, he wouldn’t have harmed me. Not really.
I shivered. The night felt cold now.
Turning toward Greenwich Street, I hiked back and knocked on the door of our house.
The porch light came on, and the door opened. John stood framed in the amber light of the chandelier. I could see at once that the rage had passed.
I said huskily, “May I come in?”
He opened the door the rest of the way, moved back.
I stepped inside. “John, I—”
He put up a hand, and I stopped mid-word.
“I’ve already worked it out. Andi cast the…spell.”
I swallowed. I wouldn’t willingly expose Andi to what I’d seen in John’s eyes fifteen minutes earlier.
But I didn’t need to confirm or deny; he did already know the truth and had moved on. “And it was after you found out and, I suppose, told her to lift the enchantment, that you made this phone call.” He pulled his phone out, impatiently flicked the screen a few times, then held the phone out for me to listen to the message.
“Hey,” my tinny voice quavered with stress and emotion. My swallow was audible, and so was the struggle to steady my voice. “I just wanted to say…I love you. I always will. Meeting you…” It sounded like I’d suddenly stepped into a wind tunnel—or was about to keel over. My lifetime-ago-self gulped out, “…changed my life. Whatever happens, I’m never going to regret that. I just…thought you should know.”
John snapped off the recording. He smiled, and the smile was almost worse than what I’d seen in his eyes before I’d fled the house. “I actually saved this message. That whole never-ending hell of a week, every time I thought, No, you didn’t bargain for this, I’d play that message and feel so sure it was right. That what was between us was special.”
“John—”
He laughed, and tears burned my eyes. “I was right. There is something special about you. I just thought it was something good.”
I wiped my eyes. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what I could say.
“Now it all begins to make sense.” He was thinking aloud, talking to himself. I just happened to be there.
I looked past him and saw two suitcases sitting at the bottom of the staircase.
My heart stopped. My lungs wouldn’t work for an instant.
I finally managed a winded, “Are you leaving?”
John made a sound of disbelief. “What did you have in mind? Marriage counseling
I put my hand out, dimly registering the pain when he stepped out of reach.
I said, “We could talk. You could let me explain. There’s another side to this.”
“I’m sure there is. I don’t want to hear it. Every minute of this relationship was a lie. Worse than a lie.”
“It wasn’t. John, please—please listen to me.”
“If you’d wanted me to listen, you should have tried talking to me before we married.”
I winced.
He gave another of those unpleasant smiles. “You made quite a fool out of me.”
“No,” I denied, pained.
“Oh, hell yes. Sure you did. Tonight alone…”
“John, please believe me. I love you.” I rushed on, trying not to see his expression, that mingled look of disgust and disbelief. “I know you’re angry, and you have a right to be. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’d never knowingly harm you. Maybe I should have called off the wedding. I should have. I see that now. But I had come to believe you really did love me.”
That, and he’d had plenty of practical reasons for marrying me. He had spelled them out for me in this very room.
“You love me?” John repeated incredulously. “Is that what that was? That’s you in love? What would be left to do to someone you didn’t love?”
“If you’d just give me a chance to explain.” Not that I could think of a single thing to say that might change his mind. “It’s more complicated than you think.”
“No, it isn’t,” he said with finality. “This part isn’t. The time to explain was before we married. Although later would have been better than never, which was apparently your plan.”
“No. I was going to tell you. I knew I had to tell you. I wasn’
t sure how. You wouldn’t have believed me. I was waiting for the right moment.”
“For future reference, the visual aids go a long way to making your point.” He turned, went to the staircase, and picked up his suitcases.
“Please don’t do this.”
He ignored me, heading for the front door.
I faltered. “But where will you go? How will I reach you?”
“I don’t want you to reach me.” He opened the door.
I could have slammed it shut again. I could have prevented him from leaving. Maybe I couldn’t insist he talk to me, but I could have forced him to listen.
I did none of that, of course. Only stood there shaking and sick and afraid.
“Please don’t go. John. Please don’t walk away.”
He didn’t even look at me.
I followed him out into the vestibule, still pleading. “I’m the same person I was in Scotland. I’m still…it’s still me.”
He did glance at me then. “Is it? Maybe. The problem is, I don’t know who that is. I never did. And now I don’t want to.”
Chapter Eleven
Obviously, I’m not the first witch to marry a mortal.
I’m not even the first witch in my family. In fact, the prevailing theory as to why Great-great-great-uncle Arnold, er, dispatched Great-great-great-aunt Esmerelda is that she was mortal.
Marrying mortals is not forbidden, but it is strongly discouraged.
And should the relationship go wrong, it’s naturally up to the witch to make sure no harm is done. Meaning, make sure the Craft does not pay the price for one’s romantic indiscretions.
Usually that can be accomplished through a forgetting spell.
But in John’s case, application of a forgetting spell was not possible, which is why as morning drew near, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started worrying about John.
Not that I really believed John was in danger, but once word got out that he’d left me, there would certainly be concern in various quarters, and one of those quarters would be the Société du Sortilège.
The fact that John was a policeman—well, no, worse, the police commissioner—would undoubtedly trigger all kinds of paranoia. It was up to me to reassure everyone who mattered that John did not pose a threat to me or the Craft.