The Water Witch

by Juliet Dark

  “Oh, that storm. I was … out of town for that.”

  “Lucky you,” I said, determined not to pry into my handyman’s private life. “It did a lot of damage. The town’s still recovering … Of course, I guess that’s good for you. There’s plenty of work.”

  “I’m grateful for the work, but I don’t like to think it comes at the expense of other people’s bad fortune,” Bill said gravely. “I’m just glad I can fix some of it.”

  “Oh well, I guess there’s not much you can do about bad weather …” I faltered and looked away, recalling that I’d been the unwitting cause of the last two storms and all the damage they’d caused—including the human damage. I looked back at Bill and saw him staring at me. He probably thought I was nuts. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here to fix the roof now.”

  “Me too,” he said, handing me his empty glass and plate. “I’d better get back to it … unless the noise is bothering your … writing … or researching … uh … or other college professor stuff.”

  I laughed. I could only imagine what my work might seem like to a handyman. For a moment I envied him. It would be nice if all my problems could be fixed with a hammer and a handful of nails … then I realized how foolish that was. The problem I had right now could be solved with a couple of words. “No, I need to go by my dean’s office. And you’d better get back to work.” I looked up at the clear blue sky. “Who knows how long it will stay like this?”

  I walked across campus to Liz’s office determined in my resolve to confess my membership in the Grove and tell her everything I’d learned from Jen Davies. It felt good finally knowing what to do about at least one thing … as good as it felt to be walking in the sunshine after last night’s rain. All the storms on the horizon were still rumbling but I felt a power of my own growing. Maybe it was anger at the Grove for conspiring to hurt my town, or maybe last night’s transformation had released some power. Just thinking about running through the woods with Duncan made my fingers prickle with energy and my skin itch to change again.

  By the time I walked up the two flights of stairs to Liz’s office I was setting off sparks. When I touched her doorknob gold cinders sizzled in the air. Some protection spell? I wondered. But if it was, it wasn’t strong enough to withstand my new power. I walked in without knocking.

  And was immediately sorry I had. Liz Book was on the couch in a close embrace with a woman. I was embarrassed enough when I thought it was Diana, but when the two women sprung apart I saw that the second woman was Soheila—and that Liz’s face was wet with tears.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed at the sight of the usually composed Elizabeth Book crying. “Has something happened?”

  “Liz was upset over some bad news in my family …” Soheila began, but Liz put a hand on her arm and shook her head.

  “There’s no reason not to tell Callie—she’ll find out soon enough. I’m upset because Diana has told me that if the door is closing forever she will go back to Faerie.” Liz’s voice wobbled at the end and Soheila handed her a tissue. I sank down into a chair.

  “Diana would go back to Faerie forever? But why? If it’s because she’s afraid of living without Aelvesgold, we might have a solution for that.” I was going to tell her what Duncan Laird had said about some creatures producing their own Aelvesgold but Liz was shaking her head.

  “It’s not just that. Diana has a responsibility to her people, the fairy deer. She is their guardian. She has guarded them in this world against the growing dangers here—hunting, pollution, the clearing of the forests—but the deer folk have decided that if the door is closing they will go back to Faerie. Diana feels it’s her responsibility to go with them …” Her voice trailed off as she was overcome with emotion. I patted her arm and exchanged a look with Soheila.

  “I’m so sorry, Liz. But maybe she won’t have to make that choice.”

  “Have you found a way to keep the door open?” she asked eagerly, drying her eyes and sitting up straighter. “Duncan Laird was here earlier. He said you have great promise. If you can keep the door open, Diana won’t have to choose between this world and Faerie.”

  The hopeful smile on Liz’s face was heartbreaking—and reminded me of what I’d come to do.

  “I’ll try my best, Liz, but there’s something else I have to tell you.”

  I took a deep breath and looked straight at Liz, who was regarding me with an expectant half smile. “I’ve been hiding something from you … A few months ago, I went to the Grove to ask my grandmother for a way to break the Ballard curse. I’d found out that one of our ancestors had cursed them. She told me that I was the only one who could remove the curse, but only if I joined the Grove. So I did. I joined them and promised to inform them of any situations at Fairwick that posed a threat to humans. Adelaide promised me that no harm would come to anyone as a result of the information I gave them … but I see now that it was probably foolhardy to believe her.”

  The smile on Liz’s face had slowly faded as I spoke, replaced by a stony expression—the one that students dreaded when they had committed an infraction. “And have you reported anything to them since you became a member?”

  “No,” I told her honestly. “I haven’t seen anything that constituted a threat to humans. I guess Lorelei would have been the first thing … Did Duncan Laird tell you that we saw her last night in the woods?”

  “Yes,” Liz said. “Are you going to inform the Grove about her? I would have to say that she poses a threat to humans.”

  “I’m afraid they’ll learn about Lorelei whether I tell them or not. I met with Jen Davies this morning. She was sent by the Grove to monitor activity in the woods. She already suspected there’s an undine on the loose, and I couldn’t deny it.”

  Soheila sighed and tucked her hands into the sleeves of her burnt umber cardigan as if she were freezing.

  “But I did at least get some information in return.” Relieved to move on from my own guilty secret, I told Liz and Soheila that the Grove had apparently made a decision to close the door after forming an alliance with the Seraphim Club in London. The women exchanged an anxious look.

  “The Seraphim goes back to the sixteenth century,” Soheila said, shivering. “They’re powerful wizards and even more anti-fey than the Grove. Their members looted the temples of my country and drove out our old gods. They decorated their club with the spoils of their pillaging.”

  “They are marauders of the worst kind!” Liz exclaimed, her cheeks flaming pink. “Common thieves and tomb raiders!”

  “Perhaps that’s how they found an alternative source of Aelvesgold,” I said.

  All the color drained from Liz’s face. “An alternative source of Aelvesgold? That’s impossible. The only source of Aelvesgold is Faerie. And this is the last door.”

  “Duncan told me that there are creatures who can produce their own Aelvesgold,” I said.

  “There are stories about creatures of that sort,” Soheila said, turning to Liz. “Do you think …?”

  “Those stories have never been proven,” Liz replied, her eyes wide.

  “What stories?” I demanded. “What are you two talking about?”

  “Elves,” Soheila replied in a hushed voice, looking anxiously around the room. I recalled Liam’s cryptic reference to elves when we were in Faerie.

  “Liam told me that they had been destroyed for trying to take over Faerie.”

  “Some believe that they became monsters in their banishment—creatures who hate the fey and humans alike.”

  “Nephilim.” Liz and Soheila whispered the word together.

  “I thought Nephilim were fallen angels,” I said.

  “My people believed that the legend of the fallen angels came from the expulsion of the elves from Faerie,” Soheila said.

  “But those are only stories,” Liz said nervously. “No one knows if the Nephilim exist. And if they did exist, surely not even the Grove would have anything to do with them.”

  “Unless they were
offered an unlimited supply of Aelvesgold,” I said.

  Liz and Soheila exchanged a worried look. “That would indeed be a strong inducement. Nephilim and witches working together would make a powerful combination.” Liz shuddered. “We must stop them. You must gain enough power to keep the door open. Will you transform again tonight?”

  “Yes,” I said, shivering with anticipation at the thought. “Duncan said he thought there was another shape that might be more effective. It will also give us a chance to look out for Lorelei. We’ll have to do something about her, but we have to find her first.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Liz said. “It’s possible she’s sought sanctuary with her daughter.”

  “Her daughter? Aren’t all her children in Faerie …?” But then I realized who she meant. “Lura?”

  Liz and Soheila nodded.

  “We were all surprised when Lorelei, after laying her eggs, gave birth to a human child,” Liz told me. “It may have been because Sullivan Trask was a witch. But witch or no, Sullivan wasn’t able to keep Lorelei from going back to Faerie, and then we all felt bad for Lura when Lorelei abandoned her. Lura was an awkward child, clumsy as a fish on dry land. We were happy for her, though, when she got engaged. During the Depression she rented out rooms to fishermen to make ends meet—the house was still presentable then—and one of them that summer was a painter from over in Ulster County named Quincy Morris, here sketching the woods. We were all glad Lura had found someone and thought maybe someone with an artistic temperament might do all right by her. The wedding was planned for the first weekend in September. It was to be held in the old Fairwick Hotel on Main Street. People got to talking that it wasn’t in a church, but we figured that was because the Church hasn’t always been friendly to undines.”

  “Or succubi,” Soheila added.

  Liz nodded and continued her story. “On the day of the wedding, we all arrived at the hotel. It was done up in blues and greens like an underwater paradise. Lura’s dress was cut from a moiré silk that shimmered like water and was embroidered with a thousand seed pearls. I was there when the message came from Quincy Morris’s best man. He’d seen Quincy heading into the woods at dawn that morning and he hadn’t heard from him since. Lura insisted the townspeople search the woods for Quincy, convinced that he’d had an accident, but it was clear to most of us that he’d gotten cold feet and cleared out.”

  “Poor Lura,” Soheila said with a sigh that rippled through the room. “First she was abandoned by her mother, then she was left at the altar. She’d always been a bit moody, but she went crazy after that. Shut herself up in that old house and refused to let anyone in. She doesn’t even come into town for food. She grows her own vegetables and fishes in the stream. Cuts her own wood and heats the whole house with a wood-burning stove. The Women’s Club volunteers drop off packages of secondhand clothing and other essentials—sugar, coffee, flour—and one of us drives by regularly to make sure the packages get taken inside and there’s smoke coming out of the chimney.”

  “She looked pretty fit when I saw her.” I told them about finding the Aelvestone and how Lura dragged me out of the river and then lifted the back of my car.

  “That much Aelvesgold would confer a tremendous amount of strength and power!” Liz gave me a curious look but refrained from asking why it had taken me this long to tell her about the stone. “I’ve heard that undines laid eggs of Aelvesgold with their young but I thought they always were absorbed by the time the young were fingerlings. Now we can have another circle for Brock. Can you bring the Aelvestone tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll bring it today if you want. Right now. Why should we wait until tomorrow?”

  Liz shook her head. “The circle is still recovering from the surge of power they experienced two days ago. Bring the stone tomorrow. That will impress the group. But remember, keep it carefully wrapped. In the long run, using too much Aelvesgold can deplete your power.”

  “And what about Lura?” I asked, anxious to deflect the conversation from the use I’d already made of the Aelvestone. “Do you think she’s harboring Lorelei?”

  Soheila and Liz looked at each other. “It’s hard to say,” Liz said. “Lorelei never seemed to have much maternal affection for the girl.”

  “And Lura would have ample reason to resent Lorelei abandoning her,” Soheila added. “But still, we should check.” The two women looked at each other again. I imagined neither of them relished the idea of approaching surly, inhospitable Lura, but Soheila finally heaved a gusty sigh. “I’ll go,” she said with a rueful smile. “At least I know what it feels like to be neither fish nor fowl.”

  SIXTEEN

  I left Liz’s office, relieved that I’d confessed my membership in the Grove and about the Aelvestone but more uneasy than ever about the threat the Grove posed to Fairwick and the horrible consequences if they were successful in closing the door. I couldn’t imagine not having Diana living across the street. If Liz chose to leave with her, what would become of the college? I’d just begun to feel at home in Fairwick, but what kind of home would it be if my friends left? As I left campus, I thought about ways of keeping the door open even if the Grove tried to close it. I mentally flipped through the spells I’d read in Wheelock yesterday. There had been spells to make someone fall in love or fall out of love, spells to make a baby or to keep from having a baby, spells to find something that had been lost or to hide something so no one would ever find it, spells to make money or cause an enemy misfortune. But nothing about keeping a door open. By the time I got home, the energy I had felt earlier had faded. Instead, I was headachy and tired.

  When I opened the front door, a slip of paper that had been stuck in the doorframe came loose and drifted to the floor. It was a note from Bill. He’d fixed the missing tiles on the roof and tomorrow was going to start replastering the ceilings that had been damaged by the leaks. He’d noticed that my gutters needed cleaning and had taken care of that. As I looked around the foyer, I saw that he’d picked up the mail and put it neatly on the foyer table. Upstairs, I discovered that he’d swept up the plaster dust that had fallen from the ceilings and mopped the floors in the hall and my bedroom. I turned on the tap for the bathtub and discovered there was plenty of hot water.

  While the bath was filling, I sat down at my desk and picked up Wheelock. I looked through the index for door-opening spells, but found only a ward to bar your door from intruders and a whole section on threshold gnomes that was fascinating (apparently their function as guardians went back to a treaty made in Prague in the fourteenth century), but that wasn’t helpful in keeping the door to Faerie open. Most of the spells about doors had to do with keeping people from coming through them, not keeping them open.

  While I was flipping through the book I came across a section on correlative spells. There was something I’d been trying to remember about them last night when Duncan was explaining how to shapeshift. I reread the section carefully.

  The most powerful—and dangerous—form of correlative magic is when a witch creates a bond between herself and the object or person she wishes to control…*

  The sound of lapping water interrupted my reading. Crap! The bathtub was overflowing. That was all I needed after the water damage the house had already suffered. I rushed into the bathroom, turned off the tap, and unplugged the drain to let out some water. The water felt deliciously hot. I’d finish reading Wheelock later. I undressed and got into the tub, sinking gratefully up to the nape of my neck. I felt all the sore spots from last night’s run through the woods untensing. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cool porcelain rim of the tub.

  There was something in that passage about correlative spells that could be useful … but I felt myself drifting, my body weightless in the warm water, a warmth that surrounded me like liquid sunshine … or like the fluid Aelvesgold that had wrapped around me when Liam and I had made love in Faerie. Behind my closed eyelids I summoned the image of Liam as he’d a
ppeared to me there, his skin golden and glowing. I pictured him moving above me, the gold light limning his body, but leaving his face in shadow. I couldn’t quite bring his face into focus, but I felt his body stirring the liquid Aelvesgold between us and I remembered how the golden light had entered me before he had. Just as the warm water seemed to be moving over me now, caressing my breasts, stirring between my legs … I spread my legs to let the water inside me. I arched my hips and felt it move against me in a wave. A wave that had fingers and a mouth. I gasped as the water caressed me and the image of Liam, his face still in shadow, pressed his mouth against mine. My mouth was flooded with the hot, syrupy sweetness of his tongue. I drew it into me just as I drew in the wave of warmth between my legs. He rocked into me so hard, filling me so completely, that I sank beneath him. I would have gasped but his mouth was locked on mine, sucking my tongue, my lips, the very breath out of my lungs.

  We were both sinking, our legs wrapped around each other, our mouths locked, our bodies rocking to the rhythm of the ocean’s tide. I opened my eyes and saw his hair spread out in a dark corona around his head, his aquamarine eyes staring wide into mine …

  Liam didn’t have blue eyes. Who was this man? A fantasy? Or some creature made out of water and Aelvesgold fucking me into a watery grave? I bit down on his lip and, startled, his head snapped back. Not Liam, but someone else I recognized. Duncan Laird. He smiled at me and opened his mouth … and a small crayfish crawled out.

  I tried to scream but only sucked in water. I thrashed against Duncan—or the creature that had taken his face—but he only tightened his hold on me and pushed himself deeper inside me. Deeper than any man could go. The thing that was inside me wasn’t a man. It had a life of its own, snaking deep into my womb, and to my horror and dismay I was still rocking against it. Even as I struggled to get free, even as I knew I was drowning, I was still arching my hips again and again, meeting each thrust with a thrust of my own and finally, with a last push, I felt my limbs—and his—loosening in an orgasm that released shockwaves through the water …