Burning Bright

by Anne Stuart; Maggie Shayne; Judith Arnold

  “I can hardly believe what I’m hearing,” she whispered.

  “Aha!” he said, and pointed at her. “You, of all people, giving in to preconceived notions and expecting me to come in here threatening you with eternal damnation for your beliefs just because I’m a Christian minister?”

  “You’re right,” she said. “Shame on me.”

  “It takes all kinds to make a world, Dori. Now, here. Take this.”

  She picked up what he slid across the counter to her. A card with his name, address, phone number. She flipped it and saw a date and time scrawled on the back. “What’s this?”

  “Next meeting of the Crescent Cove Interfaith Council. Every pastor, priest and rabbi in town is a member.” He gave her a wink. “You’ll be our first priestess.”

  “You really think they’ll let me in?”

  “I’m the president and founder. If I let you in, they’ll let you in. Vermont is a very open-minded state. Now, don’t be offended if some are hesitant. They won’t be once you explain the difference between what your faith really teaches and the ever-popular misconceptions.”

  “You say that as if you already know the differences.”

  “That’s because I do. A man in my position can’t afford to be ignorant or uninformed.” He tapped the card in her hand. “We meet in the rec center out by the lake. Neutral ground.”

  “That’s walking distance from my place.”

  “Perfect,” he said. “Be there, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He slugged down his coffee and reached for his wallet.

  She held up a hand. “It’s on the house, Reverend Mackey.”

  “Thanks, Lady Doreen.”

  He headed out, and she felt herself smiling. It wasn’t the end of the world after all. People were not looking at her as if she’d grown another head. Maybe she’d underestimated the open-mindedness of Crescent Cove. Or overestimated the shock value of being Wiccan. Just because she’d run into a couple of narrow-minded bigots didn’t mean the whole town was that way. After all, there were Wiccans in every town these days. Why shouldn’t it begin being accepted as just another religion?

  As she was serving a platter of sausage and eggs, Jason walked in and slid into a booth. She filled a fresh coffee mug and carried it to his table.

  “Did you read it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. My day got off to a pleasant start and I don’t want anything to ruin it.”

  “It won’t ruin it, hon. It’s good. Approaches the entire story from the angle of you having helped solve those seven missing-persons cases in New York, before giving up your high-powered job to move back home to Crescent Cove.” He laid a paper on the table, opened to the story. “Here.”

  She picked it up, glancing nervously over her shoulder for any sign of her boss’s glower. There was a picture of her—she recognized it as one that had been used in a piece about her from a New Age magazine. The headline read: Hometown Heroine Back Where She Belongs. The story talked about her success in the big city, quoting other articles at length and crediting her with using her “uncanny skills” to help the police locate missing persons. It added that she was a High Priestess, elder and legal clergy of the Wiccan faith. And that was the only mention of her religion.

  She sighed in relief.

  “Not as bad as you thought, huh?” Jason asked.

  “No. It’s not bad at all.”

  “I’m relieved.”

  “Me, too.”

  He met her eyes. He wanted to say something more, but he didn’t. She so longed for him to tell her he was feeling the same things she was. She could see the attraction in his eyes every time he looked at her. She could feel it every time he touched her. Why was he holding back?

  Could it be that he was liberal enough to understand Witchcraft but still unwilling to get involved with a Witch? She searched his eyes, hoping—waiting.

  “I should go,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure you saw it. And that you were okay. No one’s given you any trouble, have they?”

  “No. None at all.”

  “Good. Call if you need me.”

  But I do need you, she thought. I need you right now, to end this aching loneliness. I’m tired of it. Goddess, I can’t stand it much longer.

  “Dori?” he asked.

  She’d lapsed into staring at him again. “I’ll call if I need you,” she promised. “Thanks, Jason.”

  He smiled a little. “See what I told you, Dori? Crescent Cove isn’t a bad place at all. Might even be worth sticking around, don’t you think?”

  She frowned at him, but he left before she could analyze his words or the message that she sensed hiding beneath them.

  Chapter Six

  She was still mulling over every word Jason had said, trying to read between the lines, beyond the words, when she walked to the parking lot to find that for once, her car didn’t require brushing off. No snow today. However, the lack of snow gave her a clear view of the blotch of bright red splattered across her windshield. It looked like paint.

  “No.” She didn’t want this.

  “Now, that’s a real shame,” a voice said.

  Turning, Dori saw the old woman from that strange little candle shop, standing on the sidewalk, staring at the car and shaking her head. She wore a cloak-style coat, with fur that lined its edges and its hood, and had a crooked walking stick in one hand.

  “Still,” she said, “I suppose it’s also a good sign.”

  “In what way?” Dori asked. Her words sounded clipped. She was angry, but she reminded herself she was not angry at Helen from Burning Bright, but at the idiot who had done this. And at Jason for exposing her secret and at this town in general.

  “Well, when we met the other night I had the distinct impression you’d lost your faith.”

  “So?”

  “So you must have found it again. True faith—of any sort—tends to bring tests, trials. And this seems like one to me.”

  Dori narrowed her eyes on the old woman. “My life has been nothing but a series of tests and trials for the past year,” she grumbled.

  “Really? And have you passed them?”

  She blinked, because the words had hit her right between the eyes. How had she responded to the tests of the past year? By complaining, whining, fighting against her fate and turning her back on her calling, her religion and her Goddess.

  “I read about you in the paper today,” she said. “Tell me, what’s the significance of that star?” As she said it she pointed to the blotch on Dori’s vehicle.

  Dori frowned and examined the stain again—seeing this time that the way the paint had landed formed a rough shape of an inverted pentagram. “I hadn’t even noticed…the five points represent the five elements—Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit,” she said. “Spirit is usually on top. We often put a circle around it, to symbolize the elements all being connected, all part of the greater whole.”

  “I see. And inverted, like it is here? Does that have any significance?”

  She sighed. “The Satanists have adopted it, made it so well-known that Wiccans in the U.S. rarely use it anymore. But to us it represents the journey of the Second Degree. For most Wiccans it’s a time of….”

  The old woman remained there, silver brows raised, waiting for her to finish.

  “Tests and trials. Challenges and obstacles.”

  “Tests and trials? Really?” Helen asked. Though Dori got the feeling she wasn’t the least bit surprised. “Well, isn’t that interesting?”

  Dori sighed. “Don’t read anything into it. I got through my Second Degree long, long ago. I’m way beyond it now.”

  “That’s right, isn’t it? The newspaper called you an elder.” She shrugged. “Then again, I guess the learning and growing never really stop, do they? Why, in any faith the initiations are an endless cycle. Don’t you think?”

  Dori sent her a swift frown.

  “Why don’t you run into BK’s Grocery and see if sh
e has some nail-polish remover?”

  “Nail polish?” Dori looked again at the paint on her windshield, ran a finger over it, and finally bent closer and sniffed, realizing it wasn’t paint after all. “It is nail polish, isn’t it?” she asked, turning again to the old woman.

  But Helen was gone.

  Dori walked to BK’s, located the nail-polish remover and took it to the front to pay. There was only one register open, which was usual on a weeknight. She waited in line behind a woman she didn’t at first recognize, and when she did, she instantly bristled.

  The dark-haired woman had started all this by refusing to process Dori’s application for a table at the craft fair.

  “Hello there, Mrs. Redmond,” she said, feeling decidedly evil. Oh, deep down she knew a respectable woman like her probably hadn’t vandalized her car. But for the moment, she would do.

  The woman snapped her head around and her eyes widened. “Uh…hello.”

  Mrs. Redmond opened her checkbook to make out the check.

  Dori peeked over her shoulder, read her full name. Alice W. Redmond. The woman scribbled quickly and paused at the date space, then shot a look at the brunette behind the register, whose name tag read Katie. “What’s the date?”

  “Twenty-first,” Katie replied. She shifted her glance between the two of them with confused amusement. And no wonder. Alice Redmond was in such a hurry to get out of the store you’d have thought she was afraid Dori was going to pull out a wand and transform her into a toad at any moment.

  Katie sent Dori a wink. “Happy Solstice.”

  The Winter Solstice. She hadn’t even realized it was tonight. “Thanks. You know, I’d almost decided to give up practicing Witchcraft. I have Alice here to thank for changing my mind.”

  “Really?” Katie appeared stunned.

  Dori said, “Nah.”

  Katie laughed. Alice Redmond tore her check out of the book and slapped it down on the counter. The cashier was still grinning when she dropped it into the register and handed back a receipt. Alice snatched up her bags and walked out of the store without another word.

  Dori set her bottles of nail-polish remover on the counter and pulled a wad of tips from her handbag.

  “What’s this about?” the woman asked, holding up a bottle.

  “Someone decided my car would be nicer with a splash of blood-red nail polish.”

  Katie went still, all traces of humor evaporating. “Because of the article?”

  “I can only assume so.”

  “Well, I’ll be…that’s not like Crescent Cove, Dori. Not at all.” She shook her head. “I wish I’d known sooner that you were into…that Witch stuff.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, my daughter’s been poking around it. She’s got a couple of books in her room, has a little stand set up with candles and such.” She shrugged. “I’d like to talk to her about it, but I don’t have a clue, you know? And she’s at that touchy age.”

  “Sixteen?”

  “Almost.” She accepted Dori’s cash and started counting out change.

  “Do you get a lunch break here?” Dori asked.

  “Sure, half hour right at noon.”

  “Why don’t you come over to the diner tomorrow. I’ll take my break at the same time and you can pick my brain all you want.”

  “Really? That would be great, Dori.” Then she smiled. “You’re just what you’ve always seemed like, aren’t you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “An ordinary person. And a nice one, too.” She dropped the bottles into a bag and handed it to Dori. “You have a nice night, Dori.”

  “You, too, Katie.”

  Sighing, Dori went outside. She took a deep breath of the crisp cold air and gazed up at the darkening sky. Solstice Night.

  The timing was no accident, was it? How many times had she noticed how she never had any darkness to work through over the winter months? Well, this year, she did. And it was time to get to work doing it. It was time for her to come back home—to stop fighting and start accepting. To stop working for change and start trying to see the lesson in what was.

  She walked to her car, and spent the next half hour wiping away the nail polish. It washed off more easily than she would have expected. Then she went home and began packing a picnic basket full of ritual supplies. Tonight she would observe the solstice outside, at midnight, under the stars. No matter how cold it might get, she was determined to do this up right.

  Tonight she intended to bid her darkness farewell, and welcome the return of the light, no matter what it might bring.

  MIDNIGHT. Who the hell could be calling at midnight?

  Jason rolled over in bed and reached blindly for the phone. Vaguely he heard the moan of the wind. Not too promising, that sound. Familiar, though. They’d already had the first killer storm of the season—just a couple of weeks ago. It was too soon for another.

  Right. And he’d lived here long enough to know better. That wind might be a passing front, but he doubted it. It sounded like it meant business.

  He pulled the telephone to his ear. “Yeah?”

  “Jason, thank God. My son is gone. I’m afraid he’s—”

  “Hold on, slow down.” He reached out and snapped on the light. “Who is this?”

  “Alice Redmond! It’s Kevin—he sneaked out with those boys.”

  A chill rippled through his core and he heard the wind all over again. “Do you think they’ve gone out on the lake again, Alice?”

  “I do-on’t kno-ow.” The words emerged as sobs.

  Then a man must have taken the phone from her hands, because his voice came on the line. “Chief? It’s Paul Redmond.”

  “I’m here.”

  The voice grew muffled. “Go finish getting dressed, hon,” he said. There was a pause before he came back on the line. “All right. Chief, the boy has been out on that lake at least twice before. I lectured him, I grounded him, but if he sneaked out tonight, I can’t imagine another reason for it. Seems to me it’s the new big thrill for him and his friends.”

  “I’m on it, Paul. Listen, meet me at the rec center, down on the shore. We’ll coordinate from there. I’ll call Phil…get him to open it up.”

  “All right. I’ve already driven all over town, Jason. I’m worried.”

  “We’ll find him,” Jason said, and even as he hung up the phone, he thought of one person. He thought of Dori.

  Not just because she had a knack for finding missing people, either. But because…hell, this was the biggest crisis he’d faced as police chief. And he wanted her by his side, no matter how little sense that might make.

  He punched in her number, then cradled the phone between his head and shoulder while pulling on his clothes.

  But Dori’s phone rang and rang. He frowned, worried about her now, as well. Where the hell could she be at midnight with a storm brewing?

  Chapter Seven

  Dori had chosen just the right spot. A spot where the rocks formed a natural, three-sided barrier, halfway between her uncle’s place and the rec center farther down the beach. She knew this spot. Knew it well.

  It was where she and Jason had shared that special night so long ago. And maybe that was part of the reason she’d chosen it tonight.

  She’d set up her altar—a large flat-topped boulder—with care, but she hadn’t got overly fancy. This wasn’t about props. She didn’t need incense to represent Air, because she had the wind. It blew sharp and cold, but she’d bundled up. It would be fine. She didn’t need a cup to hold Water, because she had the lake right in front of her, choppy with whitecaps. She didn’t need salt to represent Earth, because she was surrounded by the boulders and rocks that were Earth itself. She didn’t need a representation of the Goddess, because the moon, a waxing, lopsided gibbous moon, was up and bright in the sky, despite the dark clouds around it, gathering ever closer.

  Fire—all she needed was Fire. And she had brought her special candle. The one the Crone-like Helen had given her, t
he one she’d said was imbued with a little magic.

  Dori piled a few stones around the base of the candleholder to keep any wind from tipping it over. She lit the candle, and the glass globe kept it from blowing out. Then she sat quietly to meditate before it. She thought about this past year, all the things she had lost. And she thought about the things Helen had said to her. The inverted pentacle glowed before her mind’s eye. Spirit at the bottom, moving through the Underworld. She saw herself, making her way through a dark, shadowy place. She heard the old tales she had so often recited to rapt audiences standing in sacred circles—the tale of the Goddess’s descent into the Underworld, and how She was stopped at each of the seven gates and made to surrender one of Her prized possessions at each one. Her jewels, Her robes, Her crown—until there was nothing left.

  And for the first time, Dori realized that was exactly what her own journey had been like. She had lost everything she thought was of value. Until she was left with—with just what Inanna had been left with in the legend. She was left with nothing but Her own true self. And that was all She had needed to emerge, triumphant, from the darkness.

  For a long time, Dori sat there on the ground and worked through all those things in her mind.

  The wind gusted harder. Dori opened her eyes. Her magic candle had blown out, despite the protective glass. A deeper darkness had settled over the night. The black clouds that had been threatening blotted out the moon. In fact, the only light seemed to be coming from the rec center farther along the beach. The wind swept in from the lake, hitting her square in the face. “Damn, I so wanted to continue that meditation,” she muttered. “Maybe find out who my own true self really is.”

  Headlights caught her attention, bouncing in her direction from the rec center. What was going on over there? There were several cars visible in the light that spilled from the building’s windows. Some of them were police cars.

  She tucked her special candle and her lighter into her bag, left an offering of birdseed, then stepped out of her shelter of rocks, hugging her coat more tightly around her, and hurried toward the center. The approaching vehicle’s headlights hit her, blinded her, and then the vehicle pulled up beside her.