by Horn, J. D.
My arms trembled, and my hands quivered, but I would not give up without making one final effort. I forced my anger and disappointment into a hard, tight ball and raised my hands. The orb shot from my fingers, landing right where I had aimed it: the spot where I had seen the three women together. I stalked forward, focusing all my power on expanding the sphere of energy. I could see the flickering image from the past stretch distortedly across its surface. I fell to my hands and knees, leaning in to try to interpret the jerky movement of the grainy, bulbous vision. The room around me crackled with my magic, and the smell of ozone flooded my senses. I forced myself to ignore these distractions. I channeled more and more energy into the orb. Distorted sounds, out of sync and incomprehensible, arose in waves. Then, with no warning, the glowing sphere collapsed in on itself and was gone. I had forced too much energy into a fragile moment. I heard wailing, and it took me a moment to realize that I was the one making the sound.
I fought a growing sense of hopelessness. I held my hands out again, trying to build up more energy for a last-ditch effort, but my concentration was broken when my peripheral vision alerted me to something floating down from above. I leaned my head away, but a soft speck landed on my cheek. I reached up and tried to brush it off, managing only to smear it. I looked at my hand and realized that it was ash. My mind had no sooner registered this realization than other flakes began to descend from above, thick and heavy, covering me like dry, gray snow. The ashes formed a thin powdery layer all around me, but rather than resting where they lay, they lifted back up, whirling around me like a slow spinning dust devil, some of the ash working its way into my nasal passages. I jumped up and ran to the easel, whipping off the cover to use as a shield against the ash. I froze at the sight of Connor’s face staring back at me.
The easel held more than just a simple portrait. It was a triptych—the canvas had been divided into three equal portions. Both side panels had been completed; the one on the left showed Connor as he had been in his youth, and in the one on the right, his face had been turned into a demon’s, the same hate I had witnessed the night he died shining through the image’s eyes. The center panel was still inchoate. A few layers of paint gave the impression that Iris had made many attempts at beginning this portion. I realized she was using her art in an attempt to reconcile the two images she held of her dead husband: the man she thought she had married and the monster he had proven himself to be. My eyes glided straight over the reflection of his youthful glow on the left, drawn to the image of the flames I had seen devour him. Here on the canvas they were frozen in time. We had held no funeral for Connor. There had been no remains to bury; no body had been found. The fire elementals had feasted well. Ashes were all that had been left of Connor.
Ashes. I began swatting at the dust with the tarp, trying to wipe Connor’s remains from my skin, shake his ashes from my hair. Then I heard Connor’s laughter. I spun around toward the sound. The ashes coalesced before me, taking on a definite form. A hand, smoldering, reached out of the dusty cloud and grasped at me. I leapt back.
“I will live again. I will live through you.” I felt his words more than I heard them. The hand fell formless, and the cloud of swirling ashes rushed up in an attempt to surround me, envelop me, enter me. His spirit was attempting to possess me. No, it wasn’t me he wanted; his spirit was trying to supplant that of my unborn child. That simply was not going to happen. I forced myself to regain control of my magic. I slid away from Iris’s studio and into my own room.
For once I was ready. I had been preparing for this moment since the day after Connor’s death, when I’d witnessed his essence lurking in a mirror. An attempt had been made to cleanse the house, to balance out its energies and remove anything with evil intent, but somehow I’d known the sneaky bastard would manage to slip through. Neither of my aunts nor Oliver had mentioned sensing his presence, but for months I felt him lurking on the periphery, just beyond capture. Angry. Jealous. A black cloud of hopelessness that fed on its own shadow.
I threw open my closet door and dug deep behind the shoes and boxes of high school memorabilia. I grasped the cool neck of the bottle I had hidden there. I shuddered a little at the sight of my creation. It had started out as a simple cobalt-blue glass bottle, but Jilo had coached me, showing me how to clothe it in clay and paint it with natural pigments. What had once been a simple container was now an effigy. A crude but recognizable image of the man who had been so willing to sacrifice me for power, even though he believed himself to be my father. “When you make a spirit trap, the image don’t have to be dead on,” Jilo had told me. “It just got to be the image you hold of him.”
And it certainly did reflect my image of him. I’d captured his smugness. His rapaciousness. His cruelty.
I felt my blood pulsing in me. My temperature alternated cold and hot. My focus narrowed, blocking out everything but the burning anger I held for Connor. I felt confident. I felt in control. The door to my bedroom shook, then began to bend in and out as Connor tried to force it open. It looked for all the world like the door was breathing, expanding as it gasped in air, flattening as it let it go. I stood there in the silence. Waiting. Listening. My pulse pounded in my own ears. I took a step toward the door, and it began to shake so hard I halfway expected it to pull off its hinges, and then it stopped cold.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath. “This time I am ready for you.” I pulled the cork out of the neck, grasping the stopper in my sweaty palm. I felt his sudden panic. I knew he had realized that the balance of power had completely changed. I was no longer the powerless girl he could injure and leave to die. He moved away from my door. I could feel his energy retreat. Instead of pursuing me, he began to flee. At that moment I realized Connor’s spirit had no power outside of what I myself had loaned to it. By charging Iris’s studio with magic, I had given him enough energy to manifest. And I had just shut off his supply. I grasped the spirit trap tightly with both hands and used my magic to swing the door open.
I strode through it and into the hall. “Spirit without body,” I called out as Jilo had taught me, “this is your body.” I held the effigy bottle up high. “Spirit without breath”—I lowered the bottle and blew across the lip of the bottle, causing it to emit a whistle—“this is your breath. Spirit without blood”—I spat into its neck—“this is your blood.” I chased his dusty shadow back to the door of Iris’s studio, and I stood back from the door, willing it to open. It did, but it did so slowly, a weakening force on its other side trying to force me back. There was a sound—maybe it was only the door’s hinges protesting their being at the center of this war of wills, or it might have been an expletive shrieked by Connor’s wilting spirit.
“I command you, spirit, enter your body.” I tilted the bottle of the neck toward the door and took a step forward. “I command you, spirit, be filled with your breath.” I crossed over the threshold into the studio. “I command you, spirit, bathe in your blood.” The ash again lifted up and began to swirl, but I knew it was under my control now. “I command you, spirit, enter your body.” The ash pulled together into a gray ribbon, just thin enough to penetrate the bottle’s opening. I focused on seeing every last particle rise and take its place inside the effigy. Within moments the room was clean, the bottle full. I smiled as I plugged it with the cork.
“You know, Connor, I expected you to put up more of a fight, but I guess in the end you always were a disappointment.”
I turned the bottle in my hand. Yes, I had the foresight to prepare the trap and learn how to use it, but now that I had deployed the necessary magic, I had no idea what to do with it. Jilo probably would have buried it at her crossroads, along with God only knows what else she had deposited there over the years. But it would be foolish to inter Connor’s hungry ghost at the epicenter of Jilo’s magic. If it ever managed to free itself from the trap, it would certainly make use of any magic it could find to wreak havoc. No, it woul
d be better to weight it down and drop it into the ocean. But tonight, that was not an option. I needed a place where I could keep it safely, someplace that would allow me to take the time to think about what to do with it in the long run. Time. The word turned around in my brain, like the bottle turned in my hand.
I hurried downstairs and out into the garden. The sundial Oliver had placed there would keep anything it touched in stasis. Connor wouldn’t just be locked in the trap I’d made for him—he’d be trapped in the moment as well. I could take as long as I needed to decide how and when to address the problem. I looked at the sundial and silently commanded it to rise. It vibrated, its own gravity making it much heavier to lift than I had anticipated. I tried focusing harder, putting more juice into my efforts, but the more magic I hit it with, the heavier it seemed to grow. Exasperated, I closed my eyes. “Please,” I asked. I heard a humming sound and opened my eyes. To my amazement, the dial had floated up and was hanging at eye level. “Thank you,” I said as relief rushed over me. Leave it to Oliver to rebel against even his own nature and create an enchanted object that must be asked to cooperate rather than compelled. I sat the spirit trap on the blackened soil the dial had been covering, and the ground opened up to swallow the bottle whole without my even asking. The dial descended back into place.
FOURTEEN
I went back to Iris’s studio, replaced the cover over the nightmarish triptych, and looked around the room. Even my witch’s eye couldn’t notice anything that might alert Iris to the night’s activities. I knew I had to tell Iris what had happened. It was her right to know, and I would tell her. I would. In the morning. But I didn’t want to risk her stumbling across the truth in the night. I turned off the light and closed the door. I climbed in the shower and stood in the hottest water my skin could stand. I wanted to wash off even the memory of Connor’s residue touching me. As I slid between my sheets, I remembered to undo the charm I had placed on the entrances; I didn’t want the charm to wake me as my family came creeping in.
I was exhausted both physically and spiritually, but sleep did not come easily for me, and when it did, it brought dreams of a faceless creature that slithered on its stomach even though it had the shape of a man. Obelisks shooting lightning and stone circles humming to life surrounded me, making a sound that constantly rose in pitch and intensity. Shattering glass fell, raining down on the whole wide world, and then I heard my mother screaming. I was up and out of bed before the approaching sun could ripen the morning sky.
I sent my thoughts out as I went down the stairs, checking to see who had made it home from last night’s wake, and who had found a better place to spend the night. Given the way Adam and Oliver were getting on last night, it surprised me to sense that a sleeping Oliver lay beneath our roof. I was a little more surprised, but also kind of relieved, to pick up no sign of Iris’s presence.
For some reason, I couldn’t get a clear reading on Ellen, so I stopped by her room and cracked the door open. The bed had been slept in, and the twisted sheets and pillows that spilled onto the floor told me that Ellen had not passed a much more relaxing night than I had. Unless, of course, she had brought Tucker home with her. If so, then the bedclothes told a very different story. Her absence bought me a bit more time before I had to make an already overdue apology.
I went to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee for the others. After last night, I suspected that Oliver would welcome a cup when he awoke, and Iris might too, whenever she came dragging herself home. In spite of the news I had to share with her, a small and mischievous part of me felt glad that I was up early enough to witness her walk of shame. Of course, the whole unwed mother thing made it impossible for me to give her too hard of a time. Besides, I didn’t want to do anything that would discourage her from getting out and living her post-Connor life. In the bright light of day, my resolution to inform her about last night’s encounter was wavering.
I made myself a cup of decaffeinated tea, and headed out to the garden to greet the sun. I suddenly realized that my psychic headcount hadn’t marked Emmet as present. Maybe he had taken off early this morning, or perhaps he hadn’t come home last night, either. Emmet was a full-grown golem, though, so I had no doubt he could take care of himself for one night. Or maybe someone else had taken care of him. I felt an odd and unwelcome twinge of jealousy at the thought that some other woman might have welcomed him into her bed. I pushed the feeling away and told myself that it would be the best thing for all of us if Emmet moved on. But then another thought hit me. Maybe Claire had scared him off? No. That was unlikely.
Again I felt anger and misplaced jealousy toward the faceless and most assuredly imaginary woman who had seduced him. “Get a grip,” I said to myself. I truly did love Peter. I forced myself to look at this possessiveness I’d begun to feel toward Emmet. Was I just being protective of him? In spite of all the years of knowledge and experience lent to him by the witches who had created him and his manly body, he was somehow still an innocent. I wanted to go along with that rationalization, but then my more honest side spoke the truth. This jealousy I felt truly had nothing to do with Emmet or his emotional well-being . . .
I might have learned that I was not the odd woman out when it came to magic, and Peter had never failed to make me feel beautiful and special, but I still struggled with a poor self-image. Emmet’s declaration of love had flattered me, bolstering the unhealthy side of my ego. I could follow these emotions where they might lead me and break Peter’s heart—again—ruining my life, and both of theirs, just to feed an emotional black hole. Or I could own up to the fact that I still had a lot of growing up to do. I sighed. Self-awareness sucked. I thought about what my mother had done . . . how she’d had an affair with Ellen’s husband. Maybe that choice had sprung from a similar place?
My thoughts drifted from my mother to Peter’s mom. I was worried about Claire. I had no idea what had set her off against Emmet. Perhaps Claire herself had a strong enough psychic ability to sense his otherworldliness? But that didn’t explain the history she seemed to think she had with the golem, who she thought his people were, or, most importantly, what had happened to Peter’s brother, the son she had turned over to them for safekeeping. I felt certain of one thing: It was a pure fiction that the old man was some long-lost Great-Uncle Peadar. This man, this “dried-up husk,” as Claire had called him, was somehow Claire’s son and Peter’s brother. Logically, I couldn’t account for how Peter’s brother could be older than his parents, nor could I imagine the circumstances that had inspired Claire and big Colin to give up their boy, but there was no question that Claire believed him to be her long-lost son. “Peadar,” the name of the missing uncle, was only a convenient label to hang on the body that had been found. Something for Detective Cook to chew on.
After Claire and I had returned to the bar, Colin came and whisked her upstairs to their living quarters. She hadn’t made another appearance. I had joined Peter behind the bar, and we’d worked together until last call. “This is nice,” Peter had commented at one point, his mismatched eyes, right blue and left green, misty with drink. I knew without asking what he meant by “this,” and part of me agreed. Even so, the revelation that the Tierneys—a family I had always thought of as being the most normal family in the world—had been touched by some form of magic was making me ask the same questions Emmet had raised. How could it be that Peter was never bothered by my family’s magic, and now by my magic, for that matter, when most normal people were at least a little unsettled by it?
The sound of a car pulling into our drive pulled me from my thoughts. A door opened and softly closed, and then the car reversed back onto the road. High heels moving cautiously across stone told me one of my aunts had returned.
Iris’s eyes widened, and she stopped in her tracks, clutching her purse to her chest, when she registered my presence in the garden. In spite of her air of guilty surprise, she looked radiant in the rosy hues of early daylight. I knew
it meant I was both a hypocrite and a liar, but I realized in that instant I’d never speak to her about Connor. I couldn’t bring my heart to do it. I couldn’t risk the fragile renaissance I was witnessing any more than I could rip the wings off a butterfly. I would take this secret to my grave. I made this decision in the full knowledge that my own weakness would make it a heck of a lot harder for me to judge either of my aunts. I raised my cup. “Morning.”
“Good morning.” She gave me a smile that tottered between embarrassment and hubris. “I guess this old girl still has it in her,” she said just in time for Oliver to arrive, shirtless and wearing baggy sweatpants, a mug of steaming coffee in hand.
“Well, she sure did last night,” he said with a smirk, “and by the looks of you, all night long too.”
“Oliver,” we gasped in unison, and he let loose with a full-throated laugh. He came over to the table and joined me.
“When do you close on your new house, again?” Iris asked before shaking her head and going inside. In spite of her embarrassment, there was a sly and satisfied look on her face.
“Surprised you are home,” I said.
“And why do you say that?” He held his mug in both hands and leaned in as if I were about to tell him the juiciest of secrets.
“Well, you know. After last night. You and Cook. I mean Adam.”
He feigned a look of shock. “Well, my dear, we don’t all have the alley cat morals of your Aunt Iris.”
“You’d better not let her hear you say that,” I said.
“Point taken.” He took a sip of coffee and leaned back in his chair.
He grinned. “We danced a little. Drank way too much. Talked a little. Then I walked home. I was in no shape to drive, I’ll tell you that.”
“Wait, that’s it?”
“We are having lunch today,” he said. “I want to take our time and make sure this is right. We were kids . . . before. I don’t want to rush things. I want to go slowly and enjoy it.”