by Dima Zales
“I’m working on my master’s in studio art.”
Hunky and artistic? I might as well have custom-ordered him. He was so close to me, too, his body only a few inches from mine. The only other times I’d ever been this close to a guy my age was when a candidate swooped in for his kiss. Then that made me think of what it might be like to kiss this stranger in the Zorro costume…and I knew my thoughts were veering in a very dangerous direction. Voice a little breathless, I said, “That’s really cool. We have lots of artists here in Jerome.”
“So I’ve heard. This is the first time I’ve made it up here, though.” He sort of jerked his chin in the direction of the table where his friends were sitting. “My friend Dylan saw an ad for this party in a campus paper or something, and so a group of us decided to come up and check it out.”
“Are you staying here?” I knew it was silly to ask, that he was a civilian and not the guy I’d spent the last five years dreaming about, but some part of me wanted to ignore all that, to pretend we could dance tonight and talk and maybe steal a kiss or two, and then meet for coffee in the morning like a couple of normal people.
He shook his head. “No. That is, not in Jerome. We got a room down in Cottonwood because everything here was already booked.”
“Good. I mean, that’s safer than driving a hundred miles back to Phoenix.”
“That was the idea.”
After that we both fell silent, but I didn’t mind that, either. It felt good to be out on the dance floor, his arms around me. It felt right, which was stupid, I supposed. Probably it was just that he was tall and dark-haired and good-looking, and so close enough to the ideal I’d held in my head for so many years that I wanted this dance to be more than it really was. And I would’ve known if he were like me — a member of one of the witch clans, that is. We didn’t exactly give each other the secret handshake or anything, but each of us has a little core of power within us that sort of gives off a glow others of our kind can detect. I didn’t feel anything like that with the man holding me right now. Well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel something, but it wasn’t that.
The song ended, but he didn’t seem all that eager to leave the dance floor…at least, not until the band started in on “Werewolves of London.” Then he drew me to the side and bent close.
My heart started to pound. Was he going to try to kiss me? And if he did, would I even try to stop him?
But then he said, “Can I get your number? I think I might like to come back to Jerome in the near future.”
If Aunt Rachel had heard that, she probably would have shaken her head. No point in giving him any false hope. She wasn’t anywhere near us, however, and he was already pulling his phone out of his pocket so he could enter my information.
Taking a breath, I said quickly, “Angela McAllister. It’s 928 — ”
My name, echoed, interrupted me. I felt someone’s hand on my arm, and I turned around to see about the last person I expected: my cousin Dora, her face pale and her eyes brimming with tears.
“It’s — it’s Ruby,” she gasped. “She’s going, and she needs to see you. You have to hurry!”
The warm afterglow of the dance abruptly disappeared. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, please, you have to come now!”
Helplessly, I looked up at Zorro. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
He looked more than a little confused, but he just nodded. “Sure. It sounds like an emergency.” And, more softly, even as I was turning from him and beginning to follow Dora through the crowd, “I know where to find you.”
8
I didn’t have time to think about much else. Not the man I’d just left behind me, or my friends sitting at the table and probably wondering what the hell was going on. I couldn’t think about anything as I emerged into the biting night air, except, She can’t be dying. She can’t.
Out the front door of Spook Hall, then across the street and hurrying up the stairs through the park, the quickest route, even though my heels weren’t doing me any favors on those steep steps. The cold hit my exposed neck and chest and shoulders almost immediately. Or maybe that was simply the chill of realizing what my great-aunt’s passing would mean to me. To all of us McAllisters.
Dora a few paces ahead, the two of us hurried up to Paradise Lane, where Great-Aunt Ruby’s house stood. The light on the front porch shone forth serenely, as if nothing was wrong, but I knew better.
As soon as we entered the house, Dora paused in the entryway. “She’s up in her room. She — she wanted to see you alone.”
Mute with worry, I could only nod. Then I grasped the shining oak banister and more or less pulled myself up the stairs. Although I’d never been there before, I knew her room was on the left of the landing, in the location that would give her a panoramic view of the town and valley beyond. Not that there was much to see tonight. It was a dark night, heavy with clouds, the moon not yet risen.
Somehow I made myself cross the landing, knock on the door. “Aunt Ruby? It’s Angela.”
“Come in, child.” The voice I knew so well, usually so imperious, now sounded fragile, brittle as the bones in the body it emanated from.
Swallowing, I opened the door and let myself in. The room was warm with candlelight, tapers flickering from the dresser and the delicate writing table under the window and the carved walnut mantel of the little marble-faced fireplace I’d always loved. Great-Aunt Ruby lay propped up against the pillows, pale hair let down from the hard little bun she usually wore it in. Something in her face seemed to have slackened, lost its usual wiry strength, but the blue eyes were clear enough as they met mine.
To my surprise, she smiled. “Well, just look at you. Like something out of a movie. Always thought you’d clean up good.”
My face grew hot, and I made an off-hand gesture. “Oh, it’s just for the Halloween dance. I — ”
She shook her head. “Goodness, child, don’t apologize for looking beautiful. Come here.”
I couldn’t disobey. Slowly I walked to her bedside, and she reached out and took my cold fingers in her bony ones. I had thought she’d be cold as well, but she felt strangely warm, as if some fire were burning within her, consuming the last of her long life.
“I haven’t got long,” she began, “so I need you to listen, and listen well.”
“Oh, Aunt Ruby — ”
“No time for that. I told you I made my peace with it, and the truth is I’ve held on far longer than I wanted to. But I needed you to be ready, and you are.”
I wanted to protest that I wasn’t, not at all. Arguing with someone on their deathbed didn’t seem like a particularly wise thing to do, though, so I just nodded and waited for her to speak again.
“I’m not going to say you know everything, because you don’t, and there are some things you can’t plan for, however much you know. But you’ve got the strength in you, Angela, and the power to do the right thing. You’ll protect this clan, and do a good job of it.”
My fingers tightened around hers. “Can’t you — can’t you just stay a little longer. Just until — ” I broke off, my throat tightening with tears I didn’t want to shed in front of her. I didn’t want her to see how weak I really was.
“It’s hard, I know. You shouldn’t have to face this alone. But I told you he’s out there, and he’ll come to you when the time is right. You won’t be the first witch who’s had to lead her clan without a consort. We all know everything happens because it’s meant to, even if we can’t see the reason right away.” She shut her eyes for a moment, and I held my breath, wondering if this was it, the moment I’d been dreading for too long. But then the crepe-y eyelids fluttered, and she looked up at me once more. “Don’t give up hope, child. It’s the one thing that will always be there to guide you.”
“I won’t give up hope, Aunt Ruby. I promise.” I wasn’t sure if I really believed that; I just wanted to say something I thought she wanted to hear.
She smiled, gently, and her eyes wen
t wide. Her focus was not on me, though, but on some point past me. An expression of incredible joy passed over her features, and for the briefest second I saw not the withered shell she’d become, but a vibrant, beautiful young woman. “I’m here, Pat!” she cried out, her voice strong and full. “I’m here!”
Then her head fell back against the pillows, and the fingers dropped away from mine. A warm rush, as if I could feel her life energy moving over me and through me, like the gentle winds of a summer long gone.
And deep inside me I felt a new stirring, a glow of power, of strength. As she’d gone, she’d passed her powers on to me. The powers of the prima.
Slowly I lifted her lifeless hand and pressed my lips against it. Thank you, Ruby. I will be strong…for you.
They were waiting when I descended the stairs — Dora, and Aunt Rachel, and Tobias, and Adam and so many others, including the clan elders, Margot Emory, and Allegra Moss, and Bryce McAllister. Not all, of course. To have every single member of the clan just up and leave the dance would attract far too much notice. But enough.
“She’s gone,” I said clearly, pausing on the bottom step. My eyes burned with unshed tears, but I didn’t want to weep in front of them. I had to be strong. I was the prima. “It was a good passing. She called out to him, at the end. I think he was waiting for her.”
Her two sons, Lionel and Joseph, stepped forward. “Can we go to her?” asked Lionel.
“Of course.” I moved aside so they could go upstairs and make their own farewells. It was probably hard for them, to think that she’d asked for me at the end, and not her own sons, but allowances had to be made for the passage of power from prima to prima.
I hoped it would be enough that they could spend this small bit of time with her before we had to let the outside world in, call the funeral home in Cottonwood, make arrangements for her burial in the McAllister plot in the town cemetery. There’d once been a “Boot Hill” up in Jerome, but the hill was far too unstable; no one had been buried there for generations.
Aunt Rachel stepped forward, Tobias just a pace behind her. “How are you, sweetie?”
The endearment almost made my tears burst forth. Somehow I held them in check and managed a weak smile. “I’m okay. Tired. I just want to go home.”
At the word “home,” the clan elders exchanged a significant glance. Tradition held that this should be my home now. But I had no consort. True, as Aunt Ruby had said, there had been primas without consorts before me. None from the McAllister clan, however, and probably not many in as vulnerable a position as I currently was. And frankly, the thought of having to live in this big old house, with its antiques and portraits of former McAllisters, was not very enticing.
Rachel must have caught the unspoken dialogue amongst the elders, because she frowned slightly and said, “Nothing needs to be decided tonight. We all need our time to grieve. Let me take Angela home.”
Margot Emory nodded. She was a striking woman with gray-streaked dark hair and clear gray eyes under strongly arched brows. Ruby had been her aunt as well, but her expression was serene and calm, with no evidence of the sorrow she must be feeling. “Yes, she needs her rest. There is much that will have to be done.”
Those words were more than a little ominous, but my aunt just reached out and took me by the hand, led me through the watching crowd. As I passed him, I felt Adam’s worried gaze on me, and wished I could stop to ask him what had happened with Sydney and Anthony, whether they knew why I’d had to leave so precipitously. But I couldn’t think of a way to do so without making it seem as if my friends’ concerns were more important than those of the clan, so I only shot him an uncertain smile as I passed by and then went on out the front door.
A cold wind washed over me, but of course Aunt Rachel had thought of everything. She pulled an embroidered wool shawl from where she’d had it draped over one arm and handed it to me so I could cover up my exposed chest and shoulders. I murmured a thank-you, and we went down the front steps and to the quiet street, then down the steeply sloping hill back to the store. Tobias followed us the whole way, not speaking, but keeping watch over the two of us. At least he’d left the scythe behind, and had dropped the hood of his black robes. Now he looked more like a burly bear of a friar, although he had a full head of hair and not one of those silly-looking tonsures.
Maybe it was silly of me to even be thinking of such things, but it kept me from thinking about what had just happened. Great-Aunt Ruby was dead. I was the new prima.
I didn’t want to believe it. There had always been this small part of me that had thought they must all be wrong, that there had been some sort of mistake. Yes, I could talk to ghosts, but I didn’t possess any great power. Or so I had thought.
Now, though, with the gift that Ruby had passed on to me coiled like a glowing snake somewhere in my belly, I thought I began to understand. It wasn’t simply the gifts one was born with, but whether a given person had the predisposition within them to accept the prima energy and make it their own. What precisely I was supposed to do with it, I didn’t quite know, but I guessed the clan elders would have some insight on that.
The main thing, though, was that I be kept safe until my consort came to me. Until we were joined, I would not be able to fully use these powers. They were powers meant for a grown woman, not the girl I still was. The girl I would remain until I met the one who would take that girlhood from me.
We went inside, Rachel closing but not locking the door behind us. As we’d approached the building, I’d seen out of the corner of my eye the approaching forms of three of the “bodyguards,” and I knew they would come in and secure the place once I was upstairs.
Never before had the stairs up to my room felt as steep, but eventually I got there, my aunt and Tobias pausing out in the hallway.
“If there’s anything you need — ” she began, and I shook my head.
“I just want to sleep,” I told her. “There’ll be — well, I know there’ll be a lot that has to be done over the next few days, so I might as well get my rest now.”
Her eyes glittered with tears. “That’s right, sweetheart. You sleep, and we’ll work everything out tomorrow.”
I doubted everything would be worked out. However, I knew she was just trying to reassure me, to let me know this wasn’t all as horrible and awful as I thought it was. So I nodded, murmured “goodnight,” and closed the door.
My room looked just as it always did, the embroidered bedspread cheerful with its primary colors and background of soft ecru, the walls painted a bold turquoise and covered with folk art and candle sconces and an assortment of symbols: crosses, a carved “om” symbol, the leafy face of the Green Man. That familiarity should have comforted me, but instead it sent a painful pang through my chest. Would this still be my room, my home? Or would I be forced to take my place as prima in the cluttered Victorian mansion on the hill?
I didn’t want to think about that now. I didn’t want to think about anything. I walked over to the bed, kicked off my borrowed shoes, and then collapsed, sobs finally wracking my body.
Even then I wasn’t sure whether I wept for my great-aunt, or the life I knew was about to change forever.
“Of course you must go up to the house,” Bryce McAllister said calmly. “It’s yours now. You’ve seen the will.”
My head ached. I’d cried most of the night, slept fitfully for a few hours just before dawn, then went downstairs and brewed myself a strong pot of tea. It hadn’t helped my head much, but at least now I didn’t feel as if I were going to fall asleep standing up.
The other two elders, Margot Emory and Allegra Moss, nodded. We all sat at the long dining room table in the apartment, with Aunt Rachel on my right and the three of them facing us. Tobias had spent the night, I thought, but he was gone now. This was business between the prima and the elders, and he was not needed…or that seemed to be their view on things, anyway. Rachel they’d grudgingly allowed to stay, since I still lived under her roof.
&
nbsp; And yes, I had seen the will; they’d brought it with them so I would know my rights and responsibilities going forward. The big house was mine, as well as a far larger share of the money that came to everyone in the clan every month. Ruby’s individual wealth, as well as a number of personal items, were to be divided between her two sons, with them deciding which pieces should go on to their own children, who numbered five altogether.
Even so, I realized tiredly that my great-aunt’s bequest had made me a very wealthy young woman. Too bad I really didn’t care about that.
“I don’t think it’s safe,” I argued. “Down here I’m surrounded by people. Aunt Ruby’s house only has neighbors on one side.” I didn’t bother to mention that those neighbors were Adam’s parents, which would only make things that much more awkward. True, he’d moved out, but I got the feeling he’d find excuses to go visit if I were right there, too. “That is, I think we can all agree that I’m in sort of a precarious position right now.”
An expression of dismay crossed Allegra’s normally placid features. “Of course we would maintain the guard on you. That is not going to change.”
Of course not. So I’d be stuck in that house with a bunch of bodyguards, and not even my aunt’s leavening influence to make things a little more tolerable. I turned to her. “I don’t really have to move out, do I?”
Her fingers knotted together on the brightly printed tablecloth from India. “I know it’s hard, Angela, but that is the prima’s residence. You knew you wouldn’t be staying here forever.”
Yes, but I’d thought that when I left this comfortable apartment, I’d be moving to my new home with my consort at my side. I hadn’t thought I’d be camped out there with a bunch of babysitters making sure that dark specters or roving Wilcoxes or whatever peril might be lurking nearby didn’t have a chance of getting close to me.
It hurt to think that Aunt Rachel was siding with the elders against me. “So you — you want me to leave?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.