American Witch

by Thea Harrison

  As she watched, the embarrassed anger in Austin’s face switched to uncalculated fury. “You frigid bitch,” he spat out. “You don’t know the meaning of the word love. Everything always has to be portioned out with you, balanced on some kind of invisible scale. I had to earn every fuck I got from you.”

  His words sank invisible claws deep and tore at her, underneath her unmarked skin. Her face burned with greater fury and humiliation.

  She made her shaking lips form words. “The second time you cheated. That was when I knew I didn’t want to have children. Years passed, and now here we are. I’m almost forty, you’re over forty. And I’m looking back over the past twenty years of my life, and all I can think is what a goddamn waste, and none of it was my fault.”

  He barked out a harsh laugh. “You’re delusional.”

  “Did I ever cheat on you?” she snapped. “Did I?”

  “Of course you didn’t,” he growled. “You barely knew how to part your legs.”

  The calculated cruelty in his words shredded every tender memory they had shared—every tender moment she had thought they had shared—and the depth of his anger confounded her. She felt wounded and bloodied. Was she really that cold and inflexible? That unlovable?

  No. She would not let him do this to her.

  Pulling herself together, she thrust away the pain, took a step forward and stabbed at his chest. “Quit trying to justify what you did by tearing me down. I was the perfect wife. I was great in bed, I took all the right classes, and I worked out and kept my figure. I was patient, and I learned how to cook all the right things. I always put your career first, and for what? You are a goddamn waste of space, and I am done living a cliché.”

  “Jesus, you two,” Russell growled, shouldering his blunt figure between them. “Will you quit burning down your lives in front of everybody and shut the fuck up?”

  Awareness pierced the anger in Austin’s gaze, and he looked mortified. That did her hurting heart a little bit of good.

  “I don’t think so,” she told Russell. Underneath everything else, she saw the surprise in both Austin’s and Russell’s eyes that she would dare to talk back to the managing partner. Turning her attention back to Austin, she shouted, “You had that woman in my house. In my bed. No, I will not shut the fuck up!”

  “Forget about the bar,” Russell said to the strange man. “This evening is over. We should be going.”

  “No, you gentlemen go ahead and stay,” Molly said. She glared at Austin until his gaze slid away. “There’s a lot of booze in the house, and I’m sure Austin could use some commiseration over his frigid bitch of a wife who won’t spread her legs or shut up when she’s told to. I’ll be the one who leaves.”

  Turning away, she charged through the people who still remained and jogged up the stairs to the master suite. Moving swiftly, she pulled out her suitcases and threw things in. Underwear, casual clothes, shoes, toiletries…

  She needed all her jewelry. There was quite a bit of money tied up in it, and she wouldn’t leave a single piece behind.

  What else, what else? What are you supposed to take with you when you burn down your life?

  Financial documents.

  Right now Austin was busy dealing with the important people and contacts in his professional life, trying to smooth over a mortifying situation. But when he had time to think, he would think like a lawyer.

  She took her suitcases down the back stairs. She could hear a few voices still talking at the front of the house.

  Leaving the cases by the back door, she strode into Austin’s office, opened the floor safe, and stuffed everything into a large leather satchel without examining it—investment portfolios, car titles, CDs, cash, wills, advance directives, both of their passports.

  He wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. He needed to stay and face whatever happened next.

  After she had cleaned out the safe, she shut it and dug the household checkbook out of the upper drawer of Austin’s desk. First thing in the morning, she would go to the bank and transfer their liquid assets into her own bank account. He had enough to clean up from the fallout of this evening. Relationships to bolster. No doubt a mistress to complain to. With any luck, he wouldn’t expect her to move so fast.

  While she worked, wetness streamed down her face and her emotions raged all over the place, rampant and chaotic. Pain and self-recrimination were a large part of it.

  She was almost forty years old and childless, with a patchwork history of working part-time at various socially acceptable jobs and volunteering at socially acceptable charities. She had spent all her adult life trying to fit into the right-sized box.

  Somehow she needed to unchain her mind. Needed to discover her authentic self and try to live that Molly’s life, before it was too late.

  Slinging the leather satchel onto one shoulder, she slipped into the kitchen. Just before she pulled her suitcases out the door, she looked around one last time.

  The kitchen counters were littered with open bottles, glasses, trays of uncooked pastry puffs, the bare vanilla-berry cake. Austin had a mess on his hands. That, along with work, would be more than enough to distract him while she took care of business in the morning.

  All those empty bedrooms in a showcase house, and he had to take that other woman into hers. All those empty, childless bedrooms. One last wave of rage and pain burst through her.

  The kitchen lights flickered. As the entire house fell into darkness, she wheeled her suitcases into the rainy night. Nobody approached as she threw her luggage into the back of the Escalade and climbed in. Relief washed over her raw nerves as she drove away.

  The SUV’s headlights lit the edges of the wet, burgeoning foliage that hemmed the neighborhood streets. Black pressed on the other side of overhanging branches, turning sights that had been long familiar strange, until it felt as if she traveled down a secret tunnel.

  Immense shapes seemed to lurk in the trees. She thought she saw a wolf watching her, and a raven. Each one melted back into leaves and shadows as she drove past it.

  Then she broke out of the foliage into an open area by the entrance to the interstate. Massive relief lifted her up, as if she had traveled an unimaginable distance and crossed an invisible border to a new country.

  After a single glance back at the forest from which she had emerged, she turned onto the highway and drove into the city.

  She thought, I’m almost forty years old and I’m just being born.

  * * *

  Russell Sherman wasn’t the type to let go easily once he had his mind fixed on something. He had his mind fixed on forging a connection with Josiah, and he held on like an octopus gripping with all tentacles.

  In the end, however, he didn’t hold a candle to Josiah’s force of will. After finally extricating himself, Josiah drove swiftly, taking a circuitous route as his mind filled with images from the wrecked dinner party, like lurid snapshots of a crime scene.

  The district attorney had a two-bedroom loft apartment in an upscale building near downtown Atlanta, and it was filled with carefully curated items. Josiah also owned an old four-bedroom, two-story house outside the city limits that he had bought under a different identity, and that was where he drove now.

  The house was located down a quiet country lane that dead-ended at the property. It had a three-quarter-acre yard that bordered a large farm field and a patch of old-growth woods. The isolation and privacy suited him.

  This place, too, had carefully curated furniture—just enough arranged at the front window so that the house looked occupied when the blinds were up. Aside from a few lamps that were scattered throughout the rooms and set to operate on timers, most of the house was empty.

  Except for the basement.

  Pulling into the driveway, he mentally checked the subtle magical spells that he had woven around the perimeter of the property. Nothing had been disturbed. Still, he didn’t relax until he had let himself inside and walked through the house to inspect it visually. Only
then did he descend the old, bare-wood stairs into the basement.

  Months of planning and work had gone into this space. When he had bought the house, there had been a utilitarian bathroom and a large game room in the basement. Now there were two finished rooms, with more protection and obscuring spells layered over the floors, walls, and ceiling and anchored into place by runes made of magic-sensitive silver.

  The earth itself was another layer of protection and concealment. You could do a lot of magic in a basement before it began to leak out and became potentially noticeable to outside observers.

  This was his real base of operations. One room held a bed that was large enough to be comfortable for his tall frame, a closet filled with clothes, a nightstand, and a bedside lamp.

  The other room was larger. At one end it held three computers, several phones, and a monitor for the extensive security system he had installed. The other end held magical paraphernalia—all his current tools—along with a large floor safe that held the more dangerous items. He always locked the safe and the door to the room before he left.

  There were two ways to enter or exit the basement. One was the obvious way, by using the old stairs that led up to the large empty kitchen. Josiah had created the other way, which was part of the reason it had taken so long to adapt the space to suit his needs.

  After chiseling out a hole in the concrete wall of the basement, he had patiently dug a tunnel that came out under the cover of the thick tangle of old-growth forest behind the house. No one in the basement was going to get trapped in an underground space if he could avoid it.

  He owned still other properties in other areas that he had bought under yet other names. Many of those properties had undergone similar adaptations, but none of them were relevant to his current persona as Josiah Mason.

  Sitting in front of one of the computers, he conducted an internet search on Molly Sullivan and scrolled through local news articles and photos. Most of the hits were from society pages or charities.

  She was right—she was the perfect wife, especially for a law partner at a high-profile firm. At least on the surface. In the photos she was cool, elegant, and composed, completely unlike the haggard, angry woman who had confronted Austin with such steely determination.

  He picked up one of the phones and punched a number set on speed dial. When the person on the other end picked up, he said, “Change of plans.”

  “Okay,” the man said. “What’s up?”

  “Build a file on a woman named Molly Sullivan. Blond, blue eyes, five ten or so, between thirty-five and forty-five, wife to Austin Sullivan from Sherman & Associates.” At least for now. “Dig into her past and her known associates, but most especially, find out where she lands tonight. She left her husband after a messy, public confrontation at the party I attended. I want to know where she goes and what she does next.”

  “I’m on it.” The man disconnected.

  Josiah tossed the phone onto the desk and sat back, the fingers of one hand hooked over his mouth as he studied the image of the beautiful woman on his computer screen.

  He had meticulously planned for so many contingencies, but he had not planned for this.

  “You’re quite a complication, Molly Sullivan,” he murmured. “Now I have to figure out what to do about you.”

  Chapter Two

  Hours later, Molly had checked into a hotel suite and unpacked what she had stuffed into her suitcases, such as it was.

  She hadn’t been as clear thinking as she’d thought. She had packed her toothbrush but hadn’t grabbed a tube of toothpaste. She had swept her cosmetics into a bag, but her facial cleanser had been sitting by her sink and she’d missed it.

  She didn’t have the Xanax. She had packed a single shoe, not a pair, but at least she had the athletic sneakers she was wearing. And she had forgotten to grab any of her bras. She had her bathrobe, jeans and T-shirts, a light jacket, and a dove-gray two-piece suit to go with her single shoe.

  At least she’d grabbed the most important things. She tossed the leather satchel full of the contents from the safe onto the table, unexamined. Then the fury that had propelled her forward ebbed, and her emotional landscape crashed.

  A single comfort existed. It felt good to be somewhere Austin couldn’t find her, existing in the cool silence of a strange place. Temporary as it was, this was her space, and she finally felt like she could breathe again.

  Calling the concierge desk, she requested an overnight bag of toiletries, then she called room service to order a dinner she didn’t think she could eat along with a bottle of wine that she had every intention of drinking.

  After that, she wandered through the rooms, unable to sit or focus. She felt torn in two, as if the old Molly was starting to rip away from the person who now lived inside her skin, while bits and pieces of the scene at the party replayed in her head.

  Jesus, she thought. The things we hurled at each other.

  I am not a frigid bitch. I did not deserve any of this.

  But Austin’s words had burrowed inside like poisonous worms, causing tissue damage in all her most vulnerable places, and as she looked out the window at the impenetrable night, the doubtful thoughts wouldn’t stop.

  Did I really make him feel like he had to earn affection from me? she wondered. Did I really portion it out and make my love conditional, like my mom did with me? Or did he fire that salvo because he knew it was the one thing that would hurt the most?

  Her breathing roughened, and tears burned at the back of her eyes until her attention snagged on the one anomaly from the whole debacle.

  The vase. How had it broken? No one had been standing anywhere near it.

  Why do I feel like… maybe I did that?

  I’m not crazy. I’m not. Something came out of me. What was that indefinable, invisible thing?

  And why did that man look at me with such a knowing expression? Russell called him Josiah. He must be the new DA. Why did he tip an imaginary hat to me? It’s almost as if he also knew I broke the vase. Which is patently impossible. Isn’t it?

  She pressed her hands over her eyes, remembering the sparks of light at the edges of her sight and the burst of energy that had shot out of her body just before the vase crashed into a million irreparable pieces. Was she quite sure she wasn’t going crazy?

  The angry hornet of her phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. Grabbing it, she checked the screen. There were many more texts and calls than before, and a low-battery warning that said she had less than ten percent power.

  A power cord was another thing she hadn’t thought to grab. She made another call to the concierge desk. Then she sat, cupping the phone in her hands and staring into space until a knock sounded at her door and everything she had ordered arrived.

  After eating a few bites of pasta and drinking most of the wine, she finally felt calm enough to shower and fall into bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she went out like a light.

  After a formless darkness, she found herself in a kitchen.

  It was large and Victorian, decorated with yellow-patterned tiles and pale green paint. Warm sunlight streamed through tall windows while, outside, someone was gardening. A man with shaggy blond hair walked by, carrying a rake over one broad shoulder.

  A woman stood cooking at a clunky, ancient gas stove, her back turned to Molly. Graying hair tumbled down her back. She had a round, comfortable figure, and she wore an old flowered housecoat.

  “You’re a noisy one,” the woman said. Her rich, warm voice washed over Molly’s shattered nerves like a soothing balm. “Woke me out of a sound sleep, you did. I thought since I was awake, I might as well scramble a few eggs.”

  “I’m sorry if I woke you,” Molly said. “I don’t know how I got here.”

  “No? Well, don’t fret about it,” said the woman. “When are you coming to see me?”

  “I don’t know that either. I don’t know who you are or where this is. Or, for that matter, what I’m doing here.”

  As Molly loo
ked around, she realized she was sitting on a tall stool at a large butcher-block table in the middle of the kitchen. She was wearing the T-shirt she had worn to bed, and her legs were bare. Embarrassed, feeling exposed, she hooked her heels on the edge of her chair and tucked her knees under the shirt.

  “Don’t fret about that either,” the woman said. She turned off the stove, stepped away from an iron skillet, and bent over an old stone bowl. “It will come clear with time. Ah yes, I think this spell is about ready now.”

  “Excuse me, you didn’t just say spell, did you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “Now I know I’m dreaming,” Molly muttered. She didn’t know anybody who could cast spells. She had met a few nonhumans over the years, but for the most part the worlds of the Elder Races and their demesnes were a reality that existed far away from her life.

  The woman took something out of the bowl. Molly could smell a mixture of lavender and lemon along with a sharp, spicier scent she couldn’t identify. Then, as the woman turned to face Molly, she brought her open palm up to her mouth and blew.

  Molly caught a glimpse of dark, powerful eyes. Before she could get a good look at the woman’s face, a cloud of spice and energy enveloped her.

  The woman said, “Find me.”

  Then the woman, along with the kitchen, faded away, and she slept deep and dreamlessly for the rest of the night.

  * * *

  “Molly! What on earth are you doing?”

  On Saturday, a swirl of Dior perfume wafted over the table as Julia Oliver threw herself into the seat opposite Molly. She was shorter than Molly, and petite, delicately rounded at breast and hip, with dark, curly hair tumbling down her back. Outside the restaurant, bright spring sunlight danced along the sidewalks.

  “I’m reading the list of today’s lunch specials,” she said with a quick glance up and a brief, preoccupied smile. “What on earth are you doing?”