“I am not okay with total silence,” he said savagely. “Text me every night. One word. Just let me know you’re safe. And tell me when you make it back okay.”
“Yes,” she agreed in a whisper. “And you text me back too. Just a quick word. I want to know you’re safe too.”
They both leaned forward at once to share a searing kiss, until she couldn’t take any more. She tore herself away, climbed out, and walked blindly into the airport.
Even if they both survived what came next, feelings change and evolve, and they hadn’t had enough time together to establish a solid basis to their relationship.
The disaster no longer felt like it was impending. She was pretty sure it was already insidiously here.
She hadn’t missed her flight. She had already checked in, and she didn’t have any luggage, so she was soon winging back to the Bay Area. She had to drive north from there, and it took longer than she had anticipated, so dawn had broken by the time she pulled into a parking space at Sarah’s old Victorian home.
The peaceful surroundings wrapped around her raw, abraded nerves. Something ungovernable welled up, and she screamed in the confines of the Subaru. Then, for the first time since the night she had left Austin, she sobbed wildly until she was completely emptied.
She texted Josiah, I’m back safe.
He responded immediately. Good. I’ll text every night at 8 pm EST/ for you—5 pm.
She sent him a thumbs-up.
When she walked inside, she went into the kitchen for a piece of fruit to quiet her gnawing stomach. She found Sarah sitting in the breakfast nook with a cup of herbal tea. When Sarah looked at her, her expression softened with kindness. “Was it as hard as you thought it might be?”
“Yes and no.” She rubbed her face, grabbed a banana, and went to sit opposite Sarah. “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but that somehow made it worse. I don’t have the right words.” She peeled the banana and looked at it. “We swore and yelled at each other and came to a compromise of sorts.”
“It looks like you hate it.”
“I think we both do.” She poured out the details of what they had decided while Sarah listened sympathetically. “So I have eighteen weeks to train for a possible confrontation with an evil, potentially thousand-year-old witch. In the meantime, I can always hope that Josiah and his coven find and kill him first.” She twitched a shoulder. “And survive.”
Other than a small wince, Sarah took the news with the appearance of calm. “I see. It looks like we have our work cut out for us.”
“Thank you for not saying it’s impossible.” She looked outside. The morning was sunny with a mild temperature and another cool breeze blowing off the jade-colored water. Outside, the sky was a clear, bright aquamarine blue. Golden light streamed in from the windows.
“I thought I would avoid stating the obvious,” Sarah said dryly. “I hope you enjoy studying for long hours. Do you need to go to bed?”
She had napped on the plane, so she shook her head.
“All right. Have you finished reading the books I gave you last week?”
Molly nodded. The week before, Sarah had given her a pendulum to work with along with the books.
“How is practice with your new pendulum going?”
“Would you like to see?”
“Please.”
She pulled the amethyst on a sterling silver chain out of her purse and held it steadily in front of her, in the position described in one of the books. The pendulum started rocking back and forth. Then it began to spin until it whirled in a circular movement perpendicular to the table.
Sarah’s eyes widened. Molly tilted her mouth in a wry slant. When the pendulum began to spin so fast it whistled through the air, she clapped it between both hands. “You tell me. How am I doing?”
“Oh dear,” Sarah murmured. “Well, it can take students several months to master how to use a pendulum, so don’t feel discouraged. Let me show you how it’s supposed to go.”
Molly handed it over. Sarah propped her elbow on the table and held it in the same position as Molly had, by pinching the end of the silver chain between thumb and forefinger and letting the stone dangle freely.
Sarah said, “This is the right way to hold it. You did a good job with your positioning.”
Sarah held her other hand palm up and directly underneath the pendulum so that the dangling amethyst and chain drew a line from her raised right hand to the left hand down below. Her expression was calm, even serene. She hadn’t bothered to wear a scarf that morning, and her strong, almost aquiline face was accentuated by the smooth, round dome of her bald scalp.
At first impression, she had seemed rather plain, but as Molly had gotten to know her, she could see there was a harmony to Sarah’s features, along with the lines in the soft, tanned skin bracketing her mouth, that was pleasing to the eye. Even with the illness, she carried a sense of vitality lacking in many other people.
Sarah told her, “Now watch.”
At first nothing seemed to happen. Then the stone began to move. It swung back and forth at an angle. Sarah’s hand, she saw, remained perfectly steady, her elbow propped on the table.
“At least it’s not spinning wildly like it does for me,” Molly muttered. “But why is it doing that?”
“It’s responding to my energy, like it was responding to yours,” Sarah replied. Slowly she tilted her hands, first one way and then another, and the amethyst tilted with her, straining from the fingers of one hand to the palm of the other.
As Molly watched, there was no doubt in her mind. No matter what position Sarah held the stone in, she maintained complete control.
Molly sighed. “I’m never going to achieve that.”
“Yes, you will. When you gain mastery over your Power, the pendulum will calm down for you too. Now, let’s ask a question. Can you think of one that can be answered with either a yes or a no?”
“Am I pregnant?”
“Perfect. Is Molly pregnant?” Sarah asked. The stone began to swing in a clear clockwise motion. “That’s my positive. When the pendulum swings in a counterclockwise motion, that’s my negative.”
Molly stared in fascination. “You said my positive and my negative. What does that mean?”
“A pendulum doesn’t respond the same way to everybody. Your positive might be when it swings back and forth in a north/south direction, with the negative at east/west. My teacher’s positive was when her pendulum always angled toward her heart. It’s also possible your positive might be my negative.”
“So counterclockwise isn’t necessarily bad?” She rubbed her dry, tired eyes.
“Not at all. Historically, several cultures considered widdershins to be going against the sun, which was unlucky or unfortunate, but other cultures see widdershins as a very mystical and positive thing. In Judaism, circles are often walked counterclockwise in affirming rituals. It all depends on social context and flow of energy.” Sarah withdrew her lower hand, and the pendulum stilled. “I wasn’t going to suggest this until later, but I think you should walk the labyrinth today.”
Surprised, Molly said, “The one in the yard?” When Sarah nodded, she shrugged. “Okay. What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“Just walk through it sometime today.” Sarah handed the amethyst back to Molly and stood. “Then come tell me what you discover. For now I think you could use a break, and I’m going to do some gardening before it gets too hot.”
“But I don’t need a break…” Her voice died away. She was tired.
“You’ve set quite an agenda for yourself, but you need to learn how to walk before you can run.” Sarah tapped her gently on the shoulder as she walked past. “And you need to look after that miraculous body of yours, not just for your sake, but for your baby’s as well.”
After Sarah had left, Molly sat thinking in the empty kitchen. Sarah was right. Her pregnancy was so new she didn’t even feel it yet, but that was no excuse to put her body under unnecessary str
ain.
She fixed herself a proper breakfast and did some quick prep work on what she would make for supper. When she was through, she showered and took a nap, then woke sometime later to a fresh ocean breeze moving in from an open window.
She lay for some time, soaking in the peace. Thinking of Josiah. Alexei. His eyes, his hands. The way his cold demeanor covered an intense, passionate nature. In that moment, she didn’t miss him in the slightest.
God, she was such a liar.
After dressing in clean capris and a T-shirt, she went outside. Some distance away, Sarah knelt, weeding rows of baby vegetables. She wore a wide-brimmed hat that protected her vulnerable head and shoulders.
In the opposite direction, the labyrinth waited. Not wishing to disturb Sarah, Molly strode toward it.
Up close, it was larger than she had first thought, at least fifty feet in diameter and as well-tended as the rest of the property. The paths were white gravel, while larger rectangular stones, perhaps five or six inches in height, set the “walls.” The entrance was marked by two gargoyles carved out of white marble. They stood about four feet high.
It was a charming landscape fancy, but she couldn’t sense any magic, or why Sarah would be interested in what she thought after she walked it. Shrugging, Molly stepped between the gargoyles and onto the path.
After the first few steps, she paused. Hadn’t that first turn curved right instead of left? Confused, she looked over the patterned stones and paths. They wound in spirals around the center, twisting and turning back on themselves like snakes.
Her left hand tingled while hot gold sunlight poured down on her head. Then she started forward again. She had to watch where she stepped to keep from tripping over the larger border stones. The pattern of the labyrinth was hypnotic.
Going left, always going left. Against the sunward path. Widdershins.
Going left felt good, felt correct. Whenever the path twisted to the right, she resisted for a moment, and somehow it changed to take her left. As the circles narrowed and she approached the center, the world around her aligned into a patterned whole. The sun and the moon danced together while the ocean played a rhythmic song.
Sunward was clockwise. The moon was her mistress, and she followed it. The ocean joined in, its music swirling with the tide. She was walking in a vortex. Her Power rose in response to spin around her, a vortex within a vortex, and the scene expanded. The stone walls grew to towering heights while the path shone ivory-bright, as wide as a highway.
She had so much magic her body couldn’t contain it. It poured out of her eyes and streamed down her arms. For once she didn’t try to dampen or contain it. Letting it flow felt so good, she almost sank to her knees.
She had used her left hand to throw Power at Austin and his car. Remembering, her palm tingled again. She shook out her fingers to release the tension, and magic like argent fire poured from her palm.
She lifted her hand and swirled it in the air. The magic responded by curling around her wrist. She shook it out again, and it unfurled with a snap like a whip.
This is mine, she thought. This beautiful, deadly thing is my Power.
Widdershins is my positive, my correct path. Everything aligns when I walk my correct path.
As she neared the circle, her magic grew higher, more intense. Her vortex of energy overrode the vortex of the labyrinth. Her magic swallowed the stones and gravel until they rose in a column around her, spinning in her vortex, spinning, spinning, spinning.
Letting her magical whip trail loose, she stepped into the center of the labyrinth and turned in a circle, keeping her left hand to the center, in the heart of her magic.
Then she looked up. The labyrinth stones spun above her head as high as she could see, whirling like mad constellations in the cloudless, cerulean sky.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sarah standing in the vegetable patch, holding her hat to her head. The edges of the brim flapped wildly. Several yards away, a copse of trees whipped back and forth. The vortex Molly had created was affecting everything in the vicinity.
A tree branch broke and flew through the air to smash into one of the downstairs windows. Sarah shouted something. Molly couldn’t make out what she said.
She called out, “What?”
Sarah shouted again and pointed to the ground between her feet. “You’ve got to ground yourself! Release your Power into the earth!”
“How?” she shouted. Her hair rose around her head in a nimbus, and strands blew across her face.
Sarah’s hat tumbled from her head as she held out both hands, palms down. She mimed pushing something invisible down.
Watching her, Molly copied her stance. Power flowed from her right hand too, but it wasn’t as concentrated as the deadly line of Power that poured from her left. As it dripped from her right hand, it fell harmlessly to the earth and disappeared, soaking into the turf.
The whip of light pouring from her left palm was less cooperative. It twisted and turned on itself and called to Molly to play with it. Lifting her hand, she flung it out. It snapped at the air like a crackle of lightning.
Thunder roared out of the cloudless sky like a sonic boom. It shook the ground, and nearby, a maple tree cracked and toppled over with a crash.
Oh shit.
Through the roar of the vortex, she gradually grew aware of Sarah’s chanting. It ran too low for her to hear the words, an entirely different Power from hers, deeper, much older, and more anchored to the earth.
Only when her feet landed on the ground did she realize she’d been levitating several feet in the air. The reconnection jarred her back to her senses. Giving the whirling stones overhead a leery look, she fell to her knees, planted her hands in the lush grass, and concentrated on pouring the magic into the ground.
She poured and poured. It gushed out of her in a seemingly endless flood until finally the flow eased to a trickle. As it stopped, the stones and gravel dropped randomly over the yard.
The wind died down. Molly and Sarah stared at each other from across the distance. Sarah’s eyes had rounded. Molly was still on her hands and knees.
“Sorry,” she called out. “Was it supposed to do that?”
Abruptly, Sarah clapped both hands over her mouth and bent at the waist. The sound of her guffaw echoed over the yard.
Chapter Nineteen
Molly and Josiah’s agreement didn’t last eighteen weeks.
Every evening at eight, his phone lit up with her message. Safe.
And he texted in reply, Safe.
His enjoyment of his days had narrowed down to that single word.
The next Saturday, he called another coven meeting at the safe house in Birmingham. After ditching his Audi and taking evasive maneuvers, he picked up the Camry from the new neighborhood where Anson had parked it. This time Steven attended the coven meeting in person. After they cast their circle, Josiah looked around.
Anson wore his usual mild expression. Maria stood with her arms crossed, looking ready to do battle. Richard kept his gaze fixed on the floor while he sucked at his teeth and looked like he was swallowing back a whole hell of a lot. Steven glanced around the group too, thin face friendly behind heavy-framed glasses.
He didn’t strictly need the glasses, Josiah knew. Steven wore them to keep people at a distance.
Of them all, Henry was the only one who appeared preoccupied. He stood reading through some papers with a frown.
“When you’re ready,” Josiah said to him.
Henry replied, “I’ve been ready for days.” When he looked up from his papers, his icy gaze speared Josiah.
That confirmed what he had already expected, and he nodded. “I see that Anson has given you all advance warning of what this meeting might entail.”
Richard’s face flooded with furious disgust. “So Molly Sullivan is pregnant… Really?” He barked out an angry laugh. “We’ve had our differences, but I didn’t expect you to be so goddamn typical.”
“I’m not so
goddamn typical.” He kept his voice calm. “She’s that goddamn extraordinary.”
“If this devolves into a shouting match, I’m going to step out.” Henry sounded bored. He was already looking over his papers again.
“No shouting match on my end,” Josiah said. He stared at Richard, who flipped him off.
“I only want to know one thing,” Maria burst out. “How can you live with yourself if you walk away from us now? That’s like pulling out of everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve.”
He reached for patience. They deserved their chance to vent and react. “I’m not walking away now. Molly and I came to an agreement. I hate it, but she won’t budge. We’ve got eighteen weeks to try to find and take down that bastard. Whether we’ve achieved mission completion in that time frame or not, she’s coming back to Atlanta to talk to the police and claim her property.”
Everybody reacted.
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Interesting.”
Maria’s voice turned shrill. “Tell her to stay away if she wants to carry that baby of hers to term. There’s nothing like the pain of losing your child.”
Richard laughed angrily again. “She’s a total fucking stranger, and you’re letting her dictate what happens to us? After all the time we gave you… Un-fucking-believable.”
Josiah’s resolve to keep hold of his temper vaporized. “You didn’t give me jack shit, Richard, not when I’ve financially supported all of you, and not when this has been your mission too. I’ve given you the time and opportunity to pursue your revenge—that’s why we all started working together in the first place. And she isn’t a fucking stranger to me, and I don’t let her do anything. Even if I don’t agree with the decision, she has the right to return home. If we try to stop her, that would be criminal confinement. She won’t be back here for four and a half months, so we need to pull our heads out of our asses and finish what we started.”
“But this might be perfect,” Anson said. He smiled at Josiah. “Look, I know you’ve got all the messy personal stuff to deal with… but remember when I said we might need to try to shake something loose? Molly’s return could do that very thing.”
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