Heart and Home

by Jennifer Melzer

  “What? Where are you going?” He followed me into the living room and watched me sort through my purse for my cell phone. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m canceling my appointment.”

  “Janice…”

  “What, Troy? That’s what you want me to do, isn’t it?”

  Frustrated, he dropped his head back and looked toward the ceiling. “No, that’s not that I want you to do.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know.” He rolled the back of his head against his broad shoulders, squeezing his eyes tight in the process. On the last roll around he stretched to the right and exhaled somewhat gutturally. “I don’t want you to go back to the city, all right? I want you here, Janice, every day, and that’s wrong and selfish, and it’s too soon, okay? I know that. There, I said it.”

  I dropped my purse back onto the couch and stood up. For a minute I just looked at him, not sure I heard him admit that he wanted me selfishly. I took a step toward him. Scarlet embarrassment crept along his jaw line as he continued to avoid eye contact. I reached out and laid my hands on his shoulders, tilting my face so he had no choice but to look at me.

  “It’s okay to want to be together, Troy. There’s no shame in that.”

  “No?” There was a cynical arc to his brow.

  “No,” I shook my head. “And I don’t care if you believe me or not, but leaving here is harder on me than you could imagine.”

  “I don’t think it’s easy on you, Janice,” he admitted. “I just—I don’t know. I just don’t like that you’re so far away all the time. I thought I could deal with it.”

  I put my arms around him and lowered my head onto his chest. For a second I wasn’t sure he was going to respond, but then he drew his arms around me and held tight. Nuzzling his cheek against my hair, he kissed the top of my forehead.

  “I knew it wasn’t gonna be easy,” he said. “Wanting to keep you here is selfish and I know it.”

  “It’ll get easier,” I hoped out loud. “I know you probably think it’s crazy, but that’s one of the reasons I want to go and talk to this lady, Troy.” I drew back so that his arms held me in place and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Everything in my life is whirling around me right now like some kind of storm. Everything.”

  His eyes were serious when he said, “I wish that I could shield you from it.”

  I swallowed the instinct to cry, my stare darting away from his. “Sometimes you have to stand in the rain and let the wind blow everything into place.”

  He lifted a hand to my cheek and drew my gaze back, “And that right there is why you need to write from your heart, Janice. You see things no one else does.” He lowered his cheek against mine and whispered, “Just don’t let that wind blow you away from me.”

  “I’d like to think that there isn’t a wind in the world with that kind of power.” I turned my lips into his waiting kiss.

  *****

  The mood brought on by that morning’s disagreement sunk heavily into me. Becky’s canceling almost inspired me to call Lydia and cancel as well, but in the end I felt despite the darkness and fear of learning truths I might not like, I still wanted a little guidance. Inside I felt as if the storm I’d mentioned to Troy had taken over, and the only recourse was to wait it out

  I stepped out of my car in the Walmart parking lot and greeted Lydia with a grateful grin.

  “I knew you couldn’t stay away from this place,” Lydia’s eyes flashed with cheerful sarcasm just before she took my hand and squeezed it, then drew me close in a warm hug. “Becky says you’re practically a part time resident again. How’ve you been?”

  “Scattered,” I admitted. “I’m here, I’m there.”

  “You poor dear. I’ve been there and done that, let me tell you.” She drew back and slid her hand down my arm. “Diana is amazing. You won’t be disappointed.”

  “Thanks for getting in touch with her for me.” I locked up my car and climbed into the passenger seat of Lydia’s Bentley.

  “No problem, hon.” She lit up a cigarette before we left the parking lot, and during the drive I said very little while she told me about how she worked with Diana, and ever since helping her find the perfect plot for her and her colleagues to open up shop, they had been in close contact. “She does a reading for me once every couple of months. Really puts things into perspective.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping for,” I admitted.

  After weaving along the main street, Lydia turned onto a side road that crawled along empty fields. It was at least five miles out before she pulled into the driveway of a small building just outside of the township. Tucked into the hillside and surrounded by a host of fir trees, it was hardly distinguishable from the other well-hidden residences on the very same road. The only indication that it was even a business was a small sign hanging on the entranceway that read: The Witch is In, the “In” being a two-sided, interchangeable piece of wood that if flipped around would read “Out”.

  When Lydia turned off the car, a face peered out the lace curtains of a long, picture window. “That’ll be Diana,” she said. “She’s probably the only one here today.”

  A tangle of nervous emotion cluttered my insides as I reached for the door handle and stepped out of the car. I followed Lydia to the front door, which jingled little bells to announce our arrival. The air in the shop seemed to rush forward to greet my senses, white sage tinged with the clean scent of jasmine and lemongrass. The room itself was painted in different shades of blue, and a sense of calm moved through me when I closed the door. The repetition of the tinkling bells seemed to signal the entrance of a middle-aged woman with white-blond hair. She swept out of the dark hallway in a flourish of teal and indigo fabric as elegantly crafted as a stain-glassed window.

  “Lydia, my dear,” she rushed forward and braced Lydia’s shoulders, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek before hugging her more fully. “It’s always a pleasure to see you, and I can tell you’ve been working with the chakra exercises I recommended.”

  “Absolutely!” Lydia laid her hand over Diana’s as she backed away, much the same way she had done to mine in the parking lot. “I’ve never felt more peaceful and empowered.”

  “Wonderful news,” she acknowledged, and then her dark eyes turned toward me. Powerful, but kind in their scrutiny, she seemed to turn all of her energy into me when she held out her hand. “And you must be Janice. I’m Diana.”

  “Lydia has had such wonderful things to say about you,” I said. “It’s so nice to meet you.” I reached for that hand and felt a surge of warmth and kindness when she wrapped her long fingers around mine. “And I can’t thank you enough for fitting me into your schedule.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her smile was one of the most genuine I had ever seen, and I had been subject to a lot of phonies in my short time as a journalist. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but the comfort I felt in her company far exceeded any thoughts I brought with me to the meeting, and my apprehension seemed to dissolve in waves. “Lydia dear, you’re welcome to the coffee, it’s fresh. Janice, if you’ll come with me, we can get started.”

  Lydia offered an encouraging wink as I fell into step behind Diana, and we disappeared back the darkened hallway. She opened the first doorway on the right side of the hall and led me into a bright yellow room equipped with an antique table and chairs. The room itself was stacked with shelves of books on everything from out of body experiences to cauldron cures. A curio holding crystals, including a clouded globe on a golden pedestal hung at eye level, and a cabinet stocked with different herbs by the jar occupied the left hand corner of the room. There were celestial tapestries on the walls that felt as if they drew you into another dimension with nothing more than a single look, and spread out across the tabletop was a deck of tarot cards.

  Diana quickly cleared the deck of cards away, shuffled them once, and then placed them on one of the shelves behind her. “Make yourself comfortable,” she gestured toward the table and I
took the seat opposite her. For a moment she studied my face, then her brow furrowed almost sadly and she leaned her elbows on the table. “Well,” she laced her fingers together, “you’ve had a harrowing few weeks haven’t you?”

  “Tell me about it,” a soft laugh scuffed the back of my throat.

  “Before we get started, let me just say that the advice I have to offer is in no way, shape or form the end all be all for you. It is simply guidance. You can do with it what you will, either ignoring it completely, or drawing on it as you see fit. All too often people come to see me expecting that I will have all of the answers, and when I don’t tell them what they want to hear they’re disappointed. So, bear in mind that what I say may not always be what you would like to hear. Despite that, try to keep an open mind.”

  I nodded eagerly, “Okay.”

  “Well, for starters you’ve ended several major cycles in your life recently,” she began, “starting with the death of someone very important to you.”

  A shiver of truth trickled like a drop of ice down the back of my spine.

  “Was it your mother?”

  I nodded.

  “The door on that part of your life should be closing. It’s not an easy transition at all, and a little resistance usually is normal, but she’s been holding it wide open and reaching out to you.”

  Emotion numbed me, and I hadn’t even noticed my own tears until they’d dropped onto my cheeks. “Early on it was really obvious. It’s not so bad now, sometimes just in dreams.”

  Sympathy wrinkled the corners of her eyes and Diana nodded. “All of that’s normal, but now it’s up to you to tell her it’s okay to move on because she’s already given you everything you need to carry out the tasks that lay ahead. She’s imparted her motherly wisdom, or so to speak. But see,” she reached across the table then and took my hand in hers, “every time she starts to move on, you call out to her again. She’s afraid to let you go. Let her know you’ll be okay, and that she can rest.”

  I nodded an almost frantic understanding, recalling my own image moving through the harvested darkness calling out her name.

  “Now,” she was still holding my hand in hers when she went on. “The immediate tasks you face are all intertwined, and while this would seem like a blessing, it can also act as a burden as well. For example, you’ve recently hit a minor snag in your career, but don’t fret. It’s only temporary. You are slowly crawling toward something much more fulfilling, and you may have a little more success if you can manage to focus your creative energy on what’s going on around you.”

  I felt my whole body clench like a fist with the fear that she might tell me to walk away from my heart, that there was no future with Troy, and I was wasting my time. Obviously sensing my fear, the left side of her face lifted first, then her whole face seemed to light up.

  “Relax, it isn’t so bad.” A small laugh accompanied that small piece of insurance. “Though it isn’t going to be easy, you have a bit of a journey ahead of you.”

  Almost as if the echo of my mother’s words rippled through me, Diana said, “It would seem that you have been charged with the healing of a broken and weary heart. In fact it was the very heart itself that sought you out for healing.”

  I wondered how he knew, if that morning I fainted at my mother’s funeral a small light went on inside him, or he felt some unseen tie to me.

  “It is not an easy charge, Janice. The greatest part of him wants to heal and be whole again, but he will resist your efforts all the way.”

  “But is it my place though? I am so afraid that if I push him too hard he’ll push me away.”

  “He will push you away,” she said. “But the connection between you is what drew him in. It was established long before either of you noticed. In fact, you’ve felt rather swept away by the whole affair, and how quickly it’s all fallen into place. It can be a terrifying experience recognizing your kindred spirit, especially one you share such a close bond with. That bond will prevail. As I said it isn’t going to be easy, and there will be times when you will want to give up. Don’t.”

  For the remainder of the hour Diana provided me with advice on how best to prepare for what lie ahead of me. Her greatest advice, she saved for last.

  “I am surprised that of all the things you have asked me, Janice, you haven’t asked about coming home.”

  “I’ve sort of resolved myself to the fact that I belong here.”

  “You’re sort of right,” a mysterious grin stole across her mouth. “Stay where you are until the coming holidays. Continue to visit as you see fit, but do everything in your power to draw him away from this place. Right now he’s using home as a safety net, someplace he feels empowered and comfortable, and if you come back too soon he’s going to take it for granted and never find the strength to heal. Make him come to you, especially during the waning moon.”

  “Why the waning moon?”

  “The emotions that seem to push him are stronger when the moon waxes to its full power, but as it wanes, the closer and closer it gets to the dark moon, the less hold those emotions have over him. That is the best time to try and reach him.”

  “Okay.”

  She tied up a few loose strings, things she thought I might need, and gave me a small red tiger’s eye gemstone meant to empower me through the journey. In the end she was sober when she admitted that it was all up to me, and there were no guarantees. She could easily look upon me and see both destinies fulfilled. Which one was true would only be determined by my own successes and failures along the way.

  Diana gave me her card and assured me that over the next few weeks I was welcome to call on her if I had any need. She also encouraged me to come back in a couple of months, and having thoroughly enjoyed my first experience with the unknown, I promised her that I would.

  Lydia and I parted ways, and though with my newfound insight into the future a huge part of me wanted to run back to Troy’s and spend just one more night in the calm before the inevitable storm. The morning’s argument was lost, but the emotional charge of fear that came with it gripped me as I realized many more arguments lay ahead if I were really meant to help him.

  With Sonesville behind me, backtracking was out of the question, but even still I argued with myself against the notion that it took less than ten minutes to get there from Montoursville. As if he sensed my struggle down the interstate, my cell phone rang and I plugged into the headset.

  “Are you on the road yet?” He asked.

  I glanced at the Milton exit as it zipped by. “I’m on my way.” The clock on the dashboard read 1:45, and it’d be at least three and a half hours until I poured into the city and that was only if traffic was kind. “How was church?”

  “Like you even have to ask,” he said. “Pastor Crane’s sermon was all about the sacred institution of marriage being a contract with God. You know, according to Crane, we’re going to hell.”

  “Hell?” I laughed.

  “Oh yeah,” he paused, “every time we go to bed it’s a sin or whatever, but I feel content knowing half the town will be there with us.”

  “Wait a minute, if we’re going to hell, the last thing I want to do is spend my time there with the town of Sonesville,” I pointed out.

  “That is your hell, Janice.” It was his turn to laugh. “Sonesville is your eternal punishment and damnation.”

  “Hmm, maybe we should stop sleeping together,” I reasoned.

  “You’re kidding right?” He almost sounded as if he were seriously concerned.

  “Of course I am.”

  A relieved sound escaped him. “You had me worried there for a minute.”

  “Yeah well, I’m about as scared of hell as you are,” I admitted.

  “Good.” Silence followed for a moment, and then he asked, “So, when can we look forward to eternal damnation again? Are you too far on the road that you can’t turn back now and come sin with me tonight?”

  Temptation curled inside me like a delicious curse, but
I stood my ground. “I’m pretty far.”

  “Ah well,” he said. “I guess it’s still a sin if I think about it long and hard.”

  “Yeah, I believe the whole act of considering sin is just as bad as sinning itself.”

  “Nice.” He seemed to hesitate before switching gears, asking, “So, what did your psychic friend say?”

  “All kinds of stuff.” I admitted.

  “Anything about me?”

  “Plenty about you,” I admitted warily.

  “Like what?”

  “Like how you should come and spend the week with me next week.”

  “Hmm,” he contemplated. “Did she say why?”

  “Only that it would be beneficial to your plans for sin.”

  That kept the conversation playful, which was the tone I needed to keep me focused on the distance I was putting between us.

  I checked the calendar in Diana’s office before leaving, and there were five more days before the next full moon. The further away I was from him during that time, the more he was going to feel that need for me. My only hope was that it was strong enough in the end to convince him that a week in the city was exactly what he needed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The resistance with Troy seemed to begin before it really began, and I blamed the draw of the full moon now that Diana explained it to me. His admission before my leaving about wanting me near him made him even more stubborn than he was before, and while a great part of me loved the idea of being wanted more than anything in the world, there was a sense of possessiveness about his want that intimidated me whenever I recognized it.

  In the days following my departure, the city itself became our darkest point of conversation.

  More and more often I found him asking, “Do you think you’ll be ready soon to come back home to stay?”

  “Troy, you were the one who told me I should take my time,” I reminded him.

  His groaning sigh crawled across the miles like a powerful assault. “Yeah, but things are different now, aren’t they?”