There were Persian rugs cast on the gleaming hardwood floor and Turkish kilims woven in earth tones cast over the backs of chairs. A particularly spectacular batik from Indonesia of two traditional dancers was framed without a backing and hung over the window so that the light shone through it.
Bookcases stood on either side of the fireplace, their leaded glass doors gleaming. It was there that the evidence of Lilith’s livelihood could be found in the wide array of occult titles. There were mineral samples and seashells scattered unobtrusively around the room and fat beeswax candles on many of the tables.
“It’s not what I expected,” Andrea declared finally. “But it’s very nice.”
Lilith smiled. “What did you expect?”
“You know, red velvet and crystal balls. The usual tacky mishmash.” Andrea took the chair Lilith indicated and practically bounced in place. “But I like this.” She wrinkled her nose. “It seems real.”
“Thank you.” Lilith retrieved her cards from their high vantage point and unfolded the silk that surrounded them. She had never been able to resist different tarot decks and had at least a half a dozen decks in the house. This current “working” deck had lovely paintings which patrons seemed to like.
Andrea’s eyes widened at the sight. “What an odd place to keep your cards.”
“They have to be respected,” Lilith confided easily. “And granted the honor of the highest point in the room.” She shuffled the deck. “There are those who insist the cards watch over the homes of those who treat them well.”
“Really?” Andrea breathed.
“That’s what they say. I certainly have no complaints.” Lilith set the cards on the coffee table, then retrieved a small crystal ball. She took the seat opposite the older woman and smiled. “Would you like to ask a specific question, or shall I just read?”
Andrea’s smile shone. “Would you just read?”
Her enthusiasm was infectious, especially as Lilith knew Andrea wouldn’t be disappointed by what she heard today.
“Of course.” When Lilith spared the crystal ball a glance as she put it down, a fleeting image there caught her eye. She straightened in shocked recognition.
It was Dritta!
It couldn’t be! Lilith blinked and carefully looked again, trying to hide her gesture from Andrea.
But the ball was clear once more.
Lilith must have imagined the image. It couldn’t have been Dritta. No, she had left all of that behind, centuries ago, outside an Italian village.
She was upset, that was all. She’d been thinking too more of old Rom expectations for her future, expectations that had nothing to do with her life. She was just lonely.
It was nothing more than that.
Lilith deliberately smiled for Andrea, then cupped the woman’s left hand within both of hers. The older woman’s skin was soft and warm, and there were a thousand lines in her palm.
Impressionable, Dritta whispered in Lilith’s ear. Lilith frowned and chose to ignore the source. But she would have to be particularly careful about what she said. Andrea caught her breath in anticipation as Lilith leaned closer to read the omens hidden in her hand.
“You’re right-handed?”
Andrea nodded.
“Then this is what you were born with,” Lilith said softly, with a gentle squeeze of Andrea’s left hand before reaching to take her right. “And this is what you have made of it.”
Though there were just the two of them in the room – even D’Artagnan had not deigned to join them – Lilith had a definite sense that they two were not alone. In fact, she looked over her shoulder more than once in the following minutes, but there was no one there.
Yet when she read, Lilith heard an echo from the past in her choice of words, though she never intended any such thing. She knew it was no accident she heard Dritta’s wisdom echo in her own voice that afternoon.
Although she wondered at the change.
* * *
The room had fallen into darkness when the reading was done. What Lilith had seen in Andrea’s eyes had been reinforced in her palm and in the cards. By the end, they both had a very clear answer of where Andrea’s next love would be found.
It was a really good reading, one loaded with specific details, one of the best readings Lilith had given in a long time. It left Lilith bone tired. She waved to a thrilled Andrea from the porch and leaned against the doorjamb in exhaustion.
Perhaps it was because she was so tired that the unexpected words fell from her lips.
“Te sav ka to biav!” Lilith called, though she had no intention of doing any such thing. She blinked in surprised to hear the first Rom words cross her lips in nearly six centuries.
Andrea spun around. “What language is that?”
“Rom,” Lilith admitted, then clarified. “Gypsy.”
Andrea gasped and her eyes went round with wonder once more. “Are you a Gypsy?”
Oddly enough, Lilith couldn’t manage to utter her usual rejection of her roots. It didn’t seem right after this day, after this reading.
She really was tired.
“I was,” she conceded quietly.
Andrea snorted, an unconscious reminder of Dritta’s dismissiveness. “And so you still are.”
Lilith’s heart skipped at that, then she gave her head a shake. Because Andrea didn’t know anything about being mahrime. Andrea didn’t know what she was talking about.
Lilith was not Rom, not any more.
“What does it mean?”
Lilith grinned and held the screen door open with her toe, feeling suddenly playful. “May I eat at your wedding.”
Andrea laughed with delight. “You will! I just know it! Wait until I tell Mitch about this.” She chuckled impishly as she darted up his porch steps. “He’ll be livid!”
Lilith turned back to her house, her smile fading as soon as the door closed behind her. Old words echoed in her thoughts, despite the silence of the house.
“It is in your blood, child. Who you are will follow you.”
No. Lilith frowned and locked the door. Nothing had followed her. They had cast her out. They had denied her and she would deny them.
Lilith was Rom no longer.
And that was that.
* * *
4
The Emperor
“She told you what?”
Livid proved to be a woeful miscalculation of Mitch’s response. He was incredulous, skeptical and mad as hops. Andrea tried to find another way to share the good news.
Because it was good news.
If only Mitch would listen.
“There’s nothing to get excited about, Mitch,” she said flatly. “I’m going on a cruise. And I’m going to meet the man of my dreams.” Andrea waved her hand airily. “It’s perfectly simple. Lilith said so.”
“Lilith said so.” Mitch echoed in a low growl and paced the kitchen. He was clearly fighting his urge to bellow like a boar. “You know, Andrea, that’s not exactly how love is supposed to work.”
“So, now you’re an authority on matters of the heart,” Andrea snorted. “What were those credentials again?”
“Ouch,” Mitch said flatly.
Andrea tossed her hair. “I’ve at least got experience.”
“Ouch again.” Her stepson took a deep breath, then deliberately sat backwards on a chair. Mitch was clearly exasperated, and just as clearly bent on convincing her to change her mind.
In a way, Andrea liked it better when he ranted. When Mitch got all cold and logical, it was harder to refute his points. Andrea braced her feet against the ground, folded her arms across her chest and dug in her heels.
She was going on that cruise.
“Andrea, think about what you’re saying.”
Danger, danger. He was very cool and decisive. Andrea knew Mitch would have her agreeing with him but quick if she didn’t stick to her guns.
She was going. “I have!”
Mitch arched a brow. “Then consider the so
urce.”
“What does that mean?”
Mitch frowned. “Lilith told me that she’s a witch.”
“Pshaw! Wiccans are as thick on the ground as bicycle thieves in this neighborhood. So what?”
Mitch’s eyes flashed. “She says that she’s six hundred years old. Six hundred years, Andrea.” He arched an eloquent brow. “Is this the kind of clear thinking you want in an advisor?”
Andrea blinked, surprised by this information. “She did?”
Mitch nodded solemnly. “She’s nuts.”
But Andrea shook her head. “I don’t think so. She’s certainly lonely, but she’s far too nice to be nuts.”
Mitch exhaled and rubbed one hand across his brow. “So, now you’re a psychologist. Who says crazy people can’t be nice?”
“Mitch! Anyone can see that Lilith’s a sweet girl!”
“Which proves nothing.” Mitch’s lips drew to a thin line. “Think about what you’re saying!”
“I know what I’m saying!” Andrea took a deep breath. “You know, you really should go and have a look at Lilith’s place. It’s so cute and it must be exactly the same layout as this house. I mean, you’d never believe it, but clearly Lilith has more than one gift...”
“I am not going over there to compare decorating notes!” Mitch abandoned the chair and cast it aside, his annoyance front and center once more as he glowered at Andrea.
When he continued, his voice was tight and low once more. “Will you please stay on the subject?”
“Well, it was just a suggestion,” Andrea huffed.
Mitch muttered something that Andrea was glad she hadn’t clearly heard, then propped his hands on his hips. His eyes glinted dangerously, like gold in candlelight, his lips were taut.
The man could seethe, there was no doubt about it.
Then, Mitch took another deep breath and when he spoke, his words were even. “Andrea,” he said with careful control, “It’s not unreasonable that I worry about you. Now, I want you to listen to me for just two minutes.”
He really wanted to make his point. And he was trying not to blow his stack. Andrea supposed that should earn him an audience.
But she wasn’t going to make it easy on him.
And she wasn’t going to change her mind.
Andrea heaved a sigh of apparent reluctance, then perched on a chair, knowing full well what she was going to hear. “Fine. You have to promise not to take any longer than that, because I know what you’re going to say and you could say it in half that time.”
“Look.” Mitch squatted down in front of Andrea, so concerned for her safety and future that her heart wrenched a little. He was such a good son, even if he wasn’t exactly her son.
Mitch’s voice was intent, his gaze was steady. “Andrea, I want you to really think about what you’re saying here. A fortune teller -“
“Not just any fortune teller!” she corrected. “Lilith!” Andrea leaned down and patted Mitch on the shoulder. If only he worried half as much about himself as he did about everyone else! She really had to find him a nice young woman who would appreciate him.
Andrea blinked at the realization that there was one very good candidate right next door. “She seems like a very nice girl, you know, Mitch, and it’s about time you started thinking about dating again. You can’t beat yourself up over Janice forever...”
“Andrea!” Mitch roared.
Andrea decided to shut up.
Mitch took a Herculean breath, stared at the floor for a long moment, then impaled her with a glance. “I get two minutes,” he reminded her.
Andrea folded her arms across her chest. “Well, time’s wasting.”
“A fortune teller,” Mitch repeated with a stern glance her way “told you to go on a specific cruise at a specific time, that you would meet a specific kind of man there, and that this man - your own true love - would sweep you off your feet.” Mitch arched a brow. “Doesn’t that sound a teeny bit suspicious to you?”
“It sounds like destiny,” Andrea retorted haughtily. “It sounds like Lilith is reading the future.”
Mitch snorted. “Come on, Andrea, this is how cons are arranged! Keep in mind that you are in very comfortable financial circumstances.”
“Lilith couldn’t know that.”
“Anyone could know that,” Mitch retorted so crisply that Andrea wondered. “The real estate records show my acquisition of the house, a little digging in the marriage registry and the birth files could come up with my association with you. It’s easy to find people, Andrea, and to find out a lot about them. The Internet is a positive minefield of personal information.”
He looked so serious that Andrea believed him. She bit her lip. “Really?”
“Trust me, I know. I’m a journalist, Andrea. We dig up stuff on people all the time.”
“Oh.”
Mitch inched closer, his words persuasive. “Of course, you’re going to meet some guy on this cruise, some guy who knows in advance -“ he counted off on his fingers “- one, that you’ll be there; two, that you’ll be looking for him, courtesy of Lilith; three, just exactly what your net worth would be; and four, that he and Lilith have a deal to split the profits of any ensuing match. Fifty-fifty at divorce court, that’s the law. Even splitting it between your Romeo and Lilith will leave them both with a nice chunk of change.”
Andrea bounded to her feet in horror. “Mitch Davison! How could you think something so perfectly awful about your new neighbor? How could you think that Lilith is so calculating as that? That she’d take advantage of me? That’s just horrible!”
Mitch spread out his hands, unapologetic. “We don’t really know her, Andrea, or very much about her. These people thrive on establishing quick trust. They’re very, very good at it.”
“These people.” Andrea straightened with disdain. Oh! She knew Lilith wasn’t trying to swindle her! “Lilith isn’t that kind of person! Just look at how nice she’s been to you and Jason already. And she gave me that reading for free!” She shook a finger at her stepson. “You’re not behaving as graciously as I know you are. What’s gotten into you? And where are your manners?”
Mitch, to his credit, looked a little shamefaced by this. And so he should, to Andrea’s way of thinking. A lot of people would have been nasty about that fence.
“Maybe she has a partner who does the dirty work,” he suggested quietly. “The details aren’t important.”
“Mitch Davison! The details are important!” Andrea cried. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you. You never used to be so suspicious of people.” She poked him in the chest and he didn’t even flinch. “Maybe you just don’t know what to do when a pretty woman is nice to you.”
“Ouch one more time,” Mitch retorted grimly.
Andrea lifted her chin defiantly. “Mitch, I don’t care how suspicious you are or even why. I trust Lilith and because of that, I’m going on that cruise.” She waved her finger beneath his nose. “And when I marry the wonderful man I’m going to meet there, you are going to be the first to toast the happy couple.”
“Andrea!” Mitch’s exasperation was more than clear. He was in hot pursuit when she swept regally from the room. “You can’t do this!”
“I most certainly can. And I’m going to.” Andrea let her eyes narrow as she glared at the most stubborn and protective man alive. “Just watch me.”
Andrea knew Mitch wouldn’t stop her when she turned to march up the stairs. Just as she knew that he wouldn’t stop her from going on that cruise. And he would gradually, grudgingly accept any man she married, provided that man was good to her.
And how could the man of her destiny be anything else?
Of course, that didn’t mean that Mitch would give up very easily.
“Well, don’t sign any prenuptial agreements before your lawyer reads them!” he called behind her and Andrea smiled as she climbed the stairs.
He was just a protective old bear, that was Mitch’s problem. Trying to save the world fr
om itself, just like she told Lilith. It was endearing in a way.
When it wasn’t downright irritating.
She pivoted at the top of the stairs and eyed her disgruntled stepson saucily. “Tsk tsk. If you’d been nice to me, I might have volunteered to do your grocery shopping tomorrow.”
Mitch snorted, but Andrea could hear his usual even temper already being restored. “Right. Cheetos and Popsicles all around. Don’t do me any favors.”
Andrea grinned. “I was thinking more of chocolate bars and bubble gum.”
Mitch groaned in mock agony and she laughed.
“What if I make you a list?” he suggested.
“Oh, all those boring nutritious foods. Fruits and vegetables, whole grain bread. I know how you are.” Andrea wrinkled her nose and sighed in mock concession. “But I suppose I could be convinced to follow a list. With just a few embellishments. There is a tragic shortage of frozen burritos in this house.”
Mitch grinned. “That would be great, Andrea. If you think you can manage with the kids.”
“It’s no problem at all. I’d be glad to do it.”
The pair smiled at each other with mutual affection. “Have I thanked you enough recently for everything you’ve done?”
Andrea shrugged, her smile turning loving. “Probably not, but I know when I’m appreciated.”
Mitch suddenly sobered. “Just promise me you’ll really think about the wisdom of going on this cruise, Andrea. You’re too smart of a lady to get conned.”
Andrea’s heart melted, but she pointed a finger at him playfully. “Now, why didn’t you remember that two minutes ago?”
Mitch chuckled and raised a hand in concession. “Just promise me you’ll think about it.”
Andrea smiled, having no intention of doing any such thing, and her stepson turned back to the task of wringing order from chaos in the kitchen. Mitch had made great progress in setting things to rights - the house already looked half-civilized.
And time would prove his worries about this cruise wrong. Time and a big diamond rockeroo on Andrea’s left hand. After all, Mitch didn’t know much about love and how good it could be, thanks to Janice. No, it really wasn’t Mitch’s fault that he couldn’t trust in the concept of love.
Love Potion #9 Page 8