Love Potion #9

by Claire Delacroix

  He supposed he’d have to wait to find out what she meant.

  He wasn’t surprised that that didn’t trouble him at all.

  In fact, Mitch was grinning as he headed into the house, did his final check, and climbed the stairs to bed. Anticipation wasn’t a bad thing.

  Not at all.

  * * *

  It was very early on Saturday morning when Mitch thought he heard Jen stir. He rolled out of bed and crept into her room in the darkness, only to find her grimacing in her sleep. He knelt down beside her and tucked Bun safely back into the bed.

  Mitch wondered what she was fretting about in her dreams. Jen frowned as though the weight of the world was on her tiny shoulders, fidgeted and gripped Bun’s well-worn ear tightly.

  He hoped his unsettled week hadn’t unsettled his daughter. Mitch knew well enough that kids had radar for these kinds of things and Jen was even more sensitive than most.

  He brushed those blond curls back from her forehead, and murmured soothing nonsense to her. Slowly the rhythm of his touch seemed to ease Jen’s anxiety. Her frown faded, her breathing deepened, and Bun’s ear got a break.

  Mitch squatted there and watched her sleep, his mind full of memories. He could still see the hospital waiting room where Janice had insisted he remain during the delivery. He could still see the cheerful smile of the nurse who had opened the door when he’d thought he couldn’t stand waiting any longer and beckoned to him.

  And he could still see Jen’s tiny red face as the nurse passed his child into his arms for the first time. Jen’s eyes had been squeezed tightly shut, baby hair dark and damp against her brow. Her tiny hands had been clenched into fists and she had looked even more like a little old man than Jason had.

  She had been so small, so light, so precious. The nurse had taken him to Janice’s room and left him there, marveling at the bundle of flannelette, while Janice slept. Mitch had sat there all night, transfixed by the way his daughter slept, amazed that she even existed.

  Holding his second newly arrived child had been no less of a marvel for Mitch.

  The first light began to ease beneath the shade in Jen’s room, just as it had that morning over three years before. It had awakened Janice that long-ago morning, and Mitch deliberately stopped the replay of his memories without going any further down that particular path. He didn’t want to review Janice’s demands and accusations. He didn’t want to relive that fight.

  Mitch straightened and winced at the kink in his legs, glancing out the window before heading back to his own bed.

  But what he saw made him stop and stare.

  Despite the earliness of the hour, Lilith sat in her garden, so perfectly motionless that she could have been a statue. She was sitting on a little stool, her hand outstretched. She was wearing a dress in shades of gold, colors he had never seen on her before, and her dark hair hung past her waist, its length wound with matching ribbons.

  The morning was still – there wasn’t even a breath of wind – but Lilith’s dress fluttered ever so slightly all the same. Mitch watched surreptitiously as the sun rose in the front of their houses, the shadows of the buildings stretching long across their yards.

  And still she sat there.

  A band of sunlight painted the fence along the common driveway in rosy hues, then moved closer to the houses in a slow progression. Lilith didn’t move. Mitch watched the sunlight touch each sunflower along her far fence in succession; he watched each blossom in Lilith’s garden be touched by the golden finger of the sun’s light.

  The garden slipped out of shadow, crossing the line from night to morning, each plant in succession, each moment changing the view. Lilith’s dress moved a little more, although there was something odd about its flutter.

  When the sunlight finally fell across Lilith, Mitch abruptly realized what the oddity was. Her dress moved in sudden agitation beneath the heat of the sun. It fluttered and flowed, its color changing to vivid hues of orange and black.

  And when the monarch butterflies – for that was what they were – absorbed enough of the sun’s caress, they stopped stretching and quivering.

  As one, they took flight in the early morning light.

  Mitch had never seen anything like it. In a heartbeat, the air was filled with a cloud of sunlight and shadow, thousands of delicate butterflies simultaneously taking wing. The sunlight glinted over the golden glory of their wings and the air filled with the faint rustle of their flight.

  They rose from Lilith’s garden in a swirling spiral, not so different from a migratory flock of birds. They danced higher and higher, their ranks swelled by even more butterflies hidden on the fence and in the trees, their presence unnoticed by Mitch until they took flight.

  He stared in wonder until they began to disappear high up in the pal blue of the sky, then he looked back down at Lilith. She blew gently on one last monarch that lingered on her fingertips. The butterfly flapped, dipped, then chased its fellows as the sun illuminated Lilith’s delighted smile.

  She was wearing a sheer white sleeveless nightgown, its hem ruffled around her knees. Although it was not a magnificent gown wrought of golden butterflies, it was as feminine as the lady herself. Lilith’s feet were bare and her hair was unbound, those “ribbons” having flown away. She stood, unaware of Mitch’s presence, and waved farewell to the migrating butterflies.

  They must stop here every year. Mitch knew monarchs migrated from Canada to Mexico and back every year, but he had never seen a butterfly flock take to the skies. He supposed he had never rolled out of bed early enough on the right August morning.

  Mitch thought about Lilith’s comments about magic. He thought about butterflies making their way over thousands of miles to a particular haven in Mexico, without ever having done it before.

  He thought about a woman who could hear them coming, in the whisper of the wind.

  And as he watched the last butterfly disappear into the endless blue of a summer sky, Mitch Davison wondered whether there really could be such a thing as magic, after all.

  * * *

  12

  The Hanged Man

  Kurt whistled as he flicked curled shingles free on Mitch’s roof. It was a warm morning, sunny and clear, but not hot enough yet to make a guy regret getting up on a black roof without a tree in sight. Mitch was making short work of replacing the flashing on the chimney, and actually there weren’t that many bad shingles.

  A couple of hours’ work and Mitch could get another year or two without redoing the whole roof.

  Kurt slanted a glance at his buddy and tried to think of a good way to bring up the suggestion that was kicking around in his mind. It was about time Mitch admitted that he was still alive, to Kurt’s way of thinking. A man couldn’t baby sit and deny his basic urges forever.

  It wasn’t natural.

  And there were dangerous signs that Mitch was reaching the end of his tether. The August 1976 issue of National Geographic had been on the kitchen table when Kurt arrived this morning, left open to an article on butterflies. Butterflies! That had to be a sign of desperation.

  Kurt would think that a guy who wasn’t getting any would choose a more provocative kind of reading material.

  One that he wouldn’t leave lying around in the kitchen. But Kurt had peeked and hadn’t found a single interesting thing.

  He hoped it wasn’t too late.

  “Hey, Mitch,” Kurt said as casually as he could manage. “You should see this chick I’m taking out tonight.”

  Mitch made a noncommittal sound in his throat and frowned at the last end of the flashing. “Uh huh.”

  “Vivienne,” Kurt continued with enthusiasm. “What a knock-out. French,” he declared with a significant glance to his clearly uninterested friend.

  Things were much worse than Kurt had suspected, because Mitch showed no appreciation of this information.

  He cleared his throat. “Major curves in all the right places. You know, those how those French women are. Dark hair and
red lipstick, black lacy lingerie. Oh là là.”

  Mitch finished replacing the flashing on the chimney and sat back on his heels. He glanced over to the next roof and frowned. “Can you see what kind of shape Lilith’s flashing is in from there?”

  Kurt blinked. “Mitch, I’m talking about one hot woman here.”

  His friend shrugged. “And I’m talking about flashing.”

  Kurt frowned, and barely glanced at the neighbor’s house. “What? You don’t have enough to do around this place, without looking for extra work? It’s not a sin to have some fun, you know.”

  “When were you last in church?” Mitch demanded with a grin. “Last time I looked, your kind of fun was a sin.”

  “Technicalities.” Kurt waved off this argument. “You want me to see if Vivienne has a friend or not? We could make a foursome tonight. Andrea’s coming, after all.”

  “Nope.” There wasn’t a flicker of interest in Mitch’s expression or his tone. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Mitch! You’re divorced, not dead, you know!”

  Mitch grinned. “Yeah, I know. It’s okay - everything still works. Now, look at that roof.”

  Kurt grumbled under his breath and looked. “Looks about as good as yours did half an hour ago.”

  Mitch eased his way across the steeply pitched roof to Kurt’s side, shaded his eyes with his hand and peered across the gap between the houses. “I think it needs to be replaced, too. And there’s some extra flashing. We might as well fix it while we’re up here.”

  “Watch out,” Kurt said grumpily, not liking how quickly a plan he had seen as brilliant had been shot down. He pried another rotten shingle loose. “This could turn into a regular charity drive.”

  Mitch rolled his eyes and squatted down beside Kurt. “Hey, it’ll take five minutes, it’s probably not something she’d get around to doing herself. And besides, she’s watching my kids.”

  Kurt’s head snapped up and his eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Isn’t that the fortune-teller’s house?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Kurt squinted at his buddy. “You leave the kids with her?”

  “Well, next weekend. I don’t have a lot of choice.” Mitch looked supremely unconcerned about all of this, which Kurt thought was pretty odd. He knew how protective Mitch was of those kids and he thought Mitch didn’t trust that babe. “I’m off to that conference next weekend and Andrea leaves for a cruise tomorrow.”

  “Why is she going away? Usually Andrea watches the kids.”

  “Something came up.”

  Kurt frowned. “Andrea doesn’t usually do stuff like that.”

  But Mitch waved off the question. “It’s a long story, but the good news is that the kids really like Lilith.”

  Kurt considered his friend for a moment. Slowly, he realized there could be something else causing Mitch’s disinterest in the possibility of Vivienne having a friend. “Yeah, and what about you?”

  Mitch just smiled and headed for the ladder. “You coming down now? Or do you mind if I move the ladder over for a few minutes?”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Kurt quickly followed his friend, not in the least bit sure he liked the sound of this. “You’re the one who warned me against her. You’re the one who said she was a witch!”

  But Mitch’s grin just widened. “Sure, doc, I know, but aren’t they all witches inside?” He wiggled his eyebrows and Kurt smiled despite himself, remembering the Bugs Bunny cartoon in question.

  Then he sobered again. “But Mitch, you don’t know what you’re doing. There’s something weird about your neighbor.”

  “Like what?” Mitch smiled crookedly. “She turned you down?”

  “Well, that too.” There wasn’t anything funny about that. Kurt shoved a hand through his hair and flicked a glance to the woman’s house. He dropped his voice. “But there’s something about her eyes, the way they look right through you.” He shivered despite the heat of the sun. “It’s like she can see what you’re thinking.”

  Mitch arched one brow. “Kurt, any woman with a brain can see what you’re thinking.”

  “No, no, this is different. She’s different.”

  Mitch smiled slowly. “I know. That’s what I like about her.” And he turned to descend the ladder.

  “Mitch! Come out tonight with me and Vivienne.” Kurt leaned over the edge of the roof as Mitch descended. “You’ll have a great time, maybe get lucky, you never know.”

  He heard Mitch chuckle before he saw his smile. “Don’t worry so much about it, Kurt. I’ve got all the luck I need right here.”

  * * *

  Lilith was watching a pair of tanned and busy children splash in the pink pool on Saturday afternoon when Andrea popped out through the kitchen door.

  There was a chorus of joyous greetings for Nana - who just happened to have picked up some licorice twisters in the course of her shopping - before the children dashed back to the pool. Andrea dropped down beside Lilith with a sigh of satisfaction, and poured herself a glass of pink lemonade.

  “Mitch is on the roof,” Lilith supplied.

  Andrea rolled her eyes. “Honestly, he never stops.”

  Lilith smiled at the affection in the older woman’s tone. “Are you all ready for your trip?”

  Andrea smiled in turn. “Oh yes. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I can hardly wait.” She turned suddenly and looked steadily at Lilith. “I have to thank you, Lilith, both for reading my fortune and for agreeing to watch the children.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Lilith confessed.

  “I know.” Andrea sipped her drink and wiped the faint sheen of perspiration from her brow. “But Mitch trusts you, too. That’s not a small thing after what he’s been through.” She put the glass down and turned it in the wet circle it made on the wood, her tone suspiciously idle. “I don’t suppose he’s told you much about it?”

  Lilith’s attention was instantly snared. “Just that Janice left when Jen was a baby.”

  Andrea shook her head. “And that’s not half of it.” She looked at Lilith again. “Am I wrong, or is this something you’d like to know?”

  “I don’t want to pry,” Lilith said carefully.

  Andrea grinned. “But you’re itching to know - and you know as well as I do that getting the story out of Mitch will be like pulling teeth.”

  Lilith couldn’t completely stop her smile. “He is a bit reticent.”

  “Gun-shy,” Andrea affirmed, taking another long sip of lemonade. “And rightly so. But even if he won’t talk about it, I will.” She patted Lilith’s hand. “You see, Lilith, I think this may help you understand him a bit better. I may not have your gift for seeing lovematches, but I still have eyes in my head. And you’re the first woman that Mitch has taken notice of in a long time. That can’t be insignificant.”

  Lilith smiled, hugging the details to herself. It was true love, no doubt about it.

  Andrea took a deep breath. “Now I have to admit that I never liked Janice. Not from the first moment I met her. There was something calculating about that girl, something that got my back up. And I don’t care for vanity, frankly. But no one else saw it, and since I was new to the family, I kept my mouth shut.”

  “New to the family?”

  “Well, Mitch is my stepson. I don’t have any children of my own. Mitch’s father, Nate, was my third husband and oh, what a man he was! But I’m getting out of order here. You see, first there was Bernard, a wonderful man. He was so trim and athletic, so clever and handsome. I moved to Toronto from Montreal to marry him. We were very happy, but he died quite young. A skiing accident, which was fairly rare in those days.”

  “I’m sorry, Andrea.”

  The older woman smiled. “So was I. We had such good fun.” She shook her head. “It took me a long time to get out in the world again. By the time I met Walter, it was too late for me to have children. And Walter, well, he was so elegant, it was hard to imagine that he could have fit children into his life a
nyway.” Andrea shrugged. “Walter was a lawyer, and we knew Nate and Eliza as vague social acquaintances. We’d pass at parties and so forth. Pleasant people, I was always struck by how much in love they obviously were.”

  “It was about a year after Walter died when I heard through the grapevine that Eliza had died suddenly of an aneurism. It was disappointing news - they were such a happy couple that I had a hard time imagining Nate on his own, even though I didn’t know him that well. They were always so inseparable, you know?”

  Lilith nodded.

  “I found out later that Nate had a nearly impossible time with the concept himself. I’m sure he blamed himself more than he ever admitted to me. Nate believed he could fix anything, that an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. It must have appalled him to have the love of his life swept away from him so suddenly and irrevocably. He missed her terribly.”

  “Yet you married him.”

  Andrea patted Lilith’s hand again. “Oh, don’t be getting misty-eyed for me. I loved Nate and he loved me, but it’s different each time. The part of his heart that he had given to Eliza was hers forever - the part he shared with me was something she had probably never seen. It might have been a part of him that came to light only when he lost her.”

  Andrea shrugged. “He could probably say the same thing about me. But if we didn’t change over the course of our lives, well, we wouldn’t be learning much from life, would we?”

  She paused for a moment, then frowned slightly. “It shakes your universe to lose a great love, and I saw evidence of that in Nate. He was determined to live for the moment, to savor every bite the world offered. It was three years after Eliza’s death that we crossed paths at a charity dance and it is some commentary on the man’s charm that I didn’t dance one dance that night.”

  “You said you love to dance,” Lilith said with a chuckle and Andrea grinned.

  “Oh, Lilith, it was absolutely wonderful. Like it was destined to be. Nate made me laugh at some silly joke, I looked into his eyes and I saw the way they twinkled. Something happened in that moment, something magical, and I knew before we said another word that I was going to see a lot of Nate Davison from that point on.” She smiled into her lemonade. “He had a way of making you feel as though you were the very center of the universe, or at least of his universe, that you were the sun and the moon and the stars.”