Love Potion #9

by Claire Delacroix

  It was the last room in the hall that bore the right number, the same room from which the whisper of death emanated. Lilith tapped on the door and, when there was no answer, she nudged it open.

  An elderly woman sat staring out the window, as though she would make sense of the rush of traffic on the highway below. She didn’t even look up when Lilith stepped into the room, but Lilith knew she had found in the right place. The woman’s cheeks were hollow, her gaze distracted, a knowledge in her pose of her own inescapable fate.

  Not to mention its proximity.

  And Lilith knew from the hook of the woman’s nose, the squint of her eyes, the determination of her posture, that this was the Rom grandmother she sought. Although she wore the standard hospital issue backless gown, her feet were shoved into slippers rich with colorful embroidery. Gold hoops hung from her ears, a floral shawl was cast over her bony shoulders.

  Lilith paused and stared, suddenly awash in recollections. This could have been Dritta, it could have been a dozen women Lilith had known.

  It could have been herself if she hadn’t drunk the elixir.

  Lilith swallowed hard. The prevalence of white in the room even made her shiver, the scent of disinfectant and laundered sheets so far from the fresh breeze of the outside air.

  Lilith bit her lip, recalled the grandson’s dismay, and considered that this grandmother was in no small pain herself. It was clear she had no interest in who came to her door, her manner much like that of Dritta in a temper. Lilith remembered how she had coaxed Dritta from a foul mood with compliments, and decided it was worth a try.

  She had come all this way, after all.

  “Good afternoon, phuri bibi,” Lilith said softly from the doorway in Rom. She used the term phuri bibi, literally old aunt, but its import was noble, more akin to great lady.

  The woman stiffened and turned, her eyes narrowed as she surveyed Lilith. Her lip curled. “Posh rat!” she charged.

  Half-blood.

  Lilith swallowed, certain her expectation of rejection would soon be proven right. But she shook her head. The Rom had little use for half-breeds and the woman was obviously using that as an excuse to get rid of Lilith.

  How like Dritta that was!

  “Tacho rat,” Lilith corrected softly. Full blood.

  The older woman’s eyes widened. She turned slightly in her chair and her gaze sharpened like that of an inquisitive bird. When she spoke in full sentences, Lilith knew she had made progress.

  “But you speak the words like they do not belong on your tongue,” the woman charged in rhythmic Rom. “You cannot be of us.”

  Lilith advanced into the room and paused, not far from the woman’s bright gaze. “I have not spoken Rom for a long time,” she admitted. There was no point in lying, even if the truth gave this woman the excuse she needed to send Lilith away.

  “Why not?”

  Lilith looked into those dark eyes so like her own, took a breath and confessed. “I was called mahrime.”

  The woman’s lips pursed, but she did not pull away. “Why?”

  “I loved a gadjo.”

  The woman snorted and fussed with her gown. “No Rom man was good enough for you?”

  “No Rom man was my soul mate.”

  The older woman looked up at that. “You have him still?” she asked with a coyness so unexpected that Lilith almost smiled. Instead she nodded and her companion’s resulting smile spread slowly.

  Then the older woman abruptly sobered and looked across the room. “I had a soul mate until they stole him from me.”

  Lilith didn’t know what to say to that, so she waited.

  The other woman finally bit her lip and looked back to Lilith, her tone brisk once more. “Are you a good Rom girl? How did my grandson find you?”

  “I am a drabarni,” Lilith admitted. A fortune-teller. An herbalist. A healer. For the Rom, they were all one and the same.

  Which was why the grandson had been sent for a fortune-teller. Lilith knew.

  The woman’s eyes gleamed approval. “He is a clever boy in his moments.” She reached up and pinched Lilith’s cheek. “And are you a good drabarni? Do you have the Sight?”

  Lilith nodded, unable to deny how the woman reminded her of Dritta.

  She nodded approval of that. “You make your man a good wife, whether he is gadjo or no. After all, shuk chi hal pe la royasa.”

  Beauty cannot be eaten with a spoon.

  It was a favorite old Rom proverb and good to hear it on another tongue. The words convinced Lilith that she had done the right thing in coming here.

  “But I am mahrime,” she felt compelled to remind the woman. After all, any contact with her could taint this woman as well. “Does it not trouble you?”

  The older woman blew through her lips like an old horse. “We are not so many that we can stand apart on such things,” she said regally. “I am too old to care. You are here. You speak Rom to me. It is enough.”

  The relief that flooded through Lilith left her feeling weak in its wake. She blinked back unexpected tears, seeing now how foolish she had been to be afraid. Mitch had given her this. Mitch had given her the gift of confidence to face her past.

  She was going to have to make sure the man was rewarded.

  Lilith’s characteristic determination to set matters to rights was rising to the fore again. “Your grandson said you had something to tell him,” she suggested gently.

  The woman clicked her teeth in agitation. “I must tell him in Rom. It is not a tale for gadje words.” She seemed to get much more upset suddenly and stirred in her chair. “This wicked gadje place, I do not like it, with all its white and bad luck and death. It is wrong, it is evil, it is not where I should be!”

  The grandmother struggled now to get up, as though she would walk right out of there, but she was obviously too frail to do so. She railed against her weakness and made a sound of frustration in the back of her throat, cursing the gadje with unexpected vigor. Lilith reached out to reassure her, and the woman grasped her hand with surprising strength.

  At the move, the older woman’s bright shawl fell back and Lilith saw the blue tattooed number on the woman’s forearm. A shiver ran over her own flesh at the sight, then she looked up to meet the woman’s eyes.

  “You see it,” the elderly woman whispered with triumph, her voice less even than it was just a moment before. ‘You do know without knowing.”

  Before Lilith could agree, or dismiss the dark images that crawled into her mind, the older woman’s fingers tightened around Lilith’s like a claw. “I think you know what it is to be hunted.”

  That Lilith did. Her mouth went dry, her gaze strayed again to the tattoo. She heard the dogs; she felt the ground tremble; she smelled fear.

  The woman leaned closer, the shimmer of a tear in her bright eyes, anxiety in her words. “But tell me, child, tell me. Your gadjo is not such a man as these were, is he?”

  “No.” Lilith shook her head vigorously. She had seen pictures of the Holocaust, she had heard of the trials faced there. But she had not considered that her own people had suffered.

  “They said they came to study us, but that was not enough for them.” The old woman straightened with a snort. “We called it the porraimos.”

  The Devouring. Lilith closed her eyes as a cold hand clenched inside her. As was so often the case when the Rom reapplied a word to a situation for which their language had not words, the choice was more than apt.

  She felt foolish now that she had never guessed what was happening within a Germany run by people so concerned with the purity of bloodlines. Though she had lived through those years, Lilith had never known, never imagined that the Rom had suffered too. She wondered what she would have done if she had known. Lilith wondered whether she, like so many others, would have believed that there was nothing she could do to help.

  It was only now that she saw the weakness of not even trying.

  “How many?” she whispered, knowing that even one was t
oo many.

  “Half a million, maybe more, maybe less.” A tear worked its way down the elderly woman’s cheek. “He must know the story,” she said urgently. “He must understand. You must help me.”

  “Yes,” Lilith agreed without hesitation.

  It was late, too late for those half a million souls, but Lilith would do what she could to help. This woman’s acceptance of Lilith despite her mahrime status undermined all of Lilith’s own rejections. She was Rom. Her legacy coursed through her veins, just as Dritta had declared it always would.

  Mitch had been right. This woman did need Lilith’s abilities, just as Lilith had needed her acceptance.

  There had been absolutely no reason to be afraid.

  And now, now Lilith could help this woman, could do some healing, could set matters to rights. Mitch had given her this gift, for Lilith wouldn’t have been here without his example and his encouragement.

  They were going to make a good team. Just thinking that made her smile, but Lilith had work to do. “What will you tell your grandson?”

  “He must know of my soul mate. He must know of the grandfather he never knew. He must know what it means to be hunted, what is the price of trusting foolishly. He must know the legacy that comes to him in blood.”

  The woman’s voice faltered. ‘I must tell him in Rom, but he does not understand it. And I, I am forgetting what little gadje that I did know.” She shook her head. “I think it is a vengeance of my tongue, maybe the mulo of my love does not want to hear me speak thus. I hear him in the wind now. He is close.”

  The two women looked into each other’s eyes and Lilith saw that this one task left undone was all that gave the woman before her the will to continue.

  They would have to hurry, to see it finished in time. Lilith was suddenly very glad that she had come.

  And she was humbled that she held the key to grant this woman her one desire.

  Lilith smiled and squeezed the older woman’s hand. “Then we shall teach him, you and I. And then he will know both your story and your tongue. It is a fitting legacy for your only grandson.” Lilith leaned closer, easily remembering the Rom superstition of naming those who have passed on. “And he will know of the one we cannot name. He will know not only what it is to be hunted, but what it is to be loved.”

  With that pledge, the older woman began to weep silently.

  She didn’t bow her head. She didn’t sniffle or wipe at her tears. She simply let them flow, looking every bit as proud and determined as she had when Lilith had entered the room. She clutched Lilith’s hand, though, her own a withered shadow of what it once must have been. Lilith sat silently beside her, watching the tears roll and shed one or two of her own.

  “Grandmother?” A young man’s voice carried from the doorway.

  Lilith looked up to find a familiar young man hesitating on the threshold, fresh flowers clutched in his hands. The woman stiffened and sniffled.

  “Puri daj,” Lilith corrected softly. “That’s Rom for ‘grandmother’.”

  The concern eased from the grandson’s features, relief brightening his eyes as he stepped into the room. “Puri daj,” he repeated carefully. His gaze flicked to Lilith, then back to his grandmother. “Are you all right?”

  “Ov yilo isi?” Lilith supplied. He looked to her questioningly. “’Is it okay?’” she whispered, blinking back her own tears. “Or literally, ‘is your heart still there?’”

  The young man bent to kiss his grandmother’s cheek. “Ov yilo isi?” he said with slow precision.

  And she smiled. She clasped the flowers to her chest and clutched at his hand, reaching up to kiss his cheek in return. Then she tapped her heart and wiped away a tear. “Such a good boy,” she whispered in Rom, then rapped Lilith on the knee with sudden severity. “You will find him a nice Rom girl, a drabarni like you.”

  Lilith smiled and glanced to the mystified man before her. “I will try.”

  “Try!” The woman snorted disdain. She rallied and snapped her fingers under Lilith’s nose, once again the grand and proud lady in command of her domain. “If your gadjo is not smart, my grandson will steal away your heart to make it his own!”

  There wasn’t much change of that happening, which suited Lilith just fine.

  * * *

  13

  Death

  Mitch walked up the street Thursday night, kids in tow, and found himself whistling under his breath. His pulse leapt when he spotted Lilith lingering on her porch, then Jen broke free and ran.

  “Lillit! I made you a picture!”

  Lilith stepped from her porch and scooped up Jen with easy familiarity, the two having bonded something fierce in the last few days. The picture was duly admired, Lilith’s dark gaze dancing repeatedly to meet Mitch’s while the children shared their news with her.

  For the first time in his entire career, Mitch was not looking forward to attending this annual conference. It was a huge meet and greet, a terrific networking opportunity, but he didn’t want to pack up and leave in the morning.

  He wanted to have another weekend just like the last one. He wanted to go to the zoo, and laugh with his kids, and lose himself in the sparkle of Lilith’s dark eyes. The kids climbed Lilith’s porch, Jason opening her door and Jen looking for D’Artagnan, leaving Mitch and Lilith momentarily alone.

  Lilith threw her arms around Mitch’s neck and kissed him as though there was no tomorrow. He was more than happy to enjoy the moment, to cradle the sweet weight of her against him.

  When she finally pulled away, he couldn’t help but smile. “What was that all about?”

  “I went to the hospital,” she confessed breathlessly, her smile telling Mitch all he needed to know about what had happened. “And I want to thank you in every way I can imagine.” She stretched to her toes and would have kissed him again, if Mitch hadn’t landed a thumb against her lips.

  He grinned. “How about some ways I can imagine?” Mitch felt her lips curve under his thumb.

  “Just how imaginative are journalists, anyway?” she teased.

  “You might be surprised. We’re very creative people.” Mitch chuckled and let his fingertips slide along her jaw line. He felt her shiver and considered several very interesting possibilities before voicing the one he had in mind.

  “I want to spend tonight with you and the kids,” he confessed quietly. “Tell me all about the magic you’ve made this week.”

  Lilith tilted her head to look up at him. “I thought you didn’t believe in magick.”

  Mitch smiled wryly. “I saw you with the butterflies last weekend,” he confessed, “and I think I feel a conversion coming on.” Mitch sobered as he watched his fingertip slide across the fullness of her lips. “I have to leave at five in the morning, Lilith. I want to have this evening to replay all weekend long.”

  Tonight he needed a little sample of Lilith’s tranquility to take along with him.

  And he saw in her eyes that she understood.

  But the twinkle that immediately appeared told Mitch that she was going to give him a hard time about it anyway.

  Of course, Lilith always gave him a hard time, in more ways than one. She challenged everything - not the least of which was Mitch’s self control.

  Maybe that was why she so thoroughly captured his attention.

  Lilith slipped her fingers into his hair, her touch feather light, then brushed her lips against his. Mitch felt an ember being to glow deep inside him. Then Lilith’s eyes flashed and she pivoted, tossing a flirtatious glance over her shoulder.

  “All this delay,” she said archly. “I’m going to start thinking that you’re not interested, after all.”

  There was an opening that couldn’t be refused!

  Lilith barely made it into the foyer before Mitch caught her in his arms. She laughed throatily as he held her close, and returned his kiss hungrily. He only stopped when they both were in need of a deep breath.

  “That should clear up any doubts,” he growled, deli
berately letting her feel the indicator of her effect upon him.

  “Tease!” Lilith charged with a playful wrinkle of her nose. Then she spun out of his embrace and danced toward the kitchen, the flash of her bare feet making his chinos tight.

  “Me?!” Mitch demanded in astonishment. But Lilith laughed unrepentantly and ran for the sanctuary of the kitchen.

  And Mitch, ready to follow, paused and looked around Lilith’s house for the first time. It was strikingly cozy, welcoming and comfortable. He felt at ease just crossing the threshold. He fought his smile as he followed her to the kitchen, not surprised to find his kids already bumming cookies.

  “What would you say to sharing a bit of your decorating advice?” he asked, unable to forget Andrea’s early suggestion. Lilith turned with a smile that told Mitch he already had her agreement. “I could definitely use your help.”

  * * *

  It was when she popped in to pick up a few things Friday morning that Lilith found the Death card.

  She had come home humming from taking the children to daycare, memories of the evening before making her smile. She had dumped an armload of groceries on Mitch’s counter and was happier than she could ever remember being. She had just come home for a few things and saw the card waiting for her.

  Lilith’s heart stopped at the sight of it, then began to race. She stared at the card from the threshold of the living room, reluctant to draw any closer to it, and felt the blood drain from her face.

  An Italian village square, its corners haunted with the shadows of twilight, loomed in her mind with sudden clarity.

  Lilith thought about plane crashes, car accidents, hotel bombings and elevators dropping like stones. Flukes of nature, and earthquakes and rivers rising, jumped into her mind. She thought about noble-minded men dashing into burning buildings to save children, and pedestrians being mowed by drunken drivers just for stepping off the curb.

  Lilith’s stomach rolled at the realization that there were a wealth of nasty possibilities that could keep Mitch from ever coming back again.