She was as skilled a magickal practitioner as I’d ever met. In fact, I would even readily admit that she was more advanced than me in that arena. But, this wasn’t magick. It was something completely different. Still, in reality, we had no way of knowing whether or not this would even work. Under the present circumstances, I found myself hoping that it wouldn’t.
The tone of Ben’s next exchange with my wife told me that his second thoughts about this were starting to bother him even more.
“You think you’re gonna be able ta’ do this, Felicity?” he asked.
She gave her head a slight shake. “I don’t know.”
“Fair enough. You still good with tryin’?”
“Aye,” she replied, her voice soft and distant. “I think so.”
He waited a moment, still watching her carefully. Eventually he told her, “You can back out, if you don’t want ta’ go through with it. It’s not a problem. I’ll understand.”
“No…” she mumbled. “We need to do this.”
My friend looked over at me, more concern in his eyes than I’d seen for quite some time. “Row…I’m leavin’ it up ta’ you. Wanna pull the plug?”
The litany of objections presented themselves once again, ricocheting around the inside of my skull as they looked for an exit. However, I simply gave my head a barely perceptible shake and said, “No. She’s probably right. We should try.”
“Is everything okay?” Doctor Kingston asked.
“Just makin’ sure everyone’s still on the same page, Doc,” Ben replied. “It’s a Witch thing.”
Had the situation been different, I likely would have guffawed at Ben’s use of that phrase.
“All right then,” she began, addressing me directly. “Mister Gant, earlier you said you may need physical contact with the deceased?”
“It helps,” I replied and dipped my head toward my wife. “But it will only be Felicity, not me.”
“Then you’ll need to put these on, Miz O’Brien,” the doctor replied, holding a pair of surgical gloves out to her.
Felicity was staring again, so I gave her a nudge. She looked at me then turned and focused in on the gloves and took them from Doctor Kingston. I continued to watch as she began trying to stretch one over her hand. There was an unmistakable hesitation in all of her actions, and her steadily growing uneasiness was becoming more than simply palpable. I had been here countless times myself, so I knew all too well that it was starting to exact a painful toll. As I watched my wife struggle with the glove, I began to wonder if I should take the out Ben had offered and just go ahead and stop this before it even started.
But, I forced myself not to give in, took a deep breath, and fought to hold my tongue. Instead of objecting, I reached out and took the surgical glove from Felicity and told her, “Here. Let me help.”
She looked at me in silence, chewing at her lower lip, and then slowly held out her hand. I stretched the rubber sheath and carefully slipped it onto her right appendage. She started to offer the other hand, and I shook my head.
“No. Just your right,” I told her. “I’ll be hanging on to your left.”
She gave me a slow nod.
I held her gaze for a moment then reached up and brushed the hair back out of her eyes. In a quiet voice I asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?”
She nodded again, this time attempting a verbal response as well but only managing a barely audible whisper. She stopped, cleared her throat and then repeated, “Yes.”
“Okay…then let’s give this a try.”
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the small handful of salt packets I had earlier retrieved from her purse. I counted them out while glancing at the space around us and running through a quick mental calculation at the same time. Then I counted through them again, peeled off four, stuffed two of them back into my pocket and held the other two out to Ben.
“Whaddaya want me ta’ do?” he whispered.
“Remember how I chased Miranda out before?” I returned, my own voice low.
“Yeah,” he said then opened his mouth and pantomimed eating the salt as he nodded toward Felicity.
“Exactly…” I replied. “So…hang on to them…just in case.”
It would have been easier to go ahead and use everything I had in my hand, but I wanted something to fall back on if necessary, and this was what I had. I was carrying the backup. Ben was going to be my failsafe. I hoped I would need neither.
Tearing the remainder of the packets open, I poured the crystals into the palm of my hand and then began walking in a tight circle, barely a few feet out from our small clutch around the gurney. As I slowly shuffled along the perimeter, I sprinkled pinches of the salt in my wake.
Halfway through the circumference, I heard Ben’s voice somewhere behind me as he whispered to Doctor Kingston, “Relax, it doesn’t usually get weird for another coupl’a minutes yet.”
I continued along my arc without acknowledging that I’d heard him. At the moment I had someone far more important on whom my attention needed to be focused.
Once I’d completed the orbit, I took the crumpled handful of empty salt packets and shoved them into my other pocket. I closed my eyes then took a deep breath in through my nose and held it for several heartbeats before allowing the warmed air to vent in a slow stream out via my mouth. Even though Miranda had taken away my connection to the dead and my ability to feel, she couldn’t keep me from executing the simplest of exercises where WitchCraft was concerned—grounding and centering.
I repeated the pattern of breathing several more times as I visualized a solid connection between the Earth and myself. I imagined a conduit forming between the floor and my body, and in my mind it took the form of a spire of light. It acted as a channel through which energy could pass in both directions. This would be my anchor in the here and now, and I would be Felicity’s sole tether between the worlds of life and death.
After a handful of minutes, I finally felt myself beginning to relax. The emptiness that had begun earlier in the pit of my stomach and then spread throughout my body was still making a home in my chest. However, it no longer consumed me. I knew I hadn’t arrived at a perfect calm, but it was the best I was going to be able to manage, so it would have to do. I took one last cleansing breath then stepped over and resumed my earlier station next to my wife.
I reached down and slipped my hand into hers, pressing our palms together and intertwining our fingers in a tight weave. I felt her squeeze out of reflex, and she slowly swiveled her head and looked into my face.
“Like you said,” I told her softly. “Don’t be like me. No chances… No risks… And, don’t you dare let go.”
“You either,” she whispered.
“We ready?” Ben asked.
“Aye,” Felicity responded, giving him a shallow nod.
He looked at her, then at me. The reluctance was clear in his eyes. Finally, he held up the two salt packets and stared at them briefly before returning his gaze to mine. He wagged the square packets at me as if to say, “I’ve got your back.”
I simply nodded.
Ben sighed then looked at the M.E. and said, “Go on. Open it up, Doc.”
Doctor Kingston stepped around the end of the gurney then reached out a gloved hand and tugged on the zipper. In a smooth motion she pulled the closure, creating an ever-widening gap down the center of the shroud. Once she reached the midpoint, she stopped.
Moving back to the head of the gurney, she carefully folded back the sides of the rubberized fabric and revealed the body that had been sprawled in our front yard less than ten hours ago. After the medical examiner had moved out of the way, Felicity slowly reached out, her gloved hand hovering a few inches above the pale flesh of the corpse.
And then, through our clasped hands, I felt her entire body go completely stiff.
CHAPTER 23
Using the tines of her salad fork, Felicity slowly batted a small hunk of tomato back and forth on her plate. After a few seconds
of the cat-like behavior, she pushed the deep red triangle close to the edge using the back of the utensil. Lazily piercing the bite-sized chunk, she then maneuvered it around the layers of thinly sliced red onion, other slabs of extraordinarily crimson-hued tomato, and dollops of fresh mozzarella cheese that were all swimming in a translucent green pool of olive oil. So far, other than a few initial bites, she had barely touched her lunch other than to engage in the absent-minded activity currently at hand.
The restaurant was unusually quiet, but then it was early yet. The sharp-edged, raspy beat of the Raveonettes Dead Sound floated through the room as the last verse of the song filtered from the overhead speakers nearby. It was underscored by the muffled sound of a distant emergency siren somewhere outside. The mélange of noises seemed to echo the tone of our day thus far.
“I’m sorry,” my wife finally muttered, her voice riding on the back of a dejected sigh.
It was now coming up on two hours since we’d left the county medical examiner’s office, and I’d lost track of the number of times she’d apologized during that span. I’d actually stopped counting somewhere around the tenth, and that was better than forty-five minutes ago. I figured Ben had given up on keeping a tally as well, but since he had disappeared to the restroom, he wasn’t around to hear this latest verbal atonement. So even if I was wrong, it was really a moot point.
I slipped my hand over beneath the table and placed it on my wife’s denim-covered thigh. Giving her leg a gentle rub, I tried to soothe her mood with the same words I’d already spoken several times. “I’m sorry too, honey. But all you could do was try.”
“Don’t lie, Rowan,” she replied. Her voice was quiet but didn’t lack for seriousness. “You aren’t sorry. You’re happy it didn’t work.”
“I wouldn’t say happy,” I told her. “But, yeah, sure, I’ll admit I’m more than a little relieved.”
In all honesty, I was completely sincere in my words of consolation. I hated to see her beating herself up about something over which she had no control. I’d been there more than once myself and knew it was an exercise in futility. And, I also knew that given the unproductive outcome of our visit, we were still flying blind. Without a doubt, that was the real issue here. But no matter what I said, my wife hadn’t yet been willing to let go of her self-recriminations.
“That’s the problem. I am too,” she said. Her tone was harsh, and she was obviously flogging herself with the words.
“You don’t think you should be?”
“No.” She shook her head but kept her eyes aimed toward the dark red chunk of tomato she was still pushing around her plate. “Maybe that’s why I failed…because I was too afraid.”
I sighed. “Honey, first off, you didn’t fail. It just wasn’t happening, that’s all. Secondly, I’ve got news for you. If fear is what keeps an ethereal connection with the dead from happening, then I’d never channel a single spirit because I’m usually pretty terrified.”
“Cac capaill,” she muttered.
“It’s the truth, whether you want to believe it or not,” I told her. “Besides, even if you had made a connection, we still might not be any better off. You know as well as I do that you don’t always get what you’re after.”
She objected. “But there might have been something.”
“Or not, just like I said. You just don’t know. Miranda is pretty good at covering her tracks when she wants to be.”
“Fekking saigh…” my wife grumbled.
“You’ll get no argument from me there,” I agreed. “Listen, I know how you feel, but you’re just going to have to get over it. We’ll have to find another way of doing this.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“I know. You’ve already said that.” I watched her for a moment as she continued to play with the food on her plate. Then I pushed the salt and pepper shakers toward her. “Would you like some salt for that?”
She shot me an odd glance as she lifted her fork and stabbed it hard into one of the tomato slabs. “No. Salt is bad for you.”
I hoped her mood wouldn’t continue. Felicity was usually far too stubborn to stay in a funk for very long, especially if she saw a way out. However, where the subject of Miranda was concerned, it could sometimes be a different story.
Ben’s voice came from the side as he breezed past me. “Jeezus…is she apologizin’ again?” I looked up and saw him sliding back into the booth on the opposite side as he continued, “I was only gone five friggin’ minutes. How many this time?”
Apparently he was still keeping track after all.
“Just twice,” I told him.
“Twice? Lemme see.” He grunted and then rolled his eyes up in an animated fashion while he scribbled in the air with his index finger. A second or two later, he dropped his gaze down and focused on her as he reached for his burger. “Yeah, those two make it an even twenty-five, Firehair. That’s the daily limit on apologizin’. Now ya’ hafta stop. It’s a law.”
“I haven’t apologized twenty-five times,” she snapped.
“Yeah, actually, ya’ have.”
“He could be right, honey,” I offered. “I lost track at ten.”
“Fealltóir.”
“No, I’m not a traitor,” I replied. “I’m just telling it like it is.”
She turned her attention back to Ben and countered, “Well, twenty-five isn’t an even number.”
“Doesn’t matter, you know exactly what I mean,” he replied then bit off a chunk of his sandwich and began to chew.
“Well, I’m terribly sorry if I’m annoying you,” she snipped.
He swallowed and then shot back. “That’s twenty-six, Irish.”
“That’s the second time you’ve called me that today.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You’ve never called me that before.”
“Yeah, well I didn’t know you were still a foreigner before.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Twenty-seven.”
She huffed out an annoyed breath. “I think you know exactly what I meant.”
Ben raised his eyebrows and shook his head at her. “Last Friday when we were all at that restaurant with the weird name.”
“Flipdoodles?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“What about it?”
“We were talkin’ and ya’ said ya’ had dual citizenship, right?”
“Aye.”
“There ya’ go. Makes ya’ a foreigner in my book.”
Felicity stabbed her lunch hard and muttered, “Go ifreann leat.”
“Yeah, go ahead and get it all outta your system. You ain’t any good to me if your just gonna sit there an’ pout.”
“What’s it matter? I’m obviously not any good to you anyway.”
“Not like this, that’s for damn sure.”
“Well, at least I didn’t just stand around wringing my hands like a big sissy.”
“Do what?” Ben shot back.
“You heard me then.”
He gave her a hard stare for a moment, then the corner of his mouth turned up in a half grin. “For a second there I thought you were serious.”
“Are you certain I’m not?”
“I’m never sure of anything with you.”
“Good. That’s the way it should be.”
My friend sighed and grunted, “Well, I wouldn’t let it go to your head if I was you.”
“Are you two aware that you sound like an old married couple?” I asked.
“Blame your wife,” Ben replied as he returned his attention to the hamburger he still had pinched in his hand. “She started it.”
“I think you’re probably both equally at fault,” I said.
“Actually, no, it’s him,” my wife quipped. “I think it’s probably all the sexual tension.”
“The what?” Ben yipped.
“Sexual tension. You’ve been dying to sleep with me ever since we met.”
“Awww, Jeezus…” Ben groaned, dropping his sandwich
onto his plate. He was obviously caught off guard by her gibe. “Dammit, Firehair, you know that ain’t so.”
“What? I’m not good enough for you?”
“I didn’t say… I mean… You… Dammit… Now you’re just goin’ too far. Why the hell do ya’ say crap like that?”
“Because I find you very entertaining when you’re embarrassed,” my wife replied. “That’s why.”
“Rowan?” he appealed, glancing over at me.
“Why are you crying to him?” Felicity snipped.
“Backup,” he retorted.
“I’ve told you before, Ben,” I said with a shrug. “She knows the mere mention of sex is a hot button with you.”
“Well, ya’ know I’m not wantin’ ta’…ya’know… I mean… Jeezus, she’s your wife for Chrissakes.”
“Believe me, Ben, I’m not worried. And, it doesn’t bother me if you find her attractive.”
“Don’t you start too.”
I shook my head. “I’m not. You know, I don’t get why you’re always so surprised when she pushes this button to get a reaction out of you. It’s not like she hasn’t done it before.”
“Yeah, that’s true. But she ain’t usually this ill behaved in public,” Ben replied, stressing the last word.
“So sorry I can’t say the same for you,” Felicity remarked.
“Jeezus H Christ…” he sighed. “Are you done yet, Felicity?”
“I suppose so…” She paused then added the caveat, “For now.”
He shook his head and let out a protracted “Fuck me…”
“Aye, you wish.”
“Well, at least you seem to be coming out of your funk,” I announced. “But I also have to say that you two are starting to annoy me a bit.”
“You’re just grouchy because you’re hungry,” Felicity replied.
I drew in a deep breath then puffed my cheeks out as I exhaled in exasperation. “Trust me, when you two really get going you can be annoying whether I’m hungry or not,” I said. “But, yeah, you might have a point. I actually am starting to get annoyed that my food isn’t here yet.”
“Yeah, you been waitin’ awhile,” Ben commented as he scooped up his burger once again. “Wonder if they had ta’ go kill another cow or somethin’.”
Miranda: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 21