by Carol Wolf
“He said he’d called you on his cell phone.”
Her dark anger spiked again. “I will speak to him.”
I almost felt sorry for Curt.
She looked at me. “Where did this happen?”
“The golf course near the freeway. I had to walk back.”
“And I told you to stay off that ankle!”
“Yes.”
“I noticed you didn’t join in the dancing.”
“Not even a little bit.”
“That was wise.” Now she sounded surprised. I gave her a look, but she didn’t catch it. She picked up my foot, put it on her knee, and held her hand over my aching wound. That's all she did, but I could feel the warmth of her hand even though she wasn’t touching my ankle. The pain in my ankle began to fade away. I closed my eyes with relief.
“What do you think they wanted?” she asked me.
“They want my demon. They think I’m possessed. They’re going to help me by getting it out of me. They think that's why I can change into a wolf.”
I opened my eyes so I could see her expression. No, obviously she hadn’t known that. She glanced over at the bears, who were trying to suppress expressions of amazed outrage, and outright laughter.
“Curt doesn’t know…?” I nodded to the bears.
“He does not have your discernment,” Tamara commented acerbically.
“You mean, my sense of smell.” I smiled over at the bears. They smiled back.
Tamara was not pleased by the damage I’d done to my healing ankle. She ordered me to stay off my feet that day. I was happy to oblige her. I hung out on the patio eating leftovers, and being entertained by the bears.
Tamara offered, since she had some of the best ward masters on the planet staying with her, to ward my apartment, my town, my car and me, so that I couldn’t be scryed, no matter who was looking for me. By the end of the day, the hilarity centering on the patio had ceased to amuse Tamara, especially now that I was taking up a guest room when she had friends in town. She came out in the afternoon after some particularly uproarious outbursts attracted the attention of actual paying customers and drew them away from admiring her wares, and suggested that either the bears might like to go home for awhile, or I might like to head back to her place for a nap—or something.
By the next day, even though I spent the morning helping out with the cleaning, unpacking, and stocking, Tamara decided that she had better get those wards in place and get me off her property because, she said, I was a bad influence on the bears. The bears were fairly low-key when most people around didn’t know what they were (lady bears, back on the mountains, are pretty fierce in April and May. Fierce, with claws and teeth. The four bears had been spending spring and early summer at Tamara's for years). But with a wolf around, they felt they had something to prove. And this was true. Bears are strong, but they can be hard on the furniture.
Tamara told Jason he was going to have to fix the new bench himself. She told Aaron she expected him to find some new tiles to match the broken ones on the patio. She told Jonathan and Sol if they ever got on the roof again, she would personally use a broom or a grappling hook get them the hell down, and if the roof beam turned out to be cracked, they were in serious trouble. And she told me it was time for me to go home.
That afternoon she called me into the back room where the smell of burned sage hung in the air. She had cleared one end of the long work table, and spread out two maps, a Triple-A map of the Greater Los Angeles area, held down at the corners and side by fat white candles, and a street map of Whittier, where I had my apartment. Three of her friends bent over the maps in high good humor, each working in her own way, making little figures or decorations, adding them to one or other of the maps and adjusting them, with a low-toned invocation.
Half a dozen candles of different sizes and colors stood on the Whittier map, on little saucers, or scraps of paper to catch the dripping wax, or stuck straight on the paper. A few birthday candles clustered around my neighborhood, the ends stuck through a crust of bread that held them upright. A sprinkle of sand, and one of cornmeal, drew the eye away from my street. Bright flowers and an aromatic spray of cedar leaves called attention to the south city border. A little bridge of stones crossed the river into Pico Rivera, and small dancing figures posed down and up the 605 freeway and off the map.
I moved closer, taking in all the details. A little black toy car took up several blocks on my street. It had a tiny colorful paper umbrella stuck to its roof. Near it was a little plastic wolf on the run, and she had a little umbrella over her as well. I reached to pick it up, but a heavy-set woman with silver hair caught my hand. Her ice-blue eyes held mine for a moment. “Don’t touch.” She let go of my hand before my anger rose. Her brown sweater gleamed with silver chains and bangles, and silver rings with colored stones flashed on her hands. “You don’t want to add your own energy to the ward at this stage.”
I nodded, and considered the maps again with my hands at my side. By concentrating, I could feel the energy of a working, but it was in motion, full of distractions. If this is what someone scrying for me was going to sense, a layer of misdirection, and a hodge-podge of diversions, then I really was going to be difficult to find. It was a truly masterful warding. If it worked. But I was too polite to ask them that.
“It will work,” Tamara told me.
“Oh, this is going to work all right,” the silver-haired woman said with complete assurance. She added a couple of jacks, like caltrops, in an annoyingly uneven circle around my street. She smiled at me briefly, a feral smile, and went to look over the larger-scale map of the city.
Tamara took her place over Whittier. She picked up a pinch of powdered thyme from a glass dish, and sprinkled it on the map along Philadelphia Avenue. The grains bounced away in different directions. Her voice softened. “My mother taught me this, a long time ago.”
“How is she?” I asked.
“No better.”
I thought about the frail old woman with the far-seeing eyes. “I’m really sorry,” I said.
A tall, gangly woman in jeans, dark-skinned, her hands smelling of burnt sage, gave me a hard look. “Her absence is a great loss. We can hardly spare her now.”
The fourth person, a slight Asian woman, shorter than me, with bright black eyes and a pointed chin, flitted to yet another point on the map, blowing tiny bubbles across it from a child's bubble bottle. She gave me a look too, but was too excited by what she was doing to make it stick.
Tamara shook her head. Her mother's last great working had been to create a talisman for me, that had saved my life. I’d given it back to Tamara, since after all it was made from a bit of her flesh, but I was still not forgiven.
It occurred to me that I’d been referring to the old woman as “Tamara's mother,” for a long time. “What should I call her? Your mother?”
“And why should you call her at all?” She sounded tired again.
“I’ve been dreaming about her,” I said.
That got the attention of all four of them.
“What have you dreamed?”
I told them about the glade, and about her mother, younger, happy, dancing there, turning to me as I came upon her. “She says something, but I can’t understand her.”
Tamara nodded. “I knew she wasn’t ready to go yet. She's holding on so hard.” And then she stunned me by dropping into a chair and bursting into tears. Her friends surrounded her, taking her hands, embracing her, bringing her a cool cloth, and stroking her head while she sobbed. I didn’t know what to do. I stopped myself from changing because a big furry head in her lap right then was probably the last thing she wanted. I got another set of hard looks from her friends for just standing there doing nothing. Since they seemed to know what they were doing, I slipped out through the back door.
All four of the bears were standing there.
“What's going on?” Aaron asked me, his voice deep, with an edge in it.
“I didn’t do anything,” I told them.
“Madam Tamara is upset about her mother.”
“Oh.” The bears looked at each other.
“Her friends are with her,” I said.
“Oh. Well. She's all right then,” Sol said.
Jonathan shouldered past me, up the two steps to the door to the back room. “I’ll get her some coffee,” he said.
When he’d gone in Sol and Aaron looked at each other. “Love!” Sol said, and strode off. Jason looked away. Aaron caught my eye and we laughed.
I went back to the house and fell asleep sitting in Tamara's chair. I started awake when Tamara put a tray on the table and sat down in her mother's chair.
“Where are your friends?”
“Gone out to dinner. Here. I brought you this.” She handed me a bowl of hot lentil soup. I am not a bear. I ate with a spoon. And I did not lick the bowl afterwards, but that was only because of the thick ham sandwich from yesterday's leftovers that came with it.
“My mother's name is Imelda,” Tamara said.
I nodded in thanks, still munching.
“I miss her. We… get on together.” She was only toying with her soup. She gave me one of her looks over the rim of her bowl. “She liked you. I don’t know why. You’re a lot of trouble.”
I nodded again. No question there. The ham was slathered with mustard and mayonnaise. The bread was fresh from the bakery, not from yesterday. It was still a little warm.
“We were going to have a sing for her, a healing, next week. But it seems that this is the only day that most of the same people can meet to consult with your demon.”
I swallowed. “Can’t they do both? The same night?”
She gave me a look that told me not to be so stupid, though I didn’t understand why. “We must resolve this situation with your demon, before the community breaks apart. So that must come first. Mother… must hold on a little longer.” Her eyes were suddenly bright, but her voice was steady. “I tried to call Curt. He doesn’t answer.”
I stifled a laugh. “His phone might have gotten wet.”
“I see.”
I thought I saw her crack a smile, but then it was gone.
She added, “I have sent word for him to call me. I will speak to him. I don’t know why he did what he did.”
“Holly asked them to,” I mouthed, not waiting, bear-like, to finish chewing before I answered. “Holly and Elaine are his cousins.”
“I will see that he, at least, does not bother you again.”
I paused in my chewing as a frisson went up my nape. She was, after all, a woman of power. I’d last seen Curt the previous day clawing at Elaine who was bleeding on him as his car sank into the drink on the ninth hole. If my ankle wasn’t still aching, I’d have had more sympathy for him. But still, at that moment, I felt sorry for the guy.
CHAPTER NINE
Tamara's friend Van followed me to Whittier the next day, as soon as we could miss the end of the morning rush-hour traffic. She was coming to finish off the wards on my apartment. I led the way on the forty-five minute trip up the 605 freeway in my Honda Civic, with Yvette sitting in the front seat, and Jason, who’d decided to come along, looming in the back. The only thing I’d taken away from Tamara's was the clothes she said I could have, my new shoes and socks, and the bandana with the leather bracelets and silver hooks, which I stowed in the glove compartment of my car. Sarah's old sweats, and Elaine's stupid shoes, I’d stuffed in the dumpster behind the shop before I left.
When we got to my street I parked a block away and gave my apartment key to Van, who was spiking with excitement over having been chosen to finish off this complicated ward. She explained that my presence during this last part of the warding was not desirable as she hauled out a bulging pair of heavy canvas bags full of supplies. She had to keep my energy out of her ward at this point or the whole purpose would be defeated. I nodded as though I understood exactly what she meant, and agreed to make myself scarce for a while.
I offered to drive Yvette to work down at Arches Auditorium, as it was still fairly early. She was part of the cleaning and renovation team, a job I used to have too until I lost it, but she told me the job was winding down and she’d worked her last day the previous week. So I got on Whittier Boulevard and drove up to Montebello to the Department of Motor Vehicles. When I pulled into the parking lot she gave me a look, then she got out and went into the building. I stayed in the car. So did the bear.
“Do you remember Richard?” I asked Jason, while we waited.
“Sure,” he said.
“When's the last time you saw him?”
“Ah…” he stretched out his arms across the back seat of my car. I thought I heard the car creak. “Last week some time.”
“How many times have you seen him, since I told you he was gone?”
“Two, three.”
“So that's why you all think I’m a liar when I tell you I dismissed him.”
“Pretty much. But then, maybe you did dismiss him. And maybe he didn’t go.”
“But did you see him up close, or just to look at?”
He caught my eye in the mirror. “Just to look at. He was on the sidewalk, outside the shop.”
“Did you smell him?”
He was frowning. “No…”
“I saw him there too, on Friday.” I rolled down the car window. It was going to be a warm day. And Jason is very big. “You know,” I remarked, “the reason I went to that party last week, where I got shot and captured and all—”
“Mm hm…”
“—was because Yvette invited me.”
“So you said.”
I waited until I caught his eye in the mirror again. “I saw her.”
“I heard you.”
“Do you think I’m lying?”
He didn’t react to my challenge. His eyes were as mild as though he were not one of the greatest predators on the planet, when he felt like it. The scar across one of his brows gave him a quizzical look, but his expression was serene. “Now that is the question, isn’t it.”
“You know anyone in this town who can take another's form?”
He did not look surprised at the question. After a moment, he nodded. “One or two.”
I grinned. It was my hunting grin. “That's what I thought.”
Jason has a huge smile. It came on slowly, in response to mine, and it was a sight to see. “Now what are you thinking about, wolf girl? You going hunting?”
“Me?” I said, in all innocence. “Who has to hunt when the salmon jump right into your arms?”
He broke out into laughter. “So, when do you think this fish is going to land?”
“Before next Monday,” I told him, and he sobered.
“Ah,” he said, “I see. That's when Madam Tamara wants you to call your demon.”
“That's the schedule.”
“And you think someone wants to gain control of your demon before that night.”
“He's not my demon anymore,” I said, but it was pointless. If Jason didn’t believe me, why should anyone else?
Yvette pulled open the door and threw herself into the front seat, radiating excitement as though she was going to burst. In her fist she held a crumpled piece of paper. I got out of the car and went around to the passenger door. I opened it and stood there holding out my car keys. “You got your permit?”
“Temporary license.”
“Then you drive.”
“I don’t know how to drive!” Yvette burst out wailing, while Jason shushed and patted her shoulder from the back seat.
I drove up the road to a big shopping center, where at this hour of the morning the most remote parking lot was almost empty. I showed her how to shift gears, and we switched places. I winced while she stripped the gears over and over, I braced myself as we jerked our way down the aisles, while Jason poured helpful advice, admonishment, praise, and swear words from the back until I threatened to bite him. Yvette shifted from first to second, to first, and to second again and again, and finally snapped at Jason so he
shut up. Then she got into third, and the smoothness of the ride straightened her shoulders and relaxed her death grip on the wheel. Her turns became more assured, and when Jason ventured to make another comment, and she threw back a reply while turning, shifting, and remembering to signal, I told her to drive us on back to Whittier. And she did.
It wasn’t time yet for me to go back to my apartment, so Yvette cruised down Greenleaf, negotiating the traffic with growing confidence, until Jason spotted a diner that promised meat, and asked her to find a parking place.
“I’m buying,” he told me, as we walked back to the restaurant. He stared down my look of astonishment. Bears are very good at not being the ones to pay. “You made her happy,” he said, looking at Yvette, leading the way. And it was true, she seemed taller. She seemed hardly to be touching the ground when she walked. And her smile must have been hurting her face by then. I let Jason buy my burgers.
As we wandered down Greenleaf after lunch, ducking into the bookstore, the antique stores, the clothing store where Jason tried on one hat after another—bears are vain—and then left without buying anything, I saw Richard across the street. That was interesting. Sooner than I expected, too. I didn’t look at him directly. I was wondering what he would do. Richard was straight and fine, with short blond hair and blue eyes. He was modeled by the magician John Dee when he captured him, and commanded him to assume the form of a beautiful young man. This version didn’t quite walk like Richard. I looked away, and he was gone when I looked again. I was fairly certain he would be back. This was going to be fun.
Then Yvette spotted the music store. It hadn’t been there very long. One of the windows was empty. The other held an artful display of gleaming violins hung around a large dark cello. A couple of drums lapped at the cello's foot, so of course we had to go in. The door stood wide open, but the store was just a shell, in the early stages of being stocked. Two of the walls had been primed, and waited to be painted. Newly varnished empty shelves were lined up on newspaper. Stacks of boxes stood against the far wall. The other wall was already painted and hung with brass instruments on specialized hooks against a black curtain. Several drum sets were already set up on the floor. Yvette made for the shiniest of them. She stopped when we heard the voices from the back.