Witch

by Kirsten Weiss

  “But—”

  “You know we always work best together.”

  “Sure.” I just didn't expect to do this now, with Chinese food cooling in the kitchen. The tangy scent of soy sauce flowed up the ladder, and my stomach rumbled.

  We found Nick and Karin noshing on kung pao chicken in the kitchen. He sat on a bar stool by the island and dug into a box with his chopsticks.

  “I could eat my own hand,” he said between bites, and pointed to a closed box. “Your sweet-and-sour chicken.”

  “Journeying can wait,” I told Lenore and laughed. “If we don’t eat now, there won’t be any food left.”

  We joined them at the butcher block island, and comfortable kitchen memories warmed my bones. Lenore hadn't changed the room since Ellen had passed. The walls were still a delicate pale green, offsetting the darker, moss-green cupboards. Dried herbs still hung above the work island.

  Nick stuffed the last of the fried rice into his mouth and checked his phone. “We need to get Emmie.”

  Karin gathered up the empty boxes and dropped them in the garbage bin beneath the sink. “Would you mind getting Emmie and coming back for me? I think there’s something my sisters and I still need to do.”

  His brow furrowed. “You're not going into the woods again, are you? If that thing's going after kids, it might decide to upgrade to grown women.”

  “We're staying in.” Lenore grabbed a sponge from the sink and wiped down the butcher block island. “But we need to do some magic to get a better feel for what's happening. That will work best with the three of us together.”

  “And without me pacing the kitchen.” Nick braced his large hands on the island and lifted himself from the high stool. “I get it.” He kissed Karin on the forehead. “I'll be back in an hour. Will that be enough time?”

  “It should be.” Lightly, she ran her thumb along his jaw. “Thank you.”

  He kissed her and left. We were silent in the kitchen until we heard the engine of his SUV, the crunch of his tires on gravel.

  “So, what's the plan?” Karin set her glass in the sink.

  “We're testing your theory that Brayden's being magically influenced,” Lenore said.

  “Great,” she said. “How?”

  “Jayce is going to journey. We'll support her.”

  “Great,” she repeated. “How?”

  “For Jayce,” Lenore said, “I think it's best if we keep things simple.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly.

  Lenore angled her head toward the door. “I'll meet you in the living room.”

  Karin and I settled ourselves on the ivory couch, and Lenore returned a few minutes later with a tarot deck and candles. We lit the candles on the coffee table and stood in a circle — technically a triangle, since there were only three of us.

  “I call the direction of the East,” we chanted, “element and spirits of the air, Archangel Raphael…” We called in protection, sealing our circle, and my scalp tingled.

  Something rapped at the window, and we started.

  “It’s probably just a bird, attracted by the light.” Lenore laughed uneasily.

  “Right,” I said. A night bird wouldn’t be attracted to light. Not a normal one. “A bird.”

  Lenore arranged me in the soft, cream-colored wingchair, and Karin sat on the floor behind me. I couldn't see what she was doing, but I felt her energy, warm and light, streaming into the back of the wingchair.

  Lenore stood in front of me and drew a Tarot card from the top of the deck. The card depicted a man in ancient robes and wearing a shaggy fur tunic. His knees were on the green, flat earth, cut by a gray sphere that divided the world from outer space. One hand raised, he stuck his head through the barrier and studied the black cosmos beyond. His other hand carried a staff, smoke rising from the end. A full moon looked down on his efforts.

  “The picture’s familiar,” I said, “but I don't recognize that card.”

  “It's a special deck with extra cards,” Lenore said in a lulling voice. “This is you, the Seeker. Now relax. Look at the picture until you can see it with your eyes closed… Now close your eyes and see the image on the card in your mind's eye. See it grow bigger, until it's life size. Now imagine yourself stepping into the card.”

  I stood beside the man. He didn't seem to notice me, his head on the other side of the barrier. It almost looked as if his head had been cut off… like the anthrophage. I drew in a quick breath at the memory.

  I swallowed. This was a journey, and he was an imaginary person. Not even an anthrophage – which he wasn't – could hurt me here.

  The scene polarized, turned white, and then the blackness of space surrounded me. I twisted my head toward the only illumination, a blinding moon. Transfixed, I stared at it, cold frosting my cheeks, my vision a blur of white.

  “Seeker,” a voice whispered.

  My head jerked backward, through the bubble. But the strangely-clothed man was gone. Only the yawning maw of space existed.

  My pulse jackhammered in the infinite darkness. There was no door, no light. Not even the moon remained, and I was small, alone, insignificant.

  I closed my eyes. It’s not real. It’s only a vision that I need to interpret.

  A rustle, like bat wings.

  In Tarot, the moon represented illusion. But the moon wasn't the answer, or it would still be in my vision. The answer was in the darkness. I opened my eyes and thought of Brayden.

  The cauldron of black stirred. My pulse accelerated, my mouth going dry, and I fought the urge to pull away. I rubbed my eyes, and all was still. Had I imagined the movement?

  I focused on my breathing. It’s not real. I’m grounded and safe.

  My breath came in quick gasps. I was hyperventilating. The vastness of space was too much, too real, and I was too small.

  A rattling, slithering sound came from everywhere and nowhere.

  I forced myself to take deep breaths, to think about anything else. To think about why I was here. “Is Brayden being affected by the magic in Doyle?” I asked the darkness.

  There was no response. Because that had been a stupid question? Were we all affected by Doyle? I tried again. “Is Brayden's behavior connected to the magic of the anthrophage?”

  A pinprick of light, a star. The light brightened, grew larger, extending in a vertical line and then expanding along the horizon. A figure, silhouetted against the blaze of white, stepped from it and walked toward me.

  I shielded my eyes, wincing into the glare. “Who are you?”

  The light behind the figure shrank, dimmed.

  A woman stalked toward me. She walked like an empress, hips swaying, movements liquid. On her head, she wore a blood-streaked cattle skull. Her black robes flowed, whispering around her, melting into space. A crystal ball glowed in the claws at the tip of her staff.

  She stepped into a beam of silvery moonlight, and I gasped.

  Her face was a blank.

  She raised her other hand. Something red and gleaming wet beat between her long fingers – a human heart. She squeezed, and blood streamed down her knuckles.

  Agony lanced my chest. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak.

  I jerked away, and I was in Lenore’s wingchair. Clutching its arms, I panted, safe in her cloudlike living room.

  “Jayce?” Lenore asked.

  “I'm all right,” I said. “I'm all right.”

  Karin hurried around the chair and knelt by one arm. “What did you see?”

  I bent forward and rubbed my face. “A woman. A witch holding a heart. It has to be Maya.”

  “You saw her?” Karin asked.

  “No.” I straightened. “Her face was a blank. But who else could it have been?”

  “Describe,” Lenore commanded, and I did.

  “A cow’s skull?” Karin sat lightly on the coffee table. “What could that mean?”

  Lenore rubbed her chin. “It could represent the Egypt
ian goddess Hathor—”

  “It’s Maya.” Jerkily, I stood and paced the living room. “It’s Maya. The woman in my vision had his heart, and Maya’s dating Brayden. His weird behavior outside his house – it’s her.”

  “You don’t know that was Brayden’s heart,” Karin said reasonably. “And even if it was, a vision isn’t evidence.”

  “It is for me!” This was Maya, all Maya. My jaw tightened. And I was going to stop her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Maya.

  Teeth clenched, I spun the radio dial.

  And that was the B-52s, one of my fav eighties rock bands for your Monday morning commute.

  Maya the witch. Maya the murderess.

  Twenty-percent chance of snow above the six-thousand-foot level.

  But why? Why kill all those people? What was her connection?

  My hands tightened on the wheel of my F-150. I drove around the bend of the narrow road to Wharton’s lumberyard. The radio crackled with static, and I slowed, turning into the lot. Sullen gray sky framed the pines, the mill, the lumber store. The clearing echoed with the scream of saws.

  Wharton stood feeding the crows in the same corner of the dirt parking lot beside a stand of pines. The pile of snow against the chain-link fence had shrunk, leaving an uneven patch of dampened ground.

  I zipped my silver parka to the top, tugged down the sleeves of my sweater, and walked to him, scattering the black birds in my wake. The air smelled of freshly cut wood and damp earth. Water dripped from the branches of a redwood tree, darkening the shoulders of his orange parka.

  “Hi, Wharton,” I shouted over the din.

  He tossed a handful of what looked like kibble, and the crows pounced, a whirl of ebony confetti. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know who tied David to a tree on the night he was hazed and vanished.”

  “Alex and Eclectus. They bragged about it the next day.”

  A small knot in my chest loosened. Brayden hadn’t been involved. Of course, he hadn’t. But I’d had to ask. “Just those two? No one else?”

  “I didn't do it!” he snapped. “My whole life I've been blamed for his disappearance — Eclectus and Alex made sure of that.”

  “Then why stay in Doyle?”

  The skin around his mouth whitened, and he looked toward the saw mill. “I couldn’t leave.”

  Because of the saw mill he’d inherited. Unexpected pity squeezed my chest. I understood obligations.

  “Once we realized David was missing,” he said, “they stopped talking about how tough they were. That’s when the rumors started that I'd had a beef with David. It's true, I'd never liked him much. I caught him with an injured crow. Somehow he'd hit one with his slingshot.” His mouth twisted. “That was back in the day when kids still played with stuff like that. He was doing something to the bird's wings, but the crow was fighting. I rescued the bird and nursed it back to health.” His fists clenched. “Crows don't forget.”

  My pulse sped. Wharton had reason to hate both Alex and David. So why admit it to me? I liked to think I was persuasive, but this was too easy.

  But if Wharton was on a revenge kick, why was Eclectus still alive and Candace dead? Had Alex's wife known too much?

  A logging truck rumbled past.

  “At least the truth came out when David returned,” I said.

  He laughed, a sound harsh as the caws of the nearby crows. “David said he didn't remember why he'd been in the woods. But David was a liar.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The way he looked at Eclectus and Alex. He hated them as much as I did.”

  “So why lie?”

  He shrugged, his muscles bunching beneath his plaid shirt. “It wouldn't have mattered if the truth had come out. It's been over twenty years. No one cares, no one really wants to know what happened to the Disappeared. Not in Doyle at least.”

  I shivered in my thick jacket. I wanted to believe there was a magical reason for our town’s willful ignorance. But pretending the Disappeared hadn't happened was just the frightened side of human nature. Denial is often easier than facing the truth.

  “What about Maya?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “Maya Croft.”

  He tossed another fistful of kibble. “Never heard of her.”

  “She bought Mike’s old Victorian.”

  “The new girl in town? Yeah, I’ve seen her around. What of it?”

  “Did you ever see her with David or Alex or Candace?”

  He paused, arm outstretched, still holding a handful of kibble. The crows squawked, impatient. “What’s she got to do with this?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. Please, it’s important.”

  He opened his hand, and the kibble pattered to the ground. “Sorry, I never saw them together.”

  “And with Eclectus?”

  “Nope.”

  An SUV drove past and turned onto the road exiting the dirt lot.

  I took stock. The parking lot had emptied aside from, me, Wharton, and the crows. I edged backward. “Well, thanks for talking to me.” I turned to go.

  “It's David, isn't it?” he asked, halting me in my tracks.

  I faced Wharton, because I hadn't liked the feeling when my back had been turned. “What do you mean?”

  “The trouble started when he came back.” A crow fluttered onto his shoulder. He reached into the pocket of his thick, orange vest and handed the bird a nugget of kibble. Delicately, it took the treat from his fingers.

  Wharton turned away and tossed more food to the birds. The interview was over.

  I walked backward about ten feet, then turned and jogged to my truck, locking the door as soon as I was inside. Wharton was wearing work boots. The prints he’d left in the damp soil looked a lot like the print I'd seen on David's front porch.

  I drove into Doyle, parking in the alley, and checked in on Ground.

  The staff were managing fine without me, so I walked to Angela's boutique, hoping to ask her about Maya. But a CLOSED sign hung in the window. I cursed under my breath. Of course, it was closed on Mondays. Most of the retail shops in Doyle were shuttered today.

  “Looking for someone?” a quavering, feminine voice asked from behind me.

  I spun on my heel. “Mrs. Steinberg!”

  The old lady tapped the boutique’s CLOSED sign with her cane, and her clenched black gloves crackled with age. “Hmph. No work ethic. That's the problem with young people today.” Lowering her cane, she tucked the ends of her pashmina beneath the collar of her thick, black wool coat.

  “Monday's probably Angela’s slowest day.”

  She lowered her Jacky Kennedy-style glasses and peered over them, her brown eyes glittering. “And unlike you, Angela can't afford to hire more help.”

  “Oh?” I asked. In spite of her advanced age, Mrs. Steinberg worked in the town records department and had lived across from Candace and Alex. I should have considered her a source of gossip – I mean intel – earlier.

  “I imagine it hasn't been easy for her since her brother's return,” she said. “She had freedom. Her own business. Then David turned up, and she had to take care of him. And the Returned aren't exactly the easiest to live with. At least, that's what I've heard. Angela stepped up though. I have to give her credit.”

  “David is – was – her brother.”

  She leaned on her cane and shot me an exasperated look. “You and your sisters are lucky. You get along.”

  “Mostly.”

  Mrs. Steinberg laughed.

  “But I did hear that Angela and David argued,” I said slowly, meeting her gaze.

  She cocked a silvery brow. “Did they? Well, the argument probably didn't mean much. Blood is thicker than water.”

  “Angela told me he'd come back changed, that David didn't seem like her brother.”

  She shrugged, her black skirts swaying beneath the thick wool coat. “And la
st month I heard her going at it hammer and tongs with Alex Mansfield, defending her brother.”

  “Defending him?” I lowered my head.

  “She seemed shocked. Angela said she couldn't believe Alex was still hanging on to something that had happened in high school. Then she stormed off in a huff.”

  “I suppose she was talking about the hazing incident,” I said.

  “Oh, so you know about that?”

  “I know Wharton was blamed. But he says Alex and Eclectus were responsible.”

  Cane flailing, she dug an e-cigarette from her giant black handbag and took a draw, exhaled. The smoke smelled of eucalyptus. “What did David say?”

  “According to Wharton,” I said, “David claimed he couldn't remember who’d tied him to that tree.”

  She looked at me shrewdly. “Do you believe that lumberjack?”

  “No. But David's dead, and I can't ask him.”

  “What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” the old lady quoted. “And this deception is especially tangled. I don't think the Sheriff's Department is quite going to get there though, not with all the other pieces in play. Do you?”

  “Other pieces?”

  She tilted her face toward the steel sky. “There’s always been more to Doyle than any of us were willing to admit – especially the sheriff.”

  My scalp prickled. Did she know something about the anthrophage? I extended my senses and scented talcum powder and lavender and arthritis cream, but no magic. I shook myself. I was seeing witchcraft everywhere these days. And I needed to talk to Eclectus.

  “I suppose you'll be wanting to interview Eclectus next,” she said.

  I blinked. “What?” Whoa. How did she—?

  “You said he was one of David's tormentors. And that you thought David had lied, covering for him. And while I'd like to think David dropped the matter out of the goodness of his heart, that's not very likely now, is it?” She shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose, obscuring her eyes.

  “Well, yes, but the police—”

  “He's at Vivian Winery's tasting room.” She nodded down the street. “They're a legal client of his, information I’m sure neither would want to get out.”

  “Why?”