Bait and Witch

by Angela M. Sanders

  I bolted for the stairs, and Sam grabbed the waistband of my pants. I felt the energy buzzing in me again. With it came a streak of fear that made me tremble.

  All at once, Sam let me go, and I stumbled at the top of the steps. He rubbed the back of his head. “Whoa. Where did that come from?” He knelt and picked up a thick book.

  The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Impressive.

  “How do you know the fire was an accident?” I said.

  “You mean you think someone let the balloons go on purpose?” I couldn’t read his expression in the dark. He lowered his voice. “It’s just possible.”

  The volunteer firefighters returned to the fire engine and backed out of the drive. Sheriff Dolby joined us on the porch. Thanks to the moon, it was lighter here than it would be inside.

  “Fried the transformer,” the sheriff said. “Kids must have loosened the balloons. The electric company is sending someone right out to fix it. Won’t be long.”

  I wasn’t going back in the house, not with the windows blown apart and no power. To my relief, Lyndon’s lanky form crossed the garden.

  “I was down at Darla’s after the party,” he said. “Saw the lights blow. Swear I saw flames, too.”

  “The transformer,” the sheriff said.

  The library had been on fire, I remembered breathlessly.

  “No kidding,” Lyndon said. “What happened to the windows? Must have been some party after I left.”

  Somehow, I’d done that, too. “Broken,” I said. Duh.

  “Do you think you could board them up tonight?” Sam asked. “It’s not safe the way it is. I’ll help.”

  Lyndon was already training a flashlight around the first floor. “Looks worse than it is. Really only two windows and the French doors to take care of.” Without waiting for a reply, he left for the tool shed.

  “You can wait with me,” Sam said. “Just until the power comes back. It will be safer that way.”

  “No.” The word shot from me with force. “Sheriff, how about I stay with you? Or go down to Darla’s? Can you take me?”

  “She thinks you did it,” Sheriff Dolby told Sam. “You’d better tell her.”

  “Tell me what?” I looked from man to man.

  Sam pulled something from his back pocket. Instinctively, I stepped behind the sheriff.

  “Here,” Sam said. “It’s all right. Look at this.”

  It was some kind of ID in a leather case. It was too dark to read, but I felt the badge clearly enough. “Police?” I said.

  “FBI.”

  * * *

  Sheriff Dolby nodded. “It’s okay. Sam’s square. The Bureau coordinated with us. Sorry, Josie. I wanted to tell you earlier, but I couldn’t.” He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and stared up at the power pole. “I could have sworn I saw fire.” He shook his head. “Some kind of miracle.”

  “Are you all right waiting with me now?” Sam asked. “I’ll fill you in.”

  “You’d better go,” the sheriff said. “Until the power is on and the windows are boarded up. I’ll stay and help Lyndon.”

  “Can I get a coat?” With the night, the temperature had dropped. The adrenaline dissipating in my bloodstream seemed to leach whatever heat had been left in my body.

  “Too dark up there. All those books on the floor—too much chance of getting hurt,” Sam said. He shrugged off his coat, a wool tweed lined in quilted fabric, and draped it over my shoulders. It was still warm from his body and smelled vaguely of something piney and green.

  We crossed the garden and waved at Lyndon, who carried a large flashlight and a toolbox. The damp grass soaked into my shoes. At the garden’s edge, overlooking the Kirby River, a gravel path led to Big House. We arrived at the back porch.

  “Have a seat here. I’ll grab a few blankets.” He disappeared into the back door.

  The porch was small—really only big enough for a cook to pull up a chair and string beans. A table barely an arm’s width and two wooden chairs were stationed to the right of the door. I took the far chair.

  From here, I saw that Big House was on higher elevation than the library. Moonlight reflected off the library’s upstairs windows. Below me, beyond the cottonwoods, flowed the Kirby, and the lights at Darla’s and the trailer park lay like a pocketful of diamonds carelessly tossed on a velvet blanket. Beyond them, the valley disappeared into the coastal mountain range. Above the house—I drew in a sharp breath—the stars were crisp pinpricks of light. So many stars. Slowly, I relaxed.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Sam had returned. He handed me a heavy wool blanket and settled into the chair opposite mine. “I’ve lived in L.A. for years and had forgotten how beautiful the sky was. When I was a kid, we could even see the Milky Way.” He stretched out his legs and folded his hands over his midsection. “I always thought Great-Grandad should have made this the front of the house. But no. It was like him to turn his back on the town.”

  “Los Angeles. That’s where you live?”

  “For ten years now. We moved there after the FBI academy.”

  We. He didn’t wear a wedding ring. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself. “So, why are you here? You were sent to keep an eye on me, weren’t you? That’s why you’ve been lurking.”

  “Ouch, but yes. The Bureau has been watching you since you reported the conversation you overheard at the Library of Congress.” He let out a long breath. “Your code name is Broomstick.”

  “What? You couldn’t have chosen, say, ‘Book Girl’?”

  “Don’t take it wrong. It’s your hair. We always choose a two-syllable name. One of the agents said she got a witchy hit from all those red curls, and that was it.”

  “What’s your role? Specifically? You’re not here to take me in, I guess, or you would have already done it.” The sound of a hammer and nails drifted across the yard.

  “You’re being what we call ‘ghosted.’ It’s not easy to ghost someone in a small town, so the Bureau searched their records for a local agent. When they found out I was raised in Wilfred, they sent me the same afternoon.”

  “To protect me?”

  “Yes. That and . . .”

  “And what?”

  “Let me start at the beginning. When you overheard the conversation between Senator Markham’s aide and the lobbyist from Bondwell, we already had wind of possible graft. Your evidence is what moved the case from ‘possible’ to ‘definite.’ Then your colleague—”

  “Anton,” I said.

  “Followed the lobbyist—”

  “What?” I pulled the blanket more tightly around me. “He did what?”

  “He tracked down Richard White and confronted him.”

  “I had no idea.” Anton. “That’s why he disappeared.”

  “Not disappeared. We know where he is, and he’s safe. Don’t worry.”

  Anton was safe. Deep in my chest, something softened and unwound. Maybe I was safe, too. At that moment, a star shot in a wide arc over the valley, vanishing in seconds.

  “Did you see that?” I said.

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” Sam’s chair creaked as he shifted. “Just think of everyone who saw that shooting star. Made wishes on it. Thought it was a sign. It’s just a meteoroid probably no bigger than a loaf of bread.”

  “It’s more than that,” I said. “All those people who see a shooting star and wish on it give it meaning. It’s more than space debris.” I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something in Sam’s cavalier attitude about the star irked me. “Anyway, you didn’t tell me what it was exactly that you’re doing here, if it isn’t to protect me.” Then another thought occurred. “How did you find me, anyway? I haven’t used my phone or my credit card.”

  “It wasn’t difficult. You told your boss you were going on vacation in New York. As you said, you didn’t use your credit card. How would you pay your hotel bill?”

  He had a good point.

  “And why would you withdraw so much cash from your bank account, if
not to make a getaway?”

  “But here? How did you trace me to Wilfred?”

  “We found the job listing on your browser history at work.”

  He knew a lot more about me than I did about him. “I bet you found things in my apartment, too. I hope you at least watered the plants when you broke in.”

  A pause in the hammering told me Lyndon and the sheriff had moved to another window.

  Sam’s voice tightened. “Josie, we didn’t search your apartment.”

  “Somebody did. The landlord told my sister someone had broken in and left the door unlocked.”

  “It wasn’t us. I’m not surprised, though. Bondwell and White know where you are.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Like I said, I’m here to keep an eye on you. Part of that is to watch for anyone sent to keep you quiet—whether it’s to bribe you, or—”

  “I’ve got it. You don’t have to say it.” An angry humming filtered out from Big House. Books. Big House must have its own library.

  “If we can nail Bondwell and Richard White, the case is closed. Slam dunk,” Sam said.

  “So, you’re using me as bait?”

  A moment passed, then two, without a response.

  “I’ve been going about my business, and the whole time you’re expecting someone to show up and pick me off, is that it?” I said.

  “It’s too late.”

  I closed my eyes and willed the books to rest. I didn’t need another disaster like the one I’d caused at the library. “You mean they know where I am?”

  “You know the body you found the day after you arrived?”

  I nodded.

  “January Stephens. She’s been on our list for a while now, and she was coming for you.”

  “To do what?” The words came out as barely a whisper.

  “To do whatever it took to shut you up.”

  All at once, lights flooded the library’s ground floor and snapped on behind us in Big House’s kitchen, along with the hum of a refrigerator and the sheriff’s whoop.

  “For me? Are you sure?” Even as I said the words, I knew he was right.

  “Almost certainly. I can’t tell you who hired her—if we knew that, we’d have all the evidence we need to close out the case—but she wasn’t a small-time operative.” Then, in a quieter voice, “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not here to protect me, are you?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Like I said. I’m simply bait.” I rose from my chair on Big House’s kitchen porch and dropped the blanket on the seat. I shed the coat Sam had lent me.

  “I’ll walk you back,” he said. “With lights and secure windows, you’ll be safe.”

  “Don’t bother.” I marched down the stairs, hugging my arms. I had some thinking to do.

  “I’m here if you need me,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The library’s lights were on, but the place was a shambles. Lyndon and the sheriff had nailed boards across the broken windows. I dodged scattered books to close the curtains so I didn’t face the damage.

  I took the stairs to the second level to inspect once more where fire had scorched the walls and roared over the hall, and, once again, the undamaged railings and smooth plaster flabbergasted me.

  I examined my hands, turned them in front of me. They were average enough looking. I filled my lungs with air and released it. Normal.

  But I was not normal. I had some kind of unearthly power, and it had surfaced over the past week. An echo of the fear I’d felt earlier flashed through me. All that power, and all the destruction.

  I hurried upstairs to the phone on my apartment’s kitchen wall. This time I didn’t bother to hide my phone number. The secret was out. I settled into a wooden chair at my tiny kitchen table. It was almost 2 a.m. eastern time, but I didn’t care.

  “Hello?” my mother answered uncertainly.

  “It’s me, Josie.” Of course she’d known that, or she wouldn’t have picked up.

  “What is this area code? Aren’t you in New York?”

  “No,” I said curtly. “Oregon. Way out in the sticks.”

  “I don’t understand. I—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me I’m a witch?”

  My mother’s choked breath in my ear sounded so close I could nearly feel it, yet she was thousands of miles away. “Oregon, huh?” she said. “That would do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Break your grandmother’s spell.”

  Anger burned a hot track through my chest. She’d known my power. She’d known what I could do—what I could destroy—all along. I put my feet on the table’s other chair and leaned back. This was going to be a long conversation.

  Rodney had appeared from nowhere and leapt onto the table. He lay on his side and groomed a paw.

  I forced myself to take a long breath through my nose, like Jean had taught me from her yoga training. “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”

  “Beginning of what?”

  I knew this ploy. It was a way to buy time. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe when dinosaurs ruled the earth? Or, say, with the big bang?”

  “There’s no need to get smart.”

  I put my feet on the floor and sat up. “Well, how about this spell you mentioned?”

  “That’s too hard to explain without starting earlier.”

  “Something happened, didn’t it?”

  “Honey. I’m not sure where to begin.”

  I pressed a finger to my shoulder. “How about my birthmark? Why don’t you start with that?”

  “You were born—”

  “I know!”

  “Calm down, Josie. I’m serious.” I heard her finger ticking against the phone, but her voice bordered on weepiness, not exasperation. “Are you calm now?”

  “I’m fine. Go on.” I softened my voice. Whatever had happened, Mom meant well. I knew that.

  “You’re right. You’re a witch. So am I. So are your sisters, and your grandmother was, too, as were her mother and all the women back to Scotland.”

  I thought of Toni and Jean. Sure, we understood each other in a way many sisters didn’t, but I couldn’t imagine either of them busting windows by thought alone. All of those books flew across the atrium like the glee club from Poltergeist High had been let loose.

  “The difference,” Mom said, “is the star-shaped birthmark on your shoulder. You’re marked. You have power none of the rest of us does. So did my mother—your grandma.”

  “You’ve always seemed ashamed of the birthmark.”

  “It wasn’t shame. It was fear.”

  Fear, I could understand. A lot of raw power had rushed through me tonight. “I thought I was going crazy.”

  “It’s like this. Each of us has a personality trait that defines our role in the world. You’re a truth teller. You’re compelled to help the underdog and right wrongs. You can’t deny that.”

  “No. You’re right. I wouldn’t be way out here in the middle of nowhere if I wasn’t.” Rodney rubbed his head on my hand, and I scratched his ears. He sure was affectionate tonight. “What about the rest of us? What are Toni and Jean’s traits?”

  “They’re healers. Grandma was, too. She specialized in herbs. She could talk to plants, and they’d tell her what they could do for her.”

  A week ago, I would have laughed at this conversation. Talk to plants? How ridiculous was that? Tonight, I was rapt. “Books,” I said. “Books talk to me.”

  “I thought that’s the way it would be. It seemed inevitable. If Gerard didn’t have so many books around—”

  “You can’t blame Dad for my love of books. I would have found them without him.” Instinctively I reached for the closest book available, a Betty Crocker cookbook. A recipe for vegetable stew leapt to mind. Perfect for a fall night. “Why books?”

  “I don’t know a lot about being a witch. I—I deliberately left it behind. But from what I understand, in our family, witches gravitate to a source
of energy to fuel their magic. You’ve always loved to read, so your energy comes from books.”

  “From the stories themselves?”

  “From the authors and also from the people who have invested energy in reading the story. All that emotion evoked, you can call it up.”

  “What is your gift?”

  “I’m a seer,” Mom said. “Although I’ve done my best to ignore it. Some things you don’t want to know. We live in a different world than even your grandmother did. My magic is minor compared to yours, anyway.”

  She saw something that had to do with me. I knew it. “What do you see in me? Tell me, Mom.”

  I felt rather than saw her shake her head. “Family legend has it that the last time a marked witch in the family was a truth teller, she was burned at the stake. In Scotland, a few hundred years ago. The town clergyman was abusing girls, and Grandma Ailith couldn’t take it. She drove the clergyman out of town, but she paid for it with her life.” Her voice faltered. “When you were in kindergarten and your birthmark began to appear, I saw horrible things.”

  The kitchen light, feeble as it was, glowed reassuringly, and the library’s furnace chugged away, but I felt more alone than I’d ever been. “What kind of things?”

  “You’re an adult—just like you are now—and you’re screaming. I felt—I felt . . .”

  “Felt what?”

  “Josie, you were going to die.”

  I was beginning to understand what had happened. Still purring, Rodney dropped to my lap. “What did you see, exactly?”

  “Night. A creepy old house. Some kind of tower. You were struggling, and it was a long way down. There was a hand on your neck.”

  My fingers froze in Rodney’s fur. Mom might have been describing the library’s tower. I cleared my throat. “So, you had Grandma suppress my magical abilities.”

  “She didn’t want to. She said you needed to learn to manage your power, that it was the best way to control it.”

  Grandma had been right. “What kind of spell was it?”

  “A containment spell. You had to drink a tincture—I doubt you remember it. It was so long ago.”

  At her words, a chill ran through my body. I did remember. My dream. A full moon, Grandma’s garden. They’d roused me from bed and walked me, still groggy, to the damp strawberry patch. Grandma pulled back my robe and let the moonlight fall on my birthmark. Then she wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and told me to drink from a small glass cup.