CHAPTER Three
Rachel had checked the flight status over and over. On time. The plane that was supposed to bring Dash back to her had landed at 9:40 central. Even if he’d checked his bag, he should have been home by midnight. She’d taken a glass of black blend wine and gone up to the second story front balcony, watching for a pair of headlights coming up the hill.
Dash had called that afternoon to say he was just going for a drive to kill time before his flight. He also teased that he’d bought something special.
“What?!?”
He laughed. “Not telling. It’s a surprise.”
“Come on.” She sounded as impatient as a child. “Tell me now!”
“Just a hint. It’s red.”
It was a puzzle he’d mastered beautifully. What do you give a witch when she could basically conjure anything she wanted? Something personal bought with love.
When she didn’t get a call saying that he’d landed and was on the way, she felt a slender tendril of concern slither downward through her solar plexus, but she took a deep breath and mentally swatted away the feeling. Nothing was wrong. It was Dash! Nothing could ever be wrong with Dash because there simply could be no Rachel without Dash.
When she tried his phone at midnight and heard it go directly to voicemail without ringing, the tendril of concern became a wave that threatened to knock her over. But she told herself that mature people don’t panic prematurely. She asked herself when panic might be considered appropriate. The answer that came back was as clear as if the voice inside her head had spoken with actual vocal cords.
“Something is wrong,” it whispered loudly.
She shook her head and said out loud, “Don’t let your imagination get away from you.”
“Something is very wrong,” the voice repeated with added emphasis.
It was one o’clock when she dialed Charisma, who answered the phone sounding sleepy. “Rachel? What’s wrong?”
Charisma didn’t need extrasensory talent to know something was wrong. She’d been friends with Rachel since they were young children. Rachel wasn’t the sort to call in the middle of the night just to chat.
“He’s not home.”
Charisma sat up in bed, trying to clear her head. “Who? Dash?”
“He’s been gone to Denver. His flight landed on time, but he wasn’t on it.”
“How do you know?”
“Just do.” In the enclave at Wimberley answers like ‘just do’ were accepted without question. “I’m scared.” Rachel heard her voice shake a little.
Charisma was up and walking toward her closet.
Jake had rolled over and was up on one elbow. “What’s going on?”
“Dash was supposed to be home tonight. His flight landed. Rachel says he wasn’t on it. He isn’t responding to his phone and she’s worried.” Charisma let Rachel hear the explanation she was giving her husband. Tilting the phone back toward her mouth, she said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Okay.”
“Something I can do?” Jake asked.
“Yes. Call Harmony and tell her to meet me at Rachel’s.”
“Alright. You know Raider is going to want to know if he can come.”
Charisma stopped still for a second and mulled that over. “If he asks, the answer is yes. He might be Dash’s best friend.”
She pulled on jeans, fuzzy slippers and a knee-length cardigan and practically ran for the garage.
The front door of Rachel’s house was standing open with Rachel in the middle so that her silhouette was framed by the inside light. Charisma hurried up the stone steps and gave her a hug. They were still standing at the front door when Harmony arrived.
“Baph’s salts, have you been crying?” she said to Rachel, pulling back from a hug. “There’s no crying. We don’t know what’s wrong yet. Maybe even nothing. He could have missed his flight and his phone is dead.”
When Rachel lifted her gaze to Harmony’s, Harm knew that was wishful thinking. Empty words of reassurance. Something was wrong. So it was time for Plan B.
“Okay. Where’s the wine?”
“Harmony, would you dial the horsepower down for just a second? Let’s find out what Rachel needs. We’re here for her.”
“I know that!” Harmony snapped. Shifting moods, with a sniff, she said, “Rachel. What do you need?”
“I just… I guess… I want to see where he is, but… I think I shouldn’t be by myself.”
The other two women exchanged a meaningful look. Astral travel comes with a host of risks under the best circumstances. These were not the best circumstances.
Rachel’s meaning was clear. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she witnessed a personal tragedy while away from her body.
“Alright. Let’s take a minute and think this through.” Charisma gently ushered her friends to move further inside so that she could close the door. “Let’s go sit in the music room and sort this out.”
Rachel didn’t actually play a musical instrument. But she loved music so much she’d practically made a shrine. It was a lovely space with white walls, wood floors, window seats, stringed instruments on the walls, and a grand piano in the center. The upholstered furniture, a large ‘nap chair’ with matching ottoman and two club chairs, were all upholstered in pale chartreuse linen. The effect was restful, feminine, and so very Rachel.
Charisma knew that, if there was any place in the house that would give Rachel a measure of comfort, it would be the music room.
When Rachel was settled into her favorite spot in the world, her nap chair, Charisma said, “I’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to make some lavender tea. Don’t make any plans until I come back.” She punctuated that with a full stop look that told Harmony she meant business. No plans until she returned.
Charisma practically raced for the kitchen. She called old Moira O’Dunehay then Raider before she began to brew a cup of tea the way only an earth witch can. She started with black tea leaves to encourage Rachel to stay with her body for the time being. She added lavender harvested by Bulgarian witches in the northern shadows of the Balkans for its natural soothing that was a kind of magic in its own right. To that she added a touch of hawthorn and a touch of blue Vervain with a tiny spell to take the bitterness from the latter while leaving the magical properties.
Closing her eyes, Charisma gently added her breath to the steam that rose from the kettle as she envisioned Rachel’s fears dissipating like vapor as they melted into the blessed unconsciousness of sleep.
When she poured the hot water into Rachel’s great-grandmother’s china cup, she stirred the liquid slowly, clockwise, with a spoon that was the purest Sterling, ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent silver, with the teeniest trace of copper just to keep it from melting in the user’s hand.
She’d decided that Rachel needed to be sedated enough to get some sleep. If the morrow brought the worst of news, her friend would need to be strong enough to face it. Witches don’t react well to human drugs or medicines that have been chemically manipulated. So it was a good thing Mother Nature provided the means, and ancestors provided the know-how.
When Charisma returned to the music room with her potion in disguise, Rachel and Harmony were cuddled together on the nap chair. It was wider than a recliner, not as wide as a love seat, but would accommodate two young women who intended to be cozy. Rachel’s head rested on Harmony’s shoulder, phone clutched tightly in her hand.
Rachel’s cat, Hissy Fit, had her back paws on Rachel’s thighs, her forepaws on Rachel’s chest and appeared to be sniffing around her face with curiosity. Hissy had been Rachel’s familiar for thirteen years and apparently was concerned about Rachel’s current state. One of the witches had once said she looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie, with a sleek black coat, yellow eyes, and a perpetually terrified expression. Or at least that was how she appeared to everyone except Rachel.
As the story often goes, the cat had shown up during the week Rachel first expressed puberty. When her mother had opened the door, the cat, who was young at the time, dashed inside, bounded up the stairs to Rachel’s room as if she knew where she was going, jumped on the bed, and flopped down on her side.
Gale ascended the stairs with every intention of finding the stray and expelling it. “There you are,” she said to the cat, who responded by doing Gale the honor of a very slow blink. “Out you go.”
When Gale reached for the cat, somehow it managed to hiss and yowl at the same time, something that would be a physical impossibility in the mundane world. The uninvited feline sprang to all fours, arched its back into a horseshoe shape, and somehow made all the hair on its body stand out straight, which caused two visual effects.
First, it made the cat appear twice as big. Second, it transformed the animal into the nightmare image one might conjure when thinking ‘hell cat’. Not only did the animal shift into something that bore less resemblance to an ordinary house cat than a garden lizard bears to a crocodile, but the thing took a bare claw swipe at Gale’s hand and drew blood.
Gale jerked her hand back and would forever after swear that the cat licked the blood from her claw and smiled. Wrapping her hand in the hem of her shirt, Gale turned to look at Rachel, who had witnessed the event with wide eyes and without a sound.
“Do you want this thing?” Gale asked.
Without hesitation, Rachel nodded enthusiastically.
Gale narrowed her eyes at the cat. “Here’s the deal. If you ever hurt my daughter in any way, you will meet the same fate as Morgause’s blue-eyed cat. If you’re what I think you are, you know what I’m talking about.” The cat plopped back down and looked away as if she didn’t care what else Gale had to say. “Furthermore, you will not strike out at the people who live in the enclave and you will not throw any more hissy fits in the house.”
“Here you go, love,” Charisma said. “Drink this down.”
Rachel sat up. “What is it?”
“Lavender. To calm your nerves.”
There were two sharp raps on the front door before they heard it open. “Hello?” Raider said loudly. “Delivery.”
“IN HERE!” Charisma called over her shoulder.
Rachel’s gaze jerked to Charisma. “Delivery?”
“What’s Raider doing here?” Harmony asked.
Ignoring both questions, Charisma said, “Harmony, find someplace else to sit.” Harmony didn’t look pleased about being ordered around, but she didn’t think it was the time to challenge Charisma. So she vacated the nap chair with no more protest than a dirty look cast Charisma’s way and left it to Rachel.
Moira O’Dunehay toddled into the room with Raider trailing close behind.
None of them, except perhaps Harmony, had ever seen Raider look solemn. He was reliably upbeat, predictably gregarious. Charisma took his demeanor to mean that he had a genuine interest in Dash’s well-being.
“Moira!” Rachel said, sounding as surprised as she felt. Moira was in her eighties and not accustomed to making the rounds at two in the morning. “What are you…?” Rachel’s eyes jerked to Charisma just before she began shaking her head. “No. I need to be awake. Dash may need me.”
Coming closer to Rachel, Moira had already begun to hum. Between Charisma’s special tea and the sound of Moira’s voice, Rachel stood no chance of staying awake.
Moira had the fairly unusual gift of being able to put others to sleep by humming.
When Raider first heard about the decidedly odd talent, he and Harmony were newlyweds and witnesses in a sacred ceremony blessing the newborn child of one of Harmony’s friends. It was the sort of event that required respectful silence from those present. But Raider being Raider, leaned over to Harmony and said, “Just to be clear, when I told you I wanted a Hummer…”
Harmony’s uncontrollable laughter interrupted the proceedings for a full two minutes until she could regain control of her composure. The entire time she alternated between laughter and snorting, Raider looked straight ahead in stalwart fashion giving the impression that he had no clue why his bride had the giggles.
Moira sat in the chair next to Rachel and continued to hum. The cat curled into Rachel’s lap as if she was keeping protective watch. No one knew why Moira’s humming only affected a targeted person, but the community had found her talent extremely helpful in all sorts of situations, especially since anesthesia was not an option for witches. In quiet whispers, when Moira was nowhere around, the other witches sometimes revealed their hope that a younger version would be born among their number or find her way to them before Moira gave up the ghost.
When Rachel was sound asleep, Charisma said, “Thank you, Moira. I know it’s late, but no one can do what you do.”
“It’s my job, Charisma. No thanks are necessary. I’m lighting a candle tonight with a push to bring Dashiell home safely.”
Charisma looked at Raider, who nodded. To Moira he said, “Let me see you home.” To Harmony and Charisma, he said, “I’ll be back after.”
They both silently agreed.
When Raider and Moira were gone, Charisma picked up the throw Rachel kept on the window seat for the twenty days a year that qualified as cold in Wimberley. It was a high end faux fur that looked like mahogany mink and was almost as soft to the touch.
Charisma looked at the cat. “Get up so I can put this over her.” The cat stared at Charisma, but made no move. “You can curl up on this. We need to keep her warm. Don’t make me call Willow.”
The mention of Willow seemed to get Hissy’s attention. Willow could communicate with animals, but she could also compel them. Hell cats don’t like to be compelled. So she jumped down. Charisma tucked the throw all around Rachel and gingerly pried the phone from her hand.
Turning to Harmony, Charisma said, “Now let’s talk about wine.”
“Right behind you, sister.”
When Raider returned he peeked into the music room. When the cat bared fangs at him, he rolled his eyes and proceeded to the kitchen, where he found the other two witches sharing a glass of chardonnay.
“Is that her phone?” Raider nodded toward the phone on the table.
“Yes,” Harmony said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. We checked. Have you tried calling him?”
“I did. I also got Pete up and made him hack the flight manifest to see if Dash made the flight. He didn’t.”
The three looked at each other. “So he’s in Colorado,” Charisma said absently. “She said she talked to him a few hours before the flight. He was anxious to get home. Said he had a present for her.”
Harmony took a sip of wine and set the glass down. “If we don’t hear from him by tomorrow morning when she wakes up, we’re not going to be able to keep her in her body. She’s going to find him wherever he is.”
“I know. I think we should call Elspeth,” Charisma said.
Harmony nodded. “Her mother has to know, but not until morning.”