CHAPTER Seven
Rachel was ready to go to war with the entire Wimberley colony if she had to. They couldn’t keep her from using magic to right things. After all, wasn’t that what magic was for? To right wrongs?
“Rachel, my precious girl,” Gale said. “My heart is breaking for you, but you can’t use magic to get Dash back.”
“I’ve yet to hear a good reason why not.”
Gale took in a deep breath. “Alright, I’ll give it to you. Some of our rules are about conforming to a sort of universal ethical code that has been understood as right and wrong by every seeker of wisdom or truth for as long as such thoughts have been recorded. They’re universal because they apply to everybody. But since we have more leeway with physics and outcomes, we have more rules than humans. With greater privilege comes greater responsibility.
“Any person, human or witch, who really wants to know whether a thing is right or wrong can, in stillness, look into the dark glass of their spirit and simply ask that question. The answer is always there. Sometimes people ignore it, or challenge it, or rage against it. They may compartmentalize or refuse to believe, but people who do wrong always know. Always.
“Dash is human and he’s suffered brain trauma. He’s damaged.” Hearing her mother use that word to describe Dash brought a new flood of tears streaming from Rachel’s already red and swollen eyes. “It may be temporary. We’re all going to send light and hope it is. But even if it’s permanent, you can’t use magic. This is one of those events that has to play out. You can’t try to force Dash to remember. It’s too dangerous.
“There’s no white witch, black witch. There’s only right and wrong.”
Her mother’s words struck her heart with the full force of righteousness, coupled with the obligation to countless generations of witches who chose the right thing even if it would break them. Rachel walked to her bedroom, closed the door, crumpled against it, began to cry, and didn’t stop.
She was inconsolable. Tears flowed off and on for two weeks, but she never passed an entire hour without weeping. She didn’t bathe. She barely ate. And she didn’t want to talk to anybody.
She refused to wash the sheets because a trace of Dash’s scent lingered on his side of the bed. Sometimes in the middle of the night she went to the garage and simply sat behind the wheel of Dash’s red Audi roadster. He’d left his car with her and taken her SUV to the airport and she was glad. She knew it was probably her imagination to think the car smelled like him, but it felt like a tiny sliver of his spirit lived in that car.
Sometimes she clutched his pillow to her chest for comfort, but it only served as a reminder that a pillow is a poor substitute in the absence of a soul mate.
Twice she entered the vault, which her mother and friends had made her promise not to do, and freed her spirit, not for wandering but for the express purpose of looking in on Dash.
The first time she flew to him so fast that she was there almost instantly. He was alone, sitting on a sofa looking through a wall of glass at the glorious rise of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. He stared straight ahead, unmoving, his body language and expression screamed sadness.
In her diaphanous astral form she had no substance to command. She couldn’t touch him. She couldn’t even sit down next to him. All she could do was hover, reach out with her love, and hope the comfort she wanted to give penetrated the miles.
Watching a tear form and begin the descent down his cheek was her undoing. Her ghostly form was wracked with silent sobs. She railed and screamed and cursed the gods for bringing them together only to separate them in the cruelest way.
Knowing that her ‘visit’ did neither of them any good, she was able to stay away for ten days. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, and had to know how he fared, she made sure her mother was occupied for a time and secluded herself in the vault.
Dash was in a restaurant, or maybe some kind of club, with his brother. His hair had grown a tiny bit over his ears and was beginning to curl. It was boyish. And hot. She liked the hair and the new clothes.
“So you’re officially free from endless tests,” Zane said.
“Small favors,” Dash said, abbreviating the common saying.
“Yeah. So what now?”
They’d gone through the tedious and aggravating process of rebuilding Dash’s twenty-first century documentation. His driver’s license had turned out to be Louisiana issue. He’d never changed it over to Texas. He could have flown to Louisiana to apply for a replacement, but it was only good for ninety days if he didn’t establish permanent Louisiana residency.
So the logical thing was to go through the process of procuring a Colorado license, which meant appointments, written test, driver’s test, hassle, hassle, hassle. They went through Zane’s thorough checklist item by item.
When Dash was issued a temporary permit, Zane took him car shopping. They spent two days hearing pitches and taking test drives. In the end Dash opted for a red Audi roadster. Zane assured him he could have a more expensive car, but that was the car Dash wanted. He’d known it the instant he saw it.
“Now?”
“Let me see if I have it right. You don’t remember your personal history yet.” Zane deliberately appended the word ‘yet’ because, even though with each day that passed the odds of Dash remembering grew smaller, he wanted to keep the door open to that possibility. “But you do remember everything you learned in school. You’ve got a shiny MBA that’s just itching to be put to use.”
“Itching?” Dash raised his eyebrows.
“Yes. What are you thinking? You’re going to spend your life tooling around town? Be a trust bum? A playboy?”
“Let me think. What’s entailed in ‘tooling’?”
“Well, let’s just say you’ve got the car for it.” Dash smirked and popped a raw broccoli floret into his mouth. “Forget about tooling for a minute. Come over to the offices Monday. Let me show you around. I’d bet some serious money that, if you get a close look at operations, you’re going to have some suggestions about how things could be done better.”
Dash bit off half a carrot stick and chewed thoughtfully. “No coat. No tie.”
“Well, we’re not barefoot-in-the-park Silicon Valley. But we’re not stick-up-the-ass Wall Street either. Business casual okay with you?”
Dash shrugged. “I’ll have to check my calendar.” Zane threw a pistachio at him. Dash looked around. “Even I know they don’t allow food fights in Cherry Creek Country Club.”
“Unless you want to bring shame on the family and perhaps get us thrown out, say yes.”
Dash smiled in a way that told Rachel he was becoming comfortable. With his brother. With his altered circumstances. With being back in Denver.
The emotional conflict rent her in two. In some ways Dash’s growing comfort level felt more tragic than his unhappiness had. On the other hand, didn’t real love mean wanting him to be happy? Even if it meant that her life was over?
“Okay,” he said.
“Excellent.” Zane beamed. “Monday. That will give you a couple of days to play golf and get your head around becoming a working stiff.”
“You seem pretty sure that I’m going to want to throw in with Fonteneau. If my MBA is as good as you seem to think it is, wouldn’t lots of people want to hire me?”
“Oh, yeah. They definitely would.” Zane grinned. “But nobody’s gonna love you like we will.”
Dash couldn’t help but smile. And couldn’t help but feel his affection for Zane growing daily. For the first time since he’d been found by Jack Berry, he had the desire to ask a question about his past. “Did we, ah, like each other?”
Zane went stock still. “You and me?” Dash nodded. Zane’s eyes grew pinkish as he blinked fast and swallowed hard. “Yeah,” he answered in a raspy voice. “A lot.” He stood suddenly, tossed his linen napkin by his plate and said, “Be right back.”
Rachel watched Zane hurry away so that Dash wouldn’t see the degree of emotion that question dredged up. She loved that Dash had someone close who loved him. She hated that Dash was moving on with his life.
Floating at the same time she felt her heart was growing heavier, she began to slowly fly away. She was so numbed by confronting the fact that Dash was going on without her, that she was almost tagged by one of the ghoulie goblins. She’d never changed what she’d called them as a child. What would be the point in updating the vocabulary? They were what they were.
She darted away before he grabbed the edge of the white garment that draped around her body as she traveled. It wasn’t something she’d ever decided to wear, conjured or designed. She was simply dressed by the powers that be when she traveled and she accepted that for what it was. A principle. It changed size and shape as she grew older and was so light she didn’t even know it was there unless she directed her attention to it.
During Rachel’s time of grief and withdrawal, covens of thirteen or less were convening circles round the clock for the purpose of cocooning her bereft spirit in swirling ribbons of blue, white, and yellow light so that she might turn toward the path of healing and choose life. Because they’d all come to love Dash as one of their own, they would have done the same for him, but were afraid that, even with the best intentions, they might accidentally interfere with the delicate and mysterious circuitry of his brain.
No matter how powerful witches may be, witches are not gods.
At the end of two weeks, Rachel emerged from her isolation to tell her mother and her friends that when she looked into the future, she could not imagine life without Dashiell Fonteneau. She’d made a decision. She’d rather die than live without him.