Chapter 14
BY THE TIME I got home, it was past one. I foraged in the refrigerator for something to eat, made a sandwich and then carried it out to the backyard and sat at my picnic table. Along with my phone, I also took the new spellbook I had bought.
A light breeze wafted past, and a veil of clouds moved in. It was in the mid-seventies, warm but not too warm, and I ate my roast beef sandwich before I began to flip through the spellbook. The words were a puzzle, but as I skimmed through the pages, a smattering of my German came back. But it wasn’t enough to ensure accuracy.
Kelson didn’t know the language—I had asked her, but maybe Aegis could speak it. Or…maybe Franny? But something told me to hold off on asking her. I wasn’t sure why, but my intuition warned against it. Closing the book, cautious not to spill any ketchup or mustard on it, I pushed it back and finished off the sandwich. I also had a bag of chips. My trainer Wilson would smack me for eating them, but the past week had been entirely too stressful and if I wanted potato chips, I was going to have them.
“Hey, Maddy.” Ralph peeked over the back fence. “Can I talk to you a minute?”
I didn’t feel like talking to Ralph, but waved him in. “Come on over. Have a seat.”
His hooves clip-clopped like those of horses on cobblestones as he entered the gate and crossed the pavement to the edge of the lawn. He looked particularly good today, which surprised me. Usually Ralph washed up a little scruffy. But today his hair was silky and shining, and his leg fur—visible below the hem of his shorts—was also looking clean and brushed. He was wearing a button-down shirt open to just above his bellybutton, and carrying some sort of booklet or paper in his hand.
As he approached, he sat down on the other side of the table, glancing at my spellbook. “That’s an old one, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Well, it’s a hand-written replica, so new but yes, very old. You don’t speak German, do you?”
He blinked, then laughed. “No, Maddy, not a word. Hey, I wanted to ask you about something. I thought we might go in on some joint advertising for Labor Day weekend. You know, we could advertise something like… ‘For a romantic getaway, stay at the Bewitching Bedlam. If you want something spicier, come to the Heart’s Desire Inn.’ ”
I stared at him. Who was this and what had he done with Ralph? Instead of a belligerent rival, I was facing what seemed like a reasonable fellow business owner.
“That might actually work. What gave you this idea?” What I wanted to ask was, When did you start taking meds? But that seemed rude.
He blushed. “It was actually Ivy’s idea.”
“Ivy?”
“Ivy Vine. She’s my new girlfriend.”
“Ivy Vine. Okay, so who is she? When did you start seeing her?” I had never heard of Ralph actually having a girlfriend, let alone a new one.
He didn’t seem to notice my sarcasm, but instead, rambled on.
“She’s a wood nymph. I met her at a full-moon party last month, up at Durholm Hall. She’s so nice and pretty. I’ve never been much good with women—well, when it comes to relationships—but Ivy’s changed all that. I’m head over heels for her, Maddy. She convinced me to stop drinking so much, though I still party with my brothers once a week, but there seems to be so much more to do now.” He stopped, blushing again. “I’m sorry, I talk too much.”
“No, not at all.” Far be it for me to discourage him from better habits. “She sounds lovely. Bring her by some time. I think this would be a great advertising plan, except that right now I’ve got a bit of an emergency on my hands that’s requiring most of my attention. But if you can wait for a week or so, I hope it will be cleared up and we can talk then.”
And that would give me time to see if Ivy’s influence was holding steady. I wasn’t about to tie myself to any promises with a satyr who had, until recently, been one of my avowed rivals. His avowal, not mine. Ralph and his brothers had tried to ruin my business several times and it resulted in more than one misfortune.
“That’s fine. How about if I check in with you a week from Monday?” He pulled out his phone and marked the date on the calendar.
“Sounds good. I’ll talk to you then.”
As he started to leave, he saw Bubba and Luna bouncing across the lawn. “You get a new cat?”
“Yeah, I confiscated her from another neighbor. Not a very nice woman, but she’s moving and I said I’d take her cat to stop her from killing the poor baby.”
“Well, she’s pretty. You’d better make sure she’s spayed, though. Those two are giving off sex pheromones like nobody’s business.” And with that, he waved and left.
I PUT IN a call to Sandy’s vet—the one who looked after Mr. Peabody, her skunk. “I need to bring in a new pet to find out if she’s been spayed and to check her out. She’ll probably need her shots, too.”
“Kitten?”
“No, adult, I think.” I made an appointment for the next week and checked that off my to-do list. Then, carrying the spellbook, I went back inside and washed my plate. Feeling at a loss, I thought about calling Max to ask about Sandy, but stopped. He would have let me know if anything had happened—good or bad. Restless, nervous about the meeting with Irena, I decided to clean out a couple of the trunks in the basement we hadn’t gotten to.
Franny popped in to keep me company. “I remember that one,” she said, pointing to one of the older trunks. “That was my aunt’s. I don’t remember it being here, so my mother probably got it after I died.”
It felt odd to hear Franny talk about her own death so casually, but then again, she was entitled to, if anybody was. She hovered near it as I took a wet cloth and washed off the layers of dust and grime that had settled on the lid in the past couple hundred years.
The trunk was lovely. Cedar, the wood still retained a soft glow and the craftsmanship was incredible. A name was carved on the lid. I ran my fingers over the letters. “Everly.”
“That was my aunt’s name. As I said, the trunk belonged to my aunt. She was married, with two sons, but both of them passed on early. They were both born shortly after I was—one was two years younger than me, the other four years younger than me. One died from pneumonia when he was five, and the other was involved in a hunting accident when he was thirteen. Everly and her husband William didn’t get along, but there wasn’t much in the way of divorce back then, especially for humans on the island.”
A question had occurred to me a while back, but I had hesitated to ask. “How did your family come to live on Bedlam? Surely the Otherkin here would have been frightening to them. And Bedlam keeps itself cloaked to a lot of humans.”
Franny sat on one of the nearby chairs. Actually, she sat through it, not quite level, but I decided not to point it out.
“My father belonged to the Esoterica Spiritualist Society. So did my aunt’s husband. My mother and aunt weren’t much into it, but it didn’t bother them as long as they had their pretty houses and food and some standing in the social circles. In fact, there was quite a little congregation of them here in Bedlam at the time—at least ten families, all human. Most of them came here because they knew that the Otherkin wouldn’t look at them as devil worshippers. So my parents settled here shortly before I was conceived. I think they arrived in 1788. I was born in 1791.”
That explained a lot. It also explained why Franny had been so keen on reading. Most young women were discouraged from learning too much, but members of some of the secret societies believed in teaching their daughters to think for themselves.
“Shall we see what belonged to your aunt?” I lifted the lid. “Was she your father’s sister or your mother’s?”
“My mother’s. They were very much alike.” Franny leaned over to peer into the trunk.
I pushed the lid fully open. Inside, there were two levels—a short top tray that had some jewelry, a fan, a few dance cards with faded, spindly writing on them. I carefully lifted the tray out and set it aside. At the bottom were several journals, and something I had not expected to see—a poppet with several pins sticking out of it. I hesitated about touching it—spells were dangerous to mess with, especially revenge spells, and that was obviously what this was. I cautiously removed the journals and began to flip through them.
“What’s that?” Franny pointed to the poppet.
“A spell of some sort. Revenge, it looks like. People commonly call them voodoo dolls, but the idea of using poppets is older than voodoo itself. Either your aunt put a whammy on somebody, or somebody put one on her and she got hold of the poppet. Let me peek through the journals and see what I can find out.” I carried them over to one of the tables under a light bulb and began to sort through them.
There were three volumes, all leather bound. They were, of course, handwritten. I flipped through the first, which appeared to be a household budgeting book for Everly’s home. They spent a surprising amount on food, given most people of that era grew most of their own. Setting that aside, I opened the second, which appeared to be a family journal of sorts. It contained a hand-drawn family tree, and then an entry for every person. I flipped through until I found the entry on Franny.
Frances Elizabeth Smythe. September 28, 1791–August 29, 1815. “Accidental” death. Frances went to her grave unmarried, the victim of a curse set upon her by Abigail Cleaves. This ushered in the Smythe–Cleaves feud, which ended in the violent deaths of Abigail and Timothy Cleaves in 1818.
I looked up. “Did you know about this?”
Franny had a glazed look as she moved around to read over my shoulder. She leaned a little too close and I felt a cold breeze as she actually leaned into me.
“Um, too close.”
“Sorry,” she murmured, backing up a little. “Abigail Cleaves…that was the name of the woman whose son my mother wanted me to marry. I refused. His name was Timothy and he was a jerk, as you put it.”
“He was the one who didn’t appreciate intelligent women?” Franny had told me at one time that her mother had tried to force her to marry a “pig-headed and stubborn” man.
“Yes, he was so set in his ways, I would have thrown myself down the stairs deliberately if I had been forced to marry him. I couldn’t stand him, but he wanted a wife who could just cook and keep account of things, even though he wouldn’t admit that some bubble-headed ditz wouldn’t have been able to do what he wanted.” She laughed. “Timothy was a handsome man, but he had an ugly personality.”
“It looks like your aunt feels Abigail put a curse on you for not marrying her son.” I set that journal aside and picked up the other. Flipping through it, I realized it was a diary. I skimmed through till I came to the date after Franny’s death.
August 30, 1815:
I can’t believe I’m writing this entry, but yesterday, my niece fell down the stairs and broke her neck. She’s usually so careful. I can’t figure out how this could happen to her. But I still sense her spirit around the house. I’m helping my brother-in-law the best I can. My sister, of course, is playing the drama queen, but she always does. I’ve seen the phantasm of my niece three times already, wandering around in a daze. I fear her spirit may be trapped. I’ve looked in her coffin and found a juju doll, and while I destroyed it, I don’t think that countered the hex. The doll has Abigail Cleaves’s energy all over it, and so I will talk to my brother-in-law later about effecting revenge for this. I firmly believe Abigail sent my niece to her death.
“Franny, I think we stumbled on the reason why you’re trapped here. The question is, what can we do about it? If your aunt destroyed the doll, then she destroyed the link to the spell.” I paused, then asked, “I thought you said your aunt wasn’t into the Esoterica Spiritualist Society?”
“I didn’t think she was. She always laughed it off with my mother. Perhaps she didn’t want Mother to know.”
I flipped through a few more pages, then froze. Another entry explained just why Everly didn’t want her sister to know about her participation.
September 19, 1815:
I told my husband I was going to a women’s meeting at the town hall tonight. That kept him quiet enough—he never bothers with anything like that. Denton told my sister he was going to a society meeting tonight, and so he will, after we manage a few stolen hours back of the Landrys’ barn. The Landrys never pay much attention to us, and since they are from the Fae Folks’ realm, they don’t ask questions. Why oh why couldn’t I have met Denton before my sister did? We must scuttle in shadows to catch our love, hiding from prying eyes. While we could attempt divorce, chances are we’d be driven out, even here. My sister has no clue what a good man she married. He tried to give her the love and life she wanted, but all she ever does is whine and grumble, and find fault. I don’t know how much longer we can hide our passion.
“Franny, did you know about this?” I looked up at her.
Franny was staring at the page, a look of startlement on her face. “I had no clue. My father and my aunt…no wonder she came over to visit so often. Mother never knew, that I’m sure of. I was haunting this place then and I never once heard her talk about it. Of course, Mother was so clueless about everything except that which she wanted. If you’ll excuse me, Maddy, I think I’ve had more news than I can handle for one day.”
I murmured a reassuring “Of course” as she vanished. I stared back into the trunk at the poppet. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be the one that had hexed Franny. Everly had burnt that one. Finally, I replaced the lid until I could figure out what to do about it and carried the journals upstairs with me, lost in thought.
THE REST OF the day passed uneventfully. I decided that Aegis and I needed to talk, so I waited down in the basement for him to wake up. As he emerged from his lair, he jumped when he saw me.
“Maddy, is something wrong? Are you all right?”
“Can’t I just…” I started to make a joke, but stopped. I didn’t feel much in a joking mood. “I’m all right, I just thought we should talk and I’ve had a lot to think about during the day. So I came down to wait for you.”
He leaned in for a long kiss, which made me feel better, and then, taking my hand, led me upstairs. Outside, the light had waned and dusk was falling. The skies were clear, and stars were beginning to twinkle into view. He took me out front, where we sat on the porch swing. I had a mad love of porch swings.
“So tell me, what happened last night? You were so upset, and by the time I got home, you had fallen asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.” He looked so concerned that I decided maybe he really hadn’t seen what had happened.
“First, I don’t like your DreamGen rep. Ms. Ferris Parks was condescending as hell. Second, this tour of yours… Have you thought about what it’s going to do to Sid and Sylvia? She’s so overwhelmed with the kids and he’s ignoring his chores, including helping with the kids, and in the bargain, he’s ignoring her. She’s frantic that he’s going to get fed up and leave her. They don’t have help from their families, either, because neither side was happy with the love match.”
Aegis groaned, leaning his head back to stare at the ceiling of the porch. “I didn’t realize that was going on. Come to think of it, though, I do recall Sid complaining about how helping Sylvia with the baby cuts into his practice time, but he acted like it was no big deal.”
“Yeah, well, he may not have a wife and kids much longer if he keeps acting like a pompous ass. If he loves her, he’d better start kicking in more help or find a way to hire somebody to assist her.”
“I’ll nudge him about it.” Aegis stroked my hand. “What else went on today?”
I frowned. “Oh, it was one hell of a day. I fought off killer clowns and a dinosaur, and apparently, I’ve paid some sort of price to Auntie Tautau so that I can breathe underwater tomorrow and try to convince a siren to let me raid her herb garden. Not exactly the easiest day in the world.”
“Tell me everything. I’m listening.” Aegis’s phone chimed right then. He glanced at the text, then muted it. “I’m serious. Fill me in on what’s going on.”
Feeling mollified, I went over everything. Some things he knew, but others he was spotty on or clueless. I included my own insecurities, trying not to accuse him of anything. “I know that it’s my problem, but I figured you should know how I feel.”
When I finished, Aegis crossed his right ankle over his left knee and sat in silence for a moment. “Do you want me to turn down the deal with DreamGen? I will, if you think it’s not a good idea.” He didn’t sound resentful, just concerned.
“No, of course not! But I think you need to convince Sid to balance out his priorities.” I paused, then asked, “Aegis, what are you going to do when you have groupies?”
He laughed. “Are you really so worried? Don’t be. I’ve been around long enough that I can handle a little extra attention without it going to my head or my cock. I’m not interested in one-night stands or young girls throwing themselves at me. And you know my policy about drinking from anybody underaged.”
I had never asked him who he drank from. But now, I couldn’t help it. “What do you look for in a victim? I mean, someone to drink off of?”
Aegis’s smile vanished. “You really are worried, aren’t you? Maddy, I don’t drink from anybody who’s under the age of twenty-one. I don’t drink from anybody with anemia or diabetes or anything I can pinpoint as a problem, and trust me, when I ask them, they do answer. I don’t seduce those I drink from, and I always encourage them to go eat a good steak afterward, or cookies or whatever else they need. I never take more than they can comfortably give. Is it a pain? Yes. Does it take longer to find a meal? Yes. But I won’t do it any other way.”
I let out a deep breath, my shoulders relaxing. “I’m sorry. Seeing Sylvia so upset, and then seeing Sid treat her like her the hired help…it really threw me. I suppose I’m riding high on my emotions, given my worry over Sandy and my mother. Oh! I didn’t tell you what else I found out today.” I filled him in on what Franny and I had discovered. “So I think we know why she’s trapped here, but the question is, how do I break the spell?”
“Does she want you to break it?”
I frowned. I had assumed she wanted free of it, but hadn’t really asked her outright in a while. “I’ll ask again. She was overjoyed at first when I told her I would try to find a cure. But who knows? Things change. People change.”
We went in, and Aegis began baking for the morning. He also made a pan of fudge—one of my favorites—and I kissed him on the cheek as he smoothed the candy to cool.
“Thank you.”
“For what? The fudge? I know you like it, so I thought it would be a nice treat.” He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and poured himself a cup of coffee, adding cream and two sugars.
“Yes…no. Yes, but thank you for being who you are. I think I’d be terribly lonely if you weren’t in my life.” I helped myself to the peanut butter cookies cooling on the rack, and he handed me a mug of coffee, with cream, caramel, and vanilla.
I carried it over to the kitchen nook. Our relationship had settled into a comfortable routine, one that I was perfectly happy with, but I realized as I sat down that I was beginning to think of the future and where we’d end up. I had lived too long to believe in forever, but there were so many potential futures that I was hoping we’d be together for a long time to come.
“Can you swim?”
The question startled me, I had been so wrapped up in my thoughts. “Why, yes. I’m actually a good swimmer.”
“Then you aren’t afraid to go down to talk to that siren tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I just hope I don’t mess things up. We need that herb, and her garden is apparently the only place around the entire area where we can find it. Garret sent me an email about her. He explained that Irena and he had been an item, until things fell apart. She’s got a quick temper, like most sirens, and is incredibly vain, but she’s also apparently shrewd. She sees some opportunity in this, though I’m not sure what it is.”
“Please be careful. I’d like to go with you, but even though I could manage the swim, I can’t go in daylight.” He stroked my cheek. “Promise me you won’t take any unnecessary chances?”
I wanted to promise him, but the truth was, I’d do one hell of a lot to free Sandy from her coma. “I’ll be as careful as I can.”
“Maudlin? I’m sorry to bother you, but there—out back.” Franny appeared, making me jump because she spoke before she materialized.
“What?” I glanced out the side window that overlooked the backyard. There, darting lights danced through the air. They were neon blue, almost white, with sparkles of pink, green, and yellow floating among them. “What the hell? I’ll be right back.”
Aegis followed me as I headed out the screen door, making sure it was shut again so Bubba and Luna couldn’t get out. We rounded the corner of the house. The sliding door led to the patio facing the fence next to the driveway, while the yard extended around the corner of the house back to the woods.
The lights filled the air, like a swarm of fireflies. But we didn’t have fireflies in Washington state. They zipped and darted this way and that, spiraling in loops like a murmuration of swallows.
“How beautiful,” I whispered, raising my hand to my chest.
And they were. The glow was soft and cool, but so brilliant that they almost hurt to look at. They moved in a formation, like the spinning of a kaleidoscope or the twirling skirts of a dancer. Some groups were whirling so fast they were a blur of motion. Other groups of the tiny lights curved sinuously, forming a snakelike figure from their numbers.
“What are they?” Aegis asked, his eyes wide. “I’ve never seen anything quite like them.”
“I don’t know. They aren’t will-o’-the-wisps, that much I can tell you. I don’t know if they’re sentient, or just some form of magical energy that somehow showed up on its own. It doesn’t feel like a hex or a spell of any sort.” I reached out toward a patch of them, and my hand was immediately enveloped, glowing as though tiny sparkling stars were covering it.
“It reminds me of the bioluminescent plankton that occasionally comes in on the tide,” Aegis said. “But this is magical, isn’t it?”
I nodded. The energy surrounded me like a cascade of wild joy, lifting me up, making me want to dance, to twirl in the midst of the sparkling swirls.
“Yeah, it’s heady and intoxicating. I’m not sure what it is, but I feel like I could stay within it forever.” I closed my eyes and a melody began to echo around me. It felt like it was coming from far away, mournful and haunting, and yet, it made me long to run to it, to dive deep into the music. “I can’t pinpoint it. I don’t know what it is, but Aegis, I know this. It’s familiar and yet, like a memory I can’t quite recall.” I began to cry. The music made me want to reach for the source, to blend with it, to lose myself in it, but I couldn’t.
“Maddy? Maddy!” Aegis took hold of my hand and dragged me toward the door. I struggled, trying to get away. I wanted to go back to the lights, to dance within them, to forget everything and become part of their energy.
As we entered the kitchen, he slammed the door shut and pulled me to him, holding me by my shoulders. “Maddy? Maddy, speak to me.” He shook me hard.
I was stuttering, not sure of what I was trying to say, not even sure what the hell was going on. I was reeling, feeling like I had been a long, long ways away. As I began to come back to myself, I realized that I was covered in sparkles, just like the plankton that Aegis had mentioned. Only these lights began to melt away. When the last was gone, Aegis let go of me and I cautiously took a seat at the table.
“What the hell just happened out there?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I have no clue, but all I could think was that I needed to follow the lights. I wanted to join them. Aegis…” I looked up at him with a wary feeling in my heart. “Something is on the move. Something’s coming toward Bedlam, and whatever it is, it’s deadly and dangerous and seductive. I think we’re in for trouble.”
As the clock ticked away the seconds, we watched the lights as they continued to dance in the yard. Then, after a few minutes, they vanished as if they had never been.