DoubleDown V (17 page)

“You don’t understand,” Avandale said. “You need to listen to us.”

“So now you’re an expert on what I need, are you? I think this conversation has gone on long enough.”

She turned and hurried off toward her car.  Behind her she heard Boden call out, “Just trust your instincts, Karen. I sense great power in you running below the surface.”

Karen did not stop or look back. She pushed her way through everyone in her path, not pausing until she reached her car. Once she was inside with the doors locked, she glanced over her shoulder, afraid she would see the two witches coming after her, but much to her relief they were nowhere to be seen.

She started the car and pulled away from the curb, heading back toward campus.

*   *   *

Boden and Avandale sat down on a bench just outside a Thai restaurant. “I told you the direct approach wouldn’t work,” Avandale said.

“We’re trying to save the girl from Morgane’s deception; it just doesn’t seem right for us to use deception to do it.”

“What Morgane is planning…well, we have to do everything we possibly can to stop her. You felt it as well as I did, Karen is brimming with potential, more than she realizes. And you can bet Morgane senses it and plans to use it to her advantage. Do you want to see her succeed?”

“Of course not. Maybe we can talk to Karen again. This method was a bit of an ambush; you were right about that. But maybe the situation can still be salvaged. You’re closer to her age, maybe if you could talk to her one-on-one….”

“I think we’ve botched that idea.”

“Maybe someone else from the coven. Maybe they won’t even have to introduce themselves as part of the coven. They could get to know her first, win her trust.”

“You don’t think Karen’s going to run straight back to Morgane and tell her about us? I’m sure Morgane will give her the rundown on all of us, maybe even show her photographs. I think we’ve missed our shot to approach her directly.”

“So you think…?”

“We better meet tonight,” Avandale said. “I think we’re going to have to call on Jacoby.”

Penelope lived in a quiet residential neighborhood. Not a gated community, but one with nice, prefabricated homes, each a variation on one of four- or five-floor plans. Penelope’s was a one-story, two-bedroom ranch-style with an attached garage, a small vegetable garden in the side yard, and a bed of hydrangeas out front.

“Not exactly what I was expecting,” Karen said as the librarian ushered her into the small, rather messy living room.

Penelope shoved some magazines and books from the left side of the sofa to the already cluttered right side. “What, did you think I’d live in a gothic castle or maybe a decrepit old house with creaking doors and lightning striking overhead?”

Karen felt herself blush. “I don’t really know what I was expecting. I’m just being dumb.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better,” Penelope said with a good-natured smile, “my broomstick’s in the kitchen.”

Laughing, Karen sat, causing a small avalanche of books to tumble onto her lap. She gathered them up and stacked them on the floor by her feet. Aleister Crowley was on top. Karen vaguely knew the name, thought he had some connection with black magick but wasn’t really sure.

“I made some tea. You sit tight and I’ll go fetch it.”

Karen nodded as Penelope disappeared down a short hallway that presumably led to the kitchen. Left alone, Karen smoothed her skirt then let her eyes dart around the room. It wasn’t exactly a pigsty, but there was a thin layer of dust on every surface. A wineglass with a red residue sat on a moisture-ringed coffee table, which was also laden with books and loose papers. A bookshelf in the far corner was ironically empty of books, containing instead porcelain figurines, as well as a shelf of colored crystals. The fireplace was filled with soot so thick it might have been accumulating for the past decade. There were boxes lined up along the walls, as if Penelope had just moved in, despite the fact that she’d told Karen she’d lived in the house for over a year.

Penelope came back into the room carrying a burnished silver tray on which sat a ceramic teapot and two mismatched cups. There was little room on the coffee table for the tray, so she balanced it precariously on a stack of books.

“It’s Rooibos, a South African vanilla tea.”

Karen took one of the cups and sniffed at the steaming brew. “Smells good. I’m not sure I’ve ever had hot tea before.”

“Well, we are in the South, home of the Sweet Iced Tea,” Penelope said, taking her own cup and sitting on the arm of a recliner piled high with file folders and loose paper. “You’ll have to excuse the mess. Believe it or not, I actually straightened up before you arrived.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Karen said, thinking of her younger brother Kip’s room back in West Virginia.

“I tend to be a bit of a scatterbrain, and that seems to manifest itself in a cluttered house.”

“Your office at the library is pretty neat.”

“Well, you’ll notice I have very few personal items at the office. That’s the only way I can keep it tidy.”

Karen nodded and sipped her tea. It tasted quite delicious. Warmth spread down her throat and into her stomach.

“So,” Penelope said, “once we’ve finished our tea, I’ll take you out back and show you my Circle. Have you thought about a name?”

Karen chewed on her lip for a moment, then nodded.

“Don’t be shy. Let’s hear it.”

“I was thinking about…Still Waters.”

“Still Waters…,” Penelope said, stroking her throat. “I like it.”

“You do? Really?”

“Yes, fitting I think. Has sort of a Native American ring to it.  In fact, some members of my old coven had Native American-sounding names.”

Karen’s body clenched, and she wondered if the librarian was reading her thoughts or if this was mere coincidence. She’d gotten quite good at shielding her thoughts but she hadn’t been trying. Either way, this was the perfect opportunity. “Well, actually, since you bring it up—”

“Ah, you were contacted by some of my old friends, I take it?”

“Yes, I don’t even know how they knew who I was.”

“I think they’ve been keeping tabs on me ever since our paths diverged. I figured it was only a matter of time before they approached you, although I’ll admit I didn’t expect it to be so soon, otherwise I would have warned you. Who was it?”

“The man called himself Night Eagle and the woman Crashing Waves.”

“Those two,” Penelope said with a chuckle. “What did they tell you? That I’m a wicked old witch and someone needs to drop a house on me?”

“Something like that. They said that you were banished from the coven?”

“That’s true, they did ask me to leave.”

“Why?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Nothing specific. Just something about you trying to break the ‘natural laws,’ or something to that effect.”

“And therein lies the conflict between me and them. They have self-imposed too many constraints and limitations on themselves.”

“I’m not sure I’m following.”

“You know what I hate about Christianity? Too many arbitrary rules and restrictions about right and wrong. With the Earth Religion, such concepts are irrelevant. Not to say there aren’t ethics, but they are…bendable. Ultimately the only real rule is to respect the power you wield. But the coven…well, they came up with all these regulations about what we should and shouldn’t do, minimizing what we could accomplish because they deemed too much power ‘wrong.’  They were getting a little too Christian for my taste, and when they found out I was attempting some of the spells they had forbidden, they booted me.”

Now Karen leaned forward, enthralled. “What kind of spells?”

Penelope was silent for a moment, looking indecisive, as if unsure what to tell Karen. Finally she sighed and said, “Well, the one that I think did it was when I attempted to reanimate a dead dog.”

“Reanimate? Wait, you mean…you brought a dead dog back to life?”

“Let’s just say I made the attempt. It didn’t exactly go as planned.”

“So it didn’t work?”

“Yes and no. The dog was reanimated in that it moved around, but it did not breathe, its heart did not beat. It was not truly alive.”

“So it was…what? A zombie?”

“More like a puppet, I’d say, with my power pulling the strings.”

“And the coven wasn’t happy about it?”

“That would be a major understatement. They reacted as if I’d raised a zombie horde of undead animals to kill babies and rape old women or something. For them, there was no middle ground. Didn’t matter that my spell was unsuccessful; the very attempt was enough to get me kicked out. They said I didn’t respect the natural laws of life and death.”

Karen opened her mouth, then closed it. She didn’t want to offend Penelope, but there were things she felt she needed to know. “So you don’t think there’s anything wrong with attempting to bring the dead back to life?”

“Do you?” Penelope asked with an intense stare that caused Karen to glance down into the murky depths of her tea.

“I don’t know. I mean, it does seem kind of unnatural.”

“Do you think death is natural?”

“Well, it happens to everybody. It’s sort of inevitable.”

“That’s true, but how you die...now that’s a different story.”

Karen frowned. “What do you mean?”

“When I hear the term ‘natural death,’ I think of someone passing away from old age or disease. But not every death is natural.”

“You mean, like murder?”

Penelope didn’t answer right away. She drank her tea and seemed to consider the question. “A coroner would consider murder unnatural death, but I actually think it depends.”

“On what?”

“Method of dispatch.”

“I’m not sure what you mean?”

“Let’s say someone was strangled to death by another person or poisoned using Nightshade. I would call those natural deaths because the instruments used to bring about death occur naturally. Death due to a gunshot, however, I would deem unnatural because guns are manmade. And if we look at the pooch I tried to bring back—poor creature was run over by a car. Again, not something from nature but something man created. Therefore, that death did not seem natural.”

“So you’re saying you don’t believe it violates any natural laws to try to reanimate someone who died an unnatural death?”

“What I’m saying is that these issues are not as black and white as the coven would believe. There’s a whole world of gray, where things are open to interpretation and debate. But there is no debate with the coven. The High Priest or Priestess makes the rules and you aren’t allowed to question that.”

“You’re right, that does sound rather Christian,” Karen said with a laugh.

“So that’s the big story of my banishment. I had a mind of my own and wanted to explore power beyond the narrow limitations placed on me by the coven. I still believe I did nothing wrong.”

Karen nodded. “Makes sense.”

“But you’re still troubled. What’s wrong?”

“It’s just...I mean, it’s stupid, but they said you were dangerous, that you were just using me for my power.”

“Well, if they mean that I am intrigued by your potential and what we could accomplish if we combine our gifts...then I’m guilty as charged. Doesn’t mean I only care about your power or that I’m not your friend, just that I do think that together we could do amazing things.”

“Like bringing dead dogs back to life?” Karen said, not sure if she was teasing or not. The idea of doing something like that was rather disturbing...and thrilling at the same time, like the feeling of an adolescent discovering masturbation.

“I think we’ll start off with something a little less advanced. So, you ready to see my circle?”

Karen chuckled because the comment had a vaguely naughty ring. “Sure, let’s go.”

*   *   *

The backyard was small and enclosed on three sides by a seven-foot-high plank fence. There were two oaks and a rosebush but only sporadic grass. In the center, a series of baseball-sized stones formed a circle roughly six feet in diameter. At the center lay a large, flat stone, like a table, with two candles atop it, both stuck in bases of their own wax. Just outside the stones were items set at each of the four cardinal compass points: a small fire pit with smoldering charcoal perfuming the night, a glass bowl with seashells, a vase of roses, and a wicker basket overflowing with feathers. It took a moment for Karen to understand their significance but then it came to her—fire, water, earth, and air.

Near the east side of the circle was a small break in the stones. Penelope bent and retrieved some kind of smoking, smelly stick from a chipped ashtray. “I’m going to smudge you now.”

Karen gave the stick a skeptical glance.

“It’s just sage,” Penelope explained. “For purification.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Just stand there.”

As Karen stood awkwardly, Penelope waved the sage in front of Karen’s face, then let the smoking incense trail down her body. The librarian asked her to turn around then did the same for her back.

“Now,” Penelope said, “I’m going to ask you how you enter the circle, and you’ll respond—”

“With perfect love and perfect trust,” Karen finished.

“That’s right, you’ve done your research.”

Karen directed her gaze toward the ground where she kicked at the dirt with the toe of one shoe. “Well, I saw that old movie about the teen witches.”

Penelope winked at her. “So did I. Pretty good, all things considered.”

The librarian stepped aside and motioned her into the circle. Karen hesitated, then crossed the threshold, expecting to feel an electrical tingling or chill or something, but there was nothing. She supposed she was being silly and had maybe read one too many Anne Rice books about witches.