Smoke on the Water (7 page)

He'd been going to say if either one of them became more agitated, she'd have to stop but—

“Whatever works.”

 

Chapter 5

“This is a spell of transportation.” Peggy pulled items out of a paper sack and set them on the floor in preparation for our first lesson.

We were gathered in my room almost a week later. The upheaval caused by the storm had caused a lot of problems. Peggy had been swamped, which had pushed our lesson back a day and then another and so on.

“Where are we going?” Mary asked.

The mental health facility was at last back to normal, or as normal as a place like this got. The electricity had been restored about five minutes after the new generator had been installed, which always seemed to be the way of things like that.

Dr. Frasier was still getting acclimated. I hadn't been called into his office again. But I was scheduled for a therapy session in the morning. By now he'd read my file. We'd have plenty to discuss.

I was also certain the whiff of sexual tension that I'd caught the last time I was with him would be gone. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. On the one hand, I didn't want to be the cliché patient who had the hots for her therapist any more than I wanted him to be the creepy therapist with the hots for his patient. On the other hand, we were meant to be together. I'd known this since the first time I'd seen him in a vision fifteen years ago. Yes, I'd been twelve, but I was a very old twelve, and the visions had been G-rated. At first.

“We aren't going anywhere.” Peggy removed a red candle and set it between us on the floor. “Transportation is another word for joy.”

“Why would we conjure joy?” Mary asked.

Peggy cast her a quick glance at the word
conjure,
but she didn't correct her.

“Why wouldn't we?” A bell jangled as Peggy removed it from the bag as well.

“That's not magic,” Mary scoffed.

“Sure it is. Joy is some of the best magic I know.” Peggy withdrew a stuffed toy dog, which looked like a boxer, and set it next to the other items.

“What's that for?” Mary pointed at the dog.

“It represents an item that makes me happy. My dog. He's very joyful.”

“Unless you're going to teach us how to turn a toy into a real live boy, or bring the actual dog here from somewhere else, I'm not interested,” Mary said.

There were times Mary was more lucid than anyone gave her credit for.

Peggy glanced at me. “How about you?”

“Joy sounds good to me.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “This is bullshit.”

Peggy ignored her. She'd been around Mary longer than I had. She probably knew best.

Our caseworker lit the candle, picked up the bell, rang it once, and said, “I open myself to joy.”

She handed the bell to me, with an encouraging nod. “Now you.”

I rang the bell, repeated her words, and handed it to Mary, who hesitated, fingers tightening on the bell as if she meant to fling it against the wall. I gave a tiny headshake and she jingled it, then parroted Peggy's words. We repeated the chant and the actions three times each.

Peggy clapped and said, “I open myself to joy and I am happy.” She set the bell next to the candle, blew it out and beamed at us.

“Lame,” Mary said.

Peggy's smile faltered. “Don't you feel happier?”

“I feel tricked.” Mary glanced at me. “How about you?”

“I feel okay.”

Peggy bit her lip. “We should probably try it again with items that bring joy to the two of you.”

“Screw this,” Mary said. “We need a spell that's going to help us.”

“Joy helps,” Peggy said. “More than anything.”

“Not against knives.”

Peggy stiffened. “What knives?”

I took Mary's hand, which had started to lift toward her hair, I'm sure with the intention of yanking some out. “There aren't any knives.”

“Then why—”

“Mary had a dream.”

Lie. I'd had the dream.

“It upset her.”

Truth. My dream had upset us both.

“Aren't there spells of protection?” I asked.

Probably wouldn't help but it couldn't hurt.

“Sure.” Peggy was eager. “We can do one next time.”

“We need it now,” Mary muttered, her gaze on my window.

I saw nothing out there, but even if there were something it wouldn't be getting in here. I still didn't like her expression.

“You're safe,” Peggy said. “I did a spell of protection around this place the first day I started working here.”

Mary's gaze flicked back. “You did?”

“Of course.”

I was beginning to worry about Peggy. Did she think her spell actually worked?

“Why'd you chant in English?” Mary asked.

Peggy appeared confused. “What other language would I chant in?”

“Latin.”

“We chant in the language we speak. And no one speaks Latin anymore.”

“Did they ever?” I wondered.

Peggy shrugged.

“Show us a spell that's worth something,” Mary ordered.

“Worth?” Peggy echoed. “Like money, fame, fortune?”

“Do you know any?”

“I can't cast a spell for personal gain.”

“Why not?” Mary demanded.

“Spells created for selfish reasons are considered black magic. A true Wiccan does not dabble in the dark side.”

“Who does?”

“I won't speak of them.” Peggy's gaze touched on the shadowy corners as if someone might materialize there.

“If you speak of them will they come?”

Peggy just shook her head.

“Roland?” Mary said. “Roland!”

“Shh.” I tightened my fingers around hers. Shouting usually brought someone along to see what the shouting was about. That never ended well. At least for Mary.

“Why would you want to bring the voice that told you to hurt your son into existence?” Peggy asked.

The voice that had told Mary to hurt her son and the voice of Roland were the same one. As Roland was a murderous voice, I should have added that up before now.

“He's more than a voice,” Mary whispered. “Or he will be soon. He's almost here.”

“We should probably move on,” I said. Talking about voices … Rarely a good idea. And Peggy should know it.

“Using a spell for selfish or trivial reasons can cause the Foster Effect,” Peggy continued. “That's dangerous. Spells can multiply out of control.”

“And then what?” I couldn't help but ask.

“Natural disasters.”

I blinked, remembering the storm that had come out of nowhere, the lightning that had hit closer than ever before. Had someone been performing black magic?

I couldn't believe I was thinking that, almost believing it. Except my caseworker was thinking and almost believing it too.

Peggy glanced at her watch. “I have to go.”

She withdrew a final item from her bag of tricks—a
Book of Shadows
—and handed it to me. One glimpse of the cover and I understood it was the
Book of Shadows
that I'd seen in my vision.

I dropped the thing, and it hit the floor with a muffled thunk. Mary snatched it up as Peggy returned the candle, bell, and toy dog to the now empty bag.

“Be careful with that,” Peggy said. “It's my only copy.”

Which made me wonder why she was giving it to us. Though from the way Mary was handling the book—as if it were gold—she wasn't going to be ripping it to shreds or dropping it in the bathtub, which were the only two ways she might have to destroy it in here as fire and sharp implements were frowned upon.

“I'll keep it safe.” Mary held it against her chest with both arms.

“Next lesson I'll teach you a protection spell.” Peggy headed for the door.

“If spells cast for selfish reasons cause problems, then wouldn't a spell to protect ourselves do the same?” I asked.

Peggy paused. “A protection spell protects anyone and anything in the charmed circle. Which makes it about others as well as oneself. You see?”

Not really but I nodded anyway and Peggy departed.

“Thought she'd never leave.” Mary opened the book.

“You're the one who wanted to learn the spells.” I leaned in so I could see what she was looking at.

“I didn't think they'd be namby-pamby find-the-joy shit.”

I found her brutal honesty both refreshing and far too funny.

“What did you think they'd be, considering Wicca harms none?”

“I figured she was lying. She wouldn't have been able to get permission to teach us if she told the truth.”

“What truth?”

“Ha!” Mary pointed at the book.

I leaned in even closer to read what was there. “That's the same spell we just did.”

“Not exactly.” Mary tapped a chewed-on fingernail beneath the final line on the page.

“Works best beneath the full moon,” I read. “So?”

“No wonder it didn't work! It's daylight.”

“It says ‘best,' not ‘only when.'”

“She just didn't want us transporting under her watch. Can you imagine the trouble she'd get in?”

“I can't imagine what you're talking about.”

She punched me in the arm. “Focus.”

I rubbed what would no doubt be a bruise. Sometimes I forgot that Mary was called “Crazy Mary” for a reason. She seemed so lucid. Until she didn't.

“Peggy showed us how to do the spell,” Mary said. “But she gave us the book, which tells us when to do it so that magic actually happens.”

Mary's eyes appeared a little wild, so I decided not to argue. Especially since I was still rubbing the “ouch” from the last time I had.

“The full moon is tomorrow night,” she continued.

“I thought it was full last night.”

“The moon appears full a bunch of nights, but there's only one when it actually is.”

Was that true or wasn't it? Did it matter? Not really. All of this was bogus, except in Mary's head.

“I'll come here after everyone's asleep tomorrow night,” Mary said, “and we'll do the spell right this time.”

I hesitated, but what better way to prove to Mary that magic wasn't real and the spells wouldn't work than to actually do one and have it not work?

“Okay.”

Mary got to her feet, picked up the
Book of Shadows,
kissed the top of my head like I thought a mother might, and went away.

*   *   *

Sebastian had been dancing as fast as he could to get up to speed on both his administrative and psychiatric duties. He'd scrolled through the personnel files, found nothing particularly disturbing beyond a lack of experience in some channels and less education than he'd prefer in others. Considering their location and the nominal local population totals, the employment pool was limited. Dr. Eversleigh had done the best that he could.

He'd taken a close look at Zoe's file. She was as young as she appeared, but a lot smarter than most. She'd graduated from high school early, plowed through her BSN—Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree—in three years, and accepted this job at the age of twenty. Her grades were stellar, her employment record the same. That she was only twenty-two now made her the youngest employee at the facility. According to her last review, they were lucky to have her and should do whatever possible to keep her.

Sebastian had to wonder why a smart young girl like Zoe would continue to live in the middle of nowhere and work in a place that—from the outside at least—resembled a Gothic castle. Of course someone might ask him the same thing.

He'd taken his patient files home the first night. As Zoe had hinted, Mary and Willow were the patients he should be most concerned about. Almost everyone else in his pile had yet to try and kill anyone, or if they had, they hadn't gotten caught.

Sebastian had considered assigning Willow to another psychiatrist, but what possible reason could he give for that before they'd even had their first scheduled session together?

He was new here. He was the boss, brought in from the outside and given oversight of several doctors who could easily have had the job, considering their records and tenure. Sebastian didn't want anyone thinking he was incapable of handling the tough cases. He certainly didn't want anyone to discover the truth.

He daydreamed about kissing Willow Black, and in the night he dreamed of doing a whole lot more.

He'd seen her several times over the past few days, always with Mary. Neither one of them seemed to have any friends but each other. He found that both endearing and very sad.

Mary was better when she was with Willow. Everyone said so, even Willow. However, a young woman should have dozens of friends her own age. But, in here, that wasn't going to happen.

“Doctor?”

Sebastian lifted his gaze from the file he'd practically memorized to find the subject of that file standing just outside his open door. She was wearing practically the same thing she had the first time he'd seen her: tennis shoes with Velcro straps—no shoelaces in here—scrubs, and a T-shirt advertising this facility. The only difference was her scrubs were green and the shirt was blue, one shade lighter than her eyes.

“Come in.” Sebastian stood too fast, sending his chair clattering backward. “Shut the door, please. Have a seat.”

She shut the door. Her gaze flicked to the obligatory couch.

“Unless you'd rather—”

“No!” She sat in the chair so fast it clattered too.

Her cheeks had pinkened, causing her eyes to shine nearly as blue as her shirt, making Sebastian wonder what she'd thought when she glanced at the couch. He knew what he'd thought whenever he glanced at it lately.

Sebastian took his own chair. “What were you and Dr. Eversleigh discussing the last time you met?”