The Accidental Witch (17 page)

“I didn’t like the girl in any case,” the demon croaked. “I’d prefer the witch. Give me the witch, priest, and I’ll go back to my own world.”

“No,” Fred said.

“If you do not give me the witch, I will make this entire town rot from the inside out until there is nothing left here but death and ash.”

“You can’t have her,” Fred said.

The toad demon crept towards me leaving a trail of slime and shit behind him. He licked me and I drew back.

“Delicious,” the toad demon croaked. “Sweet, like candy. You could give yourself to me, witch. Give yourself to me and I’ll spare your shitty, rat-infested town.”

Fred kicked me before I could open my mouth to consent. His kick landed in just the right place and the breath left my body.

“You can’t have her,” Fred said.

The demon laughed as Fred began to chant again. I felt myself fade even more as the chanting continued. Suddenly, the demon croaked and laughed and leapt upward, vanishing in a cloud of smoke and sulfur. Fred released my hand and I fell to the floor. I could see Fred pick up the little girl and lay her on the bed. He anointed her with oil and said something over her. The darkness around the house faded to light and the room brightened. The carpet grew lighter and the dust vanished.

Fred picked me up and carried me down to the car.

“What did you do to me?” I whispered.

“I needed your strength to drive the demon out,” Fred said. “He was too strong for me.”

“I feel broken,” I whispered.

“Do you have the strength to drive home and tell the mother to come back?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Send the mother home. The demon won’t be back here.”

I nodded and looked up at the house. It was white again. The weeds were still there, but the shadows were gone. I could hardly move, but I managed to get the car back to my house. I stumbled in to find Sam sleeping with the baby on the couch in the den. They looked so exhausted, I hated to wake them. I sat down beside them and took a deep breath. I felt like I had almost died. I didn’t mean to but I drifted off a little. I woke up and looked over at Sam.

I had probably slept for more than an hour. I sat up and shook Sam. She opened her lovely gray eyes and looked at me.

“It’s over,” I said.

“Really?” she asked.

I nodded.

Sam began to weep. She took my hand and wept. I held her. The baby in her arms woke and sat up. It looked at me. I smiled through my fatigue. Sam sat up and pulled the baby to her and kissed it.

“Thank God,” she said.

“Go home,” I said. “Your little girl will want to see you. Lord knows, she doesn’t want to be stuck over there with Fred.”

Sam laughed. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank God for you.”

I wanted to tell her it had all been my fault in the first place. I wanted to beg her forgiveness, but I lacked the courage. There weren’t enough words to ask forgiveness for this.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” I said.

Sam left and I collapsed on the sofa. I must have slept all day, because it was dark when I woke up. I felt like I had been up all night drinking vodka. My head throbbed and I felt vaguely nauseous. I sat up. There was a light coming in from the kitchen and I could hear pots and pans banging. I stood up and stumbled into the light. Fred was in the kitchen cooking something. It smelled good, like sage.

I stumbled over to the cupboard and grabbed some ibuprofen and pulled a beer out of the fridge. Fred took the beer out of my hand and replaced it with a glass of water. I didn’t have the energy to fight with him, so I took the pills with the water. I sat down at the island and watched Fred cook. He moved quickly and deftly in the kitchen and the smell became so intoxicating, I wanted nothing more than to eat. The buzzer went off and he pulled something out of the oven. That was what smelled good.

“What is it?” I asked

“Boeuf Bourguignon,” he answered.

“It smells amazing.”

“It is. Go set the table and get the drinks on.”

I did as I was told and laid out the best plates and silverware I had in the dining room. It was actually quite pathetic. My cheap, chipped plates were laid out on a great beast of a mahogany table that had been left with the house. It had lion’s claw feet and beautiful, intricate chairs. Above it, a red crystal Victorian chandelier cast a romantic light over the elegant room, filled with crown molding and hard wood. My cheap plates looked like someone had spit them up in the middle of
House Beautiful
magazine. The cups were pink and plastic. They looked even worse, if that was possible.

Fred stepped out of the kitchen with the steaming pot and laid a trivet down on the table. He returned to the kitchen for the sides and then went back to the kitchen one last time emerging with two wine glasses filled to the top with red wine.

Fred looked at the table and scowled. “You don’t entertain much, do you?” he asked.

“I never entertain,” I answered.

“What a waste,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Such a beautiful house and no one but you ever sees it. That is a waste.”

“It’s not wasted on me. I love this house. I knew the moment I saw it that I had to have it. I restored it from a crumbling ruin.”

“Of course you had to have it,” he said. “Any spellcaster would give his left eye for this house.”

I sat down and put my napkin in my lap. He sat down and served us both.

“Thank you,” I said.

“This is for me,” he said. “I can’t eat the crap you have in this house and all the restaurants in this town look like they fell off the back end of a truck.”

“Why would any spellcaster want this house?” I asked as I stuffed the intoxicating mixture into my mouth. I knew the answer. Diane had told me before, but I wanted to hear it from another spellcaster. I wanted to hear it from my own kind.

“It was built on a sacred place, a place of power. Like Stonehenge. Whoever built this house must have been a witch. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this house’s history was filled with drama and tragedy and rich with ghosts. Spellcasters are drawn to places like this. We’re drawn to old cemeteries and churches, to the old sacred places that are like wellsprings. They feed us. They make us stronger.”

“People always say this place is haunted,” I said. “But I’ve never seen any ghosts.”

“Of course you haven’t. You never will. Ghosts fear us. They fear the spirits that follow us. They avoid us. If you were a necromancer, you would draw ghosts, but you aren’t. You are something else entirely.”

I wanted to ask more questions, but I was too busy eating. Fred ate slowly. He savored every bite. He ate like someone out of an old movie. I, on the other hand, shoveled the food in my mouth as quickly as I could. I was starving. I don’t think I had been this hungry since I was married to Johnny Boy. The carrot and salad diet he had put me on had left me so hungry, I would have considered eating my own young, if I’d had any.

C
HAPTER
6

A P
OTION
FOR
P
OWER

After dinner, Fred and I cleaned the kitchen together. It wasn’t unpleasant. There was something completely calm about Fred that was infectious. Despite the horror of the day, his peace spread to me, so I felt almost relaxed scrubbing my pots.

Fred put a pot of hot water on and took out an old wooden box filled with packets of tea. He smelled the teas and set them down. There were other things in the box—crystals and herbs and other objects I quickly recognized as magical items.

“Now that the demon is gone,” I said. “Are you going to leave?” I was hoping the answer would be yes.

The tea kettle boiled and Fred put a packet of tea in each cup. He poured the hot water over the tea.

“The demon isn’t gone,” Fred said.

“What?” I said. “I don’t like tea.”

“You’ll drink the tea because you need it. The demon isn’t gone. It’s more dangerous now than ever. It is somewhere in town and it will drain the town of its energy to gain power.”

“What?” I asked.

“Shut up,” he said.

He placed a quartz crystal in each cup of what looked like Ginseng tea. He took a cinnamon stick out and began stirring it. There was a pattern in the motion of his stirring. I watched him and took a cinnamon stick and stirred the other cup of tea in the same pattern. Fred smiled at me as I moved. He stirred the tea for several minutes and then he drank it. I did the same. As the tea flowed down my throat, I felt my fingers and toes tingle. I felt my strength return to me. I felt even stronger than I had before. I drained the cup of tea.

“What did we just drink?” I asked.

“It was a potion for strength. Whenever you battle, you should always use the potion afterwards. It recharges you. The battle today drained us both. We would not survive another.”

“What were we doing with the cinnamon?”

“We were stirring Beorc into the potion. Beorc is the Norse rune for the birch tree, which is a symbol of strength and power. You should learn your runes. They are the alphabet of magic. The Norse say that Odin cast them out when he was hanging from the tree of Woe. They are a connection to the divine.”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for helping me. You didn’t have to. I know I can be a bitter pill to swallow sometimes, but your help meant the world to me.”

“This is what I do,” he said. “We aren’t so different, you and I. We both help people. We accept payment, but we would do it even if it were for free. The Guild pays me to be here, but it has always been my calling. You are the same. You love what you do. I can tell that. Would you require thanks for the help you give?”

“No,” I said.

“Listen,” he said. “I understand why this happened. I understand that you wanted to help people here. You saw suffering and you wanted to end it, but before you continue, you need to study and learn how to do this properly. You wouldn’t have ever considered practicing psychology without going to school first, would you?”

“No,” I said. “I spent almost ten years studying psychology.”

“Magic is just as complex as psychology. You don’t even know what powers you are tapping into to cast your spells, do you?”

“No,” I said. “I honestly didn’t think it would work. Even when it began to work, I didn’t believe it. I mean, who believes in magic? Even when it’s standing in front of you, it’s hard to believe it’s real.”

“You believe now though, don’t you?” he asked.

I nodded.

“When all this is over,” he said. “I will find a teacher for you.”

I nodded again.

“You should rest now,” he said. “Tomorrow, we will have to find the demon.”

I gave Fred a hug and walked up the stairs. I fell asleep quickly. Maybe it was the tea. I don’t even remember crawling into bed. I just remember sleeping.

I awoke in a puddle of my own sweat. It was sweltering. I went out into the hall to adjust the thermostat. I flipped the light on. The lights were dead. I would have to call Lawson in the morning. I went and grabbed a flashlight and went to look for the fuse box. It was in the basement. My nightgown clung to my body like Saran Wrap. It felt like it took me forever to get to the basement. It felt like I was moving in slow motion. There was a fog in the air.

I opened the door to the basement and the lights flickered back on and I heard the air conditioning unit start up. I turned around and it suddenly became extremely cold. I shivered and looked into the foggy darkness of the back parlor.

A shadow formed in the mist in front of me. It pooled in front of me and gathered itself from the mist in the room. It took shape until it looked like a man made of fog and darkness. I stood my ground, gazing at him. His eyes glistened. They shone out of his own darkness. His features were handsome. If he had been flesh, he would have been handsome, but he was not flesh. The demon smiled. I did not smile back at him. I glared at him through the darkness. I recognized him as the demon from my cabin, the demon that had drifted into my dreams.

“Get the hell out of my house,” I said.

“I have come to help you,” the demon said.

“I don’t want your help,” I answered.

“You summoned me. You called upon the spirit of this place to help you in your work and I came and I helped you. Time and time again I helped you, and now I am here to help you again.”

“You came?”

“Who do you think enslaved the heart of your handsome doctor? I did. Who brought prosperity to your town? I did. I did all these things for you, pretty witch, and I will do more.”

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

“Nothing. I only want to give to you.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Murmur,” he said. “And I am your slave.”

“No,” I said. “Nothing comes without a price. What do you want from me?”

“I want to be here with you. I want to be in your world. Call me, little witch, and I will come. I will never leave.”

The darkness around the demon grew and for a moment, I saw his true form. Horns and teeth and mangled flesh hid beneath layers of darkness and fog. His face was the twisted demon’s face from my oldest nightmares. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. The demon smiled and became the shadow man again.

I sat up in my bed. I was still cold. I pulled my blankets around me and I wasn’t sure if it had been a dream or real. I was still drenched in sweat and my heart was throbbing beneath my chest. I could hardly breathe. Fear crawled over me like a serpent and I leapt out of bed and grabbed all the magical objects I had built from my countless spells. I grabbed them all and stuffed them in my pillowcase with the love knot I had woven for Aaron and dragged them down the hall. I opened Fred’s door.

Fred sat up and looked at me. He was shirtless and completely surprised. His lean arms and torso were covered in tattoos. They weren’t the usual bleeding skulls or dragons. There were runes and strange symbols I didn’t recognize. He had a gargoyle on his left arm surrounded by runes. His features were almost pretty beneath the glasses and corduroy. His black eyes stared out at me from beneath his shaggy brown hair. Sleep was still thick in his eyes. I dropped all my bags of prosperity and bits of magic at his feet.