The Witch's Promise (9 page)

Despite his trance-like state, Sean managed to drain two glasses of porter while John patiently waited, sitting at his beer and taking his time with his sandwich.

"I think we're ready," Sean finally said.

He started turning over cards, interpreting them in keeping with what they both knew about John's recent life. He talked about Jillian, John's skepticism, his growing connection with spiritual realities, and then he went into a long monologue that John didn't understand at all. The words were all English, but John couldn't put them together. It wasn't quite gibberish, but it just didn't add up.

Then Sean suddenly stopped. He picked up one card and looked at it intently for a long time, then he shook his head and the trance-like look immediately left him.

"I'm going to have to disappoint you, John. There's something I see here, but I can't speak of it. It would betray a confidence. I realize that sounds like a lame excuse, but ... there's nothing I can do."

"You can't just talk around it?" John asked, not sure if he was disappointed or amused. His inner skeptic was taking a victory lap.

"That's not the way it works with me," Sean said. "I read the cards until I see a single, organizing principle, and then all the other cards start to fall in place around that theme. I can't say any more."

They both fell silent, and it took the rest of their sandwiches and another Bad Moon Porter before they were able to resume anything like a normal conversation.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The seasonal transition to early darkness always took some getting used to, and John was -- as he always was in the Fall -- ever-so-slightly surprised that the world outside Jillian's kitchen window was completely dark at 7:30. Several odd thoughts played at the edges of his mind. Normally he would simply have moved on to the next thought, but for a moment he tried to let the undifferentiated confusion tease at the corners of his consciousness. Slowly, and perhaps reluctantly, his rational faculties started to step aside and he felt something else assert itself. 

Something didn't seem to fit. The shocked-at-nothing, pagan Jillian of the Halloween party, the straight-laced Jillian who seemed almost Victorian in her ethics, and the Jillian who studied herbs and discussed poetry with friends on Monday nights .... How did they all fit together? And how did he get pulled into her orbit? And why had he let this go on?

Before his mind could do more than revel in the absurdity of his situation, the doorbell rang and he was enslaved to the mundane: greeting E.J., taking his jacket, offering him a drink.

In a few minutes the house was full and John was dutifully playing host while Jillian finished a business call from the other room. Anne's friend Joan joined the normal crowd. An occasional participant, she was lured back when she heard they were doing Tolkien. And then Sean arrived.

"You didn't know?" he said, seeing the surprise on John's face. "I've been a regular with this group for years."

And, indeed, a moment later he was chatting freely with the other guests like old friends.

John wanted to ask Jillian what was up, but she came out of the kitchen and greeted Sean with a kiss. "Hello, my love," she said.

John wasn't sure, but it seemed that the corner of her eye twinkled in John's direction, as if she desperately wanted to see his confusion.

After that, the rest of the night was a bit of a blur. John felt like a bone that had been tossed aside. Jillian sat with Sean on the couch, hand in hand, and everyone else seemed to accept this -- as if it had always been this way, and always would be. John was the stranger. A fierce jealousy welled up in him. Part of his mind tried to replay all the events since his first meeting with Jillian, trying to make sense of it all. But the active part of his consciousness tried to keep a hold -- however small -- on this group, and on Jillian.

He realized this was supposed to be his swan's song. Jillian and Sean were trying to embarrass him. He was supposed to leave with his tail between his legs, defeated. But John had two minds now, and while one was brooding and thinking about his behavior in the club, the other was interpreting, connecting the dots and forming a plan. And so everyone was surprised -- even John -- when he invited them all to his house for the next week's meeting. They all agreed, and no one even tried to suppress their surprise.

Gathering as much dignity as he could muster, he chatted briefly with Ed while waiting for an opportunity to catch Jillian alone. He quickly excused himself, grabbed Jillian gently by the elbow and tried to kiss her goodbye as if everything was normal. She pulled away.

On the drive home things started to fall into place. He began to piece together the clues that his subconscious mind had been analyzing. And then suddenly he realized that he had a hidden resource. His dreams.

*              *              *

"Hi Doug," John said across the office kitchen as the two of them prepared their morning cups.

Doug turned and looked at him for a moment.

"I'm sorry, man," Doug said.

"Sorry?" John asked, trying to be cheerful.

"I can hear it in your voice," Doug said, "and I can see it in the way you're standing. You've learned it the hard way, but ... at least you've learned it."

John wanted to pretend ignorance. He wanted to make a snide, rude comment. He wanted to defend his dignity. But he wasn't up to it. Not today.

"Yeah," was all he managed.

"Hey," Doug said, "I have something for you. I just finished a book I think you'd like. It's called The Rational Male. I'll drop it by your office later."

John simply nodded and headed back to his office.

*              *              *

Jillian didn't call the entire week, and neither did John. He spent some of this time at the library, and hours upon hours on the Internet, working the problem. His agnostic, logical, scientific mind screamed revolt and rebellion, but something drove him on. His dreams had become more and more lucid, and while he couldn't explain how he could know such things, a pattern was forming, and his strategy emerged ever more clearly every night.

Every morning he experimented with a new mixture, and every night he reviewed what he had learned and tested his plans.

If his mind had been clear for even an instant he would have realized that his former self had died. He was a different man. He no longer doubted that tarot cards could read the unknown, or that hidden messages might lie beneath the vague images of a dream. He began to record his dreams and analyze them, after a fashion, and he began to trust his intuition.

When his mind tempted him to stray back to his former way of thinking, he saw it all in a new light, and he began to create a synthesis. He saw his old mind as a cold, hard, and thoroughly inadequate way to view the world. But he tried to keep the best of it.

He didn't believe in spirits or fate or God. But he knew that his worldview needed to adapt to his new-found intuitive approach.

Logic has its place, but only in the service of the whole man. And that was the mantra of his new consciousness. He was a whole man now. Ready to love and be loved, and feel the pain and anguish of the lover's heart. The senses he had suppressed for so many years were bursting forth in their own Spring, in mockery of the season. His mind was drunk with a new sense of insight into his surrounding. And all of it was focused on one event. A trap carefully laid.

*              *              *

When Monday evening finally came he stopped and marveled at the work he had done. He couldn't even recount what he had learned in a week's time, but he knew that it was there at the ready. He was eager, like a runner spoiling for the gun to start the race. Long passages seemed to come to his mind at the slightest bidding of his conscious thought. Complicated arguments he'd toiled over in the night now rolled off his tongue like a familiar address. But most important of all, the mixture was ready. He opened the glass jar and smelled the rich aroma. This would be a night to remember.

Late Saturday night he had realized a flaw in his plan. He had no way to be sure Jillian would come. If he was right, and she intended to leave him completely, mightn't she avoid this particular evening?

So he sent her an email.

Jillian,

I'm so glad I'll be seeing you on Monday. I just got back from the doctor, and there's something we ought to discuss. Privately, if you know what I mean.

Love,

John

*              *              *

A predictable tension hovered over the meeting. The conversations were uninspired, and brief, and despite good food and plenty of wine, things wrapped up early.

Once everyone had cleared out, John, Sean and Jillian were alone around the dining room table, sipping a final cup of coffee. Jillian and Sean looked very nervous.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Jillian asked.

John nodded, preparing his mind for the carefully rehearsed script.

"I liked your coffee so much, I decided to experiment with a few ideas myself. But after drinking several different concoctions, I thought I'd better ask the doctor if I was doing myself any harm with the ingredients."

As John expected, Sean and Jillian seemed to relax at the news.
Only that?
he imagined them thinking.

"He told me that I was okay, being a man. You see, I really enjoyed the flavor of several ingredients -- chicory and blue cohosh make a very interesting combination -- and they have no effect at all on men, but they can cause spontaneous abortion in women."

Jillian and Sean went as white as a sheet, and Jillian put her hand on her stomach.

"I know all about your scheme. I know that you needed a father for the child, and I know that you trusted the cards to pick the right man. But even though Sean believes in the Goddess, he couldn't help checking on my medical records. You wanted good genes, after all. So he hacked into Dr. Jacobs' system.

"I know you desperately want to keep this child, and I know what part I played. But I won't be used, ..." he continued, but Jillian cut him off.

"What right do you have to poison me?" Her voice was venomous and her eyes blazed. Sean set a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "How dare you ..."

"Decide whether or not you'll have my child?" John interrupted. "Oh, but weren't you doing exactly that to me? Isn't turn about fair play? Or, as the Wiccans like to say, don't curses come back to roost fourfold?"

John let them stew in their fear for a minute, but that was all he needed.

"Relax," he said. "There was nothing dangerous in the coffee. And that's all the revenge I'll take on you, Jillian," he said, looking directly at her.

"You're another matter," he said, turning to Sean.

"Officer, you can come in now," John said in a loud voice. Then turning to Sean, "hacking into a doctor's computer is illegal, and we have all the evidence we need to put you behind bars for several years."

A uniformed police officer opened one of the back doors in John's apartment and joined them in the kitchen.

"Sean Kerrigan," the officer said, "you're under arrest for hacking into the computers of the Laurel Medical Center."

Sean looked at John with a hard expression on his face.

"I can understand you being mad at me," he said. "But are you going to deprive this baby of a father?"

John laughed, and shook his head in disbelief.

"Are you really so morally blind that you see it that way? Go ahead, officer," he said, turning to the cop. "Please get this trash out of my apartment."

The officer cuffed Sean and read him his rights, then took him outside. All the while Jillian sat still, staring into her lap, seemingly in shock.

John simply waited, relishing his triumph.

"John," she eventually said, looking up with tears in her eyes, "I never meant for you to fall in love with me. I had hoped this could just be .... Well, I hoped it would be pleasant for you, and no harm done. But things didn't work out the way we expected. I'm very sorry. But this child .... He's done nothing wrong. "

John stared at her coldly.

"You don't know what you've done, " she continued. "My house ... it belongs to Sean, and I can't afford the payments. If he's in jail, I'll lose it."

"Don't dare plead for mercy with me," John said with contempt. "I've already shown you more mercy than you deserve. If I felt any personal responsibility towards this child then even now, after everything you've done, I would offer to marry you and raise the kid. But all you wanted was my sperm, so you took it in the middle of the night while I was drunk. I was thinking of pressing charges against you for rape. I've talked to an attorney, and I have a pretty good case. It's for the sake of the child that I'm not. That's more mercy than you deserve. Get out."

"Sean drove me here," she said, defeated. "I don't have the keys."

"Call a cab. But get out of my house."

*              *              *

Two months later John and Doug were having lunch downtown, comparing notes.