Chapter Fifteen #2
It was only after they’d said goodbye that Lauren noticed there was still red ocher spotting her dress and jacket, as if she was being prepared for her funeral rites.
She could spy white figures in the trees, as if the spirits of women who’d been sacrificed long ago were trying to tell her something.
Every one of them was spattered with red ocher; they were women who’d been abused and ruined and left to call out from the trees.
Lauren ran all the way to Lilith House, and she didn’t look behind her.
She didn’t scare easily, but she was frightened now.
Once at the house, she quickly found her way to the bathroom, where she stripped off her stained clothes.
She had a panicky feeling. It was the way she’d felt on the day of her parents’ funeral.
She stood in the shower for so long the water grew cold and she shivered, but still she stayed and let the water run.
By the time she was done, she’d left scarlet splashes of water on the wall: red magic.
Love, attraction, sex, passion, betrayal.
The best and the most dangerous magic, which can bring you all that you want or destroy you completely.
Even when she had toweled herself dry, red magic was everywhere.
Look in the mirror, see the truth about yourself, you can try to hide it all you want, you can sit in the trees, you can pretend you don’t care, but you have a heart. It’s been there all along.
Emily Bright had disappeared without a word to anyone.
The members of the society set lanterns in the windows and stayed up until dawn; they searched the streets and Radcliffe Yard and didn’t find a trace, not a book, not a button, not a note.
When Emily’s family came for her belongings they wept and blamed Lilith House.
They called it a cursed place, and said no one should come to live there.
They phoned the parents of the girls who had been chosen to be initiates in September and told them Lilith House wasn’t safe, and if they were smart they would have their daughters board at South House.
Those who remained set out a spell for protection.
Elm, ivy, birch bark, tears, blood. They would not walk alone at night or leave their windows open or stay alone at the library after hours, following the detective’s orders.
They would not look for darkness, and they vowed not to embrace left-handed magic.
They’d plucked the black roses in the garden and ground the petals into a paste to add to their tea as a charm of protection.
Billy Healy had taken to parking his car across the street, just to keep an eye on the place.
Rumors were swirling. Lauren noticed that he was often staring at her window, and one evening she decided to have it out with him.
She recognized a lovestruck man when she saw one, moody and handsome behind the wheel of his unmarked car.
She opened the passenger door and got in beside him.
“Are you in love with me?” she wanted to know.
“What?” Billy laughed out loud. “No!”
“Are you sure? Because you’re sitting out here staring at my window.”
“Absolutely sure. Never been surer of anything.”
Lauren flushed with embarrassment, rattled that her sixth sense had been wrong. She could have sworn he was a man in love. “Well, good,” she said.
She went about her business and forgot about him, but later in the week she looked over her shoulder while walking to the Square, and there he was, half a block behind her. She quickened her pace, and so did he. She hid behind a mailbox, and when he walked past, she jumped out.
“I knew you were following me.” Lauren tilted her face, shading her eyes with her hand so she could study his expression. “There must be a reason.”
“I just want to find out what happened to your friends,” Billy said. “You can trust me, Lauren.”
“Why should I?” she said flatly.
“Because I know what you are.” He’d seen her sharp teeth, and the way leaves fell from the trees when she walked by. His mother and sister practiced the Unnamed Art, and his sister’s teeth were quite sharp as well. He didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t his business, but he knew.
“What I am is a Radcliffe student,” Lauren informed him. This conversation wasn’t at all what she had expected. “Class of ’fifty-four.”
Billy laughed. “You’re a little more than that.”
“You have no idea who I am,” Lauren told him.
She was headed toward the café, and Billy continued to shadow her. Sitting before them was Lionel, the reason Billy had followed Lauren. The rescue dog Houdini was at Lionel’s feet, as always.
“This is my brother,” Lauren said, gesturing to Lionel. “The doctor.” She nodded at Billy. “This is the detective who’s been following me.”
“Not a doctor quite yet.” Lionel said, his eyes on Billy.
“This is a surprise,” Billy said.
“Is it? Or did you plan it? You were trailing my sister.”
Billy flushed and tried to catch the attention of a waitress. “I’m here for a coffee,” he said.
Lauren was caught off guard by their rapport. Surely these two inhabited very different worlds, yet they spoke as if they knew each other well. “Have you two met?”
“We have.” Lionel lifted his glass to Billy. “In gratitude.”
“I haven’t arrested him a few times,” Billy admitted. When Lauren still looked baffled, he added in a low tone, “At bars.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you arrest anyone.” Lionel was clearly delighted to see him; there was a grin on his face. “Are you sure you’re really a cop?”
Billy shrugged. “It’s a stupid law. People should be allowed to love who they love.”
They sat at a rear table, in a dark corner, and after they’d ordered espressos, Lionel took out his tarot cards. He knew he would have one true love. He’d known it the moment he’d first seen Billy.
“Shall we take a look?” he said. “Let’s see if we can know a bit more about what’s going on with the girls who are missing.”
Billy said nothing, for he was beset by nerves, wondering what the cards might reveal. He was afraid that Lauren would see she’d been correct about him all along. He had fallen in love with someone, just not the person she’d thought.
The very first card drawn was the death card, signifying endings of all kinds. “Where we end, we also begin,” Lionel said. “It seems the missing are related. All have gone to the same place, or have disappeared for the same reason.”
Lionel turned over the Fool, what some would claim was the most powerful card, the protagonist of the story, the one who was on a journey, but who among them was that central character?
And which among them would know what the fool knew?
Mania, intoxication, folly, frenzy, betrayal.
It was quiet in the back of the café, and it grew quieter still as they all concentrated on the cards.
Next was the Two of Wands. Trust in yourself.
Trust who you are. Trust who you always will be.
“They took the wrong path.” He looked up at Billy. “I see that you have a choice to make as well. Choose the right path and you might find everything you’ve been looking for, Detective.”
Billy immediately looked unnerved. “I think I’ll find some milk for this coffee. It’s too strong.” He stood and went to the counter.
“There’s something between you two,” Lauren said thoughtfully. “I knew he was here for his own reasons.”
“Don’t read my mind.” As children they could answer one another’s unspoken questions, but they weren’t children anymore.
“I don’t have to read your mind, it’s right there every time you look at him. You’re the one making a mistake. He’s a police officer, Lionel. That could be a huge problem.”
They gazed at Billy as he stood at the counter.
“It already is,” Lionel said. “He’s the one.”
Billy looked back at Lionel from across the café.
He thought he’d never seen a man as handsome or as brilliant; he was a shining star who seemed to exist without any fear of who he was.
Billy wondered then if he should walk out the door.
His job meant everything to him, so why on this evening did it seem not to matter in the least?
In that alleyway where he’d kissed Lionel he hadn’t been thinking, his adrenaline had been pumping, there were sirens wailing in front of the club.
If one of his brother officers had happened to open the back door of the club and walked into the alley, he would have been finished.
It wouldn’t be just snide remarks, which were sometimes tossed his way because of his good looks and the notion that he was riding on his father’s coattails; it would be the end of his career.
On the night he’d met Lionel, he’d gotten into his car in a daze, then set off along Route 2 toward Concord merely to drive.
Some decisions are easy to make, they’re as simple as this: Do you allow yourself to be who you are, or will you hide yourself away forevermore?
When Billy returned to the table, Lauren was gone.