Chapter Thirty-four
F ear fueled my escape from the Empress’s parking lot, across the old highway, and up through the trailer park, where Rodney darted from the rosebushes surrounding Lalena’s palm reading sign to join me.
I’m sure I drew attention, but I’d leave Lalena and Ian to explain why Ian’s mother had shot off on a spontaneous trail run.
Midway across the meadow, I collapsed on my back to catch my breath and let my adrenaline settle.
The knee-high grass hid me. I stared into the blue sky, the sun beating down, and filled my lungs with fresh air to cleanse them of the stale odor of Byron’s van and the trash-strewn gravel under it.
It was peaceful here, and I was safe—for the moment.
Right now, Sam and the homicide detectives would be combing Wilfred, looking for me.
I was almost certain I knew Aunt Beata’s next steps.
Getting the guest house key would be no problem for her, thanks to the glamour I’d stupidly, perhaps fatally, unleashed.
She could appear as the exact seductress Byron/Cliff sought.
He’d open his van to her and, with a smile, watch her search it.
She was going to plant the key at the library for Sam to find when he showed up tomorrow, search warrant in hand.
It would be the final step in her plan to lock me up where I couldn’t rein in her magic.
Rodney trotted through the grass and curled up, purring, in my armpit. His black fur was warm with sun.
What now?
Beata was a powerful witch. So was I, but did I have the experience to subdue her? If only I could get to my grandmother’s grimoire. Perhaps there was something in it—anything—that could help me rebind Beata’s magic.
I sat up. The meadow’s dry grass rustled in the slight breeze, and grasshoppers hummed. A cooler waft of air smelling of damp stone drifted from the millpond. Alone, Beata’s power might be too much to handle. But I wasn’t alone.
“Come on, Rodney.” Checking to make sure no one was within sight, I made my way toward the woods.
The forest was quiet, and I saw no one on the trail, but Sam knew I used it to travel between the library and retreat center.
He could be here anytime to look for me.
I ducked off the trail to take the overgrown spur to the witch’s circle.
The witch’s circle was cool, even in the heat of the summer afternoon. Tall firs ranged thickly above. I leaned against the rugged bark of a strong old tree and closed my eyes.
How could I draw Lise to me? I didn’t have her phone number, and I didn’t have a book to draw magic from to fuel a spell. However, we were both witches, bound by centuries of shared experience, even if she was just beginning to be aware of it.
Her power came from scent. That’s where I’d start.
I closed my eyes and inhaled. Rodney’s purrs kicked up a notch.
The fir trees breathed a damp, piney aroma, almost like incense.
Below me, the balsamic fragrance of dried needles was tinged with hay.
Charcoal and the lingering rose and sandalwood of magic drifted from where I’d burned Beata’s linens—and where Tyrone’s body had been found. Lise, come , I willed.
I let out my breath and drew in another. I focused. From faraway, the cottonwoods on the Kirby River smelled sweet, and the damp earth of its banks had an almost metallic fragrance. Although I’d inhaled these scents often over the years, I’d never experienced them as deeply as I did now.
I’m here , I said silently. Come to me .
Then I sat back and waited.
I bolted upright at the sound of twigs crackling under footsteps. Sam?
“Josie. Is that you?” It was Lise. “What did you do to your hair?”
I let out a sigh of relief and stood. “You came. It worked.” I plucked my velour sweatshirt and released it. “I’m in hiding. Pro tip: black hair isn’t great for redheads.”
“I was at the café and had the distinct impression you were here and wanted to see me. It was bizarre. I could literally smell you here—the moss, the pine needles, even Rodney’s fur.” She pulled fingers up his tail, and he nuzzled her hand.
“Magic is weird that way.”
“It felt urgent.” Lise lifted a white paper sack. “I had Darla pack up the rest of my meal to go. Want part of a grilled cheese?”
“Yes, please.”
“They’re looking for you in town, you know.”
“You came, anyway,” I said.
“You’re not a murderer. It’s your Aunt Beata, isn’t it? She’s behind it.”
I patted the fallen tree trunk next to me, and Lise sat. Rodney jumped up, too, to nose around the food. I hadn’t eaten much since breakfast, and that had been skimpy. Even cold, the sandwich was delicious. I picked out a morsel of cheese to feed Rodney.
“People always talk about how good cat fur smells,” Lise said, “but it smells even better than that, like narcissus and . . . love.” She inhaled. “Emotion furls off you in ribbons. Old leather, saffron. A hint of tarry vetiver. Smells like despair.”
“Impressive. I don’t even know what vetiver smells like,” I said.
Rodney crawled into my lap and purred. He must have been in heaven with two witches so near. He twisted so I could pet his belly, and the star-shaped birthmark where his fur was thin—a twin birthmark to mine— showed.
“Do you feel compelled to use your ability for anything?” I asked.
Lise finished her half of the sandwich and wiped her fingers. “I don’t know. I can’t even master muting the scent. It can be too much, and then all of the sudden it fades.”
She would figure it out. Eventually. “You hit it on ‘despair.’ Beata wants me in prison, and she’s made a plan to make sure it happens.”
“Why didn’t she leave town once you freed her magic?”
“She wants to know I can’t bind it again.
Rodney, leave that alone.” He’d been trying to stick his head in the takeaway sack.
He looked up at me with a who, me? glance.
“If I’m in prison, I can’t interfere with her.
She’s plotting to make sure I’m not only arrested for Tyrone’s death, but convicted, too. ”
“How’s she going to do that?”
I explained about Byron and the key to Tyrone’s room at the Wallingford Guest House.
“The key is proof that Byron killed Tyrone. They were on the run from the police. They killed a man in Baltimore. Tyrone may have considered turning himself in, and Byron couldn’t have that, so he killed him.
Byron overlooked the key. If he remembers and gets rid of it, there goes my proof that he’s the murderer and I’m innocent. ”
“And if Beata gets it….”
My waft of despair had to be pretty strong by now. “Right. The sheriff is getting a search warrant. I need to get that key before Beata plants it in my apartment for him to find.” I didn’t feel the need to burden Lise with my personal difficulties with Sam at the moment.
“You want my help,” Lise said.
“I need it. I’m too new a witch to handle Beata on my own.”
She tilted her head. “You’re a new witch? Then what good am I?”
“Between us, we command more magic than either of us alone. We’ll need to rely more on instinct than experience.
” That and Grandma’s grimoire. “Besides, Beata will come to the library to hide the key, and the library is full of books. I can use their energy as fuel.” Simply thinking of the trove of magic, my body warmed.
“Your source,” Lise said.
“Exactly.” I swiveled to face her. “Will you help me?”
Rodney, the traitor, had now crawled into her lap and purred like an outboard motor. “I don’t know how I can. What am I supposed to do, smell her coming?”
I told her the truth. “I don’t know what you can do, either. All I know is that if Beata’s magic goes unchecked, my going to prison will be the least of it. She could do a lot of damage, ruin a lot of lives.”
I felt as if my grandmother spoke through me. Was she here with us? For a moment, I caught an image of her bending to crush pine needles between her fingers. But, no, I’d imagined it. The woods were still but for birds flitting between trees.
“It’s a risk for you, too. I don’t know how Beata will react. I don’t know what she can do. Are you game?” I tried to ask this nonchalantly, but it was my life we would be fighting for. My life most immediately, that was. Perhaps we would save others in the future.
“I want to say no,” replied Lise, “but I can’t. This is my destiny, somehow. Is that bizarre?”
“As you’re finding out, it’s not strange at all.”
Destiny was a big subject, one I’d grappled with often from my chair by the fire, when fate didn’t breathe down my neck as it did now. For me, choice was moot. Justice motivated me. In this case, justice applied not just to Byron, but to Beata. Lise would have to come to her own conclusion.
The seconds stretched to minutes, and Rodney, eyes closed, continued to purr loudly.
“Okay,” Lise said finally. “What do you need me to do?”