Laced with Magic Page 6

  Karen ignored her. “You drive me,” she said to me. “We have to talk.”

  So do we, Chloe’s look said as another rumble of thunder crashed overhead.

  “Chloe’s right,” I said to my ex-wife. “I’ll swing by the motel in the morning and we can talk over breakfast.” I wanted to make a few phone calls to old friends back in Boston and see if I could get a handle on what had been going on.

  Karen considered her options for a few seconds, then nodded.

  She turned to Chloe. “I’ve been on the road all day. I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Fine,” Chloe said. “Just ignore the litter boxes.”

  “No problem,” she said as she followed Chloe down the hallway. “I love cats.”

  That should have been my first clue that it would be a long night.

  6

  CHLOE

  The old wives were right. I never should have knitted him that sweater. My relationship was unraveling right before my eyes and heading straight for the frog pond.

  Luke wanted me to sit down so he could explain why he hadn’t told me about his daughter, but there was no way I was going to have that conversation while his ex-wife was in my bathroom.

  First love. First marriage. First child.

  Those memories all belonged to Luke and another woman, and even the strongest magick couldn’t change that fact.

  I know that humans marry and divorce the way I cast on new knitting projects. They move on to new spouses and new lives with an ease I don’t really understand. But when humans have a child together, like it or not, they are bound together forever.

  I made another pass through the cottage while Luke stood near the front window, lost in thought. We had dodged a bullet back there at the church. Luckily the first Mrs. MacKenzie had been preoccupied with her own problems and had accepted our exploding water heater excuse without question. We couldn’t expect to get away with that a second time.

  I was quenching another blue flame message from Lynette when I glanced over at the grandmother clock in the hallway. An uneasy feeling settled into the pit of my stomach, right next to the huge knot of apprehension at the prospect of driving the ex to the motel.

  “She’s been in there over ten minutes,” I said to Luke, practically my first words to him since we entered the cottage. “Does she usually take that long?”

  He looked like someone awakened from a deep sleep. “I don’t remember.”

  “You were married to her.” I sounded exactly the way I felt: tense and angry. “You must have some idea.”

  “We didn’t chart bathroom schedules.”

  “Go in there and check on her.”

  “Why don’t you check on her?”

  “She’s your ex-wife.”

  “It’s your house.”

  We sounded like quarreling children. One of us had to act the part of the adult in the equation. I walked down the hallway and tapped on the door. “Are you okay in there?”

  No response.

  I looked over at Luke, who was standing next to me. “Now what?”

  He knocked twice, harder. “Karen? What’s going on?”

  No response.

  He grasped the doorknob and tried to turn it.

  “She locked it,” he said.

  “Not a problem.” I placed my hands an inch away from the lock, narrowed my focus, and waited for the tiny pop.

  “Try it now,” I said, stepping aside.

  The door swung open and there was the ex-Mrs. MacKenzie, out cold on the floor.

  “Shit,” he muttered, kneeling down next to her. “What the hell’s going on now?”

  She looked frail and vulnerable, her childlike frame swallowed up by the oceans of fluffy yellow bath mat underneath her. I refused to feel anything but indifference toward her.

  “Someone give the woman a Twinkie,” I muttered as he slid an arm under her shoulders and raised her to a sitting position. I was skinny but she made me look like I needed a couple weeks with Jenny Craig.

  I could see where this was going and I hated it. We couldn’t send the waif to Motel 6. Clearly she would have to spend the night at the cottage.

  Bad enough that meant she would be sleeping in the guest room next to us, close enough to hear me snore. (Assuming I really do snore. I still think Luke exaggerated.) Now I would have to make very sure that I kept the magick under control while she was there.

  The truth? I wasn’t sure my powers were up to it. Somehow I was managing to keep the protective charm around Sugar Maple up and running, but for some strange reason my cottage seemed to be a free-range magick zone. Random acts of sorcery had a habit of breaking out when I least expected them, and they usually eluded my attempts to rein them in. We had the weekly cutlery run, the daily flying bath towel brigade, and the occasional let’s-see-who-we-can-conjure-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night sweepstakes. Not exactly something you can easily explain away to a civilian.

  Take last night when Forbes the Mountain Giant slid a massive hand under the cottage’s foundation and gave us an aerial view of the valley nobody else in Sugar Maple had ever seen.

  I was pretty sure Luke would be sleeping with one eye open for a long time to come.

  I soaked a washcloth in cool water and handed it to him. “Hold this against her forehead,” I instructed. I wasn’t entirely clear what the wet cloth was supposed to accomplish, but I had seen it in enough movies and television shows to know it was the thing to do. “I’ll make her some toast and eggs.”

  And call her a cab.

  Of course, I didn’t say that. It sounded bitchy and heartless, and I didn’t want the man I loved to think I was either of those things. What I really wanted to do was spend a few quality minutes with the Book of Spells and conjure up a one-way astral projection that would send Karen MacKenzie back to Boston.

  Which was also bitchy and heartless but a lot more efficient.

  He placed the cold washcloth on the ex’s forehead and she stirred. For a second I had the feeling she knew exactly where she was and what she was doing, and my stomach turned in on itself like a salted pretzel.

  I turned and headed for the kitchen.

  Call it sorcerer’s intuition, but I’d bet my weight in quiviut she had staged this last scene like an Oscar-winning director with an audience of one in mind.

  Of course, I couldn’t say that to Luke either. Human males had a curious tendency to believe pretty much anything a female of their species told them at face value. Subtext, nuance, veiled sarcasm were all lost on them so you can imagine what the sight of a damsel in distress could do to them.

  I cracked two eggs into a Spatterware bowl and quelled the urge to add sponsymia and partularicus to the mix. Sponsymia and partularicus were herbs prized by scorned lovers for their antierotic qualities. Half a teaspoon, and celibacy was your only option.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to give it a try. I had promised myself that I would never use magick to keep Luke by my side, but I still hadn’t worked out the rules as they applied to ex-wives.

  I jumped at the sound of a knock at the window and saw a bedraggled canary tapping its beak against the glass.

  “Open up!” Lynette chirped in a Betty Boop voice. “I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

  I opened the window. She skidded across the narrow windowsill, squawked, then landed in the sink with a splash.

  “I sent three blue flames,” she complained. “Why didn’t you answer me?”

  “I couldn’t. She saw them.”

  Her beak dropped open. “The wife saw them?”

  “She saw them,” I said again for emphasis, “and she asked questions.”

  “She’s not supposed to be able to see them.” I could see the wheels turning in her tiny little bird head. “Maybe she’s magick!” I didn’t think it was possible for her voice to climb any higher.

  “Luke saw them too,” I said, “and we know he’s not magick.”

  “Amen, sister,” Lynette chirped. “Defini
tely no magick there.”

  I had the feeling she’d just insulted my man but I let it pass.

  “Well,” said Lynette, “I’d say we’ve got trouble.”

  “You think?” I shot back. “Isadora’s on the prowl. We had an explosion in the middle of a town hall meeting. And now Luke’s ex-wife is sprawled on my bathroom floor and I’m seriously afraid she might be in there for the rest of my life. So yeah, I’d say we’ve got trouble.”

  “PMS,” Lynette clucked. “You should ask Lilith for one of her Saint-John’s-wort potions. Works wonders.”

  “I don’t have PMS,” I said. “What I have is a shapeshifting canary giving me unsolicited medical advice when that very human woman could walk in here any second.”

  Lynette’s beak dropped open. Her eyes closed. Her wings spread open wide. She sneezed once and in a flurry of feathers and expletives morphed into the human form I knew and loved.

  “Shoot,” she said. “I forgot I was still in the sink.”

  It occurred to me that it would be harder to explain why a middle-aged woman was sitting in my sink than it would have been to explain talking to a canary.

  Lynette grabbed my hand and climbed out, dripping soapsuds on my tile floor. “They had another meeting after you left.”

  A wicked cold chill ran up my spine. “About Luke?”

  “And his ex,” Lynette said. “Renate is on the warpath. She claims you’re trying to destroy Sugar Maple by bringing another human into the town.”

  “I didn’t bring Luke to Sugar Maple. The state sent him here. Everyone knows that.”

  “That’s not what Renate is telling them, honey.”

  I poured the beaten eggs into the waiting skillet and listened to the sizzle. “They can call Montpelier and check it out. I have nothing to hide.”

  “Renate says one full-blooded human is more than enough.”

  “Then she should be ecstatic that Luke is our only full-blooded human resident.”

  “They think the ex-wife is going to move up here too.”

  I wasn’t prone to hysterical laughter as a rule but there was always an exception. “Renate needs some serious therapy.”

  “Honey, you’re not listening to me. They think falling in love with a human has changed you.” She pulled a tiny, bright yellow feather out of her left ear and tossed it over her shoulder for luck. “I don’t think it and I know Lilith and Janice don’t think it either but—” She gave one of those shrugs that were worth a thousand words. “You came into your powers, but until you have a child, we’re in the same precarious position we were in before Luke showed up. They’re afraid you’ve forgotten your responsibility to the town.”

  “And this is what Renate called a secret meeting to talk about? They said all that to my face tonight.”

  I didn’t think it was possible for Lynette to look more uncomfortable than she already did but I was wrong. “She said Isadora was right and we should consider moving Sugar Maple beyond the mist.”

  Where anyone with human blood would be doomed.

  “I’d better—” I stopped at the sound of footsteps in the hallway and flung open the window. “They’re coming. We’ll talk about it at the shop.”

  Lynette wrapped her arms tightly across her chest and closed her eyes. The footsteps came closer. She shrank down to canary size but there wasn’t a feather in sight.

  “Hurry!” I whispered. “They’re almost here.”

  Lynette stretched out her wings and I held my breath as a covering of down appeared, followed by a brilliant layer of yellow, complete with flight feathers and tail.

  “ . . . scrambled eggs,” I heard Luke say from the doorway. “Chloe’s a great cook.”

  Lynette winked at me and flew out the open window as Luke and the ex walked into the kitchen.

  Luke sniffed the air. “Something’s burning,” he said, glancing around.

  I felt my cheeks redden with embarrassment. Some great cook. The pan of scrambled eggs I’d started while talking to Lynette had turned to dark brown leather. I saw the look Mrs. Ex shot Luke but I decided to be magnanimous and ignore it.

  I addressed the ex directly. “There’s OJ and V8 in the fridge. The coffee’s almost ready and the eggs will be done in a minute.” Martha Stewart with magick. I should have my own DIY show.

  Luke sniffed the air again like a bloodhound. “It smells like burning feathers in here.”

  I forced a lighthearted laugh that fooled nobody. “Feathers? I don’t think so. Not unless one of the cats got into trouble.”

  Mrs. Ex’s smile was every bit as phony. “Luke’s right. There are yellow feathers in your sink.”

  And as it turned out, one feather was also stuck to the front burner on the stove and it happened to be on fire.

  I extinguished the flames, turned on the exhaust fan, wiped up the mess, then made another pan of scrambled eggs for a woman I would have happily abandoned on the side of the road if I hadn’t been cursed with a conscience.

  “Bon appetit.” I feigned a yawn behind my hand. “If I don’t see you in the morning, it was nice meeting you.”

  She nodded but she didn’t say a word. I wasn’t sure if she was rude or just preoccupied and I didn’t care. All I wanted was for her to be someplace else when I woke up.

  LUKE

  The last time I saw Karen, we were in the parking lot behind the Realtor’s office. It was late August and a heavy humid haze hung over the buildings, the trees, and us, blurring the sharp edges. She wore a green dress. Her red hair was scraped back in a low ponytail. A half-smoked Salem fell to her feet next to six more half-smoked cigarettes. She reached deep into her bag for another one and I didn’t try to stop her.

  The divorce was final. The house had closed. All the bits and pieces that made up a couple’s life together had been inspected, divided, or tossed away with our marriage. We were waiting for our respective attorneys to finish the last of the paperwork, then call us back in to distribute the checks.

  There were so many things I wanted to say to her: that I had loved her, that I would always love what we had shared in those early days, that for a little while before our world stopped spinning on its axis, we had almost been happy.

  But I was all out of words. We both were. We had flung words at each other like sharpened knives and most of them had drawn blood. The only thing left was goodbye.

  And now here we were, more than two years later, looking at each other across Chloe’s kitchen table. The only thing we had in common was the memory of the little girl we both still mourned.

  “These eggs aren’t very good,” she said. “The supermodel can’t cook.”

  “Her name is Chloe.”

  “She burns scrambled eggs, Luke. Nobody burns scrambled eggs.”

  Nobody burned scrambled eggs unless they’d been distracted. The yellow feathers in the sink were a dead giveaway that Lynette Pendragon had dropped by for a visit.

  I gulped down a cup of coffee while she pushed the eggs around on her plate.

  “I think you need a doctor,” I said. “Maybe an X-ray or something. You keep passing out. That’s not normal.”

  “Nothing for you to worry about,” she said. “Steffie really did send me here to find you. I’m not crazy and I’m not making it up.”

  It felt like an explosion going off inside my chest but I stayed cool. “You found me. So where the hell is she?”

  “I don’t know. But she’ll be here. I know she will.”

  “Steffie’s not coming. We buried her next to my mother. She’s not coming back. Not now. Not ever.”

  “She already came back once. I know she’ll do it again.”

  “You need help.”

  Her laugh was almost scary. “That’s what my therapist said.”

  “You’ve been seeing a therapist?”

  “A therapist, a shrink, Father Romero at Christ the Redeemer, a social worker at the hospital. They all think I’m nuts but I’m not. I swear it.”

  Right aroun
d now was when I’d be calling for backup.

  “You told them about Steffie?”

  She shot me a scornful look. “I went about the dreams.”

  I raised my hands in the air. I didn’t want to hear about her dreams. The ones I still had about Steffie were bad enough. Ones so real that waking up was like losing her all over again. Dreams about her first word, her first step, making her laugh with the silly Rock Paper Scissors game she loved. Dreams I wished I could block forever.

  “This is way above my pay grade.” If they couldn’t help her, what chance did I have? “I need to get back to town hall and fill out a report. Get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “Same old Luke,” she said. “Still running away when the going gets tough.”

  “There was an explosion,” I said. “I have responsibilities.”

  “You had responsibilities to your daughter too.”

  She was right but that didn’t mean I wanted to hear it.

  “You need help, Karen,” I said. “I’m going to drive you down to Boston tomorrow and see if we can find a doctor.”

  “Not until we do something about Steffie.”

  “She’s dead.” My neutral cop persona was starting to crack. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “She’s reaching out to us.” Her eyes were wild with grief and hope. “She sent me to find you, Luke. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  If I had believed a word she said was true, it would have meant everything, but I didn’t.

  My daughter was dead and I was the reason why.

  That was the only thing I believed.

  It was the only thing that mattered.

  I pushed back my chair and stood up. “See you in the morning, Karen.”

  7

  CHLOE

  I tried to eavesdrop on Luke and his ex-wife from the bedroom, but the astral static was so strong I couldn’t hear a word they were saying. When that didn’t work, I tried to send Pye into the kitchen to pick up the vibes and report back to me, but she seemed to like the redhead about as much as I did and refused to leave my side. Dinah, Lucy, and Blot weren’t any help at all. The three of them were sound asleep on the window seat, oblivious to the turmoil I was going through.