Spellbinders Collection Page 12

  Damn. This woman knew far too much about Morgan family business. But then, as Alice had just pointed out, Elaine and . . . Caroline . . . weren't the first mixing of Welsh and Naskeag blood.

  Alice nodded as if reading his mind. "You guys want a place on the tribal register? Gets you all sorts of preference on government contracts, you know — a minority-owned business is clear points ahead on a competitive bid. Then you guys could subcontract for the CIA."

  She paused, and a distant expression crossed her face as if she was listening to something far away. Then she came back from wherever it was, and Ben saw the old wicked Alice-gleam in her eyes.

  "You know, Romeo, Caroline has the same percentage of Morgan blood that Gary has. I think you need to meet your instant daughter. I think your Dragon needs to meet your daughter."

  Ben swallowed. He knew what kind of response his words would trigger, but he had to say them. "The Dragon only works with men."

  "Well, now," she drawled. "Ain't that a shame. Ain't that a frigging Medieval shame."

  Chapter Twelve

  "Aunt Alice, are you really a witch?"

  Alice studied the child sitting across the table from her. At eight, Peggy's beanpole figure was still essentially neuter, a scrawny stick topped by perpetually tangled short dark hair and a fair and freckled face. Her older sister took off in the other direction, olive skin and shoulder-length hair just a shade darker than honey blonde, on a body that was starting to develop curves. With their mixed ancestry, appearance was sort of random chance. They both showed promise of being really cute, though.

  "Well, perhaps I'd better find out just what you think a witch is before I admit to being one or not." She pushed the basket of fresh-baked whole-wheat rolls over to Ellen. The twelve-year-old had been eyeing them, and a belly full of good food was well known for easing grief. "Let's do a little Socratic dialog here. I'll ask you some questions while you work on that chicken, you'll answer them, and we'll find out whether I'm a witch or not. And don't talk with your mouth full."

  Aunt Jean had taught her to never dumb her language down for kids. These two were a bit of a surprise, anyway. She'd ask them to choose the music for dinner, and they'd put their heads together and ended up with Gregorian chants. Ellen had said she thought they were "way cool."

  Alice scooped up a forkful of homegrown peas and let the monks fill the silence at the table. She found it amusing that Peggy was asking the questions, but Ellen seemed to be more annoyed by having to wait for answers. They were a little young to have worked out tag-team interrogation already. So far, moving the girls to a new and exciting place — the witch's house — seemed to be helping them.

  She swallowed. "So. What makes you think I might be a witch?"

  "Oh, everybody says you are." Peggy made a very superior eight-year-old wave of dismissal. It was obvious.

  "Everybody says. Let's see now." Alice turned to Ellen — it was time to make her join in on this. "You call me 'Aunt Alice.' Am I your aunt?"

  The older girl started to speak, caught herself, swallowed, and followed the piece of buttered roll with some milk before answering. "No. We just call you that. It's, like, being polite."

  "So putting a label on someone doesn't mean that label is true?"

  Both girls nodded, their mouths busy again. Alice shook her head, mentally, ruefully. If she only could get that message nailed down and glued in place on a global scale . . .

  "Next question: What is a witch?"

  Alice figured that one would be good for a few slices of honey-glazed chicken. She'd made the girls do most of the cooking, just supervising, and had made the menu decently complicated to force them to think of what they were doing rather than what was being done to them. Ellen had turned out to have definite potential with spices — just precisely enough ginger in the glaze — while Peggy thought kneading the rolls was more fun than Play-Doh. More squishy, and they smelled better.

  They all chewed for a while. Finally Ellen put down her fork. "Well, there's like this girl in school who calls herself a witch . . ."

  "Who?"

  "Andrea Messer."

  Ah. Leah Messer's kid. "And what does she do to be a witch?"

  "She's always wearing like these long black dresses and a black beret and way too much makeup and reaalllly strange jewelry. Like, crystals and crescent moons and five-pointed stars? She sits in the shadows and, like, stares at people?"

  Well, anybody who'd use scented candles for a ritual would have a child like that. And as for skyclad dances under the full moon, well, whatever turns you on. As far as Alice was concerned, that didn't work in Maine — you'd either freeze your butt off, or get eaten alive by bugs.

  "Any evidence of witchery?"

  "Well, like, she weirds everybody out, you know. There's this thing in the corner, like, it's staring at you. Creepy."

  "No pimple-faced boys turned into frogs? No poisoned apples for the fairest in the land?"

  Ellen giggled and shook her head. Alice looked over at Peggy. "How about you, Margaret Morgan. What's your definition of a witch?"

  "Somebody who cooks up potions in a big iron pot and flies around on a broomstick and tricks children into eating gingerbread houses?"

  "Well, you helped sweep all those dead flies out of the old parlor so you could sleep there. Did that broom show any evidence of aeronautical experience? Any FAA registration numbers or radar transponders?"

  "No."

  "You girls have known me since forever. Have you ever seen me wearing black?"

  "No."

  "You cooked dinner. Did I show any tendency to shove either one of you into the oven?"

  Now Peggy giggled, exactly like her older sister, quietly, with a hand over her mouth and shoulders quivering. She shook her head.

  "Well," Alice went on, lowering her eyebrows in a sinister fashion, "I had been thinking of baking gingerbread tomorrow, with lemon sauce. Am I going to get a label slapped on my forehead?"

  This was skirting the edge. Ben had said they both loved gingerbread, but Maria had used to bake it for them for a special treat. It could be comforting, or it could set off the waterworks.

  Now the giggles were broadcast in stereo. Alice breathed a sigh of relief. She was still feeling her way along with these two, trying to get into their heads enough to help them.

  Witchcraft, at least as the Haskell Women knew it, was nine parts practical psychology to one of magic. The earth magic, the spring's magic — that was real. However, it mainly defended, healed, and preserved. It was an inner magic, a female magic. She'd need something more masculine and aggressive to fight this little war Ben Morgan had dumped in her lap. Something like Kate's . . . .

  Meanwhile, the plates were empty, and nobody seemed to be looking around for more. Time for the next step on her program.

  "Now you kids wash up. I've shown you where all the stuff goes, and I'll dock your pay if you break anything."

  Ellen glanced at Peggy. "But you're not paying us anything."

  "Be a shame to start out in the hole, wouldn't it?"

  Alice lit an oil lamp and headed for the old part of the house. The girls had thought it would be cool to sleep in the seventeenth century, with oil lamps and a fireplace for heat, surrounded by all the ghosts of Haskells past. Alice had kept her mouth shut about her reasons. She threaded her way through the halls and stairways into the oldest parlor, the room located right over the spring.

  It waited, ready: futon mattresses on the floor, comforters, pillows, the neat piles of clothing they'd brought over from Morgan's Point, two threadbare teddy bears. She'd see what they thought about the seventeenth century after being stuck with chamber pots at night — and emptying them come morning.

  Alice checked the shutters again, heavy oak planks inside and out, none of those newfangled slatted things that wouldn't stop a burglar or a bullet. They were barred on the inside, and the walls were also solid oak over a foot thick. This part of the house had been built like a fort, for good re
ason. There were still a couple of British cannonballs buried in the old logs, somewhere along the bay side and underneath the clapboards. Kate would know where to find them.

  She knelt down on the hearth, struck a match to the kindling, and watched flames nibble their way into the maple and birch she'd laid there earlier. Murmuring an invocation in Naskeag, she scattered herbs over the growing fire. Sweetgrass first, that was purification. Rosemary followed, for the traditional remembrance, then sage and juniper and bloodroot to stand guard. Tobacco summoned the winds, to hide the children and bring them news.

  Alice felt a brief chill, wondering if the kids were really strong enough for the summoning she planned. She stared at the flames for a few minutes, drawing calm from them and from her bond with the spring below her knees.

  She glanced at her watch — almost ten, they'd eaten late because of the turmoil of moving. Even nearing the first day of summer, the sun had set. Time for tired kids to head for bed, with a little bedtime surprise.

  Back through the centuries to the kitchen, Alice found Ellen standing in the middle of the floor, hugging Peggy. The smaller girl wept slowly, quietly, her face buried in her sister's shoulder. Ellen's face also shone with tears. She noticed Alice hesitating in the doorway.

  "Your pot scrubber," the girl explained. "It's exactly like Mom's. Even worn the same way."

  Damn and spit. She'd taken the chance with gingerbread and won, only to get tripped up by a two-buck scrubbing pad. Alice tiptoed her way into the room and a tentative three-way hug. Their body-language accepted her as a substitute mommy. Alice felt the House enfold them all, offering strength and solace. Gradually, tense muscles relaxed.

  They separated. Peggy wiped her face with her sleeve and offered a red-eyed, rueful smile. "I think I want Barney Bear."

  Alice glanced around. The children had finished washing and drying. The room was neater than she usually kept it, and they'd even folded the dishcloth and hung it right. If they'd done all that while crying, they were stronger than she thought.

  Alice handed one lamp to Ellen and picked up another for herself. "Bedtime, girls." They didn't protest.

  The fire had taken the chill off the room, with the fast-burning birch already settling into coals and the rock maple still holding firm. It made a perfect focus for dreaming, and Alice settled down on a cushion in front of it. The girls hesitated for a moment and then snuggled into a sandwich close and warm on either side. She slipped an arm around each and started chanting softly in Naskeag, speaking to the waters of the land.

  The power of the spring rose around her, lifting the hair on the back of her neck and forming goosebumps on her arms. She felt Ellen shiver, and then Peggy, so both of them had some sensitivity. Quick sideways glances showed that both were staring into the flames as if hypnotized.

  Alice changed her chant, speaking to the winds, sending them searching. She formed an image of Daniel's face in her mind and placed it in the heart of the fire, building his features out of the purple and blue of the hottest flames against a background of red and orange. First Ellen gasped in shock, and then a minute or so later Peggy turned rigid and held her breath.

  So Ellen truly had the power? Alice had suspected as much, but hadn't been sure. Maybe the "aunt" was more than just politeness.

  The power flowed through her, into the image flickering in the fireplace. She needed more than sight. Chanting to the bones of the land, chanting to the rock, calling again on the waters of the earth to flow and channel and mingle their messages, she built ears.

  Daniel's image noticed them, jerked with shock, and smiled tentatively. "Ellie? Mouse?"

  Peggy twisted to bury her face in Alice's shoulder, nerve broken by the fire's whispery voice speaking her dad's pet name. Alice hugged her, rubbing gently on the back of the child's neck and flowing peace through the palm of her hand. Ellen just shook her head in stunned acceptance.

  Alice forced herself to speak, knowing it could shatter her magic. "Daniel, can you tell us where you are?"

  The image flickered, but then it firmed. She guessed he'd pulled strength from his Dragon to add to the power of the spring.

  "I'm underground. I'm still on the island. Girls, trust Aunt Alice. Do exactly what she tells you to do. She'll keep you safe."

  Alice felt the strain burning through her, as if another power wrestled with hers. Daniel's face danced again and almost dissolved into mere flames. Peggy turned her head sideways, sneaking another peek at this impossible thing that was happening.

  Daniel's face glanced to one side, as if he was being watched. "I love you, girls. I'll try to come back to you, but if I can't, remember that: I love you, and Mommy loved you. Trust Alice."

  A log split in the fire, and the face vanished in sparks. Both girls jerked and slumped. Alice felt sweat trickling down her back and damp under her arms, and an odd coldness spread from her belly as if she'd swallowed ice.

  Peggy burrowed into her arms, weeping softly again. Alice held her and wondered if she'd done the right thing. Children could be so fragile. Tears dampened her own cheeks, and she stared into the dying fire that was just a fire. The child quieted and gradually sagged into sleep.

  A soft hand touched her arm. Alice broke out of her drowse and saw Ellen smiling sadly in the red glow of the coals.

  The girl leaned forward and whispered. "You really are a witch, aren't you?"

  "Yes, Ellen, I am."

  "And that was magic?"

  "Yes."

  "Is Daddy alive? Gary said something and then slapped his hand over his mouth. I kinda guessed."

  "Hush, love. Don't wake your sister. Yes, your father is alive. Don't tell Peggy yet."

  Ellen's fingers bit into Alice's arm. "Did Mom and Dad have another fight?"

  Oh, God! "No, this doesn't have anything to do with that. It isn't anything you children did, either. Your father is being held prisoner, and it hurts him terribly to be away from you. Now you keep this a deep dark witchy secret and help me get Peggy into bed."

  Alice laid Peggy down on one of the makeshift beds, gently unwrapping thin arms from around her neck. She slid the screen across in front of the fire, checked the oil in one lamp, and turned its wick down to a night-light glow before tucking it into a safe niche in the stone over the mantle.

  Soft rustles behind her back spoke of clothes and sheets and young bodies. When she turned back, Ellen had already changed Peggy into ridiculous bunny pajamas without waking her and was just slipping into her own top. Alice snuggled a worn bear into Peggy's arms, smiling gently when she saw how the patterns of thread-bare backing matched the child's clutch. The second battered friend already lay next to Ellen's pillow, outgrown comfort suddenly necessary once more.

  Alice tucked sheets and comforters around both girls and kissed both gently on the forehead, murmuring a Naskeag blessing. She checked the shutters again.

  "Aunt Alice?"

  Alice turned back at the door.

  Ellen offered her a wan half-smile. "Thanks. I love you."

  Alice smiled her care back, pulled the door closed, and quietly set the latch. Now the spring could work more healing while they slept.

  She'd told the girls to call her if they woke in the night, and they'd seemed to think she would listen through some ancient magic. Her real tactics were a little cruder. She planned to spend the night sleeping in front of their door, and anything that wanted to get at them would be coming through her, first.

  She left the second lamp sitting on the floor — she'd be running short of hands on the return trip. Threading back through the dark hallways by memory, she ducked into the newest part of the house and up the stairs into her own bedroom. What with one thing and another, she hadn't had a chance to gather the tools for this particular witching.

  Poking through a storage space tucked in under the cape's steep roof, she collected a sleeping bag and Aunt Harriet's old pump shotgun, a trench gun from the Great War complete with bayonet lug. Her bedside table contributed a four
-cell Mag-Lite flashlight guaranteed to blind a burglar at twenty paces.

  She also picked up the Walther and tucked it into her hip pocket. Two spare magazines helped balance the load on the other side. Kate said to always carry a backup. Alice jacked the action of the shotgun open, fed birdshot shells into the long magazine and the chamber, and checked the safety. Birdshot would be deadlier than buckshot or slugs at the ranges found inside a house. She'd seen the results in the ER.

  Downstairs, she checked the cookstove, the doors, and Dixie's water dish. Then she retreated through the centuries, latching and locking each door she passed and setting an oaken bar across the last and oldest one. The house had been built for a defense in depth.

  Alice spread her sleeping bag on the floor and squirmed into it fully clothed, nose wrinkling at the musty smell from years of storage. She hadn't used it since Girl Scout days: good thing she hadn't grown an inch since then. She blew out the lamp and felt down along her side for the flashlight, checking it again. The light glowed orange through layers of fabric and stuffing. A quick touch verified the icy slick metal of the shotgun lying next to her.

  Stars glittered through the small window at the end of the hall, dancing in the old warped glass when she moved her head, and an owl hooted down near the shore. A loon answered from out in the bay. Those were the only sounds that passed the walls, as if the house had transported her and the children centuries into the past.

  Alone. She needed Kate for times like this, needed her strength and toughness. Alice shivered inside the sleeping bag, the fabric still cold against her skin.

  She'd called in to the hospital and the ambulance squad: a family emergency, she had to go out of town. True enough, and they could juggle the rosters for a few days. After that, it was the girls or the job. She knew where that choice led. No matter how much she loved her job, she didn't have to work. That's what all that Haskell money was for.

  She did have to serve.

  Damn you, Kate, I need you here!

  The loon called again. Alice wiped cold tears from her cheek.