Smoke on the Water Read online

  Technically, I was crazy, but not about this. Still, I’d like someone who wasn’t certifiable to see the same thing I had.

  “We have to wait for the full moon,” Mary said.

  Another month. It seemed so far away.

  Chapter 8

  Sebastian watched the two women through the small window. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they both seemed to be saying a lot.

  The most interesting thing was how normal Mary appeared. She was still dressed in the tan jumpsuit accorded to the least stable patients; loaferlike slippers graced her feet. Her hair was matted and snarled. The white bandage on her forehead nearly matched the ice-pale shade of her skin.

  But when she talked to Willow, her hands didn’t wring, pull at her hair, or smack her own head; her eyes didn’t dart, and her voice didn’t lift toward a shriek. The two carried on a conversation like ordinary adults. Sebastian only hoped that when Willow came out she had more to report than gibberish.

  Willow patted Mary on the shoulder and kissed her head. Mary beamed at her as if Willow had given her the world. Why, then, when he’d done the same to Willow, had she glared at him as if he’d farted in church? Probably for the same reason that Zoe had glared at him all day.

  With a woman’s sixth sense, they knew he wanted more from Willow than he should. He wasn’t sure what to do about that. He barely knew her, yet he felt as if he did. He felt as if he’d known Willow all his life. And that was nearly as crazy as …

  Willow tapped on the door, and he glanced inside, afraid he’d missed something dire while daydreaming. But everything was fine—or as fine as it got in solitary. Mary still sat on her bed, hands folded. Willow waited for him to let her out, which he did.

  “What did she say?”

  “Not much.”

  “You were talking quite a bit.”

  “Not much that made sense,” she clarified.

  “Maybe you should tell me everything. It might make more sense to me.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Try me.”

  “She transported from here to there.”

  “Like Star Trek?” he asked.

  “Star Trek’s not real.”

  “Neither is transporting from here to there.”

  “I didn’t say it was true.” Willow studied the toe of her shoe. “I said that’s what she told me.”

  “Is this an idea she got from the Wicca lessons?” he asked.

  Willow coughed. “You think Peggy Dalberg knows a spell that can make someone disappear from one place and appear in another?”

  When put like that he had no choice but to say, “No.” Still … “I should probably put a stop to the lessons.”

  “You’re the administrator,” Willow said. “But if you want my opinion…?”

  He nodded.

  “The lessons are about finding joy, focusing your mind, discovering yourself. Mary’s a lot calmer because of them.”

  “I think she’s calmer because of you.”

  “Not me. Us. Friendship heals. The lessons are something to look forward to. Learning improves the mind.”

  She made a good argument. “I suppose it won’t hurt to continue the lessons. As long as there isn’t any evidence of agitation.” Since he’d be having the guards keep a much closer watch on Mary, he’d know about it.

  “Thanks.”

  “Did Mary mention where she was when she transported?”

  Willow seemed to think about that. Was she coming up with a lie or merely trying to find sense amid the nonsense? Why did he think she would lie? Maybe because she continued to find her shoe more interesting than him.

  “Library,” she answered.

  “The library is in the center of the facility. No way outside from there.”

  “There’s no way outside from anywhere. Which is what makes it a secure mental health facility.”

  “It’s obviously not as secure as I’ve been led to believe. Mary escaped somehow.”

  “I wish I could be more help.”

  “You’ll tell me if she says anything else about it?”

  “Of course.” She started toward her room, then paused, but did not face him. “When will you let her out of there?”

  “If she remains calm, tomorrow.”

  “You aren’t going to make her stay in solitary until she confesses how she got out?”

  “Do you think she believes that she transported?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then she did confess. That it makes no sense is kind of irrelevant.”

  She cast him a sideways glance. He thought again how blue her eyes were, like an ocean he’d never seen but yearned to.

  “You’re an interesting man, Dr. Frasier.”

  He wasn’t, but he liked it far too much that she thought so.

  *

  Dr. Frasier was as good as his word and released Mary from solitary the next day. She came directly to my room, where I gave her the Book of Shadows I’d had the presence of mind to take from the library when I fled, along with the candle and the bell, then warned her not to say a word to anyone about anything.

  “If anyone thinks the spell Peggy taught us worked—” I began.

  “It did!”

  I tightened my fingers around Mary’s. “Shh.”

  Her eyes narrowed but she shushed.

  “Peggy thinks it was a spell of joy.”

  Mary snorted. “She’s not the sharpest tool.”

  “If anyone suspects you escaped using witchcraft, there’ll be no more lessons.”

  “We don’t need Peggy.”

  “I think we do.” I still wasn’t completely convinced that we’d performed magic. If we had, it had been an accident, and I had a feeling that magical accidents ended badly more often than not.

  There was also Peggy’s admonition that magic for selfish reasons was black magic. I wanted nothing, whatsoever, to do with that. Enough nasty things had happened to me already. I didn’t need to add evil to the mix.

  “The more we learn the better,” I said. “And the only one who knows anything about any of this is Peggy.”

  “All right,” Mary agreed, but she wasn’t happy about it.

  Nearly two weeks passed before Peggy was available for another lesson. As much as we might want her to be our personal Wicca teacher 24/7, Peggy was a caseworker and there weren’t enough of them.

  Mary spent a lot of her time reading the Book of Shadows. Since she was calm and quiet when she did so, no one, including me, cared. We both went to our sessions with Dr. Frasier, as well as group sessions with counselors, art class, journaling. Anything to pass the time. Other patients had weekly visitors. Mary and I had each other.

  Peggy joined us at our lunch table. We were alone. Since Mary had been released from solitary several patients had tried to get her to tell them the secret of how she’d gotten out of the facility. I wondered if they’d been enlisted to snitch by Dr. Frasier as well.

  Mary took my advice and clammed up. One inmate pressed the issue. Mary stomped on her toe pretty hard before I could stop her. As they both wore designer crazy-house slippers, Mary didn’t hurt the woman but she got the message. After that everyone left us alone. They were familiar with Mary.

  “Dr. Frasier said you believe you transported yourself out of here,” Peggy said.

  Mary glanced at me and ate her pudding.

  I shrugged. “Mary believes a lot of things.”

  Peggy leaned closer and lowered her voice. “What concerns me is that I taught you a spell of transportation.”

  “For joy.”

  “As Mary pointed out, the word transportation means more than one thing. With a slight tweak in the spell anything can happen.”

  “Are you asking us if it actually worked?” I put an edge of laughter in my voice, a tinge of disbelief in my expression.

  “No.” She sat back. “Of course not. That’s cr—” She pressed her lips together.

  “Today’s the protection spell,” Mary sai
d.

  Peggy twitched. “I’m not sure—”

  “You promised!”

  I gave a small headshake at the volume of her voice. Mary returned to her pudding. It was almost gone. We needed to wrap this up.

  “You did promise,” I said. “And what can protection hurt?”

  What would hurt was not having it.

  “Dr. Frasier might—”

  “What?” I interrupted. “Think you taught Mary a spell that made her disappear from here and appear over there?” I tilted my head. “Did you tell him that?”

  “Of course not. That’s not possible.”

  “Exactly. I spoke to him about how much this has helped Mary.”

  “He did mention that.”

  “He said we could continue, didn’t he?”

  Peggy nodded, still appearing uncertain.

  “You want to tell him why we aren’t?”

  I waited while Peggy did the math. If she stopped teaching us, Dr. Frasier would want to know why. Any explanation wasn’t going to look good. Some of them might sound a bit insane. If Mary lost her shit, which was a definite possibility if Peggy stopped the Wicca lessons, things were going to look even worse. Despite Mary’s comment, Peggy was sharper than the average tool. She added things up pretty quickly.

  “All right. A spell of protection is always a good idea. They’re usually done in the water. River, lake, bathtub.”

  “No, thank you,” I muttered.

  Uncertainty flickered over Peggy’s face. “Maybe a bowl of water that we set our fingertips in. Would that work?”

  “You’re the witch,” I said. I should be able to avoid a glimpse into a bowl if I tried hard enough. Being in a river, lake, or tub … that wasn’t going to happen.

  “I brought what we’d need, just in case.” She stood. “Stay here.”

  “Should I get a pot of water?” Mary asked.

  “I’ll get it.” Peggy hurried off.

  Mary made a disgusted sound. “She thinks I’m gonna drown someone in a pot of water? How would I do that?”

  “Probably easier than you think.”

  “It is,” she said.

  I decided not to ask.

  By the time Peggy returned, juggling the pot of water and a cloth bag, only Mary and I remained in the cafeteria. Peggy pulled six white minicarnations from the sack and handed them to Mary. “Pull off the flower tops and float them in the water.”

  Mary seemed thrilled to have something to do.

  Next Peggy removed a small brown bottle and poured a tablespoon of citrus-scented oil into the water, then a second. “Florida oil.”

  She put the cap back on and withdrew a nylon bag that crinkled with whatever she’d stuffed inside. “Sea salt, lavender, peppermint, five-finger grass, chamomile.” She set the sack in the water as well.

  “Are we making tea?” I asked.

  “Cool water, not hot. And we aren’t going to drink it.”

  She pulled three candles out of the bag, setting each one on the table as she identified them. “White for purity. Purple for healing. Black for protection.”

  She lit them then drew a circle around the pot with chalk. “The spell calls for immersion in the water. We’ll dip in our fingertips.”

  She did so then waited for us. Mary plunged hers in so fast, the water nearly sloshed out of the pot and doused the candles. I kept my gaze on Peggy and immersed mine more slowly.

  “Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Center yourself. This spell calls on the elements—earth, air, fire, and water. They will shield us from harm. Close your eyes and think of each one.”

  I was perfectly happy to. If my eyes were closed, there was no chance I’d see anything I didn’t want to in the water.

  “The earth beneath us—brown dirt, green grass, flowers, trees. Plants need air. Fire purifies. Water is life.” Peggy’s voice was low and soothing, almost a chant. “The air all around us—soft, a breeze—it smells of the earth, gives life to the fire, and swirls the water. Fire is fueled by air, doused by the earth and by water. The elements intertwine. They are separate, but connected. Like us. Together they are more powerful than they are apart. Like us. Do you have a sense of peace, of safety?”

  “Mmm.” I felt trancelike. Calm. Protected.

  My mistake.

  “Water.” Peggy moved her hands and water sloshed as only water can. The tremors tickled my knuckles. “Hear. Feel. See it,” she intoned, and I did.

  First I saw a gray-blue expanse of water, stretching out to an unknown horizon. Rippling, flowing, and then …

  I saw a playground. Children running, laughing. Parents sitting on benches watching. From the height and density of the trees surrounding the place it was Wisconsin or somewhere farther north, Minnesota, Michigan, Canada. The choices were limited.

  Everyone wore coats and hats, gloves. Snow dotted the green-brown grass. Might be April, might be October. Hard to say when all of the trees were pine.

  The wolf that came out of the forest was a beauty. Big and black, with exquisite jewel-green eyes. No one saw it at first.

  No one but me, and I wasn’t really there.

  The great beast—a female, I thought, no obvious male parts in sight and on a wolf they would be—stalked to an unattended baby carriage. No slinking. No hiding. That, in itself, was weird. What was really weird was that this was the same wolf I’d seen before—in the vision of me, Sebastian, and the knife-wielding man with the brogue. It had to be. Certainly there were other black wolves. But one with eyes that green? I doubted it.

  No time to think about what that meant. The wolf reached the carriage and stuck her snout inside. Was there a baby in there? If so, what was she going to do? Take it? Bite it? Eat it? Why?

  I didn’t know much about wolves, but I’d never heard of one doing any of the three to an infant. Dingoes, yes. Coyotes occasionally. Wolves seemed smarter than that. Hurt a baby, pay the price—bullets, traps, poison, sometimes a wolf head on a spike. Depended on the era.

  I glanced into the carriage. I’d only seen a few pictures, but the baby inside was me.

  A shriek made us jump. The wolf snarled; the baby gave one “Eep” and went quiet. She—me—stared at the wolf and smiled, then reached for it. Her—my—palm stroked the creature’s snout an instant before the animal wheeled and ran.

  A woman snatched up the baby. I didn’t recognize her. How could I when she’d been one of my foster parents in the days before I remembered anything?

  The sky that had been as blue as my eyes darkened and thunder rumbled as deep as the wolf’s snarl. Rain began to fall in a torrent, and the vision shimmied, dissolved. But I wasn’t back in the cafeteria, and that was as new as the jump into the past. The park was gone; a small bathroom took its place. Same woman, same me. I lay naked in the bathtub, shrieking the way I should have shrieked about the wolf.

  Candles lit the room—one white, one purple, one black. The water smelled of citrus. The oil clung, making my skin shiny, slippery, shimmery. Six white roses floated in the water, bobbing beneath, then springing on top as I kicked and flailed and cried. My tiny heel smacked against a bag transparent enough to reveal herbs.

  “Earth, air, fire, and water, shield Willow from harm. Cloak this child’s existence from all who seek her out.”

  The candles flickered in a breeze that wasn’t then went out. I opened my eyes just as the candles on the table in the cafeteria did the same.

  Mary’s gaze rested on my face. Had I said or done something to indicate I wasn’t “here”? If I had, I certainly didn’t want to talk about it now, in front of Peggy.

  The caseworker set about cleaning up, dipping a cloth into the liquid and erasing the chalk circle from the table as if nothing strange had happened. Obviously neither one of them had been party to my vision or they wouldn’t be so calm. The only explanation I had for that was that we hadn’t been touching each other, only the water.

  I’d never envisioned the past before. Why had I done so
now?

  “How long does a spell of protection last?” I asked.

  Peggy skimmed the flowers and herb bag from the water and tossed them into the trash. “Until it’s removed.”

  “How do you remove it?”

  She glanced up with all three candles in her hands. “Why would you want to?”

  “I didn’t say I did. I just said how do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you find out?”

  “Protection is good. Why would anyone not want to be protected?”

  She was right. However, I couldn’t help but think that the woman in my vision had protected me right out of anyone in my family ever finding me. Did she know something about them? And how did I find out what?

  “Is there a way to get a list of my foster parents?”

  Peggy’s forehead creased. “Don’t you remember them?”

  “Not before I was three.”

  “What does it matter now?”

  “I have questions.”

  “About what?”

  The wolf and the witch, I thought.

  “Me,” I said.

  “I’ll have to talk to Dr. Frasier.”

  “What does he have to do with it?”

  “He’s your doctor.”

  “My keeper.”

  “Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Peggy said.

  “I’ll ask him.” I had therapy today anyway.

  “Suit yourself.” Peggy tried to retrieve the Book of Shadows from Mary and got smacked on the hand for her trouble.

  “Still readin’ it.” Mary cradled the book against her chest. “When’s the next lesson?”

  “I’m going to visit my new granddaughter for two weeks. When I get back, we’ll do whatever spell you choose. Until then, no performing spells without me. That’s like driving without a driver’s license.”

  Considering what had happened the last time we’d done so, I nodded.

  “Mary?”

  “No new spells.” Her fingers tightened on the book.

  Peggy didn’t seem to notice that Mary hadn’t agreed not to do old spells. With Mary, that was an omission that shouted louder than words.