A Familiar Tail (25 page)

Alistair was already headed for the house, so I assumed the answer was yes.

Back in the attic, I set the herbs on the altar and lit the candles. Then I laid down the wand, right where I'd first found it. I opened the book on the history and practice of magic to a page on invocations. Alistair claimed the armchair while I sat on the floor cross-legged, with my sketch pad balanced on my knees. It reminded me of when I was a kid and I'd sit alone in my bedroom, drawing unicorns and rock stars and whatever I saw out the window.

I cleared my throat and tried not to feel awkward.

“In . . . in reverence I call,” I read from the book. “In hope I ask. Let that which is hidden be made clear. An' it harm none. So mote it be.”

I held my pencil poised, and waited. I took deep, meditative breaths. I tried to keep my mind open to possibilities and to focus on attracting good and useful thoughts.

Nothing happened, except my back started to get tired.

Alistair made an exasperated huffing sound. He jumped off the chair, flopped down next to me and started purring, a long, slow wave of sound. I took another deep breath and
stared at the candle flame. I smelled smoke and rosemary and lavender. My pencil rested against the paper. The wind rushed through the branches outside and a breeze curled through the attic, setting the candle flames flickering.

How did I even get here? What made me think any of this was my business, let alone my responsibility? I kept asking myself those same questions, and I kept not getting any answers. But it didn't seem to matter. Every step took me deeper into the mysteries and deeper into my involvement with the people of this town—Julia, Val, Kenisha, Frank, Sean, Laurie and Brad.

Especially Brad. I wondered if Frank had found him yet. I wondered if he was home with Laurie and Colin, where he belonged. I hoped he was. I saw him again in my mind's eye, angry, confused, hurting so deeply. My hand was moving, sketching, outlining eyes and the shape of a face. I distantly realized I was drawing Brad Thompson, whose exhaustion masked his anger. Who was he angry at? At Dorothy? Probably. At himself, certainly. He'd run into a brick wall. Bottomed out.

What am I doing here?
he'd asked himself.
This isn't me. I have to find a way out. I know what I have to do.

The feelings shifted, like the rustling of pages. All Brad's certainty was bleeding into fear. Random snippets of thought and feeling drifted through me.

No. No. I don't want this.

Well, one more, maybe. Just to take the edge off.

Acceptance rose.
Maybe this doesn't mean the end of everything.

Can still do what's right and not hurt anybody anymore.

Feelings shifted, softened and blurred. Soppy, sentimental, relieved. There was help now. A friend to drive. A way to get home. Wife. Son. Not hurt them anymore. Even laughter. The world spinning.

Shift again. A fresh page. Awareness fading in and out
as the world became a blur of cold and rushing sound and the wind around an aching head. Something's wrong. Stone hit hard and balance was gone and there was nothing but cold all around. Fear rose with the darkness.

Where am I? What am I doing? Where is . . . where is . . . gotta get out of here. Cold. Cold. This is wrong. Wrong.

Falling.

Gotta get up. Gotta get out. Cold, heavy and cold and . . . and . . . and . . .

“Gotta . . . gotta . . . get help.”

The pencil slid from my fingers and I was falling too.

35

THE WORLD CAME
back as a pinhole of light that slowly opened outward, like in an old black-and-white movie.

I blinked up at the ceiling.

There was a weight on my chest, and it purred.

Thoughts and sensations steadied, and I realized I was lying on my back on the four-poster in my new bedroom. Morning sunlight filled the room.

Morning?
It had been nighttime a minute ago. I shoved myself upright. At least, I tried to. First I had to get Alistair to move his furry butt.

“Carefully, young woman!” said Julia. “You've been unconscious since last night.”

“Last night!” I pushed myself back on the pillows. Details flooded back, of being in the attic and the candle flames and the smell of herbs. The pencil in my hand.

Brad. Memories and visions, not about Dorothy and her murder, but about Brad Thompson.

“My sketch pad,” I gasped. “Did you find it . . .” I tried
to shove the blankets back, but a wave of dizziness sent the room spinning.

“Oh, no, you don't.” Julia pushed me back onto the pillows. “What on earth possessed you to try such a powerful working on your own? You could have done serious damage to yourself.”

“No!” I struggled to sit back up. Somebody was really going to have to get this room off spin cycle. This time I managed to get my feet on the floor. “Where's my phone? We've got to call Kenisha. Now!”

“All right, all right. Calm down.” Julia put her hand under my chin like Mom had when I was a little girl and made me look up at her. “Talk to me, Anna. What's happened?”

“Brad Thompson's in trouble! I saw it! I drew it!”

“What!” cried a new voice. Valerie walked through the door carrying a tray with bowls and cups on it. I smelled hot cereal and toast.

“Begin at the beginning, Anna,” ordered Julia.

“I was in the attic, looking through Dorothy's journals. Alistair found an article about automatic writing . . .”

“Alistair did?” Julia frowned.

I nodded. “I thought I'd try it, to harness my Vibe, like you said, and maybe find out something more about how Dorothy died. But I didn't get anything about Dorothy. It was all about Brad Thompson.”

Val deposited the tray on my lap. “I saw your sketch pad in the attic. I'll go get it.”

“My phone . . .” I started to get up again, but Julia pushed me back down.

“Stay,” she said, like she might have been talking to Max
and Leo. “Shannon!” she called over her shoulder. “Bring my purse up here!” She faced me again. “You have to eat and drink. You've drained your energies and if you don't replenish them, you're just going to faint again.”

I wasn't hungry. At least, I didn't think I inhaled the fragrant steam from the bowl of steel-cut oatmeal, with lots of brown sugar and cinnamon. But I picked up the spoon and started wolfing it down like I hadn't eaten in a year.

Then I thought of something else. “How did you get in here? I locked the door.”

“Alistair let us in,” Julia said. “He came to get me; I suppose it was after you passed out. He told me you were in trouble.”

“He
talked to
you?”

“Of course not.” She sniffed at the very notion. “He told Maximilian and Leopold there was trouble, and they told me.”

“Oh. Of course.” I petted the cat slowly. Alistair suddenly got very busy washing his tail.

“But you did find out something?” Valerie edged past Julia and handed me my sketch pad.

“Sort of. I think. I was . . . I don't know . . . it was like I was remembering things. Bits and pieces, scraps, but all from Brad Thompson's point of view. It felt so real.” Real enough that I was still kind of surprised I didn't have a hangover. Real enough that my hands and feet carried the memory of cold water. “Except I don't think I actually wrote anything.” I flipped the pad open and all three women crowded around the bed. “I more sort of drew.”

“You certainly did,” murmured Julia.

They were not finished sketches. They were more doodles than anything, but they were pretty clear. There was a caricature of Brad Thompson with his head bowed into his hands. Then Brad on a stool clutching a highball glass. There was a hand on his shoulder. In the next scene, Brad was looking up and reaching out. Hands clasped his and
helped pull him to his feet. Then, it was Brad in the car with a shadow in the passenger seat beside him.

Then it was the car, with water up to the window.

Then it was a man lying in the water, facedown.

My throat closed up again, sad and sick with what I remembered.

“Who was it?” Julia touched the passenger shadow.

I shook my head. “I don't know. A friend, I think. Somebody he knew, somebody he thought would help. He . . . he'd done something wrong. He was regretting it. He'd made up his mind to put things right. He was thinking, ‘This isn't me.'” I stopped and swallowed. I tasted salt and iron. I tried to tell myself it was just the oatmeal, but I knew it wasn't. It was river water. “He wanted to go home to Laurie and his kids. He wanted to get back to being himself.” I ran my fingers across the shadow in the passenger seat. “But somebody doesn't want him to.” A fresh surge of panic hit. “We've got to find him! It might . . .” I couldn't make myself say the words.

“Already be too late,” whispered Val.

Shannon pressed her hand against her mouth.

“We don't know that,” said Julia firmly. “Anna, your Vibe has given you premonitions before, is that right?” I nodded. “Very well. It is possible this hasn't happened yet. We may still have time.”

Julia grabbed her black purse from Shannon's hands and pulled out her phone. She hit a number and held it to her ear.

“Hello? Mr. Thompson, please . . . No, no message. Thank you.” She hung up. “He's not at the office.”

“I'm telling you!” I stabbed my spoon toward the sketch pad.

Julia had already called another number. She held up one finger, signaling me to wait while it rang. “Hello? Colin? Yes, it is. No, wait . . . I need to talk with your father . . .” I heard the young man on the other end yelling, and I heard the click.

Julia closed her eyes for a moment. “He says his father's fine and we need to get off his back.” I suspected there were a few unprintable adjectives in there.

“Not believing that somehow,” breathed Shannon.

“Me neither.” Val sank onto the edge of the bed and gripped my hand.

Julia just dialed again. “Kenisha? Yes, it's Julia. We need your help. We think something may have happened to Brad Thompson. No, no evidence, but Anna's had a vision about him . . . a car accident, perhaps by the river. I know . . . I know. Do what you can. Thank you.” Slowly, thoughtfully, Julia tucked the phone back into her purse.

“Tell me we are not just going to sit here,” I snapped.

“We're not. Valerie, Shannon, can you drive down to the river? Check the beaches?” She flipped through the sketches. “There's not much background, but maybe go out on the islands? And there's that little stretch of sand by the coast guard station. I'll need to get back to the bookstore. I can set up a scrying there and see if I can find any additional clues.” She picked up her cane where she'd leaned it against the nightstand. “Max. Leo.” Slowly, she bent down to riffle her dachshunds' ears. “I need you on the scent.”

The dogs went absolutely still, ears and tails alert and quivering. Max barked once and the pair of them whisked away, noses down to the floorboards.

Julia straightened up and turned to me, absolutely serious. “You stay here and gather your strength, Anna,” she said. “We will call the rest of the coven, and between us, we will find him.”

She meant it, and it was all for my own good. I sank back onto the pillows.

“Okay,” I said. “I don't think I could get up anyway.”

“We need to check on where Elizabeth Maitland was last night too,” murmured Valerie. “And what she was doing.”

“We have no reason to believe Elizabeth had anything to do with this.”

I hadn't told them about my teatime visit yet, I remembered. Or that I knew about Elizabeth's familiar.

“We have every reason,” Val was saying to Julia. “Considering the amount of trouble she's made for Dorothy and you. Why can't you even consider that she might be up to her perfectly plucked eyebrows in this?”

“Now is not the time,” I snapped. “We've got to find Brad!”

“We will, Anna. I promise,” said Valerie, but she didn't stop glowering at Julia.

The three of them gathered their things. Julia extracted fresh promises from me to stay put. Alistair stayed sitting upright on the pillow beside me. Shannon brought my purse up from downstairs so I could have my phone. She also brought the wand down from upstairs. I tucked it under Alistair's pillow.

Then I lay there staring at the
Surrender Dorothy
photo on the dresser and thinking about that photo, that movie, and how Dorothy Hawthorne and Brad Thompson had been spending time together. All that time, I listened to the women's footsteps and voices as they moved down the hall and down the stairs. I thought about copies and originals and questions nobody had remembered to ask yet.

I thought about how Frank had said Brad would drink when he had trouble. I thought about how I'd started Frank looking for Brad. And how in my vision, Vibe, whatever it was, Brad had been so very drunkenly glad to see a good friend.

Downstairs, the front door creaked as it opened and thumped softly as it closed.

Alistair meowed and sprang to the windowsill. “Merow,” he said again, and I understood him perfectly. He meant,
All clear.

I kicked back the covers and scrambled to my feet. “Come on, big guy. We're getting out of here.”

Don't tell me you're surprised.