Enter Three Witches (18 page)

“Cards or crystal?” snapped Madame Rose. “Ten dollars either way; both for eighteen. Pay in advance.”

Erika dug in her pocket. “Just the crystal, please,” she said, handing over a ten-dollar bill.

“They all want the crystal,” Rose grumbled. “All the young ones. Cards tell you more, but the crystal looks more magical, so that’s what they want. Sit over there and be quiet.”

Erika obeyed and perched on the edge of a chair across from the fortuneteller, who was regarding her intently with bright and not altogether hostile eyes. She was already quite speechless with apprehension, and the shimmering presence of the crystal was affecting her strangely. She could feel the blood thumping in her head and her breath quickening.

Rose broke the silence. “I suppose it’s a boyfriend, isn’t it? Always boyfriends. Always the same old questions. Who does he love? Who’s he going to marry? You’re a little young for that, if you ask me.”

“Not at all,” Erika said indignantly. “I mean, that’s not the only thing I’m interested in.”

Now Rose shifted her penetrating gaze from Erika’s face to the rest of Erika, and her eyes brightened slightly. “Something else, is it? It’s boys, but it’s something else too. Career. Success. You’re an artist of some kind. A
failed
artist, or so you think in the dark days of your sixteenth year. You thought you were God’s gift to the dance, and now you think you’re God’s greatest fool. Aha! I’ve got you this time.”

Erika felt her face grow hot, then cold again, but she didn’t answer. Madame Rose seemed to approve. “Good,” she said. “Don’t say a word. Vassago is a mighty prince, so don’t ask any stupid questions. The crystal shows what he wants us to know, and it might be about bees or elephants as easily as love or success. Here. Write down everything I see.” She handed her startled subject a pad and pencil and turned out the light.

Erika sat in the gloom and felt her scalp prickle. She had come to find out about Bren, chiefly by prying into the secrets of his house, but now she felt she had been launched on a voyage into a supernatural world she had never even believed in. A match flared as Rose lit the two tall white candles on either side of the crystal. She muttered something under her breath and made the sign of the cross three times in the air before seating herself to gaze into the fire-flecked depths.

Silence fell about them like a shroud, shutting away the sounds of the street beyond the heavy curtains and the curious snuffling of the dog in the hall. After what could have been a minute or an hour, the voice of the visionary came again, soft and remote and deeply respectful. “He is here,” it said. “Vassago is here,” and Erika felt a chill go down her spine.

“I am in a cave,” the voice went on. “There are strange implements on the floor. I see them well, although it is utterly dark. A spoon, a toothless comb, the feather of an owl. Wings are beating in the dark above my head. Enormous wings. There is a black river running at my feet, and in its waters blind fish swim and other nameless things that have never known the sun. Now far away a light shines from some fissure in the rock. Shines and is gone. Shines and is gone…”

For a long moment the voice was still, almost as if waiting for Erika’s hasty writing to catch up. Then it continued. “Those are fearful tendrils creeping between the rocks. They might be serpents or the fingers of a gigantic hand. Slowly, slowly the rocks split; the crack widens, but still there is no light. I know that we are beneath the roots of Yggdrasill, the World Tree. The roots spread like a net—a net cast into the dark sea that laps our feet. We are turning on a wheel of sea and sky, and now suddenly the net is sown with stars, and the stars are terribly close, tangled in the twigs of Yggdrasill. Out on the water there is a light coming closer and closer. Someone is standing in the prow of a boat. In one hand he holds a lamp, in the other a sign I cannot read. There is a message, but it fades as a great bank of fog rolls in. Vassago is anxious to depart. O great Vassago, I give thee license to depart into thy proper place, and be there peace between us evermore. So mote it be.”

“There,” finished Madame Rose in her normal voice. “You got more than you bargained for. Both more and less, since you still don’t know anything, or think you don’t. Take your scribbles home and sleep on them—literally, I mean. Under your pillow. Then read them again, and see what you think.”

Erika got up slowly, clutching her notes. Her legs trembled slightly, and her joints felt stiff, as if she had been sitting motionless for hours. For some reason the old fortuneteller, who had held her truly spellbound, now seemed less intimidating than she had in her guise of surly charlatan. “Is this what you do, then?” Erika said. “When people come asking about their love lives or their health or whether they’re going to get an inheritance. Is this what you do for ten dollars?”

Rose laughed. “You’re a good subject, girl, but you’re a goose just the same. Of course not. I knew when you stood on the doorstep you were something special.”

“Special? What do you mean, special?” Erika asked.

“Never mind what I mean. Come have a cup of tea. Hot and sweet to put you back together again.”

In thrall to magic, Erika had almost forgotten the original purpose of her visit, but now she gave a gasp of delight. She was to see more of the house and possibly even meet its other inhabitants. “That would be great,” she said, and followed Rose out of the drawing room.

Erika was dazzled by the flood of colored light from the stained glass skylight in the hall and almost fell over Shadow, who had bounded to his feet when the door to the fortuneteller’s parlor opened. He pranced ahead of them, wagging his tail and glancing back at her with shining eyes.

“Looks like he knows you from someplace else,” Rose commented. “That’s a lot of foolishness, even for him.”

“Maybe I’ve met him in the park,” Erika said vaguely.

“Maybe. His young master’s very keen on the park.”

“Is he?” Erika said, and stopped dead at the kitchen door. “The queen of witches,” she whispered, staring across the big room at the woman who stood, smiling slightly, with her back to the fire, a ray of afternoon sun gilding her hair.

“I know you too,” Miranda said, stepping forward. “You stood rooted at the edge of the crowd and stared and stared. It was truly gratifying. I also know who it was that took one look and darted away into the dark. We’ll have him for desertion, my dear—for quitting his post in the line of fire.”

Erika was speechless with a mixture of delight, dismay, and growing comprehension. So it was the sight of his
mother
that had caused Bren to bolt. It was laughable—or was it? He must have thought that she would step out of the parade and join her son and his new girlfriend for a chat. Would that have been so dreadful? Well, yes, perhaps from Bren’s point of view it would have been, for here, surely, was the secret he had been guarding so jealously. It wasn’t so much his grandmother’s peculiarities that worried Bren as his mother’s real and overwhelming witchiness. Here in this charming, domestic room, even more than at the parade, there was not the slightest doubt in Erika’s mind that Miranda was the real thing. And Rose, too, she thought with a shiver, remembering the visions that had possessed her only minutes before.

Bren’s mother was still smiling at her expectantly, as if waiting for an agreeable but slightly backward child to think of something polite to say. “I’m sorry,” Erika blurted. “It’s just such a surprise. You must think I’m dumb as a toad.”

“What a curious simile,” Miranda said. “I mean, it’s true that toads are not known for exhilarating discourse, but who would have thought of it?”

“What’s all this blather?” Rose filled the kettle and banged it down on the stove. “This girl needs tea, not talk. She’s been in the presence of Vassago.”

Miranda’s eyes widened. “You came to Madame Rose, and you got a full séance? Poor thing. No wonder you’re green around the gills.”

“No, it was fascinating,” Erika protested, but she sank gratefully into a chair at the oak table.

Another thought seemed to strike Bren’s mother. “How much did you pay?” she demanded.

“It was nothing,” Erika said. “Really. Ten dollars for that experience. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Mother,” Miranda said, stretching out her hand.

To Erika’s astonishment, the old woman’s face turned red. She fumbled in her apron pocket and brought forth, grudgingly, a crumpled bill and dropped it on the table.

“Take it,” Miranda said.

“But I don’t…”Erika began.

“Take it back,” Miranda repeated. “For true witchcraft there can be no charge. It is against the law—the law of the land most places, but also the higher law that we obey.”

“Well, how was I to know?” Rose muttered. “I thought she was special when I saw her, but then I thought, all she wants is tall-dark-and-handsome just like the rest of the girls. You say yourself that we can charge for that sort of rubbish.”

“If you would be less greedy and collect at the end of the session,” Miranda said, “you wouldn’t have this problem.”

Rose poured out the tea with a venomous glance at her daughter, but said no more. Erika guessed that it was an old argument and pocketed the ten. Now she had time to study the room in which they sat, and here it was easy to remember Bren. A pile of his school books was on the sideboard, and two sneakers, widely separated, on the floor. And here were the things he had described—the comfortable old couch, the cranky, antiquated refrigerator with its wooden doors set into one wall, and the enormous fireplace. She thought of the bleak efficiency of the Apthorp kitchen and envied Bren. Surely it couldn’t be so bad to live with two witches in a place like this. Or maybe three. She remembered the black voodoo woman who lived downstairs and wondered if she would be lucky enough to meet her too.

A sudden movement made her jump, and out of nowhere there was Luna, sitting in the middle of the table, winding her dark tail around her paws and fixing Erika with a blue, unblinking stare.

“Drat that cat,” Rose said, but neither woman moved to push her off.

“Meet Luna,” Miranda said casually. “Luna is my familiar—my magistrella, which means little master. Little mistress, I suppose it should be. Anyway, she’s rather a one-woman cat, I’m afraid.”

“She’s beautiful.” Erika stretched out her hand, and the cat, without changing her hieratic pose, leaned forward to sniff the proffered fingers. Slowly the girl who knew nothing about cats reached up and stroked a spot behind one silky ear, and Luna closed her eyes and rubbed her head against the caressing hand.

“Will you look at that,” Rose breathed.

“Well, she’s
supposed
to be a one-woman cat,” Miranda said lightly but with just a trace of jealousy in her voice.

“I’m beginning to think I want a cat,” Erika said. “If Luna ever has kittens, I’d love to have one of hers.”

“Ha. She wants the spawn of a witch’s cat,” Rose chuckled. “Maybe she wants to
be
a witch, Miranda. What do you think? We could do a grand job of teaching her.”

“I doubt she does,” Miranda said. “She’s Bren’s girlfriend, don’t forget.”

“Absolutely not,” Erika said, with more vehemence than she had intended. “But thank you very much just the same. As for being Bren’s girlfriend, I’m really not anymore. We had an awful row after he dumped me at the parade. He called me up, and I pretty much told him to get lost and stay lost. He was drunk, I think. At least he said he was.” Why am I saying all this? she wondered. I hardly know these people.

Miranda cast an amused glance at the brown bottle on the mantel. “Yes, drowning his sorrows in his father’s Scotch. I suspected as much when I saw what a lot was gone. It had to be either Bren or our mad opera singer in the attic. Witches don’t drink, as a rule. Neither does Bren in any interesting way, and that should tell you right there how upset he was.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Erika said dubiously, “but there are things you shouldn’t say, because they can never be unsaid.”

“Nonsense. People say and unsay things all the time—a lot worse things than you or Bren would even be able to think of.” Miranda reached for the kettle and added to Erika’s tea. “Still, something must be done to straighten things out. We’ll put our minds to it and come up with something good, never fear.”

“Ask Louise,” Rose suggested. “She knows love charms backward and forward, strange as that might seem.”

“But look,” Erika said hastily, before Miranda could make another contribution. “This is all unnecessary. Please don’t think I’m being ungrateful, but I see now what went wrong, and if it’s going to get fixed, I’m afraid I’m the one who has to fix it. You see I do understand why Bren didn’t want me to know about the two of you. It’s all awfully silly, but I understand. I’ll have to think about it and figure it out myself.”

“Bren is deplorably conventional,” his mother remarked.

“Maybe what I should do,” Erika went on, “is tell him I’ve been here and I love it, so what’s all the fuss about?”

“Boring and inadequate,” Miranda said.

“But it’s
my
love life,” Erika protested, laughing, and then realized that it wasn’t entirely anymore, because once you involved a witch in something, you were really asking for interference. She knew little about witches, but already she sensed that for them interference was a way of life.

“The attraction is a little weak,” Miranda continued. “He’s not quite willing to die for you. But that’s easy to fix.”

“I’m not sure I want him willing to die for me,” Erika said, “and it really shouldn’t be necessary.”

Miranda gave her a stern glance. “Of course not, but the desire should be there. Just let me think.” She got up with a swift, feline movement and walked over to the window that gave onto the back yard. For a moment she stared out, then, with a low exclamation, jerked up the sash, and the stillness of the room was filled with a terrified squawking noise and a hoarse voice cursing vigorously in a strange tongue.

“Louise!” Miranda shouted from the window. “Louise, stop that at once, or we’ll have the police here.”