Eye of the Witch (21 page)

“
Guard the car?”

“
Yeah, that’s it. You keep an eye on the car. I’ll be right back.”

I walked up the pathway to the front door, tripping over a stepping stone that maybe, just maybe, that rat bastard gnome had caused to lurch upward just as I approached it. For now, however, I’ll say that it was my fault.

I knocked on the door, hesitantly, as I had never been to Lilith’s at night before. A full moon over my shoulder cast a shadow on the door, a shadow of me, though its moves seemed almost independent of my own. A faint light quivered through the window, which I recognized as candlelight. But for that dim luminance, no others shined within the house.

Lilith opened the door, cloaked in a long black robe with cords of black beads draped loosely around her neck. She carried in her cupped hands a single candle. Its orange light danced like a gypsy ghost upon her face. Her eyes, sunken in artificial sockets cast by faltered shadows, gleamed with brilliance and beguiled my senses.

“
Lilith?”

“
Detective.”

“
What do you…have something going on here? Am I interrupting?”

“
If you must know, I’m conducting a ceremony.”

“
Alone?”

“
Yes, alone. But if you’re here because you brought my witch’s ladder with you, that’s good. I can use it now.”

“
Oh, it’s a witchcraft thing. No, sorry. I don’t have it. What kind of ceremony are you conducting?”

“
Detective, I really could use that witch’s ladder.”

“
Yeah, yeah, I’m working on it. What’s the big deal?”

“
The big deal is that I am initiating a rite of passage, a sort of self-dedication thing. It’s very important and very personal. The ladder was supposed to be an integral constituent of the dedication. Unfortunately, this affair is time sensitive and I can’t put it off any longer. Thanks to you, I’ll have to conduct the ceremony without it.”

“
Why don’t you just make another one? Hell, a year ago you made so many, you have thought they grew on trees.”

Sometimes you have to watch what you say to Lilith, and more importantly, how you say it. I’ve always found that a bit of a contradiction with her. For someone who lives by the sharpened tongue, she doesn’t take it as well as she dishes it out. I watched her eyes squint keenly, though her brows crooked high like gnarly fishhooks. Anyone else, I suppose, might have felt her wrath and found himself leaving her place on four legs with a newly sprouted tail pinched between them. But for our special kinship, or perhaps just because I’m old now, she spared me the sparks and spells and refrained from turning me into anything that could lick himself in places God never meant man to lick.

“
This is not about making witch’s ladders, Detective,” she said, coldly. “This dedication is something I’ve been preparing for years. It’s most serious I assure you. After tonight, I’ll have renewed myself, accepting the ways of witchcraft in the eyes of my ancestors and embracing the secrets they hold. To do this, I must atone and commit myself completely. That ladder, which regrettably connects me to Doctor Lowell through Leona, is the last relic associated with that dark part of my past. Tonight the stars align. It’s been a year and a day since I constructed that ladder, and in so doing, forever tied its energy to the circumstances surrounding the events of that unfortunate episode in my life.”

“
Unfortunate episode?”

She shook her head. “Forget it. Listen. I really need to get started. So, if you don’t mind.”

“
Lilith, please. Before you shut me out, may I have just a minute more?”

“
A minute? Can you make it quicker?”

“
Oh, sure. I’ll make it quick.” I stole a peek over her shoulder and pointed inside. “Do you think we could, ahh….”

She threw the door open the rest of the way. “Fine. Come in, but you’ve got one minute.”

I followed her inside, where I noticed more candles burning than what I could see from out on her stoop. She didn’t offer to turn on the lights. I supposed she wanted to stay in the mood for whatever voodoo thing she had planned. She pointed to the kitchen table and uttered, “Sit,” which I did. Then she pulled up a chair opposite me and said, “This has nothing to do with voodoo, Detective.”

I remembered then, all the little secrets I lost to her in the past. “No, of course, not,” I said. “I know that witchcraft and voodoo are two separate things. I don’t want you to think for a minute that I—”

“
Spill it, Marcella. Why have you come?”

“
Fine.” I pulled the wrinkles from my jacket and folded my hands neatly on the table. “You told me earlier that you had a hard time reading Benjamin Rivera, that you felt like he was two different people.”

“
That’s right.”

“
Did you know he suffers from MPD?”

“
Multiple Personality Disorder?”

“
Yes.”

“
I didn’t, but it makes sense now.”

“
How so?”

“
Well, a part of him believes he can bilocate. That’s the Benny side. Another part, a somewhat weaker though darker side, tells me he can’t. I guess the Benny side was in control when I read him. That’s why I told you he could. Why? Have you found out now that he cannot?”

“
No, that is to say I haven’t found out either way, although his subordinate, who may soon become the dominant personality, insists he can’t.”

“
Leo?”

“
He calls himself Le…. How did you know that?”

She reared a guilty grin. “Sorry.”

I scolded her with a glare. “Yes, he calls himself, Leo, and unlike Benny, he doesn’t stutter. In fact, he’s as articulate as you or I. And nasty? Shoot, this guy’s a regular Attila the Hun.”

“
Leo is the sign of the lion.”

“
Yeah, go figure.”

“
So, what do you think?”

“
I’m not sure. After learning about Carol Kessler stepping in front of that train, I felt certain Benny was behind it. Then the other shoe hit the floor.”

“
Greg Piakowski?”

“
Gregoroy Pia…. Lilith! Stop that!”

She covered her mouth, so that I might believe she merely slipped. But I knew then that she was really starting to enjoy it. “Forgive me,” she insisted. “Please, go on.”

I no longer bothered to give her the scowling brow, figuring it would only encourage her further. “Yes, Piakowski. We learned not long ago that he was at the train station when Carol stepped off the…well, when she stepped off.”

“
You think he did it.”

“
Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“
Detective….”

I leaned my head back in resignation and let it thump against the backrest of the chair. I saw shadows on the ceiling thrash in twisted shades of black and gray, fleeting like the wind and as impossible to grasp as the doubts that fueled my indecisiveness. “Lilith,” I said, though I fear it came out more as a cry. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m filled with hostility and indecision. Everywhere I turn, I’m making mistakes.”

“
Welcome to the human side of life, Detective.”

“
No, it’s more than that. I mean it. I can’t seem to pull things together like I used to. I feel like…like my life has no meaning, no direction.”

She reached across the table and patted my folded hands. “You’re adjusting to retirement. That’s all.”

“
No. It’s more. Ever since the Stalker case last year I….” As I spoke, a warm sensation radiated through my hands and up my arms. It startled me at first, but then it sort of melted into the rest of my body and dissipated like a fog. I pulled my hands away gently and sat up straight in my chair. “Oh, hell, will you listen to me?” I said, feeling suddenly embarrassed. “I must sound like a silly old coot. I’m sorry I bothered you. I know you’re in the middle of something. I just wanted to ask you about Benjamin and his personality thing. I’ll let you get on with your…ceremony, or whatever.”

“
Wait,” she said, and she sprang from her chair and hurried across the room to one of the kitchen cupboards. Opening it, she reached up and removed a small wooden box from the top shelf. She then set it on the counter, fingering through its contents briefly before returning to the table. I looked at her curiously, as she held out her hand and presented me with a dark colored diamond-shaped object.

“
What is it?” I asked.

“
It’s the eye of the witch,” she said. “It’s made of obsidian, but more important is the spell cast upon it. Simply by possessing this, one reaps the benefits of its incantation.”

“
Meaning?”

“
Meaning that merely by carrying it on your person you will master the insight and discretion of a witch much wiser than your years could otherwise allow.”

“
You want me to have it?”

She smiled proudly. “You’ve earned it, Detective. I of course, don’t need it, therefore yes, I would like you to have it. Let it serve you well.”

I took it from her, my hand trembling like a child’s. “Lilith, I don’t know what to say.”

She folded her arms at her chest, and through the pleating in her robe I could see her weight shifting onto one hip. “You can start by saying good bye.”

I stood, resisting the urge to hug the shit out of her. “No. I can start by thanking you, which I will. Thank you, Lilith. Thank you for everything.”

I started for the door, clutching my newfound confidence with humility. I could feel her presence following me closely and stopping just a split second before I did. I turned to her and asked, “Do I have to do anything to make it work?”

She laughed dully. “No, Detective. It works all by itself. You just slip it into your pocket and forget about it.”

“
Great. I can’t think of how to thank you enough.”

She opened the door and showed me out. “Oh, you will,” she said, and before I could give that any thought, she shut the door on my heels.

I skimmed down her walkway on a strip of air, feeling suddenly invincible and ready to take on the world. Carlos had gotten out of the car to take up a defensive position against the enemy gnome, whom almost certainly had crafted an ingenious plan of attack and was about to launch it as I came out the door. I tapped Carlos on the shoulder and pointed to the car. “You getting in or should I ask the gnome to drive?” I saw him shake his fist at the little puck before climbing in behind the wheel.

“
So, how’s Lilith?” he asked.

“
Fine,” I said, “up to her old witchcraft stuff.”

“
Oh?” He started the car and pulled out of the drive.

“
Yeah, she asked me for the witch’s ladder again. Said it’s been a year and a day since she made it, and now she needs it back for some rite of passage thing.”

“
A rite who?”

“
Oh, she’s got candles and incenses burning all over the house for some big ceremonial shindig or something tonight.”

“
You mean, like a party?”

I laughed. “Right, a party at Lilith’s. That’ll be the day.”

“
What? She seems like a fun girl. Maybe you just have to get to know her.”

“
Get to know Lilith? That’s an oxymoron. If you looked up enigmatic perplexity in the dictionary it would probably say, see Lilith.”

“
You’re being harsh.”

“
Am I? You think you know her better than I do?”

“
No, I’m only saying, I bet when she lets her hair down that she’s a real gas at parties.”

I sat back and thought about it as he drove. I had seen Lilith smile once or twice—even laugh on an occasion, I think. But a real gas at parties? Maybe if she drank. Although it seemed to me that a drunken Lilith could pose some big problems if she ever got really pissed at a party. I looked to Carlos and asked him, “Would you ever go to a party with Lilith if she were drinking?”

“
Hell, yes!” he said, and the smile on his face told me he had thought about it before. “Are you kidding me?”

I knew then exactly what it was that set him and me apart. In this world, there are two kinds of people: those who take the bull by the horns and ride it wild, and those who stand on the sidelines and watch. All my life I thought that I was the bull rider, solving crimes, taking down felons and thugs and making the world a better place for everyone, street-by-street. But at that moment, I realized the truth: that I had spent my entire career in the shadows of the man I wished I was, and that I wasn’t some take-charge daredevil knight in shining armor. That I exhausted my potential, steering from the backseat of faded aspirations. It’s the reason I never became Captain. I realized then that I wasn’t the bull rider at all, and worse, that I had only lived my life vicariously through bull riders like Lilith and Carlos.

I closed my eyes and a river of memories flooded my brain. I wondered, had I not reaped a lifetime of gratification from those memories regardless? That I had nothing more to show for my life’s work didn’t make it any less rewarding. Did it? I slipped my hand into my pocket and felt the obsidian. Upon its touch, I made a wish that I might start my life over, that I might know then what I know now. I prayed that the powers of witchcraft bestowed on the granitic glass through Lilith’s spell might somehow bend to my will if only I believed hard enough. However, when I opened my eyes again, I was still just an old man with a heavy heart, only now filled with the regrets of a bystander watching the bull riders take on the world.