Single Witch's Survival Guide (17 page)

I leaned into him. I melted against his side. He matched his steps to mine, and a century later, we finally made it back to the farmhouse. I was nearly asleep as he swept me into his arms, as he carried me over the threshold, like some travesty of an eager groom welcoming his bride. I felt him put one foot on the stairs that led to our bedroom. And then I knew nothing more.

CHAPTER 10

THE OSPREYS WERE attacking me. The male tangled his feet in my hair, closing his talons and raking my scalp. The female slashed at my face with her beak, as if she were peeling strips of flesh to feed her chicks. I screamed as she tore my cheek, as she gouged a trough beside my eye.

“Jane.” David spoke my name and drove off the raptors. His voice was calm and certain. “Look at me, Jane.”

I couldn’t look at him. I had to protect myself. I had to brace for the next attack. Shadows writhed in the corner of our room. The three fledglings hid there, waiting to strike at me.

“Jane. Look at me.”

I found his gaze. In the gloomy light, I couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, but I knew they were brown, a deep and steady chestnut. His eyes conveyed the essence of his patience, his calm. He was absolutely certain I was safe. Only then did I realize the ospreys had been a nightmare.

David ran his hands down my trembling sides, and I braced myself, a part of my scrambled brain still believing he would recoil at the stickiness of my blood. But there was no blood. There was only the soft cotton of my nightshirt.

My ruined Lughnasadh gown was pooled in the corner where David had discarded it the night before. In the grey light of almost-dawn, I couldn’t tell that the dress was the color of blood. But in my heart, I knew it was.

David blinked, and I was finally free to move. I was safe from the ospreys. Safe from the nightmare. But there was nothing David could do to rescue me from memories of the magic I had unleashed by the lake. The ospreys—the real ones—had been struck by lightning. They had been devoured by the storm, their nest shattered into a million fiery pieces.

David’s hands were firm as he pressed me back on the bed. I tried to protest. I could not stay here. I did not want the luxury of my pillow, the forgiveness of the mattress. I struggled to sit up, but David touched my forehead with his index finger. “Sleep,” he said. The low thrum of warder’s magic echoed through my body, and I slipped into oblivion.

* * *

I awoke sobbing, gasping, desperate for freedom from my tangled sheets. Sunlight striped the edges of the bedroom shades, too bright, too strong to ever gaze on directly. I fought to break away from the grasping bed. I struggled to escape.

And David was there. He released my trapped arms, worked the twisted bed linens from my thrashing legs. I choked for air, heaving like a sprinter at the end of a heat.

David took me onto his lap. He eased my head against his shoulder. He rubbed my back, gently, calmly, and he rocked me until my sobs drifted away.

* * *

My third awakening was easier. I swam up from a sleep deeper than any dreams could penetrate. I was groggy from the depths; I’d lost my words, lost all but the vaguest shell of my thoughts.

David helped me into a seated position, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. He told me to hold on to the edge of the mattress. He needed to repeat himself, twice, but some part of my lizard-brain finally understood.

He took a washcloth from somewhere, a soft one, and he dipped it into a basin of warm water. He bathed my face, slowly, carefully. He traced my eyebrows, the line of my nose, my chin. He went over my hands, holding each one lightly between his own. He smoothed my fingers, wiped the length of my arms. When I shivered, he dried me with a towel, taking care to remove every hint of moisture.

I was still cold, though, frozen to the core. My teeth started to chatter, and when I set my jaw, my entire body shook.

David eased me back onto the bed, swinging my legs around. He covered me with the sheet, the cotton blanket, the feather blanket we’d stored in the top of his closet months earlier. He stretched out beside me, and his arm was heavy across my chest as he anchored me to the bed. He cradled my swaddled body against his until I slept again.

* * *

I wasn’t sure what I sensed first—the hum of the electric clock on my nightstand or the sun that shone scarlet through my eyelids. I lay as still as I could, listening for David’s breath beside me.

The working had been a nightmare. So much power, and I’d lost control of all of it. I had put myself and my students directly in harm’s way. The storm alone could have devastated us—torrential rain, lightning strikes. And that was before I began to calculate the magical backlash…

Nevertheless, David had been there for me. All the tension of the preceding weeks, all the distance and uncertainty… I had felt his arms around me, and I had known I would be safe. He would never let me be harmed. I had trusted him in a way I had never been able to trust any other person.

Remembering the velvet iron of his body around mine, I sighed and stretched my legs beneath the sheets. I reached out one hand, seeking his chest—or maybe some more interesting part of his anatomy. With any luck, we could spend the entire morning here in our bedroom. Finish things off with a shared shower before heading into town for lunch at the café. I moaned a little in the back of my throat, imagining the decadence of it all.

“Jane, dear!”

That wasn’t David’s voice. My eyes flew open.

Gran was sitting in a ladderback chair beside the window. She wore an orange cotton sweater set and a faded denim skirt. White socks protected her feet from her navy blue Keds. She had crossed her legs at her ankles, and the position made her sit up straight in her chair. She looked prim and proper, the polar opposite of the lascivious home movie I’d started to play inside my head.

“What are you doing here?” I meant to shout the question, but my words faded into a rasp after the “what.” I swallowed hard, suddenly realizing how parched my throat was.

“Here, sweetheart. Have a sip of water.” Gran helped me to sit up. I felt ridiculous leaning against her, but my hands were trembling so hard I needed both of them to hold the plastic cup she gave me. It took three tries to close my lips around the drinking straw. The water was so cool and sweet I almost started to cry.

Gran clucked her tongue and gestured for me to lean forward. Supporting me with one hand against my shoulder, she used the other to straighten my pillow. She was as smooth and efficient as a nurse.

“What happened?” This time, I got out both words. I was encouraged enough to push. “Where’s David?”

“You’ve been sleeping, dear. David had to go to Sedona last night, so he asked me to sit with you.”

She’d been here all night? But what about my nightmares? Why had I dreamed about David comforting me, if Gran had been watching over me? And what was David doing in Arizona anyway?

Gran took the cup from my hands. “Perfect, dear. Now, maybe just a bite of something light. Melissa dropped off some Bunny Bites, but I think the frosting is a little too rich for your first meal back.”

Dropped off? Wait. “What day is it?” I croaked.

“Sunday, dear. Don’t you remember? You’ve been awake several times.”

Sunday. We’d attempted our Lughnasadh working on the first of August, on Thursday. I must have dreamed about the ospreys that night. And woken from more nightmares the next day, Friday. And David had bathed me that night. So, two days later, I managed to return to the world of the living.

As I worked through the miracle of the Gregorian calendar, Gran wrestled open a package of peanut butter granola bars. She wrapped one in a paper napkin, as if I were a five-year-old child who might muss her dress with a snack.

Even as I wondered how Gran had smuggled the processed treat past Raven’s whole foods vigilance, I nibbled on a corner. The sweetness bloomed across my tongue like pure sugar, and I had to fight not to gulp down the entire bar without chewing. In between tiny bites, I asked, “When will David be back?”

“I’m not sure, dear. Your mother needs him for a working tonight. He’s helping her prepare things today.”

Shakespeare said jealousy was a green-eyed monster. Melissa would know the play—
Othello
—and she’d have no problem citing the act and scene, noting that Iago spoke the famous line. But Iago was wrong. Iago and Shakespeare and Melissa herself, if she’d ever believed the Bard’s words. Jealousy wasn’t green. It was bright red, scarlet, the color of blood streaming from a newly opened vein.

I blinked, hard. David was bound to Clara by a warder’s sworn obligation, just as he was bound to Gran and to me. Nothing had changed that—not the disastrous working by the lake, and certainly not the weeks we’d spent separated before Lughnasadh.

Still angry, but embarrassed by my visceral flash of emotion, I took another bite of the granola bar. I forced myself to focus on chewing and swallowing before I asked, “Did he tell you? About what happened here?”

She nodded solemnly. “I know you pushed yourself too hard. You wanted to impress your students, and you tried to do too much too soon, with too little support from the other witches.”

I shook my head. “That’s not what happened.”

“Why don’t you tell me, dear?”

And so I did. I admitted that I’d lost control of the Lughnasadh ritual on the beach. I told her about fighting with David on the Fourth of July, even though I didn’t say what we’d argued about. I told her about how much I hated changing the magicarium’s curriculum, how much I missed the communal magic I’d always planned to teach.

I didn’t notice when Gran handed me the second granola bar. Or when she supplemented my “meal” with a smooth-skinned nectarine. Or when she passed me the cup of water and, finally, a small plate with four perfect Bunny Bites.

“So I’m trapped in a house that isn’t even mine,” I concluded. “I can’t walk down the hall without running into Raven or Emma. The living room is a film editing studio, and I’m cross-examined on every bite of food I put in my mouth. Rick Hanson is here so often, I might as well be living at the fire station. What am I going to do?”

Gran nodded, a pillar of wise, silent support.

“No,” I said. “Seriously. I want an answer. What am I going to do?”

“Bring the familiars into the house.”

“What!” I guess my improvised meal had restored my energy. That was certainly the loudest exclamation I’d made since awakening. “I just said the house is
too
crowded.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my hearing,” Gran said sharply. “You’re having trouble finding the right balance with your students, right? That was the basic problem with your Lughnasadh working?”

I nodded.

“You need to know them better. You need to understand them. What better way to learn about a witch than to watch her interact with her magical partner? Your students came into their own powers when they awakened their familiars. If you want to know Emma and Raven, you have to know Kopek and Hani.”

I tried to imagine the familiars crammed into the house with the rest of us. Beyond the challenge of simply finding beds for two more people, there’d be more bodies to slide past in the hallways. More rationing of hot water for morning showers. More dishes in the kitchen sink.

Gran nodded as if her idea was brilliant. “And your students will get to know
you
better. When they see how well you and Neko get along, they’ll be better prepared to join you in your next working.”

“Oh, no,” I said, realizing the full import of Gran’s scheme. “I lived with Neko for three years, and he nearly ate me out of house and home! Do you have any idea how much cheese he can tuck away? And ice cream? I won’t even mention the liquor….”

Gran looked serene. “Am I going to have to ask for a promise?”

Gran and her promises. She always insisted she wasn’t asking for anything major, that her demands were merely common sense. But I knew better.

Nevertheless, my grandmother had seen me through my tempestuous years of high school. She understood me better than I understood myself. If she insisted…

“No, Gran,” I said meekly. “I’ll move the familiars into the house.”

“Excellent!” she said, and she actually clapped her hands together with glee. “Now, dear. Get back in bed. It’s time to get more rest.”

“I’m fine!” I protested. But even as I said the words, a wave of weariness threatened to topple me.

“Don’t make me cast a spell on you,” Gran warned. But I was already yielding to the mere power of suggestion. Bed. Rest. My eyes were getting heavy. I barely managed not to dislocate my jaw with a yawn.

I scrunched the pillow into a more comfortable position. At the same time, Gran pulled the covers up to my shoulders. She smoothed them gently, and then her dry palm brushed against my forehead. I was catapulted back to all the times she’d checked my brow for fever, nursing me through childhood illnesses. I sighed deeply, and then I fell asleep.

* * *

Poke
.

I moved away from the edge of the bed, trying to protect my side from whatever was digging into it.

Poke, poke.

I pulled my knees up, putting a barrier between me and the annoying thing.

Sniff. Sniff, sniff, sniff.

I opened my eyes. Neko’s nose was millimeters from my own. His hand was poised above me, fingers stiff, ready to deliver another decisive poke.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said.

“Oh! You’re awake!”

I grimaced and pushed myself upright as Neko bounced up and down on the edge of my bed. “What day is it?” I groaned.

“Sunday.” His tone suggested I was an idiot for asking. But then he conceded, “It’s almost midnight.”

“Where’s Gran?”

“David took her home. He thought I could keep an eye on you now.”

“David’s back?”

I pushed off the bedcovers, almost sending my familiar flying. He only recovered by bracing one foot against the floor, and then he tried to look as if he’d intended to assume that position all along.