The Void (Witching Savannah Book 3) (16 page)

TWENTY-ONE

After Peter’s quick exit, the other mourners made their way quietly and awkwardly back to their cars. The funeral procession that had arrived in such a neat and orderly fashion resembled the final lap of a dirt track stock car race as it made its exit. Only a few people even bothered to approach me, take my hand, or give me a quick peck on the cheek. I suspected more than a few felt it in their bones that somehow the Taylors were to blame for Colin and Claire’s meeting an early death, and Peter’s behavior was merely further proof that he had to be crazy to marry one of the Taylor girls. What could I say? They were right on the first count, and more than likely right on the second too.

Still, I made nice with those who did come up to me, although I kept one eye toward the gate and one ear open, hoping against hope we’d shortly get word from Oliver. As soon as the graveside crowd had cleared, I stepped behind a tree, where no one could witness my slide, and closed my eyes, concentrating on my husband and expecting to find myself standing beside him when my lids reopened. I could feel a cloud blot out the sun. I felt a drop of rain, then another in quick succession. I could not feel Peter.

“I can’t find him. I can’t even sense him.” I felt panic begin to tingle in my lower back and work its way up me, cascading over my shoulders as my scalp began to prickle.

“It is going to be all right, sweetheart.” Iris’s voice came from around the other side of the trunk. She came to me and put her arm around my shoulder, leading me back to our group.

Jessamine placed her hand on my forearm. “I hate leaving you like this, but my flight . . .”

“Of course,” Iris responded for me. “We understand. It was lovely of you to come.”

I reached out and took her hand. “Thank you.”

A tremulous smile came to her lips. “Don’t worry, I’m sure your husband will be all right. He’s hurting right now, but his heart will mend.” She held my hand in hers. “I’ll be in touch. Soon.” She released me and made her way down the drive to her rental car.

“I’m sure she’s right. Peter is fine,” Maisie said, although her uncertainty came out in her tone.

Ellen nodded her agreement. “Let’s just get home. He’ll probably be there waiting for you when we step through the door.” We all knew he wouldn’t be, but the rain had begun to fall in earnest and the limo was waiting.

The chrome sky was darkening, enhancing through contrast the forced jolliness of the fandango holiday lights strung along the porches of the houses bordering the cemetery. A glowing, inflated snowman danced in the wind, stung no doubt by the grapeshot rain. More lights, brighter red-and-white ones filled the automobile’s interior, casting whirling funhouse shadows around us. A siren wailed behind us, and the driver smoothly maneuvered the limo to the side of the road.

“Sorry, ladies,” the driver said. “I don’t know why—”

A rap on my window caused me to jump. The window was misty and the image on its other side distorted by the droplets. Still, I recognized Adam’s face looking at me. I pressed a button and the glass barrier descended. “Mercy, I need you to come with me.”

“What is it?” Iris asked, leaning over me.

“We’ve got a bit of trouble with Peter. No time to explain.” He opened the door and reached in, unfastening my belt like I was a toddler. The water from his waterproof jacket cascaded onto me, but he extricated me from the backseat of the limo without another word. Soon, I was standing in the full downpour, being shuffled along and stuffed into the backseat of the patrol car. Adam’s hand pressed against my head to keep me from bumping it as I climbed in. He pulled the safety belt about six inches longer than he needed to, then buckled me in. I shifted the restraint into a more comfortable position as he shut the door behind me. I felt a bit of relief that this car didn’t have one of those cages separating the seats.

Adam took his place in the passenger seat and addressed the uniformed officer behind the wheel. “Hit it.” The siren raged anew as we began flying down the street, disregarding all stop signs and red lights after nothing more than a slight hesitation at each. Through the rear window, I could see a pair of headlights keeping pace with us. My aunts and Maisie had obviously convinced their driver to follow.

“What has happened? Is Peter all right?” I asked, causing Adam to look back over his shoulder at me.

“Peter is on the Talmadge Bridge, looking for all the world like he’s thinking about jumping.”

“That can’t be,” I said reflexively.

Adam sighed. “Well, I hope you are right about that, but even if he isn’t thinking about jumping, he is on the bridge, and he’s dangling off the side. Our officers have been trying to talk to him, but he doesn’t respond. I thought he might. To you.”

“Is Oliver with him?” I asked. “He went after Peter.”

“He must have given him the slip.” Adam’s forehead wrinkled, and he looked away from me. Was he concerned that Peter might have harmed my uncle? No, even as peculiar as Peter’s recent behavior had been, he wouldn’t harm a fly. I felt that in my soul. I began shivering, as much from fear and adrenaline as the cold. Adam undid his belt and worked off his jacket. “Put this on.” I did as I was told, taking more comfort from his concern than from the jacket itself. He forced a smile to his face. “Almost there,” he said to me and reached over to kill the siren.

The bridge itself had been shut down in both directions, police cars and fire trucks parked at odd angles and blocking the span. My heart sunk at the sight of an ambulance. “Just precautions,” Adam said, seeming to read my mind.

“What are you, some kind of a witch?” I joked halfheartedly as the police car pulled to a stop.

He acknowledged the joke with a smirk. “No, if I had magic powers, I’d be living in the sunshine on my own private island. Seems like what any witch with half a brain would do. Now, let’s go get that man of yours, shall we?”

I nodded, and Adam opened his door and hopped out. I reached for the handle, only to find there wasn’t one, but as soon as that registered, Adam opened the door for me. The rain had eased and for the moment was nothing more than a light drizzle. He motioned with a slight jerk of his head. “Over there.”

I followed the arc of his gesture, only to see an unbroken semicircle formed by the broad backs of Savannah’s first responders. Adam put his hand on my shoulder and guided me toward the curtain of reflective raingear. “She’s here,” Adam said, and the curtain opened before me, just enough for me to see the back of my husband’s head, and realize how precariously he was perched on the bridge’s edge. He sat on the edge of the bridge, legs hanging over into oblivion. Adam gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze, and threaded me through the break in his colleagues’ living barricade.

“Peter,” I said softly, my voice catching. He didn’t respond. He seemed fascinated by something on the horizon. “You sure are causing a lot of good folk a lot of trouble,” I said, nearing him, but afraid to touch him.

He turned to face me, and my heart nearly stopped. He reached over and pulled me to him, nearly causing me to topple over the barrier.

“You’re scaring me.” I tried to pull my hand free as he tugged on me with his right hand, pointing to the sky with his left. I realized his broken arm had healed, and the cast had disappeared. All this in the short time since he had run away from the graveside. He might not be working magic, but magic was certainly working on him. In the same instant, I felt Adam grasp my right arm in his viselike grip. I stumbled backward into him as Peter, oblivious to my fear shifting into anger, let my arm drop.

“It’s right there, Mercy,” Peter said as his left arm slid back to his side. I fought against my desire to grab him by the hair and pull him back to safety.

I took a breath. “What’s there, sweetie?”

My heart melted as he turned his face up toward me, and smiled at me then down at my stomach. “Hey there, boy,” he said addressing our son. His eyes rose back to my face. “It’s going to be all right now.” He nodded, but his eyes shone silver.

“Yes. Yes it will,” I said, working with my fingers to loosen Adam’s grip on me. I took a step closer. “Everything is going to be fine, but it’s time to go home now.”

“Which home?” He looked away and scanned Savannah’s low skyline, then peered straight ahead in the direction of the river’s flow. “There’s my home. It’s right there. It’s just a bit out of reach. My real home. I know that now. Our little Colin told me so.”

“Mistletoe.” The incongruous thought rose up from my subconscious, even though my rational mind had no time to process its meaning. My hands jumped reflexively to my stomach; then for a brief moment I caught sight of the thing on the horizon that had been the source of my husband’s fascination. A window, a portal that shone into a glimmering green world where a sun still shone and it was always midsummer. None of the non-magical crowd even noticed it; I scanned Adam’s face and surmised he didn’t have a clue it hovered there, just out of reach. I had caught a glimpse of this world once before, when the line reached out and mingled its magic with the bit of Fae magic growing inside me. Peter slid an inch or so forward, and I nearly screamed as he teetered forward. He righted himself at the last possible moment.

“Do you want to go there?” I called to Peter. He turned to face me. In this moment, I had his complete attention.

“I want to go home. More than anything.” His words scraped a layer off my heart. More than being present for the birth of our son. More than sharing a life with me.

“I can do that for you,” I said. “I can help you go home. You know if anyone can, it’s me.”

Enraptured. That was it. That was the only word to describe his expression.

“I’ll help you, but you have to come to me.”
Yes. I can help you leave me. I can help you leave your son.
I felt a sharp and icy blade cut through my heart, but I held out my hand. “You have to come.” He stood, nearly losing his balance for a breathless moment, but then found sure footing. He jumped down off the barrier wall and grabbed me, swinging me up in the air. The first responders were ready to fall on him and pull him off me. “No,” I said to stop them. “We’re okay.” Peter held me tightly in his arms, kissing the top of my head, my forehead. He pressed his face into my hair and breathed in deeply, then kissed my lips, my brow, my cheeks, never noticing the tears that were running down them. I allowed myself to step away from my emotions, to turn off my feelings and to switch to automatic pilot. People say no one has ever really died from heartbreak, but even if that were true, in that moment I was sure I would be the first. I would handle what needed to be dealt with now. I would process the feelings later. Peter lowered me to my feet and kissed me on the forehead, then once more on the lips. It wasn’t a kiss that spoke of passion or love. No, this kiss said good-bye.

He stepped back and docilely allowed himself to be led to the back of a waiting ambulance. His second in a matter of days. I allowed myself to take a breath, watching as the EMT shone a light into his eyes. “What are you on, buddy?” Was it her voice I heard, or had I only read what she’d been thinking?

I stood back and watched it all happen. An officer approached the ambulance and, after a quick consultation with the tech, cuffed Peter to the gurney. “Seventy-two-hour psych eval.” Variations of the clipped jargon rose up from the minds of several of the officers and firemen, the words weaving themselves into a near chant. On the periphery, I became aware of Maisie and my aunts, working their way past the protesting police officers. “We’re family.” I picked out Iris’s voice saying, as if her statement reflected a much older and more essential law than any they represented. Maybe it did.

Adam stood near me, a little bit behind, a little to the right. He was on his phone. The “love you, too” told me he was speaking to my uncle rather than to the station.

The sound of the siren surprised me. The ambulance began pulling away, and I turned to chase after it. Adam reached out to catch me. “I want to go with him.” I tugged against his strong grasp.

“I’ll take you. Don’t worry, he’ll be okay now. This will all work out fine.”

“No,” I said, watching Ellen, Maisie, and Iris thread their way through a field of first responders. The ambulance took off at full speed, lights and sirens blaring full blast. “It won’t.”

TWENTY-TWO

What is magic? Once I believed it was the key to belonging, a shortcut to all success, safety from danger, and security from loss. I was wrong. Like with all other things in life, magic is just a solution that offers its own set of complications.

It isn’t true that magic is everywhere you look, but the potential for magic is. Everything is made up of energy, and where there is energy, there is potential. Magic is nothing more than unlocking potential and molding it to your own use. Real witches carry the ability to tap into the well of potential right in their DNA.

Magic workers, people who are born without power of their own but who find ways to tap into the stream of magic, people such as my dear friend Jilo had been, have to work at it harder, relying on correspondences and attunements to achieve their goals. But even real witches, at least the smart ones, had learned a thing or two from those who had to earn their magic rather than inherit it. When working big magic, a spell you dared not risk going wrong, even real witches would use tools or props to help focus their intentions. They would choose the most auspicious time and place for the working.

We stood at Jilo’s crossroads, my family and I. This spell we were now to attempt called for a location that was both natural and enchanted. The crossroads stood hidden in a grove and had served as the locus of Jilo’s spell work for decades. Besides, being here, in a place that had been hers, made me feel stronger. Tonight, I would need all the strength I could beg, borrow, or steal. I pointed toward the earth with my index finger and drew a circle-bound pentagram. The white light from which it had been composed shone up on Oliver’s face in a way that accentuated his skull. Death and loss. Growing up I had been so hungry for magic, openly accepting but secretly envious of my family’s abilities. I’d been such a fool. Magic had brought me no happiness. All I had gained from magic was loss. Now I was being called on to use that magic to cast the spell that would take Peter from me.

After the incident on the bridge, the county had held Peter for three days. Certainly Oliver could have finagled an earlier release, but he and my aunts had spent days and sleepless nights poring over every available source, desperately trying to find a way to undo the harm my baby had inadvertently caused while trying to comfort his father. I let them only because I knew for them to find their own peace, they would need to know they had done everything they could have.

I’d been allowed to visit Peter, although I suspected the liberal visitation policy had been the result of Oliver’s influence. I sat with him, hour after hour, watching him pull back from our world. He had grown more silent as the days wore on, until there were no words between us, no communication other than his pleading eyes.

For their part, the doctors tried to be reassuring. They ran tests and consulted. They provided medications. They questioned and rationalized away any outlying answers. What was wrong with my husband didn’t fall within their frame of reference. They were good people, these doctors. They did what they could. Still, I knew all along they were only delaying the inevitable. Peter had been more than a mere part of my life, he had
been
my life for more than half of it. We had been inseparable since childhood; we had played, explored, broken rules, and at times broken each other’s hearts. I loved him to the core of my soul. I couldn’t really imagine my life going on without him. I felt somehow betrayed it could. Still, I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of denying we’d come to the end of our adventures together. I had tried to prepare myself. I had tried to brace myself for impact.

Now in the moment of that crash, I felt the world should stop. That my heart should stop beating and my soul should be sucked into an insensate void, but that was not to happen.

Without a word, we assumed our natural points in the star. From my perspective, our lovely Ellen stood at the star’s lower right leg. She had the greatest ability to unlock the potential of the earth, the material world. Diagonally across from her at the star’s left hand stood Oliver, our family’s golden boy, blessed by what seemed to be a nearly eternal youth and the ability to get his way no matter what. His was the essence of water, the patience and energy by which it grinds rock to sand. He met my gaze. He smiled at me to reassure me, but I saw the fear in his eyes. He was afraid I wouldn’t survive this, or if I did I wouldn’t be recognizable. He was right to worry. His heart was breaking for me, but I couldn’t let myself feel the pain. Not yet. I had to do this. I turned to face Iris, who stood next to me at my right, the point of the pentagram associated with the potential of air. She could fly; the thought that she could take to the sky at will never ceased to amaze me, even in moments such as this.

Maisie stood at the point of fire, the element we shared, an inheritance from both of our parents. Her desire that I trust her, that I take strength from her, was palpable.

As we took our respective points along the pentagram, I couldn’t help but reflect on how our magic had failed or backfired against each of us. Ellen could so readily heal others, but had come to rely on daily AA meetings as the cornerstone of her own well-being. Iris, capable of catching the wind and escaping to the heavens, had spent a good part of her life chained to a man who abused her emotionally and, we had come to learn, physically as well. Oliver, whose ability to compel others had led to the death of a young woman as well as her unborn child, tried to pretend he’d moved past the guilt, but I could see it wrapped around and rooted in his heart. I knew every time he looked at Adam, he wondered what Adam’s son would have looked like, the type of person he would have grown into. I suspected Adam often wondered the same. Had they found a way to deal with this, or did they tap-dance around it?

My sister. Magic had nearly eaten Maisie alive. It corrupted her every word and deed. Did I ever really know my sister? The betrayal between us had been seeded into the very womb we had shared. I was choosing to trust her. Choosing to believe the evil that had taken her over was not her own. Would I pay the price for this choice? I felt sure in one way or the other I would.

Then there was me. The one who’d grown up on the outside of magic, only to have it hit me like a freight train. I stood at the head of the pentagram, the point of spirit, the place of power, as this was my spell to work. “Peter,” I called into the darkness. “I need you to stand in the center.” He approached in measured, cautious steps.

I wanted to scream at him that I loved him, but I knew it would be like dropping a pebble into a bottomless well. My heart and my mind held counsel with each other, and somehow they both agreed: the man I’d known, the man I’d married, was gone. If his parents’ deaths hadn’t broken Peter, our son wouldn’t have tried to comfort him by revealing Peter’s birth mother was still out there, still there in the world of the Fae, loving him, but what was done was done. “Face me,” I commanded with a break in my voice. His eyes shone a cold silver in the night. Any love he’d known for me was gone.

I’d watched him struggle, fighting a losing battle against his true nature. I watched the Peter I loved die a bit more each day, until he was gone, leaving only a wounded creature desperate to escape this world where he didn’t belong. Desperate to return to the people who had been denied to him for so long. The child who had once danced in my womb at the sound of his father’s voice had fallen still. I would find a way to give my son the life he deserved. I’d probably never fill the void left by his father, but I’d do my best. I closed my eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath.
I promise you, my little one. Somehow I will make this right for you.

If magic were wish fulfillment, when I opened my eyes, Peter and I would have found ourselves home, together, stringing tacky blinking holiday lights across the front of my family’s already overwhelmingly large and ornate Victorian. The thought of the holiday caused my mind to flash again on the story of mistletoe. Such an innocent bit of vegetation, but so deadly when overlooked. Just as the Norse goddess never considered the harm it might bring her son, I never thought that it could be my own son who would reveal to Peter his link to the Fae.

But no celebrations for us. The only light I could see shone not from holiday lights but from the encircled star and from my husband’s eyes. His eyes were turned upward, toward the portal opening above us, a doorway that would carry him home. A rustle at the edge of the trees caught my attention.

The blackest of hair, the palest of skin. Her lithe neck was stretched tall, her bearing regal. Even cloaked by shadow, I knew her to be the most ravishing creature I had ever witnessed. A crimson gown and rosebud lips. The fairest princess of them all. She embodied all fairy-tale superlatives and epithets, and I despised her to the depths of my very soul. A soft moan escaped my lips as a sense of finality washed over me, a finality that offered not even the flimsiest hope, for before me stood Peter’s birth mother. She had come to collect her boy.

Peter turned to her and recognized her instantly. He attempted to rush to her, only to rebound against the boundary of the circle. He groaned and rushed at the circle like an animal trying to burst free from a cage.

“This witch magic is unnecessary,” she said, her voice ringing through the night like crystal bells. She held up her hand and the light of the circle was extinguished. Peter broke free and rushed into her arms. “
Mo mhac
. My son.” The portal that had always been just a bit out of Peter’s reach slid down beside him. His face lit up with rapture and without a word, without a glance in my direction, without a moment of hesitation, he rushed through it, past the horizon, and he was gone.