The Water Witch (11 page)

“Ann, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

She smiled weakly. “It’s all right, Callie, you didn’t know what you were doing. And my hand is fine now.” She held it up and wriggled her fingers. Not only was the hand unbroken, but all signs of her arthritis were gone. Her flesh was smooth and faintly glowing. “See, as good as new—even better.”

“You should let me tend to your hands regularly,” Diana said.

Ann smiled, but shook her head. “You do enough for me, Diana. And now you’ve used up all your Aelvesgold on me.”

“And all the Aelvesgold we had to cast the circle for Brock,” Moondance remarked, clucking her tongue.

I looked back at Ann’s hand and saw that the glow in her flesh was the same honey gold as I’d seen in Faerie. A residue of gold was also on Diana’s palms, but as I watched, it faded. Not only had I broken Ann’s hand; the circle had used up their supply of Aelvesgold to heal her and there was none left to help Brock.

“Can we get more?” I asked.

“Our only dependable supply comes from Faerie,” Soheila answered. “But sometimes we find traces of it in the Undine, especially after an undine spawning. Diana and I will look for it.”

“Can I help?”

“Haven’t you done enough?” Moondance snapped.

“There’s no need to be hard on Callie,” Liz replied. “If she has power that’s been untapped, she may be able to help Brock
and
keep the door open. We just have to find someone to train her properly. Unfortunately, I believe it might be outside the abilities of our circle.”

A murmur of consent moved through the group—the first thing they’d agreed on since I’d entered the room.

“She needs a special instructor,” Joan Ryan said.

“One with experience unlocking blocked energy,” Ann added.

“Kind of like Reiki,” Tara volunteered, “or a good chiropractor.”

“Isn’t there a mage out in Sedona who does something with candle wax and auras?” Leon asked, flipping open a laptop. Several others in the group also retrieved electronic devices. Liz was jotting down suggestions on a notepad.

I felt Soheila’s hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, Callie, we’ll find someone to help you. You should go home and rest. Your first circle is always tiring.”

“And dehydrating,” Diana added, appearing on my other side. “Make sure you drink plenty of water.” Both women were gently steering me toward the door, clearly eager to get me away from the rest of the circle while they were distracted. I looked back at the group and saw that they’d drawn closer together, filling in the space I’d briefly inhabited. I felt the same hurt I had as a child when I didn’t get picked for a game at recess. Diana and Soheila walked me out of the house to my car, taking turns assuring me that the circle would figure something out. I was halfway to the car when I thought of something.

“The Aelvesgold can heal people?” I asked.

“Yes,” Diana said, her eyes flickering toward Soheila. “It’s the essential substance of magic. Used correctly, it mends broken bones, cures disease, and prolongs life. It can also lend great magical power.”

“But always at a price,” Soheila said. “If a human uses too much, it can deplete their life force rather than prolonging it. Witches have died of overdoses.”

“Why doesn’t Ann Chase use it to cure her arthritis?” I asked. “Or to slow her aging?”

Soheila and Diana looked at each other uneasily. “Ann has
a daughter who has medical problems,” Soheila answered at last. “What Aelvesgold she acquires, she uses for her. We all give her what we can, but there’s not enough for her and for her daughter.”

“And she can handle only so much of it, so she chooses to channel all she gets into her daughter.”

“Couldn’t someone else channel it for her?” I asked. “Like you just did to fix her hand?”

“That only works once or twice on the same person. We’re not sure why. There’s a limit to how much a human can absorb.”

“Like a vitamin deficiency,” I said thinking about what Liam had told me about how the undines could no longer absorb Aelvesgold after they had been in Faerie too long.

Soheila tilted her head, thoughtful. “Exactly.”

“We’d better get back in,” Diana said, looking impatient. “I don’t want the circle overtaxing Liz. She was up all last night talking to members of the governing board of IMP.”

“Did she get a feel for how they’ll vote?” I asked.

“It wasn’t good. One of the three fey members on the board has resigned and the remaining two couldn’t be reached. Delbert Winters, a wizard at Harvard who wrote a paper last year on the science of magic that debunked the idea that the fey taught magic to witches, is in favor of closing the door. Then she spent half the night talking to Eleanor Belknap, a witch at Vassar, who’s gotten it into her head that the open door to Faerie has contributed to global warming. A ridiculous notion, but Eleanor and Liz have been friends for years and she felt she had to hear her out. It took a lot out of her and she’s still recovering from her illness last winter …” She blushed and looked away from me, embarrassed at the reminder of yet another problem I had caused. It had been the liderc I let in through the door who had made Liz sick.

“Go on and check on Liz,” I said, getting into my car. But then as they turned to go, I thought of something else. “If the door to Faerie closes, does that mean …?”

“No more Aelvesgold,” Soheila said, putting her arm around Diana’s shoulder, which I could see was trembling. She didn’t have to add that if there were no more Aelvesgold in this world, witches who had used it to augment their life span would suddenly age and die.

W
ell, I really messed that up
, I thought as I pulled out of the Olsens’ driveway. How could I have lost myself so completely that I injured Ann? But that’s what had happened: that first rush of power had felt like a flame rushing through my veins, burning a path to those strange images of caves and stone circles and that mysterious figure holding the curved knife. That last image had felt somehow … 
intimate
. And terrifying. I shuddered, tasting fear in my mouth. I forced my mind away from the moment, back to the sunlit country road in front of me, the old stone bridge and the sign announcing the Undine …

“Shit!” I swore, turning into the same driveway for the second time today. I had been so busy reliving the circle that I’d gone back the wrong way again.

I wrenched the gear stick into reverse and backed directly into a pothole. I could hear the undercarriage of my less-than-a-year-old Fit grating against gravel. I looked warily toward the house, sure the sound would have aroused the owner, but the house kept still in its enchanted silence. I looked back over
my shoulder … and was blinded by a flash of gold sunlight just as I’d been last time …

Only last time the sun had been on the east side of the house, now it was low over the west side. What, then, was making that flash of light? I tried staring directly into the glare but couldn’t see anything. Oddly, I found that I didn’t
mind
staring into that blinding light. In fact, the longer I looked into it, the more reluctant I was to drive away. The trill of moving water and the wind chimes beckoned me to stay. I tore my eyes away and looked back at the house. Still quiet. Even the smoke had vanished. Maybe I’d imagined it before, and the cabin really was abandoned.

I put the car in park and turned off the ignition. Without the noise of the engine, the rush of water filled the air—a soothing sound that could lull a person to sleep. And yet I felt wide awake. The light from the water had recharged me, much like the energy of the circle.

I got out of the car, closing the door as quietly as I could, and walked down to the water, following a stone staircase that had been set into the steep bank. The riverside had been shored up by beautiful stone walls. Crystals and round river stones were set between square blocks of granite. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make the river accessible from the house, but judging from the layers of moss and wildflowers growing between the rocks, the work had been done a long time ago. Unlike the house, though, which was suffering signs of decay and neglect, the stone walls and stairs were lovingly—if eccentrically—maintained. Pots of fragrant herbs lined the steps and small clay figures and candles sat in niches inside the walls. At the bottom of the steps was a rustic bench made of twisted birch branches. I ran my hand along the wood, which had been polished to the smoothness of bone, until my fingers grazed something carved into the seatback—a
pair of initials intertwined in a heart:
L & Q
. The initials were nearly as smooth as the rest of the wood, worn down by someone’s touch.

I looked from the bench toward the stream. The flash of gold was still there, a bright spot under the water refracted a hundred times into gold waves by the moving water. Staring into it, I felt the warmth I had when lying under the willow tree with Liam in Faerie, the release I’d felt when the circle had joined hands and the gold light had moved through us. Both were moments when I’d been exposed to Aelvesgold, and Soheila had said that they sometimes found traces of Aelvesgold in the Undine.

Well, there was only one way to find out. I took off my sandals and waded into the stream. It was cold but, given the heat of the day, not unpleasantly so. The bottom was covered with wide, mossy stones, not, thankfully, gooey mud. I carefully inched forward, exploring the surface of the rocky bottom with my toes, trying not to think about snakes. The current wrapped around my ankles, then my calves, like silk scarves seductively pulling me deeper into the water.

I stood a foot or so from the source of the gold light. It was so strong that I was now sure that it was Aelvesgold. The circle needed Aelvesgold to cure Brock … I needed it to gain enough power to keep the door open. And, after all, it was my fault the circle had wasted their last reserve of the stuff.

I took another step forward … and noticed the water was warmer. Looking down, I saw that I was standing in a small pool of amber water. I wriggled my toes, which had gone a little numb in the cold water, and felt the warm current moving up my legs, spreading a delicious sensation of well-being throughout my body. It was like getting a foot massage while drinking a champagne cocktail. I squatted down, not caring that the water soaked the hem of my dress, and reached my
hand into the core of the gold light. For all I knew I might have been sticking my hand into a bear trap, but I no longer cared. The light was tingling in my veins, fizzing my nerve endings, and massaging the pleasure centers in my brain. This felt almost as good as when I’d made love to Liam under the willow tree in Faerie yesterday. Maybe if I could grab whatever was making this light, I wouldn’t miss
that
quite so much.

My fingers wrapped around something round and hard. It was half sunken in the mud, but I pulled it out with a satisfying
plock
. I dimly recalled Liz saying that Aelvesgold could be dangerous to handle, but I couldn’t stop myself. Lifting the stone out of the water, I cradled it in the palm of my hand. It fit perfectly, like an egg in a nest. It was, in fact, egg-shaped and golden—like the proverbial golden goose egg—and glowed as if it were on fire. It didn’t hurt me.

Because you were meant to have it
.

The voice in my head didn’t sound entirely like my own. But I agreed completely. I was meant to possess this stone. I started to slip it into my pocket … and heard the click of metal behind me.

“That’s not yours to take,” a low, gravelly voice growled. “Stand up slowly and hand her over.”

I stood up as slowly as I could, gripping the stone hard in my fist. I had images of throwing it at my assailant to knock them out and then grabbing the stone back and running. The person behind me was
wrong
. The stone
was
mine to take.

But, as I surmised from the cold metal rod pressing between my shoulder blades, the person behind me had a gun.

I turned around, expecting some hillbilly he-man in hunting camo, but found instead a woman the size of a fourth-grader with a face like a shriveled apple and a rifle more than half her size held in crabbed and trembling hands.

“I was only taking a stone,” I said, in the slow, gentle tones I’d use to calm a nervous animal.

“Thief! Trespasser!” she snapped back. “Hand her over, I say.” She nudged my right hand—still curled around the stone—with her rifle. She held the rifle in her left hand, balancing it against her hip. Without the right hand to steady it, the rifle shook like a leaf in the wind. In fact, all eighty or so pounds of the frail, elderly woman were shaking like aspen leaves. One good shove …

What was I thinking? She was an old woman and she was right. I
was
trespassing and the stone, no matter how much it felt like it belonged to me—didn’t.

I held out my arm, the stone heavy in my hand, and started to step toward her so that she wouldn’t have to move closer to me. I didn’t like the idea of her tripping and shooting me by accident. When I stepped forward my foot landed on a slick surface below the water. My balance wavered, my arms pin-wheeled in the air, and then the sky was whirling above me. My last thought was that I really ought to use my arms to brace my fall, but that would mean letting go of the stone, and I wasn’t willing to do that.

When I came to, I was lying on damp green moss, looking up into a kaleidoscope of waving lights. Bright flashes darted over my head. Fish, I thought, strangely bright tropical fish for an inland river. I
must
be in Faerie.

But then my vision cleared and I noticed that the bright flashing lights were pieces of tin and glass hanging from strings. The damp green moss was an ancient settee which smelled like cat pee. I tried to sit up and my head began to pound. I touched the back of my head and found a hard knot the size and shape of a goose egg …

Or of the Aelvesgold stone.

“It’s here,” a voice said. “You held on to it when you went down. Damned thing would have gotten you drowned if I hadn’t dragged you out of the river. That’s what it does to you, the Aelvesgold. You only had it in your hand a minute and you’d have been willing to crack your head open and drown in the river rather than let it go. Here, put this on your fool head.”