The Witch's Promise (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Winter nights we sang in tune,

... or was that ...

She is like a cat in the dark and then she is the darkness

... He couldn't be sure.

Eerie dreams blending snatches of childhood fantasies somehow merged into the waking vision of a tall woman pulling him out of a cold puddle and into the shelter of her black overcoat. Or was it a cloak? His vision seemed blurred, either from rain and blood in his eyes, or from the cymbal crash on his head.

She put a cup of some warm liquid to his lips and he drank greedily. Ever since he was very young John had a notion of the ideal hot beverage. Something the servants might offer a Medieval Lord when he came back from a hunt. Something frothy and slightly alcoholic and sweet and hearty and a little spicy. Nothing ever slaked his desire, although mulled cider mixed with spiced wine sometimes came close. John didn't know what this was -- more broth than drink, he reckoned -- but he felt strength and warmth returning to his lifeless, cold body -- at least enough to let the woman help him to his feet and through a side door into a blessedly warm and dry kitchen. She sat him in a wicker chair and he clutched the arms, fearing he might swoon and fall off.

He blinked his eyes clear while his mind wrestled with competing thoughts. Where was he? Who was this woman? Was this still a dream?

He could only hope.

Pain brought his mind back to reality. The woman was daubing his right eyebrow with a cotton swap soaked in alcohol.

"I don't think you'll need stitches," she said, and then, anticipating his movement, added, "but I wouldn't try to get up just yet." She placed a hand on his shoulder and kept him firmly but gently in the chair. "You've bled a bit, and your body is cold. I don't know how long you were laying in that puddle before I found you."

She wrapped him in the mysterious black garment. It felt like wool, and it seemed to have a brass broach of some odd design, but right now it was warm and dry, and that's all he cared about.

"Thank you," he finally managed, taking the mug of broth from her hands and sipping it eagerly. "It was rather brave of you to bring me in like that. Shouldn't you have called the police?"

She chuckled. "I don't believe you're much of a threat. Besides, I was expecting you."

He looked at her face and blinked again, certain he didn't recognize her. His mind kept trying to get organized. Why was he so wet? How could she be expecting him? He'd been running in the woods. Blind chance had led him to her back yard.

"Do I know you?"

"No, but I saw your card."

"Ah," he said, feeling for his wallet, wondering if she'd taken one of his business cards -- which bothered him a bit -- a wallet is private territory -- and wondered even more how that translated into 'expecting him.'

She laughed again. "Not that kind of card." She reached a long, slender arm to a small wooden table and retrieved something like a rather large playing card, although the picture didn't seem right. John had seen such a thing before.

"Oh, tarot cards," he said, trying to hide his smirk. He didn't want to be cruel, but tarot cards, palm reading and crystal balls shouted "naïve" and "superstitious" as well as every prejudice he had against religion in general. But the woman was being kind to him, so he decided to behave.

"You don't believe?" she asked, slightly confused. "The cards told me to expect a man who had been in a fight, and here you are, bloody nose and everything." But then she laughed. "Although I have to admit I wasn't reading them very well. I expected the other guy to have the bloody nose."

As if on cue, a large drop of blood fell onto his lap and soaked into his dark wool pants. He tilted his head back in the chair and she handed him a tissue.

"They say it's actually better to lean forward," she said, giving him a few more tissues, "but suit yourself. When you're ready you can have some more soup. For now I'll make some coffee and we'll talk."

John watched as the kind stranger put a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave and retrieved her funnel, filter and a stone jar from the spice cabinet. The opening and closing of the cabinet door left a trace of earthy, spicy sweetness in the air, which stirred something in John's mind. He was completely awake now and began to take in his surroundings. He was in a kitchen -- a very neat and clean kitchen -- but little oddments here and there stuck out: the cleaver, for one, and the collections of dried herbs hanging from the cabinets.

"You have me at a disadvantage," John said, remembering the line from Sherlock Holmes. "You've seen my card, but I don't know you at all. Can I draw one off the stack so I can get your profile?"

Jillian smiled pleasantly. "Touch my magic cards with your bloody, muddy hands? I think not." She glided to the table and absent-mindedly flipped over another card, as if she intended to show it to him. John studied her face and thought he saw a moment of surprise, and then the slightest blush in the cheeks, but she simply set the card on the table and continued with her preparations: retrieving two cups and saucers from the cabinet, and one large soup bowl.

"My name's Jillian Collins," she said. "And I can fix those pants for you, although the shirt is totaled. I'm a seamstress. Not that I do pants, really. I do interior designs. Curtains and things. But I can fix pants."

"I'm John Matthews," he replied. "And I'm deeply in your debt, Jillian. I suppose I could have caught something nasty, laying out there in that puddle. Something even nastier than your trashcan lid." He laughed at himself, and tried to force the tissue into his aching nose so that he could hold his head up straight without bleeding.

"Let me pay you back," he continued a little more seriously. "How about dinner? Your favorite restaurant."

Jillian didn't answer. She turned her back and fetched the coffee pot.

"Do you take anything in your coffee?"

"No, thanks," he said, and started to rise to get a cup, but she waved him back into his seat.

"You need to rest a little longer."

As if you know,
John thought, beginning to be slightly perturbed at her air of superiority and control, and wondering if he should have been so quick to ask her out.
You fall too easy, John,
he chided himself.

John took the proffered mug of coffee and breathed deeply. The warmth had returned to his body and he shrugged off the cloak. For cloak it was. Thick, black wool with a narrow band of patterned satin along the edges. The broach, pinned on the left breast, was circular with woven strands of bronze. It looked vaguely Celtic.

"Are you ready for some soup?" Jillian asked, and without waiting for an answer filled two bowls, retrieved a small loaf of black bread from a wire rack on the counter-top and handed John a bottle of red wine and a corkscrew. Jillian gathered glasses, spoons and napkins while John dealt with the wine. It was a Merlot from a small winery in Maryland, but it seemed appropriate for dinner with a tarot-reading woman in the woods. On the label was a rather unprofessional drawing of a man on horseback with a hawk perched on his right hand.

Jillian carefully cleared the tarot cards from the kitchen table and John adjusted his chair so he could eat comfortably. Aside from a few bumps and bruises, he felt well, although the sudden warmth after being cold made him a little sleepy.

Jillian sat down and did about the last thing John expected. She raised her glass and said a blessing before the meal.

"Fertile in fruits and herbs, may the earth crown the Goddess with its abundance."

John raised his glass, unsure if he was supposed to say "Amen" or what.

"So this thing I was wearing," he said. "Somehow 'coat' doesn't seem to fit. Did you make it? And what is it?"

Jillian laughed, quietly at first, but her mirth got the better of her and she set her glass back on the table and raised her cloth napkin to cover her mouth.

"I'm sorry, John," she said. "This isn't quite the best of introductions. I've been so intent on understanding the message of the cards that I've forgotten how weird this must all seem to you. Despite appearances, I'm not all that strange. And I don't wander around Bowie in a cloak, in case you were wondering. It's part of an old costume, and it just happened to be hanging there because I had done some needlework on it earlier today."

"Tell me a little about yourself," she continued. "I don't go out to dinner with strangers."

He took another spoonful of soup and then eyed her suspiciously. "I'm a private detective," he said. "A funny-looking fellow in a blue robe asked me to check on you, but on my way I was attacked by the wily servants of the Dark Lord."

Jillian laughed again, and John noticed for the first time how young and beautiful her face looked when she laughed.
Whenever I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself.
The lyrics echoed in his mind. He couldn't help but return Jillian's smile.

"Seriously," he said, "I live a much more interesting life than all that. I'm an architect. My office is downtown, but several of my clients are out this way. I don't live far from here, in fact, and I was on the way to the train station with a client when I saw somebody in my car."

As John narrated the story Jillian nodded appreciatively at different spots, as if she knew the precise spot in the woods, or understood why the thief chose to turn right instead of left.

"I see," she said when he had done. "Now I understand the cards a little better. You're an adventurous type." And then, as if to herself she said, "perhaps that's important."

"No, not really," John insisted, not least because he didn't like the idea that a deck of cards had him pegged. "I'm not much of a risk-taker. I don't even eat Sushi. But I can't stand it when punks get away with petty crime like that."

"And ...?"

"And what?"

"What made you pursue this particular guy on this particular night?"

"Extra hot sauce on the burrito, I guess."

Jillian's eyes sparkled, and while she didn't actually turn to look at the cards, John was sure she was thinking about them. Had he said something she'd seen in the cards? Well, at least she might believe that, he thought, wondering if he was growing to resent that deck of cards, or whether a burning curiosity would get the better of him.

"Why don't we do a test?" John suggested with a wicked smirk. "How about you ask the deck?"

"Why not?" Jillian agreed, almost as if she was expecting the challenge. John took one last sip of his wine and they cleared their things to the other side of the table.

Jillian deftly laid out ten cards in a strange pattern: one, then four, then one, then four more.

"This is you," she said, pointing to the first. "The King of Swords. You were decisive and took action. You were motivated by justice, but also by a sense of adventure, and even vengeance. Yet there was a hidden purpose. There's something here about love lost. Did you recently break up with someone?"

"Yes, in fact," he said, but he tried hard not to react. It was a lucky guess.
Everybody my age is breaking up with someone,
he figured.

"There's also something here about spiritual growth, or enlightenment. Are you religious?"

John laughed. "I'm agnostic. I'd say I'm an atheist, but that requires a commitment I'm not willing to make."

"Then there's plenty of room for spiritual growth," Jillian said matter-of-factly. "Don't be surprised if your faith is tested soon."

"Yes. Well. That was interesting," he interrupted. She clearly wasn't done, but his tone said that he'd had enough. He reached for his bread. Jillian seemed eager to continue with her reading.

"I hate to bring this up," he said, noticing her discomfort, "but I'm somewhat stranded. Is it far to the Bowie train station? I kinda lost track of where I was going after the storm hit."