“Okay… Whatever you say,” he muttered.
“Stand over here,” my wife told him as she took his arm and led him into the center with me.
“Don’t you want me ta’ go over there or somethin’ while ya’ do the hocus-pocus?” he asked, pointing toward the tape line.
“No,” she replied with a shake of her head. “I want you to stand right here so you can help.”
“Whaddaya mean help? I ain’t a Twilight Zone freakazoid like you two. What am I gonna be able ta’ do?”
“If I’m following her logic, I think you just became an honorary signpost,” I groaned out between waves of pain.
“Pretty much,” she acknowledged.
“What’s that s’posed ta’ mean?”
“It means that you’re now Rowan’s anchor,” she replied. “Obviously you have more physical strength than I do, so if this starts to go bad, I’ll tell you to pull him into the circle. Once you do that I’ll handle closing the door.”
He made a sweeping motion toward the salt with one of his hands. “So I just grab ‘im and pull ‘im in here?”
“More or less.”
“Uh-huh, so what’s the more part, or do I not wanna know?”
“Well, if you have to pull him in, he’s likely to start grounding through you as soon as you touch him. Initially, anyway, until I can take over.”
“Yeah, okay, but now you’re talkin’ la-la land stuff and I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s kind of like having electricity pass through you,” she explained. “But different.”
“Yeah, wunnerful, now I understand perfectly,” he said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “So how’s the Twilight Zone shit gonna affect me since I ain’t like you?”
“It probably won’t.”
“Whaddaya mean prob’ly?”
She shrugged. “I can’t be sure. I’ve never actually done it this way before.”
“But you’ve done it this way with other Witches before, and it worked okay, right?”
“Actually, no,” she said. “If you must know, I’m making this up as I go along.”
“Fuck me…” he grumbled as he shook his head.
“Don’t worry, then,” she told him. “I know what I’m doing. It shouldn’t hurt too much. Besides, he’d do the same for you.”
“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “That’s the only reason why I’m still standin’ here.”
“It’s okay, Ben,” I grunted through a hard grimace. “It’s a basic principle. Just trust her and let’s get on with this.”
“Yeah, well if my hair falls out or somethin’, I ain’t gonna be real friggin’ happy, ya’know,” he replied sternly.
“Don’t worry,” Felicity quipped. “I’ll make sure only part of it falls out.”
“Who’s bein’ a fuckin’ comedian now?” he grumbled.
“Aye, Row, are you ready?” my wife asked, ignoring his complaint.
“Yeah…” I told her. “I’ve been ready.”
“Just another minute or so,” she said. “This is down and dirty. Nothing fancy.”
“Felicity…” I started.
“What is it?”
I pulled her close and whispered in hopes that Ben wouldn’t overhear. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? You’ve had your own grounding troubles since… Well, you know…”
“Miranda?” she replied, speaking the name I’d chosen not to utter. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
She gave my arm a squeeze for reassurance then moved around behind us. I didn’t turn to watch her, but I knew she was most likely standing at the edge of the circle, facing toward the east. After a short pause I heard her make a shuffling turn and take a step as she began walking slowly along the inner arc. In that same moment her singsong voice floated on the air as she began to rhyme aloud.
“In this space I do create, a haven safe where we await. A gate I leave now open wide, but through it comes who I decide.”
Her voice rose and fell in volume as she carefully skirted counterclockwise along the inside edge of the salt, passing by first on my right, then in front of me, and finally to my left. The last word of the verse was fading on the night air as she reached her original starting point once again.
“Judith is who we now seek, she must soon be allowed to speak. As Rowan travels through the veil, in search of her he will prevail.”
For a second time, my wife stepped lightly around the full circumference of the somewhat unfinished circle, chanting out another verse of her off-the-cuff spell and uttering the ending syllable at the east, just as before.
“Harm to him it will not come, nor to fear will he succumb. He will return through the gate, to a haven safe where we await.”
On her third and what turned out to be her final pass, she glanced up when she crossed in front of me. I caught her eye and would have smiled were it not for the preoccupying thump in the back of my head. When she finally came to rest behind us once again, she paused, and from the lack of sound I assumed she simply stood in place.
Apparently, Ben’s story about the sudden hair shedding effects of the redhead with the evil eye had been passed around, as no jeering or offhanded remarks came from the watchers on. Except for the swish of the slight, but cold, breeze and the hum of the highway traffic, everything was quiet.
After a handful of heartbeats had tapped out time in my chest, I heard Felicity shuffle and walk toward the center of the circle.
“Ben,” she said. “If I say the word now, you grab Rowan and bring him right here to this spot, no matter what. Okay?”
“Got it.”
“ No matter what,” she stressed again.
“Yeah,” he repeated with a nod. “I got it.”
I heard the rustle of a plastic bag then the unmistakable squeak of metal against pasteboard as my wife opened a fresh container of salt. A few seconds later, she was at my side.
“Okay, Rowan…” she said softly. “We’re ready. Go ahead then.”
I stepped forward through the opening in the salt circle then slowly and deliberately placed my hand on the Hyundai’s driver’s side door handle.
CHAPTER 28:
At first, when my fingers made contact with the door handle, nothing at all seemed to happen. Psychometry was fickle like that sometimes. Given that reading the psychic residue from inanimate objects through physical touch lent itself to all manner of interference, there were even a good number of occasions when it didn’t work at all.
Latent impressions of past events weren’t always present. And if they were, for the most part they didn’t just automatically form an immediate picture in my mind. Instead they would come to me like water soaking into a too dry sponge. Seeping slowly in around the edges at first then suddenly becoming a thirsty swell to fill the void between then and now.
I certainly hadn’t expected a shower of sparks or a choir of disembodied heads bellowing out an off key chorus. I knew better than that. However, I had hoped that maybe the ethereal voice in my brain would have become a bit clearer. Instead, all I heard was the murmuring gibberish that had been rolling around inside my head for the past two hours or so. If anything changed at all it was the series of stabbing pains at the base of my skull. Unfortunately, it was a change I could have done without since they seemed to become worse, not better.
