“Then you’ll need to put these on, Miz O’Brien,” the doctor replied, holding a pair of surgical gloves out to her.
Felicity was staring again, so I gave her a nudge. She looked at me then turned and focused in on the gloves and took them from Doctor Kingston. I continued to watch as she began trying to stretch one over her hand. There was an unmistakable hesitation in all of her actions, and her steadily growing uneasiness was becoming more than simply palpable. I had been here countless times myself, so I knew all too well that it was starting to exact a painful toll. As I watched my wife struggle with the glove, I began to wonder if I should take the out Ben had offered and just go ahead and stop this before it even started.
But, I forced myself not to give in, took a deep breath, and fought to hold my tongue. Instead of objecting, I reached out and took the surgical glove from Felicity and told her, “Here. Let me help.”
She looked at me in silence, chewing at her lower lip, and then slowly held out her hand. I stretched the rubber sheath and carefully slipped it onto her right appendage. She started to offer the other hand, and I shook my head.
“No. Just your right,” I told her. “I’ll be hanging on to your left.”
She gave me a slow nod.
I held her gaze for a moment then reached up and brushed the hair back out of her eyes. In a quiet voice I asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?”
She nodded again, this time attempting a verbal response as well but only managing a barely audible whisper. She stopped, cleared her throat and then repeated, “Yes.”
“Okay…then let’s give this a try.”
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the small handful of salt packets I had earlier retrieved from her purse. I counted them out while glancing at the space around us and running through a quick mental calculation at the same time. Then I counted through them again, peeled off four, stuffed two of them back into my pocket and held the other two out to Ben.
“Whaddaya want me ta’ do?” he whispered.
“Remember how I chased Miranda out before?” I returned, my own voice low.
“Yeah,” he said then opened his mouth and pantomimed eating the salt as he nodded toward Felicity.
“Exactly…” I replied. “So…hang on to them…just in case.”
It would have been easier to go ahead and use everything I had in my hand, but I wanted something to fall back on if necessary, and this was what I had. I was carrying the backup. Ben was going to be my failsafe. I hoped I would need neither.
Tearing the remainder of the packets open, I poured the crystals into the palm of my hand and then began walking in a tight circle, barely a few feet out from our small clutch around the gurney. As I slowly shuffled along the perimeter, I sprinkled pinches of the salt in my wake.
Halfway through the circumference, I heard Ben’s voice somewhere behind me as he whispered to Doctor Kingston, “Relax, it doesn’t usually get weird for another coupl’a minutes yet.”
I continued along my arc without acknowledging that I’d heard him. At the moment I had someone far more important on whom my attention needed to be focused.
Once I’d completed the orbit, I took the crumpled handful of empty salt packets and shoved them into my other pocket. I closed my eyes then took a deep breath in through my nose and held it for several heartbeats before allowing the warmed air to vent in a slow stream out via my mouth. Even though Miranda had taken away my connection to the dead and my ability to feel, she couldn’t keep me from executing the simplest of exercises where WitchCraft was concerned-grounding and centering.
I repeated the pattern of breathing several more times as I visualized a solid connection between the Earth and myself. I imagined a conduit forming between the floor and my body, and in my mind it took the form of a spire of light. It acted as a channel through which energy could pass in both directions. This would be my anchor in the here and now, and I would be Felicity’s sole tether between the worlds of life and death.
After a handful of minutes, I finally felt myself beginning to relax. The emptiness that had begun earlier in the pit of my stomach and then spread throughout my body was still making a home in my chest. However, it no longer consumed me. I knew I hadn’t arrived at a perfect calm, but it was the best I was going to be able to manage, so it would have to do. I took one last cleansing breath then stepped over and resumed my earlier station next to my wife.
I reached down and slipped my hand into hers, pressing our palms together and intertwining our fingers in a tight weave. I felt her squeeze out of reflex, and she slowly swiveled her head and looked into my face.
“Like you said,” I told her softly. “Don’t be like me. No chances… No risks… And, don’t you dare let go.”
“You either,” she whispered.
“We ready?” Ben asked.
“Aye,” Felicity responded, giving him a shallow nod.
He looked at her, then at me. The reluctance was clear in his eyes. Finally, he held up the two salt packets and stared at them briefly before returning his gaze to mine. He wagged the square packets at me as if to say, “I’ve got your back.”
I simply nodded.
Ben sighed then looked at the M.E. and said, “Go on. Open it up, Doc.”
Doctor Kingston stepped around the end of the gurney then reached out a gloved hand and tugged on the zipper. In a smooth motion she pulled the closure, creating an ever-widening gap down the center of the shroud. Once she reached the midpoint, she stopped.
Moving back to the head of the gurney, she carefully folded back the sides of the rubberized fabric and revealed the body that had been sprawled in our front yard less than ten hours ago. After the medical examiner had moved out of the way, Felicity slowly reached out, her gloved hand hovering a few inches above the pale flesh of the corpse.
And then, through our clasped hands, I felt her entire body go completely stiff.
CHAPTER 23
Using the tines of her salad fork, Felicity slowly batted a small hunk of tomato back and forth on her plate. After a few seconds of the cat-like behavior, she pushed the deep red triangle close to the edge using the back of the utensil. Lazily piercing the bite-sized chunk, she then maneuvered it around the layers of thinly sliced red onion, other slabs of extraordinarily crimson-hued tomato, and dollops of fresh mozzarella cheese that were all swimming in a translucent green pool of olive oil. So far, other than a few initial bites, she had barely touched her lunch other than to engage in the absent-minded activity currently at hand.
The restaurant was unusually quiet, but then it was early yet. The sharp-edged, raspy beat of the Raveonettes Dead Sound floated through the room as the last verse of the song filtered from the overhead speakers nearby. It was underscored by the muffled sound of a distant emergency siren somewhere outside. The melange of noises seemed to echo the tone of our day thus far.
“I’m sorry,” my wife finally muttered, her voice riding on the back of a dejected sigh.
It was now coming up on two hours since we’d left the county medical examiner’s office, and I’d lost track of the number of times she’d apologized during that span. I’d actually stopped counting somewhere around the tenth, and that was better than forty-five minutes ago. I figured Ben had given up on keeping a tally as well, but since he had disappeared to the restroom, he wasn’t around to hear this latest verbal atonement. So even if I was wrong, it was really a moot point.
I slipped my hand over beneath the table and placed it on my wife’s denim-covered thigh. Giving her leg a gentle rub, I tried to soothe her mood with the same words I’d already spoken several times. “I’m sorry too, honey. But all you could do was try.”
“Don’t lie, Rowan,” she replied. Her voice was quiet but didn’t lack for seriousness. “You aren’t sorry. You’re happy it didn’t work.”
“I wouldn’t say happy,” I told her. “But, yeah, sure, I’ll admit I’m more than a little relieved.”
In all honesty, I was completely sincere in my words of consolation. I hated to see her beating herself up
