they would have me committed immediately. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t blame them if they did.
I was, to say the least, more than a little disturbed by the incident, but I tried not to let it show. I made a mental note to mention it to Helen Storm during my next session with her. I was really beginning to wonder if my sanity had finally fled in a futile attempt to save itself.
“Aye, help me out here,” Felicity demanded as she struggled to move the wheeled table out from the wall.
Ben stepped over to help her, and after a brief moment of mimicking her struggle, he located the parking brake and released it. The two of them moved the gurney out and, at my wife’s direction, centered it in the room before locking it down once again.
“What else ya need me ta’ do?” Ben asked.
“I’m a bit disoriented,” she returned as she looked around, trying to gain her bearings. “Which direction is east?”
“Shit, ummmmm,” he muttered as he spun around as well, slowly motioning his arms in various directions while mumbling aloud to himself. “Clark runs east and west, building faces Clark. Highway would be there… Headquarters…” he stopped and pointed at a wall, “this way.”
“Okay.” Felicity nodded as she directed her attention toward me and motioned for me to come over. “Rowan, you come stand here, then.”
I did as I was instructed, still feeling somewhat wistful at the sight of her and that auburn mane.
“Ben, you stand on the other side here,” she instructed.
“Okay.” He moved into position. “What now?”
“Just be quiet and don’t open that bag until I tell you to.”
“This isn’t gonna get all hinky, is it?”
Felicity had already stepped behind him, facing toward the east and was tearing open the salt packets. “Just be quiet and do what I tell you to do.”
“Yeah. Great,” he answered in a flat tone then mumbled, “Jeezus, I can’t believe I’m doin’ this.”
Felicity carefully began sprinkling the salt along an arc as she walked slowly clockwise around us. She would stop only briefly at each of the quarters-south, west, and north-and give a slight nod of her head, silently acknowledging the elements. By the time she made her way back around to the east, she had emptied a half dozen of the small paper packets onto the floor in a rough circle, leaving only a small opening unsalted. Though it was not visibly perceptible, the energy of the purified barrier was something I could easily feel.
In a fluid motion my wife moved smoothly deosil-or clockwise-around us a second time. Holding her arms outstretched, she moved silently until she was once again before the small opening where she started. After a slight pause she repeated the circuit twice more.
“What the hell’s she doin’?” Ben whispered the question to me from across the wheeled table.
“Cleansing the work area,” I replied in my own hushed tone.
As Felicity came to rest at the end of the third revolution, she brought her arms down, around, and back up in front of her as if gathering something unseen into a bundle. Then she forcefully pushed her palms outward, casting the invisible detritus she had gathered through the opening she had left just for this purpose. Immediately upon completing this task, she sprinkled the remains of a salt packet on the floor at her feet, effectively closing the now purified circle.
“Is that it?” Ben voiced.
“Shhhh!” my wife warned as she remained at rest-arms at her sides, facing east with her back to us, and her head bowed.
He started to retort but halted before uttering a sound as I slowly shook my head and mouthed the word, “Don’t.” Instead he simply rolled his eyes and allowed his shoulders to fall slightly.
I could sense that Felicity had fallen into an easy rhythm with her breathing, taking deep lungfuls of air in through her nose and exhaling softly out through her mouth. In an almost symbiotic reaction, my own breathing slipped into time with hers.
After a short meditation, she slowly raised her arms from her sides, palms upward, then allowed her chin to rise from her chest, bringing her face upturned toward the ceiling.
“Lord and Lady spin about,” she began in a quiet, singsong voice, “Watch over us this night throughout. In the dark, one journeys long, in search of answers hidden strong. Please guide him through and guard his fate, for on this side, I shall wait.
“Please lead me through these passing hours, and grant to me your protective powers. For here and now are spirits still, kept at bay by my own will. From head to toe, above and below, watch over him as west winds blow. From earth to air, sky to ground, keep Rowan safe and well and sound.”
Chilled silence filled the room as her last words faded. Ben stood staring at me, mute but questioning with his eyes. I’m not entirely sure what he had been expecting to happen in conjunction with this bit of SpellCraft, but he seemed almost disappointed. His face visibly betrayed his reaction to what must have been anticlimactic in a host of ways. The sort of letdown that comes from seeing real WitchCraft firsthand, but only after first being saturated with years of too many Hollywood special effects and inaccurate portrayals by the entertainment industry.
I couldn’t place all of the blame in their laps, however. Even though they were only partially connected with my spiritual path, one could be certain that the bizarre psychic phenomena that seemed to plague me on a regular basis had helped to cloud his perceptions as well.
“Like I’ve told you before,” I whispered in answer to his unasked question, “casting a spell for a Witch is pretty much just like praying is for a Christian.”
Felicity had left her station at the eastern point of the circle and had now sidled up next to me. I felt her right palm press against my own and her fingers intertwine with mine in a vise-like grip. Immediately I felt the chaotic energy within my body connect with hers as she took firm hold of my ethereal self. She simply ignored my own earthly bond, fleeting and tenuous as it was, and forcibly grounded me through her own solid coupling with this plane of existence.
She looked into my eyes, silently daring me to even try letting go of her hand, and then glanced over to Ben with a look of extreme concentration furrowing into her brow.
“Aye,” she said with a nod. “ Now you can open it.”
CHAPTER 8
If nothing else, I was most definitely no longer fantasizing about my wife’s hair.
The malodorous stench of decay spewed outward in a cloud of invisible but uniquely vile smelling gases. They escaped the body bag in an instantly rising plume that marched lockstep directly behind the zipper pull as Ben tugged it open.
The noxious vapor forced the three of us to cough and twist our heads away as it pushed its way into our nostrils. I felt a column of bile searing upward in my throat, and I swallowed hard to force it back into the depths from which it came. My churning stomach did a somersault and twisted into a tight knot as it threatened to evacuate what little contents it held.
I shifted my watery-eyed glance between Ben and Felicity and saw that they were in no better shape than me. My wife was seriously green, and Ben’s head was cocked away with his eyes tightly shut. He had already seen this at least once, and he didn’t appear to be particularly interested in a repeat viewing.
“Awww, Jeeeezzz…” my friend’s voice trailed off as he mumbled.
Two months, fluctuating temperatures, and even some of nature’s children had been hard at work on the earthly remains of Debbie Schaeffer. What was left of her body was still clad in the tattered leavings of a pair of blue jeans and a sweatshirt that bore the partial logo of Oakwood College.
The clothing had already begun along the same journey of decomposition as the rest and was heavily stained with the purge fluids that escape the confines of the flesh during decay. The fibers had already begun to break down in places, creating large holes in the garments. One side of the sweatshirt was particularly desiccated, revealing a substantial portion of her ribcage and even some remaining mold-covered flesh. One running shoe still hugged the remnants of her right foot, but the other was gone, leaving the left exposed and skeletonized within the
