The Angel Stone

euphemism, of course, but with Jessica it’s …”

“True?” I finished for her. “Jessica’s a witch, isn’t she?”

Ann looked around, as if suddenly wary that the ceramic black cats and grinning ghouls on the coffee table might be listening. She spoke in a low whisper. “You must promise not to let the nephilim know. I’ve kept it a secret, afraid others would take advantage of her power. At first I refused to even admit it to her, but then I saw that it was just confusing her to have so much power and not train it. So I began working with her.” A tentative smile appeared on her face. “She’s the most powerful witch I’ve ever encountered. But if the nephilim found out …”

“They would use her power for their own ends. I understand,” I said, getting to my feet. “And you’re right. I’m putting Jessica in danger even being here.”

“But why did you come, then? You came here to ask for my help, didn’t you?” Ann asked, grabbing my hand.

“Yes.” I explained why I needed a witches’ circle for Halloween night. “But I see now why it would be too dangerous for you. I’ll figure out some other way—”

“No!”

I looked up. The voice came from the now-open pocket door. Jessica stood there, holding a tray of steaming apple-shaped mugs. “No. You need a witch. I’m a witch. I want to help.”

“Jessica—” Ann began.

“No, Mommy!” Jessica stamped her foot, rattling the mugs. Other things in the room rattled. Ann got up to take the tray from Jessica’s hands.

“You’re always saying I can be whatever I want. You’re always telling me to act like a grown-up. Well, I’m a witch, and I’m grown up enough to make my own decisions. I want to help Callie and her friends get rid of the neff-ums.”

“Your mother’s right,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Isn’t it too dangerous to let these bad men bully everybody in town?” Jessica asked, looking from me to her mother. “Besides, Mommy only told them she wouldn’t be part of your circle. She never said I wouldn’t,” Jessica concluded with a sly, proud smile.

“Ann,” I said, “I didn’t come here to involve Jessica.”

“I know,” Ann said with a sigh. “But, as usual, Jessica’s right. It’s always more dangerous to give in to bullies. Jessica and I will both join your circle on Halloween night.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I didn’t sleep that night. Every time I drifted off, I was back in the Greenwood. I knew William Duffy was there with me, but which William Duffy? The tender lover of my dreams, or the one Duncan Laird had shown me? I was afraid that if I saw the monstrously hideous version, I wouldn’t be able to go through with the ceremony and open the door, so I stayed up with my Wheelock’s Spellcraft, LaFleur’s History of Magic, and half a dozen other magic books. Ralph pored over the pages of the books with me as I studied all the spells I could possibly need to become the hallow door. I was running out of time. It was time to cram, as I had for my PhD orals. I’d stayed up three days straight then, and my life hadn’t literally depended on a thorough knowledge of English literature.

It turned out, though, that my body had different needs than it had three years earlier. I made it halfway through Saturday night before I started to crash. I brewed more coffee and combed Wheelock for stay-awake spells. There was one for keeping sleep at bay for forty-eight hours, but it came with a host of dire warnings that ranged from mood disorders to a weakened immune system to hyperanimation (whatever the hell that was!). But what choice did I have? I needed to stay up until I found the door spell. I mixed the ingredients for the stay-awake spell in the kitchen while Ralph ransacked the cabinets for a snack.

“Sorry, guy,” I told him. “I promise that once this is over I’ll go shopping.”

My bare cupboards reminded me that I needed to buy candy for Halloween night. And decorate. Everything I read insisted that the observance of Halloween was crucial to the success of opening the hallow door. Besides, maybe doing something other than reading Wheelock would unlock my brain enough to figure out a strategy, so I spent the early hours of Sunday morning up to my elbows in raw pumpkin gunk.

I carved three jack-o’-lanterns. Having read in Wheelock that properly made jack-o’-lanterns were threshold guardians for your house, I uttered the words of a warding spell while I carved. First was a traditional jack-o’- lantern with triangle eyes and a snaggletooth smile. Protect my home, I asked him. Getting into the mood, I made the second pumpkin into a warty-faced witch. Watch over all who are in it, I asked her. I was amazed at how well it came out. On the third I carved a scary cat so realistic that, when I showed it to Ralph, his fur stood on end and he ran away.

“Scaredy-cat,” I yelled after him. But when I turned the pumpkin back around, even I was surprised at how lifelike the cat appeared. I took the three jack-o’-lanterns out onto the front porch. As I arranged them on the steps, I spotted Evangeline Sprague, my nonagenarian neighbor, retrieving the Sunday paper from her front lawn.

“Happy Halloween!” she shouted, waving to me.

She had tied white cloth ghosts to the branches of an old apple tree by her front porch and had her own little family of jack-o’-lanterns on her stoop. Inspired by her example, I went back in to get more decorating supplies. I found an old pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, which I stuffed with the straw I’d picked up last week to use as mulch. I arranged the makeshift limbs of my scarecrow in a rocking chair and placed the snaggletooth jack-o’-lantern on top. Then I found a black dress and leggings, stuffed them with straw, and propped them under the witch-head pumpkin. I just needed a witch’s hat …

I ended up going downtown to McGuckin’s Variety Store and buying a slew of decorations and candy. I spent most of the day decorating my yard and front porch, hoping some inspiration for the door spell would come to me while I warded my home. As I draped spiderwebs over my front porch, I wove in another protection spell. And as I attached plastic ghosts to pulleys, I called on the spirits of my ancestors to watch over me. My efforts inspired my neighbors. Cheryl Lindisfarne from two doors down dropped by to say she was glad to see I was getting in the spirit.

“With all the fuss, I felt a little funny putting out decorations this year, but now that I see you doing it, I’m going to tell Harald to pull out all the stops. He’s got a coffin with a zombie in it whose eyes bug out when it opens.”

“Ooh,” I said, jealous. “I’ll come by later to see it.”

By five o’clock, my house looked like it belonged to the Addams Family. Standing back to admire it, I noticed that all my neighbors had followed my lead and decorated their homes with the trappings of Halloween. Down the street, a troop of diminutive fairies, ghosts, and goblins was shrieking with delight at Harald Lindisfarne, who was dressed as Herman Munster.

Yikes! There were already trick-or-treaters. I’d forgotten that parents took their little kids out before dark— and dark was not so far off now.

In fact, it was just that moment when day slid into evening. The sun setting behind the mountains in the west lit up the east side of the street but cast the west side, where Alpha House stood, into shadow. It looked as if the street were divided down the middle. Where the two sides met, the air shimmered and crackled with energy. I could feel it from my toes to my fingertips—the turning. This was the moment when the year turned from light toward dark, the hinge of the year, as Moondance had called it, a liminal time when boundaries—between light and dark, seen and unseen, death and life—could be crossed. I felt the weight of a world teetering on the edge. Would I be able to become the hallow door and cross over to Faerie and into seventeenth-century Ballydoon?

My mind, like the planet, seemed to be turning toward the dark, but then I noticed an odd assortment of trick-or-treaters heading my way. Three women dressed in long black robes, the middle one carrying a lantern, were walking down the middle of the street, along the dividing line. The lantern carried by the middle figure swayed back and forth, casting an orange glow that pushed away the edges of the dark just a little and lit up their