09 - Return Of The Witch Read online

  Carlos had moved to Tony’s old desk and Dominic to Carlos’. I suppose they thought I’d find that morbid or something, but of course, I didn’t. It had been ten days since Tony died. I couldn’t very well expect the world to stop spinning or the flowers to stop growing. They had begun the difficult task of getting on with their lives. Though I’m sure they couldn’t see it, in the smallest barely perceptible sense, so had I.

  “Lilith!” Carlos came around the desk and gave me a big hug. “You look nice today.” He turned to Dominic and gestured a presentational wave of his hand. “Doesn’t she look nice, Dom?”

  “Absolutely.” He nudged Carlos out of the way and hugged me as he might a frail old aunt. “You know we missed you at the memorial service yesterday. How come you didn’t…?” I saw him steal a glance at Carlos who was gesturing no-go like a catcher waving off a fastball pitch. “Come?” he finished.

  “I had plans,” I told him. “Now, tell me why you called me down here.”

  He pulled a chair out and offered it to me. I sat. The two of them did the same.

  “Well, I know that Carlos told you about those two missing women yesterday.” He looked at Carlos, who acknowledged him with a nod. “And I know you told him you didn’t believe there was any creditability to the stories.”

  “That they’re witches, you mean?”

  “Yes, but there’s more to it than you know.”

  “So, enlighten me.”

  He reached across the desk, picked up a newspaper and handed it to me. “That’s the Newburyport Daily News. Look at the front page.”

  I looked down at the first column and then back up at him. “How nice. Shopping plaza courts more tenants.”

  “Not that. Below it.”

  “Amesbury man indicted on money laundering charges?”

  “Lilith.”

  “Okay, fine. ‘Woman’s disappearance similar to others in the county’. How sad. Another runaway.”

  He snatched the paper from my hands. “She’s not a runaway. She’s a missing person. What’s more, as the article indicates, her disappearance is strikingly similar to two others in the county. In all three instances, the only clues left behind were the clothes the women were wearing and the strange chalky substance inside them. What’s more, all three were witches.”

  “Okay. Stop right there. First of all, like I told Carlos, witches don’t generally advertise themselves as witches. Secondly, if a witch wants to disappear, as I myself have done on numerous occasions, especially after a rite of passage, then she does so without fanfare, cryptic or otherwise. So, if there’s nothing more.”

  I stood and pushed my chair up against the desk. Dominic palmed his laptop and spun the screen around for me to see.

  “Wait. There’s this.”

  I leaned in to look. “Ah, yes, Paige Turner. Carlos told me about her. Is that her web site?”

  “Yes. See here she mentions you.”

  “Me?”

  He hunched over the top of the screen and gave it a tap. “Right there. She says that a witch from New Castle recently traveled to the dark dimension and back. You know she’s talking about the Eighth Sphere.”

  “Come on. How would she know that?”

  “I don’t know, but she does, and now everyone knows you live here in New Castle.”

  Carlos said, “We think she works for Ingersoll’s Witness. This web site is her way of getting the word out to all its members.”

  “Nooo,” I said, dismissing it as nonsense. “We talked about that, Carlos. Pastor Hilton is dead. James T. Putnam is dead. Ingersoll’s Witness, as an organization of witch-hunters, is most certainly dead.”

  “It could be someone else, then,” said Dominic.

  “Who?”

  “There’s a group out there calling themselves, Satan’s Apostles. They’ve been known to hang suspected witches.”

  “Yeah, but those women weren’t hanged.”

  “Not that we know of,” said Carlos. “But they could have been. Just because nobody’s found them….”

  “Still.” I shook my head. “I’m not worried.”

  I turned and started away, when Dominic said, “Tell me about the quintessential.”

  I froze in mid-step, turned and found them both looking at me as if they had accidentally mentioned the unmentionable.

  “What did you say?”

  I saw Dominic’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “The quintessential. What is it?”

  I came back to him on a whisper of air. “Where did you hear that?”

  He pointed to the computer. “Paige talks about it in her article. Says that this witch from New Castle must have acquired the quintessential to escape the Eighth Sphere.”

  “Did she now?”

  “Her words. Not mine.”

  I pulled the chair out again and took a seat. “The quintessential is the fifth element.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning there are four basic elements in nature: earth, air, fire and water. In witchcraft, they’re known as essentials. The fifth element, or essential, is the quintessential, which is abstract energy. Now then, a disciplined witch, such as myself, can sometimes harness fleeting bits of the quintessential in her witchcraft. It’s the true force behind magick. It’s what allows me to make zip balls, conjure up thought forms, shape-shift and perform a host of other cool witchy things. Yet, no witch can claim ultimate domain over the quintessential. It’s impossible.”

  “Paige thinks you have,” said Carlos.

  “She’s wrong.”

  “She also says that a ripple in the universe confirms it.”

  “A ripple? Seriously?”

  Dominic offered, “Something in the macrocosm. She called it a disturbance, an energy displacement in the time-space continuum.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “There’s no ripple. Someone somewhere must have picked up on the vortex perturbation. You know, a secondary influence causing interruptions in static wave particle placements will insinuate similar anomalies. That’s probably how they knew the disturbance originated here in New Castle.”

  “What?” said Carlos.

  “A false reading.”

  “Oh.”

  “In any case, I can assure you that I do not possess the quintessential. Furthermore, I highly doubt that Ingersoll’s Witness, or any other witch-hunting entity had anything to do with those women disappearing, despite what Ms. Paige Turner proclaims on her web site.”

  Dominic asked, “How do you explain the strange chalk dust in the women’s clothes.”

  “What’s to explain? Chalk is chalk.”

  “Why the different colors?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The witch from Salem. They found brown chalk in her clothes. The Georgetown witch, red and the Newburyport witch last night had white.”

  I laughed at that. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Why? What’s so funny?”

  “Come on. It sounds like these girls obviously knew each other.”

  “They probably did. They all have guest member profiles on Paige Turner’s web site.”

  “So there you have it. Don’t you think that sounds just a little bit suspicious?”

  “In what way?”

  “Really? You call yourselves detectives? Guys, this has all the hallmarks of an internet hoax. It’s a coordinated deception. Come on!”

  “But they’re witches,” Carlos argued. “Why would they perpetrate such a hoax?”

  “Duh! Because they aren’t really witches.”

  “They have their web sites.”

  “Their web sites don’t prove shit. Don’t you get it? Any candle-burning, incense lighting Wiccan with a blog can call herself a witch. That doesn’t mean she is one.”

  “Still, I don’t like any of this. It bothers me that Paige Turner knows about Ursula.”

  “She knows about Ursula?”

  “You read her blog. She mentions another witch traveling with you to the dark dimension.�
�

  “Again, how would she know that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because she’s a real witch like she says she is? Isn’t that information you’d be privy to?”

  “No. It’s not as if there’s some witches’ Yellow Pages one can refer to. Like I said, real witches don’t advertise.”

  Carlos asked, “So, what do you think we should we do?”

  “You shouldn’t do anything. It’s none of your business. You have three women, possibly missing, possibly not, in somebody else’s jurisdiction. You got some flighty chick with a web site trumping up bullshit about ripples in the universe. And you have some colored chalk that makes for interesting reading in small town newspapers where the most exciting thing on the front page is a story about a shopping plaza handing out cheese balls and wine to prospective tenants. Come on. Don’t you have any real crimes to investigate?”

  “No,” said Dominic, dropping his head. “I’m on desk duty until further notice.”

  “How come?”

  “I’m under investigation by Internal Affairs.”

  “Because of what happened at the research center?”

  “Yeah, they’re looking into my possible involvement in the case.”

  “You’ve denied everything, haven’t you?”

  “Of course. It’s just that my association with one of the workers at Williams and Sons, and the fact I was at the research center when it blew up, appears more than circumstantial to the boys at I.A.”

  “I thought you told them you were investigating the theft of the dynamite and that the clues led you to the research center.”

  “We did tell them that.”

  “But?”

  Carlos answered, “But the explosion happened around nine o’clock and the dynamite wasn’t reported stolen until six the next morning.”

  “Aw, geez Dominic. I hope you don’t get into any serious trouble over this.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, shrugging off the seriousness of the matter. “Carlos provided me with a rock solid alibi. I can’t go down unless he goes down, too.”

  I looked at Carlos. His expression told me he had not even considered that possibility—until then.

  Chapter 4

  I drove home, thinking about what Carlos and Dominic told me. It’s not that I believed the missing women were witches, or even that they were missing. What bothered me was how Paige Turner knew about us going to the Eighth Sphere. It’s something only four living souls knew about.

  I felt certain that Carlos and Dominic hadn’t told anyone, and I knew I didn’t blab that information to the world. So, naturally, that left only one, maybe two other possibilities. Either Ursula couldn’t keep her big mouth shut, or the internet blogger, Ms. Paige Turner, really was a witch.

  After pulling into my driveway, I walked down to the mailbox and collected four days worth of junk mail. I didn’t look at any of it until I got back into the house. In fact, my inclination was to pitch the postal rubbish onto the coffee table with the rest of the week’s stack of unopened mail.

  Then something caught my eye. Perhaps it was the handwriting, a scribbled monkey script I had seen before and would recognize anywhere. It was a letter, addressed to me, from Tony.

  The damn fool had transposed the address, causing it to bounce back to the post office, where it languished for over two weeks before landing in the ‘Return-to-Sender’ bin and eventually finding its way to me.

  I freed the letter from the pile and tossed the rest of the stack onto the table. My head began swimming. My knees grew weak. I pressed my calves to the sofa cushion and sat without looking. Butterflies in my stomach morphed into angry moths. I couldn’t believe it. My hands trembled. I felt my fingers tighten around the edges of the envelope, my thumbnails pressing permanent creases into the paper.

  “You sonofabitch,” I said, shaking my head. “I finally start the impossible task of accepting you’re gone, and then you barge back into my life in the form of a letter? What the hell?”

  I tossed the letter onto the coffee table, picked it and then tossed it down again.

  “NO!” I cried, as a rogue tear found its way down my cheek. “It’s not fair!” I slapped my hand on the table hard, squashing the letter like a bug. “How could you do this to me?”

  I picked it up again and brought it to my lips. “You’re not supposed to be here,” I whispered. “You’re not…. Damnit!”

  I set the letter on my lap and took a deep breath. When I looked down again, I saw that my teardrop had fallen onto the envelope, blurring the T in Tony’s name up in the top left corner. Once again, he was fading out of my life. I ran my thumb over it, smudging the ink and wishing I could tattoo the T over my thumbprint.

  I sat there for a minute or two, wondering if I should read the letter. Obviously, Tony expected he’d be there when it came, or at least that he’d be alive when I opened it. It seemed selfish of me that I might know his thoughts and not share mine with him after reading it. But then, being selfish is something I’ve been accused of before.

  I tore the letter open and read his words.

  Lilith,

  I’m sorry we argued last night. Sometimes I forget how much you mean to me and that arguing only robs us of the precious time we have together.

  You left this morning before I could tell you that. I’m at work now and Carlos is complaining about the vending machine running out of Snickers. It seems so trivial to me, just as whatever it was we argued about last night seems trivial; that and everything in my life that does not include you.

  You’re everything to me, Lilith. My heart knows no pain like that when we’re apart. I need you to know that, to know how much I love you, and that I just could not live without you. It’s these words and more I feel, yet never say. I don’t know why. I only hope you know it.

  My love always, Tony.

  I balled the letter up and flung it across the room. “Screw you, Tony!” I cried, my voice carrying through the house in a wounded scream. “Screw you! Did you think I could live without you?”

  I fell back against the sofa and cried a thousand tears. I let it out in all its anguish, for all the times I wanted to cry and didn’t. I cried for me, for my loss, for Carlos and his, for Ursula and Dominic. I even cried for the cutesy bimbo down at the Percolator who cried when she heard of Tony’s passing, the little tart.

  Christ, I cried for that stupid stray dog that hung around the precinct because Tony used to give him dog biscuits every morning when he came in. Who was going to feed the stupid mutt his stupid biscuits now? Damnit!

  After I was done crying, swearing and feeling sorry for myself, I realized something. Though spent and exhausted, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It felt good that I had gotten so much of it out of my system.

  So, I thought.

  When the doorbell rang, I assumed it was the paperboy looking to get paid. I’d blown him off three times already that week and I knew he’d not take no for an answer.

  I wiped the tearstains off my cheeks with my shirtsleeves and went to the door. “Listen you little hustler,” I started, but then realized it wasn’t him. “Oh, it’s you.”

  Detective Olsen smiled politely. “Lilith, please. Call me Brittany.”

  I smiled back. “Sure, Brit. What can I do for you?”

  She was dressed in street clothes, which shouldn’t have surprised me. I knew she’d made detective some time ago, but I still wasn’t used to seeing her out of uniform.

  She gestured a nod. “Can I come in for a sec?”

  I noticed her carrying a brown paper bag and assumed by the way she held it, that it contained a covered dish of some sort. I only hoped she didn’t want to stay long enough for me to serve it up.

  I stepped away from the door and presented a clear path inside. “Of course.”

  I followed her into the living room and was surprised when she didn’t take me all the way to the kitchen. When she reached the coffee table, she stopped and t
urned around.

  “Lilith.” Her voice was lower now, softer. It was her condolence voice. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about Tony. We knew each other for a lot of years, he and I.”

  “I know,” I said. “He thought highly of you. Told me he thought you’d make a great detective.”

  “Did he?”

  He hadn’t, but I thought it sounded good. “Sure. He used to tell me that all the time.”

  She smiled thinly. “Okay, now I know you’re lying. But thanks.”

  I smiled back. “You’re welcome.”

  “So, look, we amm…we all missed you at the memorial yesterday.”

  “Yeah, about that, listen, I just couldn’t—”

  “No, please. There’s no need to explain.” She held the package out, presenting it to me with gentle reverence. “I wanted to give this to you then, but…. Here.”

  “What is it?”

  She nodded at the package. “Take it.”

  I took the bag, realizing immediately it wasn’t a pie or a plate of leftover lasagna.

  “Lilith Adams.” She stood at attention and saluted me. “On behalf of the men and women of the Second Precinct and the grateful citizens of New Castle, please accept this flag as a token of our appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.”

  She broke the salute with a snap.

  I opened the bag and removed a triangular folded American flag. At once, the heavy load that had lifted from my shoulders earlier, returned, only now it was weighing on my heart. I looked up at Brittany. Her lips were drawn thin, her chin tight and wrinkled. Her eyes pooled but had not shed. Her respect for Tony would allow that only after she left.

  “Brit. I don’t….”

  “That’s all right.” She touched my forearm gently. “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “Thank you,” I said, or maybe I only mouthed it. I cradled the flag to my chest and dropped my cheek upon it.

  After a timely moment of silence, Brittany said, “You know, Lilith. I don’t pretend to know the ways of things that move our world. Yet it seems to me that what happens in a temporal sense need not define our limits.”