The Water Witch (18 page)

I was studying the menu when Jen Davies walked in. Dressed in tight black leggings and a tank top, her dark hair coiled in a long braid, she turned quite a few heads as she sauntered down the aisle, including all three of the men in plaid. I heard the youngest one whisper to his father, “She must be one of those New York models!”

“You’re looking fit,” Jen said, leaning over the table to kiss me on both cheeks and then sitting down across from me. Her keen eyes narrowed at me. “
Quite
fit. I wouldn’t have pegged you as one of those witches who uses Aelvesgold to make themselves look younger.”

“I’m not …” I began to object, but was interrupted by Darla coming to take our order.

“What are those three strong men having?” Jen asked, turning her slim neck to look at the men in the next booth. I saw the youngest one blush from where I sat.

“Angler’s Special,” Darla replied. “Three scrambled eggs, wheat toast, home fries, and sausage. It’s exactly the same as the Farmer’s Special, which is what the Stewarts here …” She winked at the men in the next booth. “… have ten months out of the year, them being farmers, but during fishing season they like it if we call it the Angler’s Special.”

“I’ll have that,” Jen said. “Minus the toast and home fries.” Surprised—I would have pegged Jen for a vegan—I ordered the same thing, but with the carbs.

“I am
not
using Aelvesgold to look younger,” I whispered when Darla had finished taking our order. “At least not deliberately. I’m using it to … explore my power.”

Jen snorted. “Explore, my foot! You’re wallowing in the stuff. But hey, I’m not here to criticize. I just thought I’d give you a little heads-up.”

“Thanks, Jen. Not to
criticize
, but you could have told me earlier that the Grove was coming here. I learned about it from my dean who doesn’t know I’m a member.”

“Fair enough,” Jen said equably. “I would have, only I didn’t know until two days ago. The higher-ups have been secretive lately. A bunch of them, including your grandmother, went off to London last month and when they came back they announced—
announced
, mind you, not proposed—that we were now affiliated with a club there. The Seraphim. There was a bit of a controversy because the Seraphim is an extremely conservative wizards’ club that doesn’t allow women.”

“Why would the Grove—an all-women’s club—affiliate with an all-men’s club?” I asked.

“That’s what I wanted to know. So I started looking into the Seraphim and couldn’t find out diddly. Me, who got Sarah Palin’s stylist to talk! I couldn’t get to square one with this outfit. The only thing I could find out is that the club is older than Methuselah and richer than God—Oh, this is brilliant, love,” Jen interrupted herself to exclaim over the huge plates of food that Darla put down in front of us. When Darla had finished serving the food, she continued, her voice low and conspiratorial, “And when those women got back from London they were all hepped up about going to Fairwick to close the door.”

“To close the door?” I asked. “Not
discuss
closing the door?”

Jen snorted so hard she got orange juice up her nose. “Grove women don’t
discuss
. Besides, they’ve already gotten half the IMP board on their side … Mmm … This is fabulous. I bet these eggs are fresh.” Jen clearly wasn’t going to tell me anything more until she had sated her appetite. I might as well eat. I took a bite … and nearly swooned. Had eggs always
tasted this good? Why hadn’t I had home fries in so long? What was wrong with sausage anyway? I dimly recalled the concept of weight gain, but hey, if I ran twenty miles every night I could afford to eat like this. I’d probably
lose
weight.

When I had polished off my entire breakfast, I looked up to find Jen Davies studying me. “Aelvesgold increases the appetite,” she remarked. “But no worries, it also speeds up the metabolism, so you’ll never get fat—or old—or, as far as we know, dead.”

“Really? It can make you live forever?” I asked, but Jen wasn’t listening to me; she was listening to the Stewarts in the next booth.

“… just plain vanished. They found his van parked at the top of the lower branch and his tackle scattered in the woods.”

“Wouldn’t be the first fisherman to go missing on the Undine,” the oldest Stewart remarked.

The middle-aged man made a rude noise and cried, “Don’t be filling the boy’s heads with those tales, Dad.” Unswayed by his son’s objection, the old man asked his grandson if he had heard the one about the mermaid and the old fisherman. The conversation quickly degenerated into dirty guy talk, the kind of hearty bluster that usually covered up real fears. Jen was furiously two-thumb typing on her iPhone. When she finished, she noticed me watching her.

“Force of habit,” she said.

“Are you thinking of writing a story on fishing in the Catskills?” I asked.

Jen’s eyes slid to one side and she fiddled with the lid of the tin creamer. “The Grove sent me up to see if there was any unusual activity going on in town—or in the woods. They’re afraid that when word gets out that the door’s going to be closed there will be a mass exodus from Faerie. They want to know if there’s been any increased traffic through the door.
That fisherman …” She looked over her shoulder at the next booth, where the Stewarts were getting up to go. “… isn’t the only one who’s gone missing. And where there are missing fishermen, there’s likely to be an undine. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

I almost started to tell Jen about the undine run and seeing Lorelei last night, but stopped. “I might,” I said cautiously. “But I have a few questions of my own first.”

Jen tilted her head and smiled. “Well, look at you, Cailleach McFay. Proposing a little friendly exchange of information, are we? Fair enough. What do you want to know?”

“First, why does the Grove want to close the door?”

“That’s easy. They’ve hated the fey since the witch hunts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They believe that it was the association with the fey that got witches persecuted and that they are evil and destructive. To give them credit, they’re right about a lot of them. That creepy bird creature that attacked you and Phoenix last fall …”

“How did you know about the liderc?”

Jen rolled her eyes. “I have my sources, love, and they’ve informed me about a whole lot of dangerous creatures roaming at large in Fairwick. That incubus that preyed on you, for instance …”

“Let’s leave Liam out of this,” I snapped. I saw Jen’s eyes narrow with interest at my outburst; her fingers drummed on her iPhone as if she’d like to make a note on it. “I get that the Grove hates the fey, but I don’t understand what they hope to accomplish by closing the door. A lot of the fey who are already here will stay …”

Jen shook her head. “Most won’t. When they know the door is closing, they’ll go back to Faerie. They have to. If they don’t return once in a while, they fade. The Grove has been spreading rumors for weeks in the fey community that the last
door is closing for good. Fairies and demons have been flocking here to be ready to leave.”

“Flocking? I don’t think so. I think I would have noticed a sudden influx …” Halfway through my objection a Winnebago rumbled past the diner, its silver surface winking in the sun. “The fishermen?” I whispered.

Jen nodded. “What better camouflage than a pair of giant waders and a booney hat?”

I looked around the diner at the innocuous-looking clientele. Among a number of locals I recognized—one of Dory’s cousins having breakfast with a young couple who looked like city people house-hunting in the country, Tara Cohen-Miller cutting the crusts off a grilled cheese sandwich for her little boy, Abby Goodnough picking up a to-go order—were a dozen or so strangers outfitted in fishing garb: T-shirts emblazoned with leaping trout, khaki shorts with multiple pockets, and wide-brimmed hats (the booney hats Jen had referred to) decorated with colorful fishing flies. Were they really fairies and demons in disguise?

“Okay,” I said, “but tell me this. Don’t the witches of the Grove need Aelvesgold for their magic and to stay young? Isn’t it …” I recalled Duncan’s phrase. “… the basis of all magic?”

“You
are
learning,” Jen said approvingly.

“So where will the witches of the Grove get Aelvesgold if they close the door?” I asked, determined not to be swayed by Jen’s admiration.

Jen leaned across the table and whispered. “They have another source. Don’t ask me where. It’s one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Grove. Not even I can get close to it. Now if you’re done with your questions …”

“Not quite,” I said, holding up one finger. “I’ve got one more.
How
are they planning to close the door?”

Jen shook her head. “I don’t know. But I did overhear Adelaide talking to one of the other women and your name came up. She said ‘as long as we have a doorkeeper we’ll be able to close it.’ ”

“So they need me,” I said, not sure if this was good news or bad.

“Apparently. Are you thinking of
refusing
?” Her eyes glittered hungrily at the idea.

“Is that what you wanted to ask me?” I said, picking up the check that Darla had slapped down on our table.

“Not so fast, McFay. You haven’t told me about the undine yet. Is it true you let one through the door?”

“How …?” I began, but then realizing it was useless to question Jen about her sources—and probably useless to deny what she already knew—I answered honestly. “Yes. It was an accident. But that doesn’t mean the undine has anything to do with the missing fishermen.”

“Let’s hope so, for your sake,” Jen said, grabbing the bill out of my hand. “All those IMP members are bleeding-heart liberals until they feel threatened. Nothing is likely to sway the vote more than an undine attack … unless of course,” she added slyly, “it’s an incubus invasion.”

I
walked back home thinking about all I’d learned from Jen Davies … and all I hadn’t. It wasn’t encouraging. And what had Jen meant by that crack about an incubus invasion? She’d refused to say anything more about it, but I suspected she’d said it for a reason. Did she think that my incubus was back? Did she know something I didn’t?

I got out my cell phone to call Liz, but realized I had a problem before hitting her number. How did I tell Liz what I’d learned from a member of the Grove without telling her that I was also a member?

As I was trying to decide what to do, I saw Ann Chase on the opposite side of the street. She was with a young woman, coming out of a trim, pretty bungalow, its front path lined with thick clusters of zinnias and daisies. They were carrying piles of brightly colored flyers. Ann saw me and waved. I put my phone away and crossed the street, glad of a diversion from making a hard decision.

“I hope you haven’t lost a pet,” I said as I approached, thinking that the most likely reason for putting up flyers. The woman with Ann raised a stricken face. I saw that she wasn’t
as young as I’d thought—and that she had Down syndrome. “Not ours! Silver is safe at home. We’re not going to let her out until it’s safe.”

“That’s right, Jessica,” Ann said, patting her daughter on the arm. “Nothing’s going to happen to Silver. That’s our cat,” Ann added to me with a patient smile. “We’re keeping her in while there are so many … 
strangers
in town.”

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” Jessica said, shuffling the stack of flyers in her hands. They had been Xeroxed in multiple DayGlo colors. I looked at the one that they’d just stapled to the telephone pole and saw that it featured the face of a young man above the words MISSING:
TOBIAS GRANGER, AGE 26
,
LAST SEEN FISHING ON THE LOWER UNDINE
,
JUNE 16
.

“He’s been gone for two days?” I asked.

“He works at the animal shelter and he’s my friend,” Jessica said.

“I’m sure he’ll come home soon,” I told Jessica, hoping it was true.

“Thank you,” Ann said, a pained look on her face as she looked away from me to Jessica. “Jessica wanted to do something to help.”

“I’m sure that these flyers will help,” I said. “And they’re in such bright colors. Everybody will notice them.”

“I picked out the colors,” Jessica said proudly, and then, turning to Ann, “We need to go. There are a lot more to put up.”

Ann smiled apologetically at me as she continued down Elm with her daughter—and I continued up the hill in a somber mood. Soheila had told me that Ann used what Aelvesgold she could find for her daughter. I knew that a number of physical ailments and a shortened life expectancy often accompanied Down syndrome. It was painful to think what might happen to Jessica if the supply of Aelvesgold was cut off.

As it was bound to be if we didn’t stop the Grove from closing the door. Wasn’t it cowardly to worry about keeping my affiliation with the Grove secret when so much was at stake? What I needed, I decided, as I walked up my front path, was a sign …

Something heavy fell at my feet.

I bent down to look at it. It was a hammer. What the hell kind of sign was that?

“Are you okay?”

The voice came from above. Was that my message? I stepped back and looked up at my roof, shading my eyes against the sun. A dark figure limned by white light stood above me. It reminded me of the dark lover in my dream, the way he’d been haloed by light …

“I’m so sorry,” the figure on my roof said, “It slipped.”

No, not a guardian angel or my dream lover; it was Handyman Bill. I’d forgotten all about him.

“It’s okay,” I said, handing him his hammer, “no harm done. But maybe it’s a sign …” I smiled to myself at the wording I’d chosen. “… that we both need a break.”

I made a pitcher of lemonade and a turkey sandwich and ordered Bill off the roof. It was clear he’d been working all morning. His T-shirt was drenched and clinging to his chest—a rather nice chest, I couldn’t help noticing—and sweat was beading his forehead below the rim of his baseball cap, which he kept on while draining the lemonade.

“How’s it going?” I asked, refilling his glass and handing him the sandwich. I tried to steer him to the table on the porch, but he remained standing.