09 - Return Of The Witch (8 page)

Chapter 8

We drove on to Salem, to a nice part of town in a neighborhood I knew well. Terri Cotta’s house, it turned out, sat just across from Harmony Grove Cemetery, a favorite haunt of mine in younger days. It’s peaceful there at night, as are most cemeteries, I suppose.

I
used to love it there in the fall. The rustling of dried leaves in the trees at night sounded just like waves breaking on the shore. I’d sometimes sit there for hours, gazing up at the stars and listening to the wind, its voice granted by hundreds of long-forgotten souls.

It made me wonder if Terri
ever went there at night. Did she ever lend an ear to the spirits whose voices still echo on a breeze that no one else listens to?

I
dropped the car into park and turned off the motor. “I gotta tell ya,” I told Ursula, looking out at Terri’s house. “This place gives me an uneasy sense of déjà vu.”

“Aye, `tis the gnome.”

“What?”

Ursula
tapped on the side window and pointed at the lawn ornament by the entryway. As gnomes go, it wasn’t too ugly. In fact, it was cute, a little bearded old man with a cherry nose, sitting at a potter’s wheel spinning a clay pot.

“`Tis a
pattern I see, this gnome,” said Ursula. “Mayhap I, too, should get one for my lawn.”

“
I’m not talking about the gnome. I’m telling you that I have a strange feeling I’ve been to this house before.”

“This very house?”

“Yes, this very house.”

“With the gnome?”

“Yes with that stupid gnome.”

She nodded.
“Ah, `tis a tacky thing that gnome.”

“Ursula, may I remind you that I have a gnome on my
front lawn?”

“I know.”

“Hmm…. Forget it. Come on. Let’s go check it out.”

The
drizzling had all but stopped by then, save for a fine mist that gathered like perspiration on our skin and wreaked havoc on our hair.

The passing
weather front had also caused the temperature to plummet significantly, something neither Ursula nor I were prepared for. We were both dressed scantly in short-sleeved button-ups, blue jeans and open-toed shoes. What started out as a sunny morning had quickly declined to a miserable afternoon. I only hoped the weather was no indication of where the rest of our day would end up.

We knocked first and then rang the bell. When it seemed
obvious nobody was home, we tried the doorknob.

“It’s locked,” I said.

Ursula gestured a nod around back. “Then we try another.”

“
After you.”

We walked around to the back of the house and onto a small deck
outside a sliding patio door. Cupping our hands over our eyes, we pressed our noses to the glass and peered inside.

“There,”
I said, directing Ursula’s attention to a spot halfway between us and the front door. “You see that on the floor? What is that, brown sugar?”

“Brown something,” she answered.

“We’ve got to get in there and see what it is.”

I tried pulling on the slider. It wouldn’t budge.
Ursula tried a nearby window. Locked. There was only one other thing to do.

“
We have to break in,” I told her.

I thought she’d protest; maybe try to talk me out of
it. Oddly, though, she didn’t. I can’t say why, except that I suspect her recent adventure in the Eighth Sphere had emboldened her to take chances she normally wouldn’t. Either that or her taste for rebellion against Dominic had developed into something of a thirst for defiance against authority in general. In short, my little witch was all grown up.

After looking
around, Ursula pointed to a gas barbecue grill and suggested we hurl it through the slider. I suggested she start with something smaller and perhaps set her sights on a window instead.

“It’ll make less noise and less mess,” I explained.

“Aye, `tis why thou art the ringleader and not I.”

“What? I’m not a ringleader. Who calls me that? Dominic?”

She shook her head.

“Carlos? Did that
overgrown Cuban cabana boy tell you that?”

“Nay, `twas Master Tony what said that.”

“Tony?” I felt my fists unclench. “He said that?”

She
turned a pencil-thin smile up at me. “Oh, but I am certain he meant it in a most agreeable way.”

“Yeah, I suppose I do sometimes
act like—”

“Hey you! What are you doing there?”

We turned and found a crotchety old man leaning over the fence separating Terri Cotta’s yard from his. I noticed he held a cell phone in one hand and a crucifix in the other. I thought of asking him,
Who you gonna call
,
Jesus
?

“
Did you hear me?” He soured his ugly face for greater emphasis, perhaps because we hadn’t hopped down off the porch and begged his forgiveness quickly enough. “I asked what you’re doing back there.”

Ursula responded, “We came around the back
for the front door was locked.”

“Ursula
, please.” I touched her arm softly. “Let me handle this.” I said to the old man, “We came here to see Terri Cotta.”

“And I asked why have you come back? I know you’re the woman from the other night.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I told the police about you. They know.”

“They know what?”

“
You did something to that girl. I heard the screams, the whistle. I saw you loitering around the house.” He shook his crucifix at me. “I bet you didn’t know someone was watching. Didja? But I know it was you. I told them everything.”

I hopped off the porch and started toward him. “Well, how about you tell me, old man. What did you hear? What did you see?”

He backed up in equal steps to my approach. “You stay away. I mean it. I’m not afraid of you, witch.”

“
Witch?”

“Yes, witch. Y
ou’re all witches. I know that. I see the pagan rituals you all perform, those strange going-ons and whatnot all hours of the night. But you’ve gone too far this time. I told them about you. Yes sir, that’s what I’ve done.”

“Wait,
are you telling me you’ve seen me here at this house before?”

I took a step closer and he took another step back. “You stay away
, hear?” He held the crucifix up to ward me off. I humored him and cowered briefly under his threat, sinking to my knees and holding my hands up in futile defense.

Encouraged by that, he held the crucifix higher and
edged closer. “That’s right, witch. You see the power of Jesus.”

He was back up at the fence when I stood again
and dismissed his silliness with a wave. “Nah, I’m just messin` witcha, old man. That shit don’t work on witches.”

He wound his hand back
and pitched the crucifix at me, missing my head by mere inches. “Damn you to hell! I’m calling the police!” he cried, two-stepping backward as he dialed. “I’m calling them now. I mean it!”

“You old shit!
You almost hit me with that. How would you like it if I….”

The
words were still on my lips when I felt the ground begin rumbling beneath my feet. I turned to Ursula who was standing bent-knee, arms out as if walking a tightrope.

“Ursula? What’s happening?”

“I know not, Sister, only that I might ask thee the same.”

I step
ped back, just as the earth opened up before me, swallowing the fence, a shed and a couple of trees in a massive sinkhole twenty feet wide and thirty feet long.

The old man barely escap
ed the crumbling ledge dropping away at his feet. He fell on his ass and crab-walked backward all the way to his house. Seeing good sense in that, I followed his lead and ran back to the porch with Ursula.

“You know, Urs
….” I took her hand and led her to the side of the house from which we came. “I think we’re done here. We might want to move on now.”

W
hile Crucifix Krueger was busy dragging his sorry butt home and calling 911, Ursula and I high-tailed out of the yard, into the car and down the street as fast as we could.

“Unbelievable!” I said, giggling at the excitement of the moment. “Did you see that?
The ground just opened up and swallowed that shit like it was nothing.”

“Aye, `twas a
chasm, to be sure.”

“
Exactly. I’ve never seen one just open up like that. You know, that old man’s going to think I caused that.”

“Did thee?”

“No. Of course not. That’s not in my repertoire of magick.”

“
Ooh. Methinks we might return then.”

“Why would we
want to do that?”

She turned her bottom lip up
in a pout.

“Ursula
?”

“
Please. Be it so bad that we go back and fetch what gnome I wish for mine.”

“The
gnome? You want to go back for that stupid gnome. No. Absolutely not.”

“
Oh, but Sister, it doth please me so to think I might save him from a wretched end.”

“Ursula
, you can’t be serious.”

“
Pleeease.”

“No. That’s crazy. The cops are on their way there right now. We’d never make it.”

“I see then, thou art frightened.”

“No. Thou art not frightened. I’m just saying, the cop
s are on their way and we don’t….”

I
made the mistake of looking at her again, her doubtful eyes casting a most disappointing glare my way. I knew what she was doing. She was calling me out, holding me to a standard I had set for myself and tried to set for her. A standard that said to hell with anyone who ever doubted that we could do anything we ever wanted to do.

I shook my head and smiled, feeling more than just a hint of pride for my foxy little rebel
.

“All right, fine
. We’ll do a quick drive-by. You hop out, grab the gnome and hop right back in. I’m not even going to stop the car. You got it?”

“Oh,
Sister, thanks be thee thy blessed heart. On my word, I shall be quick as lightning.”

“You better,” I warned,
“or you’ll have some serious explaining to do to Dominic.”

We
circled the block and approached the house from the other end of the street, hoping to find that the old geezer from next door had gone inside. He hadn’t. Worse still, he had come around to the front of his house, probably to try to get our license plate number when we pulled away.

I
edged the car to the curb and threw it into park. The old man hadn’t noticed us returning, but I didn’t put a lot of stock into believing he wouldn’t see us eventually.

I turned to Ursula.
“Okay, listen. You’re about to commit a crime. Are you sure you want to do this?”

She blinked back innocently.
“Aye, `tis a cute one, that gnome. `E should have a nice home with a good witch, do you not think?”

“Sure I think, but don’t you think Terri
’s a good witch?”

“Was,
mayhap. I fear now she is gone, her dust scattered here and yon.”

“All right then. Go. Make it quick.”

She hopped out, leaving the car door open and started up the walk in a quick but purposeful pace. The old man hadn’t noticed the car sitting out by the curb, but it didn’t take him long to notice Ursula. He started across the yard, holding his index finger up to stop her.

“See here! What are you doing? The police are on their way, you know. I called them. They’re
on their way!”

I hollered out the window, “Move it, Ursula! Run!”

She snatched up the little gnome, tucked it under her arm like a football and sprinted back to the car, all the while giggling like a schoolgirl.

Just as she was about to hop in, a
police cruiser rounded the corner, lights on, siren chirping.

“Get in!” I shouted. She had stopped to look at the approaching cop car. “Ursula!”

Whoop-whoop, the sirens chirped again, this time, ending in a drawn out whirl. I dropped the car into gear. “Move your ass, girl. Let’s go!”

She pitched the gnome into the back seat, but before getting in, I saw her pump her fist in the air and then splayed her fingers wide. “Stop!” she
ordered, as if they might. Incredibly, though, the breaks on the cruiser locked up immediately. The car squealed to a stop just ten yards from my back bumper.