Bitch Witch (31 page)

Paul stood there a moment, examining her face. He bent down again and whispered back, “You’re still who you’ve always been, Sarah. Only now you’re free.”

Sarah leaned against him and he hugged her for a long moment, then Paul announced in a normal voice, “Sleep. It’s healing you, and I’ll make you pancakes for breakfast.”

She nodded, crossed the room and climbed into his bed.

“Hey, make yourself comfortable.”

“I know you’re policing me. You spent your day watching me sleep on the couch,” she pointed out with a yawn. “I’m just not sure if you think I’m hell bent on reuniting with Henry or poisoning Kathleen. It doesn’t really matter as long as you use pancakes for bait.”

“Good, because the reasons are too numerous to list.”

“Fair enough. Just shut the lights out when you’re done. They hurt my eyes.”

Sarah climbed under the blankets and closed her eyes. A couple minutes later she heard Paul reclining the big chair next to the bed. She wanted to tell him to shut the damn light out, but fell asleep before she could muster the energy.

A light at the end of the tunnel beckoned to Sarah, calling her by name. Dark matter whirled along the sides of the vortex, but soft beams of light kept it at bay. “
It’s safe here, Sarah Elizabeth Archer
,” the light whispered.

She pretended she couldn’t hear it. She was too warm and comfortable, and some part of her worried that if she went to that light, she would die.

Dark matter laughed; it had no form, and came to her only in sound.
Come back or you will die,
it whispered.

Sarah jerked awake, her heart hammering. The standing lamp behind the recliner was on and all three lights were pointed at her. For a moment she was tempted to whack Paul in the head with a pillow, but he sprawled on the chair with an open book resting on his chest, his head tipped back, and his mouth wide open. The strangest snores issued out of it, like the open mouth inhalations and guttural exhalations of a roomful of meditating yogis. Sarah wondered when he had last had a decent night’s sleep.

Quietly she pushed her blankets down, climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the door. It was locked. She sighed, knowing she’d never find the key.
He probably swallowed it.
Crouching down in front of the door to examine the lock, Sarah wished that the Harry Potter
alohomora
spell worked in the real world.
I probably could have made it with dark matter.

She jiggled the handle, wanting to throw a temper tantrum from the frustration of being powerless. Paul would be angry if he caught her trying to get out. She pushed and pulled a few more times, her mind racing for a way to open it that didn’t involve dark matter.

She gave it a final jiggle, and the old door opened as the ancient lock gave way. Sarah covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. Paul always said the locks in her house could be picked with a pen.
Or apparently enough jiggling.

SARAH STOOD AT the sink and drank two glasses of water, then unplugged Paul’s phone from the charger in the kitchen and took it with her. She found her purse sitting on the dresser in the entryway, dug out her credit card, and started rooting through the pockets of coats looking for a pair of earbuds. All she wanted to do was curl back up in bed, stream a movie on the Internet, listen to some music—hopefully Paul had something besides country—and fall asleep without tunnels of light and dark matter talking to her.

A cabinet door opened in the kitchen and Sarah froze. It squeaked closed. The refrigerator door opened. Sarah’s bare feet slid over cold tile as she crept to the doorway and peered into the kitchen. The narrow frame of a skinny blonde woman silhouetted in the light of the fridge was unmistakable.

Sarah pulled the neck of Paul’s sweatshirt over her nose to muffle her breathing. She watched Kathleen out of her peripheral vision, afraid the woman would sense a direct stare.

Kathleen tore the wrapper off string cheese and stuffed two tubes into her mouth as she continued to loot the fridge, gathering items. Her arms already loaded, Kathleen balanced two sodas between her chin and the top of the stack and kicked the door shut with her foot. She emptied her treasure onto the counter, popped open a can of Dr Pepper and shoved a spoonful of peanut butter followed by jam into her mouth.

Sarah couldn’t believe it. Kathleen didn’t look like the type of woman who grazed for food in the middle of the night. Sarah was that type of woman. “I thought you didn’t eat this late,” she said.

Kathleen whipped around with the faintest squeak. “I didn’t know you were out of the hospital!”

“Surprise.”

“Well.” Kathleen flipped a switch under the cabinets and the lights beneath them illuminated the countertop along the wall. “I’m glad you’re better, but I hope you know Henry proposed to me for the fourth time.”

“Then why aren’t you wearing the ring?”

“It’s too big,” said Kathleen, unwrapping another string cheese and popping it into her mouth. She studied Sarah as she chewed. “You don’t look like you should be out of the hospital.”

“Neither do you.” The cabinet lights illuminated Kathleen’s rail thin body in her sheer white nightgown. Sarah glanced at the food littering the countertop. “You have an eating disorder.”

Kathleen glared at her. “Look who’s talking.”

Sarah put her hands on her hips. “Does Henry know?”

“Mind your own business.” Kathleen put the jar of peanut butter back into a cabinet, and gathered the rest in her arms. “What Henry knows or doesn’t know is no longer any of your concern.” Opening the fridge, Kathleen tossed the rest of her stash inside, empty soda can and all.

“I didn’t sleep with him for what it’s worth,” said Sarah.

“Liar.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“I don’t believe you. Why else would he have—have
wanted
you?”

Sarah sucked down the angry urge to swear at the woman. “I wanted to, but it was only a couple days after we met that you showed up.”

“A couple days is plenty of time for the kind of woman you are.”

Don’t, don’t, don’t. You owe her and Henry this.
Sarah took a deep breath. “Paul was always there too, and I had to work. The night you showed up you
saw
them both come out of Paul’s room!”

Kathleen bit her lip as she studied Sarah’s expression. “Why are you trying to be nice?” she asked at last.

“Six weeks in a coma can change a person.”
Even her head looks skinny! She needs help.

Kathleen crossed her arms. “You know if you’re planning to switch your gold digging to Paul, you can forget it. Henry will make sure you never see a penny of his money.”

“Fuck their money! I don’t need money!”

Kathleen laughed. “Oh, honey, you might want to work on that line.” She waved a hand at the cabinets and appliances. “It’s obvious you do. This place is practically falling apart.”

“It is not!” Sarah got a brief mental image of what mother would have done if she’d heard someone say that. She grimaced.

“Please. The taxes alone have got to be killing you. You’re a clerk!”

“My finances are none of your business,” Sarah growled. The taxes were killer, but she paid them out of the Archer fortune. It killed her to touch it, but she’d lose the house otherwise.

“Actually, they are.”

Sarah said nothing, waiting, trying to talk herself down and ignore the faintest glimmer of dark matter she sensed in the woods behind the house.

“My hospital bills alone are over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And then there’s the lawsuit.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Sarah shouted. “You’re suing me?”

“Sorry. When you serve a drink to someone you should make sure it’s not going to poison them.”

“I drank the same damn drink, and I got a lot sicker than you did!”

“That’s pretty much your problem now, isn’t it?” Kathleen said as sweetly as could be. She smiled the most saccharine smile Sarah had ever seen.

“You bitch! You’re staying in my house. I will wipe that smirk off your face.” As the last word left Sarah’s lips, a scalding hot burning sensation blasted up the middle of her torso.

Footsteps thundered down the staircase. “If you touch her I’ll kill you!” Henry roared.

The kitchen lights all flicked on. Blinking against their brightness, Sarah reached for the counter, trying to stay upright and breathe at the same time. It felt like she’d been gutted with a sword.

“Shit! You couldn’t leave well enough alone,” came Paul’s voice from the far side of the room.

Sarah dropped to her knees and collapsed onto the ceramic tile.

“WHAT WERE YOU thinking eating cheese and peanut butter so soon?” asked Paul.

Sarah opened her eyes to the bright bedroom lamp again. She closed them and curled into a ball, protecting her middle. Paul sat beside her on the bed.

“I told you to eat soup, not get up in the middle of the night and binge, you nincompoop.”

Sarah tried to catch her breath to tell him it had been skinny bitch bingeing, not her, but she couldn’t get enough air. Outside dark matter whispered to her from beneath the skeletal branches of the October trees.
“Ask me. I can make the pain go away.”
She shook her head, blinking against the blinding light, searching for the strength not to do it.

Paul awkwardly patted the top of her head. “You’ll feel better after it gets through your system.”

Sarah glanced at him, and the light made tears overflow from her eyes.

He leaned closer. “If it hurts that bad, I can take you to the emergency room. Actually, that’s probably not a bad idea. It’d keep you away from your lover boy for a few hours. I know this is a bad time, but I’m so mad at you right now I’m almost glad you have a stomachache!”

Sarah ran a hand over her knees to the edge of the heavy red sweatshirt. “No hospital,” she whispered in a strained voice. “Promise.”

“Fine,” Paul relented. “Maybe Tums will help.”

“Swear it.”

“I said maybe. I don’t know if they’ll help or not. I’m an EMT, not a gastroenterologist.”

Sarah grabbed the bottom of the sweatshirt and tugged it up over her hips and belly. She rolled onto her back.

“Oh, dear God!” Paul jumped off the edge of the bed to stand and covered his mouth with shaking hands. He looked terrified.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be okay. I promise.”

“Sarah, what the hell happened?” Paul bent over her. Up close he looked as white as the blinding light.

“I told you,” she managed. Lack of oxygen was making the room sparkle around her. “She’s a witch, or she found something bad. Remember, you promised. No hospital.”

She slipped from consciousness with the thought,
Please, please, I don’t want to go back. Please, please, help me not cast again!