Love Charms (111 page)

I couldn't think of anything to say that
didn't involve a snide remark about her age and decided to let it pass.

When it became apparent I wouldn't take
to her bait--I never did--Celia sighed and almost seemed disappointed. “Shall
we go to the study? Richard is waiting for us.”

We left the foyer as Celia lead the way
down a wood-paneled hallway. With her back to me, I took the opportunity to
look for Mark, wondering when he would make his appearance. He didn't seem to
enjoy these familial visits any more than I did, never manifesting until the
last minute, and hovering as far away from his parents as possible.

In the study, Mark's father rose, with
the aid of a cane, from a brass-tacked leather armchair to greet me. “Sofia,
good to see you.” He folded me into a quick one-armed hug.

“How are you, Richard?” I gave him a
genuine smile. We had always gotten along, at least when Celia wasn't mucking
things up. He looked worn. Tired. Bags hung under his eyes, and the wrinkles on
his flushed face ran deeper than I remembered.

“Can't complain.” Richard settled back
into his leather easy chair. He picked up a glass and held it up, displaying
the liquid amber contents. “Care for some scotch?"

Celia's petite form brushed past me, and
she took the glass from him. “Richard, it's too early to drink. What is this,
your third bottle in as many days?” She set the glass on the fireplace mantle,
out of his reach.

“I'm an old man. If I want to drink
scotch, I'll drink scotch. If I want your opinion, I'll ask for it. Now give me
my glass back and pour for Sofia.”

I shook my head and held up a hand. “No
thanks, I'm fine. I'm driving, anyway.” I perched on the Queen Anne love seat
opposite him, absently running a hand across the blue silk upholstery. “And you
know, oddly enough, Mark isn't here, so I may not be staying long.” I glanced
around the room, looking for Mark. Nothing. Just rows of bookcases filled with
books. Richard was a book collector and had an extensive collection of first
editions. He'd even bought a few from my shop.

Celia stopped short. “What do you mean,
Mark isn't here?”

“I meant, he's not with us,” I said,
making each word distinct.

“And why not?” Celia resumed walking, and
set the glass on the end table next to Richard. “Why wouldn't he be here?” Her
chin jutted out and her dark eyes glittered with anger.

“I don't know why he's not here. I
haven't seen him since last night.”

“Well, bring him here right now. I want
to talk to my son!” Celia scanned the room, her eyes narrow slits, as if it
would enable her to see Mark.

“Is there anything you can do?"
Richard asked.

“I'm not sure. I don't really have much
experience with this. I don’t think even Mark controls when he appears.” I gave
a helpless shrug. “I'm sorry.”

“I see,” was all he said. He tipped his
head back and swallowed the contents of his glass in one gulp. He held up his
empty glass to Celia. “More scotch, please.”

“How can you think about alcohol at a
time like this? Our son is not here.” Celia's voice was shrill. Richard did not
respond and continued to hold his glass up until Celia snatched it from him
with a dirty look and went to pour him more booze.

“Are you all right?” I asked. It was ten
in the morning, a little early for copious amounts of scotch. Even by my
relaxed standards.

“Yes, I'm fine.” Clouded blue eyes dared
me to say anything different.

I remembered the pills and how they made
life bearable. Not worth living, nothing made life worth living in the first
few weeks after Mark's death. The pills just made it so that suicide sounded
like too much work. They also wiped out active thought, allowing me to exist in
a state of suspended animation. Who was I to deny Richard's right to
self-medicate? Especially considering I knew firsthand how much it helped. I
had bottles of my own at home. So, I said nothing more and took Richard at his
word.

Celia returned with a full glass and
thrust it into her husband's hand. Turning to me she said, “Is Mark here now?”

I shook my head.

“Can't you call him?” She crossed her
arms and all but tapped her toe in annoyance.

“It doesn't seem to work that way.”

“How is it you only know what doesn't
work?” Celia went to sit in the chair next to her husband.

“It's trial and error. So far everything
I've tried hasn't worked.” Even Mark didn't understand how and why he
manifested. I'd asked once and he had no answer other than it wasn't always
under his direct control whether he made an appearance or not.

“It figures he wouldn't show on the day I
had something important to say.”

“What is it, dear?” Richard asked.

Celia fidgeted in the chair, crossing her
legs at the ankles. “Well, I really wanted Mark to be here, but I guess there's
no point in waiting if Sofia can't conjure him up.” She uncrossed her legs and
straightened in her seat. “I'm pregnant.”

Both Richard and I openly gaped at her.

“Who is the father?” Richard pushed
himself to his feet, glass still in hand. Scotch sloshed over the rim and down
the side to drip on the Persian carpets beneath.

“You, you nincompoop,” Celia said.

“Me?” Richard sat down so fast, his knees
must have given out on him at the shock.

“Yes, you.”

“I th--thought we couldn't...” He drained
his drink in one loud gulp.

“Of course we can. Dryads are fertile
throughout their life span, unlike human women.” Celia shot me a look that let
me see her disdain for human fertility. Never mind that her own husband was
human. Logic never applied to Celia.

“But I'm seventy years old. What if I'm
not around much longer?”

“Well, it's not like I planned this.
We've certainly learned to expect the unexpected. I never thought my son would
pass before me.” Another look of disdain came my way.

“We're going to have a baby. A baby.”
Richard shook his head, his eyes wide.

Celia ignored him and addressed me, “So
you can see why I would want to talk to Mark today. I wanted to tell him he was
going to have a little sister.”

“A sister,” Richard repeated with a
smile.

“Yes, it's a girl.” Celia patted her
stomach. She couldn't be too far along, her stomach was still flat.

“I'm going to be a father. Again.” There
was a note of wonder in his voice. Happy wonder.

I stood and went to kiss Richard on the
cheek. “Congratulations.” I offered a hand to Celia, but she didn't take it.

“Are you sure Mark isn't here?” Celia
craned her neck and surveyed the room again.

“Yes. I'm sorry. If I see him I'll tell
him the news.” I dropped my hand, and, feeling superfluous, edged toward the
door. “Well, I imagine you have a lot to talk about, I'll leave you to it. If
Mark pops up, I'll let you know. Perhaps we can do this another time.”

“Yes, I think it's best if you leave.
Richard and I have plans to make.” Celia reached over and grasped her husband's
hand in hers. He beamed a smile of pure joy at her and brought her hand to his
lips for a kiss. “Be a dear and show yourself out. You know the way.” She
dismissed me with a wave of her hand, too busy smiling at Richard to bother to
make eye contact with me.

I quietly shut the study door behind me
and made my way out the front door. The oak tree had rained more debris down on
the jeep while I'd been inside, covering the roof in a pile of wet leaves. I
walked to my car in a zigzag pattern, breaking into a run when the first acorn
hit me squarely on the head. The tree had clearly replenished its store of
organic missiles. By the time I unlocked the door and slid into the driver's
seat, I was out of breath but unscathed and not bleeding for once. A victory.
No homicide by oak for me.

Halfway home, Mark popped into the
passenger seat. “Hey, Sofi. How's it going?”

I glared at him. “Where the hell were you
today? Your parents were expecting you.”

Mark shrugged. “I don't think it's a good
idea for me to visit. It doesn't seem to be helping them cope.”

“So you decided, by yourself, with no
notice to me, that you weren't going to show up today?” I muttered a swear word
under my breath. “You could have saved me a lot of time, not to mention, spared
me the delightful presence of your mother.”

“Sorry about that.” He gave me a contrite
smile.

I continued to glare at him. A smile
wasn't going to cut it. “Your mother really wanted to talk to you today.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Oh?” I glanced at him out of the corner
of my eye, but he had turned away from me to look out the window.

“I know she's pregnant,” he said, his
voice flat.

My eyes widened. “How?”

“I visit them every so often. I overheard
her talking to a friend.”

“So you know about your sister.” I slowed
to a stop at a red light.

“Half-sister.”

“What?”

“She's my half-sister.”

“You mean, your father...,” I was so
shocked, I failed to notice the light had changed. A car honked behind me and I
jumped. With a wave to the driver tailgating my rear bumper, I hit the
accelerator.

“Yep, my mother has been having an affair
and my father has been drowning himself in scotch.”

“He knows?”  I merged onto the highway
that would take me back home, driving like a smart Bostonian and accelerating
to eighty to be sure I could get into my lane.

“Not about the affair. He knows things
aren't right, but I think he believes it's because of the accident.”

“Holy crap. She's not going to tell him
either, is she?”

“Probably not.”

“Do you want me to tell him?”

“I don't know.” He clenched his hands
into fists. “I don't know what to do. It's like my death has ruined their
relationship. They're falling apart.”

“Mark, it's not your fault.”

“I know, but I still feel guilty.”

“So do I,” I said, but Mark didn’t hasten
to reassure me like he usually did. That stung. It was his forgiveness that
kept me going.

“I just couldn't face them today. I
didn't know what to say. I can't pretend everything is okay.” His ghostly face
looked troubled and his aura dimmed.

“I guess I won't worry about rescheduling
with your parents then.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that's probably a good
idea. At least until I get my head straight on this.” And with that, he
disappeared. Again.

Chapter
Four

Back at my apartment, I pulled a
half-full bottle of Jack Daniels out of the cupboard. Just like Richard, I
needed something to dull the edges of my life. Up until today, Mark had always
been quick to tell me the accident wasn't my fault. The loss of that assurance
stung and I wondered if his feelings were changing, especially considering what
was happening with his parents.

Mark's death didn't stop with the
funeral, its impact radiated beyond the wake. There was his friend's wedding
that Mark not only missed, but wasn't best man at, projects left half-done at
work now being clumsily picked up by his associates, I had almost gone to jail,
and now his mother was pregnant with another man's baby. The ripple effect of
Mark's passing had been less of a ripple and more of a tsunami. I knocked back
shots of whiskey and reminded myself that it had all been a terrible accident.
There wasn't anything I could've done differently. Mark knew that. He'd just
been distracted by his mother. I didn't stop drinking until I believed that.

When my vision not only doubled, but
quadrupled, I stumbled to my bedroom, tugging clothes off my body and letting
them fall to the floor. Clad only in panties and a T-shirt, I flopped onto the
bed. Sleep claimed me before my head hit the pillow.

I woke to another painfully cheerful day
with a dry mouth and a pounding headache. Invoking one of the few perks of
being self-employed, I decided to give myself the day off. At some point during
the night, I had thrown my covers off and now goose bumps raced up and down my
chilled skin. Frowning, I pulled the covers back over my body and up over my
head to shield my eyes from the merciless sun. I was cold. Unnaturally so. A
vague memory of a dark shape hovering over me and running fingers cold as
icicles over my body flashed in my mind.

I threw back the covers. “Mark are you
here?” I stood and raised my arms over my head, stretching. There was no
answer.

Barefoot, I padded to the kitchen and
poured a glass of orange juice to soothe my dry throat, topping it off with a
couple of aspirin. Sipping my juice, I checked the apartment with bleary eyes,
looking for Mark, but he was nowhere to be found. As usual.

I dumped a bit of vodka in my juice with
a yawn--my own personal hangover cure--and downed it in two quick swallows.
Between the aspirin and the vodka, my skull no longer felt as if a quick
movement would shatter it like a grenade in a glass factory.

After letting hot jets of water pound the
remaining alcohol out of my pores, I threw on a T-shirt and some sweats and
curled up on the couch nursing my hangover with saltines and screwdrivers heavy
on the vodka. I surfed through all one hundred cable channels before finally
settling on a movie about a psychic teenager trying to cope with her abilities
back before anyone knew what they were. I stretched out on the couch and
watched, grimacing as the young heroine accidentally read her prom date's mind,
discovering he was only with her on a bet. I remembered those days all too
well.

I must've fallen asleep as the next thing
I knew, the phone was ringing, interrupting my dance with the prom king. I sat
up and grabbed the phone.

“Hello, Sofia?”

“Yes?” I cleared my throat to get the
raspy just-woke-up-from-a-nap sound out of my voice.

“It's me Jacob. I need some help.”

“With what?” Why was he calling me now? 
Our meeting wasn’t supposed to be until after I’d recovered from my hangover. I
put a hand on my forehead to keep it from splitting open. I must’ve crossed the
line from hangover cure into giving myself one.

“My apartment has been ransacked.”

“Call the police. I don't do B&E
cases.” I pinned the phone to my shoulder with my chin, and located the aspirin
on the table next to the couch. Shaking two into my hand, I walked to the
kitchen for some water.

“I don't think whoever did this is
alive.”

“Oh, I see. You're being haunted.” I
popped the pills into my mouth and washed them down with lukewarm tap water. I
couldn’t say how I knew Jacob was being haunted, but something pinged my
intuition. I’d learned to listen to that ping, which, coincidentally, had
started just after Mark died. Maybe it was a two-for-one psychic power special:
Kill your boyfriend and see ghosts with free intuitive ping!

“Or there's a demon, black magic,
witches,” he started to name all the other potential sources.

I cut him off. “Usually the most obvious
answer is the right one.” I didn’t mention the ping under the same reasoning I
didn’t talk about seeing ghosts. It made me sound crazy.

“I'll bow to your expertise in that area.
Could you come over though and help me get this under control? Whatever it is,
it's flooded my bathroom twice.”

“Wow, that's a pretty strong
manifestation.” Mark couldn't even manipulate his environment like that. I
wish.

“So will you come?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Where do you live?”
Jacob gave me directions, and  promising to arrive within the hour, I hung up.

After starting the coffee maker--I needed
caffeine if I was going to have to deal with more ghosts I shouldn't be able to
see--I went into my bedroom and exchanged my sweats and T-shirt for jeans, a
lavender knit top with a scooped neckline, and tennis shoes. A quick stop in
the bathroom to brush my hair and pull it back into a ponytail, and I was ready
to go. But first, I poured myself a cup of coffee, siphoning the rest of the
pot into a travel mug. The addition of a little cold water made the first cup
cool enough for me to drink just as fast as I had taken my shots the night
before. It didn't taste good, a lot like brackish water, but taste wasn't
important. I needed caffeine and the faster, the better.

Gulping the last of my coffee, I grabbed
the travel mug and headed out the door. Out in the parking lot, Malcolm was
just getting out of his green electric hybrid car. He raised his hand in a wave
when he spotted me. I gave him a half smile in return, hoping I didn't look too
enthusiastic. I still wasn't sure about him, and I didn't want to encourage
anything I wasn't ready for.

I quickened my pace wanting to be in my
car before Malcolm was out of his and tried to start a conversation, but a
petite woman, her dark hair styled in a professional bob, blocked my way. Black
framed cat-eye glasses sat on her nose, outlining startling green eyes. A light
flashed followed by the whirring of a camera.

A reporter. Super.

I sighed as she spoke. “Hello. I'm Wanda
Walker from the Boston Herald. I was wondering if you had time for an
interview.” She smiled brightly at me, teeth white and shiny. The better to rip
me to pieces with.

“No, I don't. I have no comment either,”
I said knowing she would ignore me.

Sure enough, she continued as if I hadn't
spoken. “I'm doing a follow up piece. You know, see how you are doing after the
accident and dismissal of charges against you for involuntary manslaughter.”

I winced at the last part and the unpleasant
memories it raised. “I have no comment," I repeated and started to brush
past her.

She kept pace with me, even though she
was walking backwards, and continued her spiel. “I was hoping you would talk to
me, since we have so much in common.” She toyed with a gold chain around her
neck, drawing my eye to a small pendant in the shape of a pentagram.

Were we still so clueless about psychics
and witches and everything else out there? The answer to my question stood in
front of me. Frowning in annoyance I said, “I'm not a witch and neither are
you. If you were, you would know there was a difference between being psychic
and being a witch.”

Her smile vanished and she opened her
mouth to defend herself, but I walked away with a shake of my head and shut myself
in my jeep. I watched her lips move from the safety of my car, glad I couldn't
hear her. Since The Great Coming Out we had learned a lot about witches. For
example, true witches had Sidhe blood in them. Everyone else was just a
wannabe, a fluffbunny as the true witches called them. They were all fluff and
multiplied like the proverbial rabbit, hence the nickname. No matter how many
pieces of jewelry in the shape of a pentagram they owned or how often they
danced under the light of the full moon, they would never have any power unless
they had some Sidhe ancestry. That didn't stop the fluff bunnies though. That
was the biggest problem. Nothing stopped a fluff bunny.

I put the jeep into reverse and eased out
of my parking spot noticing Wanda had latched onto Malcolm and seemed to be
interviewing him. Probably asking him if he knew me. Right after my arrest for
manslaughter, the reporters had descended like locusts talking to every tenant
in my apartment building. Hell, they had even gone through my garbage looking
for 'dirt'. It got so bad I had to sneak trash out under the cover of night,
drive several miles to the local strip mall, and put it in their dumpsters. Not
that I had anything to hide, but I couldn't stomach the thought of someone
pawing through my used Kleenex or worse.

Besides, some reporters weren't above
using a little magic now and again to get a story. Having something of mine
would have enabled them to pull all sorts of unethical and dirty reporting
tactics. I'd since paid for special charms on the complex's garbage bins to
avoid future problems.

Now the reporters were back. Wondering
how I was doing. If I had been interested in talking, I would've said, not
well, but I had no desire to feed the public's appetite for gossip and scandal.
Nor, it appeared, did Malcolm because he pushed past Wanda and trotted to the
safety of the apartment entrance.

Relief swelled up in me. Some of my
neighbors had seen all the media attention as their chance to grab their
fifteen minutes of fame. They told horrible lies about me, all to ensure their
name would be in print or that the local television station would put them on
camera. They said I was a witch, a voodoo priestess, rich, mean--you name it
they said it. All those lies explained why people like Wanda thought I was a
witch. So when Malcolm refused to put another nail in the coffin holding the
remains of my reputation, I was relieved. And grateful. Maybe I would take him
up on his offer of coffee after all.

* * *

I found Jacob sitting outside his high-rise
apartment, wincing as a loud crash came from his inside his penthouse suite.

“What are you doing out here?” I stopped
in front of him noticing he wore jogging pants and a gray T-shirt with a frayed
collar. Quite a contrast to the slick, polished lawyer I had met the day
before. I liked it though. The shirt showed off the lean curves of the muscles
underneath. Jacob was no stranger to the gym. The same attraction I had felt
when I first saw him hit me again, but I quickly squelched it with thoughts of Mark.

“It's safer out here, than in there.”
Another loud crash proved his point. We both jumped when the door suddenly
opened and then slammed shut so hard the air vibrated with the force of it.

“When did this start?”

“Last night, but it's been a madhouse for
the last hour.”

“All right, then. Our first order of
business is to get this under control,” I offered him a hand up which he
ignored. “C'mon, there's no time like the present.”

“Do I really have to go in there?”

“Scared?”

“No, it's been throwing things at
me." He lifted his arm to show me a bloody gash.

“Don't worry, I'll protect you.” I patted
him on the shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said twisting the door
handle and pushing the door open. Nervous and prepared to duck, I entered the
apartment.

“What do you mean you don't know?” he
asked making no move to stand.

I ignored him and concentrated on the
scene in front of me. The spacious apartment, with its bachelor accouterments
of black leather and gleaming chrome, was a disaster. The screen on the large
plasma TV was cracked. Clothes littered the floor and books had been thrown
from the bookcases, some traveling as much as twenty feet by my estimate. The
small aisle kitchen was a mess of open cupboards and a large puddle on the
floor lapped at the entrance to the living room.

On a metaphysical level, the negative
energy swirling through the apartment hit me so hard I had to put a hand on the
wall to steady myself. A black, formless miasma of energy hung heavy in the
air, pregnant with anger. This wasn’t a ghost, but something else entirely. I
had never felt anything like it and had no clue as to how to make it go away.

“Holy crap.” I ducked as a football
sailed over my head. I took a deep breath and yelled, loud as I could, “Stop
it!” Several books came at me in response and I had to retreat, pulling the
door shut behind me like a shield.

“Some plan,” Jacob said as a succession
of heavy thuds sounded from the other side of the door. “Why didn't I think of
that? Oh wait, I did.” He shook his head. “Guess what? It didn't work.”