Serpent's Kiss: A Witches of East End Novel (17 page)

“It’s not like I’m asking you to sleep with me or anything like that,” Ingrid said dryly.

“Of course not. You’re perfectly lovely but far from my type. I’m sorry, Ingrid. It’s just you’re so discreet otherwise. I never imagined you’d ever talk about your”—he coughed—“
sex life
.”

“Well, that’s because I don’t have one,” she said. She hadn’t seen Matt since that heady make out session in his car on their second first date because he’d had to go out of town for several days.

“We could look at a
Cosmo
. I can explain the articles … Is there a reason this is coming up now?” he ventured, with a raise of his eyebrow. “Things with Officer Noble are coming to a head, so to speak?”

“Stop making bad jokes!” Ingrid laughed. “And I’ve read a lot of
Cosmo
s already.”

“I think I need a Cosmo. You know, a cocktail, for this conversation. So, how far have you two crazy kids gotten?”

“I don’t know … Second base I guess?”

“Right, the petting zoo. Well great, that’s great. It’s a start. Baby steps,” said Hudson as he clapped his hands. “This is truly great news, my dear. First off, that’s much, much further than Caitlin ever got with him, you know? Okay!”

Hudson stood up and paced the office frantically. “We need to prepare for this, Ingrid. Maybe one of Freya’s potions? You know, just to loosen you up.” He made a wavy gesture with his hands. “Do you have any sexy lingerie? A girl needs those.” He snapped his fingers. “We could order some stuff online! Or maybe Freya can help you with that. Take you shopping in Manhattan? That girl certainly knows how to doll herself up.” He had turned into a dervish, whirling this way and that in the office, pointing a finger at Ingrid every time a new idea occurred to him.

“That all sounds great”—Ingrid nodded—“but I was wondering if … I don’t know … I mean, is there other stuff we could do … that he and I could do … without doing … you know,
it
. I don’t think I’m quite ready yet … but surely we could sort of … you know … try other stuff?”

“Other stuff?” The eyebrow shot up again.

Ingrid thought she would die in a puddle of embarrassment.

“I’ve got it!” he said, pointing at the computer.

“What?”

“Porn!”

“Pornography? We’re going to look at pornography? Hudson—no.” She shook her head. “Just … no!”

“Aw, come on, there’s nothing like the Internet to give you ideas on ‘other stuff.’” He smirked.

Ingrid sighed and let him click away on the computer. She had come to him in her hour of need, and like it or not, Hudson was finding a way to come through. She had to trust him since this was all, well, virgin territory to her.

Norman finally explained what he had been trying to get across in his last phone message to Joanna. He wanted things to be peaceful between them. He admitted he had been at fault, had acted the coward during the Salem trials, and added that if she would let him, he would like to make it up to her. He knew this was a mild way of putting it, of course, but there was no other way of saying it. In the meantime, however, he asked for leniency and wanted permission to begin reestablishing a relationship with his daughters. Joanna had settled it over the phone when she had returned his call, agreeing that he could come for a visit. That was where they would start for now: give things a test drive.

Now Norman, Freya, and Ingrid sat on the couch before a crackling fire in Joanna’s living room, having their first intimate family powwow since the library fund-raiser that summer, while Joanna hid out in her study poring over various ancient books on
seid
. She had been searching under the topic “rituals of necromancy.” She still hadn’t decoded the message the spirit left and was on to the next order of business while she took a break from all the letters of the runes pieces swirling around in her brain.

She had arrived at an impasse. From the runes, she knew the spirit wished to communicate with her, but she hadn’t found anyone in the glom, so she needed to seek a new approach. She could travel to the Kingdom of the Dead and try to garner gossip or hearsay on this particular spirit’s whereabouts, but doing so might bring many a false lead. Resentful of their deaths, new spirits often acted out and could be spiteful and deceptive. She didn’t want to waste time on a fool’s errand, following leads to dead ends. If this were an older spirit, she might have to appeal to Helda to release it, and Joanna wished to bypass the Queen of the Dead altogether if she could.

The books recommended performing a ritual on the gravesite of the deceased in question. She would have to return to the mound in the woods to do so. Drawing the standard circle around the site would be required, which could be done with salt or stones. All four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—would have to be represented in the ritual to achieve balance in the magic and prevent it from going amiss. Some of the rites included recipes listing sacrificial blood as an ingredient, but Joanna found such a practice outmoded. Wearing garments belonging to the dead person was yet another suggestion, albeit morbid and, in this case, impossible.

For the rite, she would bake unleavened black bread and uncork the homemade grape juice she had made from the concord grapes picked in September from her garden. Consuming such foods symbolized embracing decay and lifelessness, a gesture of compassion toward the spirit itself, becoming one with it, so to speak.

She reread the section in the
Hrólf Kraki’s Saga
, involving one Skuld, a half-elfin, half-Valkyrie princess skilled in the art of witchcraft, an unconquerable warrior but a rather merciless one, as she wouldn’t let any of her soldiers rest, bringing them immediately back from the dead as soon as they’d fallen in battle so they would continue fighting. She glanced at “The Spell of Gróa” in
The Poetic Edda
to see how Svipdag raised his mother, Groa, whose advice he needed on how to handle the wild-goose chase his stepmother had sent him on—the hand of the fair Mengloth. There wasn’t much there but the following: “Awake, Groa, awake! From the door of the dead, I wake you.” She would need to come up with a better incantation than that, so she continued searching.

The phone in the living room rang. It was the only landline in the house. Annoyed by the interruption, she walked into the living room, but by the time she had gotten there, Freya had answered the call.

Her daughter covered the mouthpiece with a hand and crinkled her nose at Joanna. “It’s that man. The one who was here the other day? He says his name is
Harold
.” She grimaced.

This is awkward
, thought Joanna, taking the phone from Freya, who went and sat back on the couch with Norman. Ingrid flanked him on his other side. They looked cozy those three, complicit, and Joanna caught herself envying them, feeling left out.

They watched her as she took the call. She turned away from them, facing the window that looked out to the sea. It was pitch-dark out there and they could see her reflection in the glass and she theirs, observing her.

“Hi, Harold,” she said. “Good to hear from you. How are you?”

Harold talked enthusiastically and loudly, and most likely they could hear his voice booming from the phone. “I’m great, great, but really I would love to see you again.” Joanna tried to muffle him by pressing the phone harder against her ear, which made it hurt.

“Yes, that would be fantastic,” she said, then tried to cut the conversation short. “Listen, I have a guest, and my girls are both here tonight. Could I call you back, say, tomorrow?”

“Not a problem, dear. Just checking in, really. I thought we could set another date.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll be talking to you soon, then, Harold.”

The girls and Norman continued to glare wordlessly at her reflection. She and Harold said quick good-byes, and Joanna felt awful for nearly hanging up on the poor man. She turned toward the three on the couch and forced a smile.

Norman’s turquoise eyes squinted at her from behind his black-rimmed glasses. He had shaved for the journey to North Hampton, looked polished and well-groomed, which was something she had always appreciated about him. When they’d been together, she had never needed to tell him to shower, trim his nails, or observe any of the obvious rules of hygiene, which some men annoyingly appeared to require. He had taken to wearing his silver hair in a buzz cut; she knew it was so he wouldn’t have to fuss over it. He had beautiful thick hair and had been fortunate not to lose any of it, but she wished he kept it longer. He was such a practical man.

“Harold?” he said with a puzzled expression.

“Yes, a gentleman I’ve been dating,” she said.

Now he looked seriously annoyed. “You’re
seeing
someone?”

Joanna knew they could see her blushing, which only made her cheeks grow hotter. Why was Norman giving her the third degree? They hadn’t even worked out whether they were still married or not. She had put it on her agenda of things to do—broach the topic with him now that he would be occasionally dropping by to visit the girls. Was he interested in her? She had no idea if he might still have feelings for her, and right now he appeared conspicuously jealous. She had thought he wanted peace, to work toward a friendship of sorts.

Freya stood up, and Joanna could see the little girl who got frustrated and angry and was ready to hex anyone who stepped on her toes. She was pushing her wild red hair this way and that. “Yeah, Mother, what’s that all about.
Why
are you dating? I mean, you and Dad are still married, aren’t you?”

Ingrid wasn’t much help; Joanna thought at least her oldest would jump to her defense. Instead she gaped at her hands that lay limply in her lap.

“Am I suddenly under attack?” was all she could think to say.

Norman took a breath and sighed. “I just thought that we were going to give this a try, you know, being a family again.”

Joanna studied all three of them expectantly watching her. She shrugged. “I really had no idea that was on the agenda for tonight!” she said. “Why don’t you and I go in my study, Norman, and have a talk while the girls make dinner. There’s something I want to show you in there anyway.”

Norman rose, following Joanna; then Ingrid and Freya’s eyes locked as they smiled gleefully at each other.

Freya stepped into the greenhouse to search for Killian. She saw him at the far end, crouched by the Venus flytraps. He was feeding them with a pair of long metal tweezers, placing insects inside the jaws of those odd light green flowers with long teeth, until each flower mouth clamped shut over the squirming ant or cricket.

He hadn’t heard her enter, so she watched him for a while, admiring his fine profile, the curve of his lips, the perfectly straight nose, his body lean and languid in his flannel shirt and torn jeans. He found solace here, she knew, lost himself in nurturing the plants, adding new ones, a little world he could control, make just right. His face looked troubled, the bend of his shoulders heavy. Her impulse was to run to him, hold him, reassure him, but she knew she couldn’t. She moved along the path by the lily pond, calling out his name.

He turned to her and smiled. “I missed you.”

“Me, too,” she said.

“I’m glad you came.” He walked toward her, and they hugged, but she could feel the sadness in his hold, the tentativeness of it, all the confidence he had always appeared to possess was gone. The binds that had held them together even while they had been apart had begun to fray. She heard a noise outside and started and stepped away from him, listening. It sounded like cans falling, clanking against each other. “Don’t worry, probably a deer. Maybe a raccoon. They’re always getting into the trash and compost.”

“I came to tell you something,” Freya said. There was a small bench between two palms nearby, and they walked to it. The air in the green house grew cloyingly thick, and Freya found it difficult to breathe. She sat, staring into Killian’s face while he remained standing. “Freddie told me he could prove you were the one who destroyed the bridge. The thing I was searching for on the
Dragon
… I looked and looked and couldn’t find it.” She stared imploringly.

Something flickered in Killian’s eye. “What was it?” he asked.

“His trident. I need to know if you have it. Do you?”

He stared at her silently, his face clouding over. “I don’t, Freya, but …”

“But what?”