The Accidental Witch (21 page)

Diane looked up at Fred with an expression I hadn’t seen before. It was something resembling fear. Her eyes narrowed. She knew something about him I didn’t. Her eyes passed over his face and then went down to his arms. Fred had taken his jacket off to make the potion and the tattoos on his arms were exposed. Diane studied the symbols.

“Can I talk to you alone for a minute?” Diane said and she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into her bedroom.

“What the hell is going on? What’s an immortal doing in my living room? What are you doing with him?”

“Immortal?” I asked.

“They’re spellcasters that sold their souls for immortality. There are like ten of them in the world and none of them are good news. “

“Fred seems nice enough,” I said.

“His name is Fred! Are you kidding me? His name is not Fred. The only other immortal I’ve met was your mother and she almost killed me trying to enslave me for my power!”

“What? You never told me that,” I said.

“I didn’t want to scare you. I didn’t want you to know how weird your mother is. You had such hope she’d be nice and normal,” Diane said.

“But you are telling me now because now is a good time to freak me out? Now? I have an ancient toad demon destroying the town and some sort of immortal warlock in the guest bedroom and now you figured was the best damn time to tell me my mother is a fucking freaky evil immortal witch!”

“No.” Diane calmed down. She took a deep breath. “No. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. She’s not evil. Well, she’s not that evil. She’s just scary as hell and so is Fred, or whatever his name is. I just think you should be careful with him. He’s dangerous.”

“Really?” I said pretending to be ignorant. “He looks like a dork.”

“They all do,” she said. “Witches and warlocks with that kind of power don’t advertise it. They’ve been alive so long, they can’t keep up with the fashion. Hell, my grandmother can’t even keep up with fashion and she’s seventy. How much harder do you think it would be for someone that’s over a hundred? What’s he doing here again?”

“He’s helping me with the toad demon,” I said.

“That’s why I feel so shitty, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Do you need me to go with you? Having an oracle with you is always useful. I could help with the toad demon.”

“I don’t think so. You said, while you were an oracle, that only the Phoenix could help us. I think that means we have to find my mother. Fred says my mother is the Phoenix.”

“I’m going with you. I’m not leaving you alone with that guy and your mother. I’ll never see you again or when I do, you’ll have already been turned into one of them.”

“Why would they turn me into one of them?”

“Immortality is long and lonely. Only a very few witches can survive the process of becoming immortal. You could survive. You are stronger than either of them.”

“How do you know all this shit?”

“I’m an oracle. I know everything and I’m coming with you.”

“Okay.”

Diane and I stepped back into the living room. Fred was sitting on Diane’s sofa looking at her copy of Style magazine like it was one of Plato’s dialogues. He had a puzzled look on his face that was almost comical. He stood up when we entered.

“Diane is coming with us,” I said.

Fred looked at both of us for a moment and then nodded. “We’d better hurry. The decay seems to be spreading.”

We all piled into Fred’s rented Honda. It was already midnight. This wasn’t how I imagined meeting my mother for the first time. I had been picturing this moment my entire life. I imagined finding her and her giving me some explanation as to how she had always loved me but had never been able to see me.

In my childhood, when life was hell, a good fifty percent of my time was spent shaping my mother in my mind. I created a fictitious mother who always told me she loved me and baked cookies for me and believed in me. She was a sort of plump, rounded woman with a pretty face and a soft smile. She sang me to sleep at night and promised me she would never be disappointed in me.

Even as an adult, I was sure I would someday find my mother and we would have a tear-filled reunion. Now, that reunion was at hand and it was hard for me to reconcile the immortal witch my mother really was with the soft, sweet mother of my dreams.

I was nervous and since it took more than an hour to drive from Dismal to Huntsville, I was only going to have more time to be nervous before I met my mother. I took a deep breath. I was hopeful. None of the bad things I had heard mattered to me. God knew people had said bad things about me. I was a witch and I was a cheater. I had made so many mistakes, they formed a kind of mountain in my backyard. I certainly wasn’t going to judge my mother based on other people’s opinions of her. I wanted to make my own.

I looked at the road sign. We were almost there. We were almost in Huntsville. Huntsville is not your typical Alabama town. People who live in Dismal think of Huntsville as the big city, but people from Chicago would call it a little town. The truth was, Huntsville didn’t really belong in Alabama. It had built up around the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Redstone Arsenal, and most of the people who lived there were engineers or other professionals who had moved there for the jobs. It was a city based around military contracts and very educated people. It was a new city with old roots.

We drove into Huntsville and I looked at its tiny little skyline nestled in the hills. The leaves had begun to change, painting the tiny city in brilliant colors that showed even in the dark. Fred turned up a mountain road. We drove up and up until we passed a state park and we had to be as high as we could get.

He turned into a long driveway and we passed through some large black gates. My mother’s house was old and huge. It made The Black Magnolia look small. It was painted in bright colors and laced with gingerbread. A Queen Anne style turret was at one side and a long yellow porch wrapped around the entire house. Fred pulled up in front of the car and turned off the engine. It was one in the morning.

* * *

Diane put her hand on my shoulder. I grabbed it and looked out at the foreboding house. It was very late, but the house seemed very much awake. There was a young woman on the front porch in a long, blue sundress swinging back and forth. The swing groaned with each motion. All the lights in the house were on and I could see shadows moving about inside. There were cats everywhere. They sat on windowsills and on the porch. They watched us with slanted eyes as we walked towards the door.

Before we even set foot on the porch, the door swung open and a very pretty woman in a long, tie-dyed skirt stepped out. She wore a simple tank top over the skirt, and several chains of beads with pendants on them hung around her neck. Her long, smooth black hair was tied back loosely. Her skin was very fair and freckles dotted her features with abundance. She had bright green eyes and her fine features gave her a very Celtic look. She looked like she was in her thirties, but it was hard to tell. She had the same tattoos with symbols and glyphs in them as Fred, except she had twice as many tattoos as Fred. Even the tops of her hands and feet were covered in symbols and odd pictures.

Fred and the green-eyed woman bowed to each other and then she turned to me. She smiled brightly.

“I knew you would come back to me,” she said. She pulled me to her and hugged me as tightly as she could. “You’ve grown into a beauty. I didn’t expect that.”

“You’re my mother?” I said. I couldn’t believe it. She looked like she was younger than me.

“Yes, my darling. I’ve been waiting years for this. Thank the goddess for your return.”

I looked over at the young girl on the swing. Her eyes were glassy and they stared into nothing. She was blind. She didn’t move from the swing. She just continued the motion.

“Come in, come in,” my mother said. “It’s late and you are thirsty. I’ve been expecting you.”

“You’ve been expecting me?” I asked.

“Yes, I keep an oracle.”

“No shit you do,” Diane said with a bitter scoff. “Did you blind her or did she come that way?”

My mother smiled. “Diane, so lovely to see you again. The girl volunteered for the position as my oracle. She blinded herself as a child to stop the visions. She had been living in an institution when I found her. I freed her and taught her how to use her power properly.”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” Diane said.

“Always ready with a pretty phrase, aren’t you, my sweet? Never mind,” my mother said as she put her arm around my shoulder. “My baby is home and there is work to be done, so let’s go inside and get all of you a drink and get to work.”

I stepped into my mother’s house and I felt the same feeling I had when I stepped in The Black Magnolia. I felt peace, like I belonged in the house. I took a deep breath. I felt at home. My mother wasn’t the mother I had expected, but she’d been happy to see me, and she seemed nice enough. Diane hated her, but Diane hated a lot of people.

My mother’s house was beautiful. It had been renovated in the style of the Victorian period and all the furniture was antique. It smelled like old wood and thyme. My mother jingled as she walked. She had an anklet that made a jangling noise with each step. She didn’t wear any shoes, just the anklets. She took us into a lovely gilded parlor that had a roaring fire in the fireplace. There were cats sitting everywhere in the room.

I shoved a cat away and sat down on the sofa next to my mother. Fred sat on a hard chair across from us and so did Diane. They both stared at us with caution.

“You are everything I thought you would be and more,” my mother said as she took my face in her hands. “I’ve waited thirty years for this. Tell me everything about yourself.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Fred interrupted.

“Shut up, Frederick. There is time. There is plenty of time,” my mother said.

“He’s right,” I added. “I made a huge mess with your book.”

“No, you didn’t. Not at all. You did more with magic in a few months than most so-called spellcasters can do in a lifetime. You mastered dozens of spells without even trying. You are extraordinary. So, you made a little mistake and left a candle burning too long. So what? Abaddon is an ass, but we’ll send him back to Hell where he belongs, but right now I want to know you. Tell me about you.”

I looked at Fred for approval and he nodded.

“I’m not really that interesting. I’ve actually messed most of my life up. I got my PhD in clinical psychology and then I lost my license. I’m divorced. Dad is dead. I just broke up with my boyfriend. I’m really a mess.”

“Nonsense,” my mother said as she took my hand. “You’re a smart woman who got her PhD. You didn’t lose that. You just lost your license. Everyone is divorced nowadays. I’ve been divorced five times. Think of it as regaining your freedom. You’re not a mess. Look at you. You’re beautiful and smart. No, I don’t see a mess at all.”

I smiled. She was the mother I’d always wanted. “Thanks,” I said.

“What else? Do you have any hobbies? What do you like to do?”

“I like to read. I read everything fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, romance. I also like to watch movies and I love cemetery walks and old places and old buildings.”

“Wonderful!” she said. “Do you like to travel?”

“I love traveling. When I was married, we traveled all the time.”

“See, we already have so much in common.”

“Thank you for the book, by the way. It really changed my entire life.”

“Of course, you were born to be a witch. You need that magic. It burns in your veins. You have to use it. I wish your father had so much wisdom.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I met your father, he was a warlock with amazing potential. He was so strong, the wind bent to his will, but his redneck family out there all convinced him the magic was evil, so he took you and ran. He cast one last spell to keep me from you and then he gave up magic. That’s why he died. It burnt through him. It destroyed his heart and lungs. Once you’ve opened yourself up, there is no turning back. Your father was a blithering idiot who wasted his gifts.”

I hugged her. There was no reason to, but I had to hug her. All my life everyone told me what a good man my father was. He was so godly, so Christian, so good. I heard it and hated myself for hating him. It was wonderful to hear her say he was an ass. It was wonderful not to be alone.

She put her arms around me and squeezed me as hard as she could. She kissed me on the cheek. I had a family again. Fred scowled at me and pointed to his watch, and I released my mother.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Nineveh,” she answered.

“You named me Phaedra? Why? Does it have some special meaning?”

“I just liked it,” she said. “Now we should get to work.”

“Frederick, my love,” she said to him. “We are going to have to bind her with runes. She needs real power she can access in a pinch.”

“Nineveh,” Fred said. “You haven’t changed. Always wanting to push people further than they should go. She’s not ready.”

“She’s ready,” Nineveh argued. “She summoned the Lady of the Lake and Abaddon on her own. She cast out a demon on her own. She’s ready and we need her help. Abaddon is an ass and we’ll need all three of us to stop him.”

“Fine,” Fred said. “As long as she agrees with it.”

“Agrees with what?” I asked.

“The symbols on our arms and legs come from many different places. They are binding spells,” Nineveh explained. “We burned them in our flesh, so we can always use them without having to go through lengthy rituals. You must gain the permission of the deity whose power you are drawing on, then we will burn them into you. After we’ve done this, all you will have to do is touch the symbol and say the incantation to call upon the power you were given by the deity again,” she added.

“Deity?” I asked.

“She calls them deities,” Fred said. “They are spirits and demons. There is only one God.”

“Ever the priest,” Nineveh said, “aren’t you? When will you let go of that nonsense?”

“History isn’t nonsense. The Guild embraces the truth, you should, too.”

“We Celts had our own encyclopedia of spells long before King Solomon.”