She leaned back again, tugging on the corner of her silk scarf, letting it glide through her fingers multiple times before speaking. "You"re strong, Maggie, and that means you are going to attract strong men. Like many things, it"s both a curse and a blessing."
I chewed on my bottom lip, ingesting what she said. My so-called strength allowed Shane to think it was okay to leave me when I needed him most, and threatened Michael to the point that he looked outside of our relationship to have his ego stroked. How was it a blessing?
"That"s the way of men," Jillian said, surprising me.
I tilted my head, then laughed. "I always forget that you can read people."
"Only sometimes." She spread her palms flat across the st.u.r.dy armrests of the rocking chair. "That is also a blessing and a curse."
Jillian"s eyes clouded over, as if she had tapped into an old memory she wished to forget. She flicked her wrist and smiled, returning to the present. "Life is full of contradictions."
I wanted to know more but knew she"d come to discuss another matter. "You"re worried about me, aren"t you?"
"Yes. Very much so."
I sighed heavily. "I"m worried about me, too. I can"t manage my own life, let alone a child"s."
"No one is ever prepared for their first child. It"s on-the-job-training. You"ll be fine."
"That makes me feel better. But I still haven"t been to a real doctor yet. What if something"s wrong with the baby?"
"Merry said a doctor came while you were asleep."
"A witch doctor?"
"Well, an old friend of Sasha"s. But rest a.s.sured, your baby is fine. She had a midwife come in several times as well. We"ll get you to the hospital straight away for a checkup, though. That"s a priority."
I bounced on my bed several times, my eyes avoiding hers. Finally, I confessed what troubled me most. "I don"t think I"m going to be a good mother."
"What makes you think that?"
"Well..."
I fidgeted, wondering if I should remind her about the door from the Netherworld. Truly Good people didn"t see that door, I bet, only those who had a shot at entering it.
"Michael says we are all born into sin, but do you think some of us are born with larger doses than others? Armand is my father. Does that mean I"m doomed? And my baby, too?"
Jillian"s eyes softened and she came to sit beside me. Pulling my head onto her shoulder, she smoothed my hair. "Maggie, you shouldn"t think like that."
"Mother always worried about me. Called me a fence-sitter, like my father." I looked up at her, steeling myself against the wave of emotion that attacked. "And Jillian, you of all people know the bad things I"ve done in my life. I"ve been petty. I"ve been selfish. And then there was Leo..."
"Oh, Sweetie, we"ve all done bad things. We"re all just scrambling through life, each of us doing our best. The fact that you know what you"ve done, and that you"re trying to make things better, says volumes about you."
I nodded uncertainly, hoping she was right.
"As for your father, you"ve only heard Sasha and Dora"s side of the story."
I sat up. "You mean he wasn"t the devil incarnate?"
She laughed, mostly to herself, then lifted her chin. "He was like anyone else, Maggie. He had his bad side, and yes, it was a very bad side... but he also had his good side. There are very few souls that are either pure black or pure white."
"That"s rea.s.suring. And depressing."
"It is, isn"t it? What I"m trying to say is don"t worry so much. Bad people don"t care about being a good person, therefore, you must be "good.""
"When will I stop worrying?"
"Never, ever, ever. That"s the blessing of Motherhood."
"And the curse."
"And the curse."
"I wish you had been my mom," I said, then immediately regretted it. She had her own daughter, and though I had a complicated relationship with my own mother, Miss Sasha had molded me into the person I was today.
"I"m sorry. I just meant that you"re so easy to talk to."
Jillian gave me a side hug. "We do have a special bond, don"t we? And I would have been honored to raise a daughter like you."
We leaned in close, her crossed legs revealing a bit of her slim upper thigh. There was something on her, a dark mark near the side of her knee. It looked almost like a b.u.t.terfly. Was that a tattoo?
"That, my dear, is a witch mark. Many of us have them. They are unique to each family, pa.s.sed down through lineage. Mine happens to look like a b.u.t.terfly but I"ve seen flowers and numbers and even one that looked like a snowman." She rubbed her thumb along the mark. "In the middle ages they were used to identify, and subsequently burn, witches. Thank Goodness we aren"t living in those dark times anymore."
I checked my own legs. I didn"t have one. "I guess I would have been spared from the bonfire," I said.
"At least in that regard," she winked.
We sat without talking, listening to the sounds of the house. Someone tromped through the hall. Downstairs, pans clanked in the sink as Aunt Dora and Merry prepared dinner. I even thought I heard the Ruth Anne"s fingers hammering on the keyboard as she gave birth to her latest novel.
A sensation in my belly jolted me from my thoughts. "Jillian! My baby just kicked!"
I lifted my shirt and revealed my stomach. We sat very still, watching and waiting, and were at last rewarded by another bold thump near my navel.
"Did you see it?" I whispered.
Jillian beamed, pressing her hand to my stomach. "I told you all is well. Have you figured out what to name him?"
"What do you think of Trouble?"
She clapped her hands. "I can see it now," she said, "Here comes Maggie"s little Trouble. Apropos."
"And if I have twins I"ll name the other one Double."
"Perfect."
"I guess I shouldn"t joke. Mother said that all names are magical, and that you get exactly what you name your child."
"As is most often the case, Sasha was right. Names have meaning. Make sure you pick the right one, okay?" Jillian"s hand went to my wrist, tracing the smooth crystal bracelet I had inherited from Mother. The Circle.
"What do you know about this?" I asked, lifting my wrist. "I think it magnifies my abilities but I"m not sure."
Jillian looked closer. The cracks that were once deeply etched into the crystal had nearly vanished. The bracelet had healed itself. "Though Sasha never took it off, I don"t know much about it. She collected artifacts from all over the world: Egypt, Ethiopia, Ireland. Wherever there was legend, there was Sasha."
I imagined Mother trekking across the globe in search of her relics. I wished I"d known her then, when she was young and full of adventure. My only memories of her were after she had settled into motherhood late in life, and then into old age.
Jillian tapped the bracelet. "I do know that it has some protective abilities. I can see that in its energy field. It might be part of the reason you have been able to survive the curse."
My purse vibrated on the bed. Someone was texting me. And since most everyone I knew was right in this very house, it could only be Shane. I ignored it and returned my attention to Jillian.
"Sorry for the huge detour," I said. "You came to tell me something."
"You haven"t used the first globe yet, have you?"
I shook my head, embarra.s.sed at being caught.
"You need to do it tonight. You grow weaker by the day. It"s a strong spell Maggie, and we can only hold it off for so long."
"But I still don"t understand."
"Trust, Maggie, trust."
"I hate that Larinda is a part of this."
Jillian sighed, long and heavy. "Me too."
I reached under my bed and slid the leather case. "I"ll start right away. I promise."
"Excellent." Jillian stood, smoothing out her navy blue slacks. "And Maggie, remember, whatever images appear in those globes are there for a reason."
"Okay," I said, not knowing how else to respond.
With that, she left and the room felt suddenly cold.
I glanced at the clock. It wasn"t even dinnertime. I had come up here to cry in private, but now I was too tired for even that. Perhaps a nap was all I needed.
I opened the case, marveling at the collection of globes nested within their snug, velvet homes. My fingers trembled as I lifted out the first one in the line and scooted my way towards the headboard. I raised it to the light. There was a glittering substance pooled near the bottom of the globe, but it was otherwise empty. The inscription on its base read: Dark Root, Oregon. January, 1968.
Leaning back into my pillow, I gave the globe a gentle shake. The glitter rose up, swirling about the ball. The bauble hummed in my hands, as if awakened.
The swirl took form.
A house appeareda white, sprawling Victorian surrounded by a vast forest. Sister House.
A car rolled into the wide dirt lot. It was the dented blue Cadillac I remembered as Mother"s.
My eyes felt heavy. They were drooping, even as the scene unfolded before me.
ELEVEN.
White Rabbit Dark Root, Oregon January, 1968 Sister House Armand removed himself from Sasha"s Cadillac, carrying his only possessions: a hastily packed suitcase and his cowboy hat. The suitcase he"d acquired just months before. The cowboy hat he"d worn nearly every day for the last five years.
Though he had grown up in Los Angeles and had seen cows only on television, he wore the hat with conviction. Chicks dug the hat. It had become so much a part of him that he felt naked without it.
"What do you think?" Sasha Benbridge asked, spreading her arms wide to showcase not only the ma.s.sive house before them with its imposing columns and wraparound porch, but the deep woods that surrounded them as well.
Armand took it all in and shivered. "It"s spooky and smells like car freshener."
"That"s pine," Sasha said, her boyish chest heaving with pride. "Pine for miles and miles, with some oak and fir and cottonwood scattered in." She lit a cigarette and puffed on it twice, blowing the smoke out through the side of her mouth. "We could die right here today, and no one would know for weeks. That"s how isolated we are. Isn"t it grand?"
"Grand?" Armand scratched his head, wondering once again why he had followed her here. She certainly wasn"t the most beautiful woman he had ever known, or the most charming, but she had the ability to persuade him, in more than one way. "It"s not L.A."
He followed her up the porch steps to an imposing door with an oversized bra.s.s knocker. He tried the door and found it locked.
Sasha pushed him aside and tapped the doork.n.o.b twice with her right index finger.
It swung open.
"h.e.l.l, I can do that too," Armand said, looking at his own hands.
"Yeah, but you"d break the entire door in the process. That"s the problem with warlocks. They don"t know how to rein in their powers, even when they should."
He removed his hat and held it to his chest as he peered into the dark musty s.p.a.ce before him. It was a virtual cavern, large enough to fit three of his studio apartments within the main room alone. Squinting his eyes, he caught a small shape lurking to his right. It saw him too and scurried behind a cardboard box.
"Ah, h.e.l.l!" He stepped back. "There are creatures crawling around in there." He fiddled with the light switch. "And the power"s off."
Sasha"s eyes gleamed like a possum"s as she wound her way through a living room crammed with large pieces of furniture draped in white sheets. Soon enough she found a candle and lit it with the Zippo lighter she purchased at the airport gift shop. "Better?"
He held back, lounging in the doorway, his thoughts cycling between amus.e.m.e.nt and disbelief. He wasn"t keen on going back outsidethe wilderness was too wild for a city boybut inside, the covered furniture stood like ghosts ready to pounce the moment he stepped across the threshold. An icy wind rose up and whipped at his back, and he decided haunting souls were preferable to Mother Nature.
Leaving the door ajar, he removed the sheet from the nearest piece of furniture, revealing a coat rack with upturned bra.s.s hands instead of hooks. He returned the sheet to the rack and moved on.
Sasha lit more candles, placing them around the room, until there was enough light to navigate.
"So, this is the new casa?" Armand pulled off more sheets, revealing an odd collection of decor: perfectly preserved Victorian tables and chairs nested alongside well-used furniture from the forties and fifties. Sasha"s aura burned a sunshine yellow as she moved about the grand room, reacquainting herself with her past.
"It"s not exactly new." Sasha ran her fingers over a painting of a pale young woman with dark hair and empty eyes. "The house has been in my family for almost seventy years, commissioned by my mother when she moved from Portland. I wish you could have met her before..."
Sasha shook the thought away and Armand chose not to pursue it. She had mentioned her mother a few times but never went into detail. From what Armand could gather, she died unexpectedly and much too young.
Once the sheets had been removed and gathered into a large pile near the door, Armand began his inspection of the many built-in shelves and nooks that gave the house its character. There were more treasures to be found in these hollows: teacups, books, knickknacks, and stones, some buzzing with energy as if begging for attention.
"What"s this?" he asked, blowing dust from a cracked leather book. It was a large heavy tome, and required both hands to hold up.