The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

"What about Michael? What about your dreams of Mayfair Medical?"

"Ellie was right," she said. She sat back against the wall and gazed off again, the lights of the bar blurring slightly. "Ellie knew. She had Cortland's blood in her and she could see the future. Maybe it was only dim shapes and feelings, but she knew. I should never have come back. He used Michael to see to it that I came back. I knew Michael was in New Orleans, and like a randy bitch, I came back for that reason!"

"You're not talking the truth. I want you to come upstairs and stay with me."

"You're such a fool. I could kill you here and now and no one would ever know it. No one but your brotherhood and your friend Michael Curry. And what could they do? It's over, Aaron. I may fight, and I may dance back a few steps, and I may gain an occasional advantage. But it's over. Michael was meant to bring me back and keep me here and he did."

She started to rise, but he caught her hand. She looked down at his fingers. So old. You can always tell age by a person's hands. Were people staring at them? Didn't matter. Nothing mattered in this little room. She started to pull away.

"What about your child, Rowan?"

"Michael told you?"

"He didn't have to tell me. Michael was sent to love you so that you would drive that thing away, once and forever. So that you wouldn't fight this battle alone."

"You knew that without being told also?"

"Yes. And so do you."

She pulled her hand free.

"Go away, Aaron. Go far away. Go hide in the Motherhouse in Amsterdam or London. Hide. You're going to die if you don't. And if you call Michael, if you call him back here, I swear, I'll kill you myself."

Forty-four

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING HAD gone wrong. The roof at Liberty Street had been leaking when he arrived and somebody had broken into the Castro Street store for a pitiful handful of cash in the drawer. His Diamond Street property had also been vandalized, and it had taken four days to clean it out before he could put it up for sale. Add to that a week to crate Aunt Viv's antiques, and to pack all her little knickknacks so that nothing would be broken. And he was afraid to trust the movers with these things. Then he'd had to sit down with his accountant for three days to put his tax records in order. December 14 already and there was still so much work to be done.

About the only good thing was that Aunt Viv had received the first two boxes safely and called to say how delighted she was to have her cherished objects with her at last. Did Michael know she'd joined a sewing circle with Lily, in which they did petit point and listened to Bach? She thought it was the most elegant thing. And now that her furniture was on the way, she could invite all the lovely Mayfair ladies over to her place at last. Michael was a darling. Just a darling.

"And I saw Rowan on Sunday, Michael, she was taking a walk, in this freezing weather, but do you know she has finally started to put on a little weight. I never wanted to say it before, but she was so thin and so pale. It was wonderful to see her with a real bloom in her cheeks."

He had to laugh at that, but he missed Rowan unbearably. He had never planned to be gone so long. Every phone call only made it worse, the famous butterscotch voice driving him out of his mind.

She was understanding about all the unforeseen catastrophes but he could hear the worry behind her questions. And he couldn't sleep after the calls, smoking one cigarette after another, and drinking too much beer, and listening to the endless winter rain.

San Francisco was in the wet season now, and the rain hadn't stopped since his arrival. No blue skies, not even over the Liberty Street hill, and the wind ripped right through his clothes when he stepped outside. He was wearing his gloves all the time just to keep warm.

But now at last the old house was almost empty. Nothing but the last two boxes in the attic, and in a strange way, these little treasures were what he had come to retrieve and take with him to New Orleans. And he was eager to finish the job.

How alien it all looked to him, the rooms smaller than he remembered, and the sidewalks in front so dirty. The tiny pepper tree he'd planted seemed about to give up the ghost. Impossible that he could have spent so many years here telling himself he was happy.

And impossible that he might have to spend another back-breaking week, taping and labeling boxes at the store, and going through tax receipts, and filling out various forms. Of course he could have the movers do it, but some of the items weren't worth that kind of trouble. And then the sorting was the nightmare, with all the little decisions.

"It's better now than later," Rowan had said this afternoon when he called. "But I can hardly stand it. Tell me, have you had any second thoughts? I mean about the whole big change? Are there moments when you'd just like to pick up where you left off, as if New Orleans never happened?"

"Are you crazy? All I think about is coming back to you. I'm getting out of here before Christmas. I don't care what's going on."

"I love you, Michael." She could say it a thousand times and it always sounded spontaneous. It was an agony not to be able to hold her. But was there a darker note to her voice, something he hadn't heard before?

"Michael, burn anything that's left. Just make a bonfire in the backyard, for heaven's sakes. Hurry."

He'd promised her he'd finish in the house by tonight if it killed him.

"Nothing's happened, has it? I mean you're not scared there, are you, Rowan?"

"No. I'm not scared. It's the same beautiful house you left. Ryan had a Christmas tree delivered. You ought to see it, it reaches the ceiling. It's just waiting there in the parlor for you and me to decorate it. The smell of the pine needles is all through the house."

"Ah, that's wonderful. I've got a surprise for you ... for the tree."

"All I want is you, Michael. Come home."

Four o'clock. The house was really truly empty now and hollow and full of echoes. He stood in his old bedroom looking out over the dark shiny rooftops, spilling downhill to the Castro district, and beyond, the clustered steel gray skyscrapers of downtown.

A great city, yes, and how could he not be grateful for all the wonderful things it had given him? A city like no other perhaps. But it wasn't his city anymore. And in a way it never had been.

Going home.

But he'd forgotten again. The boxes in the attic, the surprise, the things he wanted most of all.

Taking the plastic wrapping material and an empty carton with him, he went up the ladder, stooping under the sloped roof, and snapped on the light. Everything clean and dry now that the leak had been patched. And the sky the color of slate beyond the front window. And the four remaining boxes, marked "Christmas" in red ink.

The tree lights he'd leave for the guys who were renting the place. Surely they could use them.

But the ornaments he would now carefully repack. He couldn't bear the thought of losing a single one. And to think, the tree was already there.

Dragging

the box over under the naked overhead bulb, he opened it and discarded the old tissue paper. Over the years he'd collected hundreds of these little porcelain beauties from the specialty shops around town. Now and then he'd sold them himself at Great Expectations. Angels, wise men, tiny houses, carousel horses, and other delicate trinkets of exquisitely painted bisque. Real true Victorian ornaments could not have been more finely fashioned or fragile. There were tiny birds made of real feathers, wooden balls skillfully painted with lavish old roses, china candy canes, and silver-plated stars.

Memories came back to him of Christmases with Judith and with Elizabeth, and even back to the time when his mother had been alive.

But mostly he remembered the last few Christmases of his life, alone. He had forced himself to go through with the old rituals. And long after Aunt Viv had gone to bed, he'd sat by the tree, a glass of wine in his hand, wondering where his life was going and why.

Well, this Christmas would be utterly and completely different. All these exquisite ornaments would now have a purpose, and for the first time there would be a tree large enough to hold the entire collection, and a grand and wonderful setting in which they truly belonged.

Slowly he began work, removing each ornament from the tissue, rewrapping it in plastic, and putting it in a tiny plastic sack. Imagine First Street on Christmas Eve with the tree in the parlor. Imagine it next year when the baby was there.

It seemed impossible suddenly that his life could have experienced such a great and wondrous change. Should have died out there in the ocean, he thought.

And he saw, not the sea in his mind suddenly, but the church at Christmas when he was a child. He saw the crib behind the altar, and Lasher standing there, Lasher looking at him when Lasher was just the man from First Street, tall and dark-haired and aristocratically pale.

A chill gripped him. What am I doing here? She's there alone. Impossible that he hasn't shown himself to her.