Mark of the Witch. Maggie Shayne

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СКАЧАТЬ the energies of the four directions. Finally one woman took up the magic circle, the invisible space Rayne had cast. The magic circle was the witches’ temple. Sacred space. Holy ground. I knew better than to leave before all of that was complete, but I was eager to go once it was finished, hoping to find a smoke on the way home. I was dying for a cigarette.

      Rayne put a hand on my arm and I jumped. “You need to eat something, Indy. Ground yourself. I’ve got coffee and cake inside.”

      “Right. Ground myself.” I’d forgotten the habitual post-ritual snacking. Always seemed to me that the “grounding” thing was just a good excuse for a pile of sugary carbs. “I know it’s rude of me to rush off, but I just feel … compelled to get home.”

      “Then that’s where you should be.”

      “Thanks for understanding. And for all of this …”

      “Text me in the morning, let me know how it goes tonight. I’ll do the same as soon as I have any information for you. Blessed be, Indy.”

      “Blessed be,” I replied automatically.

      I headed for the subway stop on the corner, intending to catch the next train to my Brooklyn neighborhood.

      But there was something happening to me. A tingling, like an itch I couldn’t reach way down deep in my psyche, and a slowly spreading darkness that kept sucking my attention away from the here and now. Like a person running on lack of sleep who almost drifts off, then shakes herself awake, I fought against the somnambulant state trying to overtake me, went down the stairs (into the Underworld), dropped a token (paid the ferryman) and pushed through the turnstile (entered through the first gate). I found a post to lean against on the nearly empty platform and waited for my train to arrive.

      A few other people wandered in, most not paying any attention to me. There was an old man who made brief eye contact and smiled, breaking an unspoken rule, probably because in his day it was rude to do otherwise. There was a cluster of pants-hanging-off-the-ass punks, one of whom had a nice crisp unlit Marlboro Light Menthol in his hand, and a nice-looking couple who were too lost in each other to notice anyone else.

      Off in the distance, I heard the train echoing closer.

      I drifted, pulled myself back, drifted again. I kept almost falling asleep and seeing myself in different clothing. Not quite like in the dream, though. This time I wore a long cloak of black, with a hood pulled up over my hair, bathing my face in shadows.

       Stupid dream. Can’t you at least wait until I get home?

      I jerked myself back to the present. The train was closer. The other people were beginning to edge nearer the tracks. The punks were uncomfortably close to the old man. The lead one was about to light his smoke, lighter in his other hand. But then he paused, pocketing the lighter, smiling at the others, nodding the old man’s way. The intended victim seemed to realize it about the same time I did. And just as the flash of alarm showed up in his kind blue eyes, one of the underwear-showing assholes pulled a knife. I felt myself lunging toward them even as I fell into the blackness of my dream world.

      I woke groggy, rolled over in bed and pried one eye open to look at the clock. There was a cigarette, a white filtered Marlboro Light Menthol, lying in front of my little alarm clock, pristine, unsmoked, waiting for me. Had the nicotine fairy visited last night?

      Then my foggy eyes focused on the illuminated red digits. 11:11. I’d slept way late, which was totally unlike me. My brain reminded me that my shift at Pink Petals, the flower shop sixteen blocks from my apartment, started at noon today, and that, more than anything, set a fire under my ass. I bounded out of bed, took a record-speed shower and toweled down in front of the mirror. A handful of mousse and a quick finger comb, and my hair was done. Easy breezy. I was still tugging its natural crimp-curls into shape as I gave my mirror image the once-over, but I stopped moving with one hand still tangled in my hair. My forearm was sporting a black-and-blue mark the size of a pizza slice.

      Frowning, I lowered my arm and looked down at my body. Small boobs, still hanging where they ought to, no marks on what I’d always considered a rather boyish figure. I was kind of straight—slender, but straight—long waist that was nice and lean, but no flaring out at the hips. No booty in the back. I was small everywhere. Delicate and slight. I turned and looked back over my shoulder, spotting a good-sized slate-colored blob on one shoulder blade and a maroon one on my butt cheek. Legs looked okay in back. I looked down and cringed at the way the second littlest toe on my right foot was all bent out of shape and discolored. Looked broken. Felt it, too.

      I turned back and met my own eyes in the mirror. “What the hell happened last night?” Damn. I was a mess. And that was about the time it hit me that I didn’t remember how I got home. In fact, I didn’t remember anything except standing in the subway, trying to hold on to the here and now, while something else was trying to suck me in. I remembered the punks and the old guy. I remembered one of them with a knife, and another with a mouthwateringly good-looking smoke in his hands. I remember lunging toward them.

      And then … nothing.

      And now there’s a mouthwateringly good-looking smoke on my nightstand. Coincidence? Or not …

      I went back to the bedroom, picked up the cig, looked it over. I wanted to smoke it almost more than I wanted to know how I’d gotten home and into bed last night, but I couldn’t. God only knew what might be in it. Punks like that, you just couldn’t tell—assuming that was where I got it, which was impossible to know.

      I picked it up, drummed up every ounce of will in my entire body, took it to the bathroom, dropped it in the toilet and flushed it away.

      I almost cried.

      I grabbed my towel off the floor, hung it up to dry and rubbed some witch hazel on my bruises. Then I dressed—leggings and a pretty little white camisole with lacy straps, long minty-green sweater over that, with a wide enough neck that it could hang off one shoulder. I added a wide pale brown leather belt that matched my short, kick-ass boots right down to the big gold buckles.

      Then I wielded my makeup brushes like magic wands, and in another five minutes I was ready to face the day. Heavy eyeliner, dark shadow, luscious long lashes. I was still wearing my pentacle from the night before, and I decided to keep it on. Hell, it couldn’t hurt. And it might help. It had my birthstone, an amethyst, in its center, and ivy vines made of silver twisting around the circle that enclosed it. Each leg of the star was made of a tiny broomstick. I liked it, lapsed Wiccan or not.

      Giving one final glance in the mirror, I headed out of my apartment. My boots protected my sore toe so I didn’t even limp. None of my bruises showed. No one would ever know what had happened last night.

      Apparently not even me.

      Sixteen blocks was a good brisk walk, and I loved it. I walked to work most of the winter. I walked it in the rain, when it wasn’t torrential. Today was gorgeous. Cool but sunny, and it smelled good outside for a change. I liked the neighborhood, the people I passed on the way, the excuse to get my heart and lungs working a little bit harder than normal. It was all good.

      I passed the little convenience store where I used to buy my smokes and almost went inside. I even slowed my steps as I went by the door and, glancing in, saw my beloved Marlboro Light Menthols in their pretty white-and-green boxes, stacked inside a locked, clear plastic case. And the little lighters on the counter. I’d need one of those, too. Maybe just for today …

      I stopped. I took one step into the doorway, СКАЧАТЬ