Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (39 page)

I glanced at Ben, and he simply jerked his
head toward the man at the table while looking at me expectantly. I
was feeling more than just a little pressure, and it wasn’t helping
my overall ability to ground and center. No matter what he had said
out in the hall, it was plainly obvious that Ben didn’t truly
understand the realities I had explained. He was expecting me to
perform a feat of hypnosis on command and provide him with the
answers he wanted, simple as that.

I suppose that in a way it was my own fault.
I had worked so hard during the previous case to overcome his
intense skepticism that I had now pushed him to the opposite end of
the spectrum. Combined with his being present to witness the
bizarre events that had attached themselves to me during this
investigation, I should have expected something like this. I only
hoped that I wasn’t about to let him down, but I already had a very
nasty feeling that a rather large disappointment was peering
angrily over the horizon in my general direction.

“Good morning,” I finally said to the old man
as I ventured farther into the room.

He continued to grin, occasionally smacking
his lips as he emitted guttural grunts and chirping noises. His
stare never left the photograph, and his fingers lovingly caressed
the crisp greys that formed Tracy Watson’s image, lingering with
each pass on the shadows that outlined her ample chest.

“They tell me your name is Bob,” I
volunteered. “Mine is Rowan.”

No response.

I stepped closer to the table and listened.
Between the chirps and gurgles, he seemed to be muttering something
under his breath. I strained to understand the muted words and
found only an endless loop of “Tracy, Tracy, I love Tracy.”

After a short wait I pulled out the chair
opposite the man. “Mind if I sit down, Bob?”

Still no response.

Just the almost musical repetition of his
undying love for Tracy Watson.

I went ahead and took a seat. The old guy was
so enraptured by his visit from the television meteorologist that
nothing else existed for him in this space and time. The
reinforcement of his fixation wasn’t going to make my task any
easier.

Reaching across the small table, I passed my
hand back and forth through his tightly focused stare. “Bob, are
you listening to me?”

His gaze never wavered. No motion or sound
from him gave any indication that he was even aware of anyone
else’s presence in the small room. It became immediately obvious
that approaching him purely on the physical plane was going to be
useless.

I pressed myself for a moment to find the
balance I would need in order to even begin making an attempt at
what Ben wanted me to do. If I was going to avoid a repeat of
yesterday’s pounding headache, or even achieve a small modicum of
success in this task, I was going to have to anchor myself in one
place for a change. Drifting haphazardly about and allowing random
ethereal events to play themselves out through me wouldn’t do us
any good in this case. I was still entertaining doubts that any of
the ones I had been tortured by so far had done us any good to
begin with.

I closed my eyes and took a deep, cleansing
breath, steadily in through my nose then slowly out through my
mouth. As I exhaled fully I began systematically relaxing my body,
starting at my toes and working my way up. I was engaging myself in
the simplest of methods to attune to one’s surroundings. An
exercise pulled straight from WitchCraft 101.

Grounding and centering was the most basic of
all things a Witch would do. The process in and of itself quickly
became second nature to anyone who studied The Craft for any period
of time. While the process remained the same, after awhile it
became nothing if not automatic. To have to take the time to
actually concentrate on grounding was a rarity brought on by
unusual circumstance. The fact that I was now sitting in a quiet
room with no real distraction, but still had to consciously force
myself to follow these simplistic steps, made me feel like a clumsy
neophyte.

What had been almost instinctively happening
for my entire adult life, and in less than sixty seconds, was now
taking intense thought and more than five minutes. I knew I was
off-center, but this was much worse than I had originally thought.
This latest realization didn’t help me at all.

When I finally opened my eyes, the old man
was still fingering the photo and was giving no indication
whatsoever that he even knew we were in the room with him. Over my
left shoulder I could feel impatient expectance swirling around Ben
in a slowly expanding eddy.

My ethereal connection to an earth ground was
complete but tenuous. There was no doubt in my mind that it wasn’t
going to last.

Focusing my gaze on the unresponsive man, I
opened my otherworldly senses and summoned a calm, soothing energy
to fill my voice. “Bob,” I began in a near monotone, “I’d like to
talk to you for a little while, if that’s okay?”

Slipping in under the plane of everything
physically tangible, my words centered themselves on the old man
and drove inward with the singular task of gaining his attention.
As they struck their intended mark, he furrowed his brow slightly
and ceased his barely intelligible noisemaking.

With his stare seemingly interrupted by
something unseen by anyone but him, he slowly lifted his eyes to
meet mine and blinked groggily toward focus. The grin had melted
from his face momentarily to become an expressionless sag but now
returned in a wide swath as he tilted the eight-by-ten in my
direction.

“Tracy” was all he said.

“I know, Bob. She’s very pretty,” I said with
a nod, keeping my voice even. “But I was wondering if we could talk
about something else for a moment. What do you think?”

“Tracy came to see me,” he muttered. “She
luvz me.”

“I’m sure she does,” I agreed. “But I really
need to talk to you about something else, Bob. Do you think we
could do that?”

“An ah luv her.” He started nodding.

“Bob, I’m serious.” Without thinking I
projected urgent anger into the flow of energy as I spoke. “I
really need to talk to you about something else for a minute.”

The old man grew very still and almost
visibly inched away from me. I wordlessly chastised myself for
losing patience so quickly. I could already feel my hold on the
ground weakening.

Bob stared at me for a long measure, brow
creased and a frown pursed on his chapped lips. I mentally beat
down my impatience and imbued my voice once again with calm.

“I’m sorry, Bob. It’s just that this is very
important.”

“We kin talk if you want,” he answered
slowly, blinking at me with a somewhat confused expression. It was
as if he was unsure as to why he was bothering with me in the first
place.

On a supernatural level I had managed to
capture his fleeting attention. Now I had to keep it. Whatever form
of mental disability this man had been cursed with, it was
manifesting itself as a mélange of unfocused and simplistic
behavior. I felt like I was talking to a small child. In some very
real ways, I suppose I was. It should have made my task just that
much easier. Instead, the randomness of his jumbled thoughts was
only serving to make my head hurt.

“That would be great,” I replied. “Yesterday
you and I were talking about a Bible you had in your pocket. Do you
remember that?”

“Yes,” he nodded vigorously. “I ‘member. You
wanned uh’know ‘bout thuh fire.”

“That’s right,” I echoed in a soothing voice.
“You were telling me about the fire and something that was in
it.”

“Ah found sum cig’rettes.” He grinned at me
proudly. “Whole pack. I wuz gonna smoke um too. Till thuh lady wit
the pritty hair mashed um up.”

“Bob, what about the fire?”

“Uh lady.” He cocked his head slightly and
nodded at me. “Summon put uh lady in it. She had pritty hair.”

“The lady in the fire?”

“No, thuh lady what hurt me. She wuz mean but
she had pritty hair. She mashed up mah cig’rettes.”

“She’s not here right now.” I locked my gaze
with his and struggled to keep him on a track I could follow.
“She’s not going to hurt you. Now tell me about the lady in the
fire.”

“Didju know Tracy come to see me tuhday?” he
answered matter-of-factly. “Ah toad her ‘bout thuh truck.”

My ground was continuing to strain and weaken
as I fought to insinuate myself into the old man’s stream of
thought. I was embarrassed and even somewhat horrified that such a
plebian task should be so difficult for me to perform. At the very
least I should be able to maintain a simple ground without
expending all of my energy on it.

“What about the lady in the fire?” I pressed.
“Did you see who put her there?”

“Ah got a new coat too. Tracy gived it to me.
Did’ju see thuh truck too?”

“What truck, Bob?”

I didn’t know it was happening until it
happened. The very last thing I could recall was reaching
frantically for an imagined handhold as my ground severed in a
blue-white shower of ethereal sparks. Every last erg of energy I
had generated was catapulted forward like a rubber band stretched
to its limit, and then released. No longer doled out in a
controlled fashion, the rush of supernatural static impacted the
old man full force before rebounding threefold. I didn’t even begin
to have a chance to erect a defense against the returning tidal
wave of energy. Not that I could have done anything to protect
myself against an onslaught of my own making anyway.

In less than one second I became painfully
aware of the sensation that follows the deployment of an
airbag.

* * * * *

“Are ya’ gonna talk or did ya’ go mute on
me?” Ben’s voice reflected from the tiled walls of the men’s room.
Its sharp echo died a quick and painless death after a single hard
repetition.

I had yet to say a word since leaving the
interview room. All I’d been able to do was nod the affirmative
each time Ben asked me if I was okay. The moment I had stepped into
the freedom of the hallway, I wordlessly made a beeline for the
nearest restroom with my friend trailing along behind.

“I can talk,” I answered him softly.

“Finally! He speaks!” he exclaimed. “Are you
all right?”

“Yeah,” I returned hoarsely and nodded
without looking at him. “I’ll be okay.”

“So what gives? You were just sittin’ there
yakkin’ with the old guy, and the next thing I know he’s screamin’
like an idiot, and you’re holdin’ your head like you’ve just been
clocked in the face with a two-by-four,” he described. “Ya’ wanna
tell me what the hell that was all about?”

Fortunately, the old man’s screaming had
ended as abruptly as it had begun, and he was now perfectly content
to be once again drooling over his picture of Tracy Watson. Had it
been otherwise, I’m sure there would have been much more commotion
than had actually occurred.

I was standing at the sink holding my hands
cupped beneath the spigot as I stared into the mirror at my drawn
face. Soon they were filled to overflowing with cold water. Before
answering him I took a moment to bury my face in the pool of chilly
liquid before it could all seep through my fingers. Slowly I
massaged the water against my burning skin, allowing my fingertips
to linger at my temples for a long moment before falling away. At
this moment, with the way I felt, I would have welcomed the
headache that had plagued me on the previous day.

I remained pitched forward, leaning on my
forearms against the basin, remnants of the water dripping from the
end of my nose to splatter against the porcelain. The spigot
continued to trickle with a liquid hiss, spewing its offering into
the sink to disappear down the drain.

“Backlash,” I answered succinctly.

“Backlash?” he repeated the word in an almost
questioning tone as if it were alien in meaning.

“Backlash,” I echoed.

“From what?” he asked after a moment.

“From me not being grounded.”

“That some kinda Witch thing?”

“You could say that.”

There was a loud ratcheting followed by a
mechanical thunk. The pair of noises repeated twice in close
succession, shadowed only by their dull echoes, then silence fell
in behind them. A tearing sound came close afterward, and a moment
later my friend was handing me a wad of paper towels.

“So why weren’t ya’ grounded?”

“I seem to be having trouble with that
particular task lately,” I answered as I accepted the towels.
“Thanks.”

“No problem. Any idea why?”

“I wish I knew. I guess it really started
about the time the whole thing with the pool water happened… I
suppose that shock to my system might have something to do with it…
But, to be honest this whole investigation has had me off kilter,”
I offered. “The idea of someone reviving the Burning Times must
have affected me a little worse than I originally suspected it
would.”

“Okay, I’ll buy all that.” He began pacing
between the basins and the stalls. “But ya’ seemed okay yesterday.
I’ll admit you were a bit unsettled but nothin’ like this. You’ve
gone downhill in a big way all of a sudden, white man. What’s
different now? What else is goin’ on?”

“Well, I think it might be what I mentioned
earlier that I wanted to talk to you about,” I admitted as I dabbed
the brown paper at the wet spots on my face. “I had a pretty
serious dream last night.”

“Like the kind where ya’ get one of those
weird clues or somethin’?”

“Something like that I guess,” I
acknowledged. “It was a continuation of the nightmare I had the
other night. The one I wasn’t sure meant anything.”

“But ya’think it means somethin’ now.”

“I’m pretty sure it does.”

“Yeah, and?”

I sighed heavily before allowing my answer to
spill into the room. “I think I’m on the list.”