Red Witch: Book Two of the Wizard Born Series (21 page)

Jamie smiled and watched the others walk up Fred’s front steps ahead of him as Fred held the front door open. Bryce was laughing at another one of Rollie’s wisecracks; Rollie grinned back at him. Jamie felt good.

* * *

Cassandra grabbed the volume knob on the car radio and cranked it up. She wiggled both hands in front of her and shimmied her shoulders.

“Feeling good, are we?” Rita said as she drove, tapping her cigarette ashes out of the window.

“You bet. That was
very
productive.”

Rita smiled and nodded. “Geraldine’s boy sure is good with a computer, isn’t he?”

“Percy is smart, that’s for sure.” Cassandra bobbed her head to the music. “We should get one Rita. And get hooked up to that Internet thingy.”

“For the last time, it’s not…oh, never mind.” She clicked the headlights on. “We were there longer than I thought. It’s almost dark.”

“There’s so much to see on that thing! I could watch it all day. Better than TV. Let’s get one, Rita.”

“First of all, we can’t afford it right now, and second, we can barely work a cell phone. How are we gonna learn to use a computer?”

“We could get Percy to teach us. We could pay him.”

“We need to save our money right now. Don’t know how long it’s going to take to find Grace Mary.”

“Oh, we’ll find her quick, thanks to Percy, We know the name of the auditorium and that it’s in Asheville, North Carolina. We’ll just call ’em tomorrow and they’ll tell us how to find her.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“Okay, Monday, then. They’ll know. Then we’ll head to Asheville, find out where she lives, pick her up, run back down here and,” — she slapped her hands together — “Bang! We’re back in the groove, stronger than ever.”

“I hope it’s that easy.” Rita tapped her fingers on the steering wheel “Just don’t be too disappointed if it takes longer than you think, okay? So when I say let’s be careful with our money, go along with me for once.”

“Rita, you talk like you’re my mom or something.”

Rita glanced over at her friend, dancing in her seat, spilling cigarette ashes all over her clothes, oblivious.
I feel like it, sometimes
.

* * *

Jamie sat next to Bryce in Bryce’s car and watched Fred and Melanie hop down Fred’s front steps. The girls opened the back doors and got in.

Melanie buckled her seat belt and said, “Jamie, are you sure you don’t want to sit in the back seat with Fred?”

“Uh uh,” Bryce said. “They’ll probably make out the whole way to Cullowhee.”

Bryce backed out of the driveway and Melanie rubbed her hand across the leather seat. “Nice car, Bryce.”

He put the car in drive and steered it down the road. “Yeah, well I didn’t pick it out.”

“Still.” She touched the wooden door trim. “It’s great. Wish I had a rich daddy to buy me a nice car.”

Bryce’s eyes narrowed and his jaw muscles twitched. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I’ll trade you my old clunker for it,” Melanie said, misinterpreting Bryce’s reference.
He wasn’t talking about his car
, Jamie thought.

Bryce didn’t respond; he stared stonily at the road. Jamie said, “Bryce is just using this until he makes enough to buy his own car.”

Bryce glanced at Jamie and didn’t say anything, but his jaw seemed to loosen a bit.

By this time, they were already on the main road. Fred said, “Bryce, you drive like a little old lady. It’ll be dark by the time we get there.”

Bryce stomped the gas pedal and Jamie felt himself pushed back into his seat.

“That better?” Bryce said.

“Much,” Fred said. “Let’s go see a college!”

* * *

Rachel was stirring a pot on the stove when she heard the front door close. “Jamie, you home?” She looked out of the kitchen doorway.

“Yes ma’am.” He walked into the family room and dropped some colorful Western Carolina University brochures on the table near the kitchen.

“Well?” Rachel said.

Jamie shrugged. “It was good.” He walked past her into the kitchen and pulled the top off the cookie jar.

“Just one, Jamie. Dinner’s almost ready,” she said as he put his hand inside the blue ceramic container. “What did you think of the school?”

“It’s nice. Campus is pretty. Coach was cool. Showed us around.” He took a big bite of his cookie. “Everybody liked it, especially Fred and Melanie.”

“Do you think you want to go there?”

“I might. I still don’t know what I want to major in, so I don’t know where I should go.”

“You can always transfer if you change your mind.”

“True.” He finished the last bite. “Cousin Earl wants me to major in Veterinary Science so I can take over his vet business, but I don’t know if I want to do that.”

“Why not? You’d be great at it.”

“I think so, too, but I hate the idea of having to put animals down for a living.”

“But think of all the animals you could help.”

Jamie shook his head and looked at the floor. “There’s nothing worse than having to help a vet put a dog to sleep. I know it ends their suffering and all that, but I sense those animals’ fears so strongly….” He looked at Rachel. “And I might want to major in Biology or Physics instead. I’m really interested in how magic works, and the more stuff I know, the better my magic gets. I’d love to apply the scientific method to the study of magic.”

“Too bad you can’t major in magic.”

“Yeah.” Jamie chuckled. “I’d get a BM. Bachelors of Magic.”

“Tricky part is making a living with it.”

“Right. Gotta pay the bills somehow.”

Rachel smiled at her curly-haired son.
It’s so strange to think about him having a career someday…living on his own…having a family
.

“Mom?”

“What?”

“Nothing. You just had a funny look on your face.”

“Oh.” She gave her head a tight shake. “Go find your father and tell him dinner’s ready.”

* * *

“Argh!” Rita hurled the phone across the room and it smashed into the wall, falling to the floor in pieces.

“Damn, Rita.” Cassandra looked up from the couch. “What is the
problem?
”

“That auditorium…grrr!” She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. “Won’t tell me nothing!”

Cassandra walked over and picked up the shattered pieces of the phone. “It’s not worth losing your temper over.” She gave Rita a concerned look. “You’ve been really edgy lately.”

“I know.” She took a deep breath. “I called that Thomas Wolfe Auditorium about ten times, and nobody will tell me anything about Grace Mary. The lady I just talked to said to call the production company that filmed the show.”

Cassandra dropped the pieces on the table. “Screw that. Let’s go back to Geraldine’s. Percy’s probably home from school by now, and he can get on that computer and find out what we need to know quicker than all these useless phone calls.”

Rita inhaled slowly through her nostrils.
Calm down
. “You’re right. Let me get my purse and we’ll go.”

An hour later, they were leaning over Percy’s narrow shoulders, looking intently at his computer monitor. Percy flipped his too-long dirty-blond hair from his pimply forehead with a shake of his head. Empty cans of energy drinks littered the desk.

“There it is,” Percy said, pointing to the screen. “Found it, but it’s not the show that you saw on TV, it’s an older one. ‘Rollie Wilkins, Jamie Sikes, and Grace Mary Callahan, all of North Henderson High, performed a benefit show at Shady Grove Retirement Home on May 21’. Then it goes on to say some other stuff.” He tapped the keyboard a few times and a different screen appeared. “North Henderson is in Hendersonville.” He tapped again. “I can’t find a Facebook page for Grace Mary.”

“Hendersonville.” Rita stood up straight and slapped her hands together. “Not Asheville like we thought.”

“Now all we got to do is call the school, and they’ll give us her address, right?” Cassandra said.

Percy shook his head. “A school won’t give out info like that to just anybody.”

“Then you can find it for us on this thingy.” Cassandra pointed to the computer.”

“I dunno.” He looked over his shoulder at Rita. “I’m not comfortable trying to hack their records. I don’t want to go to jail or nothin’.”

Rita put her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Percy. You’ve done enough. We can take it from here. We’ll contact the school on our own.”

“What do you want her for, anyway?”

“We’re going to make her a
business
offer.”

“Well, you’d better hurry. It’ll be Christmas break soon, and nobody will be in the school office.”

“That’s fine.” Rita caught Cassandra’s gaze and grinned. “We’ve got time.”

* * *

“Beautiful!” Fred clapped enthusiastically for her little dance prodigies. “Just beautiful.” She turned and looked at Mathew’s mom, standing behind her holding a video camera. “Did you get it?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I’ll show you.”

Fred and the leotard-clad kids crowded around her as she held the camera up so they could watch their dance routine on the tiny display.

“This screen is too small,” Mathew’s mom said. “I’ll put it on my Facebook page tonight so everybody can see it better.”

“You hear that, kids?” Fred said. “Tell your parents to check tonight.” She clapped her hands again. “Now, hand in your antlers before you go.”

The kids pulled them off their heads and gave them to Fred, all at once, except for Mathew. He clutched his tightly to his chest. “Mathew, I need that,” Fred said.

Mathew scowled and shook his head.

“Come on, Honey,” his mother said. “Give her the antlers.”

He held them tighter, stuck out his lower lip, and drew his eyebrows down so far that his eyes nearly disappeared. “Unh unh.”

Fred knelt beside him. “You’ll get them back. I just need to make sure that we have them for the recital. I may not be able to find a replacement for them if you lose them, because the stores usually run out this close to Christmas.” He still looked reluctant, so Fred said, “You can take them home forever as soon as the recital is over. That’s what I did when I was your age.”

He started to hand them to her, but stopped. “It’ll get mixed up with the others. I want
this
one.”

“We’ll make sure you get this one back.” She reached for it, and he let her take it. She turned it so that he could see the underside of the band. “We just need to remember that yours has this little white tag on it.”
Even though they all do. But he doesn’t know that.
“That’s all.”

He looked at the antlers for a long moment, then finally nodded. Fred stood and rubbed his hair. “What a good boy. Now go home and eat some dinner. I’ll see you Saturday morning.”

* * *

Rita watched Cassandra click the phone off and turn in her seat to face her.

“Well?” Rita said, leaning one shoulder against the wall near the big table.

“It was like Percy said. The school won’t give out personal information.”

“Gimme the phone. I’ll take care of it.”

“No, Rita.”

“What do you mean, no? Gimme the damn phone!”

“I mean no, you’re not getting it.” She shook it at Rita. “You might get mad and break it again, and this is the third new one we’ve bought since…since Izzy died. Yeah.” She nodded her head firmly. “That’s about right.”

“I promise I won’t break it.” She held out her hand, but Cassandra didn’t offer it to her.

Instead, she looked at Rita with her eyes narrowed to studious slits, her lower jaw working slowly from side to side. “Something’s up with you, Rita. You’ve been losing your cool way more than you used to.”

Rita sucked in her breath between her teeth before responding. “Just stress, that’s all. Just stress. We got bills to pay, and trying to find a new witch and everything….” She exhaled slowly. “Lotta pressure right now.”

“We’ve been under pressure before.” Cassandra wagged a finger at her. “It’s losing Izzy, isn’t it? It’s messing with your mind now, not having her around to mother us and bond with us and stuff.”

She rubbed one hand across her face. “Maybe. I’m not sleeping good. I seem to worry more now.”

“You need to chill a bit. What say we go down to the Screw tonight and find some men? I’ll mix up a fresh batch of our special love powder. That’ll do the trick, I bet. Getting laid.”

Rita nodded and sighed. “Yeah, Cass.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Some men.” She opened her eyes again and looked at Cassandra. “But after that we’re gotta figure out a plan to get Grace Mary. I think we’re gonna have to make a road trip to Hendersonville.”

“But first, some men.”

“Right. At least one each.”

* * *

Jamie was familiar enough with the sensation to immediately realize that he was in a dream, though the setting was a vague one. He and Fred sat together on a colorless couch in a featureless room.

“Hey, Fred.”

“Hey, yourself.”

He gestured at their surroundings. “Kinda bland, isn’t it?”

“Oh.” She flicked one hand and the walls and floors morphed into a perfect replica of her living room, the couch was her normal deep gold one with extra cushions. “How about that?” He nodded and she said, “I’m a little distracted right now…kinda excited!” She grabbed his arm with both hands. “I think I touched my mom’s dream.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, the images could have been from anybody’s, but it felt like her.”

Jamie blinked and shook his head. “You know that doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Fred blew an exasperated gust of air. “Like I can feel you. I know what you feel like, and I think I know what my mom feels like. It was somebody close, I’m sure. And I’m starting to see a more defined dreamscape now, so it’s not just feel anymore.”

Jamie stared at her blankly.

Fred scrunched her mouth and furrowed her brow. “This is just like when you try to explain your magic to me.”

“Okay.” He waved one hand vaguely. “I’ll try to accept whatever it is…you
feel
us, and I guess we feel different.”

“Right. But isn’t that exciting? That’s my first brush with somebody’s dream besides yours. Makes me wonder if I can get into anybody’s I want.”