Utterly Charming (26 page)

He would never guess that it was Ealhswith who would be spending eternity at his side.

She smiled and ate another piece of chocolate. “I so love it when a plan comes together,” she said and got up to draw her bath.

They reappeared in that same Beaverton neighborhood that Blackstone and Ealhswith had burned ten years before. In fact, Nora soon realized, they appeared on the front lawn of the house that had remained untouched in that blaze, the place where Blackstone had been arrested, the place where Sancho had parked the VW microbus in the street.

The house looked so different now. It had received a new coat of paint not too long ago, a robin’s egg blue that was both vivid and an incredible eyesore. The lawn was green and lush, and flowers filled a spectacular bed before the picture window. The garage door was open, and a dark blue Saab was parked inside.

Nora turned and glanced at the neighbor’s house across the street. A curtain flickered. Apparently the same nosy radio guy still lived there—or else he’d sold the place to some other nosy person.

“You can’t tell me a witch lives here,” Amanda whispered. “I would think she’d go for one of the older neighborhoods, perhaps on the east side. Not a newer development like this and certainly not in the
suburbs
.” She said that last as if it were hell itself, which, Nora had to admit, for her mother it was.

“Shush, Amanda,” Jeffrey whispered. “I live in the suburbs.”

“Nonsense,” Amanda whispered. “Eugene’s too small to have suburbs.”

Blackstone ignored the entire exchange. He took a step toward the house, then peered into the garage. He still had a firm grip on Nora’s hand, and she wasn’t really willing to let go either. She felt a strength in their clasped fingers, a strength she was afraid she’d lose if he let go.

“I can’t believe she’s here,” he said. “Why would she do this?”

“Because,” Jeffrey said, “she knew you wouldn’t think of it.”

“How many times had she done this before?” Blackstone asked.

“I don’t think it pays to look back,” Amanda said. “It certainly doesn’t for me.”

“I think Mother’s actually right for once,” Nora said. “I don’t think, in this instance, it pays to do any sort of recrimination. We need to get Emma out of here and quickly.”

“Should we fan out?” Jeffrey asked.

“Yes,” Blackstone said. “I think the quicker we find Emma, the better off we’ll be.”

“Always hoping for something you can’t have, aren’t you, Aethelstan?” The voice came from the roof. Ealhswith sat near the chimney, her long robe trailing down the shingles like a wedding dress train.

“You have no right to Emma,” Blackstone said.

Ealhswith smiled. “If you’re going to pursue that argument, then neither do you.”

“I’ve left her alone. I let her make her own choices.”

“Over the protests of your pretty lawyer there.” Ealhswith finger waved at Nora. “You realize you’re early.”

“Early?” Blackstone asked.

“I didn’t expect you for at least a week.”

His eyes narrowed. “I assumed time is of the essence.”

Ealhswith shrugged and looked at Nora. “Did my attorney send my notes?”

“Yes,” Nora said, drawing herself up to her full height. “They’re in the hands of the Fates now.”

“The Fates? Aethelstan, you’ll never get them to help you.” Ealhswith leaned forward slightly.

“I told them what you’re planning,” he said. “So they told me where you were.”

“Planning?” Ealhswith raised her eyebrows. “What am I ‘planning’?”

“To use Emma’s body as your own,” Nora said.

Ealhswith laughed. “My dear, do you know how difficult that is to prove? You have to wait until the deed is done. Are you going to wait?”

“No,” Blackstone said. “Where is she?”

“Emma?” Ealhswith shrugged. “She’s here somewhere. What are you going to do? Fight me for her?”

“If I have to.”

“How chivalrous of you, Aethelstan. Still haven’t gotten her out of your system?”

“She’s my soul mate.”

“Hmm, yes, well.” Ealhswith stood. Then she held out a hand, and lightning flared from her fingertips. Blackstone moved in front of Nora, and the lightning hit him, illuminating his frame, showing his skeleton through his clothes. He clenched his teeth but didn’t make a sound.

Nora reached toward him, then took her hands away, unwilling to burn them. “Let him go!” she shouted. “Let him go.”

Ealhswith closed her fingers into a fist, and the lightning stopped. Blackstone stumbled toward Nora, his clothes smoking. She put her arms around him to hold him up. He was warm and smelled of ozone, but nothing was burning.

“Tell him how I’ve always hated that word ‘soul mates.’ He’s used it too many times in the last thousand years.” Ealhswith walked to the edge of the roof. She gripped the edges of her robe.

“Let me go, Nora,” Blackstone said under his breath, “or you’re going to get it too. I’ll take care of Ealhswith. You find Emma.”

“But she’ll hurt you.”

“Nothing she hasn’t done before,” he whispered. Then he pushed away from Nora. “You don’t like the word ‘soul mate’ because you don’t have one, Ealhswith.”

She screeched and extended her hands. Lightning flared again, but this time Blackstone blocked it with his palms. “Nora!” he whispered.

Nora didn’t have to be told twice. She ran toward the garage, grabbing her mother along the way and beckoning Jeffrey. From above, it had to look as if they were going to hide.

They scurried into the darkness, behind the Saab. The concrete floor was amazingly clean, and unlike most garages, this one did not smell of ancient gas fumes or have any cobwebs.

“We have to find Emma,” Nora said. “She’s somewhere around here.”

“Amanda, you go in the house through the garage,” Jeffrey said. “Nora, you help your mother. I’ll take the yard.”

“No,” Nora said. “The yard’s not safe.”

“I know,” Jeffrey said. “But that old witch on the roof has her eye on you. I doubt she’s even noticed me. I might be able to pass for a neighbor.”

The air smelled of ozone. Nora could no longer see Blackstone, but a fire had started in the front yard. This was how they had burned the neighborhood the last time.

“No,” Nora said. “Change of plans. Mother, go warn the neighbors to leave their houses. Blackstone and Ealhswith are going to start large fires. That’s what happened last time.”

“And I thought he was such a nice man,” Amanda said and started toward the garage door.

“Amanda,” Jeffrey hissed. “Go next door first.”

Amanda nodded, and then, keeping low, she headed toward the next house on the block. A ball of fire landed in the street, ignited against some old oil, and continued to burn.

“I thought you said they had to put everything right,” Jeffrey said.

“They do,” Nora said. “I just don’t want anyone to get hurt, even if it’ll be repaired and they won’t remember it.”

Jeffrey leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You’re as sweet as your mother.”

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment for a lawyer,” Nora said. She headed off behind the Saab toward the door that connected the garage to the house. Outside, Blackstone came back into her range of vision. He flicked his front two fingers as if he were removing lint, and a fireball the size of Nora’s head zoomed across the yard. She couldn’t see if it hit its target.

Ealhswith was shouting, but Nora couldn’t make out the words. Blackstone laughed in response. It was not a pretty sound.

Jeffrey pushed the air with his right hand, as if he could push her inside. Nora nodded, then took the two concrete steps and tried the gold doorknob. It turned. She stepped inside a well-lit kitchen. There were no dishes anywhere, and the appliances had clearly never been used. It looked like a model home’s showroom kitchen, and still smelled new, even though Nora knew this home had been standing at least ten years.

She crossed into the living room. The carpet was white and looked as if it had never been stepped on. White leather couches and teak chairs covered the living room floor. A big screen TV dominated the room and DVDs spilled off it.
The Frighteners, American Werewolf in London, The Haunting
. Others had handwritten labels, mostly from television shows:
Bewitched, Sabrina the Teenage Witch
, and of course,
The X-Files
.

Was Ealhswith a movie buff? Was she watching because she was lonely or was she trying to pick up tips?

Nora didn’t have time to find out. She walked through the living room and up the stairs that led to the second level. As she did, she hit a smell so powerful that it was like another wall. Mold and mud and stagnant water. Nora almost sneezed.

Something whooshed outside. Nora turned. The floor to ceiling windows near the front door entry showed a fire burning the pine tree in the lot on the other side of the street. It looked like the tree just exploded into flame.

Nora ran up the stairs. “Emma!” she called. “Emma!”

No one answered. She peeked into the master bedroom and wished she hadn’t. More white, an unmade bed covered with a canopy and satin sheets. An opened box of chocolates was tangled in the white duvet. Another big screen television and a state-of-the-art entertainment system, with more DVDs scattered about, these mostly film noir classics like
Laura
and
A Touch of Evil
. Big stories about bad women. Nora had a hunch she knew who Ealhswith was rooting for.

The master bathroom had perfume vials and potion bottles, several of which smoked. It was the source of the smell. The tub was full of steaming water, with a skim of oil on the top. Unlit black candles were scattered along the rim. Nora backed out of that room and went back into the hallway. One room was empty except for a half assembled glass coffin. It surprised her that Ealhswith had been putting the thing together by hand. But the fact that it was half finished was a good sign. Emma wasn’t in her coma yet.

“Emma!” Nora yelled again. She thought she heard something outside of the voices shouting outside. She yanked open the last door and stumbled into a menagerie.

Dogs in cages, trying to bark but unable to, their muzzles opening but nothing coming out. Cats in smaller cages, pawing at the locks. Fish in floor-to-ceiling tanks, all staring at Nora. A gerbil that had been running in its little wheel until Nora opened the door. Turtles and frogs and chameleons all in their little boxes. And a snake that looked somehow quite familiar.

Blackstone’s snake? That horrible Ealhswith had taken it from him and let him think it was dead?

The house rattled, and more booms echoed outside. Nora’s heart was pounding. The dogs continued their silent barking. The cats kept jiggling the cage doors. Nora parted a curtain. The neighborhood was burning. The house across the street was engulfed in flames and, as she watched, the flames traveled from one roof to the other. She looked down on the lawn. She saw someone running, but she couldn’t tell if that was Blackstone.

In the distance, sirens wailed.

She let the curtain drop. Steeling herself, she grabbed the snake, and it slithered up her sleeve, like it used to do with Blackstone. Its scaly skin wasn’t as sharp as she thought it would be. It was rather oily instead. Even so, she shuddered.

One of the frogs started jumping in its little aquarium. Leaping up against the mesh top, then landing on the pile of rocks, then leaping up against the mesh top, then landing. Nora frowned at it. The gerbil was peering against its glass cage, watching her.

The frog started leaping harder and harder, bashing its little head against the mesh.

With a simple flick of my finger, I could turn you into a toad.

Ealhswith had said that to her in Nora’s apartment.

Aren
’
t you being a bit clichéd?
Blackstone had asked.

Nora’s breath caught in her throat. The room was beginning to smell like smoke, but that wasn’t what was bothering her. What bothered her was the idea she had just had, the idea that these weren’t trapped animals. These were trapped people.

The frog was denting the wire mesh.

Nora leaned toward it. “Emma?”

The frog landed on its rock and nodded. Nora had never seen a frog nod. Only it wasn’t a frog. It was too bumpy and small to be a frog.

It was a toad.

Nora turned to the other animals. “Are any of you Emma?”

The dogs stopped yapping and sat in their cages, their mouths hanging open and their tongues sticking out. The cats ignored her, continuing to try to grasp the locks. The fish were still staring at her, all lined up in front like computerized fish or photographs of fish. And the gerbil had its tiny paws against the glass.

“None of them are, but you are?” Nora said, turning to the toad.

It nodded again.

“My God,” she said, pulling aside the mesh and grabbing the toad. It felt soft and rubbery beneath her fingers.

The snake slid out of her sleeve, hissing and snapping. The toad squirmed even more.

Nora shook that arm and let the snake drop. Then she put the toad in her shirt pocket, bent over, and grabbed the snake beside its little eyes. She raised it to her face.

“If you ever want to see Blackstone again,” she said, “you’ll do as I say. Leave that toad alone.”

The toad was watching out of her pocket. Nora let the snake climb up her sleeve again. Then she crept through the hall, down the stairs, and into the garage.

The snake had wrapped itself around her upper bicep. The toad kept its head out of her pocket but didn’t move much beyond that. It was trembling. Nora touched it lightly with her finger.

“Hang on,” she whispered. “This could get rough.”

The toad nodded again.

Nora walked around the Saab. Big waves of inky black smoke were roiling down the street. The house next door was gone, and so was the house beyond that. The houses across the street were cindered remains. Ash was falling from the air. She couldn’t see her mother or Jeffrey.

She stepped on the slight incline that separated the garage from the driveway. Blackstone was in the center of the lawn, lobbing fireballs at the roof. Apparently Ealhswith hadn’t gotten down.

The sound of the sirens had grown.

Nora waved. Blackstone looked toward her, then instantly looked away. He lobbed another fireball, then another, and another. They flew toward the roof, but obviously didn’t land because the house wasn’t burning. Something exploded behind the house. Ealhswith was as good at diverting his spells as he was at diverting hers.