Water Witch (15 page)

After an hour I paced the room, barely seeing anything around me. I knew Salil had entered and left a few times, and now sat on the floor, watching me. When I glanced at him, his hunched shoulders and nervous eyes stopped me from yelling. He looked vulnerable, and it pleased me. How could he have spent the night with me, screwing around, laughing, when my home was being swallowed by the sea? How could he have just smiled and distracted me when I’d wondered out loud about the storm? Why hadn’t he helped me fight the waves on the roof? I shot him an angry glare, and he closed his eyes.
Good
.

Heavy rain still pelted the side of the house, and wind made the treetops howl and creak. I stomped to the window, looking out between the trees at the small patches of visible sky. They were dark with rain clouds, but the sun was rising, evidenced by a faint gray light. As soon as it was light I was leaving, no matter what Sad Eyes said or did. I frowned over at him again and resumed pacing.

“I know you are angry—”

“You don’t know! You can’t know. Just shut up.” Seriously if he was going to play the ‘
I know what you’re going through’
card, I would flip the fuck out.

He stood, but remained on the other side of the bedroom. “I will not. You have cause to be angry, but not with me.” He faced me, still sad but no longer cowering.

“Really? After you distracted me all night? Even though you knew exactly what was happening? After you refused to help me, stopped me from doing what little I could? Snatched me back here against my will? And how about these past few weeks? You could have told me! Hinted, even. But instead you played your stupid games.”

“I played no games, witch.” His eyes were no longer sad, and he took a step toward me.

“No games?” I met him half way, stopping just short of arm’s reach. “You stole my stuff, showed up in my visions, teased me in my dreams.”

He smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “I did not influence your dreams. If you dreamed of me, it was your own doing.”

I ground my teeth together, anger threatening to overwhelm me. His last name rattled around in my head, the power of it, and I was tempted to use it to send him away. I turned around instead, and stomped down the steps to his kitchen.

The sound of him on the stairs infuriated me. I wrapped my fingers around the top of a chair and squeezed my eyes shut.
Please, Goddess, don’t let him speak.

“It is just a house, Vincenzo. You will build another one. Please calm yourself.”

I’d lived my whole life without ever hitting another person, but I’d never been as tempted as I was just then. Instead, I gripped the chair tighter and ground out, “Shut the fuck up!”

“Do not speak to me that way. Especially not in my home.” He was growing angry, which gave me a perverse sort of joy.

“I won’t.” I stalked to the door, pulled on my sweatshirt, slipped into my still-wet shoes, and grabbed my duffle. “Goodbye, Fae.” I left as quickly as I could. Slamming the door behind me, I rushed out into the fading rain and ran through the forest.

My name, shouted angrily in his voice, echoed from inside the house, but I ignored it.

He caught up to me before I got to the circular field, and pulled me by the elbow. I spun to face him, wrenching my arm free of his grip. “What do you want?”

His hair stuck to the side of his face, channeling the rainwater into small rivulets down his cheek. “I want you to act like an adult, not a spoiled child.”

My anger boiled over. “Stay away from me,
Salil Varman
.” I spat his name, using all my power to compel him to leave.

The shocked, betrayed look on his face wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped it would be. He stumbled back as if I’d punched him, his eyes filled with hurt, his mouth slack. Then he flickered, and disappeared though a portal. I tried to wipe the image of his face from my mind, but the slight quiver of his lips, and the tiny disbelieving shake of his head, stayed with me. I turned and ran across the field, ignoring the rain as much as the hot flame of guilt in my chest.

Fuck him, anyway.
He shouldn’t have pushed me
.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I jogged through the fading rain all the way home. Or to the place where my home used to stand. I texted my mom with shaking fingers. She showed up a few minutes later with Ren and Dana. Liliana, Maxwell, and Jasper arrived soon after.

It was horrible. Our foundation was filled with rubble: pieces of the house, stones, furniture, and random belongings. All soaking wet, and most damaged beyond repair. One entire wall and a big part of the roof were still there, covering the lawn, but the rest of my house was just gone. The beach had eroded at least fifteen feet, and rocks covered the area where sand used to be. The gardens were destroyed, what plants remained were probably so salt poisoned they’d die soon anyway.

We all cried and wandered around, absorbing the scene. Then we linked hands and formed a circle. I was waiting for Liliana or my mother to say something, but no one spoke. We simply all mourned, my mother and I still crying softly. My knees grew weak and I wanted to sit, but then Dana spoke up.

“We will continue to grieve the loss of property here, even as we begin to accept the new path our covenmates must now travel. Let us rebuild together.”

We broke the circle and started working, pulling things from the wreckage, saving what we could. Several more coven members arrived, bringing boxes and plastic bins, and a large temporary dumpster for anything that couldn’t be saved.

I cried pretty much all day. Whenever I thought I had myself under control, I’d find some little thing, broken. Or realize the enormity of my loss. Or just look out to the water and feel the full betrayal of the bay I’d loved my whole life.

When the sun dropped below the tree line, my mother approached me, eyes dry. “I’m staying with Dana and Ren. How about you come have dinner with us? They have an extra bedroom you can use tonight.”

“No.” Her brows rose at my sharp reply. I rushed to temper it. “Sorry. No thanks, I just want to be alone. I think I’ll stay at the Covenstead.”

She pulled me into a hug. “You’re sure? What about Salil’s place?” Her words were soft and gentle against my shoulder, but they stung.

“How can you even suggest that? He knew. You understand that, right? He knew this would happen and he did nothing. Actually, scratch that—he distracted me with his stupid petty theft, and then kept me away during the storm. You think that’s okay? You forgive him?”

She shook her head sadly at me, like I was being dim. “Sweetie. He had no choice, you of all people should understand that. There are things you can change and things you must simply accept. I can’t imagine deciphering the patterns you see, and he sees more than even you. He loves you, Vinny, he would have told you if he could.”

I turned away in disgust, but she kept me close with a hand on my arm. “Vinny?”

“I can’t believe you’re okay with this.”

“I’m not ‘okay’ with anything here. But placing blame where none is due won’t help. Salil is not responsible for this.”

“I know that.”

“And he saved a lot of our most precious belongings.” Her eyes misted again.

“I know that, too.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and looked over our property with tears rolling down her cheeks. Ren strode over to us, drew her into a tight embrace, and repeated the offer of a bed for the night.

“No, thanks. I’ll be okay.”

He nodded at me and walked my mom to his car, where Dana waited. I watched them drive away, and wondered what exactly the relationship was between the three of them.

Maxwell hoisted the last plastic bin into the bed of his truck, and then jogged over to me. “Hey man, you want to crash at my place?”

I shook my head. “Naw, thanks anyway but I just—” An image of Salil flashed in my head, too clear and insistent to be natural. He was trying to contact me. And he was pissed. I shook my head. “I’ll be fine. Liliana has a room for me at the Covenstead.”

“You need a lift?”

Shit, my car was still there.
“Yeah, actually, that would help.” I forced a smile, ignoring the pounding headache that began when Salil’s image faded from my mind.

“Sure you’re all right?” Maxwell parked next to my car at the Covenstead and turned to face me.

“Yeah. Just a long shitty day.”

He winced in sympathy. “I know, man. I’m sorry.”

“I just need to sleep. Thanks for the ride.” As I reached for my duffel, his phone chimed. He fished it from his pocket and smiled. “Good news?” I asked.

He scratched the back of his head. “Yeah. I’m taking Myra out tonight. On a date.”

I laughed and clapped him on the back. “Good for you, man. That’s awesome.” At least someone was going to have a nice night.

I sat on the single bed in the spare bedroom I’d claimed, pressing my fingers to my temples. Salil was still there, hammering at my second sight. I would have given anything for my old charmed necklace at that moment. Fuck, that was gone forever, along with everything else. I went down to the kitchen to scrounge some booze.

Hours later, Liliana helped me to bed, dumping the two empty wine bottles beside me into the recycling bin with a sad shake of her head. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, Vincenzo. Rest now.”

I laid in the bed, the room spinning around me, and tried not to worry about Salil, or my house, or the impending ‘talk’ with Liliana.

I managed to avoid Liliana in the morning by sleeping late and leaving quickly. I went to Ren and Dana’s and had breakfast there, and we discussed the next steps in our cleanup and recovery effort. Then we spent the rest of the day at what remained of our house, throwing things into the dumpster. When I returned to the Covenstead in the afternoon, Liliana was waiting.

“Before you say anything, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Liliana had a cup of tea in her hand and a newspaper laid over her lap. “You have a good reason to drown your feelings. I just worry about you.”

“I know.” I sat in the chair opposite her. “I promise I’ll take care of myself.”

She nodded as if satisfied, but asked, “What else is on your mind, Vincenzo?”

I ignored my headache, which I was fairly certain was wine related today and not due to Salil’s anger. “What do you know about Fae names and banishment?”

Her eyebrows rose and she tilted her head at me curiously. “Not much. I had a Fae friend in school. I could contact her and ask. Is it important?”

“I did it to Salil.”

That got her attention. She straightened and leaned forward, holding her mug between both palms. “Why?”

“I was angry. I’m still angry.”

She grimaced and shrugged. “Want to talk about it?”

“No. But he’s…it’s like he’s pounding at my head, trying to get me to talk to him. I just want to know how bad it is before I let him in.”

“I’ll message her now.” She tapped at the screen of her slim blue cell phone. “How long are you planning to put him off?”

“I don’t know.” I wanted to say ‘until he gives up’ but the thought of not seeing him again gave me an almost physical ache.

Liliana nodded and rose. “I’ll let you know when I hear anything from my friend.”

“Thanks.”

When she’d gone, I closed my eyes and focused my power. I had to either block him or deal with him, and I didn’t want to talk to him yet.
I can do this.
I’d improved so much in the last few weeks, practicing everyday, gaining confidence. But all that had been efforts to reach outward, to open my mind to visions. This was about closing it, keeping a vision out. It was a different set of feelings, and it took me a while to do it comfortably.

When I felt confident Salil wouldn’t be able to knock his way into my mind, I opened my eyes and breathed deeply, my head quiet at last.

I pulled a blanket from the closet as I passed through the mudroom to the back door. It was chilly out, and I had no coat. I’d have to replace all my clothes and shoes.
Fuck. Don’t think about that now
. I found a spot in the field behind the Covenstead and sat on the damp grass.

Going through my meditation routine, I sought my Journeying place. The past few weeks it had been filled with frustration, the same images over and over, with no new ideas what they meant. Well, now I knew what they meant all right. Today I’d better see something new.

The tree looked the same as every other vision this month. A small but strong trunk, new leaves just beginning to form, and more than half the previous branches still there. The roots, though, had changed. No more mud, no more disappearing sections. The soil felt wildly alive. I smelled the rich earth and understood its fertility. The roots that were missing had disappeared completely—no fragments remained, no still-shrinking vines—they were just gone. And the ones that still supported my tree were pulsing with life. As if they wanted to form new growth, but waited. In fact, looking around it became clear nothing was growing at all. Nothing moved.

My whole life, there had never been a time when nothing moved. At minimum, the leaves were usually unfurling; the roots sending out tiny shoots, or creeping through the soil to form new paths. This stillness felt odd.

First I panicked: maybe it meant that things were ending for me, or that a new disaster would strike? The thought of anything else happening right then turned my blood cold with fear. But the soil was too rich, the life pulsing beneath the vision too strong. It had to mean something else.

Think
. I concentrated, the way Salil had encouraged me to, and I fought down the twinge of guilt at the memory of him sitting with me, patiently guiding me in my practice.
Later
.

It might have been all the weeks I’d spent practicing, or it might have been because at that particular moment I didn’t give a fuck about being a competent witch or a failure. The exhaustion from two nights of crappy sleep, a hangover, the disaster, and my fight with Salil all dragged away my inhibitions. I only wanted to understand the stillness of my vision. Nothing else mattered.

The walls erected through years of negligence to my craft fell away. I found the perfect focus I’d searched for so many times, and I
saw
. I understood. I knew what my vision meant: A crossroads.

Everything was motionless because I could go in any direction. The choices I made now would shape my life. And my tree was ready.

The sure and certain knowledge of my interpretation’s accuracy filled me with confidence. Once I accepted the truth of what I knew, so many things became clearer. The smaller, day-to-day visions I’d had all made sense. The little feelings and premonitions from the last few weeks suddenly added up. It was too late now, way too late, to do anything about the storm. But now that I accepted my power, I realized I would have foreseen it all, in detail, if I’d had this kind of understanding earlier.

It had taken the shock of tragedy for me to trust my instincts and harness my full power. And though regret for not taking my power seriously all my life and anger at the sequence of events rocked me, I couldn’t waste too much time looking back.

I had never really appreciated my talent. I’d wasted my skill, using only the surface of it for so long, even over these last few weeks. But today, in this simple journeying, I’d done it. Used my power, found my real strength. Not the power to see the future, but the skill to understand it. And now it was my responsibility to put that knowledge to use.

I lay down in the grass, the dampness soaking through my sweatshirt and into my hair. It wasn’t Salil’s fault. He had known, with his Fae foresight, that I’d never reach this epiphany in time. And he’d done what he could.

Fuck.
And I’d banished him, without even knowing what that really meant. What if he was in trouble there? Or hurt? He had to be pissed at me, at least.

“Liliana?” My voice echoed through the empty Covenstead. Her car was gone, too.
Fuck.
I’d give her an hour, then I’d let Salil into my head and deal with whatever he said.

I wanted a drink, but didn’t want Liliana to find me drunk again. I busied myself emptying the recycling bin and shoveling ashes from the over-full hearth until I heard her car door shut from the driveway. She had two bags of groceries in her arms, and I rushed to help her with them.

“Thanks, Vinny.” She tossed her keys on the small table near the door and sighed. “I’m in charge of appetizers for this month’s circle. I hope everyone likes bruschetta.”

“Of course.” I smiled and started unpacking bread and tomatoes from the bags. “Did you hear from your friend?”

“Yes! Sorry, she sent me an e-mail while I was at the store. Let me read it now. I can’t see on that tiny screen.” She indicated her cell phone with a toss of her hand and pulled a laptop from a drawer. “Okay. Hmm.” As her eyes scanned the message, her eyebrows rose.

“What? Is it bad?”

“No.” She closed the laptop. “She says it is something mostly done by children, like a prank or a tantrum. Salil will need another Fae to open a portal back from their plane. Or you will need to open a portal for him.”