The End of Magic, page 16
As she and Freddy lay in Eleanora’s bed, snuggled up together like two bugs in a rug, Devandra knew she had to reach out to the others. No one had called her, but Freddy had received a text from Arrabelle, letting them know they were in Italy (which was craziness), that Daniela was ill, and they would come as soon as they could manage.
You can’t come back here, ladies, Dev thought, while Freddy’s soft snores tickled the back of her neck. It’s just not safe anymore.
It was heartrending to think the place she’d called home was now an alien thing. No longer would she feel protected. Her house was gone. Her family was gone. The warmth and safety she’d known walking the streets of her beloved neighborhood were gone. There was nothing left for her in Echo Park.
Taking care not to wake Freddy, she wiggled out of his arms and crawled out of the bed. She wore her long strawberry-blond hair loose at night, and it grew so fast these days that it trailed almost to her waist. Her feet protested at the coldness of the floor, but she ignored them and went to Eleanora’s dressing table. Here she found Freddy’s phone and carried it with her out of the bedroom.
The house was silent as a tomb, the air chilly enough to make goose bumps appear on Dev’s exposed arms and throat. She scuttled down the darkened hallway on tiptoe, careful not to turn on any lights as she went. When she reached the living room, she made her way to the couch and settled in, pulling an afghan from its back and bundling up.
“Better,” she said, still shivering. But she could already feel the crocheted afghan doing its job. Warmth was returning again.
She took out the phone and the screen flared to life, the phone vibrating in her hand. She searched through the contacts and selected Arrabelle’s name from the list. She sent her friend a text message:
Don’t come back. We will meet you in another place. Xoxo D
She deleted the text from Freddy’s phone—it was instinctual, there was no logical reason for the move—and then she depressed the power button, putting the phone back to sleep.
She was back in bed five minutes later, Freddy’s phone exactly where he’d left it when he’d gone to bed that night.
• • •
Dev dreamed of the girls. They were in a garden with Lizbeth and everything was okay. She wasn’t close enough to speak to them. All her observations came from far away—almost as if she were watching them through the eye of a telescope, so that, at first, they looked close, but then it became clear they were actually light-years away. Like watching a star being born only to realize that it was already long dead. That what she was seeing had happened billions of years ago.
This was how far the image traveled to reach her. She wept, thinking of the girls. It was all so devastating, the wanting to be there to watch them grow up, to help them when they needed her most . . . and not being allowed to.
She must’ve cried out in her sleep because she found herself being shaken awake, Freddy’s worried face staring down at her as she opened her eyes.
“You okay?” he asked. She wasn’t fully awake yet and the dream still held on tightly to her. “Dev?”
She rolled over and sat up, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She looked around the room—Eleanora’s room with its delicate vanity and warped mirror, the light cream curtains under heavy drapes, the thick-slatted wooden floor—and she began to relax, the familiar smells and sights calming her panic.
“Bad dream,” she said finally, pressing her body back into the mound of pillows and closing her eyes. “The girls were far away and I couldn’t reach them . . . it was awful.”
Freddy took her hand, pulling her knuckles to his lips.
“We’ll get them back. I don’t know how, but we will,” he said, and kissed her hand.
“I wonder . . .” she murmured under her breath. “Freddy, hold on a second.”
She sat up and swung her legs off the bed, gathering her nightdress around her.
“The Dream Journals,” she said, and quickly padded across the uneven hardwood floor to the smallest closet in the room. This was where she and Lyse had stored Eleanora’s things. “Well, the one Lizbeth left behind, at least.”
She opened the door and knelt down, beginning to pull stuff from the bottom.
“We made her leave one book behind, just in case,” Dev continued, digging out shoes and boxes in order to get to the false floor. “Of what? I don’t know.”
“Can I help?” Freddy asked.
“Take these,” she said, handing him two small boxes followed by two more. “And these. I need to make some room.”
Once Freddy had joined her in her efforts, the work went quickly, and they were able to get the floor cleared in no time.
“It’s under here,” Dev said, feeling around the empty floor with her fingers. “It’s like a little latch—”
There was a small click, and with a triumphant smile, she lifted part of the wooden floor.
“Yes,” she murmured, slipping her hands inside the depression until she found what she was looking for. “Here we go.”
She pulled out an oilskin-wrapped square and sat back, the package resting on her lap. With nimble fingers, she began unwrapping it, creating a cloud of dust that made her nose twitch. She pulled the journal from the oilskin and lifted it up in the air. It wasn’t a large book, but there was a weight to it that belied the flimsy cardboard covering. Inside, there would only be blank sheets of paper, but Dev knew the translucent lined pages bore the stamp of magic.
“Dream Journal acquired,” she said, and smiled at Freddy. “Now I need Eleanora’s cards.”
• • •
They sat at the round oak table, the morning sun streaming through the windows and setting the kitchen aglow with pale light. Dev was still in her nightdress, but she’d tied up her long hair in a loose bun, tendrils of it curling around her face. Freddy sat across from her, a look of intense concentration on his usually relaxed features.
This magic stuff was all new to him. Dev was sure that in the past, he’d wondered about what she did—was the magic for real or was she just pretending to read the tarot cards? He knew she saw clients out in the redone garage—the Mucho Man Cave, as they’d lovingly christened it—but she doubted he really believed she was doing anything magical out there among the mismatched tables and chairs. In light of everything that had happened to them, he was forced to accept that his partner was special. That Dev could do impressive feats of real magic—feats like the one she was about to attempt right there in Eleanora’s kitchen.
“You really think it will work?” Freddy asked.
Dev didn’t know for sure, but she had a feeling that it might. Because things were different in the world now. Like a spigot turned to full blast—when before there’d barely been a trickle—magic was everywhere.
“All we can do is give it a shot,” she replied, setting the Dream Journal down on the table between them.
It was a faded thing, tattered and worn out like it had spent too long in the sun. Someone had drawn an ouroboros on the cover in pen and ink: smooth strokes from a sure hand. Dev had never given the symbol much thought, but as she stared down at it, she could feel the magic it represented almost leaping off the paper.
“What is it?” Freddy asked.
“The ouroboros?” Dev answered, making sure the image of a snake eating its own tail was what Freddy was referring to.
He nodded.
“It’s creepy.”
“You feel that?” Dev asked, surprised. The symbol made her skin crawl, but she hadn’t expected Freddy to pick up on it, too.
“It’s repellent,” he said, biting his lip. “Like I’m not supposed to look at it.”
Dev knew what he meant.
“It represents the Eternal . . . that which has no beginning, no middle, and no end. Something we humans can’t and shouldn’t try too hard to understand.”
“I’m fine with that,” Freddy said, giving her a tight smile. “It doesn’t want me to look at it and I’d rather not look at it, either.”
Since they’d lost the girls, Freddy’s marvelous sense of humor had been tamped down by grief, but, finally, it was starting to rear its head again. She gave him a wink, pleased to see it reemerging.
“Don’t think you can charm me that easily,” he continued, enjoying the flirtation between them. “You’ll have to work harder than a wink to get me.”
Dev laid her hands down on the tabletop. She needed to take a moment here, tell Freddy how important he was to her. She’d let that slide in her exhaustion and terror. She’d put her feelings above his when she should have given them parity with her own. Marji and Ginny were half his, and he’d loved her family as much as she had. He was dealing with the same complex emotions, only she hadn’t been there to protect him the way he’d protected her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her throat tight as she tried to hold back her emotions. “I went away and I wasn’t there for you.”
He looked up at the ceiling, then down at his nail-bitten hands, anything not to meet her gaze.
“I miss you.”
He nodded, taking it in. Then he looked up at her, his eyes wet with tears.
“Don’t apologize to me like that, Dev,” he said. “It was my honor to look after you when you needed me. You are my other half, the better part of me—you know that—and I never don’t feel connected to you. Even through all of this, through losing the girls and your mother and sisters . . . the house . . . everything . . . I still feel . . . felt connected to you. So just . . . don’t apologize for needing a moment to collect yourself. It’s my job to look out for you. And, honestly, I can’t bear you thinking you needed to apologize. It’s a given, Dev. I love you. That doesn’t change.”
“But you needed me, too,” she said, wiping at the tears that streamed down her face.
“And I have you. I’m getting what I need, Dev.”
He magically produced a handkerchief from his pocket, and she saw his initials embroidered on the white fabric in light blue stitches. It had been his gift from her on their fifth anniversary. She took the proffered handkerchief and blew her nose.
“You don’t hate me?” she asked
“For snotting up my handkerchief?” he said, grinning. “Hell, no.”
Sobs and laughter burbled out of her, mixing together until Dev didn’t know if she was crying or laughing. Probably both, she thought.
“We’re so stupid,” she said, climbing out of her chair to hug the man she loved. “If we just lean on each other, we can get through anything.”
She kissed the side of his face, pokey bits of dark stubble scratching at her cheek.
“We can do that,” Freddy agreed. “We can definitely do that.”
He kissed her back, this time on the lips, and for the first time in days, Dev began to feel safe again. As they broke apart, Freddy stared up into Dev’s eyes.
“I want to marry you,” he said.
She was taken aback, shocked even. The idea seemed to come out of nowhere.
“What?”
“When this is all over, I want you to be my wife. Officially.”
Dev swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.
“I didn’t mean—” She started to protest, but he shushed her with another kiss.
“Just say yes,” he murmured against her mouth once they’d parted again.
She opened her eyes, his love encircling her like a cocoon.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Now go do this magic spell, or whatever it is,” he said, grinning like a little boy who’d just gotten the birthday present he wanted.
She left him, her fingers brushing his arm as she circled past him and returned to her chair. She was giddy, her body thrumming with excitement—but she reined her happiness in and took her seat. She reached across the table, picking up the blue velvet drawstring bag that contained Eleanora’s deck of tarot cards.
“I am a cartomancer.”
She intoned the words to the cards as she removed them from their bag and set them out in front of her.
“I have the gift of divination and with your blessing, I will ply my trade.”
She set her hand palm down on the topmost card, letting the cards get a sense of her. She knew she would be able to wield the deck if, and only if, the deck gave her its permission.
“Dev—”
She knew what Freddy was going to say—Why are you asking permission? They’re just cards—but she silenced him with a wave of her hand. She needed silence and goodwill in the room. There could be no doubting. Freddy seemed to get what she was asking of him and he nodded, sitting back in his chair and waiting for her to continue.
“If I have your goodwill, show me a sign—”
Dev cried out, the palm of her hand on fire. The pain was so terrible that she almost drew her hand back, but something inside her told her this would be a fatal mistake. Instead, she gritted her teeth and let the fiery sensation burn her hand. Just as she almost couldn’t take anymore, the pain eased and a cooling balm spread across the flesh of her palm. There was a heady scent of ambergris and myrrh, as if someone had turned the two scents to ash inside an incense burner.
“You once belonged to Eleanora Eames and before her to Svetlana Aoki and before her to Mary Westover and before her to your original maker Lady Frieda Harris . . .”
The cards seemed to warm at the mention of that last name, as if they missed their first mistress, the woman who had painted all the imagery for Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth tarot cards—for this had been one of Lady Harris’s own decks. The warmth grew until the cards were toasty, but they never got as hot as they were during that first interaction.
“Thank you for offering us your services,” Dev said to the cards—and then she lifted them in her hand and began to cut them, setting four separate piles down on the tabletop.
“We do not seek your help in divination but in reaching out to the spirit world . . . to the dreamlands.”
She took the top card from each pile and placed them at the cardinal directions around the Dream Journal: North was The Star to guide them, West was The Moon to light their way, East was The Sun behind them, and South was The Chariot upon which they would attempt this journey.
She’d loved these cards from the first moment she’d seen them. Eleanora had shown them to her not long after she’d been initiated into the coven, and since that day she’d been obsessed with owning them for herself. The Book of Thoth tarot’s Major and Minor Arcana were an art deco masterpiece, gloriously rendered in brassy gold, moss green, and lavender geometric patterns . . . and their provenance made them even more special.
Dev just hadn’t imagined them coming into her possession so soon or in such a tragic way. With Eleanora’s untimely death.
The ring of a telephone cracked through the air, jarring them both out of the calm Dev had created with her intonations to the cards.
“Is that the landline?” Freddy asked.
He didn’t wait for an answer, just got up and reached for the corded phone hanging on the kitchen wall near the refrigerator. He held the receiver to his ear and frowned.
“Just dial tone.”
Dev wasn’t surprised, certain the ringing had come from the back. Where Freddy’s cell phone lay on the side table in Eleanora’s bedroom.
“It’s yours.”
The ring came again, louder and more insistent. Wailing like a baby to be picked up.
“Go get it?” Dev asked—and Freddy took off like a shot.
She looked down at the cards and was shocked to find that two of the cards had rearranged themselves: The Moon had swapped places with The Sun.
Guided by the sun, the moon at our backs, Dev thought.
“This is crazy. I heard ringing, but I pick up the phone and it’s not ringing,” Freddy said, as he jogged back into the room, his phone held out in front of him like it was possessed—and maybe it was. “Here.”
He handed Dev the cold, dark hunk of plastic and metal—but as soon as the phone touched her skin, it roared to life, vibrating in her hand.
“Damn,” she said, almost dropping it.
“Should we answer?” Freddy asked, and Dev nodded, staring at the screen, which read Unknown Caller.
“Yeah, I think so,” she said—and pressed the accept button.
She put the cell phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
She listened for a moment, disbelief dawning across her face.
“Who is it?” Freddy asked, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Dev removed the phone from her ear and set it on top of the Dream Journal, engaging the speakerphone.
“. . . and Auntie E is here, too, and the Tall Lady . . . and we can make things happen that are like magic . . . you’re talking too much, Ginny . . . No, you’re talking too much, Marji . . .”
A tear rolled down Dev’s cheek as, together, she and Freddy huddled around Eleanora’s round oak table, listening to their daughters reaching out to them from across many universes.
Lyse
Lyse had heard the commotion in the hallway—saw Arrabelle taking off after an excited Niamh, both women heading for Daniela’s room—and knew something had happened. Logic told her that Daniela had woken up . . . there was no way she could’ve taken a turn for the worse. But that didn’t make her feel any better as she ran down the long white hall, the squeak of her sneakers echoing through the corridor. She could feel her heart rate increasing, hear the hiss of her own labored breathing in her ears.
She was not paying attention to her surroundings, her worry for Daniela ruling her senses. She didn’t see the well-built man with the silver cropped hair until he’d stepped out in front of her. Her instincts kicked in and she screeched to a stop on the linoleum-tiled floor, hands out in front of her as if to ward off an attack. The silver-haired man wore a snarl of disdain. It was obvious he hated her, and he didn’t make any bones about it.
