21 Shades of Night, page 458
Some men responded with “Amen to that” and “Huzzah” but I simply waited until they were done and went on.
“Yes, it’s true my own sister Gertie was conned by a Circle member. Some Circle men are bogus, like many businessmen are corrupt. Sure, she lost her money, even got hooked on opium. But that doesn’t mean all mentalists are cons. When I met Fiera, I knew that wasn’t the case.”
“Aw, bunk, you just like her body,” Tim yelled. “She’s a filthy fraud like the rest.”
“Really? Is that why I fainted at her touch? No, not fainted. I’ll say it straight, men. I went into a genuine, bona fide trance. I had visions. And I hadn’t smoked one lousy puff of opium, of heroin. Wouldn’t touch that evil stuff, after my sister almost died from it.”
“But how do you know Fiera didn’t drug you?” someone asked.
“Because Fiera wasn’t serving drinks. She wasn’t sitting anywhere nearby. In fact, she was across the table from me.” I shrugged. “There’s no other explanation than there’s more to the real world than you bigoted dolts assume.” A loud, unsettled clamor erupted. I didn’t wait for any response or judgment, just simply plunged on.
“I never trusted my own intuition; I was always kowtowing to know-it-all bullies. Yes, like you, Dickerson.”
There was a shocked explosion of protests, led by Mr. Turnip Face himself. “Who the hell do you think you are, Dune?”
I shrugged. “A man, a sensible, intelligent, rational man with intuition that’s getting stronger by the day. I know Fiera’s a genuine spiritualist. It has nothing to do with the fact that I love her. Yes, you heard me. I love and worship the woman.”
Dickerson was practically choking on his tongue. “Get out, you rude, loudm—”
“With pleasure. I quit!” I threw the rest of the Circle photos and notes on the table.
“I’ll see to it that witch lover of yours gets slapped in jail,” Dickerson bellowed. “And what’s more, you’re going to get a hefty fine, or jail time yourself,” he added.
Marching out of that library with its curdled energy and suffocating cigar smoke was a gift—except for the threats to fine me, jail me… or worse, Dickerson’s promise to get Fiera jailed when we stepped off this Morro Cruise from hell.
Chapter 25
THANK THE HEAVENS Opal and I found Dulcie rocking on the porch of the Asbury Hotel. We herded her up to the privacy of her room where we relayed, in breathless gasps, the whole saga of Alyse, the grimoire, and my roots as a sea witch. I’d been so reluctant to tell Dulcie anything; afraid her proper upbringing would make my dark secrets too shocking for her. After all, witches, spell books, and murderous mothers were the stuff of lunatic nightmares. But Dulcie surprised me as she often did with how accepting of strange new realities she could be when tested.
She grabbed my hands and squeezed them. “Fiera, you must take sanctuary from your, um… mother immediately! I’ll ask my daddy to put you up in his Belmar Breeze hotel. That’s far enough away from Asbury that she won’t find you.”
“Isn’t that asking too much of him, and too much of your kindness?” My chest pinched with worry.
“Of course not! That dreadful woman is dangerous. I can’t understand why I never saw it.” Dulcie turned to Opal. “But you did, didn’t you, dear?” Opal nodded. Dulcie squeezed my hands again. “It’s a miracle that sweet old caretaker saved you all those years ago. And your mother killed the poor woman?” Dulcie shuddered, her eyes widening in empathic fear. “It makes me quite ill to think of it.”
“Yes,” I said, “that kindly woman risked her life to bring me to the orphanage in Brooklyn. I feel terrible she saved my life only to lose hers to that… that…” I couldn’t finish. For it broke my heart to finally find my mother, only to discover in the very same breath she was a monster of horrific proportions.
“Shh, now, shh.” Dulcie came over and gave me a motherly hug, which inspired tears I never dared shed while my mother was tormenting me. I tried not to cry long. If did, I might never stop. Wiping my face on my sleeve, I attempted a smile.
“May I help Fiera practice the spells in the hotel?” Opal asked. “We would promise to keep things spotless.” She looked doubtful.
Dulcie went so quiet I thought she’d say no, but she finally exclaimed, “Opal, you must stay there, too. It’s not safe for you in Asbury. Alyse knows you two keep company. She could harm you to get to Fiera.”
“Oh, we are beyond grateful,” I gushed.
“Thanks, Miss Dulcie,” Opal said.
“It’s Dulcie. No miss,” Dulcie insisted. Opal nodded, clearly still intimidated. “The Asbury Hotel is so boring without you there, Fiera,” Dulcie admitted. “It’s funny, I was just thinking of getting back to Daddy’s Belmar hotel until summer’s end, and now, well…” She shrugged. “This decides it. We’ll have us a fancy pajama party,” she chirped.
* * *
DULCIE WENT ABOVE and beyond. Not only did she charm her father into opening up two adjoining suites, she talked his driver into picking up Opal, our belongings, and me. We didn’t have much. Our rooms in the Starfish Inn were already furnished. I had one suitcase to be exact, and a grab bag filled with towels, bathing gear, and filched teabags. Opal had about the same. I determined if we got out of this present dilemma in one piece, we both needed to shop for new dresses and stockings.
Except right now, we had things more pressing to think of—steering clear of Alyse, recovering the grimoire, and keeping it from Alyse’s clutches. Inside, I felt the countdown of an invisible time clock. One that if not heeded before it ceased ticking would lead to mortal danger.
The rooms provided some splendid creature comfort. Opal and I had a shared room with our own bed and an ocean view. Dulcie had her own queen bed next door with a handmade Birds of Paradise quilt. She ordered in three roast chicken legs with steamy mashed potatoes. Everything tasted divine. I indulged in a long shower and slipped into bed, exhausted from my dark ordeal. Opal did the same. Tomorrow, we would rise at dawn and Dulcie’s driver was set to take us to the Asbury beach, no questions asked. The earlier, the less chance of running into Alyse, who kept late hours at the speakeasy. I couldn’t afford to run into her again until my magic was stronger. For that, I knew I must practice. Would the sea siren still be there? Would she tell me how to collect the grimoire willed to me at thirteen? Despite these questions tumbling around in my mind, I drifted off like a cloud in a sunny sky.
* * *
IT WAS FIVE am and barely dawn when we tumbled into the hotel chauffeur’s extravagant Buick town car. He asked no questions, just drove us to the spot Dulcie had requested. When we piled out, he barely turned his head. Simply stared out at the road ahead. Must be lovely to have a hired limo at one’s disposal, I thought.
Up on the Asbury Park beach, Dulcie and Opal spread out the blanket and arranged the supplies. It was still chilly so they bundled up in shawls. The tradeoff was a blessedly empty beach with no lifeguards. No Alyse lurking about, even in the murky shadows under the boardwalk.
I had practiced my underwater strokes enough that I was no longer in need of a rescue. We waved once to each other before I dove into the breakers and shot down into the emerald-green depths.
No need to breathe, no pain or pressure in my lungs. It was all still miraculous. Yet there was a new surety to my mission, in finally knowing my strange yet special heritage.
Sea witch!
The idea filled me with shivers of pride and delight. It felt right, as nothing had felt right in all of my twenty-two years. Having swam a distance of about thirty street blocks, I made out the lantern’s green glow and—yes—the siren’s flowing hair! A denser shade of green than the lantern, her long curls danced around her face in gentle arcs. As before, she beckoned me over with her hand, and her voice called out in that singsong language—high-pitched melodic calls not unlike what I imagined a dolphin song would be. Again, my mind easily translated.
You are here! I am glad. I’ve been guarding this book for you a long time. Many wanted it, but none could steal it. I saw to that.
Who would try to steal it? Alyse maybe, but others? I wondered who else she was referring to, but in my excitement, I dared not ask. Where is it? was my only silent question.
She gestured to the ocean floor just beyond her. Jutting up from it was a set of angular boulders. Odd how clear my sight was, for I recalled not even a few weeks ago, my underwater vision was blurry, like squinting through copious fog. I wriggled downward and touched one. At my touch, the rock began to glow with the same green as the siren’s lantern.
And then, wonder of wonders, at my second touch, a small rectangle within the boulder opened and slid outward—a small, rocky drawer.
I glanced over my shoulder at the sea lady. She smiled and nodded. That’s it. Go ahead; take what is yours, Fiera.
Looking back down, I saw a book. It was only around four inches wide and five inches tall—funny how such an important book could be so very small. It was encrusted with delicate shells, pearls, and other underwater jewels. When I picked it up, the same warm energy radiated in my palm as when I used the cards Peter had given me.
I wondered at the pages, made of a substance-like fine paper, but was undamaged by years underwater, and as easy to turn as a new book made of fine cotton rag.
Good luck! sang the siren, yet this time when I glanced over at her, she was gone.
Was she a dream or a lunatic vision? Had I gone insane? I looked down at my trembling hands. No, the book was still there, barely filling my opened palms.
I tucked it in the stretchy bodice of my swimsuit. Just I did, a school of blue-scaled fish wriggled over and encircled me, tickling my legs and arms with their fins. I had little time to wonder at this because I saw with a jolt of pure terror, a young Great White shark streaking toward me.
I lurched sideways, but there was no time to swim away. My heart raced as it barreled forth. No extra second to check whether I had a bloody wound from the jagged rocks. The shark was moving way too fast. I braced for the sharp pain of a bite. Astoundingly, as the blue fish had, it slid up against me, nudged its wide head into my hip, and circled gracefully around me, almost in a ceremonial dance.
Hello, fellow, I thought, so relieved my legs almost buckled.
As if it heard my greeting, it caressed my side again, and then, as rapidly as it had arrived, it departed. In a moment, it was only a creamy shimmer in the aquamarine tide.
It was time. Jackknifing forward, I headed to shore, and all without one human breath. I patted the book lodged under my swim top. Still there. Now that I had freed it from its magical locker, anyone could snatch it from me, so we would need to leave the beach immediately. As I hurried toward my friends, I searched for moving shadows under the boardwalk, especially for one with raven-black hair.
This book could change everything, but only if it remained in my possession.
* * *
WHEN THE POKER-faced driver dropped us off with a simple, courteous nod, we rushed to the hotel suite to study the grimoire. After all, the sea goddess hadn’t told me to keep it secret from Opal and Dulcie. I could hardly believe the book was real, so I kept touching it, and then touching it right over again.
“It’s a miracle. I can’t believe it’s mine,” I whispered.
“It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Dulcie exclaimed. She seemed nervous to touch it, but gazed at it in wonder.
“Curious how dry it is,” Opal exclaimed, “and look at all of those tiny, inlaid shells.” She reverently ran her hand over it.
There was a border of blue muscle pearls, and a pattern within that of pink, golden, and even lime-hued shells, delicate and shiny as a baby’s fingernails.
I opened it slowly, taking care not to crack its delicate book spine. The inner text, written in green script, was so fine it was a challenge to read. Of course, Dulcie had the answer. She produced a handy magnifying glass on a yellow ribbon from her voluminous cabbage rose carpetbag like everything else under the sun she stored in there.
I had to admit, the magnifier made it much easier to see the print. Generously, she insisted I keep it and placed the ribbon around my neck.
We huddled over the tiny book and studied it together. There were spells for rousing small waves and others for creating fierce tidal waves. I doubted I would have need for that one. I would worry it would lead to someone’s death. There were tamer spells for luring in fish to do chores, and others for traveling at great speeds across vast riptides and swells. That one sounded handy to store in the back of my mind.
These were enchantments we could hardly try cooped up in a hotel room, however expansive it was.
The first was for unbalancing someone on dry land. Not unlike that awful spell Alyse—I wouldn’t be calling her mother—put on me when I almost drowned in her cruel wave cyclone.
Alyse’s power to mesmerize, to make one lose oneself under her influence, was potent. I realized now, when she and I were at the speakeasy, her supernatural powers had lured me to criticize Peter’s appetite for taffy—even call him a candy hog, and she’d caused me to doubt Peter’s loyalty when she spoke about what he was doing on the Morro. In a testament to my own powers, I sensed her evil before she completely flummoxed me, and so was able to conjure an invisible, but protective helmet around my skull.
“Try a simple spell first,” Opal suggested.
I found one from the first section of the book. Chanting from its verses over a saucer of water, I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined the liquid coming to a boil. I uttered the chant three times as it instructed, but I was afraid to open my eyes and see that I’d failed.
“You did it, Fiera, look!” Dulcie’s squeals, high and excitable, signaled the spell’s success.
Indeed, the water bubbled with a shimmery rise of steam. My reaction was to laugh. In fact, we all laughed with great relief.
“Try another one!” Opal said more eagerly than I’d ever heard her.
“Yes, do, this is more fun than the picture shows,” Dulcie agreed.
This time, I was more ambitious, attempting to conjure ice from water in the hotel sink. We watched, fascinated, as frost florets began to shape on the water’s surface. But they stopped as suddenly as they had started.
“Watch out, the water is rising,” Dulcie warned. “Can you stop it?”
Indeed, the liquid was no longer freezing to ice. Instead, it had reached the rim of the sink and was threatening to spill over.
“Say the charm faster,” Opal urged. Reading from the spell book, she began to chant in tandem but missed a few words in her haste. I guessed other budding witches could help, but not as effectively as a sea witch.
It wasn’t only the skipped words; no doubt, I’d done something else wrong. The water overflowed, fountaining over the nice parquet flooring.
“What a disaster!” I grabbed a cup and began to bail out the sink.
Opal fetched another cup and helped. “You’ll improve; don’t give up.”
Dulcie hauled over a mountain of thick hotel towels to sop up the flood.
“I’ve ruined this lovely room,” I said, taking over another armful of towels. “Your father will boot us out.”
“We have maid service. He’ll never know.” Dulcie dumped the sopping towels in a corner of the tiled bathroom floor. Returning, she said, “Try it again, Fiera, you must! Otherwise, you may develop a block against magic.”
The second time was the ace in the hole. Frost designs formed all at once over the surface and quickly deepened to form a solid block. I rapped my fists against it to make sure. My skinned knuckles were proof it was frozen.
But it was too early to call me a working witch because the third spell badly backfired. I was trying too hard in my desperate awareness that Alyse was surely plotting as fast as we were. Filling the claw-foot tub up with cold water, I performed a fire conjuring. Normally, there was no way to ignite a fire on water unless its surface was slicked with oil. Dulcie and Opal stood nervously by my side, each gripping one of the hotel’s drenched bath towels in case we had a problem.
This time, I memorized the chant first so I wasn’t dependent on staring at the book. In an archaic form of Latin, its poetic ring thrilled my newly sensitive ears.
I recited it three times. It seemed to be a power number, for at the last line of the third chanting a loud boom signaled the eruption of fire on the bathwater. After startling at the sound, Dulcie and Opal put down their towels and clapped. It was a jubilant moment.
But the fire got bigger and hotter, and began to leave soot marks on the ceiling. It was no normal blaze—it stunk of unseemly toxins and even of burnt skin. I choked and gagged, trying to douse the mess. Dulcie and Opal were both thrashing at it with their wet towels. But nothing doused it. Worst of all, heavy smoke began to pour out of the windows, alerting all to the disaster unfolding in our room. Looking down, I saw two men point up to the windows and run into the hotel, and then there was a hubbub out in the hall.
“They’ll call the fire department. We need to put it out!” Opal shouted, no longer the calm magical sidekick.
Sirens sounded from a distance, but grew closer with every round.
Waving the smoke from my face, I hurried over to the spell book. My first hunch told me to flip to the next page. Amazingly, there was a spell there on how to douse a fire with magic. “Uh, oh, this undoing spell involves the waving of a seagull feather.” I groaned. “We’ll have to run down to the beach and pull one off a seagull.”
“Shall I go?” Opal was already slinging on her shoes.
“Wait, I may have just the thing.” Dulcie rooted around in her voluminous carpetbag. Turned out, she not only had one feather but three gray quills wrapped in a dining napkin she was saving to make a modish hat.
Sweating with nerves and hacking from smoke, I gasped out the chant while swinging the feathers over the angry blaze. Tongues of fire curved away from the plumage as if the supernatural blaze was afraid of it. With each sweep, the fire curved downward. Finally, it dimmed.
