Serpent's Kiss Read online

  “I missed you,” said Matt. “Did I tell you that or was I just thinking it?”

  “Thinking it,” said Ingrid with a laugh.

  He smiled. “Want to do something this weekend? I’d really like to.” He appeared to be hinting at something.

  “Sure,” she said, wondering if he was thinking what she was thinking.

  chapter twenty-five

  Black Magic Woman

  A blood moon had risen, casting a soft, eerie light into the woods. The wind swept leaves across the clearing, where five torches surrounded the burial mound beneath the large oak tree. Joanna had worked since dusk, gathering stones to make a circle around the torches. Such rituals worked best during nocturnal hours.

  She placed a bowl of water at the foot of the mound. The torches, rocks, and water represented three elements, and for the fourth she had brought a Tibetan singing bowl, whose vibrating harmonic overtones would stand for air and also wake the spirit from the dead. After the ritual of utiseta (sitting at the crossroads) had been completed, she would recite a simple Norse incantation to tease the spirit out further.

  Inside the circle, she kneeled by the water, her singing bowl and wand in her lap, the basket of unleavened black bread and chalice of grape juice at one side. She had decided on an amalgam of practices, to improvise, letting her witch senses guide her. She took a piece of black bread. Decay.

  “Return to the flesh,” she said, placing the bread in her mouth. “Return to the blood.” She took a sip from the chalice.

  She swallowed, dipped her hands in the bowl of water for purification, then ran her wand around the rim of the singing bowl, drawing out its sound, and the hum spread through the forest. The leaves of the trees shivered as a sudden gust swept through the woods.

  She put the singing bowl and wand down and stood for the incantation, feeling the air grow electric inside the circle. She loved this feeling, the intoxication and power of magic. She was careful to pronounce the words correctly, enunciate each syllable.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw a green wisp of light wriggling out of the earth like a worm. It began to grow on top of the mound, first turning into a glowing orb, then stretching like a flame, until it became as big as she was, and she saw the outline of the wraith.

  It was a young woman with a pale round face in a white cloth cap trimmed with lace that was folded back above her wide forehead. She wore a blouse with a large white shirt collar, buttoned to the neck and ripped at the shoulder, a gray bodice, and a dark apron tied around the high waist of a long maroon skirt. Above her rose-petal red lips was a small round black mole. She reminded Joanna of Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, although she was not as thick or solid-looking as the milkmaid, thinner but curvy. She hovered there above the grave, with her pouting lips, her shoulders bending toward Joanna. She was breathtaking, really.

  Joanna stepped closer. The wraith was speaking, but she couldn’t hear her. As Joanna moved in, the girl’s hand darted out, seizing her by the throat. Her grip was so strong it felt as if she had turned to flesh and blood, and Joanna struggled to breathe as a smell of decomposition wafted across her face. Her arms flailed.

  “Find me!” said the girl close to Joanna’s ear.

  Then she vanished, like a dream ending abruptly but still holding her in its grip. Joanna gasped as the chokehold released and she fell onto all fours, half outside the circle, her body racked by coughing until she could breathe again.

  chapter twenty-six

  Stray Cat Strut

  Freya carried two enormous bags of trash to the Dumpsters in the car park behind the North Inn. It was after midnight on a weeknight, and the very last barfly had drunkenly scuttled out. It had been Freya’s turn to lock up; no one ever liked doing it, especially alone.

  “Oh, Kristy,” she muttered to herself. “Why’d you have to go and have babies so young?”

  She looked up and saw a full moon. No wonder it had been off-kilter in the bar tonight. She had thought it was all her fault, fixated as she was by the image of the trident on Killian’s back, which she was still trying to understand. She had been distracted, couldn’t focus, and her magic had gone limp: none of the potions had their usual fizz or aphrodisiacal tang, the drinks were oddly flavorless and bland, and today a customer had even remarked that she’d never tasted anything so bitter.

  Freya lifted the heavy lid of the Dumpster, dejectedly tossing one bag after another inside it, bottles clanking, then swiped her hands on her jeans. They were dirty anyway, splashed with all kinds of liquor, reminding her of the indigenously named Long Island iced tea. She hugged her thin leather jacket as she started out toward the Mini, feeling uneasy. It was a chilly November night.

  She hit the unlock button on her key fob, and her car bleeped back at her among the cars of the lodgers staying at the North Inn in the B&B section. She recognized the red Mazda of the girl who worked the night desk. To the right of the Dumpsters was a dimly lit alley that led to the back of the French beachside restaurant everyone in town, including Joanna, had raved about—although she and Killian had yet to try it. As she walked past the alley on the way to the Mini, she saw two shadows moving. They were walking toward her. She ducked behind a car and peered through the windows.

  She would recognize him anywhere: Freddie, her twin. The glow around his face and golden hair lit him up like a firefly. But who was he with? A tall, broad-shouldered man, standing across from her brother but hidden in shadow. She could barely make him out. He was sporting a captain’s hat—that much she could tell—or was it a police officer’s hat? Freddie and the shadowy figure shook hands then parted ways, the man now moving toward her. Still, Freya couldn’t get a better glimpse of him from her vantage point, and she needed to follow Freddie to see what he was up to. He had taken off in the direction of the French restaurant.

  Ducking, she wended through the parked cars, as she heard the mystery man get into one of the cars behind her and peel out. It all happened too fast to catch the make of the car or a license plate, and she’d been too intent on following her twin. She scrambled down the alley, hugging the wall, hiding in the shadows, then caught up with him.

  Now she watched him in the parking lot of the French restaurant. She scuttled low between the cars until she got as close as she could. He was with a young woman, but she could only make out her tall silhouette and long hair. She had her back to Freya. When the girl turned around, Freya had to duck lest she be seen. But she heard something Freddie said: “It won’t be long now.” Then a door slammed shut. Freya quickly peeked again.

  Freddie was coming around the car to get in the passenger seat, and then the two took off.

  What had her brother gotten himself into? He was boldly walking around North Hampton, meeting strange characters in dark alleys, when he claimed it was paramount that nobody know he was back.

  chapter twenty-seven

  Stand under My Umbrella (ella … ella … ella)

  “What’s that noise?” Freya stepped out of her room on the second floor of Joanna’s house, running smack into Ingrid tightening the belt of her white peignoir.

  Ingrid’s eyes fluttered behind her glasses. It was early, and she had barely splashed water on her face when she’d heard the noise and was about to run up to the attic to tell the pixies to pipe down. “What noise? I didn’t hear a noise,” she replied, making a point of saying it in a loud voice, hoping the pixies would hear her and zip it.

  The sisters stared at each other. Above them came another loud scudding sound as if something heavy were being dragged across the floor from one end of the attic to the other.

  “That noise!” said Freya, pointing toward it.

  Ingrid tried to move discreetly toward the stairway to block it. “Oh, that’s nothing. I think Oscar and Siegfried went up there to play earlier this morning.”

  Noises resounded again—something crashed, followed by a pattering of feet.

  “You mean to say that my cat and your griffin are playing house up the
re? And that they’ve grown human feet?”

  “Yes, exactly,” said Ingrid emphatically. “They’re practicing shape-shifting.”

  “Funny, because I just saw Siegfried curled up on my bed,” retorted Freya. At the sound of his name, Siegfried darted out from Freya’s bedroom and came to rub himself on her calf. She looked down at the purring black cat, squinted dubiously at Ingrid, then smirked. “Okay, spill it.” She knew this wasn’t fair. She had plenty of her own secrets, but she couldn’t help it.

  Ingrid placed one hand on the banister and the other against the wall, lifting her chin, clearly barring the stairs. Freya, in her short black kimono, pressed her body against Ingrid’s, trying to push past.

  “All right, all right, I’ll show you!” Ingrid relented, letting Freya through. “I can explain!” Ingrid called to Freya’s back, quickly following her up. Freya swung the door open, Ingrid on her heels.

  The attic had been rearranged so that the furniture, no longer haphazardly scattered, created what resembled a dormitory room with various sleeping areas. There were no more piled-up boxes. Instead, clothes hung on metal rolling racks, which Ingrid had never seen before. The pixies had bathed. Ingrid noted they cleaned up well and were easy on the eyes, with their pointy, delicate features and shimmering skin.

  Sven lay on a daybed in his area, reading an Agatha Christie novel while smoking a cigarette, an ashtray on the bedside table next to his pack of Kools. Irdick was in his own makeshift cubicle, swinging to and fro in a rocking chair. Kelda and Nyph, children’s costumes pulled over their dark clothing, sat on a double bed, playing the popular seventies game Mastermind. Val was taking a break from pushing a steamer trunk into a corner and was now straightening his Mohawk with his palms. They had all stopped whatever activities they were in the midst of to stare at the two witches who had barged in on them.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were hiding fairies?” asked Freya, squinting at them.

  Ingrid sighed, walking over to Sven to snuff out his cigarette in the ashtray and confiscate the pack of Kools. She turned to Freya. “They’re not fairies. They’re pixies and they’re lost. I’ve been letting them stay here until we can figure out how to get them home, only they don’t remember where home is,” she said in one breath. “So they’re sort of like refugees.”

  “She’s letting us crash in her crib until—” Sven began, but Ingrid cut in.

  “I just said that, Sven. And there is—as I’ve already expressed—a no-smoking policy in here. If you want to smoke, do it outside!” She pointed to a window, knowing that was how the pixies came and went, rather than down the stairs and through the house, adept at scaling roofs and walls as they were.

  Freya gaped incredulously at Ingrid. “Does Mom know you’re harboring fugitives?”

  “They’re not fugitives. They’re refugees! There’s a difference.” Ingrid glared at her sister. “They haven’t done anything wrong, I mean, not recently. They’ve been relatively quiet and well-behaved until this morning. Kind of.” She scanned the room, giving each one the evil eye. “You know what I’ll do if you don’t do everything I say, don’t you?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” they all said in unison, adamantly nodding their heads. “Frogs.”

  “Ribbit,” Val joked.

  “We promise to be good!” Kelda threw in.

  “Your promises don’t amount to much,” Ingrid remarked.

  She went on to explain to Freya all that had happened from the start with the pixies, how they’d asked her for help by stealing her away to a seedy motel they were squatting in, and how she had been searching for a spell to counteract their collective amnesia, had tried several, but none had worked.

  “Motel? What motel?” Freya asked suspiciously.

  “You know—the one off the highway, that’s sort of sinking.”

  Freya nodded; she knew it well but didn’t tell that to Ingrid. She realized now that she’d seen Ingrid on the night she was describing. She’d thought Ingrid had been with Matt, but no—she’d been helping out these “refugees.”

  Ingrid told her about the latest on the burglaries (while surreptitiously keeping an eye to see how the pixies would react), how Matt knew about the pixies but thought they were just a band of homeless kids, and that she’d been forced to lie to him because he would never understand any of it. He, um, didn’t believe in magic.

  “He doesn’t believe in magic?” Freya asked. “What does he think you are then—just a librarian?”

  “He’ll come around,” Ingrid said. “That’s not the problem right now.”

  Ingrid interrogated the pixies—as Freya watched, impressed by her sister’s surprisingly adept police techniques—but they denied any involvement in the current string of robberies and told her they would be happy for her to search the place if she felt the need.

  “Well, you could be hiding the loot elsewhere,” Ingrid retorted. “For example, where did those come from?” She pointed to the clothes racks, then crossed her arms and tapped a foot.

  “We found them here and mounted them. We thought they would provide better spatial economy than the boxes,” said Nyph.

  “Plausible with all the stuff Mother has kept here over the years,” commented Freya.

  “Can you please keep this a secret?” Ingrid implored her sister.

  “Sure,” said Freya.

  “You know Mom’s not fond of pixies—all those cautionary tales she told us as kids about pixies doing horrible things to children. I don’t think these guys are that kind, though, even if they are a handful. But I don’t think Mother will make the distinction.”

  “Horrible things to children!” repeated Irdick from the rocking chair, then grinned stupidly.

  “Maybe they’re just a little annoying?” said Freya.

  Since the pixies came and went through the windows, the sisters agreed they should lock the attic door in case Joanna tried to come up. They would tell Mother they had misplaced the key if she asked. Ingrid would continue to bring the pixies food in the mornings and evenings, although the pixies claimed there were better eats to be found elsewhere, like behind the French restaurant where they’d been scavenging the Dumpsters. But that nice French waiter had noticed and was now feeding them, so Ingrid really didn’t have to bother with dinner anymore. Freya promised Ingrid to look into an amnesia-lifting spell, or perhaps a potion was in order, some sort of antidote.

  Ingrid saw that something was troubling Freya, and she had to ask. “You look worn out. What’s up?” She placed a hand over her sister’s forehead.

  Freya wanted to blab all her secrets to Ingrid, let them pour out and sob like a little girl on her older sister’s shoulder. She was worn out. It had been a relief to have finally told Killian that Freddie was back from Limbo, but now it looked as if Freddie was right, that it was Killian who had sent him there, and now she had to hide that, too.

  She wished she could confess everything to Ingrid, whom she missed terribly and whose sage advice she craved. She wanted her ally back. But it was too dangerous. Ingrid would side with justice, no matter who was at risk. If Killian did it, he would have to pay the price and take the punishment.

  So instead she said, “Just work,” and shrugged it off with a glum smile.

  chapter twenty-eight

  Season of the Witch

  Joanna received an e-mail from Norman; the subject line read “Runes.” When he was last at the house and they had gone into the study to discuss the status of their relationship, she had told Norman everything about the spirit and the message on the grave. She had used all the letters of the runes’ names, believing that there might be an anagram hidden within them along with that number, perhaps a date, but the process had driven her mad, and she still hadn’t decoded the message. If there were something she had overlooked, Norman would see it. Ingrid hadn’t come up with any answers, either. Her oldest appeared altogether elsewhere these days, and mysterious packages kept arriving at the house that kept causing Ingrid to blush
.

  Joanna clicked on the e-mail, eager to get Norman’s feedback, especially after the frightening utiseta experience on the burial site, when the wraith wrapped her fingers around her neck and implored Joanna to look for her. She still had no idea whether this spirit were a benign or malignant one. Maybe Ingrid was right. The message could be an evil one. The girl had threatened her, or so it had seemed, but it was possible that having only limited time to manifest in mid-world, the wraith had struck out, grabbed at Joanna wherever she could, to convey the urgency of her plea. Perhaps she had meant no harm. She read Norman’s letter.

  <
  I would have written sooner but have taken on such a heavy load this semester I’ve barely had time to breathe until now. This is not to say that you haven’t been on my mind every second.

  First, I need to say I am deeply sorry to have made such a scene re this Harold gentleman. Of course, by now you have come to have your own life, and I understand that. We have been separated for several centuries (since 1692 to be exact), and I realize that life does go on.

  However, I must make this clear: my feelings for you have not changed, nor ever will. The truth of the matter is I am still in love with you, darling, and I do harbor the hope that someday you might be willing to give our marriage another chance. I hope you won’t fault a man for dreaming. It truly would be lovely to be a family once more, but foremost, I wish to capture your heart again. I am not sure how to go about that, and if anything, I have already fudged it by letting jealousy get the best of me: “the green ey’d monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” Yes, my feelings got out of hand. You are a free agent. I cannot dictate your heart, as much as I wish I could. My behavior was, to say the least, deplorable. I hope you’ll forgive me.>>

  Well, this was a slightly different approach from the one Norman had taken in her study, where he had continued to grill her about Harold. It had taken a while to calm him down. He had not made any declarations of love then but instead used the argument of doing what was best for the girls, as if Freya and Ingrid were still small, helpless children. She had thought it ridiculous of him and didn’t understand why he was making such a fuss. It pleased Joanna that now Norman was not only being more honest with her but also with himself. His letter touched her.