“Hey, Tarah’s got an idea,” I said, only partially lying in order to get Mike and one of the healers to listen to me in the master bedroom. Once I had their attention, I told them the possibilities that I’d come up with.
“Tarah said this?” The older dragon lady I’d faced off with at the tiny house stood before me now, hands on her wide hips, her eyes squinting with suspicion.
“Yeah,” I said, figuring Tarah wouldn’t mind the half truth. If I’d really connected with Tarah’s unconscious mind, then it was the truth. And if I hadn’t and it was a lie, well, she’d lied about me being the one to suggest we all go to my grandma’s in South Dakota. So she couldn’t exactly mind my using her own tactics now. “Is it possible? Could someone use a spell to attack us and disguise it as a new strain of flu?”
Mike frowned. “Hey, didn’t you healers say you couldn’t pin the virus down in any of the patients in order to treat it?”
“That is true,” Dragon Lady replied. I really needed to learn more people’s names around here. “But why wouldn’t they kill us off faster?”
They’d found the hole in my theory.
“Maybe because magic is harder to do from a distance?” Mike suggested.
I remembered how Steve had needed to come with me to the bus rental office in order to maintain the face altering spell on me. “Yeah, Steve talked about that too. But why couldn’t they simply make more witches work together to help boost their spells to cover greater distances?” I was thinking out loud here. Surely the government could have put together a whole army of descendants and outcasts to work for them by now. All they would have to do is offer legal immunity and freedom from the internment camps to get the witches’ cooperation. Some might still refuse to attack fellow magic users. But others would do whatever it took to protect their families.
What wouldn’t a desperate magic user do in the name of saving their family?
Look at Steve. He hadn’t hesitated to kill that cop. And he would have gladly dragged Cassie, and maybe Pamela too, right out of this village for their protection if we hadn’t stopped him and convinced him they were happy here.
A guy like that wouldn’t hesitate to take a deal from the government. Even if it meant having to attack a fellow outcast.
I looked past the healers and Mike, through the open bedroom door and kitchen area to the living room where Steve still sat at his wife’s side. Steve looked like the walking dead. Almost as bad as the zombies in my nightmares a few weeks back.
“Attacking Clann people from a distance would take a lot of energy, wouldn’t it?” I muttered.
Dragon Lady nodded. “Much easier to do it up close. Do you think they’ve tracked us to this area?”
I didn’t answer her, still following my own train of thought. “Could you attack several people at once if you were physically close to them?” I couldn’t seem to stop staring at Steve, my thoughts spiraling down into an ever darker abyss. But this idea had a problem too. Even if the government had somehow gotten to him and forced him to help them, he never would have used magic on his own wife.
Would he?
“Yes, you could attack multiple people close to you, but it would leave you constantly drained,” she said.
Bud had gotten sick only minutes after Steve had...
After he had tried and failed to convince his wife to leave the village with him and Cassie.
What if the government had nothing to do with this? What if it was all Steve’s doing just so he could get his way?
But surely Steve wouldn’t make his own wife sick just to convince her that staying in the village wasn’t safe for their family.
I remembered how at one point I’d been desperate enough to toss Tarah over my shoulder and nearly kidnap her for her own safety.
Mike frowned. He looked over his shoulder, following my line of sight. Then his head whipped back to face me, his eyes wide. “You’re not thinking...”
“Get Cassie,” I said.
Mike left, coming back a few minutes later with the little girl in tow. She nearly started crying when she saw her mother lying unconscious on a floor pallet. Her father seemed to be sleeping while still sitting upright. He never reacted to his daughter’s presence or her soft whimpers.
Dragon Lady surprised me, pulling Cassie to her huge chest and patting her tiny back while murmuring soft sounds of comfort, promising the kid that her momma would be better soon. All lies if I was wrong and we couldn’t figure this out.
After a few minutes, Cassie calmed down. I squatted in front of her so we could whisper without her dad hearing. “Cassie, you told me you can smell magic when someone near you is doing it, right?”
She nodded.
“Do you remember what your daddy’s magic spells smell like?”
Her mouth turned up in a wobbly smile. “Like Christmas!”
“You mean like Christmas cookies or pies?” I asked, needing her to be sure.
“No, like a Christmas tree.” Her eyes darted up and around to each of us. “Why?”
I shook my head, everything inside me hardening. “Just curious, sweetie. Thank you. You want to go sit by your momma now?”
Cassie nodded and carefully made her way around the sleeping patients to her mother, sitting on the floor opposite her father.
“That’s still not proof,” Mike said. “Everything smells like pine trees around here. Outside, the logs, the fireplaces...”
“Which also makes it the perfect cover,” I said, feeling a slow burn building in my stomach and chest.
“But why would he make his own wife sick?” Dragon Lady asked.
“Because trying to convince a hardheaded woman that she needs saving can make a man desperate.”
I’d even sympathized with Steve’s attempts to convince his wife. But unlike Steve, I’d turned to other ways to try and save the woman I loved, like building a place for Tarah to stay out of contact with possible carriers of the virus.
While at my grandma’s house, Pamela had mentioned once that Steve was a Wiccan and for him magic was also a religion.
“What do Wiccans believe about karma and consequences to their actions?” I asked.
“They believe in the rule of three, that whatever magic they do will come back to them times three,” Mike said. “Gary was a Wiccan. He was always talking about it. He also believed there are spells that can bind their abilities or enhance them.”
Bingo. “Bind them how?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels with a frown. “Well, I remember him telling me something about mirrors to reflect a witch’s actions back on themselves. And I think he said red yarn or cords wrapped around a photo of the target while saying something about binding them from harming themselves or others can also do the trick.”
“Steve would probably know all of that too.” I looked from Mike to the older woman with a grim smile. “Why don’t we test him? If he believes his abilities can be bound with a spell and he’s not the one behind this…”
“Then the patients won’t show any change,” Mike muttered with a slow nod.
And if he was behind the illness, Tarah should immediately start to improve.
“I’ll get the supplies,” I said. “You two keep him here.”
I forced myself to walk slowly through the kitchen and living room to the front door. But the minute the door shut behind me, I leaped down the steps and over to the other houses, trying two before I found several handheld mirrors and a ball of red crochet yarn.
At my own house, I checked on Tarah, telling her to hold on a little longer for me but getting no response.
Then I ran back to the infirmary.
Steve woke up as Mike and I grabbed his upper arms. We hauled him off to the master bathroom so we could stand him in front of the large wall mirror mounted above the sink. We held him still, his bony skeletal body not making it much of an effort for us, while the older healer wrapped him from head to toe in the red yarn, leaving only his
nose bare. Then we each held a mirror facing towards him and slowly began to chant, “We bind you, Steve, from doing any harm. Your spells reflect back at you now.”
For several long minutes, he struggled against the bindings, his mouth working to free itself past the strings across his face. And I began to wonder if I was wrong, if I was so desperate to save Tarah that I’d finally snapped and wrongfully accused an innocent man, a man about to lose the woman he loved, just like me.
“What are you doing?” Pamela gasped, hugging the door jamb with both arms for support. Cassie clung to her mother’s side, her eyes wide and bright. “Is that...is that Steve under there?”
“Daddy, you look silly!” Cassie giggled.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Pamela, reaching out to touch her forehead. It was cool to the touch.
“Better. Tired. Shaky. But better. I woke up and thought I should check on the worst of the patients in here, and heard you guys... Are you using a new healing method?” She gestured tiredly behind her as several people rose up on their elbows, murmuring and looking around in confusion.
Steve froze.
The older healer, Mike and I all exchanged looks.
“We tried something new, all right,” Dragon Lady said, her lips forming a tight, thin line. “A binding spell on your husband.”
Pamela turned pale again.
“I’ll be right back.” Handing the mirror to Pamela, I ran out of the bathroom, out of the infirmary, and over the now familiar minefield of tree stumps to my tiny house, the light from the wood stove making its windows flicker and glow. With every step, I prayed as hard as I could to find Tarah better when I opened that door.
CHAPTER 24
I leaped up onto the porch, yanked open the door...
She was still sleeping.
“Come on,” I found myself muttering as I took the three steps through the house and over to her, stopping to kneel at her side.
I took her hand in mine. Then, with my free hand, I touched her cheek.
Her fever was gone.
Her eyelids fluttered open, and she smiled up at me. And it was the single best moment of my life.
“Hey beautiful,” I murmured, smiling back. “How are you feeling?”
She sighed. “Tired. Sleepy. Really hopeful that you installed a shower in this thing and got the water hooked up too.”
I’d tell her the bad news about that later. “But you’re feeling better?”
“Mmm hmm. And thirsty. Can I have some water?”
I held her head up and helped her steady the cup as she eagerly sipped water from it. My hands shook as I took the cup from her when she’d finished. I added another log to the fire, covered her up again, and tried to hide my face as I used my shirt sleeves to wipe at my damp cheeks.
“All right. Sleep for awhile, and I’ll be back with some soup or something. Okay?” I said.
But she was already asleep again. Which was strange. Pamela had been sick longer than her, yet was already back up on her feet. Most of the other patients had been sitting up already as I’d run out of the infirmary just now.
I felt Tarah’s pulse at her wrist. It still wasn’t strong, but at least it was steady now. Could the attack have caused permanent damage to her heart?
Steve better pray that it hadn’t.
As I stalked back across the clearing to the infirmary, the weak-kneed relief quickly morphed into anger, then fury, then a near blinding rage. I knew exactly what I wanted to do to Steve in return for his nearly killing Tarah.
The answer was simple...I would kill him. With my bare hands, my fists, my feet, and my Clann abilities. It wasn’t noble, but it was far less punishment than what he deserved. I would beat him until he felt the pain I’d felt while I’d thought Tarah was going to die. I would beat him over and over, letting him feel as helpless as I’d been while his spell had attacked Tarah’s defenseless body over and over.
I would beat him until he was an empty shell, a meat carcass useful for nothing more than a quick and ugly burial in the ditch somewhere. Because a burial in this village’s cemetery beside the others he’d killed would be too good for a murderer like him.
I ripped open the infirmary’s storm door, then threw open its front door, revenge the only thought on my mind now.
Until I saw Cassie hugging her mother, the both of them surrounded by recovering patients who were sipping tea and quietly talking.
Pamela and Cassie had already gone through so much. And judging by the way Pamela was sobbing and rocking her daughter, they knew they were about to go through a lot more as they dealt with the truth of what their husband and father had done.
If I killed Steve, what would it do to them?
As I entered the living room, Pamela looked up at me then away. In shame? The thought of Pamela having to bear the burden of her husband’s actions for the rest of her life renewed my fury. But it also honed it, compressing the fire inside me, giving me a measure of control. Steve would pay. He had to, for the sake of justice and righting his wrongs, to restore a sense of peace and hope and trust in this village. He’d made me, and no telling how many others, afraid of this place when it should have been a haven of peace and safety.
But I couldn’t be the one to decide how he should be punished. This wasn’t a dictatorship I was running here. In fact, for days now I hadn’t been running anything, caught up in the selfish pursuit of trying to save Tarah while believing I was powerless to help anyone else. This was a community of people, and I wasn’t the only one here that he’d hurt. Tarah had survived. What about the two families here who had lost loved ones?
I only wished Bud’s family could weigh in on the judgement too.
I made my way past all the patients to the master bath, where the older healer and Mike still held watch over Steve.
“Can you two round up everyone outside?” I asked them. “I think it’s time we held our first village meeting.”
The older healer left without a word. I’d have to make a mental note to get her name later. She was one tough broad. Sort of reminded me of my grandma. I’d have to thank her later, too.
Mike hesitated, eying me with raised eyebrows, as if he was wondering what I’d do while alone with Steve. I kept my face blank. After a half a minute, Mike seemed to decide he didn’t care after all and left.
Once they were gone, I moved to stand in front of Steve.
His breaths started coming out fast and harsh through his nose. Then, after two long minutes, he held his breath and his shoulders dropped in resignation, as if he realized he couldn’t stop me from hitting him, and maybe even agreed that I had the right to.
And that’s when I realized even my beating up this guy would also be more than he deserved. Because he knew he was wrong. He knew what he’d done, to his own family and to everyone else’s here. Deep down, part of him was probably even hoping I’d give him a beating or kill him. Because then he wouldn’t have to feel guilty for getting away with his crimes.
But I didn’t want his punishment to be quick or easy. I wanted him to live with what he’d done. Every day, I wanted him to have to see himself in the mirror and know he’d killed three people and attacked many others.
All out of fear and love for his family.
So while my hands literally ached with the need to smash up Steve’s face and ribs, and while my imagination kept coming up with ever better ideas for exacting personal retribution on Tarah’s attacker...
I simply led him past his victims and out the door to the infirmary’s porch, around which the whole village now stood shivering.
“Hey, everyone, listen up. We found the source of the illness,” I said, using those old debate skills my father had insisted I learn and speaking from my diaphragm so that my voice projected out over the crowd.
Silence. A few gasps. Someone called out, “Are you serious?”
“Very,” I said. “Ask Mike. He helped me and...”
“And Wanda,” the older healer yelled out from the
crowd.
I nodded at her. “Wanda and Mike and I did a Wiccan binding spell on Steve here.” I grabbed the trailing end of the red yarn and held it up. “Almost immediately after we did, everyone who was sick began to get well again. Including his wife Pamela.”
I looked behind me through the infirmary’s glass storm door. Pamela and Cassie stood behind the glass, huddled together as if worried the whole village would stone them to death.
“Pamela, why don’t you join us? I think everyone here knows how hard you worked night and day to try and save everyone you could.” I gave her a reassuring nod.
After a short hesitation, they both stepped out onto the porch, Cassie still clutching her mother’s waist.
“But why’d he make his own wife sick?” someone asked from the crowd.
“Steve, why don’t you explain in your own words?” I tugged the strings from over his mouth.
Absolute silence filled the clearing. In the distance, I saw the door to Tarah’s and my house open and a tumble of dark hair above a sleeping bag moved to stand in the doorway. Tarah was obviously feeling better.
I wished I could go to her now. But being a leader seemed to mean personal sacrifice at times.
I just hoped I was handling this in a way she approved of. Of course, if I wasn’t, she’d be sure to tell me about it later.
“I...wanted to take my wife and kid away from here,” Steve finally confessed, his voice so quiet it never would have carried if I hadn’t helped the wind catch his words and spread them around. “I was afraid it wasn’t safe here for them. So I tried to show them that. And it got out of hand. I never meant to kill anyone—”
“But you did, Steve!” Pamela burst out on a sob, her hands gripping the porch railing. “Three people died because of you. How could you think I’d ever want to be with you after what you’ve done?”
“An eye for an eye!” someone yelled. “He’s a murderer. He deserves to die.”
Murmurs of agreement from the crowd. I glanced at Pamela, half expecting her to be afraid for her husband. But I should have known better. Pamela was made tougher than that. And she looked mad enough to kill him herself.