“Arthur Delaford Alcott was his birth name,” Deliah said with a frustrated look at her mother-in-law. “Only she called him that ridiculous name—Dilly. This is my son, Jonah Alcott. Jonah, these are FBI agents Savich and Sherlock. You know Brakey.”
Brakey moved from behind Jonah to stand stiffly beside a well-used brown leather recliner, hands in fists at his sides, his face white; he was obviously scared. Sherlock nodded to him. “Mr. Alcott.”
“Sir. Ma’am. Agents.”
Brakey’s older brother Jonah walked over to them, sleek and confident, and asked to see their creds. He frowned over them, then said in their general direction, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, or how you can think Brakey murdered Kane Lewis. That’s really stupid.”
“Don’t be rude, Jonah,” Mrs. Alcott said automatically, probably a lifelong habit.
“It’s an insult to Wicca to accuse us of murdering people, Agents, and that’s what you’re doing. Our first and prime rule is to do no harm. My mother must have told you that already.”
Coming from Jonah, it sounded like a clipped party line, memorized to recite to the uninitiated. “So you’re a Wiccan yourself, Mr. Alcott?” Savich asked him.
“Yes, I practice the Craft.”
Brakey broke in. “Dad never talked about any of it in front of us kids. He never celebrated any of the rituals with anyone, didn’t pay any attention to craft tools like candles and stone, you know? Neither does Liggert. I think Dad agreed with Liggert. He laughed at Mom for dancing around in a white robe around a fire, chanting at the full moon.”
Deliah said, “I will tolerate no more disrespect from you about your father, Brakey. You didn’t know him, didn’t know the essence of him. I know you are scared. We are all scared. But that doesn’t give you the right.” She turned back to Savich. “You asked about my husband. Yes, it’s true, he didn’t feel comfortable practicing some of the ways of Wicca.”
“He was a witch,” the old woman said. “A witch, no fancy trappings.”
Deliah Alcott cleared her throat. If she wanted to smack the old lady, she hid it admirably. “Being a witch was a private matter for him. He didn’t take part in any public displays of what he was or what he believed. But what he accomplished, what he could do, was incredible. He never disdained my beliefs.”
“Can you give us an example?” Sherlock asked.
“Example? Well, after that big tornado in ’09 that caused so much damage near here, he put a protection spell around the houses to keep us safe. There have been five more tornadoes since then, causing damage all around us. But not here. His spell still lives with us.”
Jonah said, “The last tornado hit down across the road from our driveway, but no closer.”
The old woman cackled. “Incredible, was he? Dilly protect himself, did he? A car comes along and bam! Knocks him aside the head and kills him. Even though he had a crystal in his pocket, so the Deputy Lewis said.” Dilly’s mother snorted. “He was weak,” she said again, and she rocked faster, the knitting needles clacking loud in the still room. “He was my son. I know what he was made of. You ran all over him yourself, Morgana.”
“My name isn’t Morgana, stop calling me that!” Mrs. Alcott’s teeth clenched. She looked about ready to belt the old lady. Was it like this between them all the time? The old lady pushed and pushed until Mrs. Alcott finally cracked? Probably so, for years and years now. Sherlock wondered if Mrs. Alcott had ever been tempted to send an evil spell her mother-in-law’s way, against the Wiccan rules or not.
She sighed. “I was named after Deliah Mecala, a name I’m proud of. She was a witch who lived in these parts over a hundred years ago, a great healer who worshipped the Goddess of the Air and the Wind. I still have what we would call her Book of Shadows today, you see, and that’s how I know.”
Ms. Louisa never looked up. She kept on knitting, her clacking needles a constant drumbeat.
Jonah Alcott said, “I don’t think Dad’s protection spell kept the tornado out. I think Dad turned it away himself. It was headed right toward us, and then it wasn’t.”
The old lady said, “No, Jonah, it wasn’t your daddy who turned away that cyclone, it was me.” She looked up. “And there was Tanny—that’s Liggert’s oldest. She’d just planted a garden all by herself. I didn’t want her to get upset if it was destroyed.”
Off the tracks. Savich said to Brakey, “You said your father didn’t use any tools of the craft. That includes an Athame? Did he own one, perhaps a collection of them?”
Jonah waved an impatient hand. “So the murderers used Athames. Anyone can buy them really cheap on the Internet. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Brakey leaped on that. “Jonah’s right, it doesn’t mean anything. No, I never saw my dad with an Athame. I don’t own one, either.”
Deliah Alcott said, “Brakey told us you had pictures of the Athames?”
Savich pulled out his cell phone and called them up. He handed the cell to Mrs. Alcott. She stared at them blankly, no signs of recognition, he was sure of it, unless she was really good. She raised her eyes to his face. “The first one, the Dual Dragon, it’s not used often, at least by Wiccans I know. It’s quite old, isn’t it? The other is quite simple, probably handmade. That’s what’s favored by most Wiccans.”
Savich passed the cell phone to Jonah. “Have you seen either of these two knives before?”
Jonah shook his head no.
Savich handed the cell to Ms. Louisa. She hummed as she looked at each of them. “Yes, what Morgana said is true. And Jonah’s right, you can buy ’em anywhere nowadays, and isn’t that something?”
Savich asked again, “Do you keep a collection of Athames here, Mrs. Abbott?”
“No. As I told you, an Athame is a very personal tool, Agent Savich. If something happens to it, then you would make another one. Neither Brakey nor Jonah as yet have made their own personal Athame.
“Listen, I assure you Brakey doesn’t know anything about any of this. He grew up with Sparky Carroll, grew up with Deputy Kane Lewis watching over him. As I’ve said before, perhaps someone is leading you to suspect a Wiccan for their own reasons.” She sighed. “But then Walter Givens isn’t a Wiccan, yet he used an Athame. Why? And Deputy Lewis’s murder—why an Athame? This is all very confusing.”
“Yes, it is,” Sherlock said. “Mrs. Alcott, isn’t it true that Wiccans believe they can influence other people’s behavior, even control it?”
“We do believe our higher magic can influence events and the people involved in them, but we do it only with their consent, and only in their interests, not ours. Again, we do no harm.”
“But do some ever try it even without consent?”
“Well, sometimes, rarely, a binding spell may be necessary.”
“A binding spell?” Savich asked.
“A binding spell,” Deliah said patiently, “is to prevent another witch from doing mischief. Otherwise, influencing someone without their consent would be unethical—abhorrent, really—to a Wiccan.”
Brakey said, “Mom, remember that time Ricky Tucker told me you were a witch and should be burned at the stake? Said it all over town?” Mrs. Alcott didn’t say anything, simply pleated the soft material of her dress. “Made me mad and I told him so, but he laughed at me, said it was true. A week later, Ricky drove his daddy’s truck into the old oak tree at Clemson Fork, broke his legs and knocked himself out. Ricky thought you did that.”
“That’s only ignorance talking, Brakey, you know that. It was an accident, pure and simple.” She said to Savich and Sherlock, “Brakey’s father and I have heard just about everything over the years. An absurd comment by a teenage boy wouldn’t concern us at all. As far as I know, Ricky’s father had nothing to say about it.”