Didn't bella mean "pretty" in Italian? Or maybe it was "beautiful." I had a sudden flash of the Wicked Witch of the West. I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too.
The wicked-witch thoughts made me even more nervous. I was supposed to be visiting a good witch, but one never knew anymore who was good and who was bad and who might turn evil if an evil wind blew.
As if in answer to my thoughts, a sudden breeze came up and nearly slammed the door in my face. I grabbed it just in time, glancing over my shoulder, scowling at the evidence of another swirling thunderstorm on the horizon.
What was up with all the storms lately? They seemed to be following me wherever I went. Since I had no control over the weather—yet—I returned my attention to Carla, who waited for me to decide. Was I coming in or was I running away?
I hated all this uncertainty. I had powers, so did Sawyer; together we should be able to keep a benandanti from killing us.
I stepped inside and locked the door behind me. A flash of movement at the far end of the hall had me heading in that direction. Sawyer had seen it, too, and his nails clicked against the scratched wooden floorboards as he led the way.
He slunk into the living room, gaze darting everywhere as he searched for the dog that still growled intermittently. The room was empty but for—
Wow, talk about the wicked witch. Except for the lack of a green complexion, Carla Benandanti could be Elphaba's twin: long, drawn, pasty face; hooked nose; a wart or two combined with bony fingers; and long, skinny feet covered in slippers the shade of rubies.
I glanced up and met the woman's laughing eyes. Bright blue, they seemed to sparkle—with life, with joy, with . . . magic. Every power this woman had was reflected there. I couldn't believe an evil witch could have eyes like that, but I also couldn't believe a good witch would choose the appearance of a hag.
"I can see what you're thinking," she said. "What's a witch like me"—Carla swept her age-spotted hand down a skeletal body clothed in a black sacklike robe—"doing in a place like this?"
She might as well set a pointy hat on her silver-threaded, long black hair and be done with it.
"I am who I am," she continued when I didn't comment. "I have no need for glamour."
"Do you have the talent?"
"I choose not to use it. Beauty is fleeting, only the soul lasts forever." Her smile was like her laugh and made some of the heaviness in my chest lighten. "I prefer not to draw attention to myself. It's safer."
"Safer how?"
"A beautiful woman is seen by everyone and remembered. An ugly one is easily forgotten."
Sawyer trotted past, breaking my concentration. He sniffed every corner, peered under the furniture and behind the curtains, but found nothing.
"Where's your dog?" I asked, and the benandanti's smile widened. "You have an invisible dog?"
"I have no dog at all."
"But—"
She waved a hand and vicious snarling filled the room. Sawyer, who'd had his head beneath a chair, jumped, thumped his head, and backpedaled, growling as he swung around to face his attacker. The expression on his muzzle when he encountered only us was priceless.
"I conjure the sound whenever the doorbell rings," Carla explained. "It scares most people away."
"And if it doesn't?"
She shrugged. "Then I conjure a dog."
"Why continue to live here if it's so dangerous?"
"Some places are magic, and this is one of them."
I'd felt such energy swirling through the air atop Sawyer's mountains as surely as I'd felt the chill brush of evil the first time I'd seen the Strega's lair of glass and chrome pushing into the overcrowded skyline of Manhattan. Even though Jimmy and I had burned the place to a cinder, I doubted anything built there would ever put to rest the ghosts that remained.
This house had an aura, an essence, a waiting presence, but not of evil. Of anticipation, a sense that good might happen if you only knew where to look, who to ask, what to do. The longer I stood here, the more my skin tingled, and the louder the air seemed to hum.
"I came here as a child with my parents," Carla explained. "My father worked in the automobile factories. It was a good life. Much better than the one we left behind. We were happy. So much so that it seemed like magic. Later, I learned that it was."
"What were your parents?"
Every witch I'd encountered thus far had been something else, as well. Sawyer was also a shape-shifter, his mother an evil spirit, and the strega a vampire. That didn't mean there couldn't be a witch who was just a witch, but I wasn't betting money on it. Magic came from somewhere; magic was born in the blood.
"My father was human; my mother a walker."
"Ruthie said benandanti means 'good walker,' which, according to her, is a good witch with the power to end bewitchments."
"All true. I took my mother's place. I am both witch and walker."