Jane lilted up her lips at my shiver, the smile cynical and defensive. “I’m not a big, bad ugly,” she said, her voice stiff. “I won’t hurt you. And I’d never hurt your daughter.”
I realized I had hurt her, though I had no idea how. “What?” I asked, perplexed. And then it occurred to me that tonight she had allowed me to see a part of her kept hidden until now. I had to wonder if anyone had ever seen her in killing mode. Well, anyone who was still alive. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered again, thinking about warrior Jane near Angie. She was right. Jane would never hurt my daughter. And Angelina would never be safer than when she was with Jane Yellowrock. “You’re an idiot,” I said, putting all the asperity I could into my voice. “I’m not scared of you. I’m cold.”
Jane blinked, opened her mouth, and closed it, thinking. “You’re not scared of me?”
I shook my head no.
Jane walked away a few paces and came back with her jacket, which she wrapped around my shoulders. “Thanks,” she said, which I figured was my line, but I understood what she meant.
“You are welcome,” I said. And she smiled at me, a real smile, soft and full and lovely.
? ? ?
The police investigation lasted for three weeks, with a complementary media hue and cry over the “unexplained appearance of people from seventy years in the past, all looking unchanged, yet all freshly killed,” and the “witch paraphernalia found at the scene.” The media attention went on until something more interesting happened and the news vans disappeared.
And, of course, even when the crime scene tape came down, I still didn’t get paid. The lawyer didn’t answer or return my calls. The morning my old fridge finally wore out, shutting off with a small cough of what sounded like apology, Jane called Brax. I didn’t want her to, but Jane had a mind of her own and pretty much did what she wanted.
A wire transfer for the full amount appeared in my bank account that afternoon, only minutes after the newly transplanted local cop paid a visit to the lawyer, off the record, and suggested that he pay his bill. Evan and Jane delivered my spanking new fridge that evening, just in time to save my frozen food.
I fixed steaks that night, and the four of us—Jane, Evan, Angelina, and I—sat on the back porch, under the moonlight, eating and drinking and talking like old friends. It was a perfect night. Or almost. Until Angelina turned to me and said, “Mama. You gonna have a baby!”
In the shocked silence, Jane leaned in too and sniffed me, delicately, like a kitten exploring the world. “Huh. Angie Baby’s right. And ten bucks says it’s a boy.”
Signatures of the Dead
It was nap time, and it wasn’t often that I could get both children to sleep a full hour—the same full hour, that is. I stepped back and ran my hands over the healing and protection spells that enveloped my babies, Angelina and Evan Jr., also known as Little Evan. The complex incantations were getting a bit frayed around the edges, and I drew on Mother Earth and the forest on the mountainside out back to restore them. Not much power, not enough to endanger the ecosystem that was still being restored there. Just a bit. Just enough.
Few witches or sorcerers survive into puberty, and so I spend a lot of time making sure my babies are okay. I come from a long line of witches. Not the kind in pointy black hats with a cauldron in the front yard, and not the kind like the Bewitched television show that once tried to capitalize on our reclusive species. Witches aren’t human, though we can breed true with humans, making little witches about fifty percent of the time. Unfortunately, witch babies have a poor survival rate, especially the males, most dying before they reach the age of twenty from various cancers. The ones who live through puberty, however, tend to live into their early hundreds.
The day each of my babies was conceived, I prayed and worked the same incantations Mama had used on her children, power weavings, to make sure my babies were protected. Mama had a better than average survival rate on her witches. For me, so far, so good. I said a little prayer over them and left the room.
Back in the kitchen, Paul Braxton—“Brax” to his friends, “Detective” or “Sir” to the bad guys he chased—Jane Yellowrock, and Evan were still sitting at the table, the photographs scattered all around. Crime scene photos of the McCarley house. And the McCarleys . . . It wasn’t pretty. The photos didn’t belong in my warm, safe home. They didn’t belong anywhere.