Chapter 11

Chapter 11 of 48 · 9-minute read

Stellium of Planets in Christabel’s Natal Eighth House of the Occult

I stiffen. Jan squirms from her seat in the West.

Damn. This kid is really talented. With a little bit of training, Christabel could make a name for herself in the magickal community.

“Yes.” Gritting my teeth, I stare into the flames.

“But Raven, none of that was your fault.”

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was. What matters is that I couldn’t prevent it. And I couldn’t fix it.”

“Still, Raven, you can’t blame yourself for that. There’s probably no way you could have stopped it.”

My head jerks up. I can’t stop the venom that lies in my throat. “I saved you, didn’t I? I got the warning dream that your uncle was going to shoot you in that barn, and I saw it ahead of time, and I called you, and I stopped it. You are alive right now because I was able to stop it. Don’t you understand that?”

Christabel shrinks away from me, trying to make herself smaller in my presence. “It’s just that I still think I see him from time to time, and it makes me wonder. I-I’m sorry Raven. I overstepped.”

“Yes, you did.” Then I feel bad for saying it. “It’s okay, Christabel. It’s all right. I’m just a little… sensitive about it, you know? What good is my power, really, if I can’t protect the people I love? But I never had even the slightest inkling about Jesse’s implosion. Not a dream, not even a feeling. I should have seen what was happening, but I didn’t. Not until it was too late.”

“And you don’t find that strange?”

“I find it deplorable.”

Christabel pats the grass beside her for emphasis. “No, no, don’t you find it… strange… that you wouldn’t know something was wrong? You know everything else before it goes wrong or as it’s going wrong, and you are able to use that talent to do something about the situation. But the one time it matters most to you, you don’t have it. Why not?”

Yes, why not? That’s the question I’ve turned over in my mind for the last few months. The answer for months now has been easy: because I’m a failure.

When I don’t respond to Christabel’s patting the grass beside her, she pounds the earth instead with one fist. “Are you listening to me, Raven?”

I am, but I don’t show it. Instead, I just stare into the fire.

“Lauren,” Jan says from the West. “Listen to the child. She’s got a message for you from your Goddess.”

I sigh loudly and lift my gaze to Christabel on the other side of the flames. I still have people I love and need to keep safe, and that includes both my daughters, regardless of what else I might have lost.

“Okay. I’m listening.” I mean it.

“What happened to Dr. Jesse is related to that thing in the woods that wants to kill you and hurt everyone you care about and take everything you ever cared about away from you.” Christabel squints into the flames, seeing something I can’t. “No. No, that’s not quite right. It’s not related to the thing in the woods, but it’s related to the person who sent it.”

“Who sent it?” Jan asks.

Christabel squints harder into the flames and starts to say something but shakes her head. “I can’t quite see the answer. It’s behind a veil.” She waves her hand in front of her as if she is parting a curtain. “I-I can’t pull it back. I try to, but it’s like smoke. My fingers go right through it. But what’s hidden in the smoke stays hidden. Raven, this is someone who was cloaked before they ever focused on you and decided to ruin your life. It doesn’t even have anything to do with you directly. You represent something they desperately want. There’s jealousy and ambition. It’s more like, like they blame you for something because they can’t blame the right person.”

“Well, that’s not really fair, is it?” Jan spits out. “Can you tell who the other person is?”

“The one she means to blame but can’t? No. Herself, maybe? It’s all behind a veil.”

“She! You said she. You are sure it’s a she?”

Christabel frowns, then nods slowly. “Positive. It’s a woman. Sometimes I perceive feminine or masculine energy, and that’s not always a clear sign of gender, but in this case, I can tell it’s a woman.”

Jan slaps the ground beside her and clucks her tongue. “Well? Does that narrow it down for you any, Lauren?”

“A little but not enough.”

The truth is, all the witch wars I’ve been involved in—two before now—have been mainly women. Not that men can’t be petty and vindictive as well, and I’m aware of witch wars started by men in other groups, but I haven’t personally encountered that in witch wars focused on me. Even ones where men were part of a larger group, they more or less went along with the crowd. But if Christabel is right, it does narrow the field. If it’s someone from the past, there are only a handful of good choices. If it’s someone I’ve not dealt with face to face, then at least I know to look for a female witch instead of a male witch. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

“Born female.” Christabel seems to see something else in the flames. “Female now and born female. I can’t tell how long her hair is. It’s in braids wrapped around her head. Or maybe those are just accessories. Dark hair. Young, I think, but her face is blurred. She’s shielded. I’m not even sure if that’s her or someone she’s looking at. Or someone related to you. Someone important, though. As soon as I concentrate on her, the image evaporates into smoke. But I see roses all around her, bouquets of red roses. The harder I concentrate on seeing her, the more roses pull in around her and cover her up, like a shield. Like she’s aware that I’m trying to see her or whoever this woman is.”

I uncross my legs and change my seating position. The boat of a menstrual pad is something of a cushion on the altar rock, but my butt is going to sleep sitting here. “That doesn’t sound like anyone I know. Braids around her head? As for the roses, that could be anybody.”

“I smell them. I smell the roses. She grinds them up and makes a rose oil perfume out of them. Geez, I can smell it!” Christabel shakes her head. “And now it’s gone.” Christabel squeezes her eyes closed and then opens them, blinking. “You will be able to figure out who did this. The Goddess is already showing you.”

“I promise you, the Goddess isn’t showing me anything right now.”

Jan clears her throat. “You’re wrong.”

“I am not wrong.” Christabel seems both hurt and angry at Jan.

“Not you, honey. Lauren. Lauren is wrong.” Jan looks up at me, her eyes pleading. “Your Goddess is showing you everything. Showing you through Christabel here. Showing you through your dreams that led to you saving Christabel’s life tonight. And showing you through⁠—”

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to have friends who aren’t psychic. However, right now, I need them to be more psychic.

Christabel gasps. “You do know who it is. You just haven’t realized it yet. You’re getting clues in these, um, visions you are having.”

“I’m not having any visions. Except for the dream I had about you tonight in the barn with your uncle.”

“They’re not visions exactly. They’re memories. Disjointed. But they’re all clues to who’s doing this.”

It doesn’t make any sense. Sure, throughout my life I’ve had the occasional unrelated memory pop up from my subconscious, and I’ve even found it amusing that such an unrelated memory would surface, but it’s never meant anything. I’ve never even thought of trying to follow random messages from my inner mind to figure out what they’re trying to tell me. The thing about random memories is just that—random. There’s no pattern, no message.

Jan plucks a blade of grass here and a blade of grass there from the lawn between the fire pit and the altar stone in the West where she sits. “I don’t know. My guardian angels are telling me something else. Not necessarily mutually exclusive of what Christabel here is seeing, but worth considering. If I were a betting woman, and you know I’m not, I’d say this is the work of your dragon lady or the Elders who you left the Grand Coven with. You didn’t leave under good terms with either, and they both resented it. Still do.”

“Agreed. But still, that was six years ago. I haven’t heard a word from any of them since. Why now?”

Jan shrugs. “They still hold grudges. They wanted to control you, both groups, and you didn’t let them. They never got their payback. The only reason your dragon lady stopped messing with you was she was afraid you would turn her into the IRS. Maybe she’s cleared things up with her taxes and is free to harass you now? Then you left her to start a new group with Donna and the Elders and look how badly that turned out. They were even worse than your dragon lady about wanting to control you.”

What Jan doesn’t seem to remember is that she tried to control me as well. It was such a big deal for me to get out from under Quent’s control and back on my feet, and then to realize that I had the same type of abuse from Lady Dragon, and then to leave the Grand Coven with the Elders only to find out that they were more than happy that I had left both Quent and the Grand Coven as long as they could control me.

At almost the same time that I left the Elders’ Coven, Jan was dealing with multiple surgeries and just went nuts on me. Jan was just as determined for me to have my freedom, but only if she could dictate what freedom looked like. She’s spent years apologizing, even though I forgave her long ago. Sometimes the hardest people to come to terms with aren’t the fair-weather friends but the foul-weather friends who stick with you through the worst, but then don’t know how to deal with you when you’re happy.

“Any particular reason you think Dragon or the Elders are behind this? Is it that you don’t like them or is it something else? Psychic visions?”

Jan shrugs again. “You know I don’t judge your gifts or where they come from, but no, I’ve never trusted any of your past coven leaders. You and I may not agree on everything, but I always have your best interests at heart, Lauren. I remember more than once when your coven mates have said that they can disguise their energy so that no one knows they’re behind whatever spell they’re working. I wonder if maybe that’s what’s going on here.”

“Miss Lauren? Um, Raven? Don’t you feel that? Things are getting better already. You may not know who or what you’re fighting yet, but you’ve taken your power back.”

Is Christabel right? It feels right. Like I’m manifesting like my old self. If so, then why haven’t I been able to break the spell? Will my car crank magickally in the morning? Will the bank change its mind about the loan on the Center of Light and stop threatening to take my home in addition? Will Sonnet come home and⁠—?

“Mom?”

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