Chapter 36

Chapter 36 of 48 · 8-minute read

Jesse’s Natal Mars Conjunct the Chaos Witch’s Natal Venus in Synastry

“Miss Lauren, she got really mad that night. Nobody else saw because they went ahead while Jesse and me closed the gates. I came back and she was sitting outside the circle and cussing you.”

Christabel’s eyes widen with the memory.

“Dr. Jesse refused to carry her into the circle. He told her your rule, that Spirit will sometimes create a situation that prevents someone from participating in the ritual and that such a spur-of-the-moment situation should be honored. The same way you get a flat tire so that you’re not in the wrong place at the wrong time when there’s a fatal pileup on the interstate. Dr. Jesse told her she was welcome to watch from outside the circle and set up a camp chair for her, and he said he was really sorry, but she couldn’t take part. Then he left her there. That’s when I saw she hadn’t hurt her ankle at all. She got up and came after him and she wasn’t limping a bit, but by then, I had locked the gates, and she had to watch the ritual from the edge of the parking lot. She was not happy.”

“I… don’t remember any of that. Or Jesse telling me.”

“You were busy! A lot of happy people left that night with hope for the next year. Except her.”

I stare at the zoomed-in view of the drama queen. Nancy Downs. I know who she is and where she lives. But that name? It’s not right. Definitely borrowed from a fictional character she wanted to emulate. I don’t have any evidence to the contrary, but my intuition is dancing in circles with red flags like a high school flag corps at a football game.

Sonnet unfreezes the image and zooms out. The laughter echoes over my computer’s speakers. The same timbre as the voice inviting an appraiser into my home. The same laughter I heard at a distance on my first visit to the new Thai restaurant where I’d thought I’d seen Jesse.

The video moves forward. The drama queen in denim shorts and a red halter top steps into my grassy lawn. Her high heels sink into the ground so that she lumbers as she turns back to the camera. A shadow obscures the camera lens for a moment as the front door closes and locks. The shadow moves into view, transforming into color and clarity, then runs down the steps after her with a large brown bag under one arm.

Jesse?

My three companions gasp in unison.

I can’t tell from behind, but the broad shoulders and defined biceps look like his. He grabs the drama queen by the hand and pulls her along, out of the camera’s view to a car I don’t recognize. Laughter trails them.

“Mom! Breathe!”

I gasp for air. How can it be him?

Silence falls over the kitchen as Sonnet pauses the video. No one says a word. I can feel the girls’ shock and Jan’s disapproval. But I can’t feel anything myself. I’m numb.

I inhale ragged breath after ragged breath. “Okay. Let’s try the video before this one.”

“You sure, Mom?”

No. But we both know what’s coming next or she wouldn’t be asking.

“Show me. I have to know.” My stomach tumbles. I force the nausea down. There’s no turning back now. What I’m about to see is a bell I can’t unring.

Going backward in time, the security camera skips to the next scene, an hour and ten minutes earlier in the day. I swallow hard as we watch a man and woman walk into view of the camera on the front porch. It’s Jesse, or looks like him, like the Jesse I knew and loved, except with one arm draped loosely around the drama queen’s waist. Laughing, he plants a kiss on the top of her head, just as he used to do to me.

It’s a glamour, I tell myself. He doesn’t know it’s not me.

Perspiration stings my forehead. My cheeks burn.

“Mom!

“Holy shit, Miss Lauren.”

And then from Jan, an uncharacteristic, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

I can’t look away from the screen. I think I’m going to be sick. My skin burns in a way I don’t understand, like a hot flash concentrated in my upper and lower arms.

The drama queen stops abruptly and points to the discreet camera next to the front door. She looks genuinely nervous.

The man—I still refuse to believe it’s Jesse—laughs loudly. It’s Jesse’s laugh but not. It’s more of a snicker, a snort, and a cackle combined. Something’s wrong with him.

Is he… high? Oh, Gods.

He waves his hand dismissively. “Stop worrying. She never checks it unless her ex-man is trying to do stupid shit like picking up the kid without permission. She doesn’t even have the app on her phone anymore. Besides, if you’re so worried, why don’t you use some of your hocus pocus to make us invisible.” He laughs again.

She. The kid.

If the chaos witch is using a glamour to fool him into thinking she’s me, he wouldn’t be talking about Sonnet and me that way. I dig my fingernails into the back of Sonnet’s chair to keep my legs from crumpling under the weight of it all. His easygoing, cool, surfer-dude pattern of speech is familiar, but this isn’t my Jesse.

The drama queen scowls. “You sure she’s not gonna come home while we’re here? I don’t wanna get shot as an intruder.”

“She’s not a gun person. More about daggers.”

“Okay, well, I don’t want to get stabbed as an intruder, either. She could come home and find me here and⁠—”

The Jesse-doppelganger shrugs. “Doubt it. She’s out of town until Friday and the kid’s with her dad. See? Her car’s not here. She’s had this trip planned for almost a year and she’s not gonna miss it for anything. But just in case, let’s get in and get that dress and get out. With haste!”

“I need more than that.”

“Like what?”

In the video, he fumbles with the key. I’d never changed the locks, maybe because I secretly hoped he’d come home. Even now, I’ve not changed the locks because I didn’t think there was a reason to unless it’s related to Quent. Nobody else had a key but the girls and me, and now Christabel has the spare.

“I want to see her altar.”

“What? Why? Is that like professional jealousy or something among witches? And it’s altars. Plural.”

The camera catches a glint in his eyes. Is he high? His eyes aren’t normal. I’ve never seen them look like that. Ever.

“I’m not jealous of anything about her! But I need something personal from her altar. In case I need ammunition later.”

He bends over with laughter. “Ammunition? Like magick bullets?” He pecks her cheek as he opens the door and pulls her along. “Oh, Bianca, you a cray-cray bitch!”

“Stop!” I screech at Sonnet.

She jabs at the button on the screen. The video stops on a close-up of the couple as they walk through my front door. My mind is swirling.

Something personal from my altar.

Bianca. Not Nancy Downs but a real name. Bianca.

Proof of her lies but proof also that he knew he wasn’t with me.

I sidestep Jan and rush to my main altar in the living room. Every room in my home has a different altar, but this is by far the largest and where I conduct most of my solitary rituals indoors. Some room altars are no more than shelves with a few photos of my ancestors or a pedestal built for a vase or potted plant that instead holds a Goddess statue.

The altar in the living room is a six-foot tall mirror with an ornate wooden frame I painted gold and balanced atop four three-foot tall pedestals from the local concrete and garden statuary store. It’s covered in candles, stones, a chalice, an athame, a wand, and all the typical tools that I like the idea of, even if I no longer need such tools.

I also use it as a “charging station” for crystals and ritual jewelry. Usually my pentagram rings have a home here as well as a garnet, gold, and onyx rosary with a tiny Goddess figurine dangling at the end and a small silver necklace of the High Priestess Card from the popular Rider-Waite Tarot deck.

The silver necklace is gone.

“Miss Lauren?” Christabel joins me in front of my altar. “Can I do anything to help?”

Jan hugs her tightly. “Give her time, honey. I think she needs to be alone.”

“No. I don’t. I need my friends and family. I need your help.”

I want to explain that I’m moving through time, going through motions but feel nothing. My blood has turned to ice. I’m fully aware of what I’ve learned but still disconnected from it somehow.

“Anything,” Jan says.

“I need to know Bianca’s last name. I know she lives in one of the RVs by the lake. Jan, you said Steve’s buddy rents out those RVs?”

She nods and turns to Christabel. “Little Bird, why don’t you call my hubby and see if the two of you can figure out more about Jesse’s… friend?”

Christabel takes her phone to another room while Jan paces the living room floor, stopping occasionally to peer out the front windows to where the servitor still walks in a counterclockwise circle.

Sonnet sits at the computer, her arms folded, stewing over the image on the screen. She’d adored Jesse, and he’d been a wonderful stepdad. He’d taught her to play guitar and to paint, and they’d written songs together that he’d recorded. Christabel sang on more than one of their artistic productions. All that’s gone now, and she feels it, too, even if she’s been quiet out of support for me.

Jan returns to my side. “What was it your friend Zephyr said? ‘To see HER for who she is, you must walk around in your memories. To see HIM for who he is, you must ritually release him.’ Maybe it’s finally time for you to do your pony ritual for Jesse.”

I press one fist into my palm and squeeze, then repeat on the other side. I don’t even realize I’m wringing my hands until Sonnet stands in front of me, crying silently.

“I don’t know if I can release him, Jan.” I press my palms into my outer thighs. “When Jesse left my life, I⁠—”

“Aw, Mom! Do it! He may be dead to you, but Jesse didn’t die! You just can’t accept what happened.”

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