Chapter 7
Composite Moon Conjunct Composite Venus in Synastry for Lauren, Jan, and Christabel
Jan is waiting on the top doorstep as Christabel and I trudge into view of my house. She frowns at our bare feet but rises to meet us. Jan acknowledges Christabel with a nod, and Christabel nods back. Sonnet’s not home, and we all know it.
“Doodlebug? I came by to see how you were doing, half-expecting that I’d wake you from a well-deserved nap, but no, you’re not taking care of yourself when you explicitly promised your doctor you would. Your car was still here though, so I knew you couldn’t have gone far. You know, if you’re having car trouble, you can borrow my old truck if you need to. Just ask Hubby, and he’ll bring it over to you.”
I’m not sure Steve would appreciate that, but I thank her anyway.
“While I was waiting for you, your lawyer came by. He’s been trying to reach you for the last couple hours. Didn’t you get his voicemail?”
I frown at my phone and the string of missed calls. I’ve been so distracted trying to figure out where Sonnet is that I forgot to check the other numbers. Quent hasn’t answered any of my calls, but it’s very likely that he has my number blocked. That way, if it suits his narrative, he can say I never got in touch with him.
“I’m so sorry Murphy’s Law is hitting you hard, kiddo, or maybe it’s Mercury in retrograde. I bet you dollars to donuts that Lady Dragon friend of yours is stirring up trouble again.”
“Maybe,” I murmur.
I skim the numbers of the missed calls on my phone. Six of them are the same, each one with a voicemail message. The first one starts with my divorce attorney who has been on retainer for years now telling me to call him back as soon as I can. The last one, left for me less than ten minutes ago, tells me to wait and call him in the morning because it’s too late to talk now. The ones in between warn me that Quent’s lawyer has put in a heads-up call to my lawyer to let us know that Quent picked up Sonnet for the evening and will be putting in an emergency order in the morning for sole custody and emergency child support. Something about him having to take control because I had abandoned our daughter.
So Quent has her. I wish I were more relieved, but I’m not. Thankfully, she’s not in any immediate physical danger from a random stranger, but I hate to think of what she must be feeling. She’s not answering her phone, nor is Quent. I can’t march over to his house and bust down the door to get to her because he lives in a gated subdivision with a full-time guard at the gate. The police won’t do anything about a teen being with her pillar-of-the-community father, who is allowed unsupervised visits with her on a regular basis. I’ve been through various versions of this nightmare before, and I know there’s nothing I can do—legally—without going through our lawyers to duke it out.
I sink down onto the doorstep where Jan had been perched earlier. I raise my gaze to the moonless sky. “Spirits, elementals, guardians, Old Gods and Goddesses, I cannot take much more of this. I’ve got to have some relief.”
Christabel pats one of my shoulders. Jan pats the other.
I hand Christabel my keys and try to remember that this is a difficult night for her as well, having just fled from her uncle in what would have been the night she died. “Here. Take my car keys and see if you can crank my car.”
Just in case the spell cast by some unknown witch was aimed at me alone. Suddenly I understand what the horse-faced messenger is, and it’s far more than a messenger.
I turn to Jan. “The thing that’s following me is a thought-form designed to serve its creator. It’s a kind of magick.”
“I’ve always said that thoughts have power.”
“You’re right, but this is more than just mere thoughts. This is a manifestation of certain thoughts with certain intentions. And it’s very real.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that—”
“It’s real like… like Captain Kirk in Star Trek is real. If I mention that character’s name, you, Jan, being a decades-long Trekkie, know exactly who I am talking about. You know his characteristics, his personality, things he’s, um, fictionally done. You know his story. You know what he’s likely to do in a particular situation. He’s not flesh and blood, of course, but there has been so much power put into the thought of who that character is that he seems just as real as any—let’s say—celebrity you’ve never met. There’s a type of magick that channels certain intentions into a thought-form and then unleashes the thought-form to carry out the sender’s instructions as if it were some kind of metaphysical mercenary or agent sent to do its creator’s dirty work. Once the sender directs the thought-form, the sender can sit back and relax. They don’t have to put any more energy into their magick. It’s like fire-and-forget.”
Jan nods at my reference to military warfare because this is very much witch warfare. “Well, goddammit,” she says, shaking her head. She fumbles in her purse for a cigarette, then stands downwind from me to take a drag. “I told you it’s that dragon lady.”
“Lady Dragon.”
“Whatever.” She shrugs and exhales a slow stream of smoke.
“The point is, Jan, that thing tried to kill me tonight, and there was nothing I could do about it. I can’t banish it because part of the magick is I have to be able to name it or at least its sender. And I’m afraid I have too many enemies to do that reliably.”
Jan regards me thoughtfully, takes a second and third drag, and then tamps out her cigarette on the brick doorstep closest to her. “Maybe, maybe. You do have a lot of enemies. That happens a lot with strong women, and women who stand up for themselves and their—” She takes a deep breath, and I know she is thinking of Sonnet and Rhiannon. “Their babies.”
In the distance, Christabel tries to crank my car, but it only makes a whiny noise and then no noise at all. Whether this is the result of another witch’s spell or the magick of a thought-form, I’m not driving anywhere tonight.
Jan paces in a tight circle, a fresh but unlit cigarette in one hand and her cross pendant clutched in the other. “Let’s think about this for a minute. Most of your enemies aren’t magickal people. They’re people like the woman who complains to the city council all the time that you have Reiki Masters at the healing center because she thinks the only way of healing is through popping pills. You may have enemies who are mad at you because they somehow hold you responsible for Jesse damaging the beloved city oak tree or something else he did that you don’t even know about. I would definitely count your ex-husband as an enemy, and maybe his new wife. God help that young trophy bride of his because he’s still trying to figure out who he is and doing everything he can to not accept it. But Quent, for all his faults, cannot possibly conduct a witch war.” She laughs under her breath before she can verbalize whatever she envisions. “I’m not sure Quent would know what to do with a thought-form if it bit him.”
“I understand where you’re going with this, Jan. That’s why you’re thinking it’s Lady Dragon. But this… this thing claimed it wasn’t Lady Dragon who sent it.”
“So? Why would you believe anything it says?”
“I-I am not sure. Up close, it didn’t feel like her energy.”
Jan stops pacing, then starts again. “Is it possible it can mask her energy?”
“Maybe? Or maybe it’s not Dragon.”
Jan nods slowly as we watch Christabel cross the lawn back to us on the steps. “Maybe it’s Lisa? You do have other magickal people in your life. Or had them in your life.”
I know exactly what she is thinking. The Elders.
“Miss Lauren? Maybe it was somebody you met through the healing center, or somebody in your old coven that you haven’t thought about in a long time. I mean, it doesn’t have to be anyone immediately in front of you. It could be someone behind you. I mean, behind you in the past, like in Tarot readings in the Celtic Cross spread. That which is before you is most likely to happen in the near future. That which is behind you has already happened or you are still under the influence of it.”
Jan paces in a clockwise circle around me. Funny, how I’m always aware of whether people’s circles are deosil or widdershins. One is for increase and the other for decrease. Even if the person is unaware.
Christabel returns and tosses me the keys. “I can call Miss Jan’s husband in the morning and get him out here to fix your car. He still has the little mechanic shop over on Cypress, doesn’t he?”
Jan nods. “And if he can’t fix it for you, sweet pea, I’m sure he’ll let you borrow my truck until you have a decent way to go.”
I wince at the suggestion. Jan knows how hard it is for me to ask for help, even if Steve would do anything in the world for me.
“Miss Lauren, let me help. Please? I owe you one. Not just for tonight and for letting me stay here until everything gets wrapped up back at my uncle’s, but for everything you’ve always done for me, taking me under your wing, giving me a job I loved at the Center of Light, even if it’s gone now. I built up a great clientele there, and you always kept me safe. So I’m going to help you figure this one out. Okay? I mean, what good are spiritual talents if you don’t use them?”
I know she didn’t mean to, but her words sting. I’ve not been using mine lately after all the work I’d done to get to where I am. I’ve become as helpless as a neophyte and nothing at all like the powerful witch I was a few months ago. But I am too tired right now to deal with anything.
The pilot light at the core of my insides burns like a nugget of lava. It’s past the time for my next dose of pain meds, but the idea of even standing up to retrieve them from my kitchen makes my knees weak. For the umpteenth time tonight, I press the avatar for Sonnet on my phone and listen as the call goes straight to voicemail.
“Hey, you know what, Miss Lauren? Maybe for some reason she’s not answering your calls or not answering calls from your number. I mean, let me try.”
She fumbles through her phone, swipes her fingertip across a tiny cartoon image of Sonnet, and thumbs the speakerphone so I can hear.
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