Chapter 51
I wake with a start. My breaths come so hard and fast that my chest hurts. My pulse thunders in my ears.
It’s nearly dark outside. Not pitch black but more of a late-sunset purple. The security light in Virgil’s front yard shines through the window and into my eyes where I sprawl on the sofa. I blink and change positions, even though it wasn’t the light in my eyes that woke me—the visions did. They’ve slowly ended, except for two: the ones in the nursing home.
Seconds before waking, the visions had pushed their way into my dreams. I’d been sitting by my mom’s bedside in the nursing home, holding her frail hand, and in the vision she opened her eyes and mouth, “Behind you!”
From there, I’d immediately swirled into the next vision, the one in the corridor leading from Virgil’s office to the shortcut outside. Someone after me. Running for my life and stumbling, my foot dragging as someone grabs my shoulder from behind.
Why? Why am I still having these visions? Bobby no longer haunts my mom. Virgil’s seen to it that Bobby has properly crossed over and no longer wanders the swamp or the hospital halls or nursing home. I’ve visited my mom’s hospice room for the last time—her wishes—and I spent the previous night doing much as I had in my vision: sitting by her bedside in the hospice area near Virgil’s office, holding her hand. But no one had threatened my safety. She never opened her eyes to tell me something or someone was behind me. It was gut-wrenching, yet quiet. The storm before the coming calm of peace.
The visions didn’t happen like the reality of last night did. So why am I having these two visions—still—and only these two?
If they were memories, I could, as I’ve learned, “walk around” in them. That’s because my brain is wired in an unusual way that allows me to see different points of view in a recollection with originally only one point of view. Within a memory, I can turn 360 degrees and see everything around me instead of only 180 degrees in front of me and to my sides. I can turn to see who’s sneaking up behind me. With visions, I see only what is shown to me. So I’m not remembering my past. These are instead flashes of insight that I’m picking up out of the Ether rather than from my past or future.
None of it makes sense.
Gradually, I drag myself into a sitting position, then slowly stand. I feel like shit. Exhausted. Weighed down by the heaviness of my mom’s decline and impending departure. Missing Dixon’s jokes and constant presence but more from familiarity than depth of feeling. Missing my bed at my mom’s but unable to bear the overturned furniture, the collection of books in Mama’s personal library now mangled across the floor, ripped-up chair cushions, scattered and broken knickknacks, and even the hole in one wall.
I’ve slept for half a day, but the last thing I remember is snuggling on the sofa and falling asleep in Virgil’s arms while he dried my tears. I’d been vaguely aware of him cuddled up beside me, but wide awake, his hand shielding me from his erection as he angled his hips away from me. I’d felt loved and safe, respected and protected. His alarm had beeped, and he’d risen without having a wink of sleep, carefully disentangling from me, and managing to get to his feet. I’d been half-asleep—too far under to wake fully to protest his leaving but aware enough to murmur something unintelligible when he draped a light blanket over me to trap the warmth he’d left with me.
My head thuds as I stand, probably from not drinking enough water today. I make my way to the window to see if Virgil’s car is gone from its spot beside mine. Only my car sits under the security light in the front yard, but beyond it, maybe a hundred feet away, sits a deputy’s familiar car. I can’t tell if anyone’s in the vehicle, but my nerves are immediately on edge.
Why is Everett still watching me? And watching me at Virgil’s house, not mine?
I move to a different window for a different point of view. Standing on my tiptoes, I’m able to spot the orange glow of the moon, low on the horizon, on the other side of the deputy’s car. No silhouette in the front seat. The car’s empty. Which means that Everett—or some other deputy, if not him—is walking around Virgil’s property, maybe even peering in the windows at me while I was sleeping on the sofa.
The thought makes me shudder.
I jerk the curtains closed in the sitting room, then close the blinds on every other window in sight. Virgil has complained to me about someone spying on him during the last esbat, or full moon, ritual he’d performed alone. He’d seen only a face in his window and moments later caught the trespasser—one of my cousins using Virgil’s backyard and the green cemetery as a shortcut to spy on my mom’s place. Ranger had fled at the sight of Virgil emerging from the house and pointing the stag’s head of his cane while yelling some spell words in a language my cousin didn’t understand. They’re still busybodies in town, but not a single cousin has stepped foot on the farm since then.
Not to my knowledge.
The idea of my cousins, Everett, or anyone watching through the uncovered windows has me feeling unsettled.
Freshening up in the bathroom off the sitting room, I flip through the messages on my phone and quickly text my mom’s status to both my daughters. No messages from Virgil. Or Dix. Definitely nothing from Shelby. The silence is surreal, both the lack of messages and the lack of sound in the house. The only noise I can distinguish is that of a small motor, probably the refrigerator or maybe the hot water heater.
I squint around the room. Dixon’s energy is still present, though mostly hovering around the recliner in front of the television. Virgil’s electric-blue energy trails are both more active and vivid. A fresh wave into Dixon’s suite, probably where he prepared the space for my temporary stay. Beyond the door to the main part of the house glows blue. I glance back at the sofa where he snuggled next to me—all blue. A trail leading out the front door. If I open my other senses, I feel the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the energy in the house. It’s an extension of Virgil’s energy, vibrations raised, filling every corner. At the highest point in the room is a tiny pyramid of what looks like malachite.
“Kenaz,” I whisper as I twist the metal key on an antique lamp and flood the room with light. The rune for fire, for clarity. I’m being practical—I need to see where I’m going—but it’s also the rune for enlightenment in the mental, spiritual, and psychological sense.
Stepping to the edge of Dixon’s suite, I find that the vibrations are just as strong, even though I can’t spot any pyramid or other obvious amplifiers. No doubt, Virgil has raised the energy all around the house and property. Maybe that’s why this space feels so safe to me or at least so relaxing that I could sleep comfortably for hours. Now I know how Christabel and other neophytes I trained felt when they visited my old home for lessons and fell asleep on the floor. I’ve provided sanctuary for others, and now I can see how Virgil does the same.
Flipping light switches as I go, murmuring runes with each flip, I wander through the house, into the kitchen, through the dining room, beyond, all the way to the door to Virgil’s suite where the lamps on either side of his king-sized bed are already on. I don’t cross the threshold out of respect for his space, but from here, I can see the sigils painted on his walls and a display of magickal artifacts collected on his journeys.
I backtrack through the lighted rooms to Dixon’s suite and flip every light switch I can find, almost like the times I celebrated Winter Solstice and the return of the light with my kids.
Except I can’t subdue this feeling of foreboding. Something is wrong. Something’s about to shift. The timeline is about to change.
My stomach roils. Every nerve ending in my body is on high alert.
“Danger, danger, danger, danger.” My spirit guides and all my ancestors and whatever spirits roam Virgil’s house are all buzzing in my ears.
I run to the sitting room window and peek from behind the curtains. The deputy’s car hasn’t moved, but the parking lights are on. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
Is it possible I’m feeling my mom dying? I grab my phone to call Virgil, but he doesn’t answer.
“Of course not!” I mumble to myself. He’s doing his death doula work with her, drumming and chanting softly. I’m positive his phone is on silent or not even in the room with him so he can focus completely on what Mama needs to make this transition to her afterlife and make sure she’s not scared and can let go of the wounds she’s carried with her all her life.
This burning in my chakras doesn’t feel like my mom, but maybe it’s different because she’s dying? I don’t know. I can feel Virgil’s energy in the mix, and I know we’re connected, bonded, through intertwining our energy in multiple rituals, so it makes sense that I would feel him, too, if he’s there with her. Probably the reverse of him feeling me reaching out to him when I was stuck outside while the deputies ransacked my mom’s home.
Sometimes it’s contrast you notice. The negative space. Not the doorframe but the emptiness between the edges of the doorframe.
Everything in the house is bright except for the space between Virgil’s suite and Dixon’s suite: an open door leading to a dark room.
I tiptoe to the edge of the room. I’ve lost my ballet flats somewhere along the way, probably under the sofa. Peering inside, I can’t see anything except the outline of a window on the far side of the room and enough light from the darkness outside. I feel along the inside wall for a light switch but find none. My eyes adjust slowly. A desk. Antique. Dark wood. An oversized chair, probably leather, probably black. Dark curtains flanking the window on the opposite side of the room: no blinds, no sheers, but overlooking the backyard herb garden.
Gingerly, I feel my way toward the desk and hope I don’t stumble and fall. Virgil’s blue energy in the room doesn’t light up the darkness, but instead mingles with it. The air is thick with the scent of dragon’s blood resin and a hint of vervain. Finally, I find the corner of the desk and look away so my periphery vision can find the shape of a desk lamp and flick it on.
Light bathes the room, but not brightly beyond the top of the desk. Several drawings, notes written in runic alphabet, and a few old books open to different pages about Archangel Michael. Virgil’s desk, obviously. It resembles his office at the nursing home, but in a much more esoteric way. At his work with the hospice unit, the room is somewhat sterile with a few books of last words stashed in one curio cabinet, bottles of spunk-water and jars of ointments in the other. This room has more artifacts and fewer reminders of the mundane. The curtains aren’t just dark, but velvet, burgundy, and trailing to the floor. Like the rest of the house, the floor is original oak, but in this room, the desk and chair center a thick circular rug with sigils woven into it.
“Ohhhhh.”
This isn’t a home office. Not even a study. It’s Virgil’s own personal library, with antique bookcases lining all four walls. And though I’ve never physically stepped foot in this room before, I know from my vision exactly what I’ll find in the bookcase opposite the window.
I’ve seen this room in my vision dozens of times, maybe hundreds, but it stopped repeating itself after the last full moon. Holding my breath, I venture a glance toward the antique bookcase against the wall with the door. Exactly as in my vision. Tall. Six or maybe seven shelves. Old glass panes, the kind from the early twentieth century that look thin and melted so that the contents of the bookcase appear marred, thanks to the distortions in the glass.
I’ve stood here in my visions, time after time, studying the books inside this particular piece of furniture and catching a malformed reflection of myself in a hooded robe that hid my face. No lights in the room except two candles on the desk behind me. And then, in the vision, a movement at the window.
That repeating vision is gone, done.
Heart pounding, I race to the window and close the curtains tightly. If anyone is watching, they can’t see me now.
I rush back to the bookcase and peer inside, but something’s wrong. In my vision, I’d been looking at two books with spines so worn that I could barely read the print on them. They’re in the wrong place.
No. No, they’re exactly where they were in my vision—if I stand on tiptoe. Why was I standing on tiptoe in my vision?
I replay the vision in my head. Maybe I can’t walk around in it as with a memory, but I can slow it down. Way down.
Standing at the bookcase. Peering inside. Catching a glimpse of my reflection in the distorted panes. A movement outside the window behind me.
Slow it down more. Standing at the bookcase. Peering inside. My reflection in the panes. Full stop.
My shoulders are broader in the distortion of glass. My hood is red, like Virgil’s. I’ve never seen him in his hood and robe, but he’s mentioned the color a few times, and it’s related to his purpose within his priesthood. I’m certainly not a deathwalker or a member of his priesthood.
I let the vision slip forward. There’s the movement in the window. A curl of familiar energy. A face peering in. Full stop.
Ranger. My cousin.
Holy shit.
This vision isn’t just gone. It’s already happened, except it wasn’t me Ranger was spying on through the window. It was Virgil.
The visions weren’t from the point of view of future-me, but from Virgil’s point of view.
It was never about me. I was never the intended victim. It was always Virgil in my visions.
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