“I will say it,” she interrupted. “I am eighty-eight years old, child. Being a witch does not make one immortal.”
I didn’t reply to that, only clasped my hands between my knees, knowing I wasn’t going to like what was about to come next, and also knowing that I had no choice but to listen to it.
She nodded, but I didn’t know if it was in approval of my silence, or because she was mentally going through what she meant to say next. “It’s been hard. I lost my Pat fifteen years ago, and oh, how I wanted to go with him. You’ll understand, when you find your consort.”
If I find him, I thought. I doubted she wanted to hear that…then again, maybe she knew I was thinking it. Contrary to popular belief, being a witch doesn’t necessarily make you psychic, and anyway, that wasn’t Great-Aunt Ruby’s gift. However, she of course knew all about my failure to find my own match, and it didn’t take a mind reader to figure out I was feeling a little disheartened by the whole process.
Bony fingers tightened on the carved arms of the chair. “But I held on, because I knew you weren’t ready. How could you be, at that age? So I’ve been waiting this whole time, waiting to see if you would be able to manage when the time came…and I think you will be.” She shook her head, correcting herself. “No, I know you will be.”
“How can I, when I can’t even find a consort?” I argued. Her talk of the “time coming” and all that was frightening me more than I wanted to admit, even to myself. She couldn’t go before I found my match. I’d be vulnerable.
I’d be alone.
“You will. The more difficult the search, the stronger the bond, when it comes.” Her expression grew dreamy, and beneath the lines and the fine, paper-thin skin I could see a ghost of the beautiful young woman she’d been so many years before. “How they came to court me, back in the day, and I wouldn’t have any of them. Just like you, Angela. My mother despaired and my father blustered, but I hadn’t a care in the world. I knew he’d be there when I needed him. And so he was — Patrick Lynch, come up from Payson on business, not thinking of anything except selling some cattle. Certainly not thinking he’d be the consort of the McAllisters’ prima. But I was down in Cottonwood, shopping with my mother, and there he came walking along the street, and I knew. I knew the second I laid eyes on him. Just as you’ll know, Angela.”
I nodded, albeit sadly. I wanted to feel that conviction. I wanted to look up and suddenly meet those cool green eyes I’d seen so many times in my mind, and know the doubt and worry were over at last. How I wanted that more than anything in the world. Wanting something, though, wasn’t quite the same as actually getting it.
“Why, you’re seeing him already in your dreams. He wants to come to you, just as you want to come to him.”
“Well, he’s taking his sweet time,” I remarked, my tone a little more acid than I’d intended. Her brows lifted, and I hastily added, “I know, I know. These things happen as they’re meant to be. But I barely have two months left.”
“A lot can happen in two months, even though it might feel like an eternity to you. The worst thing you can do is allow yourself to become discouraged. That only leads to a lowering of your spirits, and that makes you vulnerable.” Her mouth tightened. “And that is the thing this clan needs the least.”
Something in her tone told me she was making an oblique reference to the spirit or entity I had seen. “Did you — did you feel it?” I asked.
She didn’t bother to inquire what I’d meant by “it.” A nod, and she replied, “Faintly. I was sitting here, napping a little, I suppose.” Another pursing of the thin wrinkled lips. She didn’t like to admit to any weakness, even something as harmless as taking an afternoon nap. “It felt to me like a cold draft blowing through a crack in the wall. Then it was gone, and until Rachel sent out the call to the coven, I thought I must have imagined it.”
“It is — it is gone, though, isn’t it?” Even though I could sense no trace of that malevolent presence, it still nagged at me, as if it were hiding somewhere just out of range.
“As far as I can tell. It was a good cleansing. I sense no negativity here now…unless you want to count the drivers going over the mountain cursing as they have to slow down to ten miles an hour to get through town.”
That remark made me smile. I guessed she’d made it on purpose in an attempt to banish my lingering worries. “So what should I do?”