I could feel my entire face tense as my lips hardened into a frown at the horrific thoughts now invading my already overloaded grey matter.
“Who’s dead, Felicity?” I asked.
I was afraid I already knew the name she was going to speak, and I desperately hoped I was wrong.
“Me. I’m dead.”
“No, tell me your name.” I nudged.
“Brittany,” she whispered. “My name was Brittany.”
I wasn’t wrong.
The episode ended quicker than it began, with Felicity snapping suddenly back into our world without warning or ceremony. She was weak but fully conscious of her surroundings, and that was a good sign.
As soon as she was ready to move, we retreated back into the house. Even though the sun was down, the heat and humidity were still lingering in a suffocating blanket. RJ shut off the van and locked it up while Cally and I tried to help Felicity make the short journey across the yard. I say tried because she was having none of it. The most she would allow was for us to walk alongside her as she slowly trudged. To her credit, she made it into the house under her own power. While I had objected strenuously to her defiant need to go it alone, in the end she won out, mainly because I didn’t want to argue with her.
Ben hadn’t even changed positions that I could tell, but Dickens had abandoned him- most likely having gone in search of a quieter place to sleep as my friend had begun to snore at a level louder than most gasoline-powered lawnmowers.
In our own bid to escape the noise, after Felicity had cleaned up, we retreated to the kitchen. At least the distance and walls managed to dull the cacophony enough for us to talk.
“Anyone else want coffee?” I asked, holding up the carafe. “It’s fresh.”
“I’m good,” RJ answered.
He had his small frame perched up on one end of our kitchen counter where it ran below the back window. His back was against the frame, and he was in the perfect spot to see anything and everything that was going on. In a way, I guess it was his designated spot and always would be.
Following the murder of their Priestess- a former student of mine- Felicity and I had adopted this young Coven. Our intent had been to point them in the right direction, send them out on their own, and then return to our solitary practice. But, as with all best laid plans, things just didn’t work out that way. Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely sure that it had been for the best. Looking back, I wondered if they were doomed by my presence from the very beginning as my involvement with them was born of violence on day one. And, it was a motif that had continued throughout the years.
Until the past few months, we had held almost all of the meetings here. Each time, be it a class, ritual, or Sabbat, for whatever reason, the entire group had invariably migrated to the kitchen. And, every single time, RJ had ended up parked in the exact spot he was now, sitting in the very same half-lotus position while watching with curious eyes and drinking it all in.
It had been five months now since I’d seen him, or anyone else from the Coven besides Felicity for that matter; something that was my own choice as my wife had been so intent on pointing out. But I didn’t regret it. At least, I didn’t think that I did.
As time wore on, I had once again grown used to practicing The Craft with Felicity alone. I had even managed to get my energies under control and re-focus myself on some of the basics I had seemed to forget in the wake of everything I’d been subjected to, both ethereal and physical.
But, standing here now, there was something oddly comfortable about the sight of RJ and Cally making themselves at home in the kitchen as they’d done so many times before. Felicity was correct. These people were family, and in some small way, even considering the negative circumstances, this was a homecoming.
“I’m going to get some ice water if that’s okay,” Cally said.
“Yeah, go for it,” I replied, breaking out of my introspective trance as her words met my ears. I turned and slid the pot back onto the base then nodded my head toward the cabinets. “Glasses are where they’ve always been.”
“I’ll take a Jaim…” Felicity began.
“…Not this time.” I cut her off.
“Jaim…” she started again, adding a demanding note to her voice.
“…I said no,” I interrupted her again, adopting my own stern tone as I stepped over to the breakfast nook and slid a cup of coffee in front of her. “Not this time. Now take the aspirin, drink the coffee, and try to relax. The caffeine will help, trust me.”
“But…”
“No but’s.” I shook my head. “I’ve already got Ben passed out on the couch. I’m not going to have you going in that direction too.”
“I was gonna ask about that,” RJ said.
“What, Ben? Apparently he tied one on,” I stated simply. There was no reason for them to know the impetus behind his binge.
“So have you remembered anything else?” I asked, turning my attention back to Felicity.
“Anything else?” she asked with more than a hint of confusion in her voice. “I don’t remember anything at all.”
“Well you just told me a few minutes ago that Brittany Larson is dead,” I returned.
“I did what?”
“Yeah, Felicity,” RJ chimed in. “You said, ‘She’s dead. Brittany is dead.’”
“No…” she muttered, her voice trailing off, not denying that she’d said it but still verbally rejecting that it could be true.
Her hand was covering her mouth, and her head pitched forward as her shoulders drooped.
“It’s okay, honey,” I told her, resting a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve done better than me on this one so far.”
“For all the good it’s done, then,” she replied, her voice cracking slightly.
“Mind if I use your phone to call Nancy?” Cally asked in a somber tone. “She and the twins are probably worried sick.”
“Help yourself,” I replied. “Tell her I’ll make arrangements to get Felicity’s Jeep as soon as I can.”
“Yeah,” RJ interjected. “While you got her on the line, ask her if Moonpie Fairybunny bolted or what.”
“RJ!” Cally admonished.
“Well what would you call her?” he asked with a shrug.
“Her name is Candee,” she replied as she lifted the phone off the wall base and then disappeared around the corner into the dining room.
“Yeah, Candee with two ‘e’s’, don’t forget,” he called after her, holding up a pair of fingers. “So, I rest my case.”
“Moonpie Fairybunny?” I asked.
“A seeker,” Felicity answered, speaking toward the surface of the table as she held her head in her hands.
“She’s been to the last couple of classes,” RJ offered. “Real crystal crunching, cotton-tailed, white-lighter. Enough to make you gag.”
“She probably won’t even ask to dedicate, RJ,” Felicity told him.
“You’re probably right. You should have seen her face when you hit the floor,” he returned. “I think you scared the crap out of her.”
“So what are we going to do?” Felicity asked.
“About Fluffy?” RJ asked rhetorically. “Tell her not…”
“No,” Felicity shot back, cutting him off and turning her face up to mine. “About Brittany Larson. What if she really is dead? Shouldn’t we tell someone?”
For the first time I could recall, I found myself standing on a very different side of the fence. It was a viewpoint with which I had more than just a passing familiarity but only when it was staring back at me. I had never seen the world from this angle, or at least not in the past few years.
“Honey,” I began. “I hate to sound like Ben, but right now we’ve got nothing to go on. On top of that, you don’t even remember saying that she’s dead.”
“But we have to do something,” she appealed.