Resting atop the stainless steel surface of the gurney was a rubberized body bag. Given its current bulk and shape, it was definitely engaged in doing exactly what it was designed to do. I kept my eyes on my wife as I slipped around the end and came up next to her. I could see that she had moved, but not much. She was now staring at the bag in front of her, unblinking, with a faint look of dread now twisting itself into her features.
“Sorry I was gone so long,” the doctor announced. “I wanted to make sure everyone knew this suite was off limits for the time being. So…are we ready?”
I remained quiet, watching and waiting to see if Felicity was going to respond. She was still squarely focused on the black zippered sheath, seemingly transfixed in a moment only she could see.
After several seconds passed, I gave her arm a gentle nudge and called softly, “Felicity?”
“Aye…” she muttered, her voice even thinner and more distracted than before. “I’m okay.”
I didn’t believe her. The arrival of this newest member to the party was obviously pushing her apprehension beyond the next level. Of course, I had already been hovering up against the red line for hours, so I knew exactly how she felt. Unfortunately, that knowledge wasn’t comforting to me in the least.
No matter how hard Felicity had tried to reassure me otherwise, we both knew that channeling the dead wasn’t exactly her long suit. Other than her body being hijacked by Miranda, she had only done this once before, and it had been strictly involuntary.
She was as skilled a magickal practitioner as I’d ever met. In fact, I would even readily admit that she was more advanced than me in that arena. But, this wasn’t magick. It was something completely different. Still, in reality, we had no way of knowing whether or not this would even work. Under the present circumstances, I found myself hoping that it wouldn’t.
The tone of Ben’s next exchange with my wife told me that his second thoughts about this were starting to bother him even more.
“You think you’re gonna be able ta’ do this, Felicity?” he asked.
She gave her head a slight shake. “I don’t know.”
“Fair enough. You still good with tryin’?”
“Aye,” she replied, her voice soft and distant. “I think so.”
He waited a moment, still watching her carefully. Eventually he told her, “You can back out, if you don’t want ta’ go through with it. It’s not a problem. I’ll understand.”
“No…” she mumbled. “We need to do this.”
My friend looked over at me, more concern in his eyes than I’d seen for quite some time. “Row…I’m leavin’ it up ta’ you. Wanna pull the plug?”
The litany of objections presented themselves once again, ricocheting around the inside of my skull as they looked for an exit. However, I simply gave my head a barely perceptible shake and said, “No. She’s probably right. We should try.”
“Is everything okay?” Doctor Kingston asked.
“Just makin’ sure everyone’s still on the same page, Doc,” Ben replied. “It’s a Witch thing.”
Had the situation been different, I likely would have guffawed at Ben’s use of that phrase.
“All right then,” she began, addressing me directly. “Mister Gant, earlier you said you may need physical contact with the deceased?”
“It helps,” I replied and dipped my head toward my wife. “But it will only be Felicity, not me.”
“Then you’ll need to put these on, Miz O’Brien,” the doctor replied, holding a pair of surgical gloves out to her.
Felicity was staring again, so I gave her a nudge. She looked at me then turned and focused in on the gloves and took them from Doctor Kingston. I continued to watch as she began trying to stretch one over her hand. There was an unmistakable hesitation in all of her actions, and her steadily growing uneasiness was becoming more than simply palpable. I had been here countless times myself, so I knew all too well that it was starting to exact a painful toll. As I watched my wife struggle with the glove, I began to wonder if I should take the out Ben had offered and just go ahead and stop this before it even started.
But, I forced myself not to give in, took a deep breath, and fought to hold my tongue. Instead of objecting, I reached out and took the surgical glove from Felicity and told her, “Here. Let me help.”
She looked at me in silence, chewing at her lower lip, and then slowly held out her hand. I stretched the rubber sheath and carefully slipped it onto her right appendage. She started to offer the other hand, and I shook my head.
“No. Just your right,” I told her. “I’ll be hanging on to your left.”
She gave me a slow nod.
I held her gaze for a moment then reached up and brushed the hair back out of her eyes. In a quiet voice I asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?”
She nodded again, this time attempting a verbal response as well but only managing a barely audible whisper. She stopped, cleared her throat and then repeated, “Yes.”
“Okay…then let’s give this a try.”
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the small handful of salt packets I had earlier retrieved from her purse. I counted them out while glancing at the space around us and running through a quick mental calculation at the same time. Then I counted through them again, peeled off four, stuffed two of them back into my pocket and held the other two out to Ben.
“Whaddaya want me ta’ do?” he whispered.
“Remember how I chased Miranda out before?” I returned, my own voice low.
“Yeah,” he said then opened his mouth and pantomimed eating the salt as he nodded toward Felicity.
“Exactly…” I replied. “So…hang on to them…just in case.”
It would have been easier to go ahead and use everything I had in my hand, but I wanted something to fall back on if necessary, and this was what I had. I was carrying the backup. Ben was going to be my failsafe. I hoped I would need neither.
Tearing the remainder of the packets open, I poured the crystals into the palm of my hand and then began walking in a tight circle, barely a few feet out from our small clutch around the gurney. As I slowly shuffled along the perimeter, I sprinkled pinches of the salt in my wake.
Halfway through the circumference, I heard Ben’s voice somewhere behind me as he whispered to Doctor Kingston, “Relax, it doesn’t usually get weird for another coupl’a minutes yet.”
I continued along my arc without acknowledging that I’d heard him. At the moment I had someone far more important on whom my attention needed to be focused.
Once I’d completed the orbit, I took the crumpled handful of empty salt packets and shoved them into my other pocket. I closed my eyes then took a deep breath in through my nose and held it for several heartbeats before allowing the warmed air to vent in a slow stream out via my mouth. Even though Miranda had taken away my connection to the dead and my ability to feel, she couldn’t keep me from executing the simplest of exercises where WitchCraft was concerned-grounding and centering.
I repeated the pattern of breathing several more times as I visualized a solid connection between the Earth and myself. I imagined a conduit forming between the floor and my body, and in my mind it took the form of a spire of light. It acted as a channel through which energy could pass in both directions. This would be my anchor in the here and now, and I would be Felicity’s sole tether between the worlds of life and death.
After a handful of minutes, I finally felt myself beginning to relax. The emptiness that had begun earlier in the pit of my stomach and then spread throughout my body was still making a home in my chest. However, it no longer consumed me. I knew I hadn’t arrived at a perfect calm, but it was the best I was going to be able to manage, so it would have to do. I took one last cleansing breath then stepped over and resumed my earlier station next to my wife.
I reached down and slipped my hand into hers, pressing our palms together and intertwining our fingers in a tight weave. I felt her squeeze out of reflex, and she slowly swiveled her head and looked into my face.
“Like you said,” I told her softly. “Don’t be like me. No chances… No risks… And, don’t you dare let go.”
“You either,” she whispered.
“We ready?” Ben asked.
“Aye,” Felicity responded, giving him a shallow nod.
He looked at her, then at me. The reluctance was clear in his eyes. Finally, he held up the two salt packets and stared at them briefly before returning his gaze to mine. He wagged the square packets at me as if to say, “I’ve got your back.”
I simply nodded.
Ben sighed then looked at the M.E. and said, “Go on. Open it up, Doc.”
Doctor Kingston stepped around the end of the gurney then reached out a gloved hand and tugged on the zipper. In a smooth motion she pulled the closure, creating an ever-widening gap down the center of the shroud. Once she reached the midpoint, she stopped.
Moving back to the head of the gurney, she carefully folded back the sides of the rubberized fabric and revealed the body that had been sprawled in our front yard less than ten hours ago. After the medical examiner had moved out of the way, Felicity slowly reached out, her gloved hand hovering a few inches above the pale flesh of the corpse.
And then, through our clasped hands, I felt her entire body go completely stiff.