The Witch's Key Read online

  The Witch’s Key

  Author's notes: This book is based entirely on fiction and its story line derived solely from the imagination of its author. No characters, places or incidents in this book are real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, events or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be copied or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy or otherwise, without the expressed written permission of the author or author’s agent.

  Copyright Dana E. Donovan 2007

  Smashwords Edition

  Published by Smashwords

  One

  I read how the train slowed as it neared the yard, its headlamps lapping the wooded bluff in a broad sweep ahead of the bend, blinding the squatter punks and angellinas waiting to hop aboard. Further along the tracks, a young man sat Indian style, hands clasped resting on a cloth bindle.

  I turned to Lilith, pointing to the article in the newspaper where the engineer admitted he had been drinking, but claimed he would not have been able to stop the train in any case. “Can you believe this guy?” I asked. “How can he say alcohol wasn’t a factor?”

  Lilith brushed the question aside as though I had never asked it. “Look,” she said. “I made this.” She handed me a little white box.

  My first impression was that the box contained jewelry of some sort. It was about the right size. But then, our relationship had not made that leap since our still-recent return to prime. The rite of passage ceremony we participated in had given me the body of a twenty-something year-old, an easy forty years younger than the man I was. And although I had made no secret of my romantic inclinations for Lilith, she had yet to express anything remotely mutual towards me. For that reason, I dismissed the idea of the gift representing any significant intimate value. Still, the giggle in her voice made me wonder. I took the offering and shook it to my ear. It sounded empty.

  “What is it?”

  She smiled, teasingly, and then she sat down on the couch, opposite my end. She leaned back on a stack of pillows, propping her feet up on my lap. “Go on, open it.”

  The coo in her voice intrigued me. My heart fluttered, I think. I mean, admittedly, it had not done that in decades, but I’m reasonably sure that’s what it was. I pulled on the ribbon that made up a bow and untied the neatly wrapped package. My eyes darted back and forth between Lilith and the box, hoping to catch a glimpse of what she was up to. With most women, you can take a moment like that at face value, embrace it, delight in its spontaneity and treasure its tenderness. But with Lilith, you cannot do that. It is not to say that she is not spontaneous. She is. Or that she is not tender, because she can be. I have seen it. But Lilith, witchcraft and magic notwithstanding, is definitely not like most women. When Lilith presents you with a gift, you must take it gratefully, but with quiet reservations.

  “It’s not going to bite me,” I said jokingly, as I prepared to lift the cover. “Is it?”

  She kicked her shoes off and cupped her hands behind her head. “Course not, silly.”

  Great, I thought. She called me silly. I knew I was in trouble then. Silly is something a girlfriend says to her boyfriend, or maybe a wife to her husband when she’s feeling frisky. I did not want to accept her gift with my guard up, but I didn’t want my hopes unnecessarily dashed either. I lifted the cover on the box and looked inside. A faint whisk of air shot out, making me blink, but otherwise provoking no unpleasant surprises. I looked back at her. She seemed satisfied, but curious.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “But it’s empty.”

  “Yes. Now it is.” She wiggled her toes, and at once, I began rubbing and massaging her bare foot.

  “You know, you’re going to think this is crazy, but…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I thought maybe you were going to give me something special.”

  “Oh?” Her smile remained suspiciously stuck. “Like what?”

  I stopped working the ball of her right foot and began thump presses on her left. “Yeah, I thought for a moment you were presenting me with…I don’t know, a ring maybe.”

  “A ring?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like a friendship ring?”

  “Yeah, maybe, something like that.”

  She pulled her foot away and inserted the other back into the rotation. “And you’re disappointed now?”

  I shrugged. “A little, I guess.”

  “Oh, Tony.”

  “Tony, nothing,” I said, sounding discouraged, I’m sure. “You know how I feel about you, Lilith. You don’t need to tease me with empty boxes.”

  “That wasn’t an empty box.” Curiously, her smile broadened.

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “No. That was a whisper box.”

  “What’s that?”

  Now the laugh came out, spilling like a secret she could no longer keep. “A whisper box is a vessel containing a spell, which is cast upon the recipient who opens it.”

  “You cast a spell on me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of spell?”

  “Oh, it’s harmless. There is only one kind of spell that you can hold in a whisper box.”

  I must say I was getting a bit perturbed at that point, but for some reason, I could not stop smiling. “Lilith?” I had worked my way up to the top of her foot and was about to wring her big toe. “Tell me, now.”

  “It’s a will-chill.” She said, and before I could ask, she explained, “It slaps a momentary freeze on your freewill and allows a predetermined command to motivate your actions. It is pretty cool, really. It’s the only spell I know that keeps in a box until you’re ready to use it.”

  My smile was gone now. The thought of anyone screwing with my freewill just did not sit right with me. “So, you used it on me?”

  She drew a tight bead with her lips and perked her brows. “Ah-huh.” No apologies insinuated.

  “Nice. And what is it you’re going to have me do?”

  She gestured toward her feet with a nod. “You’re doing it already.”

  I looked down at my lap and saw that my hands were full of Lilith’s feet. “Lilith!” I pushed them off my lap. “Not funny!” I barked. “Not funny at all!”

  Apparently, she disagreed. She rolled up on the sofa, laughing and squeaking and snorting in a manner most unbefitting a witch. I gave her a moment to enjoy herself before condemning her righteously.

  “Are you done?” I asked. “Are you finished toying with me now?”

  She sat up and pulled the wrinkles from her blouse. “Relax. It was a harmless prank. Why are you getting so uptight about it?”

  I looked at her from across the room, and for a moment, wondered the same thing. Pranks like that are what make Lilith, Lilith. I had come to expect that from her. It is that vitality for excitement that drew me to her in the first place. I walked back to the sofa and sat down beside her.

  “I don’t know. I’m uptight about everything,” I said. “I guess I’m having trouble adjusting to the new me. Things are so different now. I have all this pent-up energy and I do not know what to do with it. Is that normal after going through the rite of passage? I mean, I feel like we’ve been on this incredible journey together. I should be exhausted from it, but I’m not. Instead, I’m agitated.”

  She laughed a little and brushed my cheek with the back of her hand. “It’s not so much the journey, Tony, but the destination. You returned to the physical prime of your life, but metaphysically, you are still an old guy.”

  “Hey!”

  “You know what I mean. Listen, your brain thinks it knows how your body should feel, but your body is young and alive. It won’t lis
ten. Give it some time. You’ll adjust.”

  “You think?”

  “I know. Trust me.”

  As I looked into her eyes, I began to believe that she could tell me the world was flat and I would trust her on that. I wanted so much to let those eyes just draw me in until our noses touched, our lips met and our kiss solidified a love she secretly harbored but staunchly denied. I leaned into her slowly, pulled by the gravity of her aura. But as I neared her face, she pulled back.

  “Tony. No.” She pressed her fingertips to my lips. “Look, what you need is a diversion. What do you say we go out for a while to break the monotony? I know this nice little place around the corner. It’s called the Cyber Café.”

  “You mean, Cyber Crapā?”

  “Come on. You’ll like it. It’s open twenty four seven. I go there all the time.”

  “Is that where you head to when you sneak out of here in the middle of the night?”

  “I don’t sneak out. I go there to use my computer when I don’t want to wake you.”

  “Oh, it’s that computer place.”

  “You’ve heard of it, then?”

  I wrinkled my nose some. “Yeah, it’s a geek’s nest, isn’t it?”

  “Please,” she said, making that tisk sound after it. “You’ll love it. You can get some coffee and muffins while I go online and cruise the Web.”

  “Cruise for what?”

  “For cool sites like Witchit. That’s where I learned to make your whisper box.”

  “You’re kidding!” I said, sensing another prank in the making. “You can learn witchcraft online?”

  “Witchcraft? Hell, you can learn how to make nukes online if that’s what you’re into. Now, what do you say?”

  I winced again and gave a little shrug. “I thought you wanted to keep a low profile for a while.”

  She stood and made her way to the closet where she grabbed a denim vest for her and a windbreaker for me. “Don’t worry `bout it.” She tossed me my jacket. “I go there all the time. No one knows me. Like you said, only geeks go there.”

  “Maybe someone will know me.”

  That made her laugh. “Tony, you’re forty years younger. Who’s going to recognize you?”

  I thought about it. She had a point. Even if I didn’t look forty years younger, nobody I knew would be seen dead in a coffee shop that catered to computer geeks. I grabbed the jacket and followed her out the door.

  Two

  I had driven past the Cyber Café on Lexington a million times before, but never once had I the inclination to stop and go inside. First off, trendy little muffin shops like those do not interest me. I prefer real coffee to cappuccino and donuts to fluffy muffins any day. Secondly, I just don’t get computers. My old partner, Carlos Rodriquez, and his new partner, Spinelli, are handy with them. I suppose you have to be these days if you want to succeed in detective work. I am just glad I didn’t need to rely on them too much in my day.

  It was still before noon when Lilith and I walked into the place. They were doing a brisk take out business, but the majority of small tables and computer booths were vacant. Lilith ushered me to a table in the corner closest to the restrooms. “You’ll thank me,” she said of our seating arrangements, “after your first few cups of coffee.” A heavy-set guy seated next to us at table four overheard the comment and confirmed her logic with a nod.

  We sat down. I watched Lilith unpack a laptop from a black nylon tote and fire it up. The machine made a few beeps, rang a little chime or two and then welcomed her on line. It even let her know she had mail. When I questioned how she was able to do that without plugging anything in, she just laughed.

  “What?” I said, a little indignant. “Did I say something funny?”

  She rocked the machine up on edge to show me its bottom. “I don’t need to plug it in. It runs on batteries.”

  I pushed my chair back and crossed my arms to my chest. “I know that, Lilith. I’m not a complete moron. I meant, how are you getting online without plugging into a phone jack?”

  “It’s wireless. You don’t need a phone line.”

  “So, why do you need to come here then? Can’t you get on the Internet back at the apartment?”

  She shot me a sour look, which I took to mean that she did not have a good answer. Evidently, I was wrong. She set the laptop down flat and squared it to the table. “Tony, you’re about one step away from spending the rest of your natural life as a toad.”

  “Hey, it’s a logical question.”

  “Is it? Or are you just being difficult to piss me off?”

  “No!”

  “Really. I knew I should have pushed you out of that circle the moment you grabbed my ass.”

  “What?”

  “Look. First of all, we don’t have wireless service at the apartment. Secondly, the whole point of coming here is to get you out for some fresh air so that you don’t go stir crazy. But that doesn’t seem to be working, now, is it?”

  I hate when she is right, and unfortunately, she usually is. “Lilith,” I unfolded my arms to soften my body language. “Let’s start over. You know I’m not trying to piss you off. What would be the point in that? You think I want you to turn me into a toad?”

  She laughed at that. “No,” then added, reluctantly, “you know I can’t, of course.”

  “I know. Otherwise, you probably would have done it by now.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Coffee?” said a young woman who nearly scared the crap out of me after sneaking up on us like a puma.

  “Love some,” Lilith answered.

  I smiled at the girl and ordered the same. When she walked away, I leaned across the table and said, “Why didn’t you tell me she was coming? She nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  Few things bring a smile to Lilith’s lips, but the mere mention of me having a heart attack seemed to fill her with enough warm thoughts to squint her eyes and dimple her cheeks. I could tell she wanted to hide it from me, if only it was easy. But since it was not, she made little effort to do so.

  “Tony,” she said, only it came out sounding a little condescending. “You have the heart of an ox now. A little scare isn’t going to kill you. Why don’t you learn to ease up some? Here, look at this.” She spun the laptop around so that I could see the Web site she pulled up.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s that site I told you about, Witchit dot com. Look, all the resources a witch could want. Here you can learn spells, incantations, read up on all the news in Witchland. Whatever you want.”

  “Witchland? Is that a real place?”

  “Sure, it’s in Orlando, but you can only get there by broomstick.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  Again she laughed, and I have to tell you, I was beginning to like the old Lilith much better.

  “Of course, I’m kidding. But seriously, this is a cool site. I told you it’s where I learned to make the whisper box.”

  “So you weren’t kidding?”

  “Not about that. Now go on. Check it out.” She hiked her thumb up over her shoulder. “I’m going to the little witches room. See if you can’t get yourself into a bit of trouble.”

  I did not know if she meant that as a warning or a challenge, but I guessed she knew I would find out either way. She stood and headed for the restroom, when I called out, “Wait! What do I do?”

  From the way she turned and looked at me, you might have thought I had barked Shih-Tzu at her. “What do you mean?”

  I turned my palms up empty. “I’ve never surfed the web before.”

  “Haven’t you?” She bundled her hands below her chin and knitted her fingers like a garden spider working her web. Then she balled the thing up and threw it at me from across the room. I have to admit, I did not feel a thing, but with Lilith, some of her spells can be very subtle. I blinked at her a couple of times and waited for her response. She seemed uncertain at first, but then a thread of satisfaction stitched her lips tight an
d she declared her approval with a nod.

  “There,” she said, with authority. “Now you know how.” And she turned and disappeared into the lady’s room.

  I looked down at the computer, admittedly, feeling no more proficient with it than before. But I did feel more capable, and I had seen Lilith, Carlos and Spinelli operate one in the past. I knew that the little square pad below the keyboard controlled the mouse, and that clicking the mouse was a basic command essential to its operation. Given that knowledge and coupling it with the spell that Lilith cast to help me, I set to work. Before I knew it, I was whipping around that site, negotiating hyperlinks and clicking on live icons that I didn’t even know were live until they took me to pages deep within the hollows of Witchit dot com. There, I found how Lilith learned to make the whisper box. I came upon a recipe for something called Lover’s Brew and I put it in my favorite places. I even found a link to a posting of The Witch’s Creed, something that Lilith apparently molds to fit her own agenda. But hey, I’m not the judgmental type.

  Things were going well for a while, until I stumbled onto a link that brought me to the Chatter Shack, a forum where witches and warlocks discuss the latest in witchery, perpetuate rumors and gossip about all things paranormal. That is when I first realized how extensive and intricate the witch community really was. These people have an intelligence network rivaling the NSA. They know what’s going on with some witches that even the witches themselves don’t know, including Lilith. My mouth was still agape when Lilith came out of the lady’s room and took her seat across from me.

  “Lilith,” I said, excitedly. “There’s something you should know.”

  A guilty smirk crossed her lips. “Don’t tell me. You figured out that the spell I cast before I went into the lady’s room was bogus. I know. I’m sorry, but everyone knows how to surf the web. I thought if you—”

  “No! That’s not it. Wait…. That wasn’t a real spell?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  I hate when she does that to me. “Never mind.” I spun the computer around so that she could see for herself. “Look at this.” She narrowed her eyes at the screen and began reading. “They know about me.” I said. “That article, it mentions me by name. It says that a witch in New Castle recently participated in the rite of passage and allowed a mortal named Anthony Marcella to join her.”