The Witch's Key Read online

  She pulled back and peered up over the top of the computer. “So?”

  “What do you mean, so? They know about me!”

  “Tony, relax. We’ve broken no laws. I carried you through the passage and restored your youth. Big deal.”

  “What about the Witch’s Creed? Isn’t there something in there forbidding the inclusion of mortals in ceremonial rituals?”

  “Creed, shmeed,” she said, wrinkling her nose in a grimace. “It’s so much dogma. Besides, it’s not like it’s a contract that witches sign or anything. I think of it more as a suggestion to good witchery than anything.”

  That helped me some. I settled back into my chair and welcomed the returned of our waitress with two puny thimbles of coffee. As I loaded mine with cream and sugar, Lilith fell back into reading the online article, probably searching it to see if she had been mentioned by name, as well. From the look on her face when she finished, I concluded she hadn’t.

  “Well, what do you think?” I asked, setting my coffee thimble on the table.

  I watched her eyes roll up at me, squinting with her smile, though the computer veiled her face from her nose down. “You want to know what I think?”

  “Yes.”

  Her sights shifted to a spot in the café by the front door, just over my shoulder. “I think this Geek’s nest attracts more kinds of people than you know.”

  I shook my head slightly. “Come again.”

  She nodded. “Over there, with the Macintosh. It’s your buddy, Spinelli.”

  “Dominic?”

  “You know another?”

  “Damn! Is he alone?”

  Before she could answer, a little bell over the door chimed, ringing in a new patron. She waited until the door shut and the patron sat down before answering, “Not anymore.”

  “Double damn! Carlos?”

  “Yup.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Just chill a minute. They don’t know we’re…uh-oh.”

  “What? Did they see you? Do they know we’re here?”

  She rocked back in her seat, abandoning her low profile to the man approaching. “They do now.” She looked up at Carlos and delivered a manufactured smile. “Detective Rodriquez, good morning. Fancy meeting you here.”

  I looked up just as Carlos came to a stop alongside our table. He did not seem as surprised to see Lilith as I expected he might, and he definitely did not seem to recognize me.

  “Fancy isn’t the word I would use,” he told Lilith. “Amazing, maybe.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, seeing that a tornado took your house and all.”

  “I noticed.”

  “And you did disappear for a while.”

  As the two spoke, I noticed Carlos sneaking peculiar glances at me, each one lasting marginally longer than the last. I tried avoiding eye contact with him, focusing instead at the bottom of my coffee cup, which had emptied entirely too soon.

  “I didn’t disappear,” Lilith insisted. “As you might imagine, I had lots of matters to attend to, what with all the complicated insurance claims, transportation hassles, lodging issues and the like, I’ve barely had time for a good hot bath.”

  “I’m sure,” said Carlos, although, now he was looking at me again. I could not stop myself from looking up and giving a little nod hello. I hoped it would get him off my back, but the inadvertent eye contact only seemed to tweak his interest in me further.

  “Miss Adams,” he said, finally relinquishing his fix on me, if only temporarily, “at some point in your busy schedule, I wish you had made the time to come and see us. You have to know that we all thought you were dead.”

  Lilith reeled back in mock surprise. “Did you?”

  “Yes. We were very worried.”

  “Pity. Well, I am sorry, but clearly, as you see, I am not dead.”

  “Indeed.” He seemed to narrow his attention on her more intently now. “Clearly, you are not. In fact…”

  He hesitated. I knew at once what he was thinking. The rite of passage had returned Lilith and me to the prime of our lives. At exactly what age that is, I cannot say. But with me, the difference was demonstrable, so much so that even my best friend of thirty years could not recognize me. But Lilith’s change seemed less obvious. Already a raving beauty before the passage, her return to prime suggested only a subtle optimization to her appearance. To say that she looked younger was arguable. To infer that she looked more alive, indisputable. I have no doubts that Carlos wrestled with that observation before speaking out, perhaps even suspecting witchcraft in the equation. But always one for playing his cards close to his vest, his reluctance to cast insinuations prevented him from articulating those suspicions.

  “In fact, what, Detective?” Lilith asked.

  Carlos shook the question out of his head. “Nothing.” He turned to me again. “So, who’s your friend, here?”

  “I smiled up at him. “I’m—”

  “That’s my cousin, Tom,” said Lilith. “He’s letting me stay with him while I straighten out that whole house getting blown away thing.”

  “Is he?” Carlos offered me his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Tom.”

  I knew that Carlos’ handshake was akin to shaking a cold fish, so I took it and squeezed it like a nutcracker. “Pleasure is mine,” I said, and the look on Lilith’s face told me it was hers, too.

  Carlos pulled his hand back and gave me a look like he might slug me. That is when I knew I had made a mistake. He crowded his brows and peered into my eyes with unusual focus, giving me the look that one gives when one can swear he knows you from somewhere. I thought that if I turned away he might give it up, but no such luck. He shook his finger at me, narrowed his eyes and said, “Don’t I know you?”

  I shook my head and tried once again to climb into the bottom of my coffee cup. “I’m sure you don’t,” I said. “I’m not from around here.”

  Lilith volunteered, “He’s from Florida.”

  “Oh?”

  I slithered lowered in my cup, knowing well that even Carlos would not miss a slip-up like that.

  “Yes, he does those Miami home makeover shows on TV. That is probably where you’ve seen him before. He gets that a lot. Don’t you, Tony?”

  “Tom,” I said, but I knew the gig was up now.

  “Right. Tom.”

  Carlos said, “I thought you told me you were staying with Tom while you get your house situation resolved?”

  “I am,” she said. “But he’s my cousin. There’s nothing inappropriate about that.”

  “Inappropriate, no. Logistically complicated, maybe.”

  “Come again?”

  “You said he’s from Florida.”

  I could almost see the light bulb in Lilith’s head turn on. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “So, which is it?”

  She stiffened up in her chair and closed the lid on her laptop in preparation to leave. “It’s none of your business. That’s what it is. Now, if you’re through harassing us, Detective…”

  “No!” he said, slamming his fist down on the table. “I’ve waited three months to get some answers from you, and by God, I’m going to get them. Now, I know that Detective Marcella drove my car to your house the night you both disappeared. I want to know what happened to him!”

  “I can’t tell you what happened to him.”

  “You can and you will!”

  At that moment, Dominic Spinelli came to the table to help calm the situation. He grabbed Carlos by the arm and tried pulling him away. A small struggle ensued and words were exchanged. Our waitress, who had come up behind them with a pot of hot coffee, got tangled in the brawl, spilling the coffee on them and the floor. It occurred to me that Lilith and I could try to slip out the door in the middle of the commotion and never be heard from again. But seeing Carlos in a fit of desperation, knowing how he must have agonized over my disappearance and presumed death, I just could not let the charade continue.

  Lilith had already taken to he
r feet and had packed her laptop in her tote when I reached across the table and motioned for her to reclaim her seat. As things settled down, I invited Carlos and Spinelli to join us at our table. Lilith, I knew, was not happy about what I planned to do, but she understood that I needed to do it. Adjusting to the new me was only one of the problems I had with the whole rite of passage, back to prime thing. Another was that I had to deal with Lilith’s wishes that we not tell anyone. For me, that was too high a price to pay.

  I stood to properly meet and greet Spinelli, allowing for the moment the alias, Tom, to go unchallenged. He took my hand and shook it with the same cold fish grip that Carlos employed. I resisted the urge to crack it in a manner similar to that which I described earlier, and for the sake of reconciliation, I reciprocated with a limp noodle shake of my own. Spinelli took a seat, and as far as I could tell, saw none of the haunting similarities in my eyes that intrigued Carlos so keenly. For that reason, when I sat back down, I purposely cozied up next to Lilith and directly across from Carlos. I wanted to look him squarely in the eyes when I told him who I was, mostly out of respect, but partly for the entertainment value.

  I started by apologizing for the awkward circumstances surrounding my confession, and yes, confession, was the word I used. I confessed that I had probably used bad judgment in not bringing forth the testimony that would have dissolved the shadows of grief hanging over New Castle and the Second Precinct. I also confessed culpability in a scheme to deny friends and coworkers the truth of what happened to a beloved member of their extended family. And I especially confessed to Carlos, explaining that I had never lied to him before in my life, and that I was sorry for having done so now.

  “Lied about what?” he asked.

  “About who I am. My name, it’s not Tom, it’s—”

  “Tony. I know.”

  “You know what?”

  “I know it’s you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, you son-of-a-bitch! What’s wrong with you? You couldn’t call? You bastard! You couldn’t drop a line or something?”

  Spinelli piped in. “What’s going on?”

  Carlos pointed at me. “It’s Tony!”

  “Who?”

  “Him.”

  “No, I mean, Tony who?”

  “Marcella,” I said. “I’m Tony Marcella.”

  “You’re Marcella?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “It’s been three months,” said Carlos. “You couldn’t tell your story in three months?”

  Spinelli again, “I don’t get it.”

  Lilith reached across the table and tapped his hand. “It’s witchcraft, honey. You don’t need to get it.”

  Carlos came back. “Look, all I’m saying is that after all these years, you think you could have—”

  “I know, Carlos, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry don’t cut it, man. I thought you were dead.”

  Spinelli, “Will someone please explain to me what’s going on around here?”

  “Coffee?”

  We all stopped and turned to the waitress, who had arrived at the table with a tray full of cups and another pot of coffee. In perfect chorus, we all shouted back, “NO!”

  Again Spinelli, “Can we get back to the discussion please?”

  “What’s to discuss?” I said. “Lilith included me in on a sacred ritual that restored my youth and so now I’m forty years younger. Bam! End of story. I said I was sorry. What’s done is done. There’s nothing more to it. So, is everyone good now?”

  Lilith clapped her hands together and wrung them clean. “Yup, I’m good. Spinelli?”

  “Sure,” he said, though not so convincingly.

  I leaned over the table, ingratiating Carlos with a repenting smile. “¿Y tú, mí amigo?”

  Carlos is an old soul, as they say. If you believe in that kind of stuff, and if you knew Carlos then you know what I mean. He has an Inner Light that burns with compassion and forgiveness. He also has a strong sense of loyalty and respect for those who have earned his trust. To say that Carlos would lay down his life for a friend is not an exaggeration. But the price for that loyalty is loyalty returned. His is the Ying and Yang of friendship personified. I knew that in time Carlos would forgive me. Thirty years of comradery mandated it. What I hoped for, however, was that the emotional capital accrued in that time would trump all else, and that we could hug it out, there and then, and get on with that which conveys our souls on parallel tracks through this brotherhood of life.

  He looked at me from across the table, studying my face, no doubt wondering what happened to all the wrinkles and crevices. Every furrow and crease he once knew, etched by experiences we both shared, were now gone. Witness lines to years of harmony and strife, disappeared. Every dog-day summer and hell-bit winter that ever left its mark on leathered skin, now scars but one. Could he forgive me for not telling him that I was still alive? I believed he could and would. But that I shaved forty years off my life, that I all but assured his Earthly departure decades before mine? I could not know for sure.

  I watched his interest in my unblemished face wane. No stories could he recall from a book that had not yet been written. Nothing there reminded him of what we once shared. He had all but abandoned his search for the Marcella he knew, all but given up on a friendship forged in time.

  But then his eyes once again settled heavy upon mine. They drilled in deep, as though anchoring onto something within me that one could not see from the outside. I felt him searching my soul in a way I thought only Lilith was capable of doing. My brain began to ache. I sensed a subconscious surrendering of secrets, yet the flow of data seemed encrypted even to me. Down at my side I felt Lilith holding my hand. She squeezed it tightly for a moment, and when she released it, Carlos was done. He leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath and let it out with a tempered smile.

  “I’m good, Tony,” he said, to my utter relief, but then added, “Not great, but good.”

  He reached across the table and shook my hand, and this time it was not a cold fish sort of shake. It was a good hard bone-crushing man-to-man handshake. And it felt right.

  “Great,” said Lilith, hoisting her coffee thimble into the air. “Now, what does a witch have to do to get herself a little brew around here?” she looked to Spinelli. “See what I did there, Spinner? Witch…brew…huh?”

  “Yes, very clever, Lilith. How original.” He turned to me. “Detective, tell me again how this rite of passage thing works?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said. “Lilith would have to explain it.”

  “But I won’t,” she said. “Or then I’ll have to turn you into a toad.”

  I laughed at that. “Sounds like you have a thing about toads this morning.”

  “I do, don’t I? I must be hungry.”

  “We have muffins,” said the young waitress, who had returned (with great reluctance, I’m sure) to our table.

  Lilith did not hesitate. “I’ll have a blueberry. Spinster?”

  “It’s Spinelli, and make mine a whole grain please.”

  The young woman turned to Carlos. “Sir?”

  “Thank you, no,” he said, which told me that he still was not completely okay with things between us.

  I passed on the muffins as well, and when our waitress left, I asked Spinelli, “So, what have I missed these past few months? Working on anything exciting?” He turned to Carlos, and the two exchanged glances that told me something was definitely up. “What? Is something wrong?”

  “Not really,” said Carlos. “We’re working on a case involving the alleged suicides of some transients in and around New Castle.”

  “They’re hobos,” Spinelli injected.

  “Oh?”

  “That’s what the papers are calling them.”

  “Yes, I read about one this morning,” I said.

  “That was from yesterday. There was another late last night.”

&n
bsp; “That is strange. Are you thinking it’s another case of cohabitation through bilocation?”

  Carlos answered, “We don’t know. It’s not Mallory Edwards. That’s for sure.”

  “No,” I said, remembering the spot on Leona’s carpet that Mallory’s life form left behind when she died. “What about Benjamin Rivera?”

  “He’s at Benton Hill, under twenty four hour care.”

  “You mean watch, don’t you? Isn’t that an insane asylum?”

  Carlos’s eyes broke contact with mine and his gaze fell away in disappointment. “Yeah, well, he sort of lost it after he found out about his brother, Ricardo.”

  “I see.” I gave Spinelli the floor. “So, what’s the rub?”

  “That’s just it. We don’t know. In the past week, eight hobos committed suicide by throwing themselves in front of trains. It’s unprecedented.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s unprecedented. That New Castle even has eight hobos to begin with. I didn’t know there were still such things.”

  “Oh, but there is,” said Carlos. “There’s resurgence in freight riding going on in this country. No longer does the stereotype of the old disheveled bum apply to hobos. Today you’re just as likely to find mixed among them a population of college students seeking adventure, white collar professionals quelling a mid-life crisis and punk kids looking for a rush.”

  “Punk kids?”

  Lilith chimed in. “Sometimes called Flintstone kids.”

  “What?”

  “She’s right.”

  “No, you’re putting me on.”

  “It’s true,” Spinelli said. “You’d be surprised who’s out there.”

  “Out there, maybe,” I said. “But why here? Unless these eight represent a disproportionate number for one area, then why are there so many here?”

  “For the jamboree,” Carlos offered.

  “Come again?”

  “This year the annual hobo jamboree takes place right here in New Castle.”