The Magick of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root) (26 page)

“Okay, then what was it?” I glanced over my shoulder to see if Ruth Anne was paying attention. She wasn’t. Now that we were within cell range, she was busy with her phone, playing games or surfing the net.

“I can’t tell you that, but you have to trust me.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that before,” I said. “Men always tell you to trust them while they’re sneaking around behind your back.”

“One guy breaks your heart and you think we’re all like that!” He slammed his palms against the steering wheel as he pulled
 
into the driveway of Sister House.
 

Merry stood in the window, talking on the phone. Eve sat on the porch swing, staring intently at something on her lap.

“If you want to believe that all men are bad, far be it from me to try and convince you otherwise,” he added. “I’m just the guy that’s went out of his way to rescue you…let’s see, at least four times that I’m aware of.”

“Rescue me?” I turned on him, my mouth dropping incredulously as Ruth Anne slipped out the back door. “For your information, I didn’t need rescuing tonight. I had things perfectly under control.”

“Oh, did you?” He pushed his cowboy hat further onto his head. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t have come, then.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have.” I bumbled out the door, slamming it behind me.
 

“From now on, you can save your own neck,” he said, peeling out of the driveway.
 

He turned on the radio, blasting an obnoxious country song as he rode away.

“Fine!” I yelled back, but he was gone. I didn’t need him, anyway. He could go rescue someone else. The image of the blond woman filled my mind.
 

As I stomped up the porch steps, the patio lights went off.
 

“Do you have to do that every time?” Eve sighed.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to. What are you doing out here?”

“Oh, nothing.”
 

I gave her a suspicious once-over as I stepped into the light that emanated from the living room window. She had something on her lap. A book. “The complete works of Edgar Allen Poe? Since when do you read?”

“I read.”

“Yeah? What?”

“Magazines and stuff.”

“Hmmm.” I sat next to her on the swing. “You’re really worried about Paul.”

She snorted. “Hardly. I just wanted to see what all the fuss about Poe was about. Frankly,” she said, putting the book in her gigantic purse. “I don’t get that poem. So the raven says ‘nevermore.’ Is that supposed to mean something?”

I shrugged.
 

“If the raven actually said something useful, I could see it, but nevermore? What kind of word is that?”

The light in the window flipped off and we sat in darkness. Soon a soft, flickering glow emanated from the glass. We turned to see Merry setting a white candle down on the floor of the living room.

She sat in front of it, with legs crossed and eyes closed, and planted her hands on the floor beside her. She chanted and a golden orb of energy surrounded her as silver sparkles shone from her fingertips. We were witnessing a private moment, and though I felt like a peeping Tom, I couldn’t take my eyes off my sister.
 

She looked so calm, so serene. In spite of the fact that she took care of Mother, day in and day out, warred with her ex-husband, and got news that her car had been in a wreck, she still managed to exude an energy of peace.

“She’s beautiful,” Eve said.

“Yes.”

“I wish that I could be more like her.” Eve cast her eyes downward.

I squeezed her hand. “Me, too.”

The candle went out. The doorknob turned and Merry stepped onto the porch.

“I thought I sensed you two out here,” she said, the light still clinging to her, lighting up her face like a halo. Her arms were bare but she didn’t seem to notice the cold as she joined us on the swing.
 

Eve and I moved apart, making room for Merry in the middle.
 

She placed a hand on each of our laps, allowing her warm energy to course through us. Eve and I peeled off our sweaters, tossing them onto the porch, then rested our heads on Merry’s shoulders, bookends to the woman who was more like a mother to us than a sister.

We swung, our feet leveraged against the ground, pushing and releasing in unison. Merry sang to us, a sweet tune about the stars and a little girl who traveled among them, a song she used to sing when we were children, though I couldn’t remember all the words.
 

It didn’t matter. All I wanted was to bask in her glow, to feel her energy, to sit on the porch swing of my mother’s house for all eternity with Merry and Eve, where I felt safe.

“Are you mad about the car?” I asked, folding my hands into my lap.
 

“No. I’m not mad about the car. It was an accident.”

“How about the turkey?”

She laughed. A lyrical laugh.
 

“Of course not.” She paused for a moment, her full lips puckering, her long lashes fluttering. “I do think,” she said, measuring her words. “That you are keeping something from me. That is what really bothers me.”

I almost told her everything. About our pool games, the taxes on Harvest Home, Larinda, and how she had engineered the entire event tonight.
 

But either shame or fear of upsetting her stopped me.
 

“I know what you two have been up to,” Merry said, gently. Eve and I raised our heads but didn’t speak. “Not going to confess then? Doesn’t matter. I was shown it in my visions.”

Merry never lied and we knew we had been caught.
 

“Oh,” was all I could reply.

“Remember the creed? What you put out comes back to you…”

“…three times,” Eve finished.
 

“We are trying to help,” I said.

“There are other ways, Maggie. Have faith.”

I pondered this as I listened to the sounds of the night: insects, small animals thrashing through the leaves, a raven calling out from the woods. If there were other ways to help, I didn’t know of any. Merry might have faith, but mine was depleted.
 

In my opinion, faith only worked when you did.

“Now,” Merry said, tapping us each on the leg. “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a perfect time to express our gratitude for what we
do
have. Love and family. And that is how we’ll carry on.”
 

“Yes,” Eve and I agreed.

“Now, ladies, I need to get some sleep. You can stay here, if you don’t want to walk home.”

“We’ll be okay, Merry,” I assured her. Eve and I had made the walk between Sister House and Harvest Home so many times, we knew the route by heart.

On our walk home, I thought about what Merry said, about being grateful and carrying on. I wanted to be good like her, I really did. And I planned to be. Just as soon as our problems were fixed.

“After the holidays we stop this,” I said as Harvest Home came into view.
 

 
“That should be long enough, if we keep winning like we have been. I think if we can keep the shop going until February, my perfume should sell well enough to get us through the spring. And I know a banker…I’m sure if he sees how well we are doing, we could use the shop as collateral and get a loan for the taxes.”

“Yes. So just a few more games then. Agreed?”

“Maybe one tonight? Bar’s closed tomorrow.”

“What about things coming back to us three times? Merry made me feel a bit guilty, taking money from people like that.”

“I thought about that, too. We have to be extra good in the future. Volunteer at schools…”

My eyes lit up as I understood. “Man a soup kitchen. No, wait…bring soup to a soup kitchen.”

“Yes.”
 

It sounded reasonable. Enough good acts could negate the bad. Besides, we were doing it all for a noble purpose anyway. I placed a hand on my belly as we opened the front door of the house. By the time by the baby came, everything would be settled and I could devote myself to being a good mother like Merry.

“Okay, so it’s settled,” I said. “As of the New Year, we call it quits. Pinkie promise.”

Eve and I put our little fingers out, interlocking them.
 

A pinkie promise: the highest form of magic.

 
“I’ll grab Paul’s keys,” Eve whispered, as we snuck past Aunt Dora to get cleaned up.

“You’d think he’d get smart and start hiding them.”

“You’d think,” Eve said, her eyebrows arching. “But hiding things is not a man’s strong suit.”

“The usual,” I said to the bartender, who I had come to know as Sam.
 

He waved a two-fingered hello, and commenced pouring our drinks. I think he knew we were hustling, but he had a mild crush on Eve, and looked the other way.

“You smell,” I said to Eve as we scoped out the place.
 

It was empty except for a handful of people: two couples and a man wearing a yellow polo shirt and khaki slacks, who sat alone in the far corner, playing with his cell phone.
 

I nudged Eve and she smoothed her dress into place, a tight, black, knit number that sat low in the cleavage and high on the thigh.
 

“I do not smell,” Eve said, running her hands through her sleek pony tail. “I smell clean. You’re just too used to smelling like a barn animal.”

I covered my sweater defensively. “Alpacas are not barn animals. They live outdoors.”

She rolled her eyes and seated herself at the bar, crossing her legs so that an ample amount of skin was on display. I sat next to her, kerplunking myself unglamorously onto a stool.
 

Tonight was her show. I would assist from the sidelines.

“Think we can stop by Dip Stix after?” she asked innocently over her wine glass.

“I doubt they’ll be open, but okay. Why?”

“They’ll be open. Paul said they are pulling an all-nighter. Cleaning and whatnot for the holidays.”

I spun my stool to face her. “Oh, I see. You want Paul to see you looking like…this.”

Eve made a sour face. “I do not.”

“Maybe make him a little jealous? Wondering where you’ve been all night?”

“Shut up.”

I laughed and returned to my root beer, wishing it was whiskey. “Sorry,” I said, giving her a comforting smile. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she said.
 

Her self-esteem had taken a hit lately. The least I could do was to tell her the truth.

We waited thirty minutes, keeping one eye on the man in the corner and the other eye on the door. One of the couples left, but no one else came in.
 

“I guess he’s our mark,” I said, using a term I’d heard on an old movie.
 

Eve nodded, slammed down her second drink and sauntered over to the man in her three-inch heels.