The Witch of Agnesi (6 page)

Bonnie reached for her fanny pack and the cell phone within. Her hand froze in mid-air then came to rest on the empty passenger seat. An image of the pack sitting on her desk at school appeared in her mind. “Well, Alice, I picked a fine time to forget my purse. Double damn.”

Six miles back and down a half mile of lane, she wouldn’t reach the Newlin place until well past dark. The idea of the trek made her body ache. She wished she’d paid more attention to the houses she passed on the way. In the back of her mind she remembered Rhi-annon Griffith, Ali’s mom, had a ranch out this way. If memory served, it couldn’t be more than a few miles, just over the next rise to the north.

If I leave right now, I could make the ranch and
call Capulets Cafe. Leave a message for Armen.

Cursing, she pushed the Subaru off the road into a sandy ditch which bordered Coyote. With any luck, she’d get a tow truck to move Alice out of harm’s way before some drunken cowboy slammed into the car.

Bonnie debated walking along the dirt road, but the curve up ahead changed her mind. For the next two miles, it perversely headed east, away from where she pictured the Griffith ranch. She’d reach the ranch quicker cutting diagonally across the desert. She strug-gled over a wire-mesh fence and set off across scrub grass and sand.

By the time Bonnie reached the crest of the rise, she knew she’d been deluding herself. Stretched out before her was more of the same gray-brown landscape she’d just hiked across. Another rise beckoned a half mile north. A sensible voice whispered she should turn around right now and go back to Newlin’s, but she ig-nored it.

No way. The damn place is even farther now.
And surely she couldn’t be wrong a second time.

A massive bramble of cactus sat between her and the rise, but she didn’t let it deter her. She skirted to-ward the mountains, thinking she needed to go west eventually. By the time she cleared the cactus, the sun swam in an ocean of pink and orange. She checked her watch. Already past seven. Armen would be sitting in Capulets wondering where she was.

She reached the top of the rise, and her heart sank—more sand and scrub-grass as far as the eye could see. To make matters worse, in the distance an arroyo sliced east to west interposing itself in her path, beyond that an even steeper rise. She looked wistfully back the way she came but couldn’t spot her car.

“Griffith’s can’t be too much further.” Now her saner self argued that this was madness. If she was really honest she’d admit she was wrong and turn around.

“I’m not wrong.” She picked up the pace.

The sun slipped behind Pike’s Peak. Grays and purples replaced the muted browns. Night comes quickly on the desert plains. Once the sun sets behind the mountains, deep shadows race across the sand. She hadn’t reached the arroyo before she found herself walking in darkness.

Bonnie promised herself henceforth she’d keep a flashlight in the trunk. “Especially, Alice, if you insist on stranding me in the middle of nowhere,” she bellowed.

The sound of a car engine startled her. From the west, a set of headlights bounced in her direction. Some-one, maybe even Wendy Newlin, had seen her broken down car and was coming to her rescue. Bonnie waved, ignoring a nagging voice which insisted Wendy’s haci-enda lay south, not west.

Standing there, she played with the notion Alice had repented and in a fit of automotive remorse was com-ing to make amends. The ridiculous thought brought back a cartoon memory from her childhood—Beanie and Cecil, the seasick sea-serpent. In Beanie’s dark-est hour, Cecil would come charging in yelling, “I’m comin’, Beanie Boy!”

“I’m waiting, Alice girl,” she whispered. She waved again.

The car’s high beams blazed on, pinning her in blinding light.

Bonnie shielded her eyes
. What was this idiot up to?

Too soon came her answer. The sound of an en-gine revving higher screamed out of the light. In panic, Bonnie pitched herself to one side.

A red pickup truck whipped past, spraying her with gravel. It spun into a hard turn. Her heart wanted to stop with the realization it was Jesse Poole’s truck.

“Oh, shit!” She picked herself up and ran.

The squeal of protesting metal grew louder. Light enveloped her. Her bleeding knees burned. Sensing the truck closing on her, she hurled herself to the side.

The bumper clipped her foot. A stab of pain shot through her ankle. Screaming, she fell.

Surrounded by a halo of light, the truck crashed through a patch of yucca.

Bonnie struggled to her feet. Her ankle shrieked in protest. A wave of nausea swept over her. Any mo-ment, she expected the truck door to open. Jesse Poole, the little bastard, would chase her down.

Gravel churned behind her.

The truck reversed hard and spun to face her, pin-ning her again in the high beams.

Gears ground, and the truck crept forward.

“Leave me alone, you little asshole.” She limped backward unable to take her eyes off the truck. The truck closed the gap. Then the ground vanished be-neath her feet. She flailed through the air. The back of her head smacked something hard. The world exploded in fireworks and faded to black velvet.

BONNIE WOKE TO A HEADACHE THAT PROMISED TO sever skull from shoulders. Her hand came away sticky from her scalp. A hard something poked her spine. She shifted, and her ankle screamed. Nausea punched her stomach.

She vomited. Wave after wave of convulsions gripped and shook her. Minutes later, she rolled away from the vomit, her throat raw, mouth tasting of bile.

She lay back, exhausted. Overhead, a full moon shined down from a strip of sky. A corridor of stars winked.

Where the hell am I?

She remembered the truck and sat bolt upright. New agony shot through head and ankle. She bit her lip, not wanting to cry out.

Oh God, don’t let him find me here.

She lay still, and in stages, reason asserted itself. The moon hadn’t yet risen when she’d walked earlier. The blood on her head was tacky, some of it dried. Hours may have passed. Her tormentor was gone. She shuddered, buried her face in her hands, and wept.

When she lifted her face from her hands, a knife had been taken to the moon. Flat along one side, a jagged sliver of the orb was missing. What remained illuminated her surroundings.

She lay at the bottom of a sandy tunnel. Behind her head, hard-packed earth formed a slanting wall. This wall partially obscured the moon. Across from her, an opposite wall lifted from the sand. Together the walls defined and limited the portion of the night sky she could see.

The arroyo. Stumbling backward from the truck, she’d tumbled into the sandy trench, hit bottom, and knocked herself out. Why hadn’t her pursuer simply followed her down and finished the job he’d started?

“Hey, I’m not complaining, God. I’ll take whatever you give me.”

But now what?

Theoretically, she could sit right here until someone found her. Her ankle and head seconded that option. Surely someone would notice Alice sitting in the ditch and come looking. But would they think to look on the other side of the mesh fence, or would they stick to the road? How many times had she seen an abandoned car and kept on driving?

Unfortunately, even when she was parked at school, Alice looked like an abandoned car. Most folks would think the owner just wised up and walked away.

Bonnie sighed. She could be here for days.

And it was getting darker. Already the moon had shifted—a mere sixty percent of its area shined down. She didn’t fancy the idea of spending a long moonless night at the bottom of a pit.

A six foot length of weather-beaten two-by-four lay just out of reach. Gritting her teeth, she dragged her protesting ankle to the board. As her fingers wrapped around it, she felt like laughing, and the compulsion scared her.

Don’t go hysterical, lady.

Ignoring splinters, she hoisted herself to her feet. The pain in her ankle threatened to send her back into oblivion. Breathing like she’d just run a marathon—not that she’d ever do something so stupid—she clung to the precious two-by-four, a drowning woman in a dry river of sand.

Her head almost reached the lip of the arroyo, but the top may as well have been a hundred feet above her. No way could she climb out. And stretching out before her, the dry stream bed seemed endless.

Leaning heavily on her prop, she took a step. A bolt of pain lanced up her leg and brought tears to her eyes. Her ears rang.

“That wasn’t so bad.” She fought down the urge to argue with herself.

A handful of steps left her sweating and gasping for air. She felt dizzy and leaned on her board until the feeling passed.

One benefit of standing was that she purchased additional hours of moonlight. Her panorama broad-ened and now the friendly face of the man-in-the-moon smiled down on her.

“I can do this,” she shouted to the moon. “Damn straight, I can do this.”

She counted steps, forcing herself to take two more than the first time before she stopped. On the next trial she added five. Each time she halted, the ringing in her ears grew more insistent.

The face of Marcie Englehart, the school nurse, replaced the man-in-the-moon. “You’ve got a concus-sion, babe.”

“Screw you, Marcie. I’m doing fine.” She pressed on, adding still more steps to her halting procession.

Her splintered hands became raw, and she wrapped them in dried grass and kept going.

After an eternity, the arroyo grew shallow. Up ahead, it flattened and disappeared into the desert. Flashes of light, like fireflies, sparked about her face as she left the dry stream bed. She hobbled to a stop.

Her left leg felt cold. She couldn’t remember when it last felt otherwise. Her ringing ears screamed a sym-phony. The fireflies faded, except one. To the north the mother of all fireflies glowed on the horizon. Bon-nie blinked, but the apparition remained.

A fire?

She cupped a hand over her eyes and looked again. Either she was experiencing a very selective hallucina-tion, or someone had built a bonfire atop a hill.

She tried to yell, but only managed a croak. Another attempt proved no better. Setting her jaw, she started up the hill.

She hadn’t gone a dozen steps when a raspy wom-an’s voice floated down from above.

“Be joined,” the solemn voice sang. “Be joined, Mother. Be joined, Father. Now is the time. In your fruitfulness, let all be fruitful.”

A male voice responded, “May all nature be fruitful.”

This should be interesting.

Bonnie gritted her teeth and forced one foot before the other. Already, she could feel heat from the massive bonfire.

“In your happiness, let all be happy.”

“May all nature rejoice.”

The two voices rose, holding a single protracted note.

Bonnie crested the hill. She took a final step, and fell, rolling onto her back in exhaustion. The singing stopped.

She stared at the night sky and thought,
I must be
hallucinating.
Standing above her loomed the wild-eyed, raven-haired personage of Rhiannon Griffith, Ali Griffith’s mother.

“Missus Pinkwater?” The big woman frowned.

“What are you doing here? You look hurt.”

Bonnie gave in to a hysterical laugh. “Rhiannon, you look naked.”

CHAPTER 5

R
HIANNON GRIFFITH ADJUSTED A TILTED costume tiara on her raven mane and deliv-ered a withering glare. Her breasts shook in indignation, threatening to send the Phoenix tat-tooed across them into flight. “I am the Earth Mother,” she rasped, her voice a testament to years of smoking unfiltered cigarettes.

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.

Bonnie sat up and glared back. “And I am the Egg-man, coo-coo-ka-choo. Listen, Rhiannon, I’m sorry to burst in on your witchy festival, but I’ve had a rough evening.”

The hammering in her ears threatened to detonate her head. “I need your help.”

Just when Bonnie felt her day couldn’t turn any more bizarre, a pale naked man sporting a crown of white flowers on his bald head scampered to Rhian-non’s side.

“What’s the problem, Rhee? I’m freezing.” Tall and emaciated, a silver crescent moon adorned his right cheek—the one on his face. He hopped from one bare foot to the other, obviously unaccustomed to subjecting naked tootsies to desert rocks and flora.

This just gets better and better.

“Earth Father?” Bonnie caught Rhiannon’s eye and could swear the woman winced before she nodded.

While covering himself with one hand, Earth Father stooped and took Bonnie’s hand in his other. “Winston Bellows.”

He blanched and pulled his hand away. “You’re bleeding.”

Terrific. Winston, the bare-assed warlock, has a
problem with blood.

Bonnie bit her lip to keep from screaming. “I don’t want to be pushy, guys, but my hands are the least of my problems. Someone tried to kill me tonight.”

Winston’s free hand went to where a suit-coat breast pocket would have been. He patted his chest looking for all the world like a man searching for a cell phone. “That’s dreadful.”

Bonnie wasn’t sure if he meant her ordeal in the desert or his failure to find his phone. She opted for the former. “I, for one, could have gone a long time without the experience. You’re a lawyer, right?”

“How did you know?” Winston asked.

“Just a hunch.” She held an arm up to Rhiannon.

“I think I can walk if you give me a hand.”

Rhiannon considered the proffered arm. “I don’t think so.” She sat down in the sand then turned back to Winston.

“Be a lamb and bring a phone. Tell everyone, espe-cially Ali, about our guest. Have her bring an ice pack.”

Bonnie watched him tip-toe off, wondering what the qualifications were for becoming an Earth Father. She had a feeling he was probably an ace with cross-word puzzles, more than likely knew a lot about wine. “I really am sorry for disturbing . . . whatever it was that was going on here tonight.”

Rhiannon shifted her naked derriere uncomfortably on the sand and leaned forward. Her face just inches from Bonnie’s, she stared first into one eye then the other. “Apology accepted. By the way, did you know one of your pupils is dilated?”

Well, Marcie, you may be right about that concus-sion.
“I took a fall and hit my head.” She turned her head and showed Rhiannon the blood.

Earth Mother threw back her head and laughed. “Was this before or after someone tried to kill you?”

I don’t need this shit from a pagan lunatic.
“I tell you what. How about you let me use that phone, and I’ll get the hell out of here?”

Rhiannon laid a henna-decorated hand on Bonnie’s knee. “It’s Beltane.”

Bonnie squinted at the woman. “What?”

“You asked what was going on here tonight. The witchy festival is called Beltane, the celebration of Spring’s fertility.”

Bonnie wasn’t ready to let go of her anger. “I didn’t ask. I said I was sorry for disturbing your festival, that’s all. I don’t give a furry rat’s behind what you call it.”

“You’re angry.”

Bonnie tried to stand. Her ankle shrieked in protest. She gave up the effort, panting in frustration. “Damn right, I’m angry. I come to you for help, and you sit there in your tattooed birthday suit and laugh at me.”

“I was sad because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

“Are you, by any chance, on drugs?”

Rhiannon laughed again. “Thank you, Goddess. One lesson after another. No, Missus Pinkwater, I am not on drugs. Not since nineteen eighty-nine. And I wasn’t laughing at you.”

Bonnie lost her grip on her indignation. It was just too damn difficult to be angry with someone who might be mentally unbalanced. “Then what?”

Rhiannon removed the tiara from her hair and set it on the ground between them. “We had a break-in earlier this evening. My spirit wasn’t right for honoring the Goddess. To tell the truth, I was pissed off. We’ve also had a number of rednecks coming around to gawk at the witches. I guess I was feeling sorry for myself until you told me about your evening.”

“So, it sucks so much being me that I made you feel better about being you?” Bonnie picked up the tiara and placed it on her own head. “Glad to be of service.”

Rhiannon scooted forward. She eyed the tiara and straightened it with a nudge. “Not bad. I wish I had a mirror.”

Bonnie looked up at a sound from beyond the dying fire. “We have company.”

Wearing a white terrycloth robe and Birkenstock sandals, Winston strode into the firelight. He car-ried another white robe in one hand and a silver cell phone in the other. A half-dozen people, including Ali Griffith, followed in his wake.

Thank God none of them are nude.

A purple robe covered Ali from her neck to the tops of her bare feet. White baby’s-breath was woven into her hair. Henna, in patterns that matched Rhiannon’s, decorated her hands and feet. Ali hoisted her robe and knelt in the sand.

“Missus Pinkwater, are you all right?” She offered Bonnie a blue-gel ice-pack.

Bonnie took the pack and catalogued the elements of her evening that separated her from being all right then set them aside. “I’m getting better, sweetie.” She laid the ice-pack against her aching head.

Winston tossed the robe to Rhiannon and handed the cell phone to Bonnie.

She flipped open the phone, ready to make a call, then cupped the receiver as if the connection was live. “Can anyone tell me the time?”

A white-haired woman, who looked like she should be playing mah jong rather than attending a witch’s celebration, came into the firelight. “Look on the phone, dear.”

Ten-thirty. Bonnie reddened. She knew damn well time was displayed on cell phones. She owned one, for pity’s sake.
I’m more screwed up than I first thought.
Normally, she never would have forgotten it.

Bonnie nodded to the older woman. “Thank you.” She’d have to call Franklin at home.

He picked up on the second ring. “Yo, it’s your dime.” He sounded sleepy.

Bonnie pushed aside her guilt for waking Franklin. “It’s your favorite math teacher.”

He groaned. “What time is it?”

“I have it on the best of authority it’s past ten. A young man like you shouldn’t be sitting at home at ten o’clock on a Friday night, anyway.”

“Then how could I be here to take your fascinat-ing late night calls? You know my only wish is to wait upon your pleasure.” He sighed. “What can I do for you, Missus P?”

She drew a deep breath.
All right, try not to sound
like a crybaby.
“Jesse Poole tried to kill me.”

He hesitated, then said, “You got my attention. Tell me everything.”

She told him everything.

“This is screwy,” Franklin said. “What is Jesse Poole doing off road in the middle of the night? And why would he want to kill you?”

Bonnie felt her anger grow through the telling, and now Franklin questioned her integrity. “I know what I saw, God damn it. How am I supposed to know why that little shit does what he does?”

“Settle down, Missus P.”

Her throat contracted. Hot tears welled in her eyes. “Settle down yourself, youngster. He toyed with me, like a cat with a mouse. I don’t appreciate being made into a victim.” What she couldn’t bring herself to say was that Jesse Poole made her feel like a foolish old woman. And
that
she couldn’t forgive.

Ali touched her arm. “Can I talk to the policeman?”

Damn, I cursed in front of a student and her mother.
Bonnie stared at the girl. “Ali, I need—”

“Jesse was here earlier this evening.”

She handed Ali the phone.

Carefully, the girl pulled flower-woven hair away from her ear. “Officer, this is Ali Griffith. Jesse Poole broke into our house this evening.”

Rhiannon Griffith had donned the white terrycloth robe. She stood several feet away smoking a cigarette and huddling with the members of her coven.

“Jesse Poole was here?” Bonnie asked, trying not to shout.

Six faces, including Rhiannon’s, turned her way. All nodded in agreement.

“It’s not the first time the little miscreant’s come around here.” Winston’s deep-set eyes glowed red in the reflected firelight. “Rhiannon’s had to chase him off more than once.”

Rhiannon took a long pull on her cigarette. “But this is the first time he’s been criminal about it. Up until now I’ve chalked up his trespassing to curiosity. But breaking in . . .” She blew out the smoke, looking disgusted.

“What happened?”

The older woman waved away the smoke. “Ali was the one who actually saw the truck. We were all stacking wood for the balefire when she heard a noise. She ran. She said someone slammed the back door of the house then jumped into a red pickup. It sped away down the frontage road.” Her hand shook as she pointed off into the gloom.

“Did you call the police?”

Rhiannon shook her head. “We went through the house but couldn’t find anything missing, or even disturbed. We had already started to decorate the five-petal altar. He could easily have vandalized that, but he didn’t.”

“Missus Pinkwater.” Ali held out the phone. “The policeman wants to talk with you again.”

Bonnie put the phone to her ear. “What do we do now?”

“I’ll phone in the assault, send someone around to pick up Jesse Poole. You get to a hospital. Have your head examined.”

She chuckled. “You’ve been waiting a long time to tell me that.”

“Almost makes being woken up worth it. Good-night, Missus P.”

“Goodnight yourself, youngster.” She closed the phone and looked up to see a dozen-plus eyes staring down at her. She held up her index finger. “Just one more call?”

“I’ll stay with her,” said Ali.

“We’ll all stay,” Rhiannon said. “Make your call, Missus Pinkwater.”

Bonnie pulled a crumpled wad of paper from her pocket. She unfolded the paper and punched in the number written there. She’d copied the number, it seemed a lifetime ago, when she was having second thoughts on the advisability of sharing coffee with a certain gentleman.

Armen Callahan answered on the third ring. “Hallo.”

“Armen, it’s me, Bonnie.”

“Do you mean the Bonnie Pinkwater who left me sitting at Capulets for over an hour?”

She swallowed, not really sure what do with the anger in his voice. “The very one. I’m sorry, Armen, but I have a good excuse.”

“A poor substitute for a coffee date, but try me.”

She told him the highlights of her evening.

He whistled. “I’d say that’s a pretty good excuse.

So, if I understand you right, you’re currently injured, sitting on the ground next to a dying fire in the com-pany of witches.”

“Why, yes, I am.”

“I’ll be right there.”

She sat up straight as if by doing so she could demonstrate her surprise, or possibly her disapproval.

“What?”

“You need to go to the hospital. I’ll take you, but it’s going to cost you.”

She considered declining his offer, but realized she would have to inconvenience someone if she wanted to get to the hospital that night—and here was Armen vol-unteering.

“What’s the price?”

“You buy me coffee at the hospital.”

“Black?”

“You betcha. See you in about half an hour.” He hung up.

Bonnie closed the phone and handed it to Winston. She squirmed uncomfortably. “I think my rear end is permanently numb from this hard ground. And I need to visit the little girl’s room. Is there really a house out there somewhere in the night, or did you witches make it disappear?”

BONNIE HOBBLED OUT OF THE BATHROOM. HANGING onto the doorjamb, she scanned the rough-hewn log living room for a place to sit.

Good luck.

All furniture of a sitting variety had been removed from the living room. An immense white altar spanned the entirety of the far living room wall. Two-tiered, the altar’s upper tier sported more than a dozen white candles burning in brass holders. Aside from this light, the first floor of the ranch-house—which stretched to a family room and den to the right and a kitchen and mud room to the left—lay in darkness.

White flower garlands adorned the altar’s lower tier, spilling onto a satin apron. An honest to God cauldron sat centered on a pentagram rug in front of the apron, much of the cauldron’s occult mystique mitigated by its use as a planter. White lobelia festooned over the rim.

Although her head felt like it might remain attached to her neck, her ankle throbbed like the dickens. She needed to get off her feet. She looked wistfully back into the bathroom at what might be the only seat left in the house.