Alone in the big house, Miranda wandered restlessly from room to room. Her mother seemed to have gone out. Shadow, curled in a corner near the hearth, slept the patient sleep of a dog whose expectations have been disappointed. Only the presence of Luna, who trailed behind her, and the spectral voice of Madame Lavatky gave evidence of life in the still center of the day.
Though sunlight slanted through the windows of every room, Miranda felt the afternoon to be darkening around her. She was uneasy and she felt unwell. Her night had been troubled by vaguely menacing dreams, but she had thrown them off in the interest of motherhood and pancakes. Now the object of these good impulses was gone, and the feeling of fear evoked by her dreams came back in force. “Someone is trying to do me harm,” she muttered to the cat, and Luna growled deep in her throat. Miranda put her hand to her head. A sharp pain had just shot through it from temple to temple. Now it was gone, but it left a dull ache behind. Her stomach also hurt, as if something inside was trying to gnaw its way out. “Mustn’t be paranoid,” Miranda said in a loud, bright voice. “The bacon was probably over the hill, or the pancake batter. They tasted all right, but you can’t be too careful.” This, she knew, was whistling in the dark. You couldn’t miss the taste of bad bacon, and she had never heard of anyone being poisoned by a pancake.
The house, Miranda had always thought, was well protected. There was a pentacle painted on the doorstep under the mat and a witch bottle of bent pins and nails buried under the rhododendron. Inside, over the door hung a horseshoe pointing up and a pair of antelope horns. Three iron nails, which Miranda had obtained from a coffin maker, if not from an actual coffin, were embedded in the door. Such measures were guaranteed to keep the inhabitants of the house safe from all ordinary manifestations of evil.
This, then, was something out of the ordinary, and Miranda felt her pains increase and her panic rise. The fact that she had no idea who could be after her did nothing to calm her nerves. A known enemy was vulnerable to counterattack by well-known methods. But this miasma of ill will was something else. Pausing on the second-floor landing, Miranda heard the front door open stealthily and then the sound of a rattling chain. The hair rose on the back of her neck, and her heart pounded. Then she heard the brief, joyous gallop of Shadow’s feet, and the door closed again. Bren had come for his dog and left again without a word—without a report on his father and on the other person Miranda felt sure had been present at the brunch. And Bren would have been a comfort, though he was useless when it came to defense against the supernatural. I’ll get Louise, she thought, turning back down the stairs. She’ll know what to do.
Standing in near darkness outside the basement apartment, Miranda hesitated, feeling a strange reluctance to visit her old friend and colleague. At last she raised her hand and knocked lightly on the door. A brief silence was followed by the voice of Louise, shrill and strong. “Thing of evil, begone!” it cried.
Miranda sighed and opened the door. By the flickering light of four tall candles she saw the triple circle drawn in white on the black floor. Inside the circle was a pentagram, and inside the pentagram was Louise, sitting up very straight on the edge of a small camp bed and staring at her with sharp, fierce eyes. Miranda advanced to the edge of the outer circle, and Louise relaxed. “Whew, Miranda, babe, you sure give me a scare,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Lou, I didn’t know.” Miranda gazed anxiously at her friend. Only a very frightened witch will go to the trouble to set up a circle of protection. It was a lengthy ritual that involved many purifications by fire and water and the repetition of innumerable spells summoning the spirits of earth, air, fire, and water to stand at the four corners where the candles burned and protect the one within the circle during the long, dangerous hours of the night. It was clear that Louise had prepared for a substantial siege. She had gathered together all her articles of magical practice—her wand, her ritual knife, and the thurible, from which rose a thin column of acrid smoke. In addition, there were many homelier items such as pillows and blankets, a bag of potato chips, an ice bucket from which protruded the tops of several beer bottles, a pile of magazines, and the telephone on a long cord.
“This is terrible,” Miranda said. “I was going to ask you to help me set up a circle of protection, and now I find that you’re inside one. Can we both be under attack? We don’t have the same enemies, at least I don’t think we do.”
“You been bothering a old black crone up on a Hundred Fifty-ninth Street?” Louise asked. Miranda shook her head. “Got to be coincidence, then.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Miranda said, “but I don’t know where mine’s coming from. Oh, damn, Louise, I was hoping you would help.”
“Well, I can’t come out,” Louise said. “You know that. But just ’cause I’m in here don’t prevent me giving advice. What’s scaring you, babe?”
“Pains all over and terrible dreams. A feeling that something’s following me around the house.” Describing her symptoms had the effect of exaggerating them, and Miranda shivered.
Louise leaned forward on the bed and studied her intently. “You done no harm to any other witch?”
“Not lately or knowingly,” Miranda said.
“Maybe somebody you don’t think could be a witch, be a witch just the same,” Louise suggested.
“I don’t think I’ve done anything to anybody in the last few weeks,” Miranda said. “I’ve been trying to be good. Of course I’ve had frightful thoughts about Bob’s girlfriend, but I don’t even know what she looks like.”
“That be it, then,” Louise said with a satisfied smirk. “He probably still got a picture of you. You better find out more about that young lady damn quick.”
“Oh, Louise, Bob would never go out with another witch. That would be the last thing he’d do. What would be the point?”
“Mark my word,” Louise said and delved into the potato chips. “Want a beer? I could chuck you one. Do you good.”
“No thanks, Louise. I’ve got to work on my own circle. There’s so much to do. Maybe Rose will come home and help. Why does she have to be away when I need her most? A fine mother she turned out to be.” Miranda turned toward the door. “I hope you’ll be all right. I’ll check up on you in the morning.”
Louise pulled a beer out of the ice bucket. “I be fine,” she said, and then a look of consternation crossed her face. “Except for just one thing. Lucky you come along or I might have had to step out and undo it all.”
“What’s missing?” Miranda asked, alarmed. “What did you forget, Lou?”
“Opener,” Louise said, staring at the dripping bottle in her hand. “Top drawer by the stove.”
Miranda walked carefully around the outside of the circle and pawed through the jumbled contents of the drawer, finally producing the kind of simple opener known as a church key. She tossed it to Louise, who caught it and chuckled. “Church key,” she said. “That a double good joke in here. Thanks, babe. You better go now. Got a lot to do before dark.”
“I’m going. Wish me luck.” Miranda retraced her steps and shut the door firmly behind her as Louise leaned back against her pillows with every appearance of contentment. “I wonder she can drink all that beer,” she muttered as she climbed the stairs. “Probably has a chamber pot under the bed.”
After several hours in the park with Shadow, Bren felt almost happy as he walked back to his house. He was an optimistic person, and his spirits were easily restored by sunlight and the quiet, undemanding presence of trees. It had occurred to him that asking Erika for another real date, something that would appeal to her and be totally disconnected from his house and family, might allow them to start over and return to the happiness of the day by the river. These hopeful speculations helped him forget his father’s inexplicable attraction to Alia. Where would Erika like to go? What uniquely New York event could he offer her that would prove his devotion in spite of his steadfast refusal to take her home? It was late October, and at the end of the month came one of the city’s most exciting events. “The Halloween parade,” Bren said aloud. “She won’t have seen anything like that in Philadelphia.”
Cheered by this idea, he opened the front door and came upon his mother standing at the foot of the stairs, white-faced, wild-eyed like a cornered animal. “Bren!” she cried. “Do you have to sneak in and out like a thief? You scared me out of my wits.”
Bren, who had entered with all his usual brio, was at once alarmed and indignant. “I can make more noise if you really want me to,” he said, “but sometimes it’s hard to do anything right. What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Miranda clutched her head. “Please, Bren. You don’t know what I’ve seen. You never did have any imagination. Seen a ghost, indeed. My God. If you only knew.”
Bren had not lived with his mother for sixteen years without seeing her in this state several times. He sighed. “You’re being haunted,” he said. “That means you’re going to shut yourself up inside a circle and not fix dinner.”
“I have to get ready before dark,” Miranda said. “You know that.”
Bren glanced at the daylight still pouring through the skylight at the top of the stairs. “There’s plenty of time,” he said. “Come and have some tea and maybe the feeling will go away. I’ve had a hard day, too.”
A trace of color returned to his mother’s face as she remembered where he had been. Curiosity warred with fear, and curiosity won.
“Well, maybe just a quick cup,” she said. “With lots of sugar. I’m sure I need it, but you’ll have to fix your own supper or wait for your grandmother.”
“I can cope,” Bren said, “if worst comes to worst. Come on.” He led the way into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Miranda sank into a chair and waited for the confidences she associated with the drinking of tea.
“Now tell me all about it,” she said, the minute she had a steaming cup in her hand.
Bren smiled lazily. “Tell you all about what, Mom?”
“Bren, don’t tease,” Miranda cried. “You know what I mean.”
“Well, let’s see. Shadow and I went over to the Bethesda Fountain. There was a hippie there playing sixties stuff on the guitar. It was sort of neat but sort of boring. Shadow thought so too, so then…”
“Stop that this minute!” Miranda said, and Bren stopped.
“Oh, I know. You want to hear about brunch with Dad. Well, okay. That was really boring too—more boring than the park, but the place was nice. They had all this cheerful Mexican stuff hanging all over the place, and I got to have margaritas. Nobody seemed to mind, and they were amazingly good.”
“What was she like, Bren?” Miranda said in a taut, ominous voice.
“Really skinny,” he said, relenting. “And sort of odd-looking. I mean she had this dark skin and red hair and very peculiar jewelry. Her name is Alia, and she comes from Venice, or so she says. I really didn’t like her, if that’s any consolation. She was creepy and gushy at the same time.”
“Tell me about this peculiar jewelry,” Miranda said. “It must have been very peculiar indeed for you to notice it.”
“Well, there was a lot of it,” Bren said, “and it didn’t seem to go together. She had a big necklace of lumpy yellow beads and copper snakes on her arms and this humongous silver ring that looked like it had a secret compartment in it.” He stopped, noticing that his mother was smiling, a slow, contented, feline smile. “You like this part about the jewelry?”
“I like it very much,” Miranda said. “It’s hard to believe, but it explains everything.” Suddenly she laughed out loud. “Your poor father, Bren. Haven’t you realized? He’s taken up with another witch, and I bet he doesn’t even know it yet. She has a nerve wearing witch jewels to brunch. What an amateur. And red hair with olive skin? It’s almost certainly dyed. Some people think you have to have red hair to be a witch, but of course it has to be natural, and even then it’s no big deal. Oh, how I wish I could get my hands on even one little hair!”
Bren stood up and dug in the depths of his jeans, then held aloft the clump of tangled red hair. Miranda gave a cry of triumph and snatched it out of his hand. “You’re wonderful, Bren. My God, what did you do? Scalp the poor woman?”
“It was in her hairbrush,” Bren said. “It was sticking out of this big purse she had hanging over the back of her chair. Really, Mom. It was like taking candy from a baby.”
“I’ve underestimated you,” his mother said admiringly. She got up and prowled around the kitchen. “This changes everything,” she muttered. “I can switch to attack, and that’s much more satisfying than moping away the night in a dreary old circle of protection. Let’s see. I think I’ve got everything I need—black candles, wax, henbane…”
“What about dinner, Mom?” Bren said.
“Dinner? Who’s hungry?”
“I’m hungry, and I think I deserve it,” Bren said. “You don’t do these things till midnight, anyway. Better eat something yourself and build up your strength.”
“Spiritual strength is what I need,” Miranda said. “I should fast, but never mind. Let’s see what’s in the fridge.”
When Bren climbed the stairs that night, full of an assortment of leftovers and tired from an exceptionally trying day, he could hear his mother chanting in her tower room. He paused and peered through the tiny window in the door. Robed in black, tall and magnificent, her bright hair an incongruous halo in the flickering light of the black candles, she stood over the smoking thurible molding a small waxen doll—a doll with an untidy mass of dyed red hair. “Poor Alia!” Bren said, and went down the hall to his room.