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Kate wanted to split the group so she could talk with Jamie, his father, and Dr. Pena by themselves, but Jamie’s mother swept ahead into the café, claiming a large round table that could seat eight. The server, a young man with spiky blue hair, removed one of the chairs, making space for Kate’s wheelchair. She resigned herself to the party. She could plow through it, get things done, and leave.
While Stan was helping Jamie load his instruments, Addie Ellerbee introduced her husband’s colleagues at Eight Northern Pueblos College. Bernadette Pena, professor of Health Sciences, was a slim Native American woman in her late forties with strong features and perfect posture, and Alan Pacheco, professor of Fine Art and Design, was a short, stocky Native man of a similar age, whose gentle, round face was made striking by bright brown eyes under thick black brows.
The waiter asked for the group’s orders. Alan and Bernadette ordered tea and coffee. As Stan and Jamie came in, Addie called out, “Stanley, who’s driving?”
Stan indicated himself. Addie ordered beer for herself and Jamie, iced tea for Stan, and several light snacks from the appetizer menu. “Food’s for all of you.”
Jamie sat beside her and stopped the server, adding a vegan soy-cheese pizza to the order. “Jamie.” Addie sounded both exasperated and fond.
“Mum.” Jamie mocked the nagging tone and gave her a quick side-hug.
Bernadette opened a briefcase, took a folder out, and handed it to Jamie. “This is the article on assessing the effectiveness of energy healers.”
“I’m looking forward to getting this assessment set up,” Kate said, forcing herself into a better mood. “I want to be the first to get credentialed.”
“That’s impressive,” said Dr. Pena. “A lot of psychics and healers would duck if they saw that coming.”
“Thanks for the article.” Jamie opened the folder and scanned its contents. He let it fall shut. “No point in it now, though.”
“It was your idea,” Kate snapped. “We can still do it eventually.”
“But that’s not why we’re here.”
“I know. Who’s running this meeting? I’m still the director.”
Jamie flexed his right fingers a few times and then flicked at the edge of the folder.
“If no one minds,” Bernadette said, “I think I should run it.”
Kate conceded. It would keep her and Jamie from biting each other’s heads off.
The waiter delivered drinks and left. Jamie took a long guzzle of beer, followed by a stifled belch and a mumbled apology. Kate felt her neck stiffen. Will he ever run out of ways to annoy me?
Bernadette set up her laptop. “First, can everyone commit not to share this discussion unless we all agree on including another party? The size of this group and the relationships you have should give you enough options for bouncing ideas off someone.” No one objected. “I have a list of questions I want to ask you. I hope you’ll bear with me and answer them even if you think you’ve already figured things out.” She typed something. “First: Names of all the confirmed victims of this power loss.”
“We can’t confirm it with people who won’t tell us anything.” Kate must have sounded impatient, because Tim began rubbing her back, a signal to chill. “They just say they’re not working.”
“We’ll make two categories, confirmed and suspected.”
Hilda looked around the group and gripped the edge of the table. “It’s happened to other people?”
Jamie stopped short of another gulp of beer, spilling a slosh. “It happened to you?”
“After I met Dahlia.”
“Jesus.” He drank, set the mug down, took the pink card out of his pocket and bent it back and forth, frowning at it. “You feel her do it?”
“No. We talked a long time when she bought one of my prints. About spirituality and feelings and art—it all seemed normal.”
“I’m only trying to list the victims now, not the cause.” Bernadette said. “Hilda, confirmed. Who else?”
“Azure Skye and Ximena Castillo,” Jamie said. “Confirmed by Azure. Gaia Greene, confirmed by her husband. And he said Dahlia did it to her.”
“We’re not assigning a cause yet.”
He jammed the card back in his pocket. “I already told you how she did it. Jesus.”
Stan raised his hand an inch off the table in a leveling gesture and made eye contact with his son. A silent exchange took place between them, something that made Jamie be quiet.
“Are those all the confirmed cases?” Bernadette asked.
When the waiter arrived with the snacks, Jamie asked for a pitcher and more mugs. Kate objected, saying that this wasn’t a party, but Jamie flashed a smile. “No worries.”
The group helped themselves to a few nibbles, quiet until the blue-haired young man was gone.
“That’s all the cases we know for sure,” Kate said. “But Fiona McCloud and Mary Kay Dieffenbacher have both declined to be in the fair and say they’re not working. Fiona looks like hell.”
Jamie added, “And hangs out with fucking Dahlia and Jill Betts.”
“I know you think it’s Dahlia,” Bernadette said, “but we need a time frame to confirm that it’s only her. We also need to know if anyone exposed to her in a similar way is unaffected. If there’s a pattern, it might tell us something about how we can stop this.”
“If you can tell who hasn't got it you can’t tell how—bloody hell, all the fucking quacks don’t have it, they’re signing up—how does that— Look, it’s her. I know. I can—” Jamie cut himself off, dipped a pita chip into hummus. “Never mind.”
Kate didn’t want to never mind. What had he stopped himself from saying? Did he know something he wasn’t sharing? Of course, if she asked him now, he would talk with his mouth full—
“Time frame?” Bernadette prodded.
Kate brought her attention back. “As far as I know everyone was working this winter. I had some Reiki sessions with Fiona in February, and Azure did that TV show around then.”
Stan added, “I did a follow-up with one of Ximena’s clients for my research in early March. He’d been to see her just recently.”
Bernadette nodded and typed. “Hilda?”
Hilda’s voice cracked. “I lost the angels last week.”
Kate put a hand on Hilda’s. Compassionate eyes on her, Bernadette waited. The artist didn’t break down. Relieved, Kate withdrew. She cared, and yet the touch had felt awkward. She said, “Gaia lost her powers this week.”
“What about Mary Kay?” Bernadette asked. “Does anyone know?”
No one had an answer. They paused as the waiter delivered the pizza, the pitcher of beer, and a clutch of mugs, and left. No one except Jamie moved to pour, and all declined his offer to serve them pizza. He refilled his own mug, looking a little confused. Kate almost felt sorry for him. He’d been trying to be generous like his mother had been, but he was socially clueless. If they’d wanted beer, they’d have ordered it.
“All right,” Bernadette said. “So far we have the picture of these losses being recent, no earlier than March. Can you confirm that Dahlia was here all that time?”
“Yeah.” Jamie fidgeted with one of the extra mugs. “Saw her in March. She was new then. Didn’t know the Pilates studio was up over Yoga Space. Came in the wrong door.”
“She could have been a new student then. It doesn’t mean she was new in town.”
“Yeah, she was. She’s Lily Petersen. Harold’s daughter. She’s a model. He says that’s when she stopped getting in touch, when she did a shoot here.” He took a bite of pizza, started to talk through it, stopped and swallowed. “And her mum told her to study with Jill. It all fits.”
Study with Jill. It did fit.
“So we know her time frame. Do we know if all the affected people had contact with her? Hilda and Gaia did. Fiona still does. Who else?”
“Healers and psychics normally keep some confidentiality about their clients,” Kate said. “I think Mary Kay would only tell the doctors who share referrals with her.”
Stan nodded. “Ximena would only share clients’ names with their permission.”
“Gaia told her husband,” Jamie said.
Kate asked. “Even the name?”
“Nah. But he figured it out from her appointment calendar.”
Bernadette held a hand up. “Let’s get back on track. So far we don’t have clear proof that Dahlia is the direct cause for everyone. We have a working hypothesis that it’s her, but only two confirmed exposures with loss of powers following. Do you know of any healers or psychics who’ve been around her who are unaffected?”
“Me,” Kate said. “I’ve done other readings since hers and I’m fine. And Jill Betts is okay, too, as far as I can tell. Does anyone know if she’s still having her drum circle?”
Alan dipped a pita chip into the hummus and held it poised until he finished talking. “Unfortunately, yes. I know an artist who lives in Jill’s neighborhood. She says she can hear them, every Sunday night.”
Kate said, “I’ve been thinking Jill might have taught Dahlia.”
Stan Ellerbee set his tea down with a wet thud. “If Jill weren’t such a fraud, I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“I get why nobody likes her, but why do you think she’s a fraud?”
Silence. Alan and the Ellerbees exchanged glances. Kate turned to Hilda. “You used to go to her workshops—”
Addie cut in. “This family has a bad history with Jill Betts.”
Kate said, “I still need to know—”
“Bloody hell, Stan’s an expert on shamans. You think he can’t tell she’s a charlatan?” Addie’s eyes burned. “A few years back he mentioned Jill in an article, and he wasn’t being flippant or anything, he was writing seriously about this neo-shamanism fluff, and he said—how’d you put it, love?”
Stan quoted himself. “ ‘Simplified and decontextualized versions of cultural practices have been promulgated by such people as pop shamanizer and former anthropologist Jill Betts.’ ”
“That’s dead-on. He didn’t call her names or anything.” Addie surveyed the group with an air of authority that expected agreement. “It’s what she does and who she is.”
Kate could picture Jill bridling at it. A scholar like Dr. Ellerbee probably felt obligated to undercut work like Jill’s, but Jill wouldn’t like being described this way. According to the bio on her website, she’d started out as a scholar herself.
“She called me and asked me to put a retraction in the next issue of the journal that published it,” Stan said. “Which showed me she at least still read anthropology journals—if someone told her that her name was mentioned. I said I saw no need for retraction, since I hadn’t said anything false. She retaliated.”
“She took it out on Jamie.” Addie sounded as fierce as if the attack had been just yesterday.
Jamie’s voice grew tight. “Mum, let it rest. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I wasn’t going to, love. Just that Jill—”
“Drop it.” Jamie took another long drink and stared down at the table. “Everyone. Drop it.”
Alan whispered to Bernadette, “We really should.”
Kate didn’t want to, but Bernadette complied. “Of course. We’ll set Jill aside for now. Next question. Does anyone with power show signs of acquiring more?”
“Not that I know of,” Kate said. “How could I tell?”
“The signs might be subtle. I can only speak for my people, but Apache witches—and I hate talking about this—don’t show off their power. They might go out in the forms of animals, but you don’t usually see them doing it. You can only tell they’re witches by what happens around them.”
Was this true about all witches? No one thought Jill had power. The plague happened around her, but not to her. Could she be the white owl in Dahlia’s crystal ball reading, going out in the form of an animal?
Tim surprised Kate by speaking up. “I don’t know if this is a sign of power or some freak force, but Dahlia screws up electricity.” He scooped a handful of edamame from the bowl in the middle of the table, popped one into his mouth.
“Dahlia?” Jamie’s eyes widened.
Tim chewed and swallowed. “All the time. Real pain in the ass. She lives in my apartment complex and keeps having me come over to see what’s happening. There’s never anything I can explain, but her lights cut off or burn out a lot, and her small appliances burn out the motors, or shoot sparks.”
Bernadette typed a few notes. “Does anyone seem to have any other kind of power?
Jamie drew lines in the condensation on his mug. “My stuff turns on. Fuck. Don’t look at me like I’m the bloody plague. It’s Dahlia. Lily. Jesus. You can stop the fucking detective work. She sent this fetus image into Gaia to steal her power.”
“A fetus?” Kate remembered the abortion or miscarriage in Dahlia’s reading.
“Yeah. At first Gaia thought it was one of her babies she lost.”
Bernadette asked, “How did Dahlia go about it? Did she have to be in the same room? In contact?”
“Yeah.” Jamie drank. “She went in as a client. Told Gaia her parents were dead so she’d try to heal her.”
Hilda said, “She told me about that, too. I felt so sad for her.”
Bernadette frowned at Jamie. “But you just said her father—”
“Yeah. It’s a lie. They’re both alive, and worried. She won’t speak to ’em. They started to have Mae do some psychic stuff to check up on her.”
A psychic Kate had never heard of. “Who’s Mae?”
Bernadette gave Jamie a mischievous little smile. “His girlfriend.”
“Does she work around here?”
“No,” Bernadette said, “She lives in Truth or Consequences. She’s going to College of Rio Grande in Las Cruces. She’s not working as a healer now as far as I know, though she should be. I knew her back when I was teaching at Coastal Virginia University in Norfolk. She did a demo in one of my alternative medicine classes and I got to know her quite well. Even as a beginner, she had some extraordinary skills.” She typed a few more notes. “There. I think I have something we can work with.”
She turned her laptop to face Kate. It showed a simple four-cell grid. In the first block, affected (or presumed affected) and exposed, were Fiona, Gaia and Hilda. In the second block, unaffected and exposed, was Kate. In the third block, unaffected and unexposed, was Mae. The fourth block, affected and unexposed, was empty. Below the grid were Ximena and Azure and Mary Kay, noted as affected (or presumed), exposure unknown.
“The only pattern I see so far is that the losses fit in with Dahlia’s arrival in Santa Fe, and that everyone affected is famous. They’ve written books, been on TV, or in Ximena’s case been the subject of some published scholarly studies. Kate, you’re none of the above. Competent, but not known beyond your local clients. Mae is unknown in a similar way.”
“Saw someone else yesterday that’s like that,” Jamie said. “Andrea Jones. She did some training with Fiona in March. Had her do a little work on me and she’s fine. And she’s never met Dahlia.”
Bernadette turned the computer back, typed, and showed the document to Kate again. Andrea was now in the box with Mae.
“Never heard of her,” Kate said.
“That’s the point.” Bernadette tapped on her chart. “If we’re looking for a motive, it would seem to be the desire to take down everyone famous.”
Kate noticed one name missing. “Except Jill.”
“According to the Ellerbees,” Bernadette said, “she has no power to lose.”
“That anyone can see. She might be using Dahlia to knock out the competition.”
“Maybe. Would Dahlia do it on her own, if she thought it would make Jill look good?”
Kate considered what she’d seen of that relationship. As far as she could tell, Jill was more enamored of Dahlia than the other way around. “I don’t think so. If she’s doing it for Jill, it’s because Jill told her to.”
“It might not be about Jill’s competition,” Tim said. “Dahlia might be hacking famous people because she can’t tell who else has power.”
“Possibly.” Bernadette gazed into a point in space above Kate’s head, eyes narrowed, thoughtful. “But Dahlia’s a model. Why would she want to take these healers’ power?”
Tim put his arm around Kate. “You’d need a psychic to figure it out.”
She mentally reviewed Dahlia’s reading. “I think I did.” Strength, the Hierophant, the Tower. Cold intelligence. The abortion or miscarriage. The white owl, Dahlia hitch-hiking, and the car driving into a cliff. “It wasn’t clear to me what everything meant, but I think it was to her. She thought I was so good, she wanted to study with me.”
Bernadette took her computer back and made another note. “So she did know you had power. Even though you’re not famous.”
“Only because I proved it. She thought I was a fake at first.”
Hilda sat up straighter, a new light in her eyes. “We need someone who won’t let Dahlia know they have power at all. Undercover. Not exactly a spy, but someone secret, who could heal us and stop Dahlia. Kate, could the fair pay for someone to do that?”
“I’ll have to check the budget.”
Hilda’s wounded look shamed Kate. There would be no fair to budget if they didn’t do this. Kate owed it to the affected healers and psychics to do anything she could to help them. She also owed it to Hilda as her sponsor. Kate amended, “I’m sure we can cover it. But they’d have to hide their abilities even from the people they were healing. If Fiona knew, she might tell Dahlia.”
“That’s true,” Bernadette said. “Our healer would have to hide her identity from anyone outside this group. We still don’t know who taught Dahlia, or if she’s the only source of the plague.” She typed in silence for a while. “I have someone in mind. You should make a clear contract for her. What you need from her, what she’ll be paid, and a deadline if you have one.” She looked up. “Who does she go to if she has questions?”
“Me, I suppose,” Kate said. “Though it might be better for her sake if it’s not someone associated with the healers or the fair. The last thing we need is her being the next victim.”
Bernadette turned to Jamie. “I’m thinking about Mae. You could be her contact and it would be natural. It wouldn’t give her away.”
He swallowed, dropped a pizza crust onto a pile of them on his plate, and wiped his mouth. “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong? She’s not known in Santa Fe, is she?”
Alan said, “She was in the Muffie Blanchette film they made in T or C, challenging Muffie on her psychic readings, but Mae was only on for about a minute.”
Bernadette worked on her computer again. “I think we’re safe. She used another name as a psychic and healer, to keep it separate from her regular work. And like I said, she hasn’t been doing that kind of work since she moved out here for college.”
“In addition to coming up to see Jamie,” Stan said, “she could say she’s doing an independent study on alternative healing, and her advisor suggested she work with Bernadette and me. It would give her a reason to interview practitioners. She could try to heal them during the research.”
Jamie had stopped eating, drinking, or fidgeting, and stared at Bernadette.
“That could work.” Bernadette turned the laptop to face Kate once more. “This is all that comes up under Mae Martin. If you click on the other window, you’ll see what I got for the name she used as a psychic, Breda Outlaw.”
The first page showed the staff of the fitness center at College of the Rio Grande. Jamie’s sweet-faced, athletic girlfriend looked too normal for him—which also meant she didn’t look like a stereotypical psychic. That was in her favor.
The other window opened on old blog posts on the web site for the Healing Balance Store in Virginia Beach. There were no pictures, only testimonials. Breda could detect illness in your body. Breda could heal emotional obstacles. Breda could find your lost pets. Breda could see what had happened in your past that led to your present problems. That last one looked like a useful skill for the psychic they would hire.
“She’s got a lot to lose if she does this and gets the plague,” Kate said.
Bernadette took the laptop back and typed. “Dahlia had to probe to see if you were real, and has only gone after famous people. I think we can assume she can’t detect power. As long as Dahlia’s the only vector, Mae should be safe if she can stay undercover.”
Jamie leaned in, both hands on the table. “Are you asking her now?”
“I already did. I’m making notes on the contract. I’ll send it to Kate to finish.”
“Fuck—don’t I get any say in this?” His voice got louder, his speech faster. “I’m on the fucking board, and you’re not. I care more what happens to Mae than to the bloody fucking fair.”
His explosion stung Kate like a gust of dirt-flying wind. “Bernadette is doing your work for you. You should thank her, not yell at her.”
“She’s doing my work because I fucking hate it and I’m no good at it.”
“Then why did you agree to do it?”
He swallowed a gulp of beer and slammed the mug down. “Because you intimidate the fucking crap out of me.”
The group fell silent. Breaking the uneasy stillness, Addie repeated Jamie’s line, imitating his delivery by thumping her mug, and gave him a tight-lipped, bug-eyed stare.
After a sullen pause, Jamie made the same face back at her until they both let go and guffawed.
He apologized to Bernadette and to Kate, adding, “I’m doing the fair work to keep Jill out of it. You know that.”
“I don’t know that you should.” Kate finished her tea. “I don’t like her either, but she could be the only famous healer left. I’d hate to invite her if she’s Dahlia’s teacher, but she’d draw a crowd. I won’t ask her yet, but I might have to if your girlfriend can’t get this solved in a week. We need deposits. We need advertising. We need a web site with famous names on it.”
“I got Harold Petersen.”
“I need famous psychics, too.”
“Hold off on Jill.”
“I’ll wait a week.” Kate gave Lobo a command, he stirred, and she backed her chair away from the table. “Thanks for your help, Bernadette. Let me know what Mae says, and if she can start right way. I’ll probably see you soon. I’ll be sign interpreting at the complementary and alternative medicine conference this weekend.”
“You’ll definitely see me.” Bernadette packed her laptop back into her briefcase. “I’m one of the keynote speakers.”
Tim stood. “Thanks for the snacks, Mrs. Ellerbee. Great show, Jamie. Have a good evening, everybody. Nice meeting all of you.”
The group said goodbyes and similar pleasantries to Tim and Kate, who expressed her embarrassed and belated appreciation. She had focused so narrowly on work, she’d ignored everyone but Bernadette.
To Kate’s dismay, Hilda gazed at the beer pitcher and didn’t move. She’d driven herself there and could stay, but Kate didn’t want her to. If Kate had felt the tug of Jill and Fiona’s wine, what was this beer doing to Hilda, who was at much higher risk for relapse?
“Hilda?” Kate asked. “You coming with us?”
The artist shook her head and waved to Kate and Tim to go. She wants us to leave so she can drink. Kate asked again. “You sure?”
Hilda avoided Kate’s eyes. “Yes.”
Abruptly, Jamie reached across the table to thrust the remains of the pizza in front of Hilda. “I’m turning this over. You’re my higher power. I need a fucking FA meeting. I’m powerless over the bloody pizza.” He poured beer into his mug and his mother’s, overfilling. Beer flowed onto on the table and dripped onto his pants. Jamie dropped the pitcher. “Agh—Jeezus.” He waved to the waiter. “Sorry. Made a mess.”
“FA?” Addie asked, backing away from the flood. “Fat’s not exactly anonymous, love.”
Everyone still at the table cracked up, except for Hilda. “It’s called OA.” She barely got her voice out. “Overeaters Anonymous.”
“Thanks. Fat Anonymous. Jeezus.” Jamie accepted a towel from the waiter, blotting the table while the blue-haired youth mopped the floor. “Sorry about the spill. Hooroo, Kate, Tim.” His eyes met Kate’s with a sad warmth, open and vulnerable. “Have a good night.”
Hilda stood to leave with them. Addie smacked Jamie’s hand as he reached to reclaim the pizza.
––––––––
“That was a good save,” Tim said as he and Kate escorted Hilda to her car. “Fly ball right into the glove.”
“More like an out at home plate.” Kate looked up at Hilda. “I’m glad he did it, but—you’re struggling to stay sober and you wanted to stay and hang out with him?”
Hilda’s pace began to drag. The others had to reduce their speed to stay with her. “You were such a bitch.” Her voice creaked, barely audible. “You make sobriety look bad.”
Kate put on her brakes. “Don’t blame it on me. You danced with Tim all night and he made sobriety look fun.”
“But you’re supposed to be my sponsor.”
“It was a bad night for me. I’m not always like this. Jamie gets on my nerves.”
“Then why did you break my anonymity to him?”
“I did no such thing. He figured it out.”
“How?”
“Watching you stare at that beer like it was water in the desert, waiting for us to leave.” She began moving again, and Hilda followed her. “He must know other people in recovery. He knew the first two steps.”
“You don’t think he’s an alcoholic himself, do you?”
“Hardly. His mother would have nagged him about that if he was, and he wouldn’t have wasted all that beer. No, he’s one of those drinkers we all wished we were. Risky company when you’re craving a drink.” They reached Hilda’s pale gold Lexus. “How did you handle temptation when you still had the angels? Were they your higher power?”
“Not really.” Hilda unlocked the car but didn’t open the door, gazing at it as if it held some secret. “I didn’t have any temptation.”
“You never hung out with drinkers before in your sobriety?”
“No—except for the couple of times I went to Jill’s workshops.”
“They drink there?”
“That was a few years back, when she still did those big weekends at hotels. I thought I might meet other people there who had visions like I did, but I didn’t. It was power animal retrieval all day and a lot of drinking all night.”
“I didn’t know about that. I thought she just had those women’s circles. Kind of exclusive.”
“She does now.” Hilda opened her car and sat in it sideways, her feet on the pavement. “She changed it after that girl died.”
Kate had obviously been too drunk to pay attention a few years back. “Someone died?”
“Alcohol poisoning.”
“At a spiritual event? That’s awful. Did you know her?”
“A little bit. She was a silversmith from Cochiti Pueblo. Kandyce Rainbow Kahee. Really quiet, and never drank that I saw. She was that pet of Jill’s I mentioned, sort of a chosen one. It must have shaken Jill pretty badly.”
Kate rolled her chair over to be closer to Hilda and squeezed her hand. “Were you there when it happened?”
“No. I’d stopped going weeks before that.”
“I’m glad you did. That could have been you.”
Hilda shook her head. “No. I wasn’t tempted. I had the angels.”
Now the severity of the relapse risk made sense. Hilda had never really been sober. She’d been dependent on the angels, creatively inspired but spiritually intoxicated. “I think I get it. Why you’re struggling now. You haven’t had any practice fighting the urge to drink.”
“You make a blessing sound like a crutch.” Hilda pulled her feet into the car, dropped her head back against the headrest, and closed her eyes. “It’s not. Jill says that some people need to go through a crisis to manifest power. I was in a crisis when the angels came.”
“And you’re in one now without them. You need a higher power that can’t leave you.”
“I need them back.”
“I don’t think you get to decide that. We’ve got someone to help us, but we don’t even know if she’ll agree to try or if she can do what we need done. What’s your higher power now? Tonight?”
Dead silence. Tim rubbed Kate’s shoulder. Let go and let God. You can’t change other people. She knew the slogans were true, but she still wanted to hang on and to change and fix Hilda.
Hilda said finally, with a dry, humorless laugh, “Jill has most of her shaman students ‘fake it ’til they make it.’ She doesn’t call it that, of course, she just says it’s a safer route to power. I guess that’s what I can do for now. But you’d think I’d conduct again. Jill says people in crisis are better conductors.”
“Conductors? Like a symphony?”
“Come on.” Hilda looked up. “Tim? Conductors. Like copper. Like water.”
Tim jingled his keys in his pocket. “Like Dahlia.”
Kate added, “And Jamie.” She pictured him conducting his audience, an orchestra of hands and feet. He was both kinds of conductor. “But can there really be people with so much power they even affect electricity? It’s not even the same type of energy. And what kind of crisis is either of them having? I don’t see it. Anyway, I don’t think Jill meant electrical conductors. It was probably a spiritual metaphor.”
Hilda curled a manicured finger around the rim of her steering wheel and let go. “Like the way I conducted the angels.” She sighed, put her keys in the ignition, pulled the door shut and lowered the window. “She claimed Kandy was a conductor, too.”
“Was she?”
“I have no idea. She never bragged about having visions or insights the way some people did. She must have had them, though. Jill treated her like she was special.”
“Like she does with Dahlia now.”
Hilda nodded.
Dahlia’s crystal ball reading flooded Kate’s mind again. The Hierophant meant secret knowledge. Jill did power animal retrievals. The white owl even looked like Jill, with her silver-white hair and piercing eyes. The car accident could mean crashing in some other way, but one of Jill’s protégées had died. Did the vision mean Dahlia might, too? “Do you think being Jill’s chosen person somehow killed Kandyce Kahee?”
“How? She got drunk.”
“You said she didn’t normally drink, though. Maybe what Jill had her doing drove her to it. I could be out on a limb, but—did anyone lose their power around her?”
Hilda started her car. “I suppose they could have. I don’t know. One reason I stopped going to those events was because it seemed like nobody had any.” She shifted into reverse and the car inched backward. “Now I don’t. Damn. I had such a good night until we started talking about this. I should have left right after the show.”
“Wait.”
Hilda stopped the car. “What?”
“Do you still feel like drinking?”
“No. I just feel like shit.”
“That’s better than drunk. If you get the urge again, call me. Any hour. Okay? I’ll be there for you. Bitchy and grouchy, but I’ll be there.” Hilda managed a sad smile. Kate said, “I’m glad you stayed. You had the idea to hire someone who can heal you.”
“I hope she will. That’s my higher power for now. Hope.”