She called her best friend, Hudson, but he was in the city with his boyfriend, Scott. That was odd—hadn’t Hudson mentioned on Friday as they had closed the library that he would be in North Hampton “all weekend long,” hard at work on that dissertation for his doctorate in Romance languages at Harvard? Ingrid had helped him pick out a few salient books for his research. How many years was it now that he had been working on his PhD? Was it going on eight? No wonder, thought Ingrid, shaking her head at her friend, if he was running off to the city to go shopping when he promised to buckle down.
Her pride kept her from calling Matt and admitting she had free time.
It was noon on a Saturday. A long, solitary weekend stretched ahead. Who else might she call? Tabitha? But she remembered Tab and Chad were off on their babymoon to some resort in the Bahamas.
Dejected, Ingrid walked into the kitchen to make a sandwich. But because her rebellious teen of a mother had vanished on a joy ride, the fridge was nearly empty. An expired yogurt. Limp carrots. Old Chinese food in to-go containers from Hung Sung Lo’s. Ugh! Part of Freya’s genius was scaring up a meal when there was barely a thing left in the fridge and cupboards. Ingrid longed to hear her sister’s laughter, wished Freya was in the kitchen making one of those magical meals, the two of them talking about anything that came to mind.
She needed to get out of this gloomy, quiet house. She would grab a panini at the local café, bring a newspaper, catch up on current events. She had become such a bore with her head stuck in the seventeenth century and had no idea about what was going on in the world lately. Tabitha had been appalled when Ingrid had admitted she hadn’t known the actor who played a young hipster in the show Williamsburg had died in a plane crash last week, one of those little four-seater jets.
Ingrid had never even heard of that show.
A scattering of clouds hung low on the horizon, but overhead, the sky was a clear robin’s egg blue. It was cold but the breeze smelled of the sea, and there were a number of winter tourists about, who liked the cheaper rates and had been lucky enough to find their way to the charming little town. When Ingrid arrived at Geppetto’s, the café at the end of the park, the outdoor tables in the covered and heated patio were all taken. The hostess came over, asking how many were joining her.
Ashamed of being alone, Ingrid glanced down. “Just me,” she muttered.
The girl smiled as if she pitied her. “Great!” she said on a high note, then gave Ingrid the once-over. “I’ll see what I can do.” She pivoted on her heel.
Ingrid stood in line, her purse dangling off a shoulder, her newspaper in hand. She lifted her sunglasses onto the crown of her head and scanned the tables. Someone was waving. Matt. She started. He was sitting with Maggie and a gorgeous-looking brunette in big dark sunglasses. Who was this woman who was leaning toward Matt, whispering something in his ear, looking a little too intimate for Ingrid’s taste. Maggie looked up and saw Ingrid, and began flailing her arms.
“Over here!” the young girl greeted.
Ingrid had no other choice than to make her way toward them.
“Hey!” said Matt. “What are you doing here? I thought you were busy all weekend.”
“I am. I, uh… just needed a break and something to eat. I do have to get back to work,” she lied. She patted her bun, making sure it was in place.
The woman removed her sunglasses and stared expectantly at Ingrid, smiling. Something about her recalled an elegant Italian movie star, like a Sophia Loren or Claudia Cardinale. She was the opposite of Ingrid: busty, hourglass shaped, dark, sensual looking. Matt had compared Ingrid to Grace Kelly, but next to this bombshell she felt pale, thin, and gangly.
Maggie stared at Ingrid with her big, watchful eyes. “The stuffed clams are to die for. Come, sit with us!”
Ingrid felt at a loss and the woman elbowed Matt, giving him a look. “Matthew!” she chastised. There seemed an ease and familiarity between them.
It felt as if the ground, which had already been shaky when she saw them, completely dropped from beneath Ingrid. Her pulse sped.
Matt looked a little uncomfortable as he made the introductions. “Ingrid, this is Mariza Valdez, Maggie’s mom. Mariza this is Ingrid!”
“Yes, of course.” Mariza smiled. “Margarita talks so much about you.”
Oh right, of course, Ingrid thought. She had completely forgotten that there was a mom in the picture. Ingrid couldn’t help but note that Mariza called Matt by his full name (“Matthew,” which sounded so sexy somehow) and Maggie “Margarita”—had she been wrong in calling her Maggie? But Matt called her Maggie. The woman reached out a hand, and Ingrid shook it.
“Delighted!” Ingrid said with a smile that hurt her cheeks.
The hostess had come around with a couple to seat them at the table that had cleared beside them.
“Mari!” cooed the woman being seated as she looked their way.
“Rowena!” Mariza cried.
Rowena and Mariza fawned over each other, each saying how great the other looked. Ingrid glanced at Matt, who rolled his eyes. He motioned for her to sit beside him. Maggie continued to smile at her imploringly. The whole situation was growing more awkward by the second.
Rowena Thomas.
She had been one of Ingrid’s clients back in the days when she provided her once-popular counseling services at the back of the library. She hadn’t seen Rowena in a while. Shortly after Freya’s disappearance, Ingrid had abandoned the “witching hour,” as Hudson facetiously called it, forever the skeptic about Ingrid’s “witching abilities.” She didn’t love Hudson any less for doubting her, but in a way her mortal friend was right. Her magic had grown ineffective, and she had begun to feel like a sham. Now her office remained locked at lunch hour, a note on the door explaining that counseling services would resume at a later date. Ingrid had made Rowena a talisman for her mother’s kidney problems and also a love knot or two or three. Rowena had been desperate to fall in love.
And now, horror of horrors, Ingrid spied Rowena’s date: Blake Aland, the smarmy developer whose efforts at destroying the library Ingrid had successfully squelched, the same one whose advances she had spurned. This was proof that Ingrid’s magic had gone utterly awry or was plain all out. All those love knots hadn’t done Rowena any favors. She and Blake exchanged cold nods.
“Ingrid!” Rowena cried out. “Oh, my God, Mari, you need to see Ingrid! She’s amaaaazing! She totally helped me. I found Blake! Maybe she can make a special something so you and Matt finally tie the knot.” Laughing, she turned to Ingrid, explaining, “We all went to NoHa High together. These two have been in love for-ev-er! They just won’t admit it.”
Ingrid looked from Matt to Mariza, who both lowered their heads. Matt was shaking his. She felt as if she had caught them red-handed.
“I wish they would finally just get hitched!” Rowena continued. “Maybe one of those hair knots of yours would do the trick? What do you think, Ingrid?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling wanly. Hair knot. How ugly that sounded! Like something you found clogging up the drain of the bathtub. She felt herself blanch. She wasn’t feeling well at all. Perhaps Mariza and Matt should get married. Mariza, Matthew, Margarita—their names all began with an M. Mariza was beautiful and exotic—even affable and warm, it seemed. They were a family. A child should be with her real mother and father—shouldn’t she?
Rowena finally left, joining Blake, who had been watching with a scowl.
Matt grabbed Ingrid’s hand. “Come sit next to me. Mari was just showing me some school photos of Maggie on her phone. Have a seat!”
“We haven’t even ordered yet,” added Maggie.
Ingrid was so flustered she could barely make out what they were saying. There was no place for her here, she realized. Maggie already had a mother. Matt should probably be with his ex-girlfriend. They looked beautiful together, they made a beautiful family. One that should be left in peace. She looked at Matt, remembering his face from the other night
, lying in his bed, their bodies pressed against each other’s with only a thin layer of clothing separating them, his half-lidded eyes, looking at her with such hunger and desire…
No. She should bow out, leave them alone, let them find their way back to each other. It was so terribly obvious that she was a third wheel—actually, much worse than that—a fourth wheel. Ingrid was many things—a witch, a goddess, a sister, a friend—but she was not a home wrecker. She excused herself quickly, saying she had a lot of work to do, and left the three of them alone.
chapter seventeen
From the Mouths of Babes
The yellow cab let them out in Tribeca on a narrow cobblestone street in front of an old warehouse. They looked up at the white facade. The warehouse had been built in the mid-1800s in the Italianate style, fancier in appearance than what its original purpose suggested—to provide large spaces to store goods coming into New York City’s ports. Five stories tall, with enormous arched windows set apart by ornate pilasters, the building was crowned with deep cornices now painted a gray blue.
Joanna placed her hands on her hips. Under her camel overcoat she wore a red knit dress that Norm had helped her pick out—his favorite color on her with her silver hair. “Frankly, I pictured something more run-down, less ostentatious,” she said.
“You know how he is,” said Norman.
The door, a copper fortress of a door oxidized with a green patina, would not budge when Joanna grabbed at the handle. Norman found the buzzer to the right and pressed the single black button.
“Scan,” came a female voice from the intercom.
“Excuse me?” said Norman.
An impatient exhale crackled back at them.
Joanna moved behind Norm and spoke to the wall. “We’re here to see the Oracle?”
“I know,” the snooty voice returned. “You still have to scan. Use your god passes!”
“We’ve been traveling all day. We’re tired,” Joanna said. She was sick of the jaded attitudes in this city.
“We have no idea what you’re talking about,” Norm said impatiently.
More crackling from the intercom. “The little blue glass rectangle above the intercom. You see it?” she said slowly as if they were children. They saw it. Someone had graffitied the tag DOG EARS on it in silver marker. “Put your nose right up beneath it. Scan your eyes. That’s your god pass. Then, if you truly are who you say, the doors will open.”
They did as instructed without protest, and once their retinas had been scanned, the large brass door clicked loudly and swung open.
“Take the elevator up to the top floor,” the voice enunciated in a bored tone behind them.
The elevator doors opened onto a large, high-ceilinged white room interspersed with thick columns. It was early evening and the light slanted through the arched windows from the direction of the Hudson River. At the center of the room was a long glass table that doubled as an aquarium. Inside it, electric-blue and tiger-striped fish darted about in bubbling green water among undulating sea plants. Joanna glimpsed a spotted moray eel slithering out from beneath a rock. On the table lay iPads displaying covers of magazines. White orbs that looked like marshmallows functioned as seats. The walls’ enormous flat screens featured video art, large abstracts of moving, swirling, saturated color.
At the very end of the room before the windows, they saw the receptionist station. A clear cube with a silver laptop and a marshmallow orb. A tall young woman in a black blazer and skirt came toward them, her black patent leather heels clipping along the shining cement floor. She wore a headset, and her glossy black hair was pulled into a big knot on top of her head.
“Cappuccino or bottled water?” she asked with a mechanical smile.
“We just want to see the Oracle,” said Norman with a huff.
“Cappuccino or bottled water?” she repeated.
“We’ll take water,” said Norman.
“Have a seat.” She extended an arm like an airline hostess toward the aquarium table. “Browse an iPad. He’ll be with you shortly.” She swiveled around and clipped away toward a door, pressed a button, and the door slid open.
Norman took a seat. “Squishy!” he remarked.
Joanna sat down, found her cell phone, and glanced at it. “Remind me to call Ingrid when this is over.”
The receptionist was already returning, carrying a tray with two tall blue glass cylinders. She mumbled into her headset as she strode toward them. “Come with me, please.” They followed her to a steel door. She pressed a button and the door slid open. “Make yourselves comfortable,” she instructed.
The door slid closed behind them.
“Where’s the Oracle?” said Joanna.
The room was equally as large as the previous one. There was the same kind of colorful swirling art on the walls’ flat screens, but nothing else besides the large clear cube at the center. Resting on top of it was an open laptop. Norman motioned with his head at the cube. They walked toward it. Norman touched the track pad. A call was coming in. Norman clicked Answer. The video feed showed an empty bed with Star Wars sheets and pillows. Loud heavy-metal music blasted from the speakers.
The Oracle jumped into the frame, leaning against the mound of pillows, chomping on a burrito in a silver foil wrapper. His head was shaved with a faint black stubble, but he was still too young to need to shave his chin, being about fifteen or sixteen. He had a tattoo on his neck and wore a plain white T-shirt and jeans.
“Jo, Norm! What up, homes?” he said.
“Can you turn the music down? We can barely hear you,” said Joanna.
“Oh, sure.” He took another bite of the burrito, then searched for something on the bed, found a remote, and clicked it. The music went off.
“Thanks,” said Norm with a frown.
Joanna pushed in beside Norm and spoke at the laptop. She noted how tired she looked on the screen. “I don’t know if you’ve heard but Freya is stuck in the seventeenth century, and we need to get her back. We believe she’s in Salem Village at a very dangerous time. Last time, well, you know what happened—”
“I know, I know,” said the Oracle. “She’s not the only one who’s trapped in the passages. It’s all messed up. There are damn sinkholes everywhere. Magic’s all out of whack, there’s not enough here, but it looks like there’s a huge concentration of it in other parts of the time line. Salem in the seventeenth century is lit up like Christmas. A ton of magical energy there for some reason. But for now”—he took another large bite of his burrito so he had to chew awhile before he could speak again, and Joanna and Norman were forced to wait—”time’s stuck. Something screwy is going on with the wolves and the Fallen and the underworld. It’s thrown everything into chaos. I would be there, but I can’t even teleport over to you guys, so that’s why we’re having to chat like this.”
“Okay,” said Joanna, “but what does that mean for us? We can’t just sit back and wait.”
Norm placed his arm around Joanna’s shoulders. He needed to keep her calm. The Oracle was in one of his cheery moods, but he could get cranky and gloomy like any teen and he was not above pulling a mean prank to amuse himself.
“She just means we’re here if you need us,” Norm said.
The Oracle grinned. “Oh, and I forgot—with time broken, if something happens to that saucy, hot daughter of yours while she’s back there, it’ll stick for all eternity. Time’s all screwed up so that even our immortality is in question. If someone dies while this shit is going on—they’re donzo. Never coming back to mid-world.” Here he leaned off the bed and disappeared from the frame, then popped back in, sipping from an oversize soda cup. “Doomed to the underworld for eternity and all that.”
Joanna gasped. The Oracle was saying that if Freya was hanged, as she had once been hanged before, during the first time they had endured the Salem trials, this time she would never return. Never. It all clicked into place.
This was all an elaborate plan to kill Freya.
The Oracle must have seen the desperate expressions on their faces, because he leaned in and said, “But you’re in luck because there is something you could do to get around it…”
Joanna and Norm huddled in closer to the screen.
chapter eighteen
Gone Baby Gone
It had been a relatively peaceful day at the fire station—boisterous, carefree high jinks among the firefighters as they performed their routine housekeeping duties, washing windows, cleaning walls, sweeping floors. Freddie enjoyed the spirit of camaraderie but he also liked the structure and discipline it brought to his life. It was nice to be part of a smoothly working team, a cog in a well-oiled machine. They checked and inventoried personal protective gear, tools, and equipment for readiness: bunker jackets and trousers, gloves, boots, breathing apparatuses, rescue equipment, hoses, hand tools, and portable fire extinguishers. Freddie wrote out a report listing damaged and nonfunctioning gear. Next came checking the emergency medical-care equipment and replenishing the first-aid supplies in the trauma boxes. Then, after a training a session, it was time to break for lunch, and Freddie found his buddies Big Dave, Jennie, and Hunter.
He was in an excellent mood. Things with Gert had been ultrasmooth since his accident. He and his friends were still fixated on what happened at the last big fire and that was the usual lunch-hour conversation. The rescued college girl, Sadie, was alive and well.
“What happened, man? You’re usually our main guy,” Big Dave asked.
“Happens to everyone at some point. Even fire whisperers,” Jennie said sagely.
Freddie took a swig of his Pepsi and gave them a crooked smile, shrugging his shoulders.
Jennie winked at him, and for a second it did cross his mind that Jennie liked him more than just as a fellow firefighter. Now that he thought about it, she was kind of cute with those freckles and oversize blue eyes. What was he thinking? He loved Gert. Things were awesome at home.