KISS THE WITCH (31 page)

We spent a minute, all of us, hugging and
congratulating one another. I told Dominic I was proud of him and
warned him that he better take good care of Ursula. He said he
would. Really, I had no doubts. When it came my turn to
congratulate and hug Ursula, I did so, and without thinking, kissed
her on the lips. The look on her face was of complete shock. I
pushed her back gently, looked around and saw that no one else had
seen us.

“
Ursula, I’m sorry,” I
said, keeping my voice low. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t know what
came over me. For a moment I thought––”

She stepped toward me again and pressed her
finger to my lips. “Speak not a word of it.”

I started to thank her, when her eyes found
that level squint and her lips that serpent’s grin that Lilith gave
me moments earlier. My heart sank to my stomach. My throat
tightened and my palms grew sweaty. She returned to Dominic. He was
talking to Carlos and Lilith. They were laughing, the three of
them, engaged in their bubble of ignorance while Ursula and I kept
an eye lock on each other. She was reading me. Feeling me.
Exploring my mind while I tried and failed to read hers. I watched
her eyes fall away. I followed them to the ground, and there
between us, in the dirt, was an electric blue vein of energy
tethering us, tying the two of us together. I could feel it
tingling in my toes. My jaw dropped. I looked up at her again. She
smiled and then turned her head dismissively.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion
then. Carlos laughed in slow motion. Lilith clasped her hands
together in slow motion and then pulled them apart, perhaps
describing the zip ball explosion the other morning in the living
room. Dominic put his hands up defensively, as if startled by
Lilith’s demonstration. Again in slow motion. The only one not
moving slow besides me was Ursula. Yet the others did not see it. I
walked the static blue line to her. She turned to me, her smile
thinning by degrees.

“
Ursula, what is going
on?”

“
You do not know?” she
said.

“
Know what?”

“
We are
linking.”

“
Linking? What’s
that?”

She trained her eyes on the blue line. “You
kissed me. The light doth bind our souls now and forever.”

I pointed to the others. “What’s wrong with
them? Why are they moving in slow motion?”

She looked and laughed. “But they are not.
No more than we are having this conversation.”

“
You saying we’re
not?”

“
Not in words of spoken
sound.”

That freaked me out some. “Ursula.” I wagged
my finger at her. “I am on to your gag. It’s a cute trick to be
sure. One of your better spells.”

She shook her head. “What say thee thy words
of doubt? `Tis witchcraft, aye, but not a spell. Thou doth see with
thine own eyes thy witches light.”

I looked at the ground between Lilith and
me. No such vein of energy existed between us. “Lilith and I don’t
have it,” I said, sure to deflate her ruse. She shied away from the
question. I asked again, more forcefully. “Ursula. Why is there no
light between Lilith and me? We’ve kissed thousands of times.”

She pointed at the circle. “`Tis the energy
of the coven, this light, meant for me and mine.”

“
You and
Dominic.”

“
Aye.”

“
So, why didn’t it work?
Why aren’t the two of you linked?”

“
It is as I have told you,
the light of witches.”

I nodded. “I see. Dominic’s not a
witch.”

“
Alas, he is
not.”

“
Why didn’t you warn me
then? I would not have kissed you if I knew.”

“
What was to warn? Thou
kissed me so fast my head did spin and doth spin still.”

“
I got caught up in the
moment.”

“
The moment, aye, and what
a moment thou hath caught.” She shook her head and looked away.
“`Tis a strange event what turns indeed. Wilt thou not pinch me now
and wake me from this dream?”

“
I wish I could,” I said.
“And I wish I could tell you that none of this is happening. Yet
here we are, talking in this surreal, detached envelope of reality
while these three go about their business without the slightest
notion that we are having this conversation––or not having it, as
you say. Ursula, you have to tell me what to do, because I really
don’t understand it.”

“
Nay. Nor do I for its
entirety.”

“
Tony.” I looked at her
from across the circle. It was Lilith. No longer was I standing
next to Ursula. The four of them were outside the circle, looking
back at me. “You coming or not?”

I looked about, feeling spent, as if
awakening from a dream. “Yes,” I said. “I’m coming.”

I fled the circle and caught up with them in
a sprint. I might have thought it was all in my head, had Ursula
not looked at me and gestured with her finger across her lips. She
directed my attention to the ground with a glance. The electric
blue vein was still there, tethering our witchy blue souls.

Back at the house, Dominic and Ursula acted
like the consummate newlyweds; touching, kissing and sometimes
displaying their affections in an openly lascivious manner. It
seemed a bit out of character for both, but perfectly normal for a
couple so much in love. Carlos popped the champagne bottle and
offered a toast to the occasion. What he lacked in linguistic
eloquence, he made up for with heartfelt sincerity.

“
If I may,” he started,
his glass in hand, his arm outstretched as if holding a lantern to
the entrance of a darkened cave. In some ways, I imagined he was.
To toast a future unknown, one can only surmise its outcome by the
brilliance of the light that shines before him. “To Dominic. My
best friend.” He looked at me with a side-glance and whispered,
“Sorry, Tony. No offence.”

I gestured back, raising my glass. “None
taken.”

He continued. “And to his beautiful new
wife, Ursula. May the road before you be paved with gold.” I know.
He should have stopped there. “May the potholes you encounter be
small, far and few. May life’s detours always bring you back to a
pavement straight and narrow. May the intersections never cross you
up and may the lights at those intersections always be green. I
mean for you, of course. Not for the cross traffic. That would be
dangerous. Unless no one is coming the other way. In that
case––”

“
Carlos.” I cranked my
hand in a cameraman’s roll. “Can you hurry it up some? The
champagne is going flat.”

“
Of course,” he said,
souring his expression. But having successfully distracted him, I
knew his train of thought was permanently derailed. He hoisted his
glass higher. “To Dominic and Ursula.”

“
Hear, hear,” I said. “To
Dominic and Ursula.”

We all drank. And after drinking to that, we
drank some more, toasting everything from Lilith’s magick to the
magic kingdom at Disney World. To be honest, by the end of the
evening we would have toasted the magic of microwave popcorn. The
champagne was going down that easily. Seven bottles of champagne
and countless shooters later, we were all either tipsy, cockeyed or
stone cold drunk. Still, no matter how much I drank, I never lost
sight of the electric blue vein, that damn witch’s light tethering
Ursula and me together. The truly strange thing was that, although
I spotted Ursula looking at it every now and then too, no one else,
not even Lilith, ever seemed to notice it.

Later that evening, I pulled Dominic aside
and asked him what Ursula whispered in his ear that changed his
mind about accepting the house Carlos gave them. He told me she
whispered that with a house like that, they could start working on
having babies right away.

“
You know how small my
apartment is,” he said, and then he smiled. “I can’t wait to get
started.”

I looked across the room at Ursula. I would
have started already, I thought. But my answer to him sounded less
impetuous. “You have time. Enjoy each other’s company while you
can. Kids change everything.”

Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” he said, but
I knew he was only being polite. My money was on Ursula getting
pregnant by morning.

It was sometime after midnight when we
called for a taxi to take Dominic and Ursula home. Lilith set the
couch up for Carlos to sleep on. Shortly after, she and I went to
bed. As promised, she made good use of my handle. Even tried a few
new things that I would not have thought possible. But then, Lilith
is a shape-shifter. Couple that with some liquor and she can really
surprise you. That is to say, she does not drink much, but when she
does, she is one righteous ball of fire.

By two in the morning, she had worn me down
and worn herself out. I was sitting up in bed looking at her,
watching her sleep, when I noticed that annoying blue light again.
It appeared to radiate off my body like a glow stick, gathering in
a concentrated pool on the floor by the bed and stretching like
taffy out the bedroom door. I got up and followed it down the hall.
A string of static sparks popped in nervous missteps just beyond my
stride, as if anticipating my footfalls. It led me to the bathroom,
past the sink and toilet and terminated at the tub. But for what
little light I could see by, I was sure there was no one there. I
hit the switch, illuminating the room, and there she was, Ursula,
sitting on the edge of the tub in a nightgown so sheer I could see
through it clearly. At her bare feet, the electric blue tether
linking us.

“
Ursula? What are you
doing here?”

She looked at me. Not at my face, but lower.
I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my mid-section. I snapped
up a second towel and handed it to her. She waved it off, instead,
passing her hands over her body and blurring her features to my
eyes.

“
Wow, some trick,” I said.
“How did you do that?”

She shook her head. “`Tis no trick. The mind
sees what it will. I am here as you want me, but in your mind is
all. I come neither clothed nor unclothed. Thou wished to see me in
the flesh, so thy eye hath made it so.”

“
Yes, but now I see your
face clearly and only a blurred silhouette of your
body.”

“
Aye, `tis by suggestion I
blind thee. Still, you see me as ye wish.”

I passed my hand in front of my face and
Ursula was naked again, veiled only in a sheer whisper of lingerie.
Another pass, another look, and she was clothed in traditional
seventeen century garb, hemmed to the ankle and button to the
neck.

“
That’s amazing. I see you
any way I want.”

“
As you wish.”

“
Except I really don’t
wish to see you at all. Why aren’t you home with your
husband?”

“
I am in body, but my mind
is with thee. We are linked. Thou hath beckoned me through the
witch’s light.”

“
So, you are not really
here?”

She shook her head. “In body, no.”

“
But if I were to touch
you….” I crossed the floor and reached for her. Upon contact, a
bright blue spark arced between my finger and her arm, sending a
shock through my bones like a mini lightning bolt. I fell back with
a shriek, jerking my hand involuntarily and slamming it against the
sink.

“
Damn it, Ursula. What was
that?”

She pressed her finger to her lips and
shushed me. Then she pointed to the door. I turned to see Carlos
shuffling into the bathroom, blind to our presence. I stepped away
from the sink and let him pass. He positioned himself in front of
the toilet, opened his stance, took it out and proceeded to relieve
himself. I turned to Ursula, who did not seem shy about watching
him.

“
Can you see him?” I
asked.

She crowded her brows as if I had asked her
a stupid question. I suppose I had. “Of course.”

“
Can he see
us?”

She shook her head. “Methinks not.”

And then she did something completely
uncharacteristic, something I would have expected only from Lilith.
She scooted along to the edge of the tub, leaned in closer to
Carlos, and with her index finger she…. Well, she poked his thing,
diverting a heavy stream of urine off to one side of the bowl and
onto the floor. She pulled back and giggled, covering her mouth
with her hands as if Carlos might hear. I fell back against the
wall, laughing so hard I nearly pissed myself. Carlos, who had been
half-sleeping, or sleepwalking, I’m not completely sure, swung his
aim back to the bowl, over corrected by a foot and sprayed the
other side of the floor, missing Ursula’s foot by inches.

“
Ursula,” I said. “I
cannot believe you did that. You are a naughty, naughty girl,
aren’t you?”

“
Please, Master Tony.
Forgive me. I could not resist.”

“
I think you have been
hanging around Lilith too long. She has definitely corrupted
you.”

“
Aye. `Tis Lilith’s fault.
I admit. I am what she made me, is all. What fruit falls doth falls
not far from the tree.”

“
What?”

She shook her head, and then Carlos shook
his and tucked it back into his pants. He washed his hands, but did
nothing about the mess on the floor. As he turned and started back
to the couch, I said to Ursula. “How did you do that?”

Again, she gave me that innocent look,
though I was beginning to suspect she was not that innocent at all.
“Do what?”