Legacy of the Witch (2 page)

Chapter Two

1992, Cortland, NY

I wasn’t much for television. At twenty-four, I was
more concerned with finishing my final semester of university and doing
freelance editing for a small publishing house on the side. It kept my writing
skills honed, and it paid decently. And since I intended to be a successful
author one day, it was nice to be working in what I considered my field.

Thoughts of Babylonian witches and curses and such rarely
entered my busy brain anymore. And though the memory of that treasure chest
haunted me, I’d pretty much written off the story—the mission—that had been
given to me along with it. My grandmother had been only a few breaths away from
her last, and heavily medicated. The stories she’d been telling and retelling to
me, the ones her own mother had told to her and that went all the way back to
the roots of our family tree, had probably seemed real to her, just as they had
to me in my childhood. But it was easy to confuse a story that old, that much a
part of the family, for something true, especially in a dying, morphine-muddled
mind. And easy for a child of four—or one of thirteen—to get swept up in the
delusion.

So I tried not to think too much about how I’d lost the box or
how I’d failed to keep my vow to my dying grandmother, and I told myself it
didn’t matter so much.

Until I saw the box again.

As I said, I wasn’t much for television, but I shared a house
with seven other students, so the thing was always on. And as I walked through
the living room one evening on my way to the library, feeling stylish in my
black leggings with a long sweater over them and my backpack slung over my
shoulder, I stopped in my tracks, fixated on the TV screen, where my
gidaty’s
prize possession was being handled by a TV
show host.

“It’s a reproduction,” the man said, turning the box this way
and that, examining it as if he were a doctor and my grandmother’s treasure
chest his patient. “But a very good one.”

“How can you be sure?” asked the gorgeous blonde who’d handed
it to him. She had big hair. I wondered how she got it so high. In the nineties
women in the U.S. had become like male lions, the bigger the mane, the more
status they had. And hers was massive. Or she was from Texas. One or the other.
My own hair was perpetually flat, sleek and black. There was nothing I could do
about that.

“See these paintings on the bottom?” the man said as he turned
the box over. “Someone added these after the box was made, so it’s not in its
original condition. I believe they’re the images of various Tarot cards—except
this one, which looks Egyptian. And the locking mechanism is…something I’ve
never seen before. This padlock here—” he jiggled the black iron lock in his
hand “—it’s got no keyhole. I have no idea how this box would open, or if it
even does.”

The blonde blinked like a cartoon kitten. I could almost hear
the
plink-plunk
of strings that went along with the
motion. “Why would anyone make a lock that doesn’t open?”

“I have no idea. As a joke, perhaps?” The man set the box on
the table. “You say you’ve never opened it?”

“No. But we haven’t had it that long.”

“It’s a fascinating piece,” he said. “Where did you ever find
it?”

“My fiancé brought it back from the Gulf War.”

I shivered.

The host nodded. “Please thank him for his service for us. I
think this box’s true value is something other than monetary.” He slid it across
the table toward her.

“Are you saying it’s not worth anything?”

Wide eyes now. And kind of empty. Like her head, I thought.

“Two hundred dollars, perhaps. But I think your husband should
keep it.”

“Fiancé,” she corrected.

One of the roommates had been saying my name over and over, but
I was ignoring her because the lettering on the bottom of the screen had the
woman’s name: Glenda Montgomery from Akron, Ohio. I burned it into my mind as
the show went to a commercial.

“Amarrah, are you okay? What’s up? You never watch TV.”

I blinked. “I thought I knew her. But, um, I was wrong.”

I have to go to Ohio,
I
thought.

But you can’t. You’ve got finals coming
up.

Not for two weeks. That’s plenty of time
to get there and get back.

Don’t be ridiculous. How will you even
find her?

Not her. Him. She said it belonged to her
fiancé.

Still…

All the way to the library I was having this inner argument. I
didn’t have a lot of money, but Ohio wouldn’t be an impossible drive, and I did
have a decent car. I could take my books with me, try to get as many assignments
in advance as I could and cram for finals on the road.

It could be done.

The notion just wouldn’t leave me alone. And when I slept that
night, I swore my grandmother was standing over my bed, shouting at me. “You
must go, Amarrah! You must go and get the box! You promised me!”

And from there I dissolved into an image from the story. I was
thirteen and very dirty, dressed in rags, with bruises on my arms and face. I’d
finished my chores and run to play along the edges of the riverbank, where the
grasses were tall and lush, and there I’d spotted a beautiful boy swinging a
sword as if in the heat of battle with some invisible enemy.

Hiding behind the tall reeds, I watched, fascinated by him,
until he tripped over a stone and fell on his face. I couldn’t quite suppress my
giggle.

He spotted me, frowned and pushed himself up, brushing the dust
off his clothes. “Come on out, girl. I see you hiding there.”

Bashful, and wondering if I’d just earned myself another
whipping, I stepped out into his view, painfully aware of my disheveled state. I
tried to smooth my hair back, but it was of little use. “I didn’t mean to spy on
you,” I said. “It’s just that I’ve never seen a boy so young wield a sword with
so much skill.” Flattery, I thought, might save me from punishment. But even so,
it was no less than the truth.

He smiled a little. “Even if I did make a fool out of myself at
the end.”

“You were intent on your form. You didn’t see that stone.”

“Did it seem…good?” he asked. “My form, I mean.”

I met his eyes, touched that my opinion was of any interest to
him. “To me it did. I couldn’t look away.”

He smiled wider and came closer. “I’m Harmon, son of Brock. My
father’s one of the most skilled swordsmen in the king’s guard. He’s been
training me to join him in the ranks.”

“You’ll be a soldier, too, then?”

“I hope to be, yes.” He looked me up and down. “And you…you’re
a servant girl, yes?”

I nodded. “Amarrah. I’ve been a kitchen slave since I can
remember, but today was my last day. Tonight I get to move into the harem
quarters, to be slave girl to the slave girls.” I smiled when I said it, and he
did, too, getting the joke.

“Bet they’ll clean you up some. I’ve never seen a dirty slave
in the harem quarters.”

“You’ve been inside?” I asked.

“No. I meant…no.” He moved closer to me, then, bending, dipped
his hand into the sacred river. Rising, he wiped my face with his wet
fingertips. He did this a few times, then stood back. “You’re going to fit in
there,” he said. “I see beauty under all that dirt.”

I felt the blood rush straight to my cheeks. He had returned my
compliments with one of his own, though he could not have known how deeply it
had touched me.

Then someone called my name. The fat cook, who’d warned me
earlier that she had orders to get me cleaned up and dressed appropriately for
my move into the harem quarters.

“I have to go.”

“If the old bat beats you again,” he said with a sharp eye on
my bruises, “kick her in the shins and run away. You should not have to take
that. At least not anymore.”

“If she does, it will be the last time. The ladies of the harem
are kind. I’ll be grateful to them forever for taking me away from the
kitchens.” The cook called again, and I turned. “I’d better go.”

“I’ll see you again, Amarrah,” he said.

“I don’t know how.” The harem quarters were off-limits to most.
“But I hope so. Goodbye, Harmon, son of Brock.”

“Goodbye, Amarrah, slave girl to the slave girls.”

I met his eyes one last time and felt like a bolt of lightning
shot from his to mine, jolting my heart into a stronger beat. One so startling
that I woke up.

I was alone in my bedroom. My
gidaty’s
photo, a picture of her in her younger and happier days,
stood framed on my nightstand. I looked into her eyes, and she seemed to stare
intently back at me.

“All right, Tata. All right, I’ll do it.”

Maybe I had lost my mind. Or maybe not. But I was going ahead
with my plan, and nothing would stop me. I had promised my grandmother, after
all.

* * *

Akron was a lot bigger than Cortland, but otherwise not
so different. The U.S. had a very homogenized quality to it. One place wasn’t a
lot different from the next, not like my homeland, where miles might as well
have been light-years.

I bought a city map from a gas station as soon as I was close,
then stopped at a telephone booth to look up the number for the library. I
needed to know who Glenda Montgomery’s fiancé was, and I figured my best bet was
to go through the engagement announcements in the local newspapers. The
library’s microfiche would have what I needed.

It took hours, but I found it. An engagement announcement
featuring that doe-eyed blonde with the empty head and her gorgeous hero soldier
in full uniform. The clip was more than a year old, which was why it took me so
long to find it.

“Mrs. Dulcet Montgomery is pleased to announce the engagement
of her daughter, Glenda, to Staff Sergeant Harrison Brockson. The wedding will
take place after Sergeant Brockson finishes his upcoming tour of duty in
Kuwait.”

The man had obviously finished his tour and come home safely.
Their wedding could be any day now. In fact, it could have happened already for
all I knew. Those TV shows were probably recorded long before they aired.

I stared at the man in the photo and frowned as an odd little
itch formed in the back of my brain. As if I knew him from somewhere but just
couldn’t quite remember. He was handsome, and when I stared at his eyes, my
heart beat a little faster. Dark eyes. Familiar.

I removed the microfilm from the machine, and dutifully
returned it to its container and put it away. Then I asked for a phone directory
from the reference desk.

And there it was. Harrison Brockson’s number was listed, and so
was his address. 355 Water Street in the suburb of Tallmadge.

I wrote it down on a slip of scrap paper, thanked the librarian
and turned to head out the door to my car.

But once I got in I just sat there, drumming my fingers on the
wheel. “All right, I know where he lives. Now what?”

Just drive out there and see what the
place is like. Then come up with…something.

I closed my eyes for just a moment and decided that yes, that
idea felt like the right one. The next logical step. So I opened my map and
located Tallmadge, and then Water Street. It would be dark soon, but it wouldn’t
take long to get there.

It was just dusk, the sky turning to twilight purple, when I
drove my very-out-of-place car through the wealthy neighborhood. Every house was
like something out of
Beautiful Homes
, all of them
huge, many of them fenced in. I suspected they all had alarm systems and guard
dogs but told myself I was being overly dramatic.

Scanning the numbers on the mailboxes and driveway pillars, I
slowed as I drew closer, and then came around a sharp curve in the neat, narrow
lane to see 355 in gold-colored digits on a brick driveway post. It was part of
a pair that flanked the paved drive and had lights on top as if to tell me I’d
arrived.

The driveway curved away from the road, splitting a lush green
lawn that rose gradually to the house perched on top. Gorgeous, like the rest,
but very different from them. It was an architect’s dream, all stained wood,
unexpected angles and huge windows.

All this? For a soldier? I didn’t know much about the army, but
I didn’t think staff sergeants made that much money.

Well, I’d found the place. Now, how was I going to get
inside?

Just do it, child. You
promised!

Tata’s voice, of course, egging me on. And more real than a
whispered thought or memory. It was as if she was in the car, in the passenger
seat, giving orders.

I pulled into the driveway and headed up to the house, racking
my brain for a reason why I might be there and falling on the simplest. I was
lost. I needed to use a telephone, or maybe ask for directions to someplace.
Shutting my car off, I stiffened my spine, stared at the house and spoke without
intending to, the words just sort of spilling from my lips, surprising me. I
didn’t know I still remembered them.

“I bind you now, oh box, to me, by the power of three times
three, return return return to me.”

Then I got out of the car and marched right up to the door.

The man who opened it was not the same man I’d seen in the
newspaper. That was my first thought. And then, as I stared at him, my eyes
moving up and down his face, I realized that he was the same
being,
just not the same person. His time in Kuwait
had changed him. He’d left a carefree young man, but now he was…darker. Harder.
And far more attractive than I’d been expecting. And still there was that
niggling familiarity.

I’d sensed it from the engagement photo, but in person there
was something more. Something that made my throat go dry and made my heart start
pounding faster. Maybe it was that shadow of beard just starting to cover his
strong jawline and chin. Or the intensity of his sapphire-blue eyes—eyes that
kept changing like a mirage to dark brown, then near black, in my
imagination.