Nightwind (36 page)

The car behind her beeped in annoyance as Maxine sat there long after the light had turned, staring at

her daughter as though Lauren had grown an extra head. She glanced with anger at the offending driver

then eased off the brake, going as slow as she dared to annoy the woman who had had the nerve to blow

her horn at Maxine Fowler.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Maxine grumbled as the car behind passed her, laying on the horn

to let Maxine know she hadn’t appreciated her tactics. “Goddamned Navy officer’s wife from No Fuck,

Virgin,” Maxine growled, seeing the Virginia license plate with a Norfolk car dealer’s sticker on the

trunk.

The crude and vulgar word brought Lauren’s lips together, but she didn’t answer. Rudeness and

sarcasm were her mother’s favorite past times. She glanced at the Knights of Columbus hall as they

passed, wondering briefly why there were so many cars out front on a Saturday morning and said so.

“Ladies’ Auxiliary Bingo.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Lauren said. “I’d forgotten.”

Maxine kept watching her daughter as they traveled. Nearing a convenience store, she asked if Lauren

wanted a 7-Up. “You sure?”

“I’m not thirsty,” Lauren answered, not wanting to prolong the ride home, only wanting to reach the

sanctity, and quiet, of her own bedroom.

“Remember you’re supposed to drink plenty of liquids,” Maxine advised as she stopped for a red light.

She turned to look at her daughter. “I’ll fix you something to eat before I leave this afternoon.”

Lauren looked around at her mother, aghast that the woman intended to stay any longer than to drop her

off. “That’s not necessary, Mama,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as cold to her mother as it

had to her.

“It’s no bother,” Maxine assured her and turned left as the light changed. “Maybe some soup and a

grilled cheese sandwich. How does that sound?”

Hot, Lauren thought with a grimace. A cool salad and lemonade sounded a whole lot better to her, but

she didn’t say so. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest.

“Feeling poorly again?”

“Just tired.”

“We’ll be there in a minute or two.” Maxine reached out and patted her daughter’s knee. “You’ll feel

better with something in your stomach.” She laughed uneasily, casting an embarrassed look at Lauren’s

midsection. “Other than that little bundle of mischief you got growing in there.”

Lauren lifted her head, turned, and stared at her mother. It was the first time any mention had been made

of the baby. For all Lauren knew, her mother was as upset about the baby as she was about Lauren

getting married.

“You know,” Maxine said, unaware of the look her daughter was giving her, “I’m the only woman my

age at the courthouse who doesn’t have a grandkid or two.” She smiled to herself. “Lord, I hope it’s a

boy.”

Astounded by the remark; flabbergasted by the sex her mother was wishing the child to be, Lauren

could not find the words to say. She simply stared, confusion running across her face in tighter and tighter

waves until the confusion had transformed itself to anger. When her mother turned and grinned at her, she

wanted to wipe what she thought was a smirk off the older woman’s smug face.

“Have you picked out a name yet?” Maxine asked. She looked down once more at the rounding of

Lauren’s belly.

Lauren bit her tongue to keep from berating her mother. “Connor James if it’s a boy and Helen Louise if

it’s a girl.”

“Hope it ain’t twins!” Maxine chuckled. “Now
that
would be a real handful!”

Shaking her head at her mother’s cheerful banter, the pretenses of a normal mother-daughter relationship

that had never existed, Lauren turned away and watched the scrub oaks and scraggly pines they passed.

She tuned out her mother’s banal chattering and wished she had not allowed herself to be driven home

by her mother.

“You know Syntian really should do something about this driveway,” Maxine groused as she pulled onto

the pinestraw covered lane that led up to the old house. “The least he could do is put down some gravel.”

With her jaw clenched as tightly as teeth and bone would allow, Lauren forced herself not to scream at

the insane words. “I’m sure that will be at the top of his list when he comes home, Mother,” she

mumbled.

Maxine glanced her way and then pursed her lips. “Don’t get huffy with me, Anna Lauren. I was only

making a comment.”

“An entirely inappropriate comment considering the circumstances, don’t you think, Mama?” Lauren

snapped as the car rolled to a stop at the wide veranda.

“Now, you listen here, missy...”

But Lauren had already opened the door and was climbing out of the car. “I appreciate the ride home,

Mama. Thank you. But I think I’m going to go up and go to bed for a while. The heat is wearing me out

and I just want to sleep.” She slammed the door and walked to the steps and started to climb, furious

when she heard her mother’s door open.

“I’m not about to leave you here alone.”

“Mother,” Lauren stated, turning around to stare with annoyance at the other woman. “I am a grown

woman.”

“I need to talk to you, Lauren,” Maxine interrupted, forestalling any further excuses.

The two women glared at one another for a moment and then Lauren gave in, thinking if she got it over

with, whatever inane thing her mother wanted to discuss, maybe the woman would leave sooner. “All

right. Come on in,” she said ungraciously.

Maxine clamped her mouth shut and climbed up on the porch behind her daughter. In her hand was

clutched the big canvas carryall that went with her to work every day. Lauren eyed it suspiciously, hoping

that it didn’t contain extra underwear and a nightgown. “I’m not staying,” Maxine defended. “Not all

night, anyway.”

Sighing wearily, Lauren unlocked the door and ushered her mother on past the living area and into the

kitchen where she poured the both of them an iced tea and then sat down at the little round table in of the

bay window.

“All right, Mama. What’s so important that it can’t wait?”

Maxine laid the big carryall on the table and seated herself. She took a long drink of the tea before

rummaging in the bag and drawing out what looked to be a very old scrapbook. “I want you to look at

this,” she told Lauren and pushed the book toward her.

“What is it?” Lauren glanced down at the musty covering that bore no lettering and wrinkled her nose.

“Where did you get it?”

“Just open it to the first page,” Maxine ordered.

For a reason she couldn’t explain, opening the old book was the last thing Lauren wanted to do, but

seeing the resolve in her mother’s sharp eyes, she drew in a deep breath and then turned back the ash

gray cover of the book. The first page looked so ancient she was afraid to touch it for fear it would

crumble. She peered at the elaborate scrawl of elegant lettering on the page then looked up at her

mother.

“What does it say?”

Maxine shook her head. “Read it.”

Looking closer at the antique writing, Lauren was finally able to decipher the calligraphy. Her right brow

arched and she looked up at her mother. “The Book of Shadows?”

“Yes,” Maxine answered. She pointed. “Go ahead. Turn the page.”

Carefully picking up the bottom corner of the page, Lauren flipped it over and was astounded to see a

list of women’s names covering the next page. She could barely read the first dozen or so, but near the

bottom, three names stood out as though written in neon. She stared, then slowly lifted her head to look

at her mother.

“Anna Ruth Fontrelle? Wasn’t that your great-great grandmother?” she asked. At her mother’s nod, she

put her finger on the second name. “Felicity Beckman.” Her brows drew together. “That was your great

grandmother.” She remembered the names from the genealogical research on her family she’d done while

in college.

Maxine tapped the last name on that page. “Miranda Hennessey,” she said softly. “My grandmother.”

Lauren felt a chill run down her spine. “What is this book, Mama?”

“Turn the page and look on the back.”

Something told her she shouldn’t, that she should shut the book, and tell her mother to leave, but a part

of her, that curious part that was woman, gave her the strength to turn the page.

She let out a long breath. Her mother’s name was the only one scribbled on the page. She looked up.

“Why isn’t Grandmama’s name in here?”

Maxine shrugged. “She never needed what the book had to offer. Besides, she was so pious, she

shoulda been a damned nun!”

Lauren started to close the dusty-smelling book, but her mother stopped her.

“Turn the page,” Maxine commanded.

As each successive page was turned, Lauren became more and more confused. There were drawings,

odd symbols, numerical calculations, words that held no meaning for her, poems whose words she could

barely make out and that made no sense. There were lists and what could only have been called recipes

mixed in with astrological symbols and dates and times, phases of the moon, properties of plants and

herbs and spices.

“I don’t understand most of this,” Lauren admitted.

“That’s because some of it is written in Hebrew, some in Ancient Assyrian, Gaelic, French. There are

spells from Egypt and runes from Scotland and translations of some writings off cave walls when man had

yet to walk upright.”

“My Lord,” Lauren finally exclaimed, realizing at last what the book was. “This is a book of witchcraft!”

“Demonology,” Maxine corrected. “There is a difference.”

She turned another page, not having heard her mother, and stared at the heading. Her blood ran cold in

her veins as she read the words: The Summoning of Demons. Without knowing she was doing so, she

began reading the incantation to raise an incubus from the Abyss. “The NightWind?” she whispered.

“That’s not important, now,” Maxine said, startling Lauren and making the girl look up at her as though

she had just awakened from a nightmare. “You can read that any time. Turn the page. See what’s after

the invocation to the NightWind.”

Not wanting to, but knowing she had no choice, Lauren flipped the page and gasped, looking up to gape

at her mother. “Is this blood?” she asked of the writing scratched down the length of the page. The dirty

orange coloring could be nothing else.

“Look at the top of the page,” Maxine asked, deflecting her daughter’s shock from the ink that had been

used to write the document. “There where it says on this date, etceteras, etceteras, I, Sybelle Ahunnami,

do enter into this agreement.”

Lauren lowered her shocked eyes to the old parchment page. She would never have been able to tell

that those were the words in the document had her mother not given her the key to read them. She

looked up, more puzzled than ever.

“Who was she, Mama?”

“An Assyrian princess as best I can tell,” her mother replied. Maxine reached out and began flipping

pages. Page after page after page bore the identically same phrasing, only the names and dates had been

altered, along with the handwriting in which the document had been produced. “Generations, Lauren,”

Maxine explained. “Generations of women, our ancestors, yours and mine, all women from our family,

have kept this book. It has been handed down from mother to daughter, from grandmother to

granddaughter since time began. Pages have been added with every successive generation as have spells

and all manner of magic that has been proven successful for our womenfolk.” She stopped at a page that

bore the name of Maxine Mulroney. The document was dated 7 April, 1834. “I was named after her.

She was my great, great, great grandmother.” She turned another page. “This is my grandmother. It was

from her I gained the knowledge of this book.”

Lauren snatched her hands away from the vile thing and shuddered. “Get that thing out of my house!”

she snapped, hugging her arms about her. “Now! This minute!”

“These are pacts with the NightWind, Lauren,” Maxine said, flipping back halfway through the book.

“Here at the bottom of the page. It’s his mark.’’

Involuntarily, Lauren glanced down at the crooked symbol. It looked to her like an X turned slightly on

its side with the upper right leg longer and curved outward.

“That’s the ancient symbol of the Wind,” Maxine breathed. “That’s not what most people think of as the

astrological sign, but it is the true mark.”

“I don’t want to hear any more of this.”

“Each of us,” Maxine said, her eyes glazing as she spoke, “signed our pact with him.” She turned her

dreamy look to her child. “We have each made our bargain with the NightWind. And in return, he

granted us his protection.”

“I want you to leave, Mama,” Lauren ordered, getting up from the table. “I don’t want that vile thing in

my house.”

“I was thirteen when I signed my pact with him,” Maxine told her. “He came to me on the whisper of a

breeze and gave me all that I asked of him.”

“Mama,” Lauren said loudly. “I want you to leave!”

Maxine turned the pages back over until she had found the document signed by her great-great

grandmother. “Look,” she said, pointing down at the page. “Look how the symbol has changed since

that very first bargain.”

Lauren reached down to shut the book, to lift it and throw it into her mother’s face if necessary to get

the woman to leave, but her gaze feel on the dark rust mark at the bottom of the page and she stopped.