Ring of Light (17 page)

When her mother pulled the car into the hospital parking lot, Kate practically ran to the front doors. She went inside and hit the up button for the elevator, pacing impatiently as her mother caught up with her.

“What's the rush?” she asked.

“I just want to see if Dr. Pedersen has any news,” Kate responded.

“She's not even due to come up until ten,” Mrs. Morgan reminded her daughter. “You've got fifteen minutes.”

Kate continued to pace. Why was the elevator taking so long? She watched as the numbers lit up, going lower as the elevator descended to the lobby. Finally the doors opened and she hopped on, pressing the button for the third floor.

“Kate, I don't want you to get your hopes up,” her mother said. “I know you want there to be good news. But it hasn't been that long, and there might not be any change.”

“I know,” Kate said. “But I have a good feeling about this.” She wished she could tell her mother that she'd done a ritual to help Aunt Netty. But she couldn't. Not yet.
Maybe if everything works out right I will,
she thought. That would be a good way to bring up the subject with her family. They'd be so happy that Aunt Netty was better that they'd be more open to hearing about Wicca and what it could do.

The doors opened, and Kate stepped out with her mother. She looked down the hall to her aunt's room and saw that the door was open.

“She's awake,” Kate said, hurrying down the hall and waving to the nurses as she passed their station. They all knew her by sight now and waved back.

Kate found her aunt sitting up in bed, poking at a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. When she saw her niece, Netty smiled.

“Come on in,” she said. “I was just trying to decide what kind of animal these eggs came from. I think they were laid by a pterodactyl.”

Kate kissed her aunt and then sat on the end of her bed. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Great,” Aunt Netty said. “Well, relatively great. Anything is better than throwing up every half hour. But really, I feel a lot better. It's like something's changed. I don't know what, but I just feel different.”

It's magic!
Kate wanted to shout.
It's the magic!
But she just smiled and grabbed her aunt's hand. “I'm so happy,” she said.

Mrs. Morgan walked in and greeted her sister. “Has the doctor been by yet?” she asked.

“Not yet,” said Netty. “I'm expecting her any minute.”

“Aunt Netty just told me that she feels a lot better,” Kate told her mother.

“I'm glad to hear it,” her mother responded.

Kate looked around the room. “You know what would make this place even better?” she said. “Flowers. I think I'll go get some.”

Before anyone could reply she ran out of the room and down the hall. There was a florist in the hospital lobby, and she wanted to pick up some beautiful flowers to celebrate the good news that Aunt Netty was feeling better. As she rode down, she thought about how nice it would be when her aunt could come home and they could get back to having fun like they did before she got sick.

In the flower shop, she looked at everything. She considered roses, but then put them back and chose a big bunch of gerbera daisies. They were pink and yellow and orange, and they reminded Kate of the flowers from a Dr. Seuss book. She knew Aunt Netty would love them because they were unusual.

When she returned to the third floor she saw that her aunt's door was closed.
Dr. Pedersen must be in there,
she thought excitedly. She went to the door and knocked. A moment later her mother opened it.

“I'm back,” Kate said as she entered the room. “Do you have something I can put these in?”

When no one answered her she looked around and saw that nobody was smiling. Her aunt was looking out the window, and Dr. Pedersen was standing awkwardly beside the bed.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

Her mother put her hand on Kate's shoulder. “Dr. Pedersen was just going over Netty's test results,” she said quietly. “There's no improvement.”

“But what about the treatments?” Kate asked frantically. “Didn't they work?”

“They appear to be working,” the doctor told her. “But they're taking quite a toll on your aunt's body.”

“So what happens now?” asked Kate. “Do we just sit here and let the cancer take over her whole body?”

“Kate,” her mother said. “Try to calm down.”

“No!” Kate shouted. She was starting to shake. “This isn't what was supposed to happen! She was supposed to get better. The cancer was supposed to go away.”

She was upset about the doctor's news, both because it meant that her aunt was still sick but also because it meant that her ritual had failed. How could it? Everything had gone so well. It had felt so right. What had happened?

“I understand your frustration, Kate,” Dr. Pedersen said. “But you have to understand that when it comes to cancer there's no one way things are ‘supposed' to happen. We try what we can and we hope for the best, but sometimes the body has a mind of its own.”

Kate stared at her. What was she saying, that Aunt Netty
wanted
to be sick? That she was somehow responsible for the disease inside her? She found herself wanting to defend her aunt, to tell the doctor that she had it all wrong. Aunt Netty didn't want to be sick. Nobody would want to be sick.

“What
do
we do now?” Mrs. Morgan asked.

Dr. Pedersen sighed. “We wait some more,” she said. “We continue with the treatment to try to knock out the cancer that's invaded Netty's system before it attacks anything else. If we can get it to slow down or stop altogether, I think she stands a pretty good chance of recovering.”

“And if you can't?” Aunt Netty asked quietly. “Then what?”

The doctor looked at the three of them. “Then the cancer attacks more of your organs and your body shuts down,” she said.

Kate heard her mother draw in her breath sharply. She knew that the doctor's words were a shock to her and that she was trying to stay calm. She saw Netty close her eyes and lean her head back. What was she thinking? Was she thinking about how she might die?

“I wish I had better news than that, but I don't,” Dr. Pedersen continued. “But please believe me when I say that we're doing everything we can.”

“I know you are,” Aunt Netty said, trying to smile. “And believe me, I appreciate it.”

The doctor left the room, and Kate stood, holding the flowers, while her mother and aunt looked anywhere but at each other. Kate was angry. She could feel it boiling inside of her, sitting in the pit of her stomach like a hot coal and radiating out to fill her with misery and rage. Why was this happening? And why was it happening to Aunt Netty, who had never done anything bad to anyone in her entire life? It just wasn't fair.

She needed to get out of there. She couldn't stand looking at her aunt for another minute knowing that she was dying and that the one thing Kate had tried to do to help her hadn't worked. She needed to get away.

“I have to go,” she said, putting the flowers down on the chair beside her.

“Kate,” her aunt said. “It's okay.”

“No, it isn't,” Kate said, beginning to cry. “It's not okay at all.”

Her mother tried to stop her as she left, putting her hand on Kate's arm. But Kate shook it off. “I have to go,” she said again. “I'll be home later.”

She knew that running out wasn't the right thing to do. She knew that her mother and her aunt were shocked at her behavior. But they didn't know how much she had believed that the spell would work. They didn't know how sure she'd been that the energy she'd put into it would surround Aunt Netty and make her well. They didn't know how much it hurt her that she'd failed.

She didn't even wait for the elevator, taking the steps two at a time as she ran down the stairs and out of the hospital. She was walking fast, not knowing where she was going but needing to be away from that room where the sickness was overwhelming. She had to keep walking, keep moving so that she wouldn't cry or scream or hit something, the way she wanted to.

She kept walking through town, not really paying attention to where she was going. Then she realized that she was walking toward the water. She almost turned around, heading for the bus and home, when she had an idea. She could go to Crones' Circle. She hadn't been there very much lately, and maybe Tyler would be there helping out for the day, as he sometimes did. She could talk to him.

She hurried in the direction of the store. When she arrived she pushed open the door and scanned the room for Tyler's familiar face. But all she saw was Simeon, the gray cat who lived in the shop. He was sleeping in a patch of sun by the big front window, his paws curled over his face.

“How can you look so happy?” she said accusingly, and Simeon opened one big green eye and blinked at her.

“Kate,” said Sophia, coming out from the back room. “Nice to see you.”

“Is Tyler around?” Kate asked.

Sophia shook her head. “Not today,” she said. “I think he's doing some work for Thatcher. They're building cabinets over at Thea's house.”

Kate nodded. Tyler had been spending a lot of time with Thatcher, one of the members of the Coven of the Green Wood. Thatcher had been a master carpenter for years, and he was teaching Tyler how to work with wood.

“Are you okay?” Sophia asked. “You look a little upset.”

“It's my aunt,” Kate said. “She's not doing very well.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Sophia.

Kate felt herself beginning to cry again. “I don't understand it,” she said. “I did a ritual to help her, and it didn't work.”

Sophia put down the books she was unpacking. “You did a ritual?” she asked.

Kate nodded.

“Tell me about it,” Sophia said.

Kate sniffled, holding back the tears. She told Sophia about the soap ball, and the ritual, and about putting the water back into the sea. Sophia listened attentively.

“Did your aunt know you were doing the ritual?” she asked when Kate had finished.

Kate shook her head. “You know I can't talk to my family about Wicca,” she said, more defensively than she meant to.

“I know,” Sophia remarked. “But do you remember what we talked about in class, about doing magic for other people against their will?”

“But this wasn't against her will!” Kate protested. “It was to help her.”

Sophia smiled. “I know that,” she said. “And your ritual sounds beautiful and very thoughtful. But you still did it not knowing if it's what your aunt would want or not.”

“Why wouldn't she want it?” Kate asked, confused. “Why wouldn't she want to get better?”

“I didn't say she doesn't want to get better,” Sophia said. “But in order for magic like that to work properly, the person you're doing it for has to help out as well.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kate. “You mean she has to be there in the circle with me?”

“Not necessarily,” Sophia answered. “What I mean is that she has to want you to do the ritual for her. Whether or not she physically participates doesn't really matter, although it helps. What really matters is whether or not she's open to the process. You can want to do something for someone, but if that person doesn't want you to then all of your effort will be wasted.”

“So if I had told her that I was doing it she'd be better?” asked Kate. “Great. That makes me feel even worse. Next thing you'll be telling me is that all of the energy I sent out bounced back as negative energy and will cause her cancer to spread.”

“I can assure you that
that
is not the case,” Sophia said. “If the cancer spreads it's because it's cancer, not because you did anything wrong. And to answer your other question, no, your aunt wouldn't automatically get better just because she knew you were doing the ritual. Healing magic is like any other magic. It works when the conditions are right. You can't just heal someone because you want to heal her. That would be like trying to manipulate things to work out so that you're happy. Well, maybe that's not how things are supposed to work out.”

“You mean maybe Aunt Netty is supposed to die?” Kate asked incredulously.

“That's putting it too simply,” Sophia said. “What I mean is that your aunt's body is going through changes for some reason. When you did healing magic for her, you tried to alter the course of those changes. That's not a bad thing. But there may be reasons her body needs to go through this. In that case, you're trying to stop something that, for whatever reason, needs to occur.”

“I don't see how not wanting her to die could be a bad thing,” Kate replied.

“It's not a bad thing,” Sophia told her. “That's what I'm trying to tell you. But trying to heal her because
you
want her healed isn't the best way to go about it.”

Kate thought about what the other woman was saying. “I think I get it,” she said after a moment. “It's like when I tried to make Scott fall in love with me. He might have done it anyway, but when I tried to force it to happen I caused a lot of problems.”

“Right,” said Sophia. “Although in this case I don't think you caused any problems. I think you just expected too much.”

“So if it's possible to do healing magic that works, isn't there
something
I could do for Aunt Netty?” Kate asked.

Sophia looked thoughtful. “Yes,” she said. “There is. But it's risky.”

“I don't care,” Kate said. “Whatever it is, I'll do it.”

“We have a lot of talented healers in our group,” Sophia continued. “We've often done healing rituals for people, either in our various covens or in the community.”

“You mean we could do a group ritual?” Kate asked.