Spun by Sorcery (18 page)

Most spinners agree that different wheels have different personalities. Some are smooth. Some are slow. Some fight you every inch of the way but produce sublime yarn.

But I never once heard about a wheel that hauled off and knocked the spinner off her feet.

I didn’t see it coming. I was so busy staring at the yellow glitter and the infinity marking that everything else in the room faded away. The walking wheel in the far corner saw an opportunity and hit me in the head with its flyer.

Fortunately for me it was only a glancing blow but damn. You just don’t think a spinning wheel is going to turn on you.

“Not funny,” I said, refusing to rub my temple where the flyer made contact. “I saw the glitter. I saw the carving. I might as well see you, too.”

I heard a scratching noise and turned to see the walking wheel moving in my direction. And it wasn’t alone. Wheels of every era and style dropped from the ceiling, popped out of the walls, marched in from the hallway.

“Knock it off,” I said, feigning more courage than I actually felt. “I’ve got matches and I’m not afraid to light them.”

I turned around. Six Scottish castle wheels were lined up behind me like prison guards.

“This is old-school,” I said, striving for a blend of scorn and laughter. “What’s next: the poison apple?”

A long exasperated sigh filled the room. “Snow White bit the apple, child. Didn’t those people of yours teach you anything? Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on the wheel.”

“Didn’t your people teach you any manners?” I shot back. “Anonymity is the coward’s way out.”

The room erupted in raucous female laughter. Bursts of light encircled my ankles and wrapped themselves around my legs, twining their way up my torso like a kudzu vine. I batted away a phalanx of lights that were trying to turn themselves into a necklace.

Don’t get scared,
I warned myself.
Get angry.

Fear diminished my powers. Anger made them stronger.

Strands of bright lights like a Christmas tree string with attitude slashed through the air in front of my face, leaving a trail of heat behind.

Oh, crap. I suddenly realized what they were. Fae drones acting as a scouting party for a clan leader. They were mapping my body, determining strengths and weaknesses, and reporting back.

And, if memory served, they wouldn’t hesitate to inflict a little collateral damage along the way.

One of the Scottish wheels bumped me from the back. Before I could respond, another bumped me harder. Then a third bump and a fourth.

“Knock it off,” I warned. “You really want to stop doing this.”

Which led to being knocked to the ground again by the last two Scottish wheels.

I scrambled to get up but an Ashford sailed across the room and slammed into my right shoulder. A moment later, a Louet slammed into my left. Kromskis, Schachts, Lendrums rained down on me like giant hailstones. I was crouched on the floor with my arms protecting my head like someone in one of those Cold War-era end-of-the-world movies. I never understood how your back could save you from an atom bomb but my back was doing a pretty good job absorbing the blows from the attacking wheels.

And in case you didn’t know it, wheels are ferocious fighters. Sure, they look all fragile and unassuming, but, trust me, they kicked my ass pretty good.

The only thing more embarrassing than having my clock cleaned by a spinning wheel would be getting mugged by a harp.

Where was my anger? Where was my fire? I had nothing. The more the spinning wheels pounded me, the deeper I sank into submission.

This wasn’t like me at all. Exhaustion turned my arms and legs to rubber. I was having trouble keeping my thoughts together. I felt like the Scarecrow in
The Wizard of Oz
after the Wicked Witch of the West scattered him across the cornfield.

“No wonder she lost Sugar Maple,” a disembodied female voice said. “She’s utterly incompetent.”

“Stupid, I’d say.” Another female voice. “Look at her lying there like a mollusk.”

“Poor thing can’t help herself,” a third female voice added. “She lacks courage.”

“So true, sister,” a fourth female intoned. “She lacked the courage to claim her town before it was too late.”

“It’s in the blood. Look to her clan to see the reason,” said a fifth.

“She chose the side of the humans, same as her mother, and her human blood will be her downfall,” the first voice said. “And after all these centuries, we will be here to watch it happen.”

Their voices rose and fell, and new voices joined them, jumbled and filled with both scorn and amusement. I couldn’t listen. I refused to listen. They were wrong. I loved Sugar Maple. I had done everything in my power to save it from being dragged beyond the mist. I might not know exactly what did happen but I could tell you with certainty that the town hadn’t entered the Fae portal at the waterfall.

I felt a surge of anger and looked at my fingertips, expecting to see them start to redden before shooting out flames that I hoped would torch this place to the ground.

But there was nothing.

I had the sense that the life force was leaving me but I didn’t know where or how. My legs were wobbly. My vision was starting to blur. I sensed that my thought processes weren’t as clear as they’d been ten minutes earlier. I hadn’t battled demons and walked away triumphant so I could die buried beneath a pile of mass-produced spinning wheels.

If I’d had the energy I would have laughed out loud at the thought. I mean, stabbed by Addi Lace circular needles, maybe. Or trapped in a web of sticky Outback Mohair or even driven insane by dropped stitches in a five-hundred-plus-stitch bind-off. At least there would be some knitterly dignity involved.

The baritone voice was rich and compelling and it seemed to be centered deep inside my chest.

My ribs vibrated at the sound.

Who are you?
I sent the thought out into the universe but it bounced straight back to me.

Now what was that supposed to mean? If I ever became Queen of the Other Dimensions I was going to permanently ban fortune-cookie talk.

I felt the answer before I heard it.

Trust me to harbor an uninvited inner wiseass.

One of the Scottish castles reared back and rolled into my side like a battering ram. Damn those fragile wheels anyway. They could really pack a wallop. What was I going to do, lie there until I finally succumbed to a vindictive travel wheel while those invisible harpies took bets on how long it would take Luke to find someone else?

Well, yeah. That was exactly what would happen if I didn’t do what the Voice said and get off my sorry butt and fight back.

I shook the pile of wheels off my back the way a dog shakes off water after a bath. They flew across the room and smashed into the walls, sending splinters of wood flying in all directions. The spinner in me felt a sharp pang of regret but the sorceress thought it was kind of cool. My legs were wobbly but I managed to stay vertical as I blocked a dive-bombing electric drum carder with my forearm.

The drum carder was followed by a phalanx of niddy-noddies, which were followed by a barrage of spindles that made me feel like London during the Blitz. I swatted them away like mosquitoes. Flames shot from my fingertips. Arrows of lightning shot from my eyes.

And then it was over.

No trumpets blaring. No cheering crowds.

Wheels rolled back up the hallway. Wheels slid back against the walls. Drum carders, niddy-noddies, spindles, and combs settled themselves back where they’d come from. In the blink of an eye, I found myself standing near the Irish castle wheel once again with my hand resting lightly along the satiny wood. The heady scent of beeswax and potpourri and history was everywhere.

So was the feeling I was being watched. Suddenly I had to get out of there.

I turned toward the door but the door wasn’t there and then the wheel wasn’t there and suddenly the shop lifted up and up and up and sailed off into the blue sky like a birthday balloon and left me standing alone on a rock on an island in the middle of the ocean.

The only thing missing was the massive tidal wave with my name on it.

I looked behind me and saw a tornado of water whipping my way.

Who said you couldn’t have it all?

I said good-bye to Holly a little after one o’clock and only because she had a tour group waiting for her in town.

“Take this,” she said, handing me a thick brown envelope. “I printed off some of the scans for you. Maybe you’ll put your cop instincts to work and figure this all out for me.”

I thanked her for her time and tried once more to pay her for her expertise but she was having none of it.

“I should pay you,” she said. “You’re the first person who’s ever shown the slightest interest in poor old Samuel.”

“I like a good mystery,” I said, feeling a little shitty for withholding the truth from her. “And you’re one damn fine storyteller.”

She glanced at her watch. “But not much of a business-woman. My tour awaits.” She kissed me on my left cheek and then on my right. “Let me know about a tour and I’ll block out the time.”

I owe you one,
I thought as I watched her hurry off. With a little luck, I’d have the chance to pay her back soon.

Thanks to Holly, I had the Sugar Maple version of the Holy Grail and I couldn’t wait to tell Chloe what I’d uncovered about Samuel Bramford and the lighthouse that bore his name. I couldn’t prove anything, not in the human definition of proof, but my gut told me I had stumbled onto the key we needed to unlock a few doors.

I was deep in thought when a small woman with long, shiny white hair appeared in my path and stopped me cold.

“Sorry,” I said, dodging around her. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

She was in front of me again.

“Sorry again,” I said and dodged the other way.

I swear she didn’t move, didn’t take a single step. She was just there.

Her eyes were light gray, so light they were almost devoid of color. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted.

“I’ve been waiting.” Crystal earrings, pale as her eyes, swung with the nodding motion of her head. “I never gave up hope.”

Apparently crazy wasn’t limited to big cities. I nodded politely and tried again to get around her. She was a little old for the goth thing and I was a little old to care.

“Tell her.” A slender alabaster hand snaked out from under one enormous sleeve and gripped my forearm. “Tell Chloe he’s waiting.”

She was gone before I could say a word, which was probably a good thing because I couldn’t have come up with anything coherent if I tried.

Except: “Who the hell is
he
?”

Kind of took the edge off being right about Salem.

We’d agreed to meet at noon and I was over an hour late already. I jogged back to the motel and let myself into the room I shared with Chloe.

“Chloe!” I called out. “You here?”

Not many places in a room-plus-bathroom to hide.

I rapped on the connecting door to Janice’s room. “Anyone there?”

The lock clicked and the door opened.

“I hope you brought food,” Janice said as Penny the cat burst into the room. “I’ve been eyeing the Fancy Feast.”

“I thought you could go days without eating.”

She ignored my comment. “Any bagels left over from this morning?”

I pointed to the desk. “Help yourself.”

She grabbed one and tore into it. “So where’s Chloe?”

“I thought she was with you.”

I shook my head. “We were going to meet back here.”

“No sign of her.”

“She didn’t call?”

“I would’ve told you.”

I raised my hands palms outward. “No problem. I’m just asking.”

“Sorry,” she said, looking as contrite as it was possible for the redoubtable Janice Meany to look. “I get cranky when I’m hungry.”

“No luck working the phones?”

She tore off another piece of bagel. “I tried to link into the Wiccan and pagan communities but I kept getting voice mail. I left messages but no call-backs.”

“Why not try blueflame?”

“If I blueflamed a human I’d be arrested for arson.”

I kept forgetting the difference between magic and the Wiccan religion.

She popped the bagel into her mouth, chewed, then swallowed. “How’d you do?”

I gestured toward the thick brown envelope on the bed. “I’ll tell you when Chloe gets here. Too much to go through twice.”