The Gathering Dark (3 page)

“Mmm,” she whispered to herself. “Hazelnut.”

Might have to get myself a cup
, she thought. And then she took one last deep breath, inhaling coffee and vanilla from the café and lilacs in bloom somewhere near.

At last, Keomany turned to work. She sprayed Windex on the broad plate glass window, sunlight refracting microscopic rainbows in every drop, glistening in the instant before she wiped it all away. She began to whistle but stopped when she realized how her own music clashed with that of the chimes above her, the wind’s melody.

It was just after nine o’clock and Keomany worked in silence save for the chimes and the rumble of cars passing by on Currier Street and the hellos from friends and acquaintances—and this time of year that was most of the town—who happened by. The store did not officially open until ten but when Walt Bissette came by for a pound of peanut butter fudge and then Jacqui Lester stopped in to sneak a few diet-breaking caramel cluster turtles, Keomany did not turn them away.

After the place was clean to her satisfaction, Keomany arranged a bunch of fresh lilies she had bought in a vase on the front counter by the register and then sat and read from a romantic fantasy novel that had pulled her in the night before. When the mountain breeze carried Paul Leroux into the store at half past ten, she barely noticed.

“Sorry I’m late,” he offered.

Keomany glanced up at Paul, then at the clock, and then her gaze settled once more upon the young man she had impulsively made her assistant manager.

“Paul,” she said, nothing else but his name, but it carried all her feelings on his tardiness, how she had come to expect it, how she indulged him most of the time, how it was becoming tiresome.

“I know,” he said, blue eyes so earnest. He pushed his fingers through his straw blond hair, which fell too long over his forehead in something approximating style . . . or what might have approximated style somewhere other than northern Vermont.

“Keomany, seriously, I know. I’m gonna buy a new alarm clock this afternoon. Swear to God. As soon as Jillian comes in, I’m gonna run over to Franklin’s and buy one.”

She stared at him a long moment, trying desperately to be stern, though it was hard to be angry with Paul. He was a good kid and a hard worker, smart and charming and as gentle a soul as she’d ever met. The kid had graduated from the regional high school the year before and managed to convince just about everyone, himself included, that he was just taking a couple of semesters off before starting college. But Paul wasn’t going to college next year. Keomany had known that the day he had applied for the job. He didn’t have the fire in his eyes that it took to leave Wickham. It was sad in a way; if he never left, he might never really be able to appreciate the town.

Meanwhile, though, despite his frequent lateness he was an otherwise responsible and reliable assistant manager who seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the shoppe and who was well loved by the clientele.

Keomany closed her book and set it on top of the counter. “This can’t happen while I’m away, Paul. Even if there are no customers this early in the morning, the sign says we open at ten. That means we open at ten. It’s only two mornings you have to actually be here on time.”

“I know,” he said with a sheepish smile. “I promise.” He actually held his hand up as though he were taking some kind of oath, and Keomany chuckled softly and shook her head.

“All right, Boy Scout. At ease.”

Paul laughed and unzipped his light jacket as he strode deeper into the store. He hung it up in back, and by the time he returned, Keomany had gathered up her book and her car keys. She snuck a nonpareil out of the display case—always a good idea to sample her own wares as long as she didn’t get fat doing it—and moved around to the other side of the register.

“You’re in a rush to get out of here,” Paul said.

The taste of chocolate on her tongue, Keomany licked her lips and nodded. “Just looking forward to a couple of days off. I’ve never been to a Bealtienne festival up here but it’s so beautiful this time of year that I can’t wait.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that, anyway?” Paul asked, his curiosity apparently genuine. “It’s like a wiccan thing or something?”

“Or something,” Keomany replied, jangling her keys. “It’s a Druidic celebration of the earth at the peak of its fertility. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

“Yes, O Earth Goddess.”

“Bet your ass.”

He smiled, this handsome kid who was only five or six years younger than she was and in the space of an eyeblink she had considered and discarded the idea of sleeping with him sometime. Whatever the age difference, there were so many ways in which Paul was really just a kid.

Keomany was about to go out the door when she turned and shot Paul one last admonishing glance. “Oh, and if you’re going to be seducing Jillian while I’m gone, please don’t do it during work hours.”

The kid actually blushed. Jillian was a year younger than him, still a high school senior, and Paul had been sweet-talking her since Keomany had hired her. Whether it had gone further than that, she had no idea.

“Hey,” Paul protested.

“Call ’em like I see ’em,” she said, and then she was out the door and the music of the wooden wind chimes followed her all the way across the street to where her car was parked. As she pulled out, Keomany saw Paul standing in the open door of her shoppe, the hand-painted sign for Sweet Somethings just above his head swaying slightly in the breeze. She waved but by then Jane and Ed Herron, an older couple who were regulars, were walking up toward the shoppe and Paul’s attention was on them.

Keomany gave the place one last glance and then turned her attention to the road and the trip ahead of her. The steering wheel clutched in one hand, she reached down and clicked on the radio, coming in just a few lines into a blues-rock tune that the local pop station had taken to playing every hour or so in the last few days. She still had no idea what it was called or who sang it, but the woman’s raspy voice reminded her of Joan Osborne, and maybe a little bit of Sheryl Crow.

For a moment she was tempted to change the channel, but as it always did, the song cut a groove down inside her, and despite how often she heard it, Keomany left it on.

As she drove south out of Wickham, she glanced around at her hometown. The village was small enough that she at least recognized more than half the people she saw on the sidewalk or driving past. Many she knew by name. She actually slowed down to wave and call hello to Annie Mulvehill, with whom she’d gone to high school, and who was now a police officer in town. Probably the first female ever to have the job in Wickham.

Keomany’s apartment was behind her, on the northern end of town, just far enough away from her parents, who still lived in the house over on Little Tree Lane where she had grown up. As she drove by the turnoff that would have taken her there, she felt a twinge of guilt that she had not been able to go by and see them the night before as she’d promised. But she’d make it up to them when she returned.

A frown creased her forehead. Despite the sunshine and the blue sky and the inescapable rhythm on the radio, a chill shuddered through her and Keomany actually slowed the car to glance back at the turnoff. Something made her want to go there now, made her worry about her parents. It was foolish, of course. She’d called them on the phone that morning and they were fine.

Relax
, she told herself as she eased her foot back down on the accelerator. Whatever earth magick she had dabbled in since college, she had never had a premonition before and doubted she was starting to have them now. But there were goosebumps on her arms and a cold feeling still at the base of her neck. So just the same, premonition or not, she would give her folks another call just as soon as she reached Brattleboro. It was only a couple of hours. Not a lot was going to happen in that time.

Still, some of the good feeling of the day had gone out of her now and Keomany was no longer smiling as she passed the fire station that marked the town line.

On the radio the song ended and she was surprised when the deejay’s voice cut in.

‘That was Nikki Wydra with ‘Shock My World.’ And we’ll have more of the hits of today coming up on WXTC, right after this.”

Keomany laughed out loud and glanced down at the radio. “No shit!” she said, as though it might actually respond. She shook her head and turned her attention back to the road.

“No shit,” she said again.

It had been a long time since she had heard the name
Nikki Wydra
. Somehow, though, she had always known that one day she would hear it on the radio.

Her unease now quickly forgotten, Keomany left Wickham behind, dwindling to a dark point of nothingness in her rearview mirror.

“Oh my God, I’m gonna puke.”

Nikki Wydra sat on the edge of a metal folding chair with her head in her hands, her breath coming in quick, short gasps. Her face was flushed, she could feel the heat in her cheeks, and her eyes were wide with a kind of panic she hadn’t felt since playing Dorothy in the seventh-grade production of
The Wizard of Oz
at the Haley Middle School.

“You’re not gonna puke.”

That comforting voice, and the equally comforting hand that gently rubbed her back between her shoulder blades, belonged to Kyle Shotsky, the drummer with her band. Though she could not see his face, not with the way she was bent over, breathing fast and trying not to throw up, Nikki still took some solace in Kyle’s presence. She knew that face intimately, the warm brown eyes and perfect hair, the small dimple on his chin. He reminded her of Billy Campbell, the actor who had played the dad on
Once and Again
years ago. Most people didn’t even remember that show, but Nikki wasn’t going to forget Billy Campbell.

The fact that Kyle looked a lot like Billy Campbell probably had a lot to do with why she had slept with him in the first place. Though she liked to tell herself it had nothing to do with why she’d hired him to play with her band.

Nikki’s breathing had slowed. Her stomach hurt, but suddenly she did not feel quite as nauseous.

“You’re not gonna puke,” Kyle told her again, his firm hand gripping her shoulder now.

“Maybe you’re right,” she replied, amused by the surprise in her own voice. Nikki glanced up at him, saw the concern there and that all-encompassing warmth. “Thanks.”

His strong fingers caressed her face. “Hey. It’s what I’m here for.”

“No. You’re here to play the fucking drums. Just like I’m supposed to be here to sing.”

Frustrated, Nikki carefully stood up and began to slowly pace the length of the green room at El Dorado. The room was little more than a converted storage area with a couple of small tables, a shitty little old TV set, a bunch of folding chairs, and a curtain in case someone wanted to get changed without the other members of the band seeing them. There was a ratty sofa against the far wall but it stank like cat and was stained with what might have been coffee in the best-case scenario, and blood in the worst.

Nikki had seen enough blood in her lifetime, thanks.

The only things about the El Dorado’s green room that didn’t suck were the bowls of peanut M&M’s, the fresh-cut flowers, and the beer and spring water in the fridge. It might have been the most popular club on the scene in Philadelphia, but it was just like a hundred other clubs she’d played in her life.

“I don’t get it,” Kyle said, voice probing but still gentle. “Why’s tonight different? I’ve done dozens of live gigs with you and I’ve never seen you freak like this.”

“I fucking hate Philly!” Nikki shouted, shaking her head in a little tantrum so that her blond hair lashed across her face.

Kyle grinned at her. “It’s the City of Brotherly Love.”

She glared at him. “I hate it.”

“It’s your hometown, Nikki. That’s why we’re opening the tour here, remember?”

“I remember, all right? That’s why I feel like I’m gonna puke.”

The furious gaze she was inflicting upon him lasted only seconds longer before Nikki let out a long shuddering breath and let a ripple of nervous laughter escape her lips. She rolled her eyes, turned, and paced halfway across the room again. When she lifted her gaze, it fell upon her guitar, a fat-bellied electric-acoustic, all tuned and ready to play. It sat upon a stand near the refrigerator.

Suddenly she felt very stupid.

If her mother Etta were still alive, she would have given her daughter a stern talking-to and then a loving hug and pointed her toward the door. It was all her mother’s damn fault in the first place, she thought. Nikki had grown up in a constant haze of blues music while her mother spent her nights in a constant haze of inebriation. All her life Nikki had played that same music, from Elmore James and Robert Johnson to Bonnie Raitt and the Allman Brothers Band.

In front of people. Audiences. And she never failed to get applause. It might have been the smoky rasp in her voice, the only thing of value other than a love of music that she had inherited from her mother. But secretly she always believed it was the emotion that backed up every word. The love and the pain and the fear. Some songs called for that, though most people would never understand. Blues songs, sure, but even love songs; to really pull them off you had to know what it was like to truly be afraid.

Nikki knew.

Kyle moved to her and slipped his arms around her from behind. “They’re waiting.”

And they were. The rest of the band was already out in the wings of the stage, ready to go on. The roadies were done setting up and tuning, the sound guy was set. It was all on her now. The show couldn’t start without her.

Nikki closed her eyes, heart fluttering in her chest, and leaned back into him, letting Kyle take all the weight of her in his arms. “What if they don’t like it?” she asked, voice small.

She felt him stiffen.

“What are you talking about, darlin’? I’m sorry, Nik, I’m not trying to be difficult, but I don’t—”

Swallowing hard, trying to keep the nausea from coming back, she turned to face him. “I want to change the order. Let’s start with ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ instead.”