The Witch Of Agnesi Part 8

Bonnie squinted at the woman. "What?"

"You asked what was going on here tonight. The witchy festival is called Beltane, the celebration of Spring's fertility."

Bonnie wasn't ready to let go of her anger. "I didn't ask. I said I was sorry for disturbing your festival, that's all. I don't give a furry rat's behind what you call it."

"You're angry."

Bonnie tried to stand. Her ankle shrieked in protest. She gave up the effort, panting in frustration. "d.a.m.n right, I'm angry. I come to you for help, and you sit there in your tattooed birthday suit and laugh at me."

"I was sad because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet."

"Are you, by any chance, on drugs?"

Rhiannon laughed again. "Thank you, G.o.ddess. One lesson after another. No, Missus Pinkwater, I am not on drugs. Not since nineteen eighty-nine. And I wasn't laughing at you."

Bonnie lost her grip on her indignation. It was just too d.a.m.n difficult to be angry with someone who might be mentally unbalanced. "Then what?"

Rhiannon removed the tiara from her hair and set it on the ground between them. "We had a break-in earlier this evening. My spirit wasn't right for honoring the G.o.ddess. To tell the truth, I was p.i.s.sed off. We've also had a number of rednecks coming around to gawk at the witches. I guess I was feeling sorry for myself until you told me about your evening."

"So, it sucks so much being me that I made you feel better about being you?" Bonnie picked up the tiara and placed it on her own head. "Glad to be of service."

Rhiannon scooted forward. She eyed the tiara and straightened it with a nudge. "Not bad. I wish I had a mirror."

Bonnie looked up at a sound from beyond the dying fire. "We have company."

Wearing a white terrycloth robe and Birkenstock sandals, Winston strode into the firelight. He car-ried another white robe in one hand and a silver cell phone in the other. A half-dozen people, including Ali Griffith, followed in his wake.

Thank G.o.d none of them are nude.

A purple robe covered Ali from her neck to the tops of her bare feet. White baby's-breath was woven into her hair. Henna, in patterns that matched Rhiannon's, decorated her hands and feet. Ali hoisted her robe and knelt in the sand.

"Missus Pinkwater, are you all right?" She offered Bonnie a blue-gel ice-pack.

Bonnie took the pack and catalogued the elements of her evening that separated her from being all right then set them aside. "I'm getting better, sweetie." She laid the ice-pack against her aching head.

Winston tossed the robe to Rhiannon and handed the cell phone to Bonnie.

She flipped open the phone, ready to make a call, then cupped the receiver as if the connection was live. "Can anyone tell me the time?"

A white-haired woman, who looked like she should be playing mah jong rather than attending a witch's celebration, came into the firelight. "Look on the phone, dear."

Ten-thirty. Bonnie reddened. She knew d.a.m.n well time was displayed on cell phones. She owned one, for pity's sake. I'm more screwed up than I first thought. I'm more screwed up than I first thought. Normally, she never would have forgotten it. Normally, she never would have forgotten it.

Bonnie nodded to the older woman. "Thank you." She'd have to call Franklin at home.

He picked up on the second ring. "Yo, it's your dime." He sounded sleepy.

Bonnie pushed aside her guilt for waking Franklin. "It's your favorite math teacher."

He groaned. "What time is it?"

"I have it on the best of authority it's past ten. A young man like you shouldn't be sitting at home at ten o'clock on a Friday night, anyway."

"Then how could I be here to take your fascinat-ing late night calls? You know my only wish is to wait upon your pleasure." He sighed. "What can I do for you, Missus P?"

She drew a deep breath. All right, try not to sound like a crybaby. All right, try not to sound like a crybaby. "Jesse Poole tried to kill me." "Jesse Poole tried to kill me."

He hesitated, then said, "You got my attention. Tell me everything."

She told him everything.

"This is screwy," Franklin said. "What is Jesse Poole doing off road in the middle of the night? And why would he want to kill you?"

Bonnie felt her anger grow through the telling, and now Franklin questioned her integrity. "I know what I saw, G.o.d d.a.m.n it. How am I supposed to know why that little s.h.i.t does what he does?"

"Settle down, Missus P."

Her throat contracted. Hot tears welled in her eyes. "Settle down yourself, youngster. He toyed with me, like a cat with a mouse. I don't appreciate being made into a victim." What she couldn't bring herself to say was that Jesse Poole made her feel like a foolish old woman. And that that she couldn't forgive. she couldn't forgive.

Ali touched her arm. "Can I talk to the policeman?"

d.a.m.n, I cursed in front of a student and her mother. Bonnie stared at the girl. "Ali, I need-" Bonnie stared at the girl. "Ali, I need-"

"Jesse was here earlier this evening."

She handed Ali the phone.

Carefully, the girl pulled flower-woven hair away from her ear. "Officer, this is Ali Griffith. Jesse Poole broke into our house this evening."

Rhiannon Griffith had donned the white terrycloth robe. She stood several feet away smoking a cigarette and huddling with the members of her coven.

"Jesse Poole was here?" Bonnie asked, trying not to shout.

Six faces, including Rhiannon's, turned her way. All nodded in agreement.

"It's not the first time the little miscreant's come around here." Winston's deep-set eyes glowed red in the reflected firelight. "Rhiannon's had to chase him off more than once."

Rhiannon took a long pull on her cigarette. "But this is the first time he's been criminal about it. Up until now I've chalked up his trespa.s.sing to curiosity. But breaking in . . ." She blew out the smoke, looking disgusted.

"What happened?"

The older woman waved away the smoke. "Ali was the one who actually saw the truck. We were all stacking wood for the balefire when she heard a noise. She ran. She said someone slammed the back door of the house then jumped into a red pickup. It sped away down the frontage road." Her hand shook as she pointed off into the gloom.

"Did you call the police?"

Rhiannon shook her head. "We went through the house but couldn't find anything missing, or even disturbed. We had already started to decorate the five-petal altar. He could easily have vandalized that, but he didn't."

"Missus Pinkwater." Ali held out the phone. "The policeman wants to talk with you again."

Bonnie put the phone to her ear. "What do we do now?"

"I'll phone in the a.s.sault, send someone around to pick up Jesse Poole. You get to a hospital. Have your head examined."

She chuckled. "You've been waiting a long time to tell me that."

"Almost makes being woken up worth it. Good-night, Missus P."

"Goodnight yourself, youngster." She closed the phone and looked up to see a dozen-plus eyes staring down at her. She held up her index finger. "Just one more call?"

"I'll stay with her," said Ali.

"We'll all stay," Rhiannon said. "Make your call, Missus Pinkwater."

Bonnie pulled a crumpled wad of paper from her pocket. She unfolded the paper and punched in the number written there. She'd copied the number, it seemed a lifetime ago, when she was having second thoughts on the advisability of sharing coffee with a certain gentleman.

Armen Callahan answered on the third ring. "Hallo."

"Armen, it's me, Bonnie."

"Do you mean the Bonnie Pinkwater who left me sitting at Capulets for over an hour?"

She swallowed, not really sure what do with the anger in his voice. "The very one. I'm sorry, Armen, but I have a good excuse."

"A poor subst.i.tute for a coffee date, but try me."

She told him the highlights of her evening.

He whistled. "I'd say that's a pretty good excuse.

So, if I understand you right, you're currently injured, sitting on the ground next to a dying fire in the com-pany of witches."

"Why, yes, I am."

"I'll be right there."

She sat up straight as if by doing so she could demonstrate her surprise, or possibly her disapproval.

"What?"

"You need to go to the hospital. I'll take you, but it's going to cost you."

She considered declining his offer, but realized she would have to inconvenience someone if she wanted to get to the hospital that night-and here was Armen vol-unteering.

"What's the price?"

"You buy me coffee at the hospital."

"Black?"

"You betcha. See you in about half an hour." He hung up.

Bonnie closed the phone and handed it to Winston. She squirmed uncomfortably. "I think my rear end is permanently numb from this hard ground. And I need to visit the little girl's room. Is there really a house out there somewhere in the night, or did you witches make it disappear?"

BONNIE HOBBLED OUT OF THE BATHROOM. HANGING onto the doorjamb, she scanned the rough-hewn log living room for a place to sit.

Good luck.

All furniture of a sitting variety had been removed from the living room. An immense white altar spanned the entirety of the far living room wall. Two-tiered, the altar's upper tier sported more than a dozen white candles burning in bra.s.s holders. Aside from this light, the first floor of the ranch-house-which stretched to a family room and den to the right and a kitchen and mud room to the left-lay in darkness.

White flower garlands adorned the altar's lower tier, spilling onto a satin ap.r.o.n. An honest to G.o.d cauldron sat centered on a pentagram rug in front of the ap.r.o.n, much of the cauldron's occult mystique mitigated by its use as a planter. White lobelia festooned over the rim.

Although her head felt like it might remain attached to her neck, her ankle throbbed like the d.i.c.kens. She needed to get off her feet. She looked wistfully back into the bathroom at what might be the only seat left in the house.

Where the h.e.l.l was everyone?

In answer to her unspoken question, she heard laughter coming from the family room she'd pa.s.sed through earlier. Wearing an upside-down winged-back wicker chair like a gigantic hat, Winston Bellows stag-gered into the room, narrowly avoiding tripping over the cauldron.

He plopped the chair down in front of her. Red-faced, he smiled and patted the seat. "For you, my lady. Rhee sent everyone else home. It's now just her, Ali, and myself." He offered his hand.

"Thank you, sir." She took his hand and hobbled into the chair.

Ali entered next carrying a plush ottoman. "You need to elevate that ankle."

Even though Ali lifted the leg gently, Bonnie had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. Ali set the leg gingerly onto the ottoman.

"Don't get too comfortable." A cigarette dangling from her mouth, Rhiannon brought in a fresh ice-pack. Without a by-your-leave, she lifted the ankle and wrapped the ice-pack around it.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Rhiannon, that hurts." Bonnie glared at Rhiannon. "If you drop that foot, I'll have to kill you in front of your daughter."

"Stop whining, I'm not going to drop your foot. I'm the Earth Mother. Nurturing is in my blood." She set foot and ice-pack on the ottoman then stepped back, drew heavily on her cigarette, and admired her handi-work. "Leave the ice on there for twenty minutes."

"I know about injuries, you harpy." Bonnie leaned forward and adjusted the pack. "Ali, your mother's a s.a.d.i.s.t."

Ali put her arm around Rhiannon. "You're telling me? I have to live with her."

The cold made the ankle throb even worse, but Bonnie forced herself to lean back in the chair and relax. The light from the mult.i.tude of candles helped.

"Thank you, Rhiannon."

Rhiannon winked and took another pull on her cig-arette. "Sure thing, couldn't let Ali's favorite teacher suffer. Not on Beltane."

Bonnie nodded to the altar. "This Beltane's a big deal, isn't it?"

Ali spread her purple robe and sat at Bonnie's feet. "One of the major Sabbats. And my favorite. Next year, I'll be Earth Mother."

"Does that include the naked bit?"

"Of course."