M Sellars - Never Burn A Witch

“We still need to figure out the why’s and wherefore’s behind how he picked his latest victim to start with.”

“I hear ya’… That’s kinda why I asked… So that passage doesn’t mean anything in particular to ya’?”

“Not in that respect, no. It fit Sheryl Keeven but not Christine Webster, so I don’t know what to say about the aberration. Sorry.”

“That’s okay white man, just thought I’d check.”

“I’ll sleep on it, and maybe it’ll make more sense in the morning,” I offered.

“Yeah, go get some rest,” he told me as I unlatched my seat belt then popped the passenger door open.

As I climbed out I looked up at the thick comforter of grey clouds hanging low in the sky and could feel the utter stillness around me. The fatigue coursing through my body was so viscid that I felt enveloped in a total fog.

I just looked back to my friend and said, “Gonna snow.”

I could hear the dull, muffled bong of our antique clock announcing the hour as I twisted my key in the lock and pushed the front door open. The final measure of the tone sharpened for an instant then it faded away to silence on the cold breath of the night. I quietly pressed the door shut and latched the deadbolt before proceeding to unzip my coat. A tired glance at my watch told me the evaporated peal had been the last note in a trinity of chimes. It was three a.m.

“Canya’ tell me why you’re shuttin’ me out of this then?” Felicity’s somewhat slurred voice, brimming with a heavy Irish brogue, pierced the darkness as I turned.

I was startled enough to involuntarily flinch at the question and almost drop my keys. I had fully expected to be subject to the wet-nosed greetings and cursory inspections customarily doled out by the dogs. The throaty trilling and prancing rub of one or more of our three cats dancing around my ankles wouldn’t even have surprised me.

What I hadn’t been prepared for at all was my wife curled lazily in a chair, camouflaged by a crocheted afghan of dark, muted blues, still awake and palpably angry. My eyes were fairly well adjusted to the dark, and I could just make out our black cat, Dickens, huddled in her lap, soaking up the attention her fingers were absently paying a spot just behind his ears.

From her slurred speech and the shape on the marble end table that looked suspiciously like a bottle of Bushmills, I had to assume she was somewhat marinated. It was readily apparent that I had arrived just in time for the umbraged portion of her emotional thrill ride. From what I could make out of the tousled look of her auburn locks combined with random sniffling, I suspected I had only recently missed the segments consisting of mild panic and heartfelt sobbing.

Felicity was never able to hide it from me when she had been crying, no matter how much she sought to cover the evidence with makeup or shadows. It was very obvious that she had done her share of it tonight, but right now she was in no condition to try concealing the fact even if she wanted to. I got the impression however, that in this particular case, she didn’t.

“Shutting you out of what?” I asked.

“Aye, you know essactly what I’m talking about,” she parried then swilled down the remains of the whiskey from a hi-ball glass in her dainty hand and set it aside with an uncoordinated motion that attested to her impaired depth perception. Fortunately, the crystal tumbler didn’t break, but the loud clatter of its base against the marble end table sent Dickens flying from her lap to scurry into the shadows. “Surely now, you weren’t thinkin’ ya’woodn’t be missed at the party, then.”

“Of course I knew I would be missed… But it’s not like I snuck out or anything. So just how much have you had to drink?”

“Don’t chainch the zubject.” She mumbled the command through an alcoholic stupor that was creeping up on her much quicker than I think she realized. “You left wiffout me.”

“I didn’t exactly have much choice in the matter, Felicity,” I answered her calmly as I finished shrugging off my coat and tugged open the closet. “You had just started dancing, two detectives were in the lobby of the hotel waiting for me, and it was your family reunion. Just what did you expect me to do?”

“Donchu unnerstan how worried I was?” she demanded as she attempted to wrestle herself from the folds of the afghan. Had the situation been different, her inebriated bumbling would have been almost comical. As she fought to disentangle the fabric, she continued to mutter, “I know what those things you do to…to do…do…Oh, cac! They do you to you do…to… Fek! Oh, you know whad I mean… I feel them too.”

“I know you do, honey,” I soothed as I hung up my coat then pressed the closet door shut. “Austin and Shamus knew I was leaving. They were supposed to let you know what was up.”

I still wasn’t entirely clear on what she was driving at, or just as important, why she was sitting in the dark, bombed out of her gourd. Felicity wasn’t really much of a drinker under normal circumstances. She would have a glass of wine now and then or sometimes a mixed drink at a party, but Irish whiskey straight up? I’d seen her drink it that way but not often. Even considering her heritage, this was something generally unheard of for her. I had only seen her drunk once before in the dozen years I’d known her, and that time she had only qualified as slightly tipsy.

“Thaz nod da’ point,” she mumbled then started and immediately aborted an attempt to stand up. “Aye, don’chu know everyone was watchin’ you then.”

“Excuse me? Watching me what?”

“Well dey have televisions in the hotel, don’chu know.”

The much touted and endlessly replayed film of Ben, Constance, and I on the balcony of Sheryl Keeven’s apartment streamed through my mind in a painfully colorful burst. “So you mean everyone was watching the news?”

“Onna news,” she repeated matter-of-factly and bobbed her head then rocked herself up to her feet where she stood precariously wobbling. “Oh Felicee, your husband is zo brave. Oh Felicimmy,… Oh Felimiccy… FEK! Oh me.” She thumped herself in the chest with a flaccid hand. “Me…I should be so proud of Roman… Rolan…” She staggered a moment. “Of YOU… Aye, bud da’ bartenner was laughin’ an’ then dey took Aussin to jail.”

She swept her arm out in an all-encompassing gesture and on the back swing began to lose her balance. I took a pair of quick strides across the room and hooked my arm around her waist as she began to fall.

“Sweetheart, you aren’t making a lot of sense at the moment. What are you talking about? Who took Austin to jail and for what? Is he okay?”

“Becawsh the bartenner has a brokem nodze,” she giggled.

“A what? A broken nose? Let me get this straight. You’re saying that Austin hit the bartender?”

“Aye, ‘e thrashed ‘im good for you too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Becawsh, ah’m still mad atch’you then. Aye, there I am.”

The alcohol had immediately overtaken her the moment she came upright. Not that she was making much sense before she was standing, but she was only a hair this side of coherent at this point. The look in her eyes was a good indicator that she was now riding a brakeless train toward unconsciousness, and the engineer called whiskey had the throttle open full.

“Felicity, honey, try to stay with me here.” Supporting her almost dead weight, I eased her back down into the chair and knelt in front of her. Cupping one hand beneath her smooth chin and brushing a tangle of fiery red curls from her eyes with the other, I continued. “Why did Austin hit the bartender?”

“Aye, are you listenin’ toomee then? Waz for laughin’ of coarsh.”