Cate Tiernan - A Chalice of Wind

"I don't drink," Jules said stiffly, moving to the bookcase and selecting a thick volume with a cracked leather binding.

"It does dull your magick, Riche," Daedalus said mildly, still poring over the maps.

"I'll cross that bridge when we come to it? Richard said, seating himself on a stool by the worktable. One knee poked through the huge rip in his jeans. "We don't seem to be close to needing my magick, such as it is."

"It won't be long" Jules said. "We're working on the maps. We're getting the rite into shape, practically everyone is here-we each have a role to perform, and we're doing it" Unconsciously he looked at Daedalus, and the other man met his eyes. Some roles were more challenging than others.

"Practically," Richard said, seizing on the word. "We're missing Claire, Marcel, Ouida, and who else?"

"Ouida's on her way," said Daedalus, 'As are Manon and Sophie, I believe. We're still working on Claire and Marcel."

Richard gave a short laugh.'Good luck. So we'll have the map, the rite, the water, the wood-and a full Treize, yes?"

Daedalus straightened and smiled at him. "That's right. This is the closest we've ever come. Nothing will go wrong -we wont let it,"

Richard nodded and took another swig from his bottle. Jules didn't look up from the book, pretending to scan the old-fashioned French words. He didn't share Daedalus's optimism. There were too many variables- too many things that could go wrong. And time was running out.

My life had settled into a routine at Casa Loco: I had somehow become the general houseboy, maid, gofer, and all-around girl Friday. Not that Axelle was forcing me into these roles at gunpoint. Some I did for my own comfort and survival, some out of boredom, and then there were a few things that Axelle asked me to do and I had no good reason not to.

Now that I lived here, there was usually actual food around. The ant problem in the kitchen had been licked, and I could cross the main room in the dark without killing myself. I tried not to think about home or what I would be doing there, but every once in a while I was overwhelmed by longing for my dad and my old life. He used to take me canoeing on the weekends. Or skiing in the winter. Once he'd broken his ankle skiing, and he'd let me decorate his cast, all of it, by myself.

When I got older, my best friend, Caralyn, and I would both get summer jobs at whatever shop in town was hiring. I'd worked at Friendlys Hardware, Marybeth's Ice Cream Shoppe, Joe &Joe's Coffee Emporium, you name it. And after work we'd meet at the pool and go swimming, or hit the movies, or go to the closest mall, twenty miles away.

When I'd mentioned getting a summer job to Axelle, she'd looked at me blankly, as she so often did, and then had pulled two hundred dollars out of her wallet and handed it to me, I had no idea why I shouldn't get a job, but whatever.

After a couple days of lying on my bed, wallowing in despair, I'd realized that I needed to do something, anything, to stay busy and keep my mind off My Tragic Life, Hence my springing into action and becoming a domestic goddess.

Today I'd braved the heat and the wet, thick air to go out to get the mail-pathetically, getting the mail was the highlight of my day, Axelle got tons of catalogs, and I got a kick out of looking through them. Some of them sold freaky stuff for, like, pagans and "witches," I didn't know how anyone could take this stuff seriously, but she obviously did, I remembered how she'd run her fingers around my door frame after my nightmare. Had she been trying to do some kind of magic? How? What for?

Anyway. I loved her clothes catalogs, for the little bit of leather queen in all of us.

Sometimes I got letters from my friends or Mrs, Thompkins back home. Mostly we e-mailed, but they also sent me funny articles and pictures-which almost always made me cry.

I hadn't gotten anything from my dads lawyer about his estate, and Mrs, Thompkins said they were still sorting through everything. It sounded like a total headache. I wanted it to be all settled-I could put the house furniture into storage, and when I escaped from this loony bin, I could set up my own apartment or house back home, I was counting the days,

Thais Allard, one envelope said. It was from the Orleans Parish Public School System. I ripped it open to find I was to attend Ecole Bernardin, which was the nearest public school. It started in six days. Six days from now, a brand new school.

So, okay, I'd wanted to go to school, but somehow accepting the fact that I would attend school here felt like a ton of harsh reality all at once. An oh-so-familiar wave of despair washed over me as I headed up the narrow carriageway to the back of the building.

I went in, got blasted by the air-conditioning, and dumped Axelle's mail in a pile on the kitchen counter. A weird burning smell made me sneeze, and I followed it through the kitchen and into my bedroom, where Axelle was-get this-burning a little green branch and chanting,

"What the heck are you doing?" I asked, waving my arms to clear out the smoke.

"Burning sage," Axelle said briefly, and kept going, waving the smoldering green twigs in every corner of my room.

Burning sage? "You know, they make actual air fresheners," I said, dumping my stuff on my bed. "Or we could just open the window,"

"This isn't for that," Axelle said. Her lips moved silently, and I finally got it: the burning sage was some "magic" thing she was doing. Like she was doing a "spell" in my room for some reason. So. This was my life: I lived with an unknown stranger who was right now performing a voodoo spell in my own bedroom. Because she actually believed all that crap. I mean, Jesus- Not to take the Lord's name in vain.

Axelle ignored me, murmuring some sort of chant under her breath as she moved about the room. In her other hand she held a crystal, like you can buy at a science shop, and she ran this around the window frame while she chanted.

I freaked. I couldn't help it. At that moment my life seemed so completely insane. Without saying a word, I turned around and ran out of that apartment, down the carriageway, and through the gate. Then I was on the narrow street, with slow-moving cars, tourists, street performers. It was all too much, and I pressed my hand against my mouth, trying not to cry. I hated this place! I wanted to be somewhere normal! I wanted to be home! While Welsford wasn't exactly a mime-free zone, still, I wouldn't encounter them on the street right outside my house.

My eyes blurred and I stumbled on the curb. I had nowhere to go, no refuge. Then the word refuge made me think of a church, and that made me remember a place I had seen a couple of days before: a small, hidden garden, behind a tall brick wall. It was attached to St. Peters, a Catholic church between Axelles apartment and the small corner grocery store where I shopped.

I headed there now, walking fast down the brick-paved sidewalk. When I reached it, I pressed my face to the small iron grille inset into one wall, about five feet up. I walked the length of the brick wall and pushed some ivy aside to find a small wooden door, made for tiny Creole people of two centuries ago.

With no hesitation, I wrenched on the latch and shook the door hard until it popped open. Then I slipped under the ivy and entered a serene, private world.

The garden was small, maybe sixty feet square, and bordered by the church in back of it, an alley on one side, a parish office to the other side, and the street in front. But although all that separated me from the world was a seven-foot brick fence, this place was unnaturally quiet, set apart, not of the secular world somehow.