Anam Cara

Eleven

Spring looked and felt a lot like winter had looked and felt, which had been much like autumn. 'O, to be in England, Now that April's there,' I mumbled to myself. 'Browning was an idiot. They all were. Stinking trees and daffodils. Not to mention it's May and it still might just as well be February.' I cut myself off with an annoyed click of my tongue when I saw beady, black eyes watching me. 'You'll be back outside in it in a minute, don't get too comfortable.'

An indignant croak was the only response.

I turned away from the window and went back to the table and peered into the empty box. It had been there for several days now, waiting. 'You have to do it,' I told myself. 'You have to do it now.'

I went into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. It was the middle of the afternoon but was as dark as night in that room. I switched on the lamp that sat on the bedside table. There in the pool of light was what I'd come for. Hester's potions book. The one I'd had such plans for. Over the past couple of months I'd spent hundreds of hours pouring over it, restoring it, cleaning every page, dusting between them with a fine brush. It had been something to hold on to. It had given me something to look forward to--imagining his look when I presented it to him.

I took a deep breath and reached out for it.

"Renata, explain this to me!" I called out to the empty room.

The silence was deafening.

"Was it all for nothing?"

I held the book between my palms and closed my eyes. Breathing deeply I tried to draw on it, tried to use it as a focal point, tried to see the future. There was no future to be seen in this book. There was a warm sense of energy around it, echos of its previous owners. I could see them clearly enough, but any glimpses of a future were doubtless products of my own wishful thinking.

I opened my eyes and wasn't surprised to find my face wet with tears. "Renata, where are you?" Why wouldn't she come to me now? Why hadn't she come to explain this? She'd been with me through unspeakable horrors, through pain and anguish, through unutterable sorrow. Once, only once, she'd failed to be with me at a time of darkness and to see me through a loss so profound I nearly surrendered to it.

"You had Severus," she'd told me.

I'd had Severus.

"Well I don't have Severus now, do I? Can you hear me, Renata? I. Don't. Have. Severus!"

I stopped shouting and again silence rushed in to fill the spaces.

I got up from the bed and carried the book into the kitchen and dropped it into the waiting box. It made a dull, empty thud when it hit the bottom.

I pulled the gold ring off my finger and rolled it between my fingers. The filigree design glinted in the harsh, artificial light. I flipped it into my palm. The metal felt heavy and cold.

"I cannot believe this is how this is supposed to be. I will not believe it! You've been spinning this web for years. You can't have left a hole this big in it!"

Again I reached out to the silence.

No, no, I felt in every fiber of my being. That's not it, that's not it.

Intuition? My worst enemy. Nothing clouds a seer's vision more than simple human intuition. It confuses the separation of the will from the vision, the promise from the message. But I felt this so deeply, too deeply to ignore.

You're wrong. You're wrong.

I was fighting a psychic battle and I didn't know which side was vision and which side was conceit.

I tossed the ring onto the table. It spun like a top on one edge, slowing until it dropped with a heavy thunk and was finally still. I spun it again, just to see it whirl--a flash of gold--a flash of lightning. Just before it ran out of spin, I snatched it up and held it over the box.

It should have been a simple thing, to just let go and drop it, and that's what I had intended to do until my hand froze. I managed to force two fingers free but my hand felt as if it was being held in a vice.

"You mean to go through with this?"

I whirled around in shock to face her. How had I not felt her arrival? She stood just inside the kitchen door, as beautiful as ever.

I lost what little composure I had left and dissolved into a mess of tears. The vice-grip on my hand had been released, but I still clutched the ring tightly.

"Where have you been?" I asked her through gritted teeth.

"Where have I been?" she asked with a sardonic smile. "What an astonishingly stupid question."

I gaped at her in shock, but there was something so familiar in her tone that I felt a lump forming in my throat.

She came closer, smiling broadly. "I thought you might enjoy that. You appear to be missing that sort of abuse."

I choked on a sob that turned into a laugh and wiped my arm across my face.

"Well then," she said glancing into the box on the table even though she knew full well what was in it. "We're moving on again, I see."

I could only stare at her.

"Not much to pack up, is there?" She looked me in the eye. "Less and less each time."

A wave of white-hot fury shot through me. "This was not my choice!" I hissed at her. "If I'd have known-- You were there! You told me if I did this I'd save his life. At least during that fiasco we had some contact. He did what he did to save mine--what's left of it. Now there's nothing, nothing! Do you know how long it's been?"

"Two months, one week, four days, seven hours," she ticked off her fingers.

"Stop that! When did you get so annoying?"

"When did you get so fatalistic? That's not good in your business."

"When did I-- You've got to be--" I was sputtering with rage. I took a deep breath and tried to control my voice. "Maybe, Renata, I became fatalistic the day I found out my daughter had been dead for--how many years? Would you like to give me a countdown on that? Hmm?"

She shook her head.

"Maybe I became fatalistic when your son managed to drag me out of the tomb I'd been living in only to turn around and tell me he was going to, oh what shall we call it? Sacrifice himself to the cause and would I like to do the same?"

"Which you did," she said in a flat voice.

"Which I did," I agreed, "because I love him. If I hadn't done it, he'd likely be dead now."

"He's not dead now."

"No, he's not," I said in the same flat tone she had used. "He might as well be."

"I doubt would agree."

I turned from her, exasperated.

"So that is why you are boxing up these items. Out of mind, out of sight. Is that it?"

I felt deflated. "I can't look at that book every day and see another day dawn knowing it's another day I can't give it to him like I'd planned. I can't wear this ring every day and wonder why--"

She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. "Ah. Now we come to it."

"Ah!" I snapped. "Now we become obtuse!"

"Not obtuse, you silly girl."

"Right then," I held the ring between my thumb and forefinger at her eye level. "You've known me for a very long time, Renata. You know things about me that would curl Severus' hair. So to make things even, why don't you tell me: why did he choose to use a wedding ring?"

"He'd say it was convenient. That it was portable, inconspicuous and had the advantage of being able to be attached to your body."

"I don't want his answer! I know what he'd say. Exactly that. But surely there were other pieces of jewelry! A brooch could have been securely attached to my robes. Surely there were other, less significant, rings. No, he thought this through. He thought this through for a very long time--so long he managed to come up with a new inscription that ties us, all of us, you and me, me and him, him and you, all together in one neat package." I stared unblinking into her grey eyes. "Try again."

"When you have tried to look to the future for answers, what have you seen?"

She'd changed her tack.

"Nothing. Nothing real. Why are you asking me this? Lesson one: don't try to tell your own fortune."

"Who said it's your fortune?" She grimaced as she said it, she'd always hated the sideshow terminology for our art.

"I--"

"Answer me. I am already aware, as you well know. I want to hear you say it."

"Nothing! Stupid things. My own silly girlish fantasies." I looked up at her quickly. "Do you ever grow out of those?"

She laughed. "I didn't. But then I didn't have time to grow out of much."

I looked away from her. We'd been like this for so long it was easy to forget she was from another world.

"You might ask Olivia," she suggested.

Olivia. How I missed Olivia! I closed my eyes and I could see her as if she was here with us. A rush of visions overtook me. I saw her in the house, a crowd of children running past her. I saw a red-faced baby screaming with fury in my arms. I saw two little children standing over their cauldron looking up at Severus like he was about to grant them their greatest wish. It all seemed so familiar, yet so far away.

I heard her chuckle quietly and my eyes snapped open. I blinked and tried to remember what I'd been about to say.

"Olivia thinks--"

"Olivia suspects," she said enigmatically. "That was a pretty picture in your mind just then," she commented brightly.

"That was memory."

"Was it? All of it? It didn't feel like a memory. Who were those children?"

I started and stumbled over my answer, "They were your grandchildren! Didn't you recognize them?"

"I recognize them." She smiled. "Melpomene . . . or is it Clare? Which do you prefer?"

"I've gotten used to Clare."

She frowned. "That ring you are holding is mine. I never gave it to Severus."

I looked at her blankly.

"So, it was never really his to give," she continued. "Therefore, I am giving it to you. I would like you to have it. It's rather appropriate in a mystical sense, I think."

"I know what you're doing."

"Do you? I'm giving you a gift. Not every spirit being has corporeal gifts to bestow. You should be very appreciative of this one. I insist you wear it. Especially now it has such a clever inscription."

"What if I refuse. What if I don't wear it?"

"I shall haunt you."

I laughed.

"Oh, you laugh! I can be quite a good banshee. I'm sure your friend there would be obliged to help me," she pointed at the raven which was roosting on top of the fridge. "A few good raps and a 'nevermore' now and again--"

I held a hand up to stop her. "I believe you." I made a great show of returning the ring to my finger. "I don't understand you, but I can't handle any 'nevermores'."

"What don't you understand? I have come here to tell you not to give up. I have come here to tell you that not all fancies are fanciful."

As I looked at her, I felt tears forming in my eyes again. She reached out and placed her hand on my forehead. At once I felt the familiar cool calming feeling she had always brought me when I was troubled. A soft light spread through me and I felt as if I was floating. I heard the soft, almost musical sound that usually accompanied her coming and going, but this time in addition to that I heard her whisper in my ear what sounded like snippets of our conversation, 'Olivia suspects.' I tried to speak but couldn't remember how. Another whisper, 'I recognize them. All of them.' I drifted deeper into her induced dream state. 'Not all fancies are fanciful,' her voice trailed off as the light grew brighter.

***

Someone was right outside my door, but was off to the side so I couldn't see him. I felt no danger, only a bit of impatience coming from him so I opened the door. It was David and he was leaning against the buzzer.

I said nothing which he took as an invitation to step inside.

"Kenny is busy," he said. "So I thought I'd come make a nuisance of myself here, and I've got your post--were you sleeping?" he was looking at me closely.

"Not exactly."

He waited for a further explanation but got none.

"I'd love a coffee, thanks!" he called on his way into my kitchen.

I followed him and watched as he put the coffee on. He made fabulous coffee, I found that an amazing talent in a Londoner.

While David fussed with the coffee, I sat down at the table and pawed through the stack of mail he'd brought in. Bills mostly, of course, a letter from the University and a postcard of Stonehenge. I opened the letter first. A cheque fluttered out just as David set a steaming mug in front of me.

"There you go, love. Black and bitter. Just like you."

I snorted and mumbled, "You have no idea."

His eyes fell on the cheque. "Money! That should cheer you up. What are they giving you money for?"

"Guest lectures. Every once in a while these stodgy institutions like to bring in an eccentric to speak on some pseudoscience. It keeps the students' interest up and makes the real professors feel needed."

It also helped pay my bills. The shop was still mine, but it produced little income. The rent on my flat was still being paid through a discreet arrangement by the ministry. I often wondered just what the negotiations of what my new life would consist of had been like. I owed someone profound thanks for free rent.

He laughed into his cup. "What was your topic?"

"Mapping ley lines and monuments of ancient Britain. You'd have loved it."

"That would explain this." He held up the postcard.

I took it from him and read the back.

"I'll pass on that," I said and handed it back to him.

He scanned it quickly. "Students?"

"It's certainly not the Physics department."

"They're inviting you on a caravan trip to Stonehenge for 'Midsummer Sabbat'. I think you should go."

"I don't do henges of any kind," I told him flatly from behind the University's letter. I'd been to submit a proposal for a short summer course, non credit, they pointed out clearly.

I heard David exhale forcibly. "No? Aren't they monuments of ancient Britain?"

I gave him a sour look.

"Another long story, I suppose?"

I put the letter down. "No. The henge story is a short one. It involves knives and blood and might upset your delicate sensibilities."

"Sometimes I just don't know when to believe you. That sounded like the truth."

I shrugged and finished my coffee. "Would you like to see the scar?"

"Are you going to do it? More pseudoscience lectures?"

"Probably," I got up and refilled both our cups.

"You need to be careful, Clare. You'll be labeled." He winked.

"All I need is seven cats, and I'll be all set. Is that what you're telling me?"

"Cats? Good lord no! You've already gone way beyond cats, my dear."

A loud croaking retort came from the top of the fridge.

"I swear that thing understands every word," David mumbled. "How appropriate."

I waited for an explanation.

"You know the old rhyme? One for sorrow, two for mirth?"

"Oh, please."

"Three for a wedding, four for a birth, Five for rich, six for poor, seven for a witch, I can tell you no more."

"Lovely. So my poor Lenore here is sorrow."

"You, Clare, are sorrow. Lenore--well that just says it all, doesn't it? 'The lost Lenore'."

I flicked the letter from the university toward him. "You take this. I'll bet the

Pop-psychology department would love to sign you on."

He grinned and poured cream into his cup. "All right, love. I'll just be watching for the tenth."

"Tenth what?"

"Raven. Eight for heaven, nine for hell, and Ten for the devil's own sel'."

"Oh that's a stretch," I laughed over my own cup. "It doesn't even fit!"

"Still," he shrugged "I'm dying to meet your demon lover."

I inhaled half the drink, nearly drowning myself with scalding coffee. David jumped up and started slapping my back.

"Bloody, fucking hell, David!" I choked out at him. "Where did that come from?"

He stopped slapping and came around to face me. "You, Clare. It came from you. For Christ's sake. How long have I known you now? If you're not a witch you're something damned close, you've got a goddamed raven named after a dead girl living in your flat, and a bloody great dark shadow next to you all the time."

I gaped at him. He was profoundly sensitive, I knew better than to discount his words.

"Something happened to you. Something harrowing, and for some inexplicable reason you're expected to face it on your own. You're not handling it, Clare. You're making a good attempt at it but the cracks are showing. I know you can't release it, this is inside you--can you at least share it?"

I'd been absently wiping at spilled coffee. I noticed he'd gone quiet and was watching me, waiting for a response. I didn't know what to tell him. I dropped the napkin. I closed my eyes and tried to find a center.

"Anam cara, David. It's your awful anam cara."

"No, not this. This is emptiness." His voice was quiet, soothing.

"That's just it. He's . . . " I met his gaze. "I can't explain this. We were together, now we're not. Oh, this sounds like a cheap novel!"

"Anam cara."

I nodded. "I didn't know what that meant, but yes. There's no moving on from this. It would be like moving on and leaving the left side of your body behind. It's not just me either, it's the same for him."

"He didn't leave you then?"

"Is that what you thought? That I'd had a bad breakup? That I had boyfriend trouble?"

He laughed. "No, not quite. The thought of you and a 'boyfriend' strikes me as ludicrous. No, Clare I'm sticking to my initial description. I'm sticking with the puzzle of what to do about Clare the witch and her invisible demon lover."

He really was astonishingly astute.

"I'll make amends for a start, try this: 'eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a time of joyous bliss."

"You just made that up!"

"No I did not. There are probably a dozen versions of that rhyme. Not that it matters. Can you imagine this place with ten ravens living in it? Management would never stand for it!"

I dropped my head into my hands. "I'd never stand for it. And the demon would--" I found myself laughing out loud at the very idea.

"I have a rhyme for that too," David whispered and began singing quietly as he cleared away the cups. "Sing a song of sixpence, pocket full of rye--"

I knew what was coming next and I almost doubled over with laughter when Lenore took off from her roost on top of the refrigerator with a distinctly offended air.

"Four and twenty black birds baked in a pie--"

"More like a stew, I think."

He looked back with a raised eyebrow. "What are we going to do about this, Clare?"

"Do?"

"How are we going to fill this emptiness?"

I traced an invisible pattern on the tabletop. He clapped his hand over mine and stopped it moving.

"Clare!" he said in an urgent tone. "What's it going to take? Isn't there anyone who knows ? Anyone who can get you through this?"

I looked at him, looked into him. Again I was struck by just how beautiful he was. The concern in his face was heartbreaking.

"You're the only one who knows, David." I reached out and brushed some dark curls off his forehead. "You're the only one. And you're taken."