Chapter 6

Susana leaned back into the generous leather sofa in the living room, the take-out spaghetti from Zorba's untouched on the coffee table. In one of the adjacent over-stuffed chairs, Lily inhaled her white pizza with vigor.

"You've got to eat something," Lily said with her mouth full. She wiped at her mouth with a paper towel and swallowed. "Don't think I don't know what it's like," she said, reaching for her glass of gingerale. "Everything's turned upside down, sure. Suddenly you've living in a totally different world."

Susana stared at her dinner on the coffee table. "Pretty much."

Lily took a sip of soda and put her glass back down. "For me, it's just the opposite. I mean, every time I go to work or run a regular errand, that's when I feel like I step into some kind of alien dimension. To me, the mundane, every day world is the one that doesn't feel real to me."

Susana glanced at her cousin and crossed her legs.

Lily pointed at the floor with both hands to emphasize her point. "This, this is what's real to me. This is the real world. All the rest is...." Lily saw that Susana wasn't buying it. "Well, you make up your own mind. Just give yourself some time to get used to the changes, yeah?"

Susana untied her boots and slipped them off of her feet, letting each fall to the floor with a heavy thud. She folded her legs beneath her and looked her cousin dead in the eye. "So. What do you want to tell me?"

Lily raised her eyebrows as she reached for another piece of pizza. "What do I want to tell you? About what?"

Susana crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips. "Well. First you asked me to participate in some kind of witch ritual, telling me that it's what Tic would have wanted. You managed to convince me that I'm some kind of St. Francis or Dr. Doolittle with the ability to talk to animals. You even dragged me off to have my fortune told."

An amused smile began to grow on Lily's lips as she listened to Susana's litany of complaints, but she hid it by taking another bit of pizza, listening patiently.

"You convinced me to learn more about Tic's business," Susana continued, "In order to have a better idea of what he'd left us before we start selling things off." She looked hard at Lily. "You have no intention of selling either the house or the business, do you?"

Lily smiled and gulped down her pizza. "Not so much, no."

Susana sighed in frustration and held her arms even closer to her chest. "And now," she practically laughed to herself, "Now, you have me sleeping here tonight, to get a better feel for the place!" Susana regarded Lily suspiciously, narrowing her eyes. "Did you put some kind of spell on me?"

Lily laughed out loud, nearly spilling her drink. "You're kidding me, right?" Lily looked back at her cousin and stifled her laughter. "No, I guess you're not." Lily planted both of her feet on the floor and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. She looked up at Susana. "You really don't know anything, do you?"

Susana snorted, her mouth settling into a hard expression. She stared ahead of her at the empty fireplace.

Lily looked down at the floor in resignation. "Okay, that's not what I meant...."

Susana took a deep breath and softened, her hands relaxing down into her lap. "I know that we come from two different worlds, blood kin or not."

"Susana..." Lily began, but her cousin cut her off.

"Let me finish this," Susana protested calmly. "I know that I don't understand where you're coming from, or what Tic was all about," she gestured upward toward the house. "I grew up with nothing but a lot of crazy rumors and dark whispers about all of this -- Tic, the family history. You know what I'm talking about."

"Yeah," Lily sighed, pushing away the rest of the pizza. "It's pretty silly stuff, but stubborn."

"Monday morning, I woke up and went about my regular routine. I got up, got dressed, had a pitiful breakfast, and battled through traffic to get downtown by 8am. I had a normal life, a great job...." Susana sighed. "But then by 9am, there was no more job. I sat at home, both fighting and indulging outright panic, because it was all a blessing and a curse at the same time."

Lily looked up and watched Susana intently.

"I loved what I did, but I hated it at the same time. I don't know how to explain it," Susana said. "I had plenty of money, power even, though not much, admittedly, but I knew how and where I fit in. Only, I didn't fit in." Susana turned to look at Lily, who nodded in understanding.

"So even with all of the craziness this week," Susana played with her fingers, "And you have to admit, that coming from my world, this has been one really crazy week -- but even so, there was a part of me that kind of, leapt with relief that something new and different cropped up so quickly. Just magically appearing at the right time to take the place of my 'normal life' that seemed determined to crumble to pieces."

Lily smiled. "Magically appeared? I thought you said you didn't believe in magic?" Lily teased her.

Susana shot Lily a hard look, but her face softened into a smile. "You know what I mean. But it has just been too much. As much as that little part of me may want to, I can't just switch gears so completely and so quickly like that. I need some help, some preparation. I need to know what's coming next." Susana leaned forward and looked directly into Lily's eyes. "I need you to let me know what you have planned. I need to know what I'm dealing with here, in this house, all of it." She swallowed hard. "I need to know what's coming next."

Lily relaxed back into her chair. "Fair enough."

Susana smiled sheepishly.

"Where would you like to start?" Lily asked.

* * * * *

Climbing the last stairs to the second floor with their overnight bags in hand, the two women stopped in the upstairs hallway. Susana glanced to her right to find Baird curled up on the floor at the foot of his master's bed.

"Are you sure he's okay?" Susana asked.

"Yeah, he's fine. He was just really devoted to Ol' Tic," Lily replied. Then she nudged Susana with a smile, "But you're the pet psychic. You know better than I do how he's doing."

Grudgingly, Susana smiled. "Yeah, yeah."

Lily led Susana to the bedroom next to Tic's. "I thought you'd want this room. It wasn't used much, but I put some fresh sheets on the bed for you."

"I could have done that," Susana said, hefting her duffle bag up onto the bed. She saw that a collection of books was spread out on the checkered bedspread.

"And I got some books out for you," Lily explained. "You want to know what's going on, what to expect, and I figured this would be as good as any a way to start."

Susana scanned the titles of the volumes in front of her: Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, The Spiral Dance, Magical Herbalism, Book of Shadows, Living Wicca, Green Witchcraft, The Truth About Witchcraft, Wicca in the Kitchen, Moon Magic, Drawing Down the Moon, Herb Magic, and The Magic Garden.

"Umm, that's a lot of reading," Susana commented.

Lily smiled. "Take your time. It's not like there's going to be a test. This isn't exactly the kind of magic that Tic was practicing, if you want to call it that. But it might help you understand more of where he was coming from. And maybe shed some light on all those rumors you heard growing up."

Susana nodded, picking up one of the volumes and examining its front and back covers.

"And no one's expecting you to convert, or anything," Lily added. "It's just.... It would be helpful for you to know."

"I understand. I guess I just need some time to...." There was a noise overhead. Susana looked up at the ceiling, her eyes following the path of footsteps coming from the attic above.

"Oh, yeah," Lily almost laughed. "It's not just the greenhouse that's haunted."

Susana turned to her cousin with raised eyebrows. "And this doesn't bother you? I'm not sure I can sleep here." She dropped the book onto the bed and crossed her arms over her chest instinctively.

Lily rested a reassuring hand on Susana's shoulder. "When you grew up in a haunted house, the way I did, you just kind of take this stuff for granted. If it makes you feel any better, I've never seen anything in this house, and I've never had anything weird happen to me. It's just the occasional noise in the attic."

"Okay..." Susana responded slowly. "But what exactly is in the attic."

"That I can't tell you." Lily shrugged her shoulders. "But given that you could see Old Maimie inthe greenhouse–"

"She said she's not Maimie," Susana corrected.

"Right, but given that you could see her, when no one else could," Lily suggested, "I though maybe you could tell me, about what's in the attic."

"I am not going up there!" Susana protested, nearly jumping out of her skin. The footsteps above stopped just as suddenly as they had started.

Lily laughed. "I didn't mean right this second," she teased. "And you can always sleep with the light on, if that helps. Or convince Baird to sleep in here with you."

Susana sighed loudly. "This really is a sudden trip to Fantasyland for me, you know."

"Yes, but you'll enjoy the ride, I promise. And, anyway, it's probably more like the Magic Kingdom," Lily joked, evincing a weak smile from her cousin.

"While we're on the subject," Susana prodded, "Are there any other little surprises I should be ready for?"

"Well..." Lily replied, "Since we're talking ghosts.... I know there are some Yankee ghosts living out in the hedges." She gestured toward the back yard. "And a shaman was over here once, a few years back, said something about a Native American elder living in that old tree in front of the house."

"A shaman...." Susana repeated.

"Yeah, you know, one of those Indian medicine men."

"I know what a shaman is," Susana defended. "I just.... Sure, okay, there was a shaman here."

"Yes," Lily confirmed. "He was helping Tic get rid of this really weird fungus that he couldn't get rid of in the garden. It was attacking the mugwort. See, Tic had started growing this stuff, and it was just going gangbusters, so his business started competing with this lady on the other side of the river, who had been the only one selling mudwort. So the shaman came to banish the curse the lady had put on Tic's crop–"

"Yeah, okay, and there's some kind of wise man living in the tree?" Susana was only hearing bits and pieces of what her cousin was telling her.

"Well, not a real man, of course," Lily explained. "The spirit of an elder. Probably Powhatan or Cherokee."

"Great," Susana said in half-hearted sarcasm. "Anything else? I mean, is Elvis living in the basement or something?"

Lily laughed, then thought better of it. Susana was having a hard time with all of this, she reminded herself. "No, not that I know of," Lily replied. "Look. Why don't I just let you get settled here, you know, give you some time and space."

Susana nodded slowly, looking blankly at the walls.

"And if you want, you could even start looking through a book or two." Lily backed away toward the hallway. "If you need me, my room is just down at the end of the hall, though I'll probably just be down in the den with the television."

Susana looked up at Lily in surprise.

"Yes, Tic had television," Lily smiled. "He wasn't a complete recluse."

Lily disappeared down the hallway, and Susana turned back to look at the books on the bed. After a quick glance toward the ceiling, she climbed up onto the mattress of the four-poster bed and propped up the pillows against the headboard. She reached for one of the books Lily had left for her, leaned back into the pillows, and began to read.

* * * * *

Lily toted her suitcase into the back bedroom -- the very room Tic had offered to her years ago. But she had refused. So much more she could have learned from him, if she simply hadn't been so headstrong. But that was just the Frye family way.

She smiled sadly as she put down her old suitcase at the foot of the brass bed. These old antiques had the comfortable, worn-in feeling that Lily had longed for in her own apartment. She liked the small brick fireplace in each of the bedrooms, the polished hardwood floors that ran the length of the house, and the creaks in the rafters when the wind blew outside. She admired the hand-made quilt folded up neatly at the foot of the bed, and she traced the patterns of the blue and green fabric with her fingers, but then she frowned. She hadn't put that quilt there.

Baird let out a quiet moan from down the hall. No doubt that sound would send a shiver down Susana's wound-up spine, Lily thought to herself. But her cousin wasn't the only one having a hard time reconciling the events of the week. Baird certainly was proof of that. Poor old dog, he barely left the master bedroom except to eat and to follow the women outside into the yard.

Lily kicked off her shoes and sat on the side of the bed. It hasn't been so easy on her, either. All this week, she had been taking care of her clueless cousin, constantly reassuring her and trying to get her to open up just a bit more each day.... Lily held her face in her hands and took a deep breath. She hadn't taken any time out for herself this week, hadn't taken any time off of work except for yesterday to go to the lawyer's office. She'd stuck to her shift schedule at the diner all weekend and had a weekend full of client Tarot readings scheduled ahead of her.

"Maybe just a hot bath," she said to herself quietly. But before she could move a muscle, the tears came, out of nowhere. The grief she had been holding inside all week came bursting out of her, though she still kept her voice, not wanting her sobbing to disturb Susana.

"Oh, geez," Lily said to herself, both in pain and frustration. She looked up at the ceiling. "I just didn't know it would be like this."

Pulling the quilt up around her shoulders, Lily curled up into a ball at the head of the bed. She buried her head under the blanket and closed her eyes, letting her grief take her where it would.