A few, interminable seconds later, Valerie withdrew her finger from the toad’s mouth. A drop of blood glistened on the end of her finger, like misapplied nail polish.
Sarah opened the car door violently and got out into the cool, fresh air, fighting the urge to be sick. A moment later, Valerie got out, too, and stood regarding Sarah across the top of the car.
“You see,” she said. “He’s like my own child, Lunch is. He’s a part of me, as well.”
Chapter Eight
The house haunted Sarah’s thoughts, waking and sleeping, and she found it hard to stay away. Half a dozen times every day she had to fight off the temptation to return. Often it was for practical reasons—a book, or a sweater, or a pair of shoes she had left behind in her flight. In the bright October sunshine, among crowds of people on the Drag or in the cool stillness of the library, Sarah’s memories of what had happened to her in that house seemed suddenly thin and vague, and she couldn’t quite believe in the demon called Jade.
But if she was in any danger of forgetting, the nightmares reminded her. Once or twice every night she woke, sweating and shaking, from terrors which seemed far more real than the bed she found herself in. And so she stayed away from the house, as she had agreed, and spent long hours in the library, researching witchcraft, magic, and the little-known ways of demons. She copied out ancient spells in a spiral-bound notebook, and her confidence began to grow. She would find the way, she thought. She didn’t need the untrustworthy Valerie’s help at all. A long-time student, Sarah trusted in books, and felt secure, on her own ground, in the familiar territory of primary and secondary sources. Somewhere among all these printed pages lurked the answer she sought.
Pete spent nearly as much time as Sarah in this research. Magic was all they talked about in the evenings, to Beverly’s growing boredom. Pete continued to maintain his detached attitude towards the subject, and the ease with which he could be distracted by tidbits of superstition and useless information annoyed Sarah, who thought he should be taking his reading as seriously as she took hers. But, she had to admit, even if he looked upon it as a diversion, he was reading as widely and intently as she was herself. It was from Pete that Sarah learned that a witch in seventeenth-century England had claimed a toad called Lunch for his familiar. She wondered if Valerie had run across that fact in her reading, or if the name originated with Jade. Familiar spirits, according to the books, were given by the devil to his converts to aid and comfort them. Did that mean that Jade was the devil? The idea sent Sarah into despair. How could she fight the devil? She didn’t believe in the devil—but, then, neither had she believed in demons before she encountered Jade. What was Jade, exactly? And what was Lunch?
Sarah scanned book after book until she lost her bearings and simply swam in the subject, her mind a confused jumble of magic words and names, rites, rituals, powers, and horrors.
On Tuesday afternoon, as Sarah was getting into her car to go to the library, she caught the sleeve of her blouse in the door and ripped it. She swore, staring ruefully at the torn sleeve. She could go back inside and use Beverly’s machine to stitch it up, or she could borrow one of Beverly’s tops and go through the day feeling too tightly packaged.
She swore again and decided, getting into the car and slamming the door. Enough of this nonsense. She would go over to the house on West 35th Street right now and get the rest of her clothes.
Her skin prickled and her heart was beating faster in anticipation. Now she would see if it was all a dream, or real. Her memories of the demonic cat, the rat, the suffocating presence inside her head, the dead voice on the disconnected telephone all seemed as distant and unreal as the things she had been reading about. Had they really happened, or had she dreamed them?
But despite her doubts Sarah was cautious as she entered the house. Everything was so peaceful that she suspected a trap. The quiet, high-ceilinged rooms were filled with the cool, underwater light of sunlight through leaves, and a faint breeze freshened the air. The only sounds were those she made herself, footsteps on bare boards, her own breathing.
Sarah looked around, feeling a curious sense of loss. It was wrong for this house to be so empty. She had brought her things here and then abandoned them, making no effort to turn this place into her home. Why shouldn’t she be happy here? She sat on the couch and looked around at her books and posters. I belong here, she thought. She closed her eyes, trying to sense another, alien presence, trying to discover where Jade was hiding, but she felt nothing. She was alone.
The sound of a car pulling up in back distracted her and she opened her eyes, waiting to hear the sound of it reverse. Cars often took a wrong turn, not realizing the road led only into the camp. But instead she heard the sound of an engine being shut off. She rose and went to the back door to investigate.
Pete was walking toward the house, his expression apprehensive. “Sarah! Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“I didn’t expect to find you here.”
“It was a spur of the moment thing. I came to get some of my clothes,” she began, her tone faintly apologetic. Then she realized the strangeness of what Pete had said.
“If you didn’t think I was here—why did you come?” she asked.
Pete looked uncomfortable. “I wanted to have a look around,” he said. “That’s all.”
Sarah smiled, feeling a surge of empathy. He was curious, of course. It was surprising he had waited so long. In his position, she would have done the same thing. “Come on in,” she said. “I’ll show you around. Don’t get your hopes up, though. The place feels pretty empty to me. I’m starting to wonder if—”
He was looking at her curiously. “You’re not having doubts?”
Sarah shrugged, uncomfortable. “It just seems so silly now. In the light of day, as it were. I was just sitting in the front room thinking how comfortable I was here, and what a nice place it was to live . . .”
“That doesn’t make what happened before any less real.”
“I know.” She laughed. “It seems odd, having me be the skeptic, and you arguing for the supernatural.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Come on in.”
He followed her into the house and she closed the door. “Would you like a beer?”
He hesitated long enough that she had turned back towards the refrigerator to get one when he stopped her. “I thought there was a pentacle drawn on the bedroom floor?” His voice was sharp.
Sarah looked through the bedroom door, following his gaze. “There was. I got rid of it. I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. I thought I told you.”
“No. I kind of wish you’d left it, though. We could have used it for protection.”
Sarah tensed. “What do you mean? It’s not good to leave them after they’ve been used—the spirits might turn them to their own uses. I thought you might have run across that piece of information in your reading.”
He shrugged, still staring into the bedroom, a thoughtful look on his face.
“What are you thinking, Pete?”
Without looking around at her, Pete reached into the pocket of his corduroy jacket and pulled out a small, paperback book. “There’s a License to Depart given here—that’s the spell to send spirits away again. I thought I might recite it and see what happens.”
Like an atheist making a prayer and then waiting impatiently for God’s answer, she thought. She was annoyed.
“Why do that now? Why waste energy on the small stuff?” she asked. “I thought the plan was to learn as much as we could from all the experts, read all the books, and then work up a ritual and put everything we had into it—to give it our best shot.”
“But what have we got to lose by saying a simple License to Depart? It may be the only thing necessary. It’s the sort of thing that Valerie might have forgotten to do.” He was looking at her now, so calmly and earnestly that she wanted to shake him.