"I had an international phone call just as I was leaving the house," I explained truthfully, sliding into the remaining seat at our small table.
Robin glanced at Celia, and when I focused my senses, I picked up on feelings of nervousness, fear, and guilt. Once again I found myself intrigued. What was it they wanted, exactly?
"Why don't you get something to drink and then we'll talk," Celia suggested. I nodded and went to the counter. While I waited for my tea, I looked around the small café. Only one other table was occupied. Celia and Robin had chosen a table in the far corner, and each of them was sitting with her back to a wall.
I carried my huge cup over and sat down. I stirred in two packets of sugar and waited for one of the witches to speak. They kept glancing at each other, as if communicating telepathically, but they weren't, I didn't think. I waited, trying to look unconcerned. People want to talk. I'd found that out as a Seeker. Simply waiting was often a far more effective means of getting information than a hard-edged interrogation.
"Thank you for coming," Celia said at last. "When you were late, we wondered if you'd changed your mind."
"No," I said mildly, taking a sip of tea. "I would have called."
"We need you to promise you won't do anything without our permission," Robin blurted, an anxious look on her round face.
I met her gaze calmly. "Why don't you just explain what's going on?"
Celia leaned forward, the smooth planes of her face taut with tension. "Can we trust you?" she asked, her voice low and intent.
"Do you practice dark magick?" I asked, and she drew back.
"No," she said in surprise.
"Then you can trust me." I took another big sip.
"It isn't us," Robin said. There was so much anxiety coming off her that I was starting to feel jumpy myself. I kept casting out my senses to be aware of any possible danger nearby. But there was nothing.
"You said it was your coven leader," I said.
"Yes, and we need you to promise that you won't…harm her," Robin went on. Celia gave her a sharp glance, and Robin looked down and began twisting her hands together in her lap.
"I would never harm anyone," I said. "Unless they posed a threat." I couldn't figure out what these two were getting at. Of course, if I found witch practicing dark magick that might hurt someone, I had an obligation to turn them in to the council to have their powers stripped. As little faith as I had in the council these days, I still knew how important it was to prevent anyone from causing harm.
Robin glanced at Celia nervously, and the two of them seemed to be considering my reply. Finally Celia looked around as if to make sure we were alone. Then her clear brown eyes met mine. "We're both members of Willowbrook, a mixed coven up in Thornton."
Thornton was a town about forty minutes away, north and east from Widow's Vale. A mixed coven meant that not only was it blood witches and nonblood witches, but also blood witches of different clans. I was sure Willowbrook had been mentioned casually by people I'd talked to, but nothing in my memory triggered any negative reaction.
I nodded. "Go on."
Celia continued a low tone. "For the last seventeen years Willowbrook has been led by a gifted Brightendale named Patrice Pearson."
"How long have you each been in the coven?" I asked. I had been around them enough now to realize that though they seemed to know each other well, there was a distance between them. They were covenmates but not best friends, and they certainly weren't lovers.
"Eighteen years," Celia answered.
"Twelve," said Robin.
"And there's a problem?" I asked.
"Patrice is wonderful," Robin said earnestly, leaning closer to me. Her round brown eyes were once again surrounded by complicated makeup.
"But…" I said leadingly, and Celia looked annoyed.
"But nothing," she said shortly. "Patrice *is* wonderful. She's so…warm. Giving, helpful, caring, full of joy and life." She paused.
"I went through a very difficult personal situation a few years ago, and I don't know what I would have done without Patrice."
"We all just love her so much," Robin said. "We're all so close as a coven. Most of us have been together for at least ten years or more. Patrice just brings us closer and makes us all feel-" She looked for the word. "Loved. Even-About six years ago Patrice went through an ugly divorce we were all so surprised. But even through all that, she came to circle each week without fail. Every week. And led our circle with generosity and joy."
"She's an exceptional leader," Celia said simply. "She has exceptional clarity and focus." I was starting to get a bad feeling about the perfect Patrice.
"But lately," Celia said, and she and Robin exchanged glances one more time. "Lately she's been different."
I relaxed in my chair. Now that the dam had been breached, everything else would follow. I projected feelings of calm, of being nonjudgmental.
"She's unchanged in most ways, but sometimes-it's almost as if someone else is looking out through her eyes."
All my senses went on alert.
"Circles are different, too," said Robin. "They've always been the high point of my week. Energizing. Life affirming."
"But lately several of us have noticed that after circles, we feel unusually drained," Celia said looking at her long, slim fingers wrapped around her mug. "Sometimes some of us have to lie down afterward. One night a few weeks ago Robin and I finally mentioned it to each other and found we were feeling the same things. So we decided to try to find help. Discreet help. We can't say what's wrong or even if anything's wrong. But it doesn't feel completely right anymore, either."
"Of course, Patrice has been under an awful lot of pressure," Robin said. Joshua-her son, he's eleven now-was diagnosed last year with Leukemia. He underwent a bone-marrow transplant about eight months ago."
"Now he has host-versus-graft disease," Celia went on.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Well, they matched Joshua up with a donor," Celia said. "Then they did massive chemo and radiation to kill all the cancer-causing cells. It killed all of Joshua's own bone marrow, too. Then the donor's cancer-free marrow was implanted in him. It's working, in that it's producing white blood cells and boosting his immune system. Unfortunately, this marrow's white blood cells have identified Joshua himself as being foreign, and the marrow is attacking virtually every system in his body."
Her voice was tight with pain, and I reflected on the fact that both of these women must have known Patrice when Joshua was first born and had probably known about or been involved in his upbringing for the last eleven years. Now he was deathly ill. It wasn't only Patrice who was feeling the strain.
"It's a different kind of sickness from the cancer," Celia said. "But still awful. It could kill him."
"He's in such pain, such misery," Robin said, her voice wavering. "But even with all this, Patrice has missed only two or three circles in the past year."
"I offered to take over leading the circles for a while, to give her a break," said Celia. "I'm the most senior member of the coven. But she refused."
"That's how loyal she is, how dedicated," Robin said.
"What do the other coven members say?" I asked.
"I know some of them feel something's wrong," said Celia. "No one's said anything to me outright. The thing is, every once in a while it seems fine. It almost made me wonder if I was just imagining things or coming down with the flu myself."
"But I felt all the same things," Robin said. "And last week I heard someone else whisper a concern about it."
"If something negative is affecting all the coven members…we have to figure out what," Celia said firmly.
"We know Patrice is a good person," Robin put in quickly. "We just think she needs help, maybe."
I frowned, sipping my tea. This did not sound good. Of course, there might be some benign, rational explanation. And it would be wonderful if that were true. But instinctively I felt there was more to this.