Page 132 of At Her Will

She wanted Rev. Needed him here with her. He’d known that, too, that night in the hospital. She was being stubborn because she could, because her whole world felt upended. Because she was coming into her house through her front door after nightfall, because she didn’t feel safe doing it the way she normally did. Because she was doing stupid things, like blaming him for being family to the people showing up in her too-frequent nightmares.

She was hiding from him. That knowledge made her angriest of all.

It wasn’t the best mindset for officiating a joyous occasion like a wedding, but she could pull it off, bring the right energy to it, if she meditated on it, if she…

Goddamn it, she couldn’t. Her faith in love was shaken, which affected everything else. She should call and ask someone else to do the ceremony.

But Jasmine had asked her to do it.

The radio was playing. Don Henley’s “End of the Innocence” which seemed too close to home. She wasn’t innocent, but anytime one’s world, one’s paradigm, was shattered, proving how at the mercy of Fate each of them was…it wasn’t an easy thing to accept, because then every bubble one created for oneself felt like an illusion that would disappear, like dreams did shortly after waking in the morning. Nightmares didn’t suffer from that problem.

She went to her living room, turned on the fire because she felt cold, and sat down. She cried again, so frustrated and angry, and hurt…and afraid. She wasn’t this weak, weepy woman. Shewasn’t.

Surging up, she marched through the kitchen and yanked open her back door, just to prove she could do it after dark. She’d scream her defiance at that darkness, dare it to come up on her porch. She’d kick its ass.

The shout caught in her throat. As she looked at her pots of flowers arranged on the porch stairs, so many bright and beautiful blooms, a different, better idea presented itself. Her backyard fountain gurgled, water splashing around the bronze girl dancing, a smaller version of what she’d bought for the office. When she walked slowly down the steps and looked up through her live oak branches, she could see stars.

Do the things you would tell someone else to do, and believe they will work, the same way you believe it for them.Maureen had suggested that.And realize it will take more than once for it to do so. It’s like mental PT. It’s going to be really difficult at first, but it will get better, the more you do it.

So she sat on the bench by the fountain and centered herself. She called upon the meditations that she’d summoned plenty of times these past weeks. The usual peace and balance they brought her had stayed out of her reach, but each time, they’d been getting closer. Just as Maureen had predicted.

She let go of the desperate need to be back to her normal self and breathed. She didn’t push the frustration and uneasiness out the door. She just opened it, let them see the way out as she turned her attention to other, better things. She imagined herself baking something, taking out the ingredients, getting her hands dusted with flour. Preheating the oven, feeling the heat against her legs as she worked at the counter next to it, mixing fragrant dough by hand.

She coaxed her subconscious to turn away from the fear and frustration as if it were a separate being from herself, a hurt child that needed to know it was okay.

The pathway to her favorite quiet place in her head was there. It had gone from opaque in the first week to murky in the second, a path through a haunted forest. Tonight moonlight was shining on it. As she moved along it, slowly, she inhaledthe scents around her on the outside, felt the presence of the elements, the wider turnings of the universe.

The path became even clearer.

Several more deep breaths, and then she was ready for the idea that her flowers and peaceful yard had given her. She rose and shed her clothes. On this bench, the oaks screened her, and no one could see her in the darkness.

Terron, bless his kind heart, had a spotlight on the corner of his house, with enough wattage to throw light into her backyard as well as his own. Normally and considerately, he only used it in brief spurts, like when his brother was visiting and his greyhound needed a last trip out before bedtime.

The police presence at her house meant her neighbors knew the basics of what had happened to her. A few days after she was home, Terron had come to her front door and told her anything she needed, he would do, and had offered to keep the spotlight on at nights for her. Or to install a spotlight of her own for her, if she wanted that.

She’d been twitchy and not herself that day, but it had helped, the reminder of the good in others. She’d taken him up on it for the first week and a half, but last week had told him she wanted him to start turning it off again.

She was glad she’d done so, because here she was. She needed to feel the night, the moon, the strength of the Goddess through her. She tipped her head back, her hair brushing her shoulder blades, her hands reaching up.

As she let all that into herself, she knew when she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t afraid, since she’d invited that energy into her before. She’d reached out on that link that awful night, and he’d felt her. He’d come, the Powers That Be helping him know how to get to her in time.

He’d come now, because it was time. She was ready.

She lowered her chin. Rev knelt a few paces away from her, his head down. Waiting on his Mistress’s desires.

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

“I been coming by for a brief spell every night.” His voice moved over every inch of her skin, a warm blanket being pulled up over her body on a cold night. It settled into her heart. When his head lifted, his gingerbread-colored eyes, the thick lashes and strong inner light, held her like his arms did. “Just to watch the house a while. Make sure you’re okay.”

When she reached out, he rose and took her hand. As they touched, her body swayed, and his arm went around her, holding her up as she put her face against his chest.

It didn’t matter that she was naked, and he wasn’t. He was giving her this, making her feel powerful. Showing her that power was still there. It hadn’t been taken away by what had happened.

“Jasmine and Joss’s wedding is soon,” she said. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Do you want to?”

“Yes.”

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