Page 12 of Spellbound
“Why do you say that?”
“She was common and uneducated. I never thought she really loved my son, and their marriage was on the rocks almost from the start. She was a terrible mother too, and I don’t think she even wanted Asher.”
“What makes you say so?”
“Oh, I know it sounds like I was interfering, but I wasn’t. She argued with my son about everything, and I saw her slap Asher’s little face more than once for not picking up his toys. It made me so angry that I took him home with me a couple of times, but she didn’t care. She was glad of the break. It all came out, you know. At the hearing after her death.”
“But why was his magic bound? What exactly did Asher do? And why would a father bind his own child? I need to know and try to understand.”
“No one liked it, but they all agreed it might be for the best, considering how young Asher was when it happened.” She sighed deeply, a ragged sound in the silence that had suddenly seemed to fall around us. I hadn’t noticed, being so intent on what Asher’s grandmother had been saying, but even the cicadas had gone quiet. The lights seemed dimmer, and the darkness was leaning in to listen.
I looked up and felt a shiver of alarm. “On second thought, let’s go inside to talk about this.”
Both ladies looked a little surprised, not to mention uneasy, but they got up and headed back inside with me. I followed them in, stopping at the front door to gaze back out into the moonlit yard for a few long seconds before I closed the door behind me, saying the words that would seal the door for the night from all intrusions.“Ka luv quo rool thia quo rais.”
The windows were already shut and sealed, as it was still early in the year and still too cool outside at night to leave them open, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.
Let’s go in the parlor,” I said, taking the lead. “Make yourself comfortable.” I gestured toward the twin wing-back chairs by the hearth. Janet took one of them, leaving the other for me. Rosalyn took a seat on the sofa. I saw Janet shiver, so I switched on the electric fire logs, and they began glowing softly. It was still a couple of months away from the warmer weather of summer, and the nights could be cool. I sat down across from Janet and leaned forward to place a hand on her arm. She was trembling a bit.
“You don’t have to be frightened, and I’m not going to press you for answers. If you don’t know something or don’t want to say, just tell me so.”
She nodded and I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Since your son Richard was a magistrate, you’ll know about us and what we do.”
“Yes, of course. I guess I’m just having trouble remembering all that happened again. I’ve put it so thoroughly out of my mind. Asher is going to be terribly upset if he finds out I talked to you.”
“Don’t worry about him. I’ll handle all that. Tell me what happened to cause his father to bind his magic?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “It was when Asher was a child. His father was away from their home a great deal in those days. He was based in North Carolina and some of Tennessee, but he still had to travel a good bit. Opal was…well, she was a really unhappy person—unhappy in her marriage and unhappy about being a mother, like I said. She said it tied her down way too much. She claimed to be a conjure woman, but I never saw that much magic in her. Some said she’d made a love potion to trap my son.”
“Do you think she did?”
“Yes, I do. She didn’t understand magic, really, but at the same time, she was jealous of my son’s power, because it was high magic and so much stronger than her own. She was just a hedge witch.”
She used the term in a derogatory way, but that was probably because she obviously hadn’t liked Opal. A so-called hedge witch worked alone and didn’t adhere to any strict dogma—religious, spiritual, or otherwise. They had their own kind of magic, focusing primarily on creating healing, herbal remedies. Everything was kept simple and basic, and all rituals are non-fussy and minimalist.
“Opal never understood why Richard didn’t use his power to enrich himself,” Janet continued. “They weren’t poor—my son made a good living—but she wanted real wealth—a much bigger house and more expensive clothing and jewelry, and myson wouldn’t agree to that. We learned later that it was around then that she began to look for ways to get more power of her own. She started playing around with Ouija boards, conjuring demons, and talking to so-called psychics when my son was gone on his trips out of town. She even tried infernal magic once or twice. My son told me so.”
“Was she able to do it? Did she conjure up a demon?”
“Not that I know of. When Richard found her boards and made her confess to what she’d been doing, he was furious and told her she had no idea what she was playing at. He made her stop and disposed of all the boards. He told her to stop seeing the psychics or talking to them on the phone. He threatened to leave her and take Asher with him, and even to turn her over to the Council, but that only made her anger worse. She never wanted Asher but resented the idea of him being taken away. She threatened me and Asher and tried to scare Richard. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but she was really not a nice person.
“She and my son were arguing all the time, and there was more and more talk of a divorce. I know Richard still loved her, in a way, but she often told him how desperately unhappy she was. Things couldn’t have gone on that way long, but then one day my son came home and found her dead on the living room floor with Asher nearby. My son was shocked.Devastated. It didn’t seem possible that she was gone and there wasn’t a mark on her.”
She buried her face in her hands and sat that way for a few moments. I urged her to continue as gently as I could. “Go on, when you feel like you can.”
“There was no sign of any kind of break-in, and the coroner said she’ d been dead for two full days. She had another one of those Ouija boards in the room. The police said she died from natural causes—an aneurysm, they said. But the magistrates recognized it for what it really was. She had been killed bymagic…by power. It leaves a trace, as you know. They ruled out my son right away, because he’d been a hundred miles away and in the company of other magistrates at the time of her death. The magistrates managed to compel him and questioned him anyway, but he was completely cleared.”
“What did Asher say?”
“Asher wasn’t talking. He’d wouldn’t speak and would just shake his head when anyone asked him questions. He seemed to be in shock. They tried to probe his mind to find out what happened, but to their amazement, he threw them off. He wouldn’t allow them to talk to him, and there was no way he should have had that much power at his age. They tried to compel him, too, but it didn’t work the way they intended it to. He’d simply go to sleep, and they couldn’t rouse him. None of them could believe it. Finally, he began to talk to his father, and he told him he didn’t remember anything. He stuck to that story and just kept saying that he’d woke up and found her beside him. But then, he slipped up once and said he didn’t mean for it to happen. That it had been an accident. Then he refused to explain any further. Richard thought he must still have been in shock.” She stopped talking again and started trembling. Rosalyn came over to put an arm around her.
“Go on when you can,” I said softly, when her voice trailed away.
She sighed and nodded. “There’s not much more to tell. As the others kept questioning him, Asher seemed to completely shut down. He had been oddly calm and collected up until then, but as he was being questioned by the magistrates and even some of the Council members, he suddenly became really agitated, and he started crying and sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like shock. He wouldn’t let anyone except my son touch him, and he hid his face and cried out when anyone else tried to. They didn’t want to hurt him in any way, so theywaited a while and tried to question him again, but it was a total disaster. He did a complete about face. Instead of that odd calmness, suddenly, all he could do was cry and ask for his mother.”
“But what happened? Who killed her?”
“He finally admitted that it was his power that did it. That’s how he put it—his power. Like I said, there were no marks on her, and Asher wasn’t able or willing to talk about how he did it or explain why. He was nine years old at the time.”
