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  Instead of answering, she turned to her friend. “What do you think, Lucius?”

  “I think you were right to bring him here. He doesn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t know what?” Fraser demanded. His nerves taut, he didn’t want to play their silly game.

  Cassie and Lucius exchanged glances.

  “You or me?” asked Lucius.

  “Fraser, I know this will be hard for you to believe,” Cassie said as she took a deep breath, “but you saved us today. You…well…you’re a witch.”

  “A what?” He glanced back and forth between the room’s two occupants. Were they both out on day passes from the psychiatric hospital? He stood to leave. “Things are getting a little too weird. I think I should be going.”

  He jumped as an unfelt breeze slammed the library door closed.

  Trapped? His eyes darted around the room.

  Cassie walked over and rested her hand on his arm. “Please wait, Fraser. Hear us out.”

  He didn’t want to stay. He’d had more than enough—excitement—for the night, but he let Cassie lead him to one of the leather loveseats, pulling him down next to her. Ramrod straight on the edge, he perched like a wild cat ready to spring up and out of the library at a moment’s notice.

  “You said you were lucky, that you often wish for things and they happen?” Lucius asked.

  “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. He’d be cautious with his answers.

  “And you both said that the car was headed directly at you, but suddenly changed direction?”

  “It appeared that way, but…wait! You’re saying it was magic, and I made the car change direction. You’re fucking crazy.” Fraser stood again.

  “Please,” Cassie said. “One more minute. Hear Lucius out.”

  You’re already here. You can take them both. Play along.

  He sat back down. Leery and ready. “I suppose you are going to tell me that you are both witches.”

  “Well, I am,” answered Lucius. The fire burst and crackled as if someone had dropped in a fresh log, and the smallest ottoman went racing across the room.

  Fraser held his breath as his heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest.

  “Witch, warlock; pick your word. Cassandra, however, is not. She’s…well, that’s her secret to tell.”

  Secret? What secret?

  “What do you know of your parents? Are they both alive? Were they in your life?” asked Lucius.

  “Wait. Why do you think I’m a witch?” He swallowed nervously and glanced at Cassie. “Is it because of the car?”

  She nodded. “Mostly.”

  “What do you mean ‘mostly’?”

  “Cassie brought you here because of the car,” answered Lucius. “She couldn’t tell for certain because you are not practicing. I, however, am sure you are a witch.”

  “How?”

  “Your aura. You have a green aura around you, albeit quite pale. That is usually the case with the younger and uninitiated.”

  “An aura?” repeated Fraser, as he stuck out his hands and stared.

  Green? Was he supposed to be a witch or an alien? If they start talking aliens…

  “I don’t see anything,” he said.

  “No, I guess not. Only if you are trained, would you see it,” explained Lucius. “Try again. Concentrate. Do you see anything at all?”

  Fraser studied one hand then the other, his forehead scrunched in concentration. Abso-fucking-nothing. He stared at Lucius and shook his head.

  Minutes passed in silence until Lucius’s cell phone began to vibrate.

  “I better get that,” their host said. “You guys could use some time alone, I’m sure.” Lucius picked up the device from a nearby table and left the room.

  Had there really been a call? Or, if witchcraft really did exist, had Lucius simply caused the phone to vibrate? Wait! Now he believed in witchcraft?

  The fire crackled, and except for the sound of his heart beating in his ears, the room remained silent.

  His life flashed before him in a rapid series of non-sequential memories.

  It would explain a few things.

  “Fraser?” Cassie whispered. She reached out and placed her hand on his arm.

  Cassie. Still beautiful, but now…different. His heart rate slowed, and his breathing returned to normal. Even the pages of his imagination ceased flipping through his life events.

  After a long silence, Fraser stood. “I should take you home.”

  “Would you like me to drive?”

  “No,” he said. “I think I’ll be okay.”

  ****

  The sound of her breathing echoed in her ears.

  Had she made the right decision to seek Lucius’s help? To tell Fraser the truth about himself?

  It had been one heck of a night. Although used to death, the accident and her own near-death experience still raced wildly on her strained nerves. How must the evening’s events be weighing on Fraser?

  She resisted the urge to place her hand on Fraser’s arm and offer support. He needed his space. Hopefully her close proximity offered some amount of supernatural peace. He needed time. As with any dramatic life event, he had to process the information and accept things on his own terms.

  “So, what are you? Vampire? Werewolf?” His words were harsh; anger, hurt, and frustration laced his voice. Did he ask because he believed, or because he couldn’t handle the silence?

  “I’m an angel,” she whispered.

  “A what?”

  “An angel.”

  He let out a sarcastic laugh. “Right. And where are your wings?” He glanced at her as if to confirm that they did not exist.

  “The wing thing is a misconception. Remember how Lucius mentioned that witches have green auras. Mine is white. Sometimes, when seen by the dying, it’s mistaken for wings.”

  Fraser pursed his lips and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “What does being an angel mean?”

  “Are you sure you want to talk about this now?”

  “God, Cassie, I’m so confused. I’m sure tomorrow I will wake up and this will all be a dream.” He clenched and unclenched his hands. “Why don’t you just start talking.”

  “Similar to the witch or wizard, we have a number of names. We can be called angels, or fairies. Some refer to us as the bean sidhe, or banshee. History says that when the angels revolted, God ordered the gates shut. Those in heaven were called angels, those in hell were demons, and those on earth were called fairies. We prefer angels. For the most part, those of us that stayed on earth remained as guiding spirits. We help ease the transition for dying.”

  “Like the guy in the accident.”

  She sensed the wheels turning in his head.

  “Are you…dead?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  “No, the angels on earth became mortal. Our angel souls, however, pass from one being to another as our human form dies. Our gift, our power, passes along with our souls.”

  “Like in that old movie, when the bell rings another angel gets its wings?”

  “Something like that, yes,” replied Cassie.

  “So what do angels…do?”

  “Everyone is born with a soul. A new soul is one upon which the experiences of life have not been written. You’ve heard stories about African or Native American people, of tribal elders who could tell stories dating hundreds of years before them. In a small group of people, for example an old African village, the same soul could be passed down over and over again. The young would inherit the soul of someone who lived possibly many lives before them. Think of it as a bowl of ice cream. Most people get plain, but some get chocolate sauce, and a few get lucky and get chocolate sauce and sprinkles. Similarly some people get extra talents, or are super smart. Take Tchaikovsky for instance. His music didn’t just come from his brain, it came from—as the expression goes—his heart and soul.”

  “He got the soul of a great pianist who lived before him, and improved on it?” he said.
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br />   “Exactly,” confirmed Cassie.

  Again the SUV grew quiet. It remained that way.

  Heavy with the burden of silence, they pulled to a stop in front of her house.

  She handed him a small card with Lucius’s name and phone number; their host had slipped it to her before they left.

  “So, how do you know Lucius?”

  “There is a long established relationship between witches and angels. Well, good witches anyway.”

  “There are bad witches?” He looked around as if a witch were going to pop out from behind one of the parked cars.

  “Yes, just like there are good and bad people. Only bad witches can be a little more dangerous.”

  “Change of mind. I don’t think I’m really ready for the bad witch stories yet. You were saying about the relationship…”

  “Witches use their powers to weave spells of protection around angels, our homes.” She glanced at the front door surrounded by twinkling white Christmas lights. “Where we work.”

  “Why?”

  “You know what, Fraser? It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but as you said, you’ve already gotten an overload of hard-to-believe information tonight. I’m not sure now is a good time to open you up to the supernatural world of good and evil.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Fraser let out a short laugh. “It’s not your fault. Without you I’d have never known. It’s just, well, I feel so…lost.”

  “Call Lucius. Or me. Don’t try to work through this on your own. We all need help, and there’s no shame in asking.”

  She gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek and got out of the vehicle. As she did, Fraser’s cell phone rang. She closed the SUV door, the sound shattering the silence of the night.

  Cassie mounted the slippery steps to her house as the Christmas-themed ring of her own phone echoed in her purse. She hunted around for the attention-seeking device, removed it from the bottom of her bag, and pushed the answer button.

  “Hello,” she said, stepping into the dark foyer.

  “Hey, Cassie. It’s Jane.”

  “What’s wrong?” There was no point in being polite. Jane’s voice held a tone that announced her friend hadn’t called to chat.

  “Barb called me from the hospital. She couldn’t find your number. Fraser’s father just died.”

  “Shit. Thanks, Jane.”

  Cassie hung up the phone and glanced out the window. Fraser’s SUV was gone. She grabbed her car keys. Normally she wouldn’t drive the short distance to the hospital, but this was different.

  The car had barely warmed up by the time she pulled into the emergency parking lot, and she nodded to a couple of the nurses as she made her way up to Joe’s room.

  Fraser stood at the side of Joe’s bed, his back to the door.

  “Fraser,” Cassie whispered into the silence. No machines beeped or groaned. Death turned them all mute.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” she asked.

  “Why didn’t you take his soul? He was a good man. He was smart and a great hockey player. Someone could have used it.”

  “It’s not for me to decide. I wasn’t here.”

  “Did you know he would die?”

  “I didn’t know it would be tonight. I have to be nearby, and I didn’t work today.”

  She watched as his shoulders shook. A sniffle broke the deathly quiet. No green aura shimmered, and the black aura of death had come and gone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Just leave. Please.”

  ****

  Several days had passed, and Cassie hadn’t seen or heard from Fraser. She’d stopped by his house, but no one answered the bell and the garage stood empty—she’d stood on her bumper and peeked through the high, dusty windows.

  A knock sounded. She jumped up to run to the door, tripping over the blanket that fell off her lap.

  Jane stood on the porch, the snow falling like mini cotton balls behind her. “Well, are you going to invite me in? It’s freezing out here.”

  A cold gust of wind blew through the open door as if to emphasize Jane’s point, and Cassie stepped out of the way to let her friend in.

  Jane took a seat in the kitchen and sat quietly while Cassie made hot chocolate. With heated milk. The best way. The way her mother had.

  “So.” Jane reached for one of the two steaming mugs of chocolate deliciousness placed on the table. “You need someone to talk to, so here I am. Talk.”

  Cassie smiled at her friend’s uncanny ability to read people. “It’s Fraser. It’s life. It’s…it’s complicated.”

  “You’re an angel.”

  “What?” Cassie’s cup froze inches from her lips. Jane must mean in the “you’re-a-really-great-person” framing of the word.

  Jane raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips.

  She knew! “You know? But how?” A rule—both written and verbally passed down from one supernatural generation to the next—non-human secrets remained secrets. Too much could be lost if the rest of the world found out about any of them.

  Cassie squinted. Was it possible she’d never noticed an aura around Jane? Bob? One of the kids?

  “Judy,” Jane said.

  “Pardon?”

  “My wings passed to our first child, Judy. And when she didn’t survive, well…”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I wasn’t sure. I don’t have the sight anymore. What was I supposed to do? Ask? You would have had me down in the psych ward quicker than that.” Jane snapped her fingers.

  “But…but you’re so…happy all the time.”

  “Pardon?”

  “My mother’s depression. A friend told me it was because my father was a non-angel, so her wings passed to me, and with them, all the joy in her life left her.”

  “Oh, poppycock. Whoever told you that was a believer of old wives’ tales. A story to keep angels with angels. Bob is obviously no angel.” Jane snickered at her own joke. “Sure my wings passed to Judy, but that was all. Angels are subject to all the same diseases of the body and mind that non-angels are. I hate to tell you, hon, but your mother suffered from plain old depression. Period. End of story.”

  Cassie poked at the marshmallows that bobbed in her hot chocolate. What surprised her more? That Jane had once been an angel? Or, that she hadn’t caused her mother’s depression?

  Actually, it didn’t matter. She’d been misled. A huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. And her heart.

  She shot out of the chair and hugged her friend.

  “I gotta go. Take your time,” she said, practically flying out of the house. She would have flown if she could have. Another myth about angels.

  Her poor little car struggled to start in the bitter cold. Twice in one week, with very little chance to warm up either time—her car was letting her know that it was not happy.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. She banged the brass knocker against the door.

  She glanced over her shoulder. His SUV sat in the driveway.

  She had tried to ignore her feelings for Fraser because of her belief that loving a non-angel would eventually cause her unhappiness. But she knew better now. Thank you, Jane. She wanted to share the good news with Fraser.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Her foot beat an impatient staccato on the welcome mat.

  Maybe he’s avoiding you.

  Hopefully it was nothing worse than that.

  He wouldn’t do anything drastic, would he?

  Panic started to take hold.

  The locked clicked, and the door opened.

  She released a sigh of relief.

  Messy and a little rumpled, Fraser looked neither depressed nor neglected.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hey. How are you doing?” Why couldn’t she read people like Jane could?

  “Not too bad. Come in,” he said. “I’m just in the middle of something.”

  She follow
ed him along a narrow hall filled with boxes. Thick, dark baseboards and wide door frames adorned walls painted varying shades of tans and yellows.

  Joe’s office—or what she assumed used to be his office—held a large desk, a corner bookcase, and several photos of Joe in his hockey days. Two uncomfortable looking chairs had been pushed against the wall while ledgers and papers lay scattered in a circle. Fraser plopped to the floor in the center.

  “What’s all this for,” she asked, fanning her arms out at the mess before her.

  “I’m looking through some of Joe’s papers.”

  “Some? It looks like an explosion at a paper factory.”

  He glanced round at the piles as if seeing the mess for the first time. “Matt and Daniel asked me to look into a few things.”

  “And the boxes?” Cassie asked, glancing back to the hall.

  “They asked me to start packing as well. I guess they want to sell the house while the market is good.”

  “Where will you live?”

  His blank expression said he hadn’t thought about it. He reached for a pile of papers stacked precariously on the corner of the desk.

  “It’s getting late,” he said. “I’ve got to get this finished before class.”

  “Fraser, you need to take some time. You need to grieve for Joe. He’s your father almost as much as he is theirs. And…and you just found out about being a witch. You’ve got some big issues to deal with.”

  His eyes were down. Was he reading the papers in his lap, or thinking about what she said?

  “And where are Matt and Daniel? Why aren’t they helping?”

  “They work. Matt has a family.”

  “And you have school. And hockey. And…this.” She waved her arms again at the mess.

  “I don’t mind helping.”

  “You’re not helping. You’re doing. It’s time you stopped trying to please everyone else.”

  He looked up at her, hands and papers falling in his lap. “What are you talking about?”

  “You played hockey for Joe. You stayed at home for Joe. You’re majoring in business because of Joe. Now you’re doing all this work for Matt and Daniel. I don’t want to sound heartless, but you need to take time for yourself.”

  And puff, the euphoria from the wonderful news Jane had revealed to her disappeared. Her time here with Fraser had gone nothing like she hoped. She wanted to tell him Jane’s revelation. She wanted to tell him…that she loved him.