I shrugged and then moaned. “Ouch!” I said as my tattered shirt brushed against my shoulder.
“What? It got you too?” he asked, and before I knew what was happening, he’d turned me around to have a look.
“Damn, man, he… he scratched you.”
“Yeah, really bad. I should get back home and put a poultice on it.”
He looked around, and when he saw the golf cart I used to travel between my cottage and the manor, he moved toward it. “Come on, I can drive you there and walk back. Not that I’ll want to go back inside any time soon. Your house is the cute cottage down by the lake, right?”
I nodded because I could feel the venom beginning to infiltrate my shoulder and knew I wouldn’t make it to the cottage on my own.
“Come on,” he said, drawing me toward the cart. “You’re going pale. Should I call an ambulance?”
I shook my head, the pain getting worse. “No, they can’t fix this. I have what I need at home.”
I had to give him directions. I hated the thought of hitting all the roots and snags along my usual shortcut, but if I didn’t get a poultice on this soon, there would be some real damage to manage.
After what felt like an eternity, we made it to my cottage. Evan had to help me up the front stairs, and I asked him to take me to my solarium.
“Can you help me? I need to do this, but I’m getting too weak,” I admitted. Damn, the spirit had fully intended to causepermanent damage when he attacked me. It was the first time he’d done that.
“Sure,” Evan said, following my directions as I asked him to pull things from the cabinets.
“Okay, now, my mortar and pestle. It’s there on top of the shelf next to the mugwort.”
Evan smirked. “I’m not sure what mugwort is, but it sounds very witchy. Is it this thing here?” he asked, finding the large mortar and pestle right away.
“Yeah, but be careful, it’s really heavy.”
He lifted it off the shelf and brought it to me. I began putting all the ingredients together, but the juniper berries were too hard to grind with my shoulder burning like it was. “I’m sorry, Evan. Can you mash these berries for me?” I asked.
He’d been watching me and immediately picked up the pestle and began doing what I had attempted, grinding the dried berries into a powder.
“Okay, that’s fine,” I said, when he’d ground everything into a nice mixture. Pointing at the shelf next to the sink, I added, “I have some beeswax there. Can you bring that and the little candle next to it here?”
I used the candle to melt the beeswax into the bowl I kept on the table for making poultices, then with Evan’s help, I added the contents of the mortar and began the spell.
“Evan, can you bring me the white fabric from the drawer next to the sink?” I asked. He went through several drawers before finding the material. It was actually just some muslin I kept for when I wanted to make small medicine bags to give as gifts, but I had enough to wrap around my chest and shoulder.
I tested it, and sure enough, it would work as I’d hoped. When I’d tried it on, I could see where the blood had soaked into the muslin, so I knew where to apply the poultice. Evan helped apply it, ever so gently, and secure the makeshift bandage it in place.
“What do you need now?” he asked as I slumped in my chair.
“I need to rest. Sorry, Evan, I’m going to have to sleep this off.”
“Okay, where’s your bedroom?”
“Through there,” I said, pointing, and let him help me. Unfortunately, I only made it to the living room before my legs gave out. “The couch is fine,” I said, and with Evan’s help, I managed to stumble over to it and collapse.
Luckily the poultice was already working. I cast a small protection spell around me just because I knew spirits and magical creatures that were usually benign might be unable to resist a vulnerable magic wielder. More than a few witches had learned the hard way and been attacked when they were most vulnerable. Feeling confident I’d done all I could, I fell asleep.
I’d seen the man in my dreams before, but never so clearly. He danced around the room to the music, laughing when people told him a joke or said something silly.
He was the star of the show, at least this one. A woman… she wasn’t his mother, but for some reason I could feel they were close… someone like a mother, smiled and winked at him. Then a young Asian man came up behind her, whispered in her ear, and she laughed.
When she gestured toward the man I’d seen before, the two men locked eyes, and I saw all I needed to understand the love these two men felt for one another.
The commotion from the dining area caught everyone’s attention, and they all turned as he came in—the old man whose evil spirit had attacked me earlier.
