The Angel Stone

CHAPTER TEN

Nan Stewart was right about the nephilim lockdown of Halloween. In the next few weeks, as the leaves changed and the air sharpened and the local stores put out displays of Halloween candy and children’s costumes and my neighbors decorated their doorways with jack-o’-lanterns and leering skeletons, my in-box was peppered with emails from our dean, prohibiting Halloween parties on campus. The emails cited incidents at other colleges of razor-spiked apples and rampant vandalism and studies linking campus violence to the watching of horror movies.

My students grumbled and complained, but no one wanted to risk getting summoned to the dean’s office. The students who had been called in—for breaking curfew or missing classes—came out cowed and nervous. It seemed that Dean Laird had a way of targeting a student’s weakness, whether that meant a call home, a threat to financial aid, or the refusal of a recommendation to law school. Most disturbing, some students formed a group to back up the dean’s recommendations—the Committee for Positive Change at Fairwick. Unsurprisingly, it was led by Adam Sinclair, but it also included plenty of other students, even, I was shocked to see, Scott Wilder. When I asked Scott about it, he shrugged and said there was really good food at the meetings, which he needed because the food at the cafeteria was worse than ever this year.

Soheila and I went to the cafeteria one day to make sure that the students weren’t being poisoned. We were served a bland assortment of overcooked and oversauced food—chicken à la king with soggy green beans, mayonnaise-drenched lettuce, orange Jell-O, and watered-down fruit punch.

“It’s not poisoned,” Soheila said, making a face as she sampled the fare, “but it’s as though all the flavor and life has been sucked out of the food. The body might be sustained by eating this … swill, but not the spirit. No wonder they all go to the Alpha House dinners.”

When I walked past Alpha House, I could smell the intoxicating aromas wafting out of it. Not only had the Alphas managed to clear out my stink bomb, but they had also erected a layer of wards protecting the house from any of my spells. I watched helplessly as students trooped into the nephilim’s stronghold, but I stayed out on my porch—no matter how cold or how late it got—until each and every girl who went into Alpha House came out. I even tried calling up Duncan’s office and complaining that they were breaking the no-gathering rule.

“Didn’t you read the email? Meetings approved by my office as sanctioned college activities may meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays between the hours of six and ten P.M.”

“I guess I missed that one,” I said. “Can I get approved to hold student meetings at my house?”

“Of course,” he replied magnanimously. “What kind of meeting do you want to hold?”

“I’ve been thinking of starting a folklore club,” I said, making it up on the spot. “To explore local traditions and the folklore of other cultures. We could have food from the different cultures we were studying …” As I spooled off more activities, I started to think it was actually a good idea. I must have talked long enough that Duncan Laird got tired of hearing my voice.

“Fine,” he said abruptly. “That sounds harmless enough. You have my permission.”

I thanked him and got off the phone before he could change his mind. Half an hour later I had sent out emails to all my students, announcing the first meeting of the Fairwick Folklore Society for the following week. First order of business—exploring the folklore and traditions of Halloween.

Once I’d launched the folklore club (Nicky Ballard and Flonia Rugova volunteered to run it), I concentrated on the next order of business—gathering a witches’ circle. I’d been introduced to the witches of Fairwick this past summer, but since then Liz Book had gone to Faerie and the circle had disbanded with the defections of Lester Hanks and Ann Chase. These days the closest thing I had to a mentor to teach me how to use my powers was Frank Delmarco. I asked Frank to go with me to talk to the remaining witches in Fairwick who hadn’t aligned themselves with the nephilim. We met on a Saturday afternoon in mid-October at Fair Grounds, the town coffee bar. I ordered a pumpkin spice latte and an apple cider donut from Leon Botwin, hipster barista and witch.

“I’m going on break in five minutes,” Leon told us as he steamed the milk for my latte and served Frank an austere espresso. “Moondance should be here soon, but Tara called to say that she can’t make it.”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “Do you think she’s gone over to the other side?”

“Might have.” Leon shook his head as he wiped down the brass fittings of the espresso machine. “Her husband lost his job and she’s expecting another kid. And her husband nominated two new members for the Lions Club who looked suspiciously nephilitic.”

“You belong to the Lions Club?” I asked, more surprised at that than the possibility that the club had been infiltrated by nephilim. In his skinny black jeans, scruffy goatee, and black Converse high-tops, Leon hardly looked the Lions Club type.

“I bought Fair Grounds when Dory Browne had to leave town this summer. It was either that or let it become a Starbucks. Anyway, now that I’m a small-business owner, I thought I should join. The problem is …” He looked around to see if anyone was close enough to overhear, suspiciously eyeing an old man examining the chalkboard menu, and then leaned over the counter to whisper, “There were so many empty spots after the summer migration that there are a lot of new members. These two guys that Tara’s husband nominated just bought Browne’s Realty. They’ve got that tall Nordic look going on, and one of the first things they did was veto the town’s Halloween parade.”

“But that’s a tradition!” I objected. Every year on the afternoon of Halloween, Main Street was closed to traffic and the stores gave out candy to trick-or-treaters. The elementary school organized a costume parade that ended in the town square, where apple cider and donuts were served.

“I hear that Tara has also organized the town PTA to prohibit the elementary school parade. Haven’t you seen the buttons?”

“Buttons?”

Leon pointed his scraggly goatee toward a tall gray-haired woman. She was dressed in a long burgundy wool coat and a floppy crocheted hat decorated with a button of a jack-o’-lantern with a line drawn across it.

When she caught me looking at her, she pursed her lips and shook her finger at me. “The new pastor at my church gave a most enlightening talk. Do you know that Halloween was originally a satanic mass and that the ancient druids sacrificed children on their bonfires? Here …” She dug into a large crocheted bag and handed me a printed pamphlet entitled “The Devil’s Night.” “That’ll tell you all you need to know. That’s all I’m giving if any children come to my door this year. I’ll have a nonfat decaf latte, young man, and make sure the milk is fresh.”

Frank and I took our coffees to a table while Leon filled the woman’s order. As we waited, I noticed a few other people in the café wearing banned-jack-o’-lantern buttons. I was beginning to think the whole town had turned against Halloween when Moondance came in, wearing a black T-shirt proclaiming BLESSED SAMHAIN in orange lettering beneath a witch silhouetted against an enormous orange moon. Since Moondance was not a small woman, the moon loomed large as she approached us. I felt a moment’s trepidation. Moondance had been sharply critical of my inclusion in the witches’ circle this summer. I was an untrained novice whose erratic energy had thrown off the circle twice, and in the end I hadn’t been able to stop the door from closing. I was expecting at the very least a sharp-tongued drubbing, but instead I got a bone-crushing hug.

“Thank the Goddess you haven’t gone over to the dark side!” Moondance held me out at arm’s length, hands gripped on either forearm, and gave me a shake. Her frizzy orange hair wafted around her head like dried chrysanthemum blooms, and her pale-blue eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “And you …” She let me go and turned to Frank. “I knew a Delmarco would never abandon the cause. Your grandmother would be proud of you.”

“Yours, too, Moser,” Frank said, stepping into Moondance’s embrace and thumping her soundly on the back. “Glad to have you on our team.”

“I’m afraid it’s not much of a team,” Leon said, handing Moondance an algae-colored shake as he sat down at our table. “Four is not enough for a circle.”

“But we need a circle …” I looked around the café to make sure no one was listening, but all the other customers had left. Noticing that, as well, Leon nodded at Moondance.

“Was that an aversion spell?” he asked.

She nodded, her rust-hued hair bobbing cheerfully. “Home-burner spell. The citizens of Fairwick were all suddenly struck with an overwhelming conviction that they’d left something on the stove, forgot to turn off the gas, or didn’t leave water out for their cats. We should be able to talk in peace for half an hour. No time to waste, though. Tell me what you need the circle for.”

I relayed to Leon and Moondance what Nan Stewart had told me about the hallow door.

“Huh,” Leon said, stroking his goatee. “You are the door? How metaphysical.”

“It’s also confusing,” I said. “I’m not sure how to ‘open myself,’ and she says I still need to do it on Halloween.”

“That part makes sense,” Moondance said. “Samhain is the time of the year when the barriers between worlds, between living and dead, between seen and unseen, are thinnest. The hinge of the year, some Wiccans call it.”

“A hinge on which a door may open,” Frank said. “Especially if we have a doorkeeper who’s made a blood bond to the door.”

All three looked at me. “But I can’t do it on my own. Nan Stewart says I need a witches’ circle in the grove and a wider circle of observance in the village. Halloween, she said, is only as powerful as its observance.”

“That’s why the nephilim are trying to shut it down,” Leon said. “They don’t want Callie to open the door.”

“Which, I’d say, is reason enough to open it,” Moondance said, “but if we’re going to summon a circle, I’d like to be clear on why.” Her eyes, no longer cloudy with tears, now sharp as tacks, flicked to me. “So far I’ve heard a lot about the hallow door, Callie, but if you don’t mind me saying, how do we know it’s not just a way for you to get back together with your incubus boyfriend?”

Frank made a sound that I knew was preparation to launch into my defense, but I held my hand up to stop him. “Fair question,” I said. I felt the blood rush to my face at the memory of my erotic dreams. They’d become more urgent as the nights lengthened toward Halloween, as if William Duffy knew he was running out of time. “Nan said that when her village in Scotland was invaded by the nephilim, the doorkeeper was able to use the angel stone to destroy them. And she says the angel stone is still in Ballydoon.” I didn’t mention that Nan had been a little vague on that point, but Moondance sensed my uncertainty and pounced.

“So we’re all supposed to risk our lives on the gamble that you’ll find your way back to a seventeenth-century Scottish village and find this stone that might destroy the nephilim?”

“Risk your lives? I’m not asking—”

“You are,” Leon said. “The nephilim don’t want this door opened. They’ll try to stop you. The circle’s to protect you while you open the door, but the nephilim will try to break through it. If the circle breaks, we’ll be at their mercy. We’d need powerful, experienced witches, and I only see three of them here.”

I began to object, but he stopped me. “You don’t count. You’ll be in the center of the circle. We need at least six to make a circle to protect you. Where are we going to find three seasoned witches by Halloween to risk their lives against the nephilim?”

“Right here.”

We all looked up, startled by the sound of a woman’s voice at the door. We hadn’t heard the door open—or the bell on it jangle—but a woman of average height stood silhouetted against the bright glare of sunlight coming in from the street. There were two more figures behind her. Another triad, I thought, which didn’t bode well, especially when the first woman stepped forward out of the glare and I recognized her as my grandmother.