The Price Guide to the Occult(63)

“Miss Blackburn, do you understand the purpose of your visit today?” the woman asked.

Visit? Is that what this is? Nor thought. “Uh, I’m guessing you want to know if I’m a witch.” She paused. “Like my mother.”

The woman blinked at Nor furiously. “We already know you’re a witch,” she said, practically hissing. The word was a foul thing in her mouth that she had to spit out. “What we are interested in learning is if your — abilities pose a threat to the safety and security of others, like your mother’s did.”

“All I can do is tell you when it’s going to stop raining.” Nor shrugged as sheepishly as she could. “Which should be soon.”

“So you can predict the weather?” The woman set the tablet down and folded her hands demurely. “How marvelous,” she said flatly.

Outside, sheets of rain pounded against the windowpane as an onslaught of storm clouds, dark and ominous, rolled across the sky. “It’s been raining like this for almost a week straight,” the officer scoffed. “It doesn’t look to me like it’s letting up anytime soon.”

The woman ignored the officer. “Miss Blackburn, can you be more specific? What exactly do you mean by ‘soon’?”

“I mean it’s already stopped.”

A look out the window confirmed what had seemed impossible only a moment earlier. The sky was clear, and the setting sun was blooming like fire across the darkening sky.

“What the —” sputtered the officer.

“Is there anything else you can predict? Droughts? Earthquakes?” The man standing in the corner spoke for the first time. He was looking at Nor with interest, his blue-white teeth flashing at her like the Cheshire cat. Shit.

Nor shook her head. “Only rain,” she answered, making up her responses as she went. “And I’m wrong most of the time.”

“You weren’t wrong this time.” There was something particularly hungry about the way he was looking at her.

Nor gulped. “I got lucky.” She’d seen this look before: a hungry, greedy look, like the face of one with an unquenchable thirst.

“That’s not luck,” grumbled Officer Placid. “It’s unnatural, is what it is.”

The man in the corner came closer. “What’s your radius? Could you, for example, predict a tsunami in the Philippines?”

Nor paused. “Not unless I was in the Philippines,” she finally said.

“So to be clear,” the woman interrupted. “You can predict the weather. Can you, in any way, control the weather?”

“Oh, no,” Nor said, shaking her head. “I can just tell you when it’s going to rain or stop raining, which isn’t much of a party trick around here.” The officer did not look convinced. “My mother always considered me a great failure,” she added seriously.

“Well, that’s good news for us,” the woman said humorlessly. “And for you.” She shared a look with Officer Placid.

“It’s like I said,” Nor added as meekly as possible. “I’m wrong most of the time.”

The man in the corner stared at her for a long minute before turning his attention back to the window. The rain had begun to fall again.

Judd was waiting for Nor outside under the awning of the police station entrance. The rain made satisfying plopping noises on the canvas. Someone’s lost umbrella sat in a puddle near her feet.

Her grandmother’s face remained as stoic as ever, but Nor caught a slight tremor in her hand when she pulled out her rosewood pipe.

“What happened?” Nor murmured.

“They heard I was a healer,” Judd said. “Seems they learned that from a few of our neighbors.”

Nor’s mouth dropped open in shock. All those people Judd had helped — how could they betray her like that? And so easily? “What did you do?”

“Not much else I could do,” Judd finally answered. “I healed a woman’s headache.”

The rain blew over Judd’s face, pooling in the deep purple bags under her eyes and the crevices etched along the sides of her mouth. She looked — old. Why did that scare Nor more than anything else that had happened that day? Even more than whatever it was that woman had been typing on that tablet of hers? Even more than the Cheshire-cat man?

“And?” Nor held her breath, praying that the pain hadn’t come out as something alarming.

Judd rubbed her temples. “Rose petals.”

Nor let out a sigh of relief. “It could have been worse.”

It took Judd a long time to respond. “I hate to say it,” she finally said, “but I think we’d better prepare ourselves for when it does get worse.”

“What do you mean?” Nor asked.

“There are a lot of scared people out there right now, girlie,” Judd said quietly. “And it’s my opinion that nothing good has ever come of actions driven by fear.”

Judd lumbered out into the rain toward Reuben’s truck, which was waiting for them across the street. Nor moved to follow, but paused to pick up the broken and discarded umbrella. She absentmindedly ran a hand over it, repairing it instantly. Someone could find use for it in all this rain. She was looking for a place to leave it when she sensed movement in one of the windows behind her. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Someone was watching her. Nor dropped the umbrella and darted out from under the awning. Not until she was safe in Reuben’s warm truck did Nor dare to look back.