Serpent's Kiss
Page 14

Henry continued the interrogation. "Well, what about an internship somewhere in the interim? Have you considered that? Internships are marvelous, aren't they, Hilly?"
"Yes, Daddy. I enjoyed the one I did at Vogue this past - "
"Well?" cut in Henry, glaring inquisitively at Freddie.
"No, I haven't looked into an internship ... but ..." he replied sheepishly, searching for the right words.
"A complete layabout in other words," Mr. Liman muttered under his breath as he began knifing the enormous lamb shank on the plate before him.
"Hmm," said Hollis, nodding, as if she were giving careful consideration to what her husband was saying. It appeared as if she were merely going through the motions of sociability and was somewhere else entirely.
Gert laughed again, which no one paid attention to, and Cassandra appeared to be nodding out, like a he**in addict, her fork hovering over the edge of her plate.
Freddie's pride was rattled. He looked to Hilly for help, but she only stared back at him with panic in her eyes. Though Freddie did not have human wealth, he was a god, the god of the sea and the sun, able to make crops grow, flowers blossom, arid land turn fertile, oases rise out of the desert. He created beauty all over the world. Conducting his own legal defense in his mind, Freddie began to notice that the suit he was wearing had begun to fade and this added to his anxiety. He needed to wrap things up. He knew about love and emotion and passion, and he wasn't about to let Hilly's father tell him otherwise.
"Mr. Liman, Henry, I know I don't have a job or any prospects. I may look poor to you since I currently live in a run-down motel. But the truth of the matter is that I have fallen in love with your daughter, and all I know is that ... well, I love her."
Here Hilly smiled at him and nodded encouragingly.
"Yes, I love Hilly." Freddie stood. "And I'm willing to do whatever it takes - whatever it is you want me to do - to have your daughter's hand!"
Everyone at the table had suddenly come to attention, staring at Freddie, mouths open wide. Even the drowsy Swan had awoken, and Mrs. Liman appeared quite sober suddenly.
"My dear boy," said Henry. "Did you go and change your clothes while we weren't looking? Weren't you wearing a suit just before? A gray ...?"
Freddie stared down at himself, and to his horror saw that the serious outfit had expired, and now he stood in his black T-shirt, torn Levi's, and humble Converse that were terribly scuffed.
Mr. Liman let out a bellowing laugh, so loud and terrifying it appeared to make the table and walls shake. When he finally collected himself, he said, "I do love a good magic trick. Excellent indeed, Freddie! A very original way to request my daughter's hand in marriage. But you will have to prove yourself further - a real job with real prospects, although you did very much catch me off guard. I have always had a fondness for magic, I must say." He tittered to himself, shaking his head as he observed Freddie with a puzzled look.
At that everyone around the table clapped delightedly, although Freddie did not take a bow. Instead, he sat back down in his seat and sulked.
Chapter twenty-one
Like a Virgin
"Are you sure there's no one out there?" Ingrid stared anxiously at Hudson, whom she had asked to stay late and meet her in the office once the library was closed and the last patrons had left.
"Well, I'd say the library is as empty as a fourteenth-century European village ravaged by the bubonic plague. It's tantamount to the black death out there."
"Oh, good," said Ingrid.
"But no infectious dead bodies in the aisles, which is also good."
Ingrid tittered, then her face turned serious. "We shouldn't joke about such things."
"No, we shouldn't," agreed Hudson with an exaggerated serious face.
"Have a seat and sorry to keep you late." Ingrid sat down in her swivel chair.
"For you, not a problem, my dear." Hudson took the seat across from her desk, one he was quite comfortable in. It was clear he loved their private little tete-a-tetes. He crossed his legs and leaned forward, an elbow on one knee, face cupped in his palm. "What's up, Miss Ingrid?"
Ingrid looked around, steeled herself, and looked him directly in the eye. "Well, remember how you said you were my old reliable friend, and you would be here when I needed you?"
"Yes, of course," said Hudson. "I'm your Old Faithful. Here to spout wisdom and truth."
"I need you, but I don't know how to put it, and you have to promise not to laugh once I tell you."
He laughed. "Okay, I just got it out of the way. Have out with it, Ingrid."
"I guess there is only one way of putting it, really," Ingrid hedged.
"Yes?" Hudson smiled to help bring his friend out of her shell. He knew she had a tendency to get nervous, shifty, and was prone to making a mountain out of a molehill.
"Well, I'm a virgin, Hudson, to put it bluntly," she said, bravely forging ahead.
"Oh!" He was staring at her, wide-eyed, and he did not laugh at all. "I see ..."
"God, this is awkward," remarked Ingrid. "This is worse than talking to my mother."
"No, no. Sorry, you just caught me off guard." He looked down and squared his tie, flicked at a bit of lint on his suit. He looked up. "This was just the last thing I expected to hear. You mean to say that you never?"
"Never," said Ingrid quickly. She bit her lip.
"But you're, like ..." Hudson began, then let the incomplete sentence dangle there. He stared curiously at her.
She stared back. "You're starting to make me uncomfortable, Hudson."
"I'm sorry. It's fine, really, really. It's just that in this day and age, I am a bit ... How to say? Shocked? I didn't think there were any virgins left!"
"I understand," said Ingrid with finality, fixing the papers on her desk.
"I'm sorry. You're a virgin. Okay. So?" He put out a hand, and it rested there in the air between them, then he quickly drew it back to his lap. "What do you want to know? There's not much to it, really, especially with your ... um ... kind." He continued to watch her pound the stack of paper upright then sideways on the desk.
"What kind is that?"
"The breeder kind. With my people, it's not quite as simple, although it can be. It's just a matter of ..." He giggled and did not finish his sentence.
Ingrid looked up at him from behind her glasses. "I mean, I understand the mechanics of the thing. I'm not totally clueless, nor totally naive, Hudson; it's just, I haven't really done anything except a little heavy petting."
"Petting? As in a zoo? What is this, the fifties? You want me to ... what?"
"I don't know, Hudson. Would you stop looking at me like that! I don't know, explain things a little. The ins and outs ..."
They both stared at each other, and then burst out laughing. "The ins and outs," he echoed.
"It's not like I'm asking you to sleep with me or anything like that," Ingrid said dryly.
"Of course not. You're perfectly lovely but far from my type. I'm sorry, Ingrid. It's just you're so discreet otherwise. I never imagined you'd ever talk about your" - he coughed - "sex life."
"Well, that's because I don't have one," she said. She hadn't seen Matt since that heady make out session in his car on their second first date because he'd had to go out of town for several days.
"We could look at a Cosmo. I can explain the articles ... Is there a reason this is coming up now?" he ventured, with a raise of his eyebrow. "Things with Officer Noble are coming to a head, so to speak?"
"Stop making bad jokes!" Ingrid laughed. "And I've read a lot of Cosmos already."
"I think I need a Cosmo. You know, a cocktail, for this conversation. So, how far have you two crazy kids gotten?"
"I don't know ... Second base I guess?"
"Right, the petting zoo. Well great, that's great. It's a start. Baby steps," said Hudson as he clapped his hands. "This is truly great news, my dear. First off, that's much, much further than Caitlin ever got with him, you know? Okay!"
Hudson stood up and paced the office frantically. "We need to prepare for this, Ingrid. Maybe one of Freya's potions? You know, just to loosen you up." He made a wavy gesture with his hands. "Do you have any sexy lingerie? A girl needs those." He snapped his fingers. "We could order some stuff online! Or maybe Freya can help you with that. Take you shopping in Manhattan? That girl certainly knows how to doll herself up." He had turned into a dervish, whirling this way and that in the office, pointing a finger at Ingrid every time a new idea occurred to him.
"That all sounds great" - Ingrid nodded - "but I was wondering if ... I don't know ... I mean, is there other stuff we could do ... that he and I could do ... without doing ... you know, it. I don't think I'm quite ready yet ... but surely we could sort of ... you know ... try other stuff?"
"Other stuff?" The eyebrow shot up again.
Ingrid thought she would die in a puddle of embarrassment.
"I've got it!" he said, pointing at the computer.
"What?"
"Porn!"
"Pornography? We're going to look at pornography? Hudson - no." She shook her head. "Just ... no!"
"Aw, come on, there's nothing like the Internet to give you ideas on 'other stuff.'" He smirked.
Ingrid sighed and let him click away on the computer. She had come to him in her hour of need, and like it or not, Hudson was finding a way to come through. She had to trust him since this was all, well, virgin territory to her.
Chapter twenty-two
That Loving Feeling
Norman finally explained what he had been trying to get across in his last phone message to Joanna. He wanted things to be peaceful between them. He admitted he had been at fault, had acted the coward during the Salem trials, and added that if she would let him, he would like to make it up to her. He knew this was a mild way of putting it, of course, but there was no other way of saying it. In the meantime, however, he asked for leniency and wanted permission to begin reestablishing a relationship with his daughters. Joanna had settled it over the phone when she had returned his call, agreeing that he could come for a visit. That was where they would start for now: give things a test drive.
Now Norman, Freya, and Ingrid sat on the couch before a crackling fire in Joanna's living room, having their first intimate family powwow since the library fund-raiser that summer, while Joanna hid out in her study poring over various ancient books on seid. She had been searching under the topic "rituals of necromancy." She still hadn't decoded the message the spirit left and was on to the next order of business while she took a break from all the letters of the runes pieces swirling around in her brain.
She had arrived at an impasse. From the runes, she knew the spirit wished to communicate with her, but she hadn't found anyone in the glom, so she needed to seek a new approach. She could travel to the Kingdom of the Dead and try to garner gossip or hearsay on this particular spirit's whereabouts, but doing so might bring many a false lead. Resentful of their deaths, new spirits often acted out and could be spiteful and deceptive. She didn't want to waste time on a fool's errand, following leads to dead ends. If this were an older spirit, she might have to appeal to Helda to release it, and Joanna wished to bypass the Queen of the Dead altogether if she could.
The books recommended performing a ritual on the gravesite of the deceased in question. She would have to return to the mound in the woods to do so. Drawing the standard circle around the site would be required, which could be done with salt or stones. All four elements - earth, air, fire, and water - would have to be represented in the ritual to achieve balance in the magic and prevent it from going amiss. Some of the rites included recipes listing sacrificial blood as an ingredient, but Joanna found such a practice outmoded. Wearing garments belonging to the dead person was yet another suggestion, albeit morbid and, in this case, impossible.
For the rite, she would bake unleavened black bread and uncork the homemade grape juice she had made from the concord grapes picked in September from her garden. Consuming such foods symbolized embracing decay and lifelessness, a gesture of compassion toward the spirit itself, becoming one with it, so to speak.
She reread the section in the Hrolf Kraki's Saga, involving one Skuld, a half-elfin, half-Valkyrie princess skilled in the art of witchcraft, an unconquerable warrior but a rather merciless one, as she wouldn't let any of her soldiers rest, bringing them immediately back from the dead as soon as they'd fallen in battle so they would continue fighting. She glanced at "The Spell of Groa" in The Poetic Edda to see how Svipdag raised his mother, Groa, whose advice he needed on how to handle the wild-goose chase his stepmother had sent him on - the hand of the fair Mengloth. There wasn't much there but the following: "Awake, Groa, awake! From the door of the dead, I wake you." She would need to come up with a better incantation than that, so she continued searching.
The phone in the living room rang. It was the only landline in the house. Annoyed by the interruption, she walked into the living room, but by the time she had gotten there, Freya had answered the call.
Her daughter covered the mouthpiece with a hand and crinkled her nose at Joanna. "It's that man. The one who was here the other day? He says his name is Harold." She grimaced.
This is awkward, thought Joanna, taking the phone from Freya, who went and sat back on the couch with Norman. Ingrid flanked him on his other side. They looked cozy those three, complicit, and Joanna caught herself envying them, feeling left out.