The Door in the Hedge
by Lynn K. Hollander
You can e-mail comments and feedback to the author at flieg@socrates.Berkeley.EDU and your comments will be passed on to her.
Chapter 1 - Blessings or Curses
(Go to Chapter 2)
"Hi, Cordelia."
"Willow, hi! What are you doing here?"
"I, we, need to see Angel. Oh, this is my girl friend, Tara McKay, and this is her godmother, Ms. Grove. This is Cordelia Chase."
"Hi. Ooo, is that Armani? I just love Armani."
"How do you do."
"So, Cordelia, you really type and file and everything?"
"Yes, and I'm up to 175 keys a minute, with only a few mistakes. And I haven't erased anything not on purpose lately."
"Cordelia, where is...Willow. Hi."
"Angel," Willow said, then got tongue-tied.
"They need to see you, " Cordelia said, as Willow glanced at Tara, then back at Angel. "This is Tara, and this is Ms. Grove."
"Ann Grove. Thank you for seeing us," the older woman said. "Perhaps this is private."
Angel took note of her for the first time. Her voice was low for a woman, soft, but very full and beautiful. She was barely an inch taller than the blonde girl, much shorter than he was. She wore a silk pantsuit in a green so dark it was almost black, over a lighter green silk turtleneck sweater. She wore no cosmetics, scent or jewelry, except for a single silver earring, in the shape of in a complicated knot. Her skin was pale and untanned, her black hair in a smooth pleat. Her eyes were a bright, clear emerald. She looked at Tara as she finished speaking.
"Cordelia knows all about everything in the business," Angel said.
"But this isn't business. It's private, or at least personal. It's about something I did, or maybe I didn't, and I would rather tell just you first," Willow said.
"Come on downstairs, then."
Downstairs in the living room, the two girls slipped off their back-packs and sat on the couch, holding hands. Angel took the chair in front of them, leaving Ms. Grove to take the chair to his right. Unlike the girls, she carried nothing. Also unlike the girls, she seemed totally at ease. She glanced around his room, her gaze lingering briefly on his book shelves, and then returning to the girls. She settled back in her chair and smiled at Tara, who gulped and looked at Willow.
"Now," Angel prompted, as the silence continued.
"Tara and I are working on our witchcraft together, and we're doing pretty well. I told her about that curse, the one I put back on you just before Buffy killed you that time?" Willow said in a rush, getting faster at the end.
"I remember."
"Tara doesn't think I did."
"I got my soul back somehow."
"But a curse, especially a black curse like the one you had before, is so bad, you can't cast one without damaging your own soul. It gets stained or scarred, you could say. And Willow's soul isn't," Tara said. "I think. And it's important that it not be or that I know about it, if it actually is. I can't do anything about a soul assay, not yet, so I can't find out what I need to know from her."
"But there is a spell that will show us if you're cursed or not," Willow said. "See, I was using the disc Miss Calendar left, I had that head injury and everything was so tense and hurried, with you trying to destroy the world and everything, that I'm not sure if I used the whole spell or just parts of it."
"I think you used it all: I lost my soul temporarily last year and tried to kill Cordelia."
"But that doesn't mean you lost your soul," Willow protested. "I mean it's Cordelia."
"And Wesley."
"Well, he can be very annoying sometimes."
"Willow, I'm glad you cursed me. When I'm like this, at least. If I don't blame you, I don't see that it's anyone else's business. Especially since no one can tell just by looking at you."
"But they can," Tara said. "My aunt will be able to tell as soon as she sees Willow and she is already upset since Willow is Buffy's best friend and I wasn't supposed to get involved with the Slayers and vampires."
"Your family disapproves of vampires?"
"Oh, you never bother us, but Slayers tend to die early and their friends even sooner," Tara said. "And my aunt worries about me."
Angel glanced over at the other adult, hoping she could explain.
Ms. Grove smiled. "Tara's aunt will be able to tell if Willow has cursed anyone," she said.
"Can you?"
"I am not permitted an opinion," Ann Grove said.
As explanations went, that wasn't much help at all, and clearly he wasn't going to get any more from Ms. Grove. There were times when he wished he was alive just so he could sigh patiently. Angel looked back at Willow.
"So can we run the titer? It's a little long, but you don't have to do anything except towards the end and it's not very messy at all," Willow promised.
"All right."
The two girls cleared the coffee table and spread a clean cloth over it, then unpacked their equipment from their backpacks. Ms. Grove went over to the books, selected one, and retired with it to a chair across the room, well away from the girls' bustle. Angel noticed that although she kept out of the way, she also kept a close eye on what Willow and Tara were doing.
The girls were now moving the furniture around, creating a large clear area in the center. In this, they unrolled a long cloth with three circles painted on it, two smaller ones at either end and a slightly larger one in the center. Tara lit a censer and walked around each circle, chanting softly. She returned to the table where Willow was placing something in a mortar. They took turns chanting and grinding, sometimes adding other ingredients. Willow lit two more censers and added the contents of the
mortar to them. Smoke started to rise in heavy clouds. Willow spoke one word. The smoke froze. Willow relaxed.
"OK," she said. "Now the next part. Angel, we need you to stand in the center. Hold this." She handed him a hollow glass ball. "Right hand only, and don't move out of the circle after we start."
"Hold your hand out, please," Tara said. She took a pitcher and basin and rinsed the ball, then dried it and Angel's arm. She took a white cord with knots spaced seemingly randomly along its length and tied the ball to his hand, wrapping it around three times and tying a complicated knot. "Breathe on it, please."
"I can't."
"He is a vampire, Tara. They don't breathe much," Willow said.
"Oh. Yeah. Of course. Ann? Advice, please."
"Angel, examine at the sphere thoroughly and imagine yourself inside it."
"I'm a claustrophobe."
"It's a good thing you don't really sleep in a coffin, isn't it? Imagine a really big sphere, then," Ms. Grove said.
Angel thought Ms. Grove was enjoying all this entirely too much.
"All right," Willow said. "That looks as good as it's going to get."
"Close the circle."
Willow walked three times around Angel, whispering too softly to be heard. Tara tapped the painted circle with a silver wand. The circle started to glow. Willow took the two censers of frozen smoke and stood in the third circle, facing Angel. Tara tapped Willow's circle, then moved behind Angel to stand in the first circle. She tapped her own circle.
"Now."
The smoke started rising out of Willow's censers as she spread her arms wide. Tara watched the smoke, then leveled her wand at Angel. She was speaking, but he couldn't hear her. The two columns of smoke separated from the censers and spiraled around Angel's circle, then around him, like questing serpents. Tara spoke again and the smoke moved over Angel, one column moved up from his feet, the other down from his head. They met at his heart, then traveled together down his right arm and entered the glass ball. It turned blue.
Tara said, "Finis." She stooped to tap her circle. It stopped glowing. She stepped out and released first Willow, then Angel. Giving one tug on the knotted cord, she took the now blue sphere from him.
"No curse," she said.
"I know I have a curse," Angel said.
"Well, you don't. And Willow's soul is fine."
"Is it?" Willow asked. "I mean, really? Should I have been the third circle? Does that skew the spell?"
"It could," Tara admitted. "I hadn't thought of that."
"Why don't you ask Claire," Ms. Grove said. She had left her book on the chair and was standing beside them, her hands in her pockets.
"She'd know," Tara said. "But I don't want her to tell my family about this."
"She's your doctor, she doesn't talk about you to anybody, any more than I do. Angel, will you let me consult a friend? It would be nice to settle this so Tara and Willow can start paying attention to their college studies."
"Sure, I guess. When ..." Angel started to ask, when another woman appeared in the room.
"Now would be best," Ann Grove said. "Claire, this is Angel. Willow may have cursed Angel, which curse he says returns his soul to him--"
"Which I like."
"--and he wants to keep. So this isn't a matter of curse removal, exactly, but we do need to ascertain if Angel is cursed. Tara is concerned with the state of Willow's soul, not only because no one should be practicing black arts without knowing it, but because of what her family might think.
"Angel, this is Claire Galen. She's a healer and curse expert."
"Why did I agree to come to Los Angeles? It's hot here; and dry. The only curse here is yours, Ann. And that's not really a curse, I know. I want tea," Claire said, sitting on the couch. "And tell me what you did, please, Tara."
"I don't know if I have any tea," Angel said, then watched as Ann Grove handed Claire a cup and saucer from a large tray on the coffee table. Except for the blue glass sphere, there was no sign of the magical impedimenta the girls had left there. Instead there were plates of tiny sandwiches and dainty cakes, bowls of
raspberries and cream, two more cups and a large silver bowl serving as an ice bucket.
Ms. Grove handed around cups and plates. The other women took them rather absently, since Tara and Willow were explaining alternately and Claire was listening
intently.
"Excuse me, " Ann Grove cut in. "Claire, can Angel have a cocktail?"
"Sure," Claire said, then returned her attention to Tara.
"You should have something. What you would you like"
"What are my choices?"
"Organic Bloody Mary, vat grown Bloody Mary, both with or without vodka, wine; coffee and tea."
"What's vat grown?"
"Factory farmed blood, it's a commercial product. There's no more onus on it than on any other grocery purchase. After all, the girls had you standing still in that circle for over an hour, and I thought you might be hungry."
"It didn't seem that long. I guess I am."
Ann took a can out of the ice bucket and handed it to Angel. Cambell's Bloody Mary Mix, type AB negative. "Add your own vodka, if you wish; or there's ice water or mineral water, or I can bring in whatever you want." she said. She poured herself a glass from the unlabeled wine bottle in the bucket and settled back in
her chair. "You were very kind to the girls." The wine was white--clear and still.
"I think I owe Willow a lot. Anyway, it's just nice having people around who aren't trying to kill me."
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(Go to Chapter 2)
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