They’d found the hole in my theory.
“Maybe because magic is harder to do from a distance?” Mike suggested.
I remembered how Steve had needed to come with me to the bus rental office in order to maintain the face altering spell on me. “Yeah, Steve talked about that too. But why couldn’t they simply make more witches work together to help boost their spells to cover greater distances?” I was thinking out loud here. Surely the government could have put together a whole army of descendants and outcasts to work for them by now. All they would have to do is offer legal immunity and freedom from the internment camps to get the witches’ cooperation. Some might still refuse to attack fellow magic users. But others would do whatever it took to protect their families.
What wouldn’t a desperate magic user do in the name of saving their family?
Look at Steve. He hadn’t hesitated to kill that cop. And he would have gladly dragged Cassie, and maybe Pamela too, right out of this village for their protection if we hadn’t stopped him and convinced him they were happy here.
A guy like that wouldn’t hesitate to take a deal from the government. Even if it meant having to attack a fellow outcast.
I looked past the healers and Mike, through the open bedroom door and kitchen area to the living room where Steve still sat at his wife’s side. Steve looked like the walking dead. Almost as bad as the zombies in my nightmares a few weeks back.
“Attacking Clann people from a distance would take a lot of energy, wouldn’t it?” I muttered.
Dragon Lady nodded. “Much easier to do it up close. Do you think they’ve tracked us to this area?”
I didn’t answer her, still following my own train of thought. “Could you attack several people at once if you were physically close to them?” I couldn’t seem to stop staring at Steve, my thoughts spiraling down into an ever darker abyss. But this idea had a problem too. Even if the government had somehow gotten to him and forced him to help them, he never would have used magic on his own wife.
Would he?
“Yes, you could attack multiple people close to you, but it would leave you constantly drained,” she said.
Bud had gotten sick only minutes after Steve had...
After he had tried and failed to convince his wife to leave the village with him and Cassie.
What if the government had nothing to do with this? What if it was all Steve’s doing just so he could get his way?
But surely Steve wouldn’t make his own wife sick just to convince her that staying in the village wasn’t safe for their family.
I remembered how at one point I’d been desperate enough to toss Tarah over my shoulder and nearly kidnap her for her own safety.
Mike frowned. He looked over his shoulder, following my line of sight. Then his head whipped back to face me, his eyes wide. “You’re not thinking...”
“Get Cassie,” I said.
Mike left, coming back a few minutes later with the little girl in tow. She nearly started crying when she saw her mother lying unconscious on a floor pallet. Her father seemed to be sleeping while still sitting upright. He never reacted to his daughter’s presence or her soft whimpers.
Dragon Lady surprised me, pulling Cassie to her huge chest and patting her tiny back while murmuring soft sounds of comfort, promising the kid that her momma would be better soon. All lies if I was wrong and we couldn’t figure this out.
After a few minutes, Cassie calmed down. I squatted in front of her so we could whisper without her dad hearing. “Cassie, you told me you can smell magic when someone near you is doing it, right?”
She nodded.
“Do you remember what your daddy’s magic spells smell like?”
Her mouth turned up in a wobbly smile. “Like Christmas!”
“You mean like Christmas cookies or pies?” I asked, needing her to be sure.
“No, like a Christmas tree.” Her eyes darted up and around to each of us. “Why?”
I shook my head, everything inside me hardening. “Just curious, sweetie. Thank you. You want to go sit by your momma now?”
Cassie nodded and carefully made her way around the sleeping patients to her mother, sitting on the floor opposite her father.
“That’s still not proof,” Mike said. “Everything smells like pine trees around here. Outside, the logs, the fireplaces...”
“Which also makes it the perfect cover,” I said, feeling a slow burn building in my stomach and chest.
“But why would he make his own wife sick?” Dragon Lady asked.
“Because trying to convince a hardheaded woman that she needs saving can make a man desperate.”
I’d even sympathized with Steve’s attempts to convince his wife. But unlike Steve, I’d turned to other ways to try and save the woman I loved, like building a place for Tarah to stay out of contact with possible carriers of the virus.
While at my grandma’s house, Pamela had mentioned once that Steve was a Wiccan and for him magic was also a religion.
“What do Wiccans believe about karma and consequences to their actions?” I asked.
“They believe in the rule of three, that whatever magic they do will come back to them times three,” Mike said. “Gary was a Wiccan. He was always talking about it. He also believed there are spells that can bind their abilities or enhance them.”
Bingo. “Bind them how?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels with a frown. “Well, I remember him telling me something about mirrors to reflect a witch’s actions back on themselves. And I think he said red yarn or cords wrapped around a photo of the target while saying something about binding them from harming themselves or others can also do the trick.”
“Steve would probably know all of that too.” I looked from Mike to the older woman with a grim smile. “Why don’t we test him? If he believes his abilities can be bound with a spell and he’s not the one behind this…”
“Then the patients won’t show any change,” Mike muttered with a slow nod.
And if he was behind the illness, Tarah should immediately start to improve.
“I’ll get the supplies,” I said. “You two keep him here.”
I forced myself to walk slowly through the kitchen and living room to the front door. But the minute the door shut behind me, I leaped down the steps and over to the other houses, trying two before I found several handheld mirrors and a ball of red crochet yarn.