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***
Chapter 1
Inheriting a lot of money from a complete stranger is not
something that happens too often. Not outside of badly written stories, anyway.
It happened to Ninah, though, and all she had done was drag an old man out of
his car after he had been hit head-on by a big, bad-assed truck which had taken
off from the scene. The small, expensive car had begun to flame while people
gathered around and watched. A few did have the sense to call 911, but no one
went near the flames including the two boys who recorded the scene on their
cell phones, not a thought of concern for the old man entering their
self-absorbed heads. All they knew was that they were getting a cool video to
upload. Ninah didn't think twice; she ran to the car.
Once away from the flames, several men reached out to take
the old man from her to the curb and away from the burning car. In shock, the
old man looked at Ninah and told her that no one had ever done anything like
that for him in his entire life. Without thinking about it, Ninah gave her
information to the police and went home. Two months later, a lawyer was calling
her to attend a Will reading. Of course the old man's family argued, outraged
that a total stranger would be getting their money. Perhaps it wouldn’t have
been an issue if the old man’s heart attack didn’t come so soon after almost
being run over by a Mac truck. Of course, he was old, but Ninah’s totem was
making warning signs. She always listened to her totem. Well, usually….
Ninah worked for a non-profit with lots of rich sponsors.
She called one of the lawyers she was friendly with. It took eighteen months
for the relatives, some of whom were under suspicion of ordering the car
accident if not the heart attack, to accept the bargain that Ninah and Mel came
up with –the family keeps all property, she gets the bank accounts and stocks.
She then sold the stocks to the employees of the businesses at a fraction of
their worth; the poorest of the employees were offered stock as payment for
house painting, car washing and lawn mowing. The howls of outrage could be
heard from coast to coast. Mel informed her that she was suddenly one of the
top ten richest people in the world. Ninah went shopping and bought the newest
CSI box.
After paying bills, making a few generous donations, making
sure her mother was comfortable, and putting money into an account for her
brother and sister’s college fund, Ninah got out of Dodge. Mainly
with the excuse of fleeing the out-stretched hands and cameras. Once her
‘friends’ discovered what had happened, almost all of them showed up with a
sob-story. She helped a couple that she knew well enough to know they really
did need a little help, paid for the pizza at a Full Moon gathering, and then
hopped onto a plane for Germany where she spent a week with a cousin she hadn’t
seen in a while. He was stationed there.
Of all her cousins, Ninah was closest to Rob and Charlie,
fraternal twins who were also Pagan, although their very Baptist parents didn’t
know it. Thankfully, the military didn’t send both men out at the same time.
While Charlie was currently stationed in
Charlie, however, needed her support in
Rob and Charlie found it funny that the gods chose to bestow
money on Ninah. Ninah wasn’t a person who accumulated stuff; her favorite
presents were interesting rocks from a walk or a twig or pinecone from the
forest. She had no idea what to do with the money except take herself out to
lunch, buy books, watch movies, and walk around
When she returned to the
Ninah was also a person of faith. Stubborn
and at times single-minded, but a person of faith. So while thanking the
gods for the sudden increase in blessings, she also grumbled about greedy
lawyers (not Mel), the horrible family members of the man whom she inherited
from, and the IRS people who were making her new life miserable. She moved
eighty percent of her new bank account to
Knowing that the gods didn't do anything without a reason,
Ninah allowed fate to guide her wheel. Except to
Criss-crossing the country, Ninah
made it a point to stop in on local pagan groups. She was curious as to what
all the different groups were doing. Most were Celtic-Wiccan or some variation
thereof. She avoided the ceremonial groups; they had a tendency to get caught
up in sex rites, instead of honoring the gods. Some of the moon celebrations
were fun; she got into the drumming and bonfires that a few groups had going.
Most of the pagan stores had all the same stuff; crystals, herbs, and stock in
a publishing company that put out a lot of new age books. Out of hundreds of
new age stores, she found five that contained well-made items and books for the
practicing trad-Pagan. The owners of these small, out
of the way places all shimmered with magical energy. One person creeped Ninah
out enough that she would never want to meet the man again, and the other four
took one look at her and showed her to the private stock in the back.
When she finally hit
Ninah was feeling sorry for herself, being there alone, so
she walked the half mile back to a small pagan store she had seen and relaxed
inside with a book. The door jingled as it opened, and Ninah looked up. In
walked three women, all extremely large, with green teeth and enough grease in
their hair to coat a fleet of trucks. And they were looking at Ninah as though
she were a candy bar. Ninah escaped out the side door and had a long discussion
with the gods about their sense of humor.
Heading toward
The early evening air was cool with a dampness to it that
was normal for the
She paused in front of an empty storefront at the end of a
block of six stores. The stores that were open didn't have much life in them;
store owners sat reading the paper, barely looking up as she walked by. The
store on the end, though, caused a bell to ring in her head.
Inside the front windows were small staging areas to
showcase goods. A desk and chair sat nearby, and toward the back of the store
there was a staircase going up along the wall to a second floor office. She
wasn't sure, but it looked as though there was also a stairway behind the first
which led downstairs. There was a basement, which was common in the north.
Ninah had a vision of a fully functioning bookstore with a
couple of meeting rooms, along with a town coming to life. A small shadow
scurried around the corners inside the empty store; Ninah zapped it with a
whisper, and it disappeared. There was active energy in the area.
Ninah called her lawyer. After Mel was done having a fit
over the money she was spending, and in a town called New Babylon no less,
Ninah quietly became the new owner of a building which housed six storefronts
on the ground and six small apartments on the second floor of the building. The
moment she signed the papers, her car started again.
First thing she did was to wash the front windows of the
store, hang a nice, lapis-colored pentacle, and declare her allegiance. Through
the buzz of the grape vine, the news got out that a new store was opening. A Pagan store, not a new-age store. A group of druids from
Of course, the local Christian priests showed up wanting to
discuss the casting out of her demons. They also meant well, so Ninah thanked
them, too. She then called Mel and instructed him to buy the old, empty church
across the street. There was a tall pole out front, brass, with a quarter moon
sitting points up at the top. A strange thing for a Christian
church to have, but not so strange for a Pagan temple with an active moon god.
She made a mental note to make sure the brass pole was grounded; having
lightening strike in the middle of a ritual just wouldn’t do.
A sweet, twenty-year old man with shaggy blond hair showed
up and started to scrub the dusty, hard-wood floors of the store without a
word. Ninah wasn't about to turn down a cute slave-boy, so she let him scrub.
He had a soothing aura. His name was Thayer. Ninah kept him. Thayer was a
vegetarian; no one was perfect.
Watching the curious example of fixing the store and
cleaning it spurred the other store owners to do a little cleaning, too. The
arrival of painters caused a small stir, and new management received several
emails and letters from concerned store owners who declared that they weren't
going to pay extra, since they didn't have a say in the goings-on. Management
wrote back, letting them know that it was all in good-will; no one was getting
their rent raised; the entire building got repairs and a new coat of paint.
They didn’t seem to notice that the envelopes that their letters came in didn’t
have postage on them.
Bushes and lawns were trimmed, flower beds primped, and
fences were repaired and painted. Behind the row of store-fronts was an open
field that stretched a good mile to the tree line. Sometimes deer would come to
munch on greenery before wandering off. They never went directly into the
forest, Ninah noticed; they’d walk along the tree line but never into it. At
the edge of the field, just before the trees, was an old, rundown house which
didn’t seem to have any occupants. The deer didn’t go near it, either. The field
from Ninah’s store to the house was lush and over-grown from the rich soil and
continual moisture that dropped from the sky during half the year. Wild berry
vines grew everywhere, keeping the birds happy.
While exploring the empty apartments above the stores, a few
field mice were chased out with a stern finger-waving to stay in the field, not
the buildings. Ninah called a bug-man to deal with the spiders; she didn’t know
what was poisonous and what wasn’t. The bug-man was an old hippy who was happy to catch the critters and take them out of
town before releasing them. Spiders had their place, just like everything else
in the world, only not in Ninah’s home. The grass snake in the basement could
stay; he’d earn his keep by catching the mice that disobeyed the order to stay
out. Ninah named the snake Giuseppe.
Ninah really wanted the second floor of the building opened
up; those apartments were cramped and suffocating. So she bought a blue pencil
from the hardware store next door and began drawing out her thoughts on the
wall of the store while Thayer unboxed books, music, and knick-knacks and
priced them according to Ninah’s list.
Since the gods were in an accommodating mood, she informed Them that she needed an architect.
An expensive looking car broke down in front of the store
and the owner got out, heels and a perfectly tailored pant suit, speaking
scathingly on her cell phone to someone about the idiot who had supposedly
fixed her car. Ms. Thing looked around, raised her nose, and put her newspaper
on a chair before sitting down with her latte while she waited for her ride.
Two boys, identical twins, ran up to her, pestering her with their friendly pup
playfulness. The woman dug into her purse, found candy, and sent the boys away
with a wave of her hand. Ninah had the impression that the three were
acquainted.
The sight of Ninah drawing on the wall in the store caught
her attention after a while. Not able to take it anymore, Ms. Thing went in and
took the blue pencil from Ninah and began making corrections to the drawing.
Before she left with her ride, a man with wild, dark auburn hair, a black
leather jacket and a jeep, Ms. Thing handed Ninah her business card. Karrin
Cooper, Architect. Ms. Cooper would make the necessary drawings, send them back
for approval, and round up her crew of designers. The entire top floor of the
building would be converted to one large flat.
It wasn’t the strange image of the impeccable Ms. Cooper
getting into a jeep that took Ninah’s attention as much as the fact that the
man driving it had a shimmer about him. It wasn’t the same shimmer as one could
see on a hot day rising above the ground, but an aura with strange, silver
sparks. They drove off before Ninah could find an excuse to introduce herself. She made a mental note to ask someone about him.
Maybe she could con the twins into talking –it didn’t appear that they ever
stopped talking.
Through it all, the sheriff, Rick Myles, sat on the porch of
his office, sipping his iced coffee, and keeping an eye on everyone's kids
including his own twin terrors who were frequently out and about and getting
into everyone's hair including Ms. Cooper’s. The two boys seemed to have the
run of the town. Everyone knew them, including the dogs and cats that would
take one look at the boys and run in the opposite direction. And living across
the street, two houses away from the old church and with the sheriff's office a
block away in the opposite direction, the boys were always around. Their names,
Ninah learned, were Ivan and Pavel. That was EE-vaughn, not eye-Van, she was
told. The twins would be the first to correct her, although they were known to
play games on people by insisting that each was the other.
Ninah's first official meeting with the boys went like this:
Forgoing the typical checkout counter for her store, Ninah replaced the old,
worn out desk with a new desk. She wanted to relax and chat with her customers,
not look down her nose at them. One day, while sitting at her desk and working
on inventory on her computer, she noticed two pair of moss-green eyes peering
at her from over the top of the desk. The boys were shorter for their age than
she expected. She thought they were supposed to be about 7 or so. Then they
stood up straight, having snuck in. Ok, about seven it was.
"May I help you, gentlemen?" she asked the boys.
They must look like their mother, she thought, not seeing an ounce of the
sheriff's dark blond Scandinavian features in the boys; their hair was even
blacker than her own. Come to think of it, she had yet to see a mother….
"We want a magic wand," one of them said.
"I see," she said with a grave nod. "Well,
there are different wands for different things; if you'll tell me what you want
it for, I can better help you with that decision."
"We want to grow tall and strong and beat up Billy and
read and write and be sheriffs and firemans and
fighter pilots and umis and make our own peanut butter sammiches
and…..!" It was the second twin who was spouting;
his brother was quieter and spoke in short, succinct sentences.
"Whoa!" Ninah called a halt, holding up a hand.
The boy's mouth snapped shut. "Sentence structure," she informed him.
She understood everything except ‘umis’; it was probably something she wasn’t
hearing correctly. They had a slight lisping accent that she couldn’t place.
"I'm afraid we are all out of those kinds of wands. How about I let you
know when they come in?"
The boys considered it, glancing at each other with the
eerie twin-speak that some twins use, and agreed to it.
“How about swords?” the quieter one asked.
“No swords for sale here, guys, sorry,” she told them. They
considered it, looking around at the knick-knacks for verification.
"OK. Bye!" they called out as they ran out the
door. They both had a hint of more to come, so the last thing Ninah wanted was
two Talented boys running around with wands. Or swords. Gods, wands and swords….. Maybe she’d make a
couple of psi-null wands for them; they couldn’t get into trouble with those
unless they poked an eye out. On second thought….
She noticed a few people in town with a Talented
feel to them, so she decided to let the elementals do her work for her;
delegating was a good thing. She created a sigil, drew it on the floor in front
of the door, painted it, and infused a matrix into it before putting a sheet of
clear acrylic over it. After that, it lit up to her inner-eye every time
someone with a little more going on inside of them entered the store. One or
two people stopped, startled by the glowing sigil under their feet which most
others didn’t see, and those were the people Ninah took note of and began to
cultivate. The new store began to have a reputation of being the Pagan store
she wanted it to be, not the typical new-age wands and wizards and crystals
store.
A few of the more solitary types would come and hang out,
happy with the peaceful, and protected, atmosphere of the store. People who
were sensitive to energy tended to have a hard time in crowds, even if those
crowds were groups of other Pagans. The unfocused energy was like nails on a
chalk board to those who could hear, see or otherwise sense it. Ninah placed
dampeners around the store, effectively shutting out the world. The room
downstairs became a haven for magicians. A few even brought a treat for Giuseppe
once in a while. Ninah did warn them not to get the snake fat.
When the sheriff made no move to roust the witch that was
moving in, Ninah relaxed. He had, in fact, smacked the wrists of a couple of
self-righteous teenagers who felt it their duty to soap Ninah's store windows
with crosses and Biblical quotes.
The first time he came in for an official meet-n-greet, she
knew what was on his mind. Him poking at statues of
horned gods sorta spoke to his intent. The sigil
remained quiet, though. She thought it sparked for a moment, but it remained
just a pretty painting on the floor.
"No demons here, sheriff," she said, not waiting
for him to figure out how to ask without being rude. He seemed to appreciate
it. Hat in hand, he wandered around.
"And the church?" he asked, tipping his chin
toward the building across the street. A small crew had begun to clean the
place, dragging furniture onto the front lawn. Anything Ninah didn’t want was
given to needy families. Mel needed his heart pills when he discovered she was
giving the stuff away for free. When the local priests and pastors realized
that the stuff was going away, they quickly swooped in and begged for the bell
and Christian idols. Ninah gave freely to them, too.
"Even Pagans deserve the right to worship," she
told Rick. "At least we don't go knocking on doors, invading the privacy
of others." She was looking out the window at the pair of twenty-something
young men dressed in black and white, handing out pamphlets to people. The
sheriff pursed his lips thoughtfully, gave a nod, and bid her good day.
He seemed to decide that she was ok, enough so that he
stopped by one day, asking if she would mind helping a family in need. Dad was
sick and the rent was due and the kids needed to be fed. Ninah handed him
enough money to get the family by for the month. He didn't blink at the cash in
hand. Rick tipped two fingers from his forehead and went to present the money
to the family; no, he didn't know where it came from, only that it was left at
his office with their name on it.
New
Most of the official government-type offices were in the
center of the one stop-light town. The sheriff’s office shared space in the
town hall along with the DMV, the town council, and a small donut shop that
served kick-ass breakfast sandwiches between
The hospital, a 50-bed medical center and urgent care, was
two blocks away. It shared a large section of land with the two-engine
volunteer fire department and EMT. If anything worse came to the small town,
they would send down to
During Ninah’s sixth week in New Babylon, Rick showed up
during the night knocking urgently at her door; she assumed it was important.
It was. There was furniture flying around someone's house. Ninah got dressed
and followed him.
There was indeed furniture flying around the home while
neighbors were all standing out on the lawn, crying and shivering as they
stared at the house that had taken leave of its senses. A force took over Ninah
and she found herself marching into the house. She didn't even hear Rick
yelling at her to stop. Inside the house, an ordinary, lower-middle income home
in need of a lawn mower, a chair came flying at her.
She ducked. Ninah reached out, grabbed the insane energies, and,
"Enough!" she shouted. She pulled down. Everything
in the air was suddenly crashing on the floor.
Her consciousness left her, spiraling around the house until
she focused on a room in the far end of the house. She ran through the house,
knowing where she was going although never having been there before, and
slammed open a door that crawled with dark, fuzzy energy. Inside the room was
what seemed to be a normal teenager's room; posters on the wall, computer and
desk, and a bed. The teenager was also there, huddled on the floor at the foot
of the bed. A girl of about 16. The girl saw Ninah and
screeched at her, a hysterical, insane screeching, outrage at the disruption of
her will.
The quick image in her mind was much like the one she had
created for the sigil on her floor, only this one was more powerful. It made
perfect sense to her, so she reached out again, gathered the energy, curling it
around and around until it was a ball. When it was pulsating, ready, Ninah
threw it at the girl. The girl battled it, swinging at it as she continued to
screech. Ninah held firm but could feel herself
weakening under the strength of the teenager's shredded mind.
Someone ran into the room, skidding to a halt beside her.
Startled at the sight of the tall, darkly handsome man, Ninah wavered. She had
a weakness for older bears. He was shimmering with the same silvery spikes in
his aura as the man in the jeep.
"Hold her!" the man shouted. The order caused an
immediate reaction in Ninah; she hated orders. Her mind turned to steel,
clamping down on the faltering energy trap. An inner door was opened deep in
her mind, one she hadn't known existed. Always able to see things like aura
colors, totems, and lay-lines, this was something completely different. Ninah
not only felt the earth but she became part of it, feeling the weight of it,
gravity itself. That sense was normal in her meditations and grounding
exercises, so it wasn’t a surprise; the surprise was that this time she knew
how to use the earth energy for more than a simple grounding and centering, or
making nifty, glowing matrixes and wards.
The man drew in more energy, feeding it into the matrix,
strengthening it. Hearing instructions from deeper within, Ninah sent a tendril
into the mix. Like a heat-seeking serpent, it wiggled its way through the
matrix to the girl. Ninah watched in fascination as it disappeared into the
girl's head. Sound was abruptly shut off in mid-screech and the girl collapsed
to the floor.
She took the energy matrix from the girl, centered it within
the house, and slowly enlarged it, pushing out anything that didn't belong
until it enveloped the entire building and beyond. Once she was sure the house
was glowing, she sent the dirtied energy to the earth, dissipating it into the
ground until it was neutralized. Ninah's knees began to buckle; her entire body
was tingling and ready to burst.
"Not all of it," the strange man said, catching
her by the elbows. "Keep a little for yourself. Just a
drop to sustain you and replenish what you used."
Like licking a sweet drop of soda from a straw, Ninah sipped
from the clean energy whirling around them. Her energy levels began to level
out. She had never in her life used energy that way, or had so much of it
channeled through her. Several of her past-lives gave a sense of recognition to
the energy work and her actions.
"Well done," the man said with approval. Ninah
felt she should know him; even his scent was familiar and yet she had never
seen him before in her life. He made sure she was standing before he left her
side to check on the girl. Ninah saw the clear image of a lion over-shadowing
him. Even more strangely, the lion had wings. So his totem was a changeling,
she thought to herself. Her own changeling totem was sniffing eagerly at his
new friend. The man dropped to one knee and put two fingers to the neck of the
young girl for a moment. "She's alive," he said. He frowned in
thought and shook his head. "I'll be surprised if she ever wakes up,
though."
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. "This is
Doctor Severance Allen," he said into it. "I need an ambulance."
He rattled off the address and medical jargon before hanging up.
"You're a doctor?" Ninah asked, immediately
feeling stupid for it. He knew his way around all sorts of knives….. how did she know that?
The sudden quiet must have triggered a few of the braver
souls to come in and see how many bodies there were.
"What the hell happened?" The home owners, a man and
woman who looked to be in their 80's, came in. They pushed past Rick, despite
his protests that they remain outside. He looked at Ninah, and she gave him a
nod indicating that everything was over. He was taking notes on the room and
the people. She still couldn’t figure out how he knew what was going on and yet
wasn’t a magician himself.
"Who is the girl?" Rick asked the scared couple.
"Our granddaughter," the man said. He hesitated
before going to the girl and kneeling next to her while his wife cried silently
behind her hands. "She…. is she….?" He looked at the stranger who was
checking the girl over.
"No," the doctor said, "but it might be a
long time before she is well enough to leave a hospital."
The old man was in shock, pale and looking his age. Dr.
Allen gently took him and sat him on the bed, squatting down and putting
fingers on the old man's inner wrist as he looked at his watch.
"I'm very sorry, sir, ma'am, but I need to ask- was
your granddaughter having problems?" Rick asked them as he took notes. The
doctor didn’t seem to have a problem with the sheriff witnessing anything, so
Ninah didn’t either.
"She… was always troubled," the woman said after a
moment.
The doctor stood, his arms crossed as he carefully watched
the old man. "Was she on medication? Under any
treatment?"
Still dazed, the old man stared at his granddaughter on the
floor. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing. "The… the furniture…."
he muttered.
"I know," Severance nodded in understanding.
"This young lady put everything to right. I came in as your granddaughter
collapsed. She's still breathing because of this woman. And if I may, your
house is still in one piece because of her. She was quite remarkable."
Ninah didn’t need the unspoken warning that came from his direction.
"Yes….." The man shuddered for a moment and then
shook his head when Severance stepped forward. "I never… believed in
things like that, before. All that… hocus-pocus, mumbo-jumbo…. What is your name,
girl?" he asked, a hoarse demand.
"Ninah, sir," she said. "Ninah Adams."
"Carl Williams," the old man said, not quite
looking at her. "My wife, Sandy."
Sirens were heard coming up the road. Dr. Allen looked
around the room; Ninah saw with her inner eye that he was cleaning up any
excess magics that still hung around. It wouldn’t do to have a mundane witness
something weird.
"Mr. Williams, no one is going to believe a word of the
truth," Severance told the old man. Mr. Williams lifted his head, a hard
glint in his eyes.
"Boy, I'm old, not senile."
Thus was Ninah’s first six weeks in New Babylon.
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