By Flame Read online

  She shook her head.

  Aiden could hear guests behind them starting to line up for food. Must be almost serving time. He had to get back inside to the kitchen.

  “All right then, I’ll leave you alone. But if you ever need anything, you let me know, okay?”

  She finally looked at him, and the sorrow on her lined face just about broke Aiden’s heart. “Thanks,” she finally said.

  Aiden nodded, picked up his cup, and stood.

  “Hey man.” It was Francisco, a Latino man who had been eating at the kitchen for as long as Aiden had been working here. He was always neatly dressed in work clothes. Aiden knew he had a delivery job that didn’t quite make enough to feed the family toward the end of the month.

  “Yeah?”

  “Looks like there’s trouble at the gate.”

  Aiden turned, and sure enough, there were two cops peering into the courtyard. A white man and a Black man. The white man, the larger of the two, stepped through into the courtyard.

  Aiden quickly set down his cup of tea, wiped his hands on his apron, raised his sweatshirt hood, and strode forward through the rain. “Excuse me, may I help you?”

  “No, we’re just here looking for someone.”

  “Well, you’re not allowed to come in and look for someone, sir. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” The white man looked past him, as though Aiden didn’t even exist.

  Aiden’s stomach muscles tensed, and he fought to keep his voice steady. The rain dripped down his face. He planted his feet wide and squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath. He hoped someone else from the kitchen would come out and back him up, but he couldn’t leave to ask for help or the cops would be all the way in and who knows who they’d be hauling out.

  “You’re not allowed to impede our investigation, sir,” the white cop said.

  “I am allowed to ask you to leave private property.”

  The Black cop snorted. “Private property? I thought you were a bunch of anarchists.” His fingers made air quotes around the last word. Both cops chuckled.

  “Yes, yes we are. But a generous patron about fifteen years ago decided that De Porres House needed our own space and they aren’t anarchists, so have no trouble buying property. They deeded the land and building to the kitchen and the people of Portland.”

  “Is that right?” the Black cop said. “Look man, we’re just trying to do our job. Can you help us out?”

  “I actually can’t. The kitchen is a safe place for people. We’re not allowed to cooperate with the police in making this anything but a sanctuary. People have to know that there’s one place they can come and relax and get some food and not get hassled.”

  “Look man…”

  “Please,” Aiden said, holding up his hands, “I know you’re just doing your job. But I hope you can understand that I’m also just doing mine.”

  “We can shove our way on past you.”

  “You can,” Aiden said, “and then I can raise a stink in front of City Hall.”

  The cops sighed and exchanged a look. The white cop shrugged.

  “Well, you take care,” the Black cop said, and nodded at Aiden.

  Aiden stood and watched them walk away. Once they cleared the gate, he exhaled, and all the tension left his body. He should have felt good, exhilarated, instead he felt exhausted.

  He’d never thought he was good at standing up to people, but maybe, after all these years, he was learning.

  “That’s a good thing,” he murmured to himself, “that’s a good thing, Aiden.”

  Then he headed back inside. Lunch had started.

  3

  Tobias

  Tobias felt defeated, like he’d been punched in the gut. His throat felt raw from holding back the tears. Thank the Goddess Brenda could meet with him. She said she would take a break from the shop and meet him at Raquel’s café for lunch. The café was more public than Tobias would like, but he’d take what he could get.

  He walked down the street, jacket hood up, head bowed to protect his face from the rain. The rain was relentless today. He usually loved it, but today, gray skies and falling water didn’t feel like a thing he could enjoy. He couldn’t enjoy the fragrance of the wet flowers he passed; he couldn’t enjoy the sense of moisture in the air and the sound of the water washing away the oil and the dirt. All he could feel was that his own heart was breaking.

  Sara’s death had even eclipsed his father’s phone call.

  People have it a lot worse than you, you know. That’s what he always told himself. But today? He didn’t really care. The emotions he kept so carefully under lock and key had broken toward the surface, dragging loss with them, and the deep-seated sense of fucking failure. And anger at the way things were. And at the way his father still affected him.

  Raquel’s café was a warm, cheerful beacon as always. He knew she magicked it up, making it feel like a haven for people, a place folks could go to get some nourishment and rest. Raquel’s heart was as big as her open arms.

  He dragged open the glass-fronted door, nodding at a couple of people that he knew from the neighborhood sitting at one of the booths tucked against the wall under some bright paintings—abstract cityscapes this month. A riot of color and shapes.

  As soon as he entered and slicked his hoodie off his head, Tobias felt a little better. Yep, that was Raquel’s magic for sure. Something inside him relaxed slightly, so he could set down at least some of his burden. The café was warm. The smell of paninis grilling married with the scent of roasted coffee. There was a murmur of conversation, laughter.

  “Tobias.” Brenda’s voice came from behind him. She was tucked up in a little two-top table, near the coffee condiments. Good, at least they wouldn’t be sitting right next to other tables. They’d have some semblance of privacy. Looked like Brenda was already halfway through a panini. He gave her a small wave and approached the counter.

  Cassiel, another coven member, was working the register, flaming red hair piled on top of her head as usual. She smiled at him, then frowned, “Hey Tobias, are you okay?”

  He shook his head, “Not really, but I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  “That why Brenda’s here?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Good. What can I get you?”

  He ordered his lunch and a cappuccino, paid, and made his way to the table, squeezing past couples eating lunch and what looked like four local union members having a meeting over coffee. Everyone seemed as if they were in a good mood except him. He pulled back a red vinyl chair and sat, shucking off his coat and draping it over the back of his chair.

  Sliding a napkin across his head and then his face, he wiped off the moisture.

  “Thanks for coming,” he finally said.

  Brenda nodded, chewed, swallowed a bite of what smelled like a delicious ham, cheese, and spinach on grilled bread. “You want to tell me what’s up?”

  Brenda looked like a real witch. Or a psychic. Or like she ran a New Age store. Of course, all three were true. Her brown hair was piled up like Cassie’s, but in a messy tangle, with tendrils cascading down to the silver moon-and-star earrings that set off the large moonstone pendant dangling at her neck. Bracelets and rings? She had them. Flowing purple and white layers of clothing? She had those, too.

  “Cappuccino for Tobias,” Cassiel called out.

  “Gimme a second.” He got his coffee in Raquel’s signature red cup, and stirred a teaspoon of brown sugar in. It wasn’t his usual drink, but he needed the comfort of the sweetness and the milk today. The sudden tears on top of his anger had shocked him almost as much as the news.

  He sat back down and took a long drink and sighed.

  “I feel like I’m… I dunno,” he said. “I…”

  Brenda just looked at him and took a sip of her own coffee, “Just tell me, Tobias. How long have I known you?”

  “Years,” he said.

  “Years,” she agreed.

  “My client Sara
died. I just found out today.”

  “Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry.” She reached a hand out and squeezed his. He gave her a squeeze back and then, wisely, Brenda went back to her sandwich.

  Brenda knew to give him time. She was mentor to a lot of people in the coven. She would always have a special place in his heart for the way she kicked his ass when he was acting out during his first year with the Arrow and Crescent Coven. He needed it, just like right now he needed a shoulder and maybe another ass-kicking.

  “Tobias, what do you need from me?” Her voice was gentle, but she was clearly tired of his silence.

  “I need you to tell me I’m not a failure.”

  She gave a huff of impatience at that.

  “How many times are we going to have to have this conversation?” she said. The kindness in her eyes took a little bit of the sting from her words. “Tobias, you are a healer and sometimes people still die. It doesn’t mean you’re not gifted, it just means that’s how life works. You know that.”

  “I know, but I…”

  “No, you don’t know,” Brenda said, putting a little heat behind her words. He felt the push of them against him, as if she’d used some of her formidable power.

  Cassie set his sandwich down in front of him, squeezed his shoulder, and went back behind the counter. He really didn’t feel like eating now.

  Brenda continued, “Life and death and life again. You learned that your first year with the coven. Everything cycles, everything changes, and not everybody can be saved in this incarnation. Besides, you don’t know what this person’s work was. You don’t know whether or not they fulfilled it, and you don’t know what the next part of their journey is.”

  “I know you’re right, but it doesn’t feel that way.” He felt his face flush with anger. “It feels like if the Gods really gave me these gifts, I should be able to do something with them, something more than what I’m doing. Something more than just helping a bunch of middle-class white people maintain their horrible lifestyles and work themselves half to death. Or the ones that are actually trying to heal, but, well, they just end up dying anyway.”

  He knew he sounded like a petulant child and he didn’t really care. He was pissed off again.

  Brenda took another bite of her sandwich and chewed. Her eyes never leaving his own. He finally looked away and picked up his own sandwich, even though his stomach was cramping up. He just needed something to do. He needed to avoid Brenda’s all-seeing eyes. You called this upon yourself, he thought, chewing the sandwich. He could barely even taste it.

  “Tobias, you take everything too hard, and you take everything too hard because you want to think you’re in control. And anytime you think you’re out of control, you get angry and frustrated and you beat yourself up about it. You do not run this world,” she said, leaning across the table. “You need to learn to let things go.”

  “But how?”

  “Are you centered right now?” Brenda asked.

  Tobias paused, closed his eyes, and checked in. “No, I don’t even know where my center is.”

  “Well, that’s just laziness. You do know where it is. You’re choosing not to connect. I suggest you take a day and get your house back in order.”

  He opened his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you called me for a reason. The coven needs you. Your clients need you, and looking at you now, I’ve got a feeling there’s an even greater need that’s going to come knocking on your door any minute now. I can feel it around your head. You need to be prepared for that or you’re going to stumble and fall, and that really will be a failure.”

  Brenda took a sip of coffee, eyes never leaving his face. He started to say something, anything, but she held up one hand to stop him.

  “You can choose right now to go back to the basics, center yourself, figure out your boundaries, and remember why you chose to work as a healer in the first place. It’s not just that you’re gifted. The gifts are the easy part. Always. It’s what we choose to do with them that matters.”

  Oh shit, he thought. She’d just busted him and he wasn’t even sure how.

  “Okay, you’re right,” he finally said, just to say something. Even though his mind and emotions were still a roiling mass of confusion, a small part, deep inside him could feel that she was right.

  “Eat your sandwich, healer,” Brenda said.

  He held her gaze for one more moment. Then picked up half of his panini and took a bite.

  “And Tobias? That therapist of yours that Selene is always after you to go back to? Now might be a good time.”

  Yeah. Maybe.

  4

  Aiden

  The church was dim and cool, verging on cold. Aiden wrapped his sweater around himself a little more closely, and wound the wool scarf back around his throat. He’d flung his jacket beside him in the pew. It was damp with rain, the same rain streaming down the stained glass windows on either side of the sanctuary. Aiden wasn’t concerned with that; the rain was a constant in Oregon.

  What he was concerned with was the fact that he felt angry. Anger wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed. At all.

  He scooted forward on the pew and knelt down. The damp knees of his jeans hitting the padded kneeler, he gazed up at the cross above the white marble altar.

  Jesus, the one he couldn’t quite walk away from, even though the pain of rejection still stung. He knew that a lot of the church teachings were fucked up. He couldn’t quite let the church go, though, so here he was, trying to find a space for himself in the place his childhood self still adored.

  “I don’t know how you can help me,” he said. He spoke quietly, even though he was the only one in the sanctuary that late winter afternoon. The encounter with the cops had shaken him really badly. He’d never stood up to someone like that before. He’d seen other people do it, the more experienced soup kitchen workers; they were pretty badass.

  “You’re tenderhearted,” Stingray would tell him, “and that’s a good thing, don’t lose that.”

  “But I need to be strong,” he replied.

  “You can be strong and tenderhearted at the same time. They’re not mutually exclusive. Besides which, you think anyone of us would be here if we weren’t tenderhearted?” Stingray laughed. He laughed along with her, but at the time he didn’t really understand. After today, he wondered if that wasn’t part of what she was talking about.

  Help me, he thought. Help me out. He paused. Help me out of what? he asked himself. He hadn’t thought of that construction before, that when you asked someone to “help you out,” that maybe you were asking them to take you away from something, or to help you slide out of the hole you were stuck inside.

  He felt stuck inside of this emotion. This anger. Aiden wasn’t just slightly pissed off. He felt enraged, actually. As though he could flay something alive with the anger. Kill something, even. After the cops had left, he’d told Stingray and a few other key volunteers what had happened. Then he’d joined the dish line, which had been short-staffed.

  All through his shift, all through cleanup, the anger never left him. He wasn’t sure what he was even angry at. It was the cops, sure, but his anger felt like overkill.

  It was something deeper. Something he couldn’t quite name yet. And he didn’t like the feeling. Not at all.

  The bruised and battered figure on the cross looked down at him. A victim of state torture and state execution, if anyone would understand the predicament Aiden was in, surely Jesus would. He had plenty of encounters with the cops of Rome.

  But the figure remained silent. Aiden’s heart heard no voice. And even though the church itself felt comfortable enough—familiar, even safe—today it wasn’t comforting at all.

  His fingers gripped the wooden edge of the pew, digging into the hard oak. Today he wanted to punch something, he wanted to rail and rage, but there was no outlet for that. Aiden was a good boy, even if he was a faggot. He was still that Catholic kid who wanted to do right. Standing up to authority like
that? That was a no-no.

  “You stood up to authority, though,” he said to the mute statue hanging on the wall. “What did you do with your anger? Did you ever feel this way?”

  The statue seemed larger than life, even though Aiden knew it wasn’t even life-sized. It loomed over the white marble altar, pierced feet pointing toward the tabernacle with its closed brass doors.

  A priest came out onto the altar, genuflected, and started fussing with something at the lectern. Getting ready for vespers, maybe? Did this parish even have evening services? Aiden didn’t know. But the presence of the priest wasn’t going to help his prayers any.

  “Ah, screw it,” he muttered, and grabbed his jacket. Genuflecting quickly towards the altar, he walked his way to the back of the church, ready to go out again into the pouring rain.

  Then a glint of colored light caught his eye and he turned his head to the left. And there she was, blue sky behind her head, a flame cupped in the open palm of her left hand, a woven cross of wheat straw held in the right. He stopped dead in his tracks, struck by the image.

  “Who are you?” he asked. But he knew. Of course he knew. St. Brigid. Mary of the Gaels. There was a legend that she had been taken by angels to the Holy Land, and acted as midwife to Mary herself. She took care of people. She stood up to landowners. She was said to have healing powers.

  And she apparently liked beer, if he recalled correctly.

  Aiden didn’t know how much of that was true. The whole going-to-Bethlehem thing couldn’t be. All he knew was there was something here, in the image of this woman, something he hadn’t felt up at the altar. He felt it staring at this figure, at the woven cross in her hand and the flame cupped in her palm.

  Maybe she would understand.

  “Brigid, healer, caretaker. You of the green mantle, you of the holy flame and the sacred well, help me. Help me please. I have such anger inside of me today, I don’t know what to do with it all.”