The Portal 00 - Legacy of the Witch

desk.
    And there it was. Harrison Brockson’s number was listed, and so
was his address. 355 Water Street in the suburb of Tallmadge.
    I wrote it down on a slip of scrap paper, thanked the librarian
and turned to head out the door to my car.
    But once I got in I just sat there, drumming my fingers on the
wheel. “All right, I know where he lives. Now what?”
    Just drive out there and see what the
place is like. Then come up with…something.
    I closed my eyes for just a moment and decided that yes, that
idea felt like the right one. The next logical step. So I opened my map and
located Tallmadge, and then Water Street. It would be dark soon, but it wouldn’t
take long to get there.
    It was just dusk, the sky turning to twilight purple, when I
drove my very-out-of-place car through the wealthy neighborhood. Every house was
like something out of Beautiful Homes , all of them
huge, many of them fenced in. I suspected they all had alarm systems and guard
dogs but told myself I was being overly dramatic.
    Scanning the numbers on the mailboxes and driveway pillars, I
slowed as I drew closer, and then came around a sharp curve in the neat, narrow
lane to see 355 in gold-colored digits on a brick driveway post. It was part of
a pair that flanked the paved drive and had lights on top as if to tell me I’d
arrived.
    The driveway curved away from the road, splitting a lush green
lawn that rose gradually to the house perched on top. Gorgeous, like the rest,
but very different from them. It was an architect’s dream, all stained wood,
unexpected angles and huge windows.
    All this? For a soldier? I didn’t know much about the army, but
I didn’t think staff sergeants made that much money.
    Well, I’d found the place. Now, how was I going to get
inside?
    Just do it, child. You
promised!
    Tata’s voice, of course, egging me on. And more real than a
whispered thought or memory. It was as if she was in the car, in the passenger
seat, giving orders.
    I pulled into the driveway and headed up to the house, racking
my brain for a reason why I might be there and falling on the simplest. I was
lost. I needed to use a telephone, or maybe ask for directions to someplace.
Shutting my car off, I stiffened my spine, stared at the house and spoke without
intending to, the words just sort of spilling from my lips, surprising me. I
didn’t know I still remembered them.
    “I bind you now, oh box, to me, by the power of three times
three, return return return to me.”
    Then I got out of the car and marched right up to the door.
    The man who opened it was not the same man I’d seen in the
newspaper. That was my first thought. And then, as I stared at him, my eyes
moving up and down his face, I realized that he was the same being, just not the same person. His time in Kuwait
had changed him. He’d left a carefree young man, but now he was…darker. Harder.
And far more attractive than I’d been expecting. And still there was that
niggling familiarity.
    I’d sensed it from the engagement photo, but in person there
was something more. Something that made my throat go dry and made my heart start
pounding faster. Maybe it was that shadow of beard just starting to cover his
strong jawline and chin. Or the intensity of his sapphire-blue eyes—eyes that
kept changing like a mirage to dark brown, then near black, in my
imagination.
    Who is he?
    “It’s about time,” he said. “You’re over an hour late.”
    I blinked, my semi-formed excuses flying from my mind as my
brain sought ways to handle this new situation. He seemed…angry.
    He looked past me at my car, frowned a little. Like he knew a
ten-year-old Pinto didn’t belong here, but then shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
“What, no excuses? No apologies?”
    “I’m, um…sorry. I got lost.”
    His eyes narrowed on me, and I had to avert mine. Do I dare just run with this? What if the person he’s really
expecting shows up?
    I looked his way again. He wasn’t in uniform, I noted. Jeans
and a button-down shirt that he’d been in the process of buttoning up before I’d
interrupted him. The bit of his chest I could see tried to capture my eyes, and
I had to jerk my gaze elsewhere and hope he hadn’t noticed.
    And still there was this ache in the pit of my stomach that I
couldn’t make sense of.
    His eyes had shifted past me again, as if checking to be sure I
was alone. Then they returned to me, and he looked from my head to my toes.
Finally he gave a nod. “Okay. Come on in.