PI On A Hot Tin Roof

everyone says when they’ve lost someone. You don’t have to believe in God right now. But the beauty of magic is that you don’t even have to believe in it—you just do it.”
    Lucy gave an ironic snort. “You sound like me. Thought you weren’t a pagan.”
    “Maybe I’m not—but you know what they say about atheists in foxholes. Isn’t that what we’re in? How about a mourning ritual?”
    “Naah. The funeral’ll have that covered.” She was getting interested.
    “Healing, maybe?”
    “No. But that foxhole thing—let’s do protection. The rate people are getting killed, what we need is a warding.”
    And Talba realized for the first time that the girl was frightened. And that she was right. There was way too much violence in the air to ignore. She nodded. “Let’s do it, whatever it is.”
    Lucy told her what a warding was: To do it right, they should walk around the house chanting and charging the building with the four elements, thus creating a circle of protection, and then they should paint pentagrams on the windows with ashes, for protection, having first banished all the old energy with brooms and shouts. But no way were they going to get away with any of that.
    So they made a floor plan of the house and improvised. The girl explained first what they were going to do—cast a magic circle in which to work, call in the four directions and invoke protection deities (that one would have curled Miz Clara’s hair, had she had any), so they could do a mini-banishing within what Lucy called the “sacred space,” then, finally, cast a miniature protective circle around the floor plan. “We can use the St. Expedite candle to make it work fast,” Talba offered.
    “Naah.” Lucy answered. “It works right away. Automatically.” And then she changed her mind. “Forget it—can’t hurt,” she said.
    The stage had to be set first, with candles and altar cloths and various artifacts representing the elements, after which they meditated for a moment before beginning. Her mind quiet, Talba got a great idea. Breaking the silence, she commanded, “Wait! What about if we drew a lifeboat around the floor plan?”
    “Yeah! Let’s put Rikki in it—like you-know-who.”
    Talba drew a boat that looked more like Noah’s ark, except that it had only one animal, which sat on the bow with its paws over the side. And then Lucy cast the circle.
    As they worked, Talba was once again impressed with the girl’s stage presence and her focus, once she had something to focus on. When the ritual was done and they had celebrated with what Lucy called a “feast” (consisting in this case of chicken that Talba fetched from below and some water to represent wine), she was surprised at how calm she felt. No question, the magic had worked—if only to make them both feel better.
    “I get it,” Talba said. “The whole thing’s about metaphor.”
    “Of course,” Lucy said. “Why do you think I like it?”

Chapter 21
    The funeral was two days later. Talba had skipped Buddy’s, due to temporary ostracization, but there was no missing this one.
    It was held in a Catholic church, and it was a by-the-numbers service as far as Talba could see. No one spoke except the priest, who appeared not to have ever met Suzanne, whom he described as “a bright and innocent spirit” who would be missed by “all whose lives she touched.” It seemed to Talba the last indignity of an undignified and undistinguished life to be “remembered” in front of God and everybody, as Miz Clara would say, by someone who’d never met the woman.
    Talba made a mental note to tell Miz Clara and Darryl to please skip the church formalities if she went before them—a secular memorial, maybe with Lucy there to cast a circle, ought to do nicely.
    Brad and his partner, who was definitely the guy in cutoffs at the Bacchus party (but who now wore a black shirt and pants) sat with the family. Talba didn’t, though Alberta did. Kristin sat with her father and the woman to whom she referred as “Tootsie-pop,” which must have galled her. She was dry-eyed, but Warren, to her surprise, actually wiped a tear at one point. What on Earth could that mean? The music, she decided. It always got to her, too.
    Alberta was the only one of the Champagne family who actually wept, though Suzanne’s parents, a short-haired, suburban-looking couple who seemed utterly bewildered, shed tears enough for everyone.
    Lucy was stoic and expressionless in a black