by Erin Cole

Created on: February 03, 2010

She smelled it first, the faint crisp scent of lavender—a scent she hadn't worn in years.  In the back seat, she spots black fabric and picks it up.  A jacket.  Women’s. Small. Lavender.

Betrayal came at her, like an omen with brown diaphanous wings and a sharp cry that bled the silence of innocence.  Her mind knew—was prepared.  Still, her chest wallowed as trust faded from her heart.

“That’s not yours?  Are you sure?”  He asks.

“Positive.”

“Don’t look at me like that—you’re changing your wardrobe all the time.  I honestly don’t ever remember seeing that jacket.”

Her hand props against her hip.  “Never?”

His smile fattens.  “I’m serious.  I don’t know how that got into my car.”

“I have a few ideas.”

Nervous chuckle.  “Dear, where would I find the time to cheat on you?”

“We did it on our lunch break.”

Nervous chuckle again.

Truth was, she actually believed him.  Infidelity wasn’t his style.  He’d be more inclined to ask her if he could take a second wife and she’d probably consent, as long as the other woman helped with the laundry.

No one claimed the jacket and he never presented a concrete explanation.  It just lay lifeless across the edge of her desk, muted with secrets.

So whose was it?  How did it get into her husband’s car?  Did someone share the same car key by extreme coincidence or did Occam’s Razor corroborate this occurrence?  Her mind screamed the obvious.  Her heart whispered promises.

###

 “Do you have a personal item?”

“Yes.”  She presents the jacket.

Pudgy, ringed-hands take the jacket.  The witch smells it, binds it with red cord, and drops it into a giant cauldron of steeping herbs and roots.  “When I cut your hand, state your goal and don’t lie.”  She grabs her hand, gashing ivory skin with an athame, and then wrings her warm blood into the cauldron.  She nods for her to speak.

“I want to know the owner of this jacket.”  The witch raises a questioning brow at her, which the girl shrugs at.  “And…the owner’s relationship to my husband.”

After throwing a dusty substance into the cauldron, producing a big flash, the witch says, “Within a

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