Algernon frowned. He knew his grandmother loved him without question. The path she’d pushed him down today led to dark places, but she’d done it to save him. He believed that.
His mother wouldn’t, but he did.
He kept his mouth shut, though. Jannil wanted him to talk so she could find him.
Peering to the side, he saw Jannil limp into the circle of colored light, her face painted with blue and green. Blood stained her right leg starting an inch below her knee.
With that much of an injury, he thought he might have a chance facing her. But he needed something more. One more advantage.
“Is that the best you can do?” Grandma Katona asked. “Call me a liar? I cannot fathom the arrogance of a person who walks into my house, murders my cook, and expects to walk out again while knowing nothing about us.”
Algernon saw Jannil turn her head, listening to Grandma Katona’s voice bounce off the walls. She turned and limped toward the column to Algernon’s left.
“For example,” Grandma Katona continued, “had you left the cook alive, we might have simply left so you could rob the house to your heart’s content. But no, you had to kill him.”
If she kept talking, Jannil would find Grandma Katona and kill her. Algernon needed to prevent that.
Jannil had seen illusions already.
He spun out power.
A copy of Algernon stepped into Jannil’s view. The translucent image had too much yellow and stilted, disjointed movements.
As long as he kept it that simple, he could maintain it.
Probably.
Around himself, he created a dancing flicker of fake flames. He also stepped into view.
Jannil turned and studied both him and his illusion. She bared her teeth. “You won’t fool me again,” she growled. “I’m not stupid!”
Another Algernon appeared a few columns away, not of his making. This one rippled like water.
“That remains to be seen,” Grandma Katona said.
A fourth Algernon glittered with golden sparkles. Only a moment later, a fifth glowed with bright red light.
The effort of holding together two separate pieces of illusion threatened Algernon’s tenuous control. His illusions pulsed.
They needed more power.
Every time he gave things more power, he lost control.
This one time, he thought maybe losing control might help.
Wait, that was a stupid idea.
No, he needed to trust his instincts and do it.
Algernon flooded his illusions with power. The weavings spun out of control.
Flames erupted across his body. They warmed his skin without harming him.
Lightning flashed.
The illusions threw no shadows. Algernon did. So did Grandma Katona.
Her shadow slapped the nearest column.
Jannil stood with her back to Algernon. She missed his shadow on the floor. But she saw Grandma Katona’s.
As Jannil lunged at the column with her sword, Algernon charged.
Thunder cracked the air.
Algernon leaped at Jannil. Grandma Katona spoiled her illusion by moving. Jannil yanked back her sword.
Jannil squawked as Algernon slammed his body into hers. They flew through the air and hit the floor together in a tangle of limbs and swords. She screamed.
“Algernon,” Grandma Katona wheezed. “You’re burning!”
Jannil screeched in pain and rolled.
All the dust on the floor and in the air whooshed as the fire spread across it faster than he could track. It rushed to the walls in every direction. Pressure buffeted his ears.
Jannil’s flesh sizzled and popped. Her clothing burned.
Ephemeral fire scorched Grandma Katona where she lay bleeding on the floor.
Algernon stopped feeding the construct gone awry. He scrambled to put distance between himself and Jannil.
“I’m sorry, Grandma,” he gasped.
He lurched to his feet with his sword still in hand.
Still burning, Jannil crawled from him. She wailed and pulled herself by her hands.
Flames reached the curtains. They exploded.
The air vibrated and the room rocked with the blast.
Algernon dove for his grandmother.
“Go, Algernon,” Grandma wheezed between gasps. “Save yourself.”
“No.” He yanked the ring off his finger and shoved it onto hers.
The rare and wondrous gift from his parents knitted Grandma Katona’s flesh. Its magic worked slowly, but it would keep her injuries from killing her.
He dropped his sword and picked up his grandmother.
Around the edges of the expansive room, stone and brick cracked.
Algernon ran. The old woman in his arms slowed him enough to see the fire spreading.
His power had made fire terrible enough to burn stone and slate.
He fled through the wide, open doorway. Though he had a thought to collect Ernold’s body for proper burial, he doubted the magic-fueled fire would allow it.
His flight carried him to the double doors at the front of the house. He struggled with Grandma Katona’s bulk as he yanked to open one side.
Behind them, the fire roared like a wild animal freed from its cage.
In front of them, rain drove to the ground in a downpour.
Algernon plunged into the rain. They passed a small wagon with two crates in the back and a terrified horse dancing back and forth, pulling against the post holding its reins.
With his grandmother’s help, Algernon untied the reins and turned the poor beast loose. He carried Grandma Katona as far down the cobblestone drive as he could.
The house exploded with enough force to rock the earth. Algernon fell. His ears rang. He protected his grandmother as much as he could when they hit the ground.
Lying on the ground, he watched it crumble. His hearing returned as the cliffside shattered and took part of the house to the ocean.
“Algie!” Mother fell to her knees beside him. “Mama!”
“What happened?” Father asked.
Algernon hadn’t heard either of their horses. The house’s destruction had transfixed him far too much to notice someone coming behind him.
He wept with relief. His parents had arrived. They would handle whatever else happened.
Grandma Katona patted Algernon’s shoulder. “We had some uninvited guests.”
“Are you all right?” Mother put an arm around Algernon’s shoulders. Even in the pouring rain, he basked in the warmth she offered. “There’s so much blood.”
“That’s all wine,” Grandma Katona said, waving at her grandson. “Algernon gave me his ring. I’ll be fine. It hurts, but it’s healing.”
Father took her hand and bent his head, using his power to speed the healing and take her pain.
Only in this moment, when the danger had passed and he knew he’d found safety, did Algernon realize what his grandmother had said.
She’d called him by his full name.
He buried his face in his mother’s embrace, not sure he’d earned the respect his Grandmother had chosen to give him.
“How did you know to come?” Grandma Katona asked. “We didn’t expect you home for another two weeks.”
Mother scowled and held Algernon tighter. “Miru. He laid a trap for us, and he said he had Algie. I didn’t believe him.” She sighed. “And I needed to know they hadn’t hurt you, Mama.”
“It’ll take more than a few ruffians to drag down Algernon and me. He’s learned a great deal, and anyone who decides to underestimate him is a fool.”
“We need to get out of this rain,” Father said, ever practical and grounded. He helped Grandma to her feet.
Mother nodded. “The horses can carry double if we don’t press them too hard.” She nudged Algernon, prodding him to his feet. “My poor, sweet boy. Ride with me. We’ll get you someplace warm and dry.”
She wanted him to stay a child.
For the moment, he
took the opportunity she offered. The boy Algie had committed no atrocities and had crossed no lines.
A reckoning would come, but not today.
Today, he rode to safety under the protection of his parents and grandmother.
Grab Wayward Magic, the next anthology in this series for the gripping tale of Algernon's family escaping a deadlier trap. Using their own beliefs against the family, Miru will stop at nothing to unlock the secrets of unlimited healing.
Interested in The Greatest Sin? Get a free story and find out more about this binge-able epic fantasy series at www.thegreatestsinseries.com.
About the Authors
Lee French is a prolific USA Today bestselling author living in Olympia, WA with two kids, two bicycles, and too much stuff. She’s a frequent visitor to Myth-Weavers, an online RPG site, and also trains in taekwondo. Best known for her young adult urban fantasy series Spirit Knights, she is an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and a NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison.
Erik Kort abides in the glorious Pacific Northwest, otherwise known as Mirkwood-Without-The-Giant-Spiders, though the normal spiders often grow too numerous for his comfort. He is defended from all eight-legged threats by his brave and overly tolerant wife, and is mocked by his obligatory writer's cat. When not writing, Erik comforts the elderly, guides youths through vast wildernesses, and smuggles more books into his library of increasingly alarming size.
Make sure to grab the next anthology in the trilogy, Wayward Magic, for more!
The Mail-Order Witch
Joynell Schultz
“The Mail-Order Witch” is a paranormal cozy mystery about a newly-wed, mail-order witch (Ettie) who opens a magic shop in a town prejudiced towards magical practitioners. A string of strange, magical occurrences, including the town’s children being turned into foxes, begin to happen. Ettie and her Magic Shop seem to be to blame…or is someone in town using "Hidden Magic" to make Ettie's business fail?
Joynell Schultz
What’s a witch to do when nobody will hire her?
Open her own business, selling enchanted items to a town filled with mortals who are clearly prejudiced against witches. But when the entire second grade class sprouts fluffy tails, the town is quick to blame Ettie and her new business.
Was the tail epidemic Ettie's fault? Or is there a different kind of magic hiding in Watersedge?
Chapter One
Roman stood behind me with his hands covering my eyes, making downtown Watersedge disappear into darkness. His unique mountain breeze scent, a combination of our laundry detergent and our bedroom’s open window, tickled my nose while we stumbled along the sidewalk. When he adjusted his hands over my eyes and helped me up a few steps, chimes sang their melody from overhead and a door clicked shut behind me.
“What’s the big surprise?” I asked, trying to peer through Roman’s fingers at the sliver of light.
“Just wait,” he advised with a chuckle.
Having been a mail-order bride, I hadn’t known my husband very long, but I was beginning to identify the little nuances in his voice. The way he almost whispered the words told me he was excited. I could picture the way his sparkling brown eyes would widen and his gorgeous full lips would twist up into a giddy smile, showing off his delicious dimples.
He shuffled me across the room, maneuvering around items I couldn’t see. When my toe stubbed on something heavy and I tripped over something else, Roman kept me vertical—and blindfolded. He was way more coordinated than I could ever hope to be.
“You know how you’ve been struggling to get a job?” Roman carefully turned us around while keeping my eyes tightly covered.
“Yeah. I don’t think this particular town needs a social worker.” At least not one who was a witch. Before the mortals knew of witches, wizards, and magic, it had been as easy for our kind to find work as anyone else. Since magic had been exposed twenty years ago during the Magic Movement, our pickings had become less and less. I had only been a child then, but even I could see that mortals felt threatened by our magic and accepted us only to bring them bits of our powers to use to their advantage. This town that my husband was from was more prejudiced than the rest. It was truly surprising that the architectural firm even hired Roman, knowing he was a warlock.
“Well, I have a solution. Ready?” Roman’s chest pressed flush against my back, allowing me to feel the thumping of his heart, probably matching my own as excited as I was for whatever surprise he had planned.
“Yes! Come on. The anticipation is killing me!”
Roman dropped his hands and my eyes adjusted to the light. I was in a store of some type, though all the shelves were empty and coated in dust. The room wasn’t huge, probably only thirty feet by twenty feet, but with the emptiness, it seemed quite vast.
“What’s this?” I asked. “And what does it have to do with me needing a job?”
“It’s yours!” Roman almost squealed with giddiness.
“It’s mine?” I turned towards him to confirm he was serious. “It’s hard to be a social worker in a shop.”
“Not true,” Roman said. “I think this gives you a great opportunity to help people and break through this town’s prejudice. Imagine this…” He waved his hand in the air, causing a magical display of sparkling lights to form into words that dangled in the emptiness. Ettie’s Enchanted Effects. Add a little magic to your day. “Why do mortals come to witches?”
“Because they want a magic solution to their problems.”
“Exactly,” Roman said.
“But magic isn’t the answer.”
“You and I know that, but they don’t.” He pointed out the front windows to the busy downtown. “They will come here for a quick solution, but while you help them find the perfect enchanted item, you can also help solve their problem. They’ll get a dose of social work from a witch and not be the wiser. And I’ve lived here for quite a few years already. This town is slow to warm up. With your own store, you can prove your value to them.”
“And here I thought that marrying you would take care of that for me.” I playfully batted my eyelashes.
Roman laughed. “I think marrying me might have made your position worse. Mortals here don’t understand our ways. The concept of why I’d marry a mail-order witch is foreign to them. While our magic is dying out because our blood is being diluted with mortal blood, the mortals are flourishing. I’m sure the news that I married a pure-blood witch to keep magic alive in this world spread across all of Watersedge as fast as it flew through the Watersedge Architecture Group.”
“You’re saying that the news spread as fast as my sister Marie devours a pumpkin pie?”
“Maybe faster.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.” I dismissed his curious head tilt with a wave of my hand. “Once you meet my sister, you’ll understand.”
I ran my fingers down my purse strap, taking in this shell of a place. What would this old, empty shop look like with various collections of enchanted items on each of the shelves? A stone collection would look nice in the jewelry case, including enchanted pendants. The far wall of shelves would be perfect for a huge talisman collection. Magic books would fill another wall, perfect to help share witch history and tradition with this town. Watersedge had to be curious. Sure, you could get a lot of information on the internet, but there was nothing better than a good book. Before I knew it, my mind had made use of every inch of this place. I could picture myself behind the counter, helping—truly helping—a customer.
“How’d you know I’d like this idea?” I asked. Roman and I had only known each other for three months—since the day he had picked me up at the train station after our enchanted magical union.
“You talk about your aunt’s shop all the time.”
“That’s because I worked there all through my high school days.”
“Well, you light up when you tell stories of all the interesting people with interesting problems that you met there.” He
shrugged and his eyes twinkled. “I took a chance.”
“So, this is all mine?”
“It is.”
“This is going to be expensive. I don’t think we can afford it.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I took out a business loan through work. The owners like to invest in little niche markets like this.”
I took his gentle hand and gave it a light squeeze. “Well, thank you for taking a risk on me.”
Roman smiled, his voice deep and confident. “Oh, you’re not a risk. I have complete faith you’ll make this a success.”
My insides warmed. I lifted on my tiptoes and kissed him in a way that brought tingles throughout my body. He pulled me close, with his fingers lightly pressing into my hips.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“Do you?”
I nodded, pressing myself closer to him—if that was even possible.
He chuckled. “I’ll never get tired of you saying that. I love you too.”
Chapter Two
It didn’t take long for the word of an enchanted item shop to spread throughout Watersedge like a fire in a used bookstore. Gawkers walked slowly by the front window during the month it took me to enchant supplies and set up the shop, staring inside like I was on display at a zoo. What kind of animal did they think I looked like? A flamingo with my long legs and too-short body? A black panther with my dark hair? Or maybe I looked like a pig—I mean I could devour the aforementioned pumpkin pie almost as quickly as my sister.
Or was I just a perfect specimen of a witch, with the natural blue highlights in my hair that I refused to cover like so many witches did?
As people passed by the window, I waved and smiled, never receiving any response back except for them to snap their head forward and hurry their pace. Maybe they were the zoo animals? Curious meerkats passing by with their little gang? Or a cackle of hyenas after their prey?
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