Charlotte turned to Lucas. “You’ve liked Savannah for a while, haven’t you?”
“Seriously?” Savannah moaned. “Come on, Charlotte.”
“Just answer the question,” I said, trying to push my way through the mess of hormones and emotion Charlotte seemed intent on stirring up between Lucas and Savannah. We, of course, had bigger things to worry about.
“Yes,” Lucas said. Shrugging, he added of his own accord, “To both questions again.”
“I don’t get it,” I said, running a hand through my hair and wracking my brain. “What is making the Mangrove coven vulnerable? How could someone becoming more powerful make them—” And that was when it hit me. “Lucas, is your family’s power being transferred from one member to the other?”
“You want to take her out on a date, don’t you?” Charlotte asked. “Like, the kind with flowers and dinner, and a movie that neither one of you really watches because you’re too concerned about whether you should hold hands the entire time.”
“Yes,” Lucas said. “Though, to be more specific with the whole movie idea, my generation prefers to Netflix and chill.”
“I’ll make a note of it,” I said dismissively. “I’m still so confused, though. I don’t understand. Powers don’t work like that. What’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine. That’s the way of it.”
“Not always,” a voice said from behind me. I turned to find Grandma Winnie standing behind me, her handbag swinging back and forth from her palm like an accusation.
“How long have you been there, exactly?” I asked, swallowing hard.
“Long enough to hear about your cockamamie plan to incite an all-out war with the vampires,” she said. “I do love an invisibility spell, after all.”
“And you just stood there and let us do this?” I asked. “What was the point in that?”
“I wanted to see just how brazen my girls actually were,” she answered. “Besides, if I’m being honest with myself, I found the whole thing more than a little amusing.” She stepped forward, looking at Lucas. “It’s the Ancient Transference, isn’t it?” My grandmother’s voice was glum and filled with tension.
“Do you like pickles, Lucas?” I asked, cutting Charlotte off before she could start, because things seemed like too serious of a moment to have to worry about whether Savannah was going to get a new boyfriend.
“Yes,” Lucas said solemnly. “I mean, pickles are disgusting, so no. But also, yes.” He nodded at my grandmother, who sighed heavily.
“What is that, Grandma?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of the Ancient Transference.”
“Of course not, dear,” Grandma Winnie said. “As the name might imply, it’s ancient, and I’ve never seen the need to bother you with something so needlessly antiquated and dangerous.”
“What do you mean by antiquated and dangerous?” I asked, my muscles tensing. ‘What is the Ancient Transference? What does it mean?”
Grandma Winnie turned to me. “It means this is so much worse than I ever imagined.”
22
“Was sitting down really necessary?” Charlotte asked from beside me. Once my grandmother made her presence known and dropped the bombshell about the Ancient Transference, she funneled us all into the living room and asked us to sit before she would elaborate further on what she was talking about. Up to this point, all we knew was that the Mangrove coven was vulnerable, their powers were being tossed around to each other all willy-nilly, and that things were much worse than we thought they were. That last part is especially important because until about five minutes ago, we were all under the mistaken assumption that nothing could make this situation worse.
I shuddered to think about just how wrong we could have been.
“Everything I tell you to do is necessary, Charlotte,” Grandma Winnie answered, glaring at my cousin. “The sooner you realize that, the easier your life will be.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” Charlotte said.
“Something tells me you won’t consider it too hard,” Grandma Winnie said, shaking her head. “In any event, we’re in what the farmers call a deep cowpie.”
“That does not sound good,” Savannah said sheepishly. She had made sure to sit away from Lucas, even if the glances she was shooting him every couple of minutes told me she’d like to have been a lot closer.
“I grew up working on my Uncle Hester’s farm,” Riley said. “Trust me. That is definitely not good.”
“Could we cut the metaphors, please?” I asked. “I hate to be the one to state the obvious, but we’re down to our last petal, and I mean that very literally. Any minute now, that flower could go off and the person I care about most in the world will go poof. That is the last thing I want. So if we could just focus on the topic at hand and you could maybe tell us all why we’re in such deep trouble, I would definitely appreciate that.”
“Straight to the point,” Grandma Winnie said. “I can’t fault you for that.” She stood in front of us, steadying herself as she continued. “Long ago, things were not as civilized as they are now. Feuds between covens weren’t the muted, fangless things they are now.”
“I wouldn’t say they’re fangless now,” Charlotte interrupted. “Gayle Mangrove just relocated our entire lives to Viper Valley. She turned us into valley people, into trashy, horrible valley people.” She looked over at Lucas. “No offense, of course.”
“Of course,” Lucas repeated, though he didn’t seem to take too much offense to Charlotte’s lamenting.
“If you think that was bad, you should have seen what happened before the accords were put in place, “Grandma Winnie said. “People died. Witches and warlocks were murdered because of the disagreements that went on with the covens.”
“That’s horrible,” I said, almost instinctively.
“It certainly is,” Grandma Winnie said. “And it didn’t go unnoticed or unheeded. Because of the cutthroat nature of things, people started upping their abilities.”
“How is that possible?” I asked, furrowing my brow. “I know everything there is to know about magic. There’s no way to up your powers like that.”
“There’s obviously some way,” Charlotte muttered. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be valley people right now.” She shook her head bitterly. “Trashy, horrible valley people.” She turned to Lucas again. “No offense, of course.”
“Right,” he answered, though this time, he seemed a little more peeved with Charlotte.
“That’s where the Ancient Transference comes in,” Grandma Winnie said, ignoring Charlotte and Lucas’s back and forth. “And you certainly do not know everything about magic. You know everything I’ve taught you about magic, and as I said, I kept this particular facet of things under my hat.” She shuddered. “It speaks to a nasty piece of our history and it just never felt relevant. “
“Unfortunately, it’s relevant now,” I sighed. “So, please continue.”
“Magic is held within our bloodline,” Grandma Winnie said. “It grows with each family member, which is why you often see witches and warlocks having multiple children. Of course, sometimes, the magic can be stretched too thin.”
“Which is how someone like Savannah can have so little in the way of magic,” Charlotte said.
Savannah sneered at her older sister.
“Whatever,” Charlotte scoffed. “You make up for it with that hair and that figure.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to be crying for you anytime soon.”
“She’s right,” Grandma Winnie said. “When the magic grows, it distributes itself unevenly. Some witches can get more while others get less. The transference is meant to change that. It’s meant to alter the natural order of things.”
“Natural order?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. “But wouldn’t that be a good thing? Wouldn’t giving magic to someone who didn’t have as much, especially a member of your own family, be a kind and generous act?”
“Yes,” Grandma Winnie answered. “But it’s also horribly egotis
tical. Magic disperses the way it does for a reason. Just because we don’t know why some witches are blessed with far too much magic while others are given almost none, it doesn’t mean we can just go changing it. We weren’t put here to destroy the essence of the very thing that makes us special.”
I blinked, thinking about that. Perhaps my grandmother was right. In any event, I needed to sit back and listen if I was going to learn what I needed to in order to stop this.
“Some people don’t believe that, though,” Grandma Winnie said. “There are people who would use magic to twist themselves into knots in order to make themselves more powerful. You see, when magic is transferred from one person to the next, it becomes concentrated. It strengthens and becomes something less controlled and more volatile.”
“That must be why Gayle was acting the way she was,” I said, swallowing hard and looking over at Lucas, who was still spelled and unable to speak about any of this. “She’s got all the magic inside her. It’s throwing her off, making her act crazy.”
“Or maybe she just is crazy,” Charlotte suggested. ‘She is a Mangrove, after all. Maybe that’s just her nature.”
“Really nice in front of our guest, Charlotte,” Savannah complained, shaking her head judgmentally.
“Our guest is only our guest because his sister tried to drop a house on me,” Charlotte said.
“She tried to drop a house on me, too,” Lucas added. “So, you know, there’s that.”
“This isn’t important,” I said, shaking my head. “What’s important is what Grandma has to say.” I motioned to the old woman. “So, please continue.”
“You’re both right and wrong,” Grandma Winnie said. “The ancient transference is an immensely powerful thing. It’s also unpredictable. I never imagined Eloise would ever do something like that, but I guess that goes to show that you can be in a feud with someone your whole life and never really know them.” She looked at the floor for a second and then back up at me. “The Mangrove power is fluid now. While it is all in Gayle right now, that doesn’t mean it’ll end up in her. I’m assuming Eloise was the one to perform the spell, which means she’s the one who gets to decide where it all ends up. My guess is that she’s chosen someone to take most of the power, and that person will then distribute the rest of the power throughout the family as she sees fit.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why would she go through all of this trouble? There’s no reason for it.”
“Of course there is, my dear,” Grandma Winnie said. “You just haven’t lived long enough to consider it.”
I looked up at the woman. “I’m confused, Grandma,” I admitted.
“Power is important when you are the way we are,” she said. “It takes a lot to be a witch, but it takes a lot more to run and protect a family of witches. When my mother died, she told me that. She told me that it was going to be up to me to learn the things I needed to know to protect and teach my family, and she said that one day, I’d have to teach someone how to do that myself.” Grandma Winnie took a deep breath. “I’m afraid that time might be near for Eloise.”
“What?” I asked, standing to meet her. “What are you saying?”
“Lucas?” Grandma Winnie started, looking past me and walking toward the man. “Is your grandmother dying, sweetheart?”
I looked at Lucas. Tears were already falling down his cheeks. He didn’t need to say anything. I could see the answer all over him.
“He can’t answer you, Grandma,” Savannah said, blinking back tears of her own. “The spell, remember?”
“The spell keeps him from talking about the magic, but life is so much more than magic. Eloise Mangrove is more than a witch. She’s a woman, a wife, and a grandmother. When they lose her, they’ll be losing so much more than the magic she possesses. I’d wager that to Lucas here, the magic is the least of it.” She settled in front of the man, wiping his tears away with her hand. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Son,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Grandma,” I said.
“Just a moment, Izzy,” she said, grabbing the man’s hand and squeezing it. “We’re taking a moment. He deserves a moment.”
23
“Is he okay?” I asked as Savannah walked out of the bedroom where Lucas had settled after his emotional upheaval. It had been a heavy moment, and I couldn’t blame the man for needing a few minutes by himself.
“He’s better,” Savannah said. “Though honestly, he’s still not quite himself.”
“Can you blame him?” I asked, looking at the closed door mournfully as my heart went out to the man. “I don’t even want to imagine what it would be like if Grandma Winnie—”
“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Savannah said, shuddering. “It would be horrible.”
“Way too horrible,” I agreed. “And I know it’s horrible for Lucas and for the rest of the Mangrove coven. I feel for them, even Crystal. I honestly do, but I need to keep my focus on us right now.”
“I don’t think he’s up for answering any more questions right now,” Savannah said, looking back at the door.
“I don’t think he has to,” I answered. “I’ve been thinking about what Eloise said the night she came here. She was frantic about Crystal being missing, which was a reasonable reaction, but it was even more than that. Knowing what we know now, I’m betting that Crystal is the one Eloise picked to funnel the magic into.”
“Sounds right,” Savannah said. “She did say Crystal was her favorite.”
“She also seems to be the strongest of mind, which I’m sure is important when picking a successor,” I said. “The only thing I don’t know is what any of this has to do with the vampires.”
“And you’re willing to wage a war to find out?” Grandma Winnie asked, walking toward me.
I steeled myself. I didn’t like the idea of fighting with my grandmother. She was the strongest and best woman I’d ever known, but to do what was right, I’d go toe to toe with her.
“Some people might say that kidnapping a witch would be the thing that started the war,” I said.
“And I’d agree with those people,” Grandma Winnie said. “But you don’t have any proof of that.”
“I know what I know,” I answered. “I know what I saw.”
“What you saw was pasta and cut-up hot dogs,” Grandma Winnie said. “Breaking into a house that belongs to the queen of the vampires is a big deal, Izzy. I’m not telling you not to do it. I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into, what you’re getting us all into.” She swallowed hard and continued. “I told you that there were times when the feuds between witches ended in bloodshed. Feuds between vampires and witches existed back then, too. And they made the spats between covens look like leisurely walks in the park.”
“You know what’s at stake, Grandma,” I said. “And more than that, you know what could be at stake. If the vampires have taken Crystal, then that means they want something with the coven’s magic. They want all the Mangrove magic. I’d hate to even try to imagine what they’d want that for.” I shook my head. “And who is to say that this would be the end of it? What if the Mangrove magic isn’t enough? What if, after they use it all up, they have a taste for it? Even vegetarian vampires aren’t known for their conservative natures.”
“You make a fine point, Izzy,” my grandmother said. “But I’m still not sure what you’re expecting to find inside Queen Rubix’s house.”
“That’s the thing, though,” I said. “That’s why I left that particular earring.” I shook my head. “Don’t you remember? It’s part of the set you gave me right before I left for Chicago.”
A slow smile crept across my grandmother’s face. “The magical detectors,” she said.
“Right,” I answered. “Remember, you told me they’d keep me safe. They’d make sure I knew where magic was so that no witch, warlock, or anything like that could ever sneak up on me.”
“I do remember,” Grandma Winnie said. “But they were a deterrent.
They were meant to keep you away from the magical beings I assumed would mean to take advantage of you.” She shrugged. “You can’t ever be too careful when someone precious to you decides to head off on their own.”
My heart warmed a little, realizing just how much my grandmother cared about me. I needed to keep my focus, though. There was little time, and though I hated the idea of admitting what I was about to admit to my grandmother, I had to do it.
“I sort of rejiggered it,” I admitted, shuffling nervously.
“You what?” she balked, her eyes widening. “You messed with my spell?”
“I just reversed it,” I answered quickly, wincing and biting my lower lip. “I made it so that instead of detecting and keeping me away from magical activity, the earrings detected and drew me closer to magical activity.”
“And why in Merlin’s beard would you do something like that?” my grandmother asked, practically fuming at me.
“Because I got lonely,” I admitted. “I had friends, sure, but there was no one I could talk to about magical stuff, about what it means to be a witch on her own. I wanted to find a group of people who could really know me.”
“That group of people is called your family, Izzy,” Grandma Winnie said tersely. “If you’re feeling lonely, you lean on us. It’s what we’re here for. The thought of you running around the big city all alone without even the tool I gave you to keep you safe is enough to give an old woman a heart attack.”
“I’m okay, Grandma,” I said, blinking hard. “Obviously, I am. I’m right here.”
“No thanks to you, I see,” she answered, still angry. “But I suppose that at this present juncture, what you did can be seen as useful. Though Crystal’s and Eloise’s powers are in flux, there should still be enough of a signature for the earrings to find them, assuming they’re in there at all.”
Valleys, Vittles, and Vanishings Page 10