by Chris Cannon
“Wait. The spell isn’t for just one contract?”
“No,” Zelda said. “You’d have to revoke every contract they’d ever written. It requires a coven willing to spill a lot of their own blood, essentially losing years of their lives.”
“Then why are you even showing it to me?”
“You asked if it was possible. It is.”
I sat back and thought about it. “So if you found witches willing to perform the spell, they’d undo all of Bane’s deals?” An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. “Anyone who’d made a deal for their own health or the health of a family member… They’d all get sick and die?”
“Instead of sacrificing one life for the good of many, you’d be sacrificing many lives for the good of one.” She touched my arm. “I understand that you want to help Meena. And I believe Bane should be stopped, but I’m not sure how to accomplish either of those things without a ton of collateral damage.”
“That totally sucks.”
“It does.”
While I was eating breakfast the next morning, Meena texted me. She only had two collections to make. We made plans to meet for a non-supernatural late afternoon date at the ice cream shop after I finished work.
When I drove up to the retro diner, I spotted Meena’s Volkswagen. She was already there. The bell rang as I entered the shop. The vanilla smell of waffle cones made my mouth water. Meena waved at me from a booth in the back. The other patrons glanced up to see who’d come in, but they didn’t stare as much as they used to. The townies must be getting used to me being around, which was kind of nice.
I slid into the seat across from Meena.
“I ordered chocolate shakes for us,” she said.
“Thanks.” I reached across the table to hold her hand.
“So, what did you build or fix today?” she asked.
“I helped a family put together a playhouse that was bigger than some apartments I’ve lived in.”
The waitress brought our shakes to the table. “Hello, Jake. Nice to see you again.”
“Thanks.” Crap. What was her name? “Small town life is growing on me.”
“So you’re sticking around?” she said.
“That’s the plan.”
“It’s nice to have new blood around here.” She smiled and, for a moment, I saw fangs.
Meena sucked in a breath. “Casey, when did you…get your new teeth?”
Casey smiled and her fangs disappeared. She must have turned her glamour back on. “Last weekend. It took some adjusting.” She wiggled the fingers on her left hand, showing off a ruby ring. “This little gem has made the transition almost painless.”
“Really?” I asked.
She nodded. “At first, I was terrified. I mean no one plans on this type of lifestyle change, but it’s better than making a deal with Bane.”
“You were sick?” Meena guessed.
“I was. Now I’m healthy and strong and I can pretty much do everything I did before, as long as I feed regularly.”
Curiosity got the better of me. “How do you and your friends around town do that without causing trouble?”
“You’d be surprised at the people who volunteer. It’s supposed to be a rush for them. Some sort of anesthesia in our saliva.” She leaned closer to me. “I know Sybil would be happy to give you a demonstration.”
“Mention her again, and your tip is in serious jeopardy,” Meena said.
I laughed and took a drink of my shake because what else could I do? Casey left. Meena glared at me.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“I know, but it’s still annoying.” She sipped her shake. “Tell me more about the playhouse.”
“It was like a log cabin with a kitchen and a bedroom. There was even a front porch.”
“More like one of those tiny houses you see on television than a toy house?” she asked.
“Yes. If it had electricity and plumbing someone would be all set.”
“Some of the old fishing cabins around here don’t have electricity or indoor plumbing. And people think it’s a lot of fun to get away to those cabins for the weekend.”
“That doesn’t work for me,” I said.
“I know we agreed not to talk supernatural on our dates,” Meena said. “But I think I’m ready to try contacting my mom.”
“Okay.” I didn’t love the idea, but I knew it was inevitable.
“Can you and Zelda come over when I try? When I’m ready, I feel like I’ll need moral support and someone to reassure my dad that it isn’t dangerous.”
“I’ll ask her about it when I get home. Since you broke the no-supernatural-talk rule, I learned something,” how did I phrase this, “mildly helpful about breaking demon contracts.”
Meena grabbed my hand. “Tell me.”
I didn’t want her to get too excited. “There is a spell that will break all of a demon’s contracts…every deal he’s ever made. It takes a coven and it’s not easy to do.”
I watched as the excitement faded from Meena’s eyes. “You can’t just end one. You have to delete all of them?”
I nodded.
“So…people who were in remission from cancer would die and people who traded their souls to save someone they loved…the entire town would be affected.”
“That’s why I said it was mildly helpful. Contracts can be broken. Maybe we could find a way to break specific contracts.”
“Maybe.” She took a big sip of her shake. Her happy mood was gone.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“No,” she said. “It’s good to know there is a nuclear option if we ever get desperate. It’s just…I can’t imagine choosing myself over everyone else. It wouldn’t be right.”
“True.” I stirred my shake with the straw. “Playing devil’s advocate here. Those people who made deals went against the natural order of things. So reversing the deals wouldn’t be wrong.”
“There’s a lot of things in this town that go against the natural order of things,” Casey said as she dropped off our bill. “I suggest you mind your own beeswax.”
“So says the vamp who just eavesdropped on our conversation,” Meena shot back.
“You won’t believe all the great gossip I pick up on now,” Casey said. “One of the perks, I guess. Seriously, though, Meena. I know you’ve never fit in around here, but you do realize it would be wrong to mess with other people’s lives…the choices they made. Right?”
“Yes,” Meena said. “Even an anti-social bookworm like me knows that it would be wrong to restart a child’s leukemia.”
“Just checking.” Casey went to wait on another table.
“Maybe there’s a way we could tailor the spell to you,” I said.
“Maybe, but I won’t hold my breath.”
…
Meena
“Instead of trying to get out of working for Bane, maybe I need to focus on the fact that this is just a summer job…the suckiest one ever, but eventually it will end. Right?” If it doesn’t get me killed first.
“That’s a positive spin. Only two months until you’re demon-free,” Jake said. “So what do you want to focus on instead?”
“Normal summer activities.”
“Like reading and petting cats?” Jake teased.
“Yes.” I toasted him with my shake glass. “But there are also creeks and lakes and swimming pools.”
“Does this scenario involve me seeing you in a bikini?” Jake asked. “Because that works for me.”
My face heated. “Yes. It does. Do you have swim trunks?”
“I’ll find something.” He grabbed the check and laid some money on the table. “Let’s go.”
We left Jake’s truck in the parking lot and drove back to my house. I changed into my navy bikini and checked the mir
ror. The boy short bottoms covered what they were supposed to and the underwire bikini top held everything in place while still emphasizing I was a girl. My stomach didn’t look anything like one of those models with visible abs and I didn’t have a thigh gap. That was okay. I was a real person. And those models were probably all airbrushed. At least that’s what I told myself. I pulled on a pair of jean shorts and a tank top and grabbed two pool noodles from the hall closet. When I walked back into the kitchen where I’d left Jake, he and Sage were in a heated debate.
“You’re not coming with us,” Jake said.
“It’s my job to keep Meena safe.”
“If she’s doing demon stuff, but we’re going swimming. She’ll call you if anything supernatural comes up.”
“Jake is right. This is downtime.” Wait. Maybe Sage wanted to go swimming, but this was a date. Crap. What should I do? “If you want to go swimming, you can come with us, but I don’t think I’m in any danger.”
“Fine. And no thank you. I’ve never been fond of the water.”
Thank goodness. “Okay. We’ll see you later.”
I dashed out the door and Jake followed.
“Sometimes you’re too nice,” Jake said.
“I didn’t want to be rude,” I said. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell if he’d rather hang out with cats or people.”
After we stopped at Zelda’s so Jake could change, I drove to one of my favorite small lakes. There was a quarry close to town where people liked to drink beer and jump off rocks. Not a brilliant combination, in my opinion, but I preferred peace and quiet, so I headed to a small man-made lake where not many people hung out.
I pulled up to the lake and was happy to see there were a few people floating on rafts, a couple having a picnic, and some people reading while floating in inner tubes, but it wasn’t crowded.
Jake smiled. “Is this the bookworm lake?”
“It is. If you want the loud obnoxious lake, we can try that another day.”
We exited the car and I staked out a spot for us with our towels and the cooler that I’d packed after the Jake and Sage discussion. I tried not to be self-conscious as I slipped off my tank top and jean shorts. Jake stared.
My face heated. “What?”
“It’s good to be me,” he said.
I ignored the comment, grabbed a pool noodle, and headed for the water. Jake splashed in behind me. I pretended not to notice that he had nice pecs as the cool water surrounded me.
Jake made a face.
“What?”
“The bottom of the lake,” he said. “It’s squishy.”
“Pretend it’s mud,” I said.
“It’s not mud?” He pulled his knees up so he was floating.
The look of horror on his face made me laugh. “It’s more than mud, but it’s all natural, like some expensive spa treatment. Think of it that way.”
“I’d rather not think about it.”
I swam farther out and then hooked one of my arms over the pool noodle so I could float. Jake joined me, copying my maneuver. He slid his other arm around me and pulled me close. And wow. There was a whole lot more skin contact going on here than I’d experienced before and a lot less clothing.
When he leaned in to kiss me, I went with it, trying to remember that we were in a public place. I pulled away before I wanted to. “We should swim,” I said.
“In a minute.” He kissed me again with a little less bodily contact and then he leaned his forehead against mine. “We should swim.”
We raced. He won, which wasn’t a big surprise. I wasn’t very competitive when it came to physical activities. I’d study my butt off to make the highest grade, but that was different.
After a while, I realized the shake I’d had earlier hadn’t counted as lunch. “Time for a snack.”
We sat on our towels and let the sun dry us off while we ate granola bars and apples and talked about nothing. And it seemed so ordinary and right. This had never been ordinary for me. None of the guys I’d met had ever wanted to spend time with me once they realized I wasn’t a pageant girl and I didn’t act how they expected. Jake had probably had girlfriends before but this was new and exciting for me and a small voice in the back of my head whispered that I better not do anything to mess it up.
Chapter Eighteen
Jake
I kissed Meena goodbye when she dropped me off at my truck. Not that I wanted to let her go. Seeing her in a bikini made me wonder how much one of those above ground pools cost. Aunt Zelda had acreage behind the garage. A pool out there would be amazing. Maybe I’d try talking her into one.
When I walked in the front door, Aunt Zelda smiled at me from behind the cash register. “Did you have fun at the lake?”
“It was great,” I said. “I’ll clean up and then grill something for dinner, if you want.”
“Sounds good. I’ll close up shop in an hour.”
It’s not like she had any customers at the moment but I didn’t think I should point that out. Maybe someone was coming over to pick up an order. I was surprised by the number of people who dropped by to pick up herbs and crystals. Were all of them witches? It was hard to tell magical people from normal humans in this town, unless they had fangs or horns.
After a shower, I lit the barbecue grill one of Dale’s customers had asked me to haul off after I put his new one together. There was nothing wrong with the grill. It was a few years old and the lid had rusted. I’d asked Dale if I could keep it and he’d shown me what to use to clean the rust off and repaint it.
It bugged me when people threw good things out because they were a few years old or needed a little upkeep. If you put in a little work, most things could be fixed instead of thrown away. My dad used to make wind chimes out of scrap metal he had lying around. My mom would shine them up or paint them and sell them at a local flea market.
I put a package of franks and some corn on the grill. Soon they were sizzling. Zelda came outside and made a show of inhaling. “Why does anything cooked on a grill smell so much better than food cooked on the stove?”
“Smells like summer,” I said. “My dad always grilled hot dogs and hamburgers as soon as it turned warm.”
“He was a good man,” Zelda said.
I nodded and turned away for a moment. “Everything is almost done.”
We ate in the kitchen. She talked about the items she’d sold. I told her about the bookworm lake we went to. And then I remembered something.
“Meena wants to try and contact her mom. She asked if we’d be there for her when she does.”
“Of course, but I’m still not sure it’s a good idea. I don’t know if her mom could have survived all this time, in limbo, unscathed.”
That was a comforting thought. “You mean her mind might be gone?”
“Gone or twisted. Neither would be pleasant for Meena.”
I almost hoped she couldn’t do it, but that was wrong.
“On a positive note, she’s not going to worry about breaking her contract with Bane. She’s going to ride it out for the summer and be done with it.”
“I was holding out hope that you’d come across some ancient spell I’d never read that would help break mine and Carol’s contracts with Bane.”
“Me too,” I said. “I’m willing to scan through more books if you have anything you think I should check out.”
…
Friday night, Meena and I were sitting out back on her porch swing when she said she was ready to try contacting her mom.
“I was thinking a Saturday afternoon would be good because my dad would be home from work, and if it fails you can take me out for ice cream as a consolation prize.”
Time to play the supportive boyfriend. “Sounds good.”
“Gee.” She poked me in the shoulder. “That was convincing.”
“Sorry.” I
wrapped my arm around her shoulders and held her closer. “This whole astral travel thing scares me. The idea of floating away from your body…it’s just…it sounds like the basis for a horror movie. I mean, what if that’s where ghosts come from?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve practiced a lot. I know what I’m doing.”
“I believe you, but there aren’t a lot of people in my life that I care about. You’re one of them and I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t.” She snuggled into my side. “This is something I have to do. Can you and Zelda come over at eleven?”
“Sure.” Meena needed some sort of closure with her mom. Hopefully she’d find it.
…
Saturday afternoon, Zelda parked her Old Lady Oldsmobile in front of the house and we walked up the drive. Meena greeted us at the door with a big smile.
“Ready for this?” I asked, hoping she might have changed her mind.
“As ready as I can be.”
We followed her into the kitchen where Sage and her father waited.
“I asked all of you here today on the advice of Sage. He thinks the stronger my bond or tether to people in this plane, the more likely I’ll be able to come back to my body with ease. Since I have no desire to drift around in the ether, I wanted to have you all here.”
“Any way I can talk you out of this?” her dad asked.
“No.”
“Fine. Where are you doing this?” her dad asked.
Meena turned to Zelda. “Where do you suggest?”
“Your bedroom or the living room. Someplace where you can lie down and we can gather around you.”
“We can carry kitchen chairs into the living room,” her dad said. “So that might be more convenient.”
Meena stood and headed toward her room. “I’m going to grab a pillow.”
I followed behind her and stood in her doorway. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Something in my gut told me it wouldn’t be as simple as we hoped.
“No.” She grabbed her pillow and hugged it. “I’m terrified, but I have to do it. I have to know.”