“You sure we have enough candles?” Mom asked nervously. “I think we could fit a few more inside the ring. More candles is always better. I mean, to a point.”
“I think we have enough, but we have room to put few more white candles,” I said. “If it would make you feel better, I can go upstairs and get a few more.”
“It would make me feel better,” she said. “I think we need as much white light and protection as possible. Please.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be right back. I have a stash in the hall closet. It shouldn’t take me more than a couple of minutes.”
“I’m coming with you,” Joe said. “I’m not leaving your side until this is all over, and then I don’t know if I’ll leave your side after that either.”
There was only one way he could do that, but it wasn’t the right time to think about that. I just hoped that wasn’t his version of a proposal, but if it was, I’d still take it.
We trudged up the basement steps. I took the risers two at a time, but I got the feeling that something was holding us back. There was a force that didn’t want us to wake Amanda, and it was responsible for my mother asking for more candles. Perhaps it had whispered some anxious words into her ear. I didn’t know, but what I did know was that we were getting the candles and doing the ritual. That also made me think that the candles weren’t going to have the effect Mom thought they were, but I’d still get them. The stronger we felt, the stronger we would be.
I opened the closet door to grab a handful of white candles, and I heard Joe take in a sharp inhalation of breath. I whirled around to find Lucinda standing there. Well, more like floating there. Her feet weren’t touching the floor.
At least, I thought it was Lucinda. It felt like her, but this specter was clearer than she’d ever been. I’d only ever gotten the impression of what she’d looked like in the past, but now her visage was as clear as day.
She was also as clear as day. While her features were easier to see, she looked as though she was fading from our reality. Her presence wasn’t as robust. Something was wrong.
“Lucinda,” I said. “I was worried you wouldn’t make it after we left the morgue.” It looked as though some part of her hadn’t.
“My tether to this world has been partially severed. I think I can restore it, but it’s going to take some time. I had to see you again, though. The thing that I came here to warn you about is coming. When I told you that something dark was approaching, it’s almost here. I didn’t understand what it was, but I do now. I know you won’t leave that woman the way she is, but I wish you would. I feel like it knows it too.” And then she was gone.
“What does she mean?” Joe asked.
“I think she means we should leave Amanda under the spell, but Lucinda knew I wouldn’t do it. She also said that something else knew it to. So, Amanda is some sort of trap.”
“What did she mean about warning you?”
“When Lucinda began appearing to me, she warned me about people meddling with things they shouldn’t. At least, I think that’s what she meant. I believe she meant dark magic. I think. I don’t know. It’s like the edges around those early conversations with her have become fuzzy.”
“You’re still going to do the ritual to wake Amanda?” Joe asked.
“Of course,” I said. “It’s not in my nature to leave someone like that, plus if she’s alive, then Ginger and Lupin are no longer suspects in her murder.”
“That’s going to be a mess,” Joe said. “So many people believe she is dead. How are we going to explain that she’s actually alive? The coroner thinks he autopsied her.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
I lit a few more candles, and we surrounded Amanda. Lupin and Joe stood back, but they stayed inside the circle. I stood at her head, and my Mom stood at her feet. Glinda and Ginger were on either side of her, and Grim sat by my feet.
We raised our hands toward the ceiling. “I call forth the Guardian of the North,” I began. “Bring us the grounded blessing of Earth.”
Before Glinda could begin to call her corner, Lupin made a strange sound that was a cross between a growl and a sob. We all turned our attention to him, but he began to shake. His eyes went wide, and he took a step back.
“Don’t, Lupin,” I said. “Don’t break the circle.”
His eyes took on a yellow glow, and I knew what was happening. He was shifting, and by the expression on his face, it was outside of his control. Something was forcing his wolf to the surface.
In a flash, he was up the concrete steps that led to the back yard and then he was gone. We all froze for a second. I was just glad we hadn’t started the ritual yet.
“I’m going after him,” Ginger announced.
“Ginger, no,” I said and reached for her as she started to exit the circle.
“I’ll close the circle on the way out.”
Before we could stop her, Ginger was outside the circle and she’d closed it with a wave of her hand.
“Ginger,” I said, but I was at a loss.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “I’m just going to go get him. You said yourself that I am uniquely powerful right now. Just do the ritual to wake Amanda. You’ve got Grim.”
And then she was gone too. I felt the sting of her words. I hadn’t intended to replace her with Grim, but she was a shifter and a witch of her own right. My intention really had been to sit down and discuss it with her after we had our answers.
“She’ll be all right,” my Mom said. “We should do this now.”
Things just felt wrong. An unease had settled under my skin, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that things in Destiny Cove were about to get a lot worse. What could we do, though? I wasn’t going to leave Amanda that way. Besides, keeping her trapped in that state might have only been a temporary solution.
The ritual to wake Amanda was short and solemn. Joe offered to help us call the corners, but I wasn’t sure that was a good idea considering what we were dealing with.
“If you want to learn some magic, I’ll teach you when things are calm,” I said. “But I really do appreciate the offer.”
Joe had come a long way since the days of completely distrusting any magic. I looked forward to teaching him what I could, but it wasn’t the right time for him to dive in. I’d believed since I first met him that he had a natural propensity for magic, so I would show him someday.
We used the power of three to heighten our magic as much as possible, and Grim kept the magic circle around us reinforced. His familiar magic was strong to the point of being impressive, but I still missed having Ginger with me.
While the air around us vibrated with magic, I waved the broom over Amanda. I met some invisible resistance, and I could feel the broom sweeping the spell away.
When it was done, we all stood back and watched. At first, I thought we’d failed. She didn’t move at all for several minutes, but we waited. I had no idea what we would do next if the magic failed.
Fortunately, Amanda began to stir. At first it was so subtle that it was almost impossible to see. The process started with a twitch of her little finger and a barely perceptible flutter of her eyelashes. She began to breathe again, but the breaths were so shallow that I had to watch her for a full moment to see her chest rise and fall.
Finally, she started to move around. Amanda’s eyes opened and she sat bolt upright.
“Oh, no,” she said. “You woke me up. Why would you do that?”
I stood there for a moment just blinking. I couldn’t believe she asked that, but I thought that perhaps she was just disoriented.
“Why would you do this?” she asked again.
“Okay,” I began. “Well, I mean, you aren’t really dead and people I cared about were in danger of going to jail for your murder. So, yeah. We thought it was a good idea to break the spell.”
“Right,” she snarled. “I was safe until you witches came along. The funny thing is that you were safer too. Now we’re all screwed.”
“Yeah, I think that would be a good idea, Amanda,” Joe said from right behind me. “You’re supposed to be dead. The coroner thinks he autopsied you. You’ve caused a lot of trouble.”
“Whatever,” Amanda snarked. “I put myself under the spell. I had to,” she said as she studied her fingernails.
“What?” I asked. “Why?”
“Because I made a deal. I made a deal with the thing that is going to come looking for me now that I’m awake. And we’re all screwed.”
“I don’t understand,” my Mom said. “Who did you make a deal with?”
“Not who. What,” Amanda answered. “I made a deal with… I don’t know… I guess you’d call it a demon, but it’s stronger than that. It’s bigger than any dark thing I’d ever encountered. I can only guess that a dark coven helped the thing across the veil because I can’t figure out any other way that it got here.”
“What did you make a deal for?” I asked.
“For Lupin. I made a deal with it so that Lupin would fall back in love with me. It said I could have him, but I had to kill a witch. I took the deal, but then I couldn’t do it. I panicked, and I put myself under the death spell. It would have worn off eventually, and I don’t know. I guess I thought that things would just work themselves out by then.”
“You would have been buried in the ground,” I said. “I don’t see how that’s things being worked out.”
“Well, yeah, but I could use magic to get out of that. I don’t know if there is any kind of magic I can use against that thing. You guys woke me up, and now it’s coming. I just know it.”
I was about to say something else, but then I felt it. The air grew still, and it grew stale and too warm rather quickly. It was like when you turn your furnace on for the first time in the winter, but the feeling was much more intense. I felt like I was starting to suffocate.
“We have to get out of this basement,” I said and pulled at the collar of my shirt. “We have to break the circle eventually anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Amanda said. “This circle wouldn’t have protected you anyway.”
“What was its name?” Grim said. He’d been so quiet up to that point.
“It’s name was…” Amanda started to say, but a rumble cut through the air.
The house began to shake a bit. “Maybe we should break the circle now,” my mother said. “We can question her when we’re better prepared. We need to gather more witches. We need supplies.”
She was right. We had to protect the town, and the three of us couldn’t do that from the basement. Ginger and Lupin had run off into the night, and something had forced Lupin to shift.
Joe’s phone rang. He answered it and listened before saying, “I’ll be right there.” And he hung up.
“What is it?” I asked. “You have to go now? I don’t want you out there. Not when we don’t know what’s going on.”
“I have to go,” Joe said. “The state police need me to help with a drunk and disorderly call. The dispatcher said they’ve been overrun with drunk and disorderly calls, domestic violence, and what appear to be road rage cases. I don’t know what’s going on, but, Zoe, this is my job. I have to go. You guys keep Amanda here and keep her out of sight until we know what we’re going to do,” he said. “Amanda, you stay with them and you listen to what they say. If you don’t, I’ll throw you in the county jail. You’ll be alone, and the witches of Destiny Cove will not protect you.”
So, we broke the circle, and he was gone.
Epilogue
Highway 77, Mile Marker 33
Joe drove down the highway at breakneck speed. He’d been informed that there was a man, believed to be drunk, staggering down the side of the highway.
When a couple of cars had slowed down to offer him assistance, he’d lunged at the vehicles, and the drivers had sped off.
Joe wanted to get to the man as soon as possible so he could resolve the issue and get back to Zoe. He didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone with a huge demon coming for Amanda, but it was his job. He’d have never been able to forgive himself if something happened to a passing motorist because he refused to take what should have been a simple drunk and disorderly call.
He just had to arrest the guy, drop him off in a holding cell, and then he could get back to Zoe and their friends. As he approached mile marker 33, his headlights bounced off the pavement and illuminated a man staggering around on the shoulder of the road.
Joe pulled the vehicle off to the side and turned on his hazards. He stepped out of the vehicle and clicked on his flashlight.
“Sir, do you need help?” he asked in his most congenial but still authoritative voice. “Sir, did you know it’s illegal to walk along the highway in this county?”
The man slowly turned around. His feet dragged along the gravel of the shoulder as he twisted to face Joe.
“Sir,” Joe said and his hand went instinctively to the butt of his gun.
The man finished his revolution. He faced Joe, took a slow step forward, and snarled.
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© Sara Bourgeois 2019
This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons alive or dead is a coincidence.
A Howling Good Time (Wicked Witches of Destiny Cove Book 3) Page 8