by Jenica Saren
The end…
For now.
While you wait…
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GHOSTED
Book one in the Absent Fate series
Coming November 17th, 2018
Available for pre-order on Amazon now!
(Check out chapter one on the next page!)
Ghosted: Chapter 1 - Kismet
As the sounds of shuffling feet chorused around me, I roused myself just enough to peek through one barely-opened eye at the students moving toward the exit. While half of me was relieved that the most boring class of the day was over, the other half just wanted to go back to sleep.
Normally, I'd be making a mad dash for my art class by now, desperate to escape the confines of my intro to digital design lecture, which was mostly about website building and boring as all hell. Today, however, my brain was sluggish and running painfully behind.
My mom and grandma left me to do almost all of the shopping and preparation for tonight's ritual by myself, saying that I was so young and spritely, and needed to fully appreciate every little detail that went into our annual ceremony.
I wouldn’t be young and spritely for long if they kept running me ragged like that.
It's not like I wasn't excited, though. Much like I did every year, I completely looked forward to meeting with my ancestors and learning something new from them, both about magick and about myself. It seemed like every year, they helped me grow more as a person than as a witch, which is something I used to care a lot about in my attempts to fit in.
Now, however, it wasn't so much that I cared more about magick, but more that I cared less about fitting in with anyone. My art and dreams of becoming a great artist were more important to me than friends or relationships.
When I thought about it though, my mom and grandma's words about needing to appreciate everything it took to do the ritual did kind of grate on my nerves. I did appreciate it, I did understand. We'd been doing the ritual since before I could walk and I'd seen how much effort went into getting everything prepared.
Grumbling to myself about the direction my thoughts had gone in since my blissful, dreamless nap, I rose from my seat and began gathering up my belongings; stuffing my laptop into my messenger bag along with my notebook and pens, my iPod into my back pocket, and my books into my already loaded down arms.
I shuffled to the door like a zombie, thought I'm pretty sure I had the looks and sounds to match. I felt like crap and didn't know how on earth I was supposed to go through with tonight's plans without copious amounts of caffeine, adrenaline, or sleeping through my favourite class of the day.
I was about halfway to the building that my art class was held in when I could have swore I heard my mom call my name.
Shaking my head to clear it of some of the residual sleepiness, I trudged on. My brain sometimes did funny things when I was low on sleep, so I didn't dwell too much on it until I heard it again.
Kismet!
There it was again.
That time, I was sure that it had been my mother's voice, but it was like a whisper on the wind, fleeting and hardly audible. But I could have sworn...
"Kismet!" The sound of my name louder, from close by startled me, causing me to trip and almost fall flat on my face. I counted myself lucky that it was just my books that hit the unforgiving pavement of the sidewalk.
Clutching my own throat, which felt as though it held my heart, I spun to face the source of the shout.
"Whitney, oh my fuck," I gasped as my multicolour haired friend approached, waving her free arm like a maniac. Her wig this week suited her really well, but I wasn’t about to admit that when I was angry with her. "Dude, I see you. You don't have to scare the books off me!"
Whitney rolled her big, brown eyes at me, her blue beanie with the big, embroidered unicorn and pompom on top shifting slightly in the wind. "Well sorry," she mocked, not even trying to sound the littlest bit apologetic. "Who knew you'd be so skittish?"
"I'm not skittish!" I protested with a glare. "You shouted at me, there's a difference."
She grinned at me as she knelt to hand me my books off the ground. "I shouted to you, not at you. And I was trying to get your attention since I called out to you like twice before."
Oh. So that's what that was. Obviously, my brain was broken. Sleep deprivation can do that to a person, or so I'd heard. Multiple times.
"Okay," I grumbled. "So, what's up? Why were you trying to get my attention?"
Whitney raised one eyebrow at me like the answer was obvious and I was dense. Which, maybe I was. "I just wanted to walk with you. My porcelain pottery class is right next door, remember?"
I did remember, but it's not like she always walked with me. A perk of having Whitney as a friend was that she didn't feel the need to always be around to maintain our friendship. She knew of and respected the fact that I had my days, more often than not, that I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts.
That's not to say that I was an introvert or anything, but maybe I was. I had my days where I could talk anyone's ear off for hours on end, as well, but they didn't seem to be as frequent lately with my workload at home and at school.
It was probably called stress in some cultures.
Readjusting my grip on my books, I didn't pause for even a moment longer before taking off again the direction of the art building. Whitney was close on my heels, which I knew without looking because of the sound of her boots crunching on the fallen leaves.
And, you know, her aura.
She skittered up to my side and tossed her long, golden tresses over the shoulder opposite me. "So, you and your family doing your thing tonight?" She asked as we both stepped over a large branch that was blocking the sidewalk.
Why did she always ask that? The answer wasn't ever going to change, it was always going to be a yes. "Like I've told you every day for the past six months, yeah," I explained, a bit impatiently. "We never miss it, no matter what."
Using her free hand to reposition her beanie, she said absently, "yeah, but like, what happens when all three of you aren't there to do it?"
Her question stunned the daylights out of me, causing me to freeze in my tracks. "Why would you even say that?" Every witch in the world knew that it was bad luck to speak ill of the living. Just insinuating the death of another witch was enough to turn fate on its heels.
Whitney wasn't from the same coven as me, but the rules were essentially the same. You never foreshadowed a witch's death.
Stopping a few steps ahead of me, Whitney turned to me, eyes wide. "I didn't mean it like that, Kis," she defended, "I just meant that you said you guys have to all three be present for it to work and all. Have you even told your mom that you don't want kids?" Way to deflect,
The tension I didn't realise I was holding in my shoulders dropped away immediately, leaving me feeling more than a little defeated.
It was no secret to anyone but my mom and grandma that I didn't want to have kids, that I didn't want to step into the shitstorm and ritual and blah, blah, blah of having a Syntyche daughter.
And while I had no particular interest in dating with my goals and plans for the future, I still wanted to be able to choose and love whoever I would be with.
"No, I haven't. I imagine that's going to go over like the ground over the sky," I mumbled, kicking at a leaf with the toe of my boot.
Whitney placed her gloved hand in mine and gave a gentle squeeze. "They'll understand when you're ready to tell them," she reassured me. "They love you, no matter what."
I nodded absently as my mind drifted to the different ways a conversation like that could go. My grandmother would maybe be more understanding than my mom, that I already knew. Long before my mother was conceived, when she was just a teenager younger than myself, she had fallen head over heels in love with a sailor from across the sea. She would visit him nightly at the piers where his ship was docked and he would share stories with her about the great, big, beautiful world that lay across the glit
tering waves.
When the night of her chosen conception date finally reared its ugly head, she made the brave and blind decision to run away with the sailor who had captured her heart, but when she had made her way across town and to the docks, his boat was gone, with nothing but a note nailed to their spot on the pier.
She never told me what the note had said and I never asked, but whatever it said made sure that she felt no ill will toward the man that stole and broke her heart in the same breath. She always said that she hoped she would see him again, but the sentiment was a mockery.
Her mother, my great grandmother, had ordered her eyesight to be stripped away as her punishment for falling blindly in love with a man that would so recklessly abandon her. She never shared the note with her own mother, either, but kept it close to her heart. Even without her eyes, I could still hear her down the hall, whispering to herself what I could only assume was the contents of the letter.
My mom on the other hand, had held nothing but disdain for men from the first time she had opened her eyes in this world. She saw no point in the sappy romantic comedies I adored or any joy in a sweet, romantic novel; she was cynical and always had been.
So, I knew that my grandmother, who had never given up on her love, would be slightly more inclined to side with me, which counted for a lot since she was the Syntyche coven's Crone - which is to say, she made all the rules. I could only hope that my stubborn, bullheaded mother could be swayed into granting me that one small freedom.
Grudgingly, I brought my attention back to the present, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and not slipping down the concrete steps because of the stupid leaves. After Whitney pulled open the door for me, I stamped my feet hard against the mat in the entrance, knocking off the loose debris and moisture from my shoes so that I didn't piss off Newman, the custodian, again.
He hated it when I tracked muck everywhere, but he hated it more when he had to clean rubbish off the floor and such because my idiot self couldn't stand straight on slippery surfaces. It would honestly be best if I didn't have to walk, but the average humans would likely not be too keen on a floating girl.
"Hey Whit," I said distractedly.
Whitney looped her arm through mine and was practically skipping - I'd never understand how someone so cheery and colourful would actually want to be friends with someone as bland as I was.
"What's up, Buttercup?" She responded. Without looking, I just knew she was smiling.
"Do you think I could hire a group of really hot guys to carry me around everywhere?" I asked, only half joking.
She threw back her head and laughed. Whitney's laugh was one of the most beautiful things on the planet, so full and honest. "Hypothetically, I'd say yeah," she chuckled. "Is this because of your weird aversion to walking, running, jumping, climbing, skipping, hopping, or basically anything that involves you actually using your legs?"
There it was, the real reason she always held onto me. It wasn't like I always tripped up and such, more that there was always that chance, and my chances were substantially higher than the average person's. My legs just didn't appreciate movement like my brain did.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," I replied dryly. "You're so mean to me sometimes."
We reached my classroom and Whitney pulled herself free cautiously. "I'm not mean, sweetie, the truth just bites sometimes." She reached behind me and pinched my ass with those damn claws that she called nails.
I squeaked and batted her away, but she was already hurrying back down the hall, laughing as she went.
I sighed and shook my head as I watched her disappear up the stairs to the second floor, then I opened the classroom door and stepped inside, welcoming the scent of paint and clay.
My art class was sort of a free-for-all because our art professor was a little bit on the hippie side of the spectrum. She firmly believed in letting our "creative juices" flow without hindrance, which was fine by me.
Taking my spot at my little table, which I always had to myself because people were judgmental dicks, I unloaded my work in progress from my bag and set it up on the table.
Being honest, it wasn't a pretty sight.
Painting wasn't my thing. I could never get the colours to mix the right way and the paint brushes didn't have the same level of accuracy as a pencil. Regardless, I was determined to give it my absolute best shot.
Stretching my hands and setting up my station, I got to work.
After my art class, that was the end of my day. Well, my day at school.
Following the end of my classes was a traffic-ridden drive from the college to the herb shoppes - which were six in total. I spent easily half an hour at each store, collecting everything on my mother's and grandmother's lists, and then chatting with the owners for heaven knows how long because some people enjoyed talking far more than I did.
Leaving the last stop, I was walking to my car when the wind blew really hard, nearly knocking my beanie off my head and threatening to send me tumbling to the ground - which would have been really bad since a lot of the ingredients I was carrying were in glass jars.
"Look, wind," I said like a crazy person. "I haven't fallen all day today and would really like to keep up with the good mojo, so if you don't mind, I'll be on my way."
Reaching my car, another gust blew and I had to hold onto my car with one hand to steady myself. When I took a breath, I thought I smelt my grandmother's perfume and checked the brown bag I was carrying to see if something in there was emitting the smell.
But, no. Those were smells that I would spend my whole life trying to forget.
Frustrated and off-balance, I opened my car door and jumped in as fast as I good without tripping myself up and making a spectacle. For good measure, I also flipped the wind my middle finger before pulling out of the parking lot and heading straight for my house.
By all rights, I lived in the suburbs. However, most suburbs weren't owned and used exclusively by members of a coven. The neighborhood was gated and had high privacy fences surrounding the entire area, which was great when it came to the bonfires.
Trust when I say that even I didn't want to see my gran naked.
I pulled into the driveway and got out of my car, hauling two of the big bags with me and almost faceplanting into the concrete when the wind blew hard once more. What was with the crazy weather? Yeah, it was cold, cloudy, and ominous, but that wind was going to drive me insane.
Pushing open the front door, I breathed a sigh of relief that the house was warm. I would have given anything for the coven to have been located somewhere it didn't snow, because the cold was a nightmare.
"Mom! Gran!" I called, flipping on the hall light. Why was it dark in the house? "Mom? Grandmother?"
No one answered me.
I went to the kitchen and turned on the lights as I went, setting my bags down and all but scratching my head. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked for any new messages from my mother, but there was nothing. I dialed her number and put the phone to my ear, waiting for her to pick up.
Then I heard it ring. Inside the house.
Slowly, and with the phone still ringing, I made my way to the living room, where my mother's phone was sitting on the couch.
A loud crash beneath my feet caught my attention and my feet started moving before I could give a second thought. I ran for the stairs to the basement and held onto the railing for dear life to keep from falling.
"Mom?" I called? As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I tried to assess the situation, my eyes darting left and right. There was no sign of my mom, no sign of my... Gran's walker?
I approached cautiously, eyeing the overturned walker like it would or could attack. It looked like it was thrown, not like it had simply been knocked over. And why was it down in the basement? Gran wouldn't have been able to get out if she didn't have her walker.
I spent the next two hours tearing through my house, looking for any sign of my family, but there was none. No sign of struggle
, no sign that they'd left, just... Nothing.
They had vanished.
Acknowledgments
Wow, this book has been one hell of a journey. I love this series, Ria, Drea, the guys, and even Bubbles with all of my heart. When I’m away from them, I don’t even know what to do with myself.
So, my first and most important thank you goes out to all of YOU! Yes, you, my amazing readers that have shown me so much more love and support than I could have ever asked for. Every book, every paragraph, every sentence is written thinking about how much all of you mean to me, so it never would have been done if not for all of you. THANK YOU!
My next big thanks goes out to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Bra – yes, we’re a thing. Kayla Erickson (Kayla Saren/Kiwi) and Christina Bridges (Cinnamon): I love the two of you more than you could ever know. If it wasn’t for all of your encouragement, all day chats, checking in on me, and helping me stay positive through so much stress, I don’t know how I would have finished this book. I write this with tears in my eyes and so much love in my heart… I love you guys.
Next up on the neverending list is my whip-cracking savage unicorn, Yumoyori Wilson. Dude, for real. From the bottom of my heart to the tippy top of my devil horns: THANK YOU! Without you pushing me every single day, writing right along side me, making sure that I was doing everything I needed to, there’s no way in hell this book would be here. I love you bunches and bunches.
Already deep in a puddle of my own tears, I may as well keep going, right? Well, this thank you is for all the incredible people who’ve helped me tremendously and honestly kept me from just quitting altogether. Those people are: KT Strange, CJ Strange, Elle Cross, Zoe Parker, and my incredible PA, Cassie Starkel. All of you are incredible people with amazing souls and I’m so, so glad I met each and every one of you.
Saving the best and most obvious for last, I want to take a moment to truly appreciate my husband. From bringing me caffeine (even when I hissed and clawed at you) to holding my hair when self-doubt made me feel physically sick to making sure I had quiet time to write whenever you could. Thank you for being my life partner and my biggest supporter.