Dangerous Magic

by Evie Hart

  I didn’t miss the bitter tone in her voice. I didn’t begrudge her it either. She’d married my uncle, and he’d been killed in the same battle that had taken the life of my parents nine years ago. Witch laws said any property had to go to the next blood relative, and I knew it killed her that I’d built a life away from Haven Lake, yet this farm belonged to me.

  I had two aunts, but they’d moved into the properties their husbands had owned, rendering their claim and that of my cousins’ on the property moot. Also, my mother had been the eldest of the three, meaning the house would have been hers if she’d still been alive.

  Thus, it’d fallen to the youngest Thorn grandchild: me.

  I’d tried to pass the farm to Aunt Rose. Believe me, I had, but without the blessing of a living female relative, it was impossible. Witches were matriarchal, and Grandma Cherry was the only one who could give permission.

  Alive.

  That ship had sailed. The Thorn Farm was mine, no matter who liked it or loathed it.

  For the record, I mostly definitely did not like it.

  “As long as Grandma keeps up her games,” I replied, looking into the glass of sweet tea she’d handed me seconds before her question.

  “You bound her. The only people she can harass are me, TJ, and the resident ghosts,” she said, referring to her son.

  I sighed. “You know what I mean, Aunt Rose. She can’t be bound here forever. She’ll go crazy, and you know what happens to those.”

  “They’re removed,” she said flatly, referring to the process of formally removing a spirit from the world. “But you won’t do that to her.”

  “Of course I won’t. She’s my grandmother. She’s as crazy as a clowder of cats in a catnip farm, but I’d never let her get that fate. Unless she really deserved it, but I don’t think being a nuisance is technically illegal.”

  “Depends how many times you’re a nuisance,” Rose muttered, moving from one stove to another to stir whatever potion she was brewing. “So, you’ll figure out to contain her behaviors and go back to your human life.”

  I sucked the inside of my cheek into my mouth. My choices had long been a sore spot, especially for my aunt. I loved her more than anything, same with my cousin, but we weren’t all cut out for this life.

  I was a witch, but it’d never brought me anything but trouble. I’d always been the weird one in my family and, hell, in the entire town. I didn’t have special powers like all the other witches.

  Living outside of Haven Lake had been something I’d had control over.

  There was something about this town that reinvigorated me in the worst way. It was compelling and irresistible. Like a pastry on a low-carb diet or coffee ten minutes after waking up.

  Haven Lake fed my magic. The atmosphere was an elixir, dangerous and heady, and completely against everything I’d fought against for the past two years.

  Haven Lake was to me what drugs were to humans.

  Irresistible. Accessible. Right-the-hell-there.

  “Aunt Rose,” I said softly.

  She stopped, back to me, and held up her hands, one of which still clutched a spoon. “I don’t want your excuses, Avery. Do you know how hard it is? Everyone in town felt the ripple the moment you entered the town. The wards knew you were home.”

  No magic was powerful enough to shield someone from the town wards. They were thousands of years old—maybe even older than time itself for all we knew.

  “You flit in and out as you please, not thinking about your family—”

  “Do you want the farm?” The words escaped me before I could reconsider them. “Is that what this is about?”

  Rose turned, her green eyes piercing my soul. “No. I don’t want the farm. I want my niece, and I want my son to have his aunt and his godmother.”

  My swallow was hard, and I looked away from her. I couldn’t deal with it right now. There were too many things going on, not least that I had to go to the town hall tomorrow to report the fact I’d bound Grandma.

  You couldn’t just do that willy-nilly. There were rules.

  Rules that included proper spells and registrations. A member of the Council had to come out to ensure I’d performed the spell correctly and that Grandma wouldn’t be able to escape. It also had to be registered that a live ghost who wasn’t technically bad was bound.

  Red tape everywhere.

  You’d think by now that they’d have some magical alarm system, but no. They didn’t.

  “I don’t know how to reply to that,” I said honestly. “It’s not that I don’t care about Haven Lake, because I do, but I don’t know if it’s where I’m supposed to be.”

  “You’re a Thorn witch. Where else are you supposed to be? Conducting scientific experiments in the Arctic?”

  “No. I’m more of a deity created the world in seven days kinda girl,” I bit back with as much sarcasm as she’d tossed my way.

  Aunt Rose sighed, waving her hand over the stove that had the pasta bubbling away on. The power on the stove instantly cut off, and with one flick of a finger, she motioned the pot to move a few inches off the hot ring.

  It did her bidding.

  The urge to use my own magic to make the glass dish of cheese tip into the pasta was overwhelming. It tickled at my skin, making goosebumps prickle up my arms.

  It was too natural.

  My finger flicked before I had any control over it.

  The small glass dish lifted into the air, hovered for a second, and dumped its entire contents of parmesan into the pan.

  One more flick of my finger had the wooden spoon mixing the cheese into the sauce-coated pasta.

  Aunt Rose snorted. “Old habits die hard, huh, Aves?”

  I tucked my hand into my lap, hating the way the spoon kept stirring. “Shut up,” I muttered. “It’s just the lake.”

  “Sure. It’s the lake.” Rose took hold of my magical spoon and stilled it, turning off the stove. “It’s nothing to do with you being home in a town full of magical beings and being completely free to use your magic.”

  I decided not to answer. Turned out, I didn’t have to. The scent of garlic and chicken pasta being served onto three plates was more than strong enough to send my ten-year-old cousin, TJ, barreling through the front door and sliding into the kitchen.

  He stopped dead at the sight of me. “Avery!”

  I shrugged innocently and held out my arms to him. “TJ!”

  He threw himself at me. My baby cousin was my favorite person. He didn’t judge me for my selfish choices, and he was always happy to see me home.

  Yes, that was selfish and made me a horrible person, but whatever. I couldn’t be a powerful witch and a perfect person now, could I?

  Not even pizza pleased everybody, and that was about the closest a food could get to perfection.

  I hugged TJ tight, breaking after a minute of mutual holding to ruffle his unruly blond hair. He looked up at me with rich hazel eyes that matched those of my late uncle perfectly.

  “You’re back!” His grin was wide and made his eyes light up.

  “I am. Someone had to come control Grandma.”

  She popped into view. “I do not need controlling.”

  TJ looked over at her. “You talked Missy Callahan’s dog into eating the flowers at the park.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Grandma, for goodness sake!”

  Aunt Rose narrowed her eyes as she set our food on the table. “TJ. You didn’t tell me that.”

  He shook his head. His chair squeaked against the floor as he pulled it out. “I told Detective Sanders, though.”

  “Detective Sanders?” I frowned. I didn’t know that name. Not that it counted for a lot—Haven Lake hadn’t hired a new detective since TJ was born.

  Grandma Rose floated onto her back, her hand dramatically fanning her face. “If I were fifty years younger—”

  “And alive,” Rose muttered, leading me to disguise a snort of amusement.

  “You stop that.” Grandma wiggle
d a finger at that. “That man is ice cream on a hot summer day, and I don’t mind tellin’ you so!”

  “La la la la la!” TJ stuck his fingers in his ears, his voice getting louder with each “la” he said.

  Grandma opened her mouth, but a red and gold flash darted through the window. It circled the kitchen before it came to settle on top of the fridge and showed the room its true form.

  Rose’s familiar, Honey, a red and gold macaw with more attitude in one sharp toe than most Haven Lake residents had in their entire family.

  She surveyed the room with her beady eyes before they came to rest on me. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  I’d always hated that bird. “My cat will eat you, you little—”

  TJ coughed.

  Silence fell over the room.

  “The dirty creature would have to catch me first.” Honey followed that up with a bird noise and a flap of her wings.

  Is that vile bird here? Snow sounded way too excited in my head, and I was feeling way too petty to lie to her.

  On top of the fridge, I replied, digging into my pasta.

  Mee-row!

  The next thing I knew, the sound of paws on the steps reverberated through the kitchen. I smirked as a flash of white launched itself at the fridge. Honey cawed and took flight, but I shrugged a shoulder in the direction of the open window, and it slammed shut seconds before she could make her escape.

  Rose side-eyed me, while TJ grinned into his pasta.

  Honey circled the room, flapping frantically, while Snow jumped onto any available surface in her pursuit of the bird.

  Grandma surveyed the scene with barely disguised annoyance. “This place has gone downhill since my death,” she announced, straightening.

  “You’ve gone downhill since your death,” Rose snapped.

  “I heard that.”

  “Good,” I added. “You were supposed to. She said it loud enough.”

  She sniffed, and with a pop, disappeared.

  Rose sighed. “Some things don’t change around here.”

  “You’d complain if they did,” TJ replied, grabbing his glass of orange juice.

  Despite the sass, she couldn’t even deny it, because she knew it to be true. Instead, she snapped her fingers, and the window opened for Honey to make her escape. With another snap, Snow was banished from the kitchen, the door slamming shut behind her.

  “Animals would be better if they couldn’t talk,” Rose muttered.

  As someone who’d lived in the human world where animals didn’t talk, I was in full agreement.

  I heard that, Snow scowled in my mind.

  Good. Go away and let me eat. I’ve had enough today.

  Her indignant huff was all I had until my mind went completely silent, and by some miracle, I was able to eat in peace.

  Thank heavens for small mercies.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE NEXT MORNING, I was able to escape the house relatively unscathed.

  By the time I woke up, TJ had left for school, and Rose had been outside tending to the few horses we still had on the property. She had, however, left me a freshly baked croissant and coffee in the pot, something I took as a peace offering from the night before.

  She’d also filled Snow’s cat food with the good stuff.

  Our relationship was a tempestuous one, but we were still family, and that trumped everything.

  I’d decided to walk to the town hall instead of drive or take my broom. Late spring in southern Georgia wasn’t necessarily unpleasant. Cold enough for a light jacket early on a morning, but warm enough to get away with flats instead of boots, it was almost enjoyable to walk through the town I’d called my home for so many years.

  As I strolled through the quiet streets, a part of me wondered why I’d ever left. It was the magical part of me that resided deep down in my soul, the part that made up the very fabric of who I was. It was linked to the lake and this town, and it was the anchor everyone needed to remind them of the place that was “home.”

  I shook off the feelings of home and kept walking. It happened every time a paranormal being returned to the place they were born—or made, if you happened to be a vampire—and it was completely natural that the witch side of me wanted to drop that anchor and stay here.

  The rest of me wasn’t so sure. Unlike the other witches in town, I didn’t have any kind of special skill. Grandma Cherry hadn’t either, but given how chaotic she was, it made sense that she’d be a jack of all trades, as it were.

  Me?

  I was nothing like her. If she was a storm, I was a gentle breeze. Dead or alive, the way we conducted ourselves were completely different.

  Even Aunt Rose had a skill. She was a kitchen witch, which meant that any kind of food she touched turned to gold. It was a magical, culinary Midas touch.

  I’d never shown an affinity for any kind of skill—kitchen, herbal, metal, elemental. You name it, I’d avoided it. I had great measurable ability in all of them, better than average, but I’d never leaned toward any one of them.

  It’d made witching school hard for me. I’d watched as all of my friends had skipped into the Head Witch’s office and had their magical skill officially confirmed, yet when my time had come, I’d confused her.

  The only other witch since records began in Haven Lake who’d had a blank slate for their skill was my grandmother.

  Apparently, they’d deemed that as normal.

  Apparently, book smarts didn’t equal real smarts. I’d had to take private lessons to harness my power which was that much greater than that of my peers, and as I strolled past the perfectly circular lake that gave our town its name, I realized that was why I’d left.

  I was weird.

  I was powerful.

  I was potentially unpredictably dangerous.

  I just wanted to take off my pants and watch Netflix without WiFi dropping its signal.

  What? As a twenty-five-year-old woman, I had the Goddess-given right to binge as many TV shows as I wanted. Some things didn’t discriminate against witches or humans.

  I sighed and turned the corner to the town hall. It was a horribly majestic building, lording over the rest of the town with nothing but its architecture. It was three stories high, wide and Gothic in style, with spiraling towers at each corner of the building. The bright-white awning was intricate and stunning, a masterclass in architecture.

  The windows were straight out of a historical romance novel, perfectly set in the building. A few even had stained glass depicting our history, but time had taken its toll on them and a few were missing.

  Hell, there were even balconies. They reached out in front, and they had to be a newer addition, because this was a town hall, not a freaking palace.

  And why a government building needed balconies, I couldn’t tell you.

  The details that adorned the building were intricate and old, dating back to at least the nineteenth century. The windowsills were rich in their decoration, and even the chimney that rose up from what was once the manor house of the founding family of Haven Lake was extravagant.

  I hated the dang building.

  I always had. It was the place of licenses and rules, of courts and cut and dry. The paranormal Councils only had the building because when the final member of the Haven family had died, it’d fallen into the hands of the local government.

  Translation: the Councils of the witches, the vampires, the shifters, and the Fae, among others.

  They’d all taken a wing of the house for their private business, but the main ballroom had stayed a neutral area. It was used as the courtroom for any supernatural issues and had been adapted to resemble a human courtroom.

  Just, you know. The judge could potentially kill you with a snap of their fingers.

  I mean, this was America, but it was still a little extreme.

  I took a deep breath as I approached the imposing building. It had a beautiful view out over the lake if you were lucky enough to get one of those offices. I’d nev
er had anything but bad experiences here if you could count the few I’d had.

  Obtaining the death certificate for my grandmother.

  Obtaining the death certificate for my uncle.

  Obtaining the death certificate for my parents.

  The only thing that made me push off the tree I was leaning against was the knowledge that my filing of binding a ghost could potentially save my wayward grandmother’s afterlife.

  If I owed my dead family anything, it was that.

  • • •

  The blast of cold air sent a chill down my spine.

  I froze. I was barely three steps into the building, but I knew there was something wrong. Somewhere in this building, something was very, very wrong.

  I shuddered, clasping my hands in front of me as I approached the front desk. My ballet flats slapped against the horrid marble flooring Betty Lou had insisted on when she’d reached the top of the Witch Council.

  If it weren’t clear already, witches ruled Haven Lake. It wasn’t just here, but other secret towns, too. Our variable skills lent us much power that not even four-hundred-year-old vampires could fight.

  It hadn’t always lent itself to be an amicable co-existence, but it had worked thus far.

  Except that one time, but that battle was a story for another day.

  That was what gave me the balls to approach the vampire at the reception desk.

  And no, before you ask, she wasn’t pale with black hair. She was olive-skinned with brunette hair tied up in a bun, of an obvious Mediterranean descent, and the white blouse she wore complimented her complexion perfectly.

  “Name,” she said without looking up from her computer.

  “Avery Louise Thorn,” I replied firmly.

  “State the purpose of your visit.”

  “I’m here to see Betty Lou Harper to report the binding of a ghost.”

  The vampire stilled, her fingers becoming completely motionless over the keyboard. Her gaze, however, lifted to meet mine. “Ah. Yes. Councilwoman Harper is expecting you. Take the elevator to the third floor. You’ll find her in room one. Her assistant will be ready to receive you.” She leaned forward and pointed to two silver doors. “The elevator is right over there.”