by Evie Hart
A thud ricocheted across the floor, the vibrations almost as chilling as the sound.
I turned.
Dotty was on the floor.
Right in the spot that Amelie had been when I’d found her.
Her body convulsed, sending her arms and legs flying. Her head shook side to side, but she made no noise. Not as her hands slammed against the hard floor. Not as her legs moved and scraped her feet against the floor.
“Dots!” Nicole shouted, dropping to her knees. “Dotty!”
This had only happened once before; the day she’d viewed the battle. The vision had drawn her in. That was why I’d made her take the hematite. A vision could take her mind, but I needed her soul here.
“I need a circle!” I shouted to the detective, dropping to my own knees.
He blinked at me.
“Can you make a circle?”
“What good is it going to do? Whatever has her already has her.” Nicole visibly trembled.
“It’ll keep anything else out. She’s vulnerable.” I fumbled in my pocket and threw all the salt sachets at Detective Sanders. “Make me a goddamn circle!”
He launched into action. Instead of picking up all the salt, he picked up only one and drew the grains through the packaging and into the air. As he manipulated it into a circle that raised over us, I turned my attention back to Dotty.
I took her hand and squeezed it tight. “Take a breath and don’t you twitch, make a stitch and ground this witch.”
Magic swirled, and Nicole took her other hand.
Together, we repeated the incantation. It was lame. Simple but urgent, our intent was what would make the stupid connection of words come in together.
Over and over we said it. Slowly, Dotty calmed, her convulsing settling the longer and louder we chanted. I could feel Detective Sanders’ eyes on us as we worked the magic.
But it wasn’t enough.
We gave everything, but it wasn’t enough. She still wasn’t here. I could sense it. She was too far gone—too wrapped in whatever vision was gripping onto her right now.
Magic burned inside me. Some long-forgotten, deep part of my soul sparked to life, giving me power, and I took it.
I took it with both hands and I fed it into the spell, because if I didn’t, I’d lose my cousin.
That would happen over my dead body.
Magic flowed freely through me. Too freely.
Dotty was almost still.
There was too much magic.
Someone shouted my name.
Did they?
I didn’t know.
It was a tinny echo.
It wasn’t connected to me.
Dotty was still.
The magic cut, swarming back inside of me.
As quickly as I took back the magic, the darkness took me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“OF COURSE I didn’t know. Don’t you think I’d have told her?”
“She’s basically you, Mama. Of course you knew.”
“Are you accusing me of putting my own granddaughter at risk, Isabella?”
“Of course she’s not. She’s telling you that you have the same overwhelming power reserve. You were taught how to manage yours. She wasn’t.”
“I know that!”
“She almost died!”
“I know that, too! I might not be alive, but don’t you think that doesn’t hurt? Two of my granddaughters are lying in bed right now, unconscious, and I can’t do a dang thing about it. Don’t y’all stand there in front of me and blame this on me! My reserves never sent me unconscious. She has more power than all y’all put together!”
I rolled my head to the side. “Can you please stop shouting? My head hurts.”
“Sweet baby—”
All three of my aunts rushed me, and their blurry faces were the first thing I saw as I opened my eyes. Or tried to—my eyelids felt heavy, like lead weights had been stitched into my eyelashes.
“Get off me,” I murmured, shifting. “What happened?”
“You used too much magic.” Grandma Cherry floated to the end of the bed, her expression grim. She wasn’t even wearing a crazy outfit today—unless ripped jeans on a dead, elderly woman was crazy. “From what Dax Sanders said, the grounding spell you and Nicole performed on Dotty wasn’t enough. Something in the building gripped her, and y’all tried to bring her back.”
I blinked, moving to sit up. Everything hurt. My aunts bustled and between the three of them, they propped me up with pillows and gave me water.
“I remember that,” I said. “She dropped and started convulsing. Nic panicked. I made Sanders do a circle, and then I started a grounding spell. It didn’t work?”
“Not at first. He said that, judging by the power swirling around you, you tapped into a magical reserve.”
I swallowed and met her ghostly eyes. “There was something. It felt—it felt inhuman. I’ve never felt it before. What was it?”
Grandma sighed, clasping her hands together. “It was something you share with me. You don’t have a magical specialty for this reason. It doesn’t make you weak or weird, Avery. You don’t have a specialty because your magic is too strong to focus on one thing.”
“Like you.”
“Like me. Although, from what Dax told me last night, your magic far surpasses mine. We will have to go back to lessons to teach you how to manage this. I’m sure me telling you this doesn’t come as a surprise, but if you didn’t cut that stream off last night when you did, you could have died.”
No, it wasn’t a surprise. In fact, that was why I’d cut it off. I think I’d known on a subconscious level that I’d been using a deadly strength of magic. If I’d even cut it off at all.
But for now, I just wanted to know how Dotty was.
“How’s Dotty?”
“She’s unconscious,” Aunt Shelly said, wringing her hands. “She’s okay, but she wasn’t able to cut off her magic like you were.”
Aunt Rose touched my hand. “You saved her life last night, Avery. You severed her link with whatever it was holding her in place.”
“Is she going to be okay?” My voice cracked.
“Yes.” Aunt Bella nodded. “She’ll be fine. Nicole is with her. Snow said you were waking up.”
“And she is not amused.” My familiar jumped up onto the bed and pawed her way up to my stomach where she lay down and pinned me with her big, blue eyes. “I am, in fact, furious.”
I sighed and rolled my head to the side. “Snow…”
“Snow,” Grandma said. “She’s tired.”
“You’re the one who told her about the power,” Snow retorted. “Let me do the same.”
“What? What are you talkin’ about?”
My familiar looked at me. “I felt it the moment you tapped into the power. You were unaware of anything around you. I cut the magic, Avery. Not you. And if I hadn’t, you’d be dead right now.”
I swallowed. Witches had familiars for a reason—and apparently this was why I had my ornery, perfectly-white cat with a bit of an attitude problem.
I lifted a heavy hand and scratched under her chin. “Thank you.”
“It’s my job.” She purred and moved so I could hit The Spot.
“Y’all scoot,” Grandma said, waving her hands. “Let her rest. Nicole will be in here soon enough runnin’ her mouth.”
Aunt Rose squeezed my fingers. “I’ll bring you a special blend up soon. Stay awake until you drink it.”
I nodded as all three aunts bustled out of the room. Grandma floated to the door and glanced at me. Concern rippled across her features before she disappeared literally through the door, leaving me with Snow.
“So,” she said after a moment of silence. “What do I tell the hot detective when he comes back?”
I sighed and closed my eyes, still scratching her. “You tell him another horror story about our ancestors. Then he might go away.”
“Noted.”
• • •
Six hours, one na
p, and one magic concoction from Aunt Rose later, I was as good as new. I was still tired, sure, but I felt like me again.
Dotty was still sleeping. I’d been in to see her and apologized for what felt like a lifetime before her familiar, Smoky, curled his way around my ankles and told me to shut up. Her gray-furred cat hadn’t left her side since she’d passed out, and I knew his magic was propping her up.
I’d left him with the promise of a big tin of tuna and some cheese—an offer he’d readily accepted with a little too much glee, given the unconscious state of his witch.
I wanted desperately to understand what happened to me the night before. There had to be a book or something in the library. Grandma had to know. I’d never come close to using any kind of unfamiliar power, and I wasn’t exactly impressed that she’d known it potentially existed inside of me and had never taught me how to use it.
Because I had no specialty, I was the most proficient in magic out of my cousins. Dotty’s training had leaned toward her Seer magic since her powers came in at age two. Nicole had been able to speak to animals since she was three, so her training had always been biased.
Me? When one hadn’t shown up by age eight, Grandma had thrown herself into teaching me to perfect every single spell in my arsenal.
Except, apparently, the ones that could kill me.
I trundled into the library, Snow hot on my heels. Much like Smoky was with Dotty, she’d attached herself to me. She was a fifth limb. I didn’t mind. She was like a comfort blanket—a living, breathing, talking, furry comfort blanket.
Snow circled my ankles as I looked through the shelves. The biggest problem I had was that I didn’t know what I was looking for. Grandma had kept the extra power reserve a complete secret, so I had no idea what it would come under.
I was looking at books without knowing what I wanted to read, and that was almost always a dangerous idea. At least in this library.
I’d once come in to read a fairy tale and ended up reading the history of the Salem Witch Trials.
I was nine.
“You won’t find what you’re looking for.”
I rested my fingertips against a shelf and sighed. “How did I know you’d say that?”
Grandma floated over to the heatless fire that raged in the fireplace. “You should be in bed.”
“I feel okay,” I said, following her anyway. “Tired, but I’ll go freakin’ crazy if I spend the whole day in my room. I want to find out more about this weird power.”
“I…” she sighed. “I had a feeling you would say that. Sit down. Let me tell you what you need to know right now.”
I opened my mouth.
She held up a finger. “Avery, you expended a great deal of energy last night. So much that, if any other witch had done that, they would be dead right now.”
“She should be,” Snow murmured.
“And I thank you greatly for your actions,” Grandma said, smiling at Snow. “You picked her for a reason.”
“I picked her because I’m apparently full of self-hatred and need an extra powerful witch to keep in line,” she continued, still muttering.
“We can get back to your pity sessions another time, Snow. This is kind of important.” I glared at the cat who was now curled up against my right thigh.
She huffed and tucked her head in so she was a big, white ball.
Cats.
Who’d have them?
Grandma watched her with a small smile before she turned to me. Slowly and carefully, she settled her ghostly form into the wingback chair next to the fire. She crossed her legs and linked her fingers on her lap. Her expression was contemplative—deep yet gentle, with eyes that would have shone with regret if she’d been alive.
“I should have told you.” She didn’t say it as an admission. She said it as a fact. “When you weren’t given a specialty, I should have warned you about it. Honestly, Avery, I’m impressed it took you this long to tap into that source. I found mine at age sixteen.”
“Why didn’t you? Tell me. If you suspected it, you should have told me. We could have trained for it.”
“You’re right. It was my fault. When you turned sixteen, I should have sat you down and told you why you didn’t have a specialty.” She paused. “But I didn’t know, Avery. Believe me when I say that. This happens occasionally in our family, but there have been recorded instances of no specialties without this power.”
“What if the power was never admitted to? If this only occurs in witches without a special strain of magic, then it would have been a taboo subject to bring up.”
Grandma inclined her head. “True. I know my great-grandmother was like us, but she was dead by the time I discovered my power. I only had her diary to guide me.”
“Her diary?”
She closed her eyes. “The bookshelf next to the secret door to the basement. Third shelf from the bottom, next to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
I pushed off the sofa and went to the bookshelf she’d told me to go to. It was one that, until today, I’d felt like I couldn’t approach. Like there was something there I shouldn’t see.
It’d had a dark, foreboding feeling on it.
Today, that didn’t exist. I was able to walk up and find Alice. The book to its right was an old, leather-bound, thick-as-anything creation. I pulled it out from between ancient editions of Alice and Peter Pan. The leather was soft against my fingers, but it was worn, the evidence of years of love and use obvious.
Power vibrated with it.
It was a whisper.
This was a Book of Shadows.
Despite what folklore dictated, this was a rare book. A Book of Shadows was only given to the next in line who was deemed worthy. It wasn’t passed between generations willy-nilly. That was what experience and spells and lessons were for.
The fact that this book was accessible to me had my stomach in knots.
Sitting back down, I set it on the cushion next to me.
It seemed too precious to hold for long.
The leather that bound the book was old and worn, and a gentle hum of ancient magic emanated from it. The string that held the book closed was tattered, fraying at the ends where it was loosely tied.
I had never been so scared of a book in my life.
“Before anything happens, you need to read this,” Grandma said. “Ada Thorn was the town healer, and at that point, she was lucky enough that the Keeper of the Wards was old enough to remember her grandmother having the same power. She was able to help her with some information, but this is the only known record of our power.”
Swallowing, I looked at the book. “It feels alive.”
“It is.” A tiny smile crossed her ghostly face. “It’s magic, Avery. Of course it’s alive.”
I shot another wary glance its way.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Do not fear it. Respect it, but do not fear it. You control it, remember that.”
“I know. I’m just not entirely sure how I feel about this. I mean, you’re powerful. Or you were. I saw your magic. How can I have more than you?”
Grandma held her hands out to the sides and shrugged. “That, I can’t answer. As much as I wish I could. Promise me you’ll read Ada’s book.”
“I will. I promise.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“WHAT ABOUT THE ex?” Nicole asked, sitting back in the armchair. “Ana-May said there was one. Could he be responsible?”
I shook my head and leaned back so the rocking chair I was sitting in was moving. “If an unexpected stranger entered town, I would think Mary-Jane would alert somebody. Probably the Councils.”
“Goddess. You’re right. We all knew Amelie was in town because Mary-Jane informed the Councils. Unless he’d been here before?”
“Always a possibility, I guess, but you’d have to ask Mary-Jane, and that’s never gonna go well for anyone.”
“True. The last person to go bug her for something ended up with zits all over their face for a week.�
� She paused. “But if Betty Lou tells her you need to see her…”
“Whoa, whoa.” I stopped rocking and held up a finger. “Why do I have to go?”
“Because you’re the reason we’re even in this situation!”
Damn it. I hate it when she fought with the truth. It was really hard to rebuke.
With a sigh, I looked at Dotty lying in the bed. She was still unconscious, and the only sign she was still alive was the tiny rise and fall of her chest. It broke my heart because I knew I was the reason she was like that, and although Nicole hadn’t meant to hurt me with her words, they’d stung.
“Aves, I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know. But you’re right. I probably don’t even need to see Betty Lou. I bet you anything that Mary-Jane already knows I want to see her.”
The smile that crossed my cousin’s face was wry. “I’m not stupid enough to take you up on that bet and you know it. Go. I promise I’ll call you if anything changes.”
I swallowed and, after pressing a kiss to Dotty’s forehead, left my cousins in the room and hoped the only change that would happen would be Dotty waking up.
Freshly baked blueberry muffins were on the kitchen table, and I snatched one up on my way out. I’d barely stepped out of the front door when Snow blinked into view in front of me.
“Where are you going?” she demanded, sticking her little pink nose up into the air with an impatience only toddlers and cats had mastered.
“To see Mary-Jane. Coming?”
If she were human, she’d be wrinkling her face. “I don’t like the forest.”
I shut the door and shrugged, stepping around her on the way to my car. “Then don’t come. I’m going with or without you.” I hit the button on my key fob and unlocked my car to prove my point.
She sighed, a long-suffering exhale that was full of teenage angst.
My cat was attitude personified.
“Fine. I’ll come. But just so you don’t get into trouble,” she added as an afterthought, bounding after me. She beat me into the car, leaping onto the passenger seat before I could blink.