“We’ve never needed to,” Grams told her.
Her tone was dark, and I suddenly felt a little upset that I’d missed the fun times of being a witch with them. Since I found out, everything had been a little doom and gloom. Tracking spells seemed completely normal to me.
“All right then,” Marcella clapped her hands, awkwardly trying to diffuse the slight tension that had built up. It wasn’t directed at anyone, but it was still there, and the air was heavy with the thought of what could have been. “Here we go. Adora, the ghoul’s dust, please.”
“Gross,” Mom gagged as Gram’s pulled out a glop of slimy, green goo that looked nothing like dust. It came from a big mason jar, and there was plenty more in there, too. To be honest, it kind of looked like super-radiated human snot.
Marcella didn’t care how gross it was and just took the goop into her bare hands and held it high above the bubbling cauldron.
“Inveniete,” she whispered.
And then she hauled off and threw the ghoul’s dust into the pot with so much might that the woman could have been a pitcher for the Yankees.
I reeled back, blocking my face to ward off what I assumed would be a gigantic splash. But nothing came. Slowly, I pulled my hands down and watched as the potion started to cling to the blob of ghoul’s dust until it had formed one massive burgundy sphere. The bubbling died down, and what remained looked like a globe.
An image started to form in the center, black and white, like we were watching an old TV set. There was the horned fae who’d stolen our grimoire, hunched over the remnants of a fire he’d probably built that morning, muttering angrily to himself.
Slowly, the image started to pull away as if on a handheld camera, widening until it showed us a bird’s eye view over the top of the forest, where the dark outline of the fae was just barely visible. Then, the camera came even wider, pulling out before it started to zoom off to the right, showing us what seemed like a trail. A golden light appeared, marking the way from where the fae had been sitting, and following the camera until it finally stopped right on top of our cottage.
“He’s in the forest out back!” I gasped, at once annoyed that we hadn’t found this out sooner, and happy he was so close by.
I was ready to crush this fae and get my family’s grimoire back. And now, I had a map to his exact location to help me.
14
I got over the massive wave of shock that flashed through me pretty quickly and grabbed my phone to sneak a quick picture of the enormous map the potion displayed. Mom, Grams, and Marcella were too caught up in staring at their creation to notice, but I figured we’d all need it if we were going to go after the fae.
“Hey, this thing actually worked!” Marcella laughed, her cheeks rosy with pride. “I wasn’t sure for a minute there. Haven’t done this spell in a damn long time and, let me just be honest, Adora, your ingredients weren’t the best quality. That pixie dust should have been replaced a decade ago!”
“Well, the next time you come across a pixie willing to hand you over a sack full, you just let me know,” Grams replied, rolling her eyes. But I could tell she wasn’t too annoyed with Marcella’s remarks. In fact, they almost seemed like sisters.
Before we could say anything else, though, the potion suddenly burst apart like a massive bubble, and the contents dripped back down into the cauldron, changing color from the deep burgundy to a boring, drab gray.
“Hmmm, I seem to remember it lasting longer,” Marcella replied, tapping her finger on her chin. “Ah, well. At least we know where this fae is.”
“Exactly,” I grinned my thanks at her. “Now, what do you say we all go get him?” I spun around and was making my way out of the shed when someone’s long, cold finger grabbed the back of my t-shirt.
“Ah, no, you don’t,” Mom loudly said like I was a misbehaving kid.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Look, Shan, this guy’s got power,” Mom replied. “Maybe not as much as the fae woman who attacked us, but it’s still a lot. The spell he did to knock Annabelle out and screw with her memories requires more magic than your Grams, me, and Marcella have combined. We can’t just go after him blind.”
“I’ve got more power than that,” I pointed out. “I was the one who nearly defeated the fae woman.”
It was a bald-faced lie, and we both knew it. I could very well have enough power, and I probably did, but the issue was that I had absolutely no idea how the heck I could use it. That night out in our backyard had been an absolute fluke and, even though none of us wanted to admit it, we all knew it was true.
I had tons of power. I was a halfling, a magical creature of two different worlds. But something inside of me was blocking me from accessing that power. Whether it was my fault or something greater than my messed up psyche, I couldn’t go in there blind and trusting magic that had already proven pretty unreliable.
But I still wanted to. Admittedly, my emotions were beginning to get the better of me. I used to be the poised, ever-calm, ever-perfect DA, but the witch version of Shannon had emotions that had started to run rampant. I was angry.
Angry that I’d been lied to for forty years.
Angry that the magical world—witch or fae—seemed to hate me just because I wasn’t completely a part of either one of them.
And, most of all, angry that there seemed to be a hundred forces out there that wanted to mess with my family and me, but not one of them seemed to be ready just to show their faces and have a fight.
It took me only a split second to decide, though, that anger was the juvenile approach. I didn’t need to be pissed. It would do nothing but color my proverbial lenses a dark, bloody red.
Instead, I needed to pull back and think like the rational Shannon, the one I was before witches and fae and moving statues outside of the public library became a part of my everyday routine.
“All right,” I nodded at my mom to get her to release me. “So, what sort of plan do you propose?”
Mom pursed her lips and shut her eyes, which instantly told me that she didn’t actually have a plan. She’d been thinking with the irrational part of her brain, just as I was. She saw her kid about to do something potentially crazy and completely dangerous and had acted.
Thank God I didn’t have a child of my own to stop me from acting crazy.
“We need others,” Marcella offered from the back of the shed. “The rest of your coven, maybe?”
“Ehhhhh, I don’t think they’d be up for it,” Mom said.
“They’re not exactly the fighting types,” Grams replied. “They haven’t come from the same kind of roots you and I did, Marcella.”
Marcella gawked at the two of them like she truly couldn’t understand a witch who didn’t want to fight.
“You mean there are witches out there who don’t wanna fight?” She gasped, echoing my thoughts.
“They’re peaceful,” Grams explained. “Their lines are newer. A few of them came to us because they started dabbling in New Age magic and realized the spells they were casting actually worked.”
Again, there was an astronomically long pause as Marcella gaped at the two of them before she finally pulled a face and shrugged.
“All right, then,” she snorted. “I guess New Age magic isn’t all bad. Mostly.”
Marcella looked at me as if she wanted my opinion, but I put my hands up in the universal sign for “don’t ask me.”
“I thought it was all a hoax until a few months ago,” I told her. “New Age or not, we’re going to need witches, right?”
I have to admit, I’m not totally proud of what I did next. It felt way too teenage rebel for my taste, but honestly, I was very focused on my goal.
Get the grimoire back.
I didn’t know what sort of secrets it might hold, but I knew if I planned to do anything ever, that grimoire was step number one.
So, I faked a yawn. One of those deep, long ones that make everybody think you’re just positively exhausted from the
day you’ve had and you’re about to collapse.
I knew it was the sort of yawn that would make Mom and Grams send me to bed instantly.
And I was right.
“You’ve had a long day, babe,” Mom said, brushing some hair from my shoulder and tucking it around my back.
“Yes, we all have,” Grams replied. “So much to think about. I think it’s time for a quick bite of dinner and then off to bed, hmm?”
“You know what, guys, I’m not really hungry,” I said, smiling sadly at all of them. “I think I’ll just call it a night. But brainstorm session in the morning, okay?”
I did that stupid little finger gun thing that guys in action movies always do. I’m not such a great liar. It makes me do some pretty awkward things.
And then I headed up to bed. I turned out the light and waited until I heard the raucous voices downstairs die out.
Really, as I sat there and listened to Grams and Marcella reminisce about things from sixty years ago, I was trying to coax my magic out of its little hiding place, wherever that was.
Come on, I thought to myself. What do I need to do to get you out? Be scared? Because I am scared enough already, and I really don’t feel the need to be twisted up with white-hot terror every time I want to do a spell.
Of course, my magic couldn’t talk back. I tried to think about the feeling in my body when I’d used it, that electrifying sensation that had burned through me at an atomic level, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it to return.
Soon enough, the lights had gone out downstairs, and I heard footsteps traipse softly pass my door. Then, all was silent.
This was my chance.
I had this eerie feeling of deja vú as I slipped out of bed in the dead of night and grabbed a pair of sneakers. I didn’t put them on, though. I’d long ago learned that every third floorboard was as creaky as an old frog, and my feet needed to stay in their socks if I had any hope of getting out of that house without disturbing anyone.
At the last minute, I also grabbed a few charms before I left my room. One was a stick from a redwood tree, wrapped in twine and spelled for protection. I hung it around my neck. The other was a tiny little silver ring meant to ward off things like werewolves and bad spirits.
The horned fae was the only one I knew about. Lady Elrind might have been working with all sorts of nasty creatures, and if I couldn’t get my magic to work, I planned to be fully prepared with as many charms as I could be.
I padded out of the room and down the stairs, where I could hear Marcella’s soft snores coming from the living room. She had passed out on the couch, with a purple throw blanket tossed over her body and her face pointed right up to the sky.
I made it past her, praying that she couldn’t hear the beating heart that was slamming against my ribcage in double time. I wasn’t afraid of getting in trouble, but I was afraid that she’d wake up, and then Mom and Grams would want to go with me.
Something inside me said this was my fight and my responsibility. If Elrind had never known I was a halfling, I had a feeling that none of this would have ever happened.
The woman had to have some sort of sinister plan. Elite criminals never worked a con without reason, and Elrind struck me as the best of the best when it came to fae criminals.
Or, maybe she wasn’t even a criminal in her world. Maybe she was just normal. I wasn’t sure what I liked least—the idea that she was a maniacal force out to get me, or the idea that she was just one of many.
Whatever it was, I pushed the thoughts from my mind and focused on getting out of my house without being heard.
Herman snaked past me right as I got to the front door, rubbing up against my leg and meowing in a way that sounded way too much like a taunt.
“Don’t say a word, okay?” I hissed down at him.
But, since I didn’t trust the cat as far as I could throw him, I hurried out the door and down the pathway, headed toward the forest to my left.
It was time to get my grimoire back.
15
I pulled out my phone as soon as I was about twenty feet behind the tree line. Mom had eyes like a hawk, and if she just so happened to wake up in the middle of the night and glance out her window, I didn’t want to take the chance that she would see the light of my phone and come running.
The map was easy to follow since I knew these woods like the back of my hand. I’d spent my childhood playing and running around, making up games with the imaginary friends who lived in my head. Until I’d grown past that point, and then I’d made games with the girls from school, who always thought it was so cool that I lived at the edge of a forest.
Soon, I didn’t even need the map.
I’d crunched through the leaves, trying and failing to keep my footsteps quiet, for about twenty minutes before I saw a bright-red, flickering light about a quarter of a mile away.
The fae had built a campfire, in the middle of the night, in an empty forest. He was either extremely stupid or very confident in his ability to keep unwanted visitors at bay.
I didn’t just march right up to the fire and demand my grimoire back, though. I changed course and moved to circle the fire so I could get a good look at just what I was dealing with.
It wasn’t until I’d gotten close enough to see the horned fae stoking the fire that I realized I might have made an astronomically stupid mistake. I recalled how my mom had mentioned that this fae was powerful if he’d been able to conjure the magic that changed Annabelle’s memories, sans potion.
And, uh, unless my magic suddenly decided to change course and make a valiant reappearance, I wasn’t nearly strong enough to do a thing.
Just as I was about to turn around and gather myself some backup, no matter how unwilling, I spotted the very edge of my family grimoire. It was peeking out from behind a log Nemius—the fae—had set up as seating around the campfire.
And he was on the other edge, stick in hand, poking at the fire and talking to himself.
“Human world,” he was grumbling. “More like a boring world. What is the point? Who says I have to listen to her anyway?”
If I weren’t terrified he might blow me apart, I probably would have snickered.
It didn’t matter if they were human or fae. The bad guy’s henchman was always a bumbling, annoyed idiot, more intent on gaining his or her reward than on helping their boss.
The fae’s angry mumbles, kept him distracted, though, and allowed me enough time to sneak forward and attempt to grab the grimoire back.
Maybe this would be easy, after all.
I ducked down and crept through the foliage, carefully placing each foot on tiny patches of exposed ground so that I made almost no sound as I moved. Branches poked my sides and split open the skin on my arms, but I forced myself to ignore them.
I was ten feet away from the grimoire.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
But at five feet, a massive rustling erupted in the foliage on the opposite side of the fire. Instantly, I froze, my heart pounding in my chest like a sledgehammer against a wad of iron. I glanced over to the fae, working to gauge his reaction.
What I was looking for, though, I wasn’t totally sure. If he were scared, then I’d be scared. But if he were calm, then I’d be…
Still scared, it turned out when I looked over and saw that the fae just continued angrily stoking the fire and grumbling. It was as if he hadn’t even heard the rustling in the woods, just a few feet away from him.
Realizing I was way too close to this newcomer for comfort, I crept backward until I was under cover of the trees again, and then moved back around the campfire until the fae was directly in front of me.
When the newcomer finally appeared after what felt like ages, his back was to me. It was a man; I could tell from his stature. He was tall and muscle-bound, giving off a sort of serious, strong energy that would have been a turn on if I’d been in any other situation.
In fact, he kind of remin
ded me of Hunter when we’d first met. Until I’d found out he was a hunter, had been lying to me for our entire friendship, and was a jerk who felt it was totally fine just to abandon people.
But I digress.
The newcomer strode forward and planted himself on the log right next to Nemius, who had finally looked up. He squinted his eyes disapprovingly and shook his head at his companion.
“You know she won’t approve of this, right?” Nemius asked. “Me working with you? She might just have my head for it?”
From that, I gathered that Elrind must not have approved of this little relationship Nemius seemed to have entered into. Which begged the question: who was his friend, and why were they working together?
I waited with bated breath to hear this other man’s answer. I was hoping for one of those hot-button moments, like when I was in the courtroom and got just the perfect answer out of a suspect, the one that was completely incriminating and basically won my case for me.
But I had no such luck. Apparently, all of that had run out when I’d exited the world of Boston criminals and entered the one of the fae.
Nemius’s companion leaned forward and whispered his answer. And I mean actually whispered it, with his hand up to block anyone from reading his lips and everything. For a second, I worried that he’d seen me somehow, even though I’d thought I was careful. Maybe he’d caught a glimpse of my shoe and knew I was there.
But when Nemius leaned back, he didn’t look surreptitiously at the foliage where I hid, as I would have expected if he’d been alerted to my presence. Instead, he pursed his lips, crossed his arms, and let out a long, high-pitched, whiny sound that was more akin to a mechanical moan than anything I would have expected a living creature to make.
It took me a whole thirty seconds before I figured out that was his way of laughing, and that was only because this weird, lopsided smile spread across his lips, and his chest started heaving up and down.
Well, he was either laughing or having some sort of fae heart attack. But the companion didn’t seem too bothered by it. In fact, I could see his chest bouncing up and down as well.
Divorce, Divination and Destiny Page 9