Gage, I thought he was her husband, anyway – she didn’t wear a wedding ring, neither did he – was much more of an enigma to me. I saw him from time to time and he was always polite and nice but a bit more reserved. He seemed to be pretty popular when their friends came over for their game nights. It might sound parochial, even hokey, but their game nights seemed like real fun and they always had a lively crowd over. Though I had been a couple of times, I didn’t want to just assume I could pitch up whenever I saw the lights were on, so mostly I stayed away and didn’t try and wedge my way into their lives.
“You could keep me company. I’ve got a few more things to sew then I need to package up my stuff to take to the fair tomorrow.” Annalise was a whizz at sewing and crochet and her business was to make pretty home things that she sold at fairs. Right now I knew she had stockpiled a huge collection of things to sell and she hardly ever came home with anything. Even her pricier stuff was so beautifully made that she never had to worry about not selling it.
I ended up not going home at all for the rest of that morning and well into the afternoon. Annalise tugged her baskets of goods out onto the porch and we sat there, bundled up, drinking coffee – she was much better at hospitality than me, but then she’d had a life time of doing it – well into the afternoon. By the time I left, I had an invitation to their house for game night, and strict instructions to bring by my list of repairs.
“See you,” I called, skipping down the steps, waving over my shoulder at Annalise as I cut across the grass. Gage was flat on his back on a tarpaulin on the driveway, tinkering with his motorbike, a deep frown of concentration settled on his forehead. I looked over my shoulder as I started to cross the road and he looked up briefly and waved a hand at me. I smiled and waved back then jogged along the path to my door.
If I’d been more alert I might have made something more of the feeling I got in the air as I took the steps up to my porch. Just as my body was getting soft, and my magic rusty, my senses had also gotten sluggish over these few months. Even when the idea that someone had been in my space, someone with a signature that I should recognise, trickled into my thoughts, I didn’t bother to turn it into a fully fleshed curiosity.
I paused at my door, my hand on the knob, and turned around, hesitating for a few seconds. I had the faintest sense that someone had been here and might still be here, but when none of my senses gave me anything to work with, I shrugged and let myself in.
I still locked the door behind me.
~
My afternoon was as idle as idle can be and was mostly spent pouring over my list, which was growing every day. Painting the exterior of the house came after more than twenty other urgent bullet points that included checking out the kitchen plumbing and finding the source of the clanking pipes, cutting the grass which had shot up (I’d wondered who had been doing it over the past twenty years the house had lain empty, or whether that had been under a spell too) and re-grouting the bathroom along with a bunch of problems that were cropping up all over the house. Pulling a face I added, paint entire inside of house. After a thought, I added porch swing to the bottom of the list.
I sank back on the sofa, tapping my pen against the pad of paper, and wondered if, seeing as magic had kept everything pristine for so long, if it was possible to use it for the house’s upkeep too. I had no idea if there were rules on that kind of thing. Surely that would mean every witch had a perfect house? I had absolutely no idea.
By late afternoon I was so bored that I was actively looking for things to do. I really needed some kind of purpose in life, I decided, as I started cleaning the kitchen countertops with hot soapy water. The new Stella might be awfully house proud, more through boredom than by design, but it didn’t take the place of getting out there and doing something. I didn’t even have my studies to keep me distracted. They had ended abruptly with Eleanor Bartholomew’s attack and now there wasn’t a witch in miles. At least, I thought there wasn’t. I was sure I hadn’t come across any and I could recognise the vibrating signature of my own kind’s magic now. Besides, I didn’t even know if I wanted to continue in training, especially if that meant getting caught up in witch business again. From what I had known about the witches’ council – some sort of quasi-governing body that monitored and assisted our kind – I’d found them to be weak and inept. They were certainly to blame for a chunk of my past troubles, even if they had been there in the moment that I’d really needed them. Or rather, Étoile had been there and I owed her big time. I huffed and scrubbed harder. It all seemed like so long ago that I’d been alone and terrified, then gradually happy and finally in the arms of the man I adored. It had all ended too quickly, too abruptly. I channelled my anger into scrubbing the counters furiously.
When I could almost see my reflection in the super clean surfaces I finally wrung out the sopping cloth and laid it over the sink edge to dry and scowled at my face in the kitchen window. My top was clinging to me in wet patches. Nights at Annalise and Gage’s house were as casual as casual can be, but I still couldn’t turn up as a wet mess which meant I would have to tackle my washing. Boring.
Tugging my laundry basket through, I sat on the kitchen floor, separating colours from whites and made untidy piles next to the washing machine. That was also on my must replace list thanks to the ominous rattling sound it made every time it spun a cycle. I suspected corrosion was catching up with it thanks to it, like everything else, being part of the stasis spell. I bet homeowner’s insurance didn’t cover it, I thought with a snort. I shoved the first set of laundry in and turned the sink faucet on so I could wash the few leftover dishes that languished there.
The surge of magic that bloomed into the kitchen through the open doorway nearly knocked me for six. It wasn’t the force of it, and I didn’t sense any malevolence, but I was surprised into dropping the glass I’d been washing. It splinted into a bunch of little pieces on the floor. I looked from my feet to the doorway, my body rigid with anticipation.
“Hello?” called a small female voice from my living room. “Is there anyone there?”
Slowly, carefully, I stepped over the shards and edged towards the voice, panicking all the time. I didn’t get the feeling I was about to come to harm but one could never be too careful, so I prepared to shimmer out of there the moment things looked dicey. Teleportation certainly had its advantages.
“Where the hell am I?” demanded the girl standing in the centre of my living room. She was in her late teens with glossy dark blonde hair that hung about her shoulders in a feathery cut. She was dressed in skinny jeans, acid pink heels and a white jacket that sat on her hips with a little pleated flounce. She clutched a thick book in her arms that looked heavy and old against her new and shiny self.
“You’re in my living room,” I replied, bracing myself for whatever would come next.
“Am I in England?” she asked in disbelief as she looked around in distaste at my furniture. “I did not think England would look like this.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Huh.” The girl looked around again then give me the once over. “You are Stella Mayweather?” she asked.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I asked first!” I thought she might stomp her foot. I certainly felt like it but I settled for glaring at her instead. Obviously, it was the more mature option.
“I’m Chyler,” she said at last, and dropped on to my sofa, the book perched across her knees.
“What are you doing in my living room? How did you get here?” If my wards were dogs, they’d be in the dog house right now. How had she got in here when I’d done everything I could to keep everyone out, especially people who could just flash in, like she had, in the blink of an eye.
“I said the spell,” she, Chyler, said, patting the book like she couldn’t help it, “and I just ended up here. You are Stella, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said after assessing her for weapons. She looked too scared to be thinking about hurting me and
I didn’t think the super tight jeans could conceal anything.
“Yes!” Chyler fist pumped the air. “I just knew it! The book said it was you and now here I am.” She beamed at me.
“What book?”
“This book. It’s the family spell book,” she said, slowly, like she had to spell it out. Groan. One bright blue nail tapped the aged leather exterior of the book. “You don’t have one?” she asked, catching my frown.
I shook my head. “But what are you doing here?”
“I need to hide,” Chyler said and all the confidence seemed to drain out of her. “I asked the book and it said you would protect me. It gave me the spell to find you.”
“The book just... told you?” I tried to not let the disbelief show on my face.
“Usually I have to ask it really nicely but this time it practically demanded to help,” said Chyler as if chatting to a book was a perfectly normal event. At least she didn’t seem to think it was abnormal, which it totally was. “It even had a picture of you.” Chyler thumbed through the thick leaves and finally flipped the book open. She held it up to me, the spine pressed against her middle as she balanced it in both hands. Sure enough there was a pen and ink drawing of my face looking solemnly back at me. “Cool, right? I’m on the run,” she added helpfully.
“Who from?” I couldn’t help but ask, but maybe, given the knowledge I’d received in the past few months, I should have been asking what rather than who.
“The council, of course,” said Chyler, her face returning to glum. “They want to kill me and you’re the only one who can stop them.”
Two
I pushed a cup of coffee across the kitchen table to Chyler and watched her scowl at it as she blew the steam away with pursed, glossy pink lips.
“You’re going to have to tell me more about this book,” I said at last.
“It’s, like, magic and my family have had it, like, forever!”
“Do you think you could not say ‘like’ so much?” I asked. Chyler threw a look at me as if to say, you’re so old, when she couldn’t be more than a few years younger than me. But then, anyone was old to a teenager I reminded myself, I’d probably been just as petulant. Even so, I scowled back at her. It was my house, after all and she had just come in unbidden. I wanted an explanation. Now.
“So, the book has been in my family for years and years and every generation adds their spells to it and we use it for our magic.”
I nodded. There were spell casters, a different breed of magic from me, but a valid strain nevertheless. It explained why the read I was getting from her wasn’t quite the same as the smooth vibration I felt when a witch with blood magic was nearby. Spell casters gave off more of a fuzzy feeling.
Chyler continued. “I’m next in line for the book after my mom. My aunts had a lot to say about that! They want the book and they’ll do anything to get it. It’s got a lot of power.” She stroked the book and I watched in amusement as the cover seemed to hiccup and the pages ruffled within. If I didn’t know better I would have said the book was being affectionate.
“How come you’ve got the book then, if it’s your mom’s?”
Chyler looked confused. “I ... don’t know.”
I changed tactic. “Why do your aunts want the book if it’s yours?”
“Duh, do you not get the magic news? The council are splitting up and everyone wants as much power as they can get their hands on. My mom’s sister wants it because she thinks it should go to her. My dad’s sisters want it too, because they want to get away from what’s left of the council.” Chyler looked dejected, like she had already heard a dozen arguments against her possessing the book. “And it’s not just them. The council want it too. It’s so old and powerful and they’d do anything for that.”
“Include killing a teenager?”
“I knew you’d help me.” Chyler grinned, her face brightening.
I held up my hands and her face fell slightly. “Wait. I never said that. I don’t know why the book thinks I can help you against the council, or why it thinks I would.” Though, when I said it, I couldn’t think why it wouldn’t think that. Hadn’t the last leader of the council tried to kill me? And hadn’t I been hiding from them for the past six months? I was definitely not in their fan club. Also: thinking about a book thinking was just plain weird.
“I’ll show you what it said.” Chyler thumbed open the book, flipping the edges of the thick paper until it heaved open to the page she had shown me before, the page with my pen and ink portrait. She ran her forefinger under the neat black print underneath, reading aloud, “It says: Stella Mayweather is who you seek. Trouble from you she will keep. She’s a powerful witch whose magic goes without a hitch. Go to her and ask for haven, she will help you from the horrid ... coven. Say her name three times, and you’ll find yourself in her humble climes. See? Also, I know, the book likes rhyming but sometimes it isn’t very good at it. It’s old school like that.”
“So I see. When did you find that?”
“This morning. Right after the council tried to kill me. I raced to my room and the book just appeared, open to that page.”
“And you’re sure it was the council?”
Chyler nodded enthusiastically but her glazed eyes told me she wasn’t telling the whole truth.
“Saying my name isn’t much of a spell.”
“It is if the book says it is.”
“You’ve got a lot of faith in that book.”
“It’s all I’ve got. Please help me, Stella”
I sat back in my chair, my hands warming around my mug as I thought. I’d tried to keep out of the magic business. I might have been saved because of it but it had caused me nothing but heartache and pain ultimately. It had turned me into a killer, albeit in self defence.
I might have been done with the witches’ councill but it seemed like they weren’t done with me. My heart sank.
I couldn’t decide whether it was disturbing or not that the council was fracturing like Chyler had said. I wondered if it was down to the lack of a strong leader now Robert Bartholomew was dead or whether it was because of the uneasy division between blood magic witches and spell casters and those who straddled the middle. But I knew one thing: I couldn’t in all good conscience turn Chyler away and leave her to face her apparent enemies alone.
“I’ll help you,” I said, right before it occurred to me in a jolt of understanding that someone from my past probably wasn’t far away. That had been the signature I detected a faint trace of earlier. Would they be friend or foe? It stood to reason that if the council really had it in for Chyler that they would be tracking her. No, I realised, I’d detected it earlier, before Chyler had arrived. Whoever it was was here for me.
“Cool.” She seemed remarkably cheerful for someone who was on the run.
“Where are you staying?” I asked.
“I can’t go home so I don’t know. Can I stay here?”
“I don’t think it would be wise,” I said cautiously.
Chyler barely blinked at my rebuttal. “What should we do? Should we attack first?”
“We won’t be doing anything yet and you should lay low until we know exactly what is going on.”
“But the book says you’re really powerful. Can’t you defeat them all and then I can just get on with my life?” Chyler asked, rather too optimistically in my opinion.
“Your book’s mistaken. I’m not really powerful.” Damn it, I was barely even trained and as far as magic went, it was like asking an amateur to try out for the Olympics. I’d help Chyler because my conscience told me it was the right thing to do. My mind told me I should get her real help.
“But you’re going to look after me, right? How are you going to keep the witches away from me?”
I thought for a moment, trying to resist the urge to drum my fingers on the table as I went through the few options I did have. “We’ll have to disguise you,” I said, finally.
“There is no way I’m dying my hair. My
mom paid two hundred dollars at...” Chyler trailed off and heaved a breath as if something had suddenly hit her hard in the stomach. She gasped for a moment then steadied herself. I reached over and squeezed her hand and as I did so I felt a familiar surge of power ricochet through me.
“I’ve got a better way.” I stood and moved round the table until I could put both my hands on her shoulders. I willed her to be hidden and felt the magic flow through me, entirely under my control, seeping around her. At the same time I felt something flow back at me and it was like seeing a blurred scene on the backs of my eyes. An attic, Chyler ... a knife falling to the floor as someone whimpered. I stepped back quickly, raising my hands from her shoulders to break the connection.
“What did you do?” Chyler whispered. She was shaking slightly when she held a hand up in front of her as if wondering if she would still be able to see it.
“I’ve masked your magic. I think.” Like I said, I was no master of magic. I’d just envisioned what I wanted to happen. I wanted to disguise Chyler’s magic, not her physical appearance, though I thought I could probably do that too. Right now, the strange vision was at the fore front of my mind. I wasn’t sure what I’d seen but I knew what I felt. I felt horribly cold and anxious. Could I have just glimpsed the attack? Even more frighteningly, had I just pulled the vision directly out of Chyler’s head?
Unruly Magic Page 2