“You guys know I’m working, right?”
“Whatever,” I said and leaned the chair back to put my feet up on Jessie’s desk.
“We’re gonna make a coven,” Chrysie piped as she skipped down the hall to join us followed by Felix several lazy paces behind.
“Really?” Jessie was excited. Really, I thought. Why? She was an excellent witch. She could join any coven. I was kind of surprised she didn’t already have one.
“I want to be part,” Jessie said as Cyrus spoke up too.
“I want in.” He shifted his gaze, probably thinking we wouldn’t let him.
“Kay,” Chrysie replied as she leaned against Jessie’s desk.
“Are we taking all the strays who apply?” Felix asked as he took the last chair.
“Hey,” Cyrus protested. He was a normal human who had barely started to learn to use magic. Or, rather, fail at using magic.
“I meant Jessie,” Felix said. “ Of course you’re in. We have to have at least one other dude.”
“Not nice,” Jessie said as she typed into her computer. She didn’t stop working, just talked as she went.
“What do you know about dark magic?” Chrysie asked.
I sighed and closed my eyes tighter thinking if I squeezed hard enough I wouldn’t be able to hear. Jessie had stopped typing and possibly breathing.
“Why do you ask?” Her voice was so very careful.
“We came across signs of dark spells,” Felix said, and he told the story with occasional input from Chrysie.
“But this Saffron is going to find the dark witch?” James asked, sounding relieved.
“Supposedly,” Felix said.
“What does that mean?” Cyrus asked. I cracked my gaze to see Jessie staring at us, taking it all in, but at a loss for words.
“Felix doesn’t trust her,” Chrysie answered.
“Neither does Rue,” Felix said.
“Leave me out of it,” I begged.
“We can’t,” Chrysie said gently. “You’re the coven leader. And this is our territory.”
I closed my eyes again, leaned forward, and let my head pound into Jessie’s desk. It didn’t help. My only reply was, “Sweet Hecate.”
“So we’ll have to get started without her,” Chrysie went on. “Since Rue is still in denial.”
“We have to register our coven with the college,” Jessie said.
“No,” I said instantly.
“It’s in the rules. All campus covens have to register.”
“Last I checked Hallow House wasn’t on campus.”
“But Cyrus and I are,” Jessie said.
“I live off-campus,” Cyrus said helpfully. “With a bunch of guys.”
“Move in with us,” Chrysie offered without asking me. Which was fine. I didn’t care if Jessie moved in. We had like 14 open bedrooms.
“Really?” Jessie breathed. She was so taken aback that I opened my eyes.
“You could have always moved in,” I told her.
She stared for a moment before she replied, “Well, tell a girl.”
“Yeah,” Chrysie said. “Tell a girl.”
“Can I have a room with a workspace?”
“Martha will show you the open rooms. Pick one,” I said, not caring which she chose.
“Really?”
I laughed even though they were smothering me with their enthusiasm. I wasn’t against a coven. But a dark witch. Damn. And damn again.
“We don’t have an arsenal for dark witches.”
“We could just try to find them,” Jessie said. “And…like…alert the authorities.”
“The Presidium?” I don’t have any faith in them even if Hazel knew them and called them herself when we’d found witches who’d murdered their kid on the island.
“We could call Elisabeth,” Chrysie offered up the witch turned vampire who had changed Chrysie. “She would know who we could trust to help us.”
“We could leave it to Saffron,” I said again, not liking what I said any more than the others.
I glanced around. Felix shook his head. Chrysie made a no face. And Cyrus said nothing. But I could see in his eyes that he didn’t agree.
“Fine,” I replied. “But we do this together. No one goes out alone. Etcetera. Etcetera.”
“Yes fearless leader,” Felix agreed. He grinned at me.
“No Monica,” I added.
“She has a coven,” he grinned entirely unbothered.
“But still,” Chrysie added, “No Monica.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“I found like a hundred spells for finding things,” Jessie said. “But I think these ones might be the best. They’re more towards finding people or things you didn’t have before.”
She handed me a list of twenty spells.
“But which one do you think is the very best?”
She shrugged.
“Pick one and a room,” I said. I had asked Martha to lead me to a room that would work for group magic. Unshockingly, she led me to one that had clearly been used for that purpose time and again. I put my hands on my hips and spun. It was a large room that would hold quite a crowd. There was a feel of old magic in the air.
“We’ll need to cleanse it,” I said to myself, but Felix answered.
“I’m sorry I’m pushing you towards this dark witch. I know you don’t want to.”
I turned to face him. He seemed to have gotten taller, but I realized that he was just standing up straight. I looked at him for a long moment, taking in the change of air.
“I don’t want to be keeper,” I told him. “This feel too much like a step towards that.”
“Why don't you want to be keeper?” It was Cyrus who asked. He was in the doorway and Chrysie and Jessie were behind him.
“Other than my mother who ran for her life,” I started, “The other two keepers that I know of for this thinning died. Horribly. Doing their job. I am the eldest of the eldest of the eldest of the Hallow. And the other lines are all pretty distant. You know what that says to me?”
“That your family all died before they had kids,” Felix answered.
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t particularly want to die I am fine with this calling going to some other line of idiots. But also if you’re learning necromancy you aren’t learning other things. There are so many witchcraft things I want to learn. Choosing necromancy means letting those go.”
Felix nodded once, accepting my answer and the others let it the subject drop without further questions. Cyrus disappeared into the hall. Chrysie followed Jessie to help her find a room. And I said, “Martha, can you open the windows?”
The windows and doors opened.
I started to do the cleansing spell and then thought better of it. So I waited until we’d all gathered again and led them in a cleansing spell. It was basic and I was sure that Felix and Jessie at least had done it many times. But, we did it together and the power of it was different. I had never lead a spell before. I’d only learned the theory. And in leading, you felt the magic of the others. I could feel the burning fire of Felix’s. He was far stronger than I had suspected. Jessie’s magic was a deep pool. Clear and lovely.
The magic of Cyrus and Chrysie was there. Tiny flames in comparison, but they added to the strength. I directed some of the magic back into Chrysie and saw her cheeks bloom with color. I directed some at Cyrus, tickling his magic until he felt it. He stared at me, shocked. And then he laughed,a guffaw of a laugh that set Chrysie into giggles.
This. This was why Hazel trusted Saffron. Hazel had been able to feel the flavor and depth of Saffron’s magic. She had been able to feel, I bet, Saffron’s emotions. At least on occasion. I felt so much better about Saffron finding the dark witch. So much better about her living in Martha with us. So much better about her in general.
* * * * *
The finding spell was a barely visible line that went from us to…wherever. I had the most intense sense of what-the-hell were we doing? I wanted to call Hazel, b
ut she’d told me to leave it Saffron. I wanted to call my mother but she was proving herself to be like she always had been; more and more untrustworthy. What did you do when your parent, who you love and who loved you, was bad for you? Gods and monsters.
I wanted to call Bran, but she hadn’t been answering for days. I didn’t know what to do with that. I had called Daddy earlier that day, and he’d sounded upset but had said nothing. Had leaving home destroyed my family? Our balance had been so precarious, and I was coming to the lengthy and undesired conclusion that all was not well.
But I couldn’t go back. And I couldn’t fix it. You couldn’t fix dysfunction with a few well-chosen words over a long weekend. Where the hell was Bran? What the HELL were we doing? How had I gotten to this place? I was running some sort of poor man’s dorm in a freaking mansion. I had started my own coven when I hadn’t even been able to lead spells at home. I had…I was running around blithely doing whatever I wanted and ignoring those around me and their advice. And yet…
And yet…as crazy as this seemed, and it did both seem and feel crazy, it also felt right. It felt right like the calm of the morning, when the sky was still gray and everything was still.
Felix was next to me. Chrysie was ahead, sort of dancing as she lead the way while Jessie and Cyrus followed. I glanced over and said, “If we have to run for our lives, you’re going to die first.”
He grinned as he said, “Yeah.”
“Given that we’re trying to track down a dark witch, like a pack of fools who want to die, you probably should be a little more concerned.”
He grinned again, full of mischief and a touch of madness and said, “These are the items that try men’s souls.”
“So who are you planning to trip?”
“Cyrus,” Felix answered immediately. “He’s the newest and I’m the least fond of him.”
I grinned and took a sip of my energy potion, handing him a vial. Might as well give him a fighting chance. “You know that Monica can probably beat you up.”
“Oh for sure,” Felix agreed. “You seem glum.”
I shook my head, but yeah. I was a bit glum. I had been since I’d tried, yet again, to get ahold of my sister. I just nodded.
“What’s happening, mighty leader?”
“Other than you guys conned me into chasing after a dark witch when it’s clearly going to lead to our death and destruction?”
“That feels redundant,” he said, punching me on the arm.
“You feel redundant,” I replied.
“Oh for sure. So, nice try on evading, but what’s wrong?”
“I can’t get ahold of my sister,” I said.
“What do your witchy senses say?”
I glanced over and then back to the trail we were following, just so I wouldn’t have to meet his too insightful eyes. “They say she’s alive.”
“Is she in danger?”
I started to answered and then thought about what a crazy question that was. Was she in danger? Yes. But Bran often was. Was she in danger right then? No. But something was wrong all the same. I shrugged in reply. I couldn’t explain. I wasn’t connected mentally to my sister. I couldn’t speak to her mentally. But…when I followed the strings of my heart to her, I often knew some things I probably shouldn’t be able to know.
“It’s veering into the oak grove,” Chrysie said. “The wilder part.”
“Of course it is,” I said.
“Of course,” Felix agreed.
We glanced back and saw Jessie and Cyrus. They were as unsurprised as the rest of us, though Cyrus seemed to be far more concerned. It wasn’t that I didn’t worry. I was worrying big time. But I also thought that if I were to go evil, I would definitely do my evil spells either in the basement of an abandoned building or the woods. Given that the path led further and further from town, I figured we would end up at some lonely cabin in the woods or possibly a cave. Some ominous place.
How very wrong I was. The path led through the oak grove, onto a hillside, and up a winding curve to a small neighborhood of beautiful houses with views of the countryside.
My eyes were caught up in the pretty cape cod blue house with white shutters and wide windows. The grass was perfect, the flowers were still blooming, and the hedges were trimmed.
“Is that our car?” Felix’s voice cut through my observations to the ancient station wagon.
“No one else could possibly have a car like that. Where are the keys?”
“I left them in the bowl on the table,” Felix said.
“Gods, it has to be Saffron,” Jessie said.
“Well shiz,” I muttered. And then because I was angry, I told the others to scatter and marched up the drive.
“What the?” Felix said loudly enough to carry to me and then I heard him scuttling behind me. I turned to find his long, lanky form backing me up. “You aren’t going up there alone.”
“What? We’re just trying to find the car,” I told him.
He raised a brow and then I knocked on the door before he could tell me how stupid I was. Yes. Obviously. So stupid.
The door was opened by a woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She had brown frizzy hair, pale blue eyes, pale white skin, and she reminded me of someone. Only I couldn’t place her. That is until Saffron stepped up behind her. Saffron was gorgeous. This other woman was like the ugly version of Saffron. Soft on the edges rather than sharp.
“Rue?”
“We couldn’t find the car,” I said lamely.
I could see Saffron didn’t believe me, but she smiled and said, “Ambria, this is my coven-sister Veruca Jones.”
I noticed that Saffron had bypassed my link to the Hallow family and I could see that she was tense around her mouth and her eyes were blazing in fury.
“Hi, I’m sorry,” I said, all bubbly while I quested forward with my witch senses as delicately as I could. I was pushed back before I could bypass even the threshold of the house. “I didn’t realize you’d take the car and we were concerned that someone was playing a prank on us.”
Felix nodded and said nothing. I wondered if he noticed the resemblance between the two. Probably. Felix might look like a idiot, pot smoking, college student, but that was turning out to be the opposite of the truth.
“I’m sorry you didn’t see my note,” Saffron said.
“Must have got shuffled away,” I lied, but Saffron knew I was lying. I don’t think the other witch knew me well enough. But Saffron Ives was no fool, and she’d been a member of my coven for the last few years. I’m sure she had heard of some of the trouble that Branka and I had gotten into.
Neither of us were angels. Both of us would have interfered. If Bran were here, I don’t think Saffron would have trusted us out of the house while she was doing her own sleuthing.
“It’s fine, I was just leaving anyway. I can give you a ride back to the house,” Saffron said. I didn’t point out that it was my car. And my house. And she was my guest. Or that she was pushing far past the boundaries of what I felt to be safe.
Instead, I let her lead the way to the car. Felix and I got in the back together. I saw him texting Chrysie and the others to head back and not stick around.
“That was utterly and completely, stupidly dangerous,” Saffron hissed, as she backed up our wagon.
I didn’t owe her an explanation, so instead I asked, “Why are you here, Saffron?”
“That is not your business.”
“You know we weren’t following you.”
“Yes. Obviously. I am aware that Hazel told you to leave the dark witch to me.”
“And the dark witch is your relative?”
Saffron glanced in the rearview mirror at us and then forward again.
“All of my relatives are dark witches, Rue. I was looking for this dark witch.”
“Why just this one,” I shot back.
“Dark witchcraft isn’t necessarily evil. Not any more evil than eating meat.”
I did not agree.
&nb
sp; “But dark witches are far more inclined to cross the line to evil than any other line of witchcraft.”
I figured we should just lump them all together and count them as evil until I realized that most necromancers would be included in that stereotype by other witches.
“Ambria is a dark witch. And she is evil. But, I don’t think she was doing this spell.”
“Our finding spell led us to her,” I said, wanting to see how Saffron explained that.
“And how precise was your finding spell?”
Oh. I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t paid much attention to which one Jessie chose.
When I didn’t answer, Saffron snorted and then said, “There are more dark witches than people realize, Rue. Dark witchcraft is powerful given a big enough death.”
I clenched my teeth, hating what she was saying. Magic was beautiful. It wasn’t…Hecate was I an idiot?
“Are you sure you just don’t want it to be Ambria?”
Saffron smiled at me in the mirror, a sad smile that held far more emotion than I expected her to ever share with me. And then she said, “I would throw Ambria into the cold, shut the door behind her and lock it with both magic and steel. I can not stand her. But despite my feelings, what you describe takes a witch of power. Someone like you. Or me. Ambria is many things, but innately powerful is not one of them.”
“So who could do this spell then?”
“According to the Presidium, there are only about a dozen witches in the area who could,” Saffron said as she pulled into the drive of Martha and turned off our old station wagon. “You’re one of them.”
CHAPTER SIX
“Rue’s on a list kept by the Presidium?” Felix was the one who asked, since I was speechless. And sick. And horrified. And terrified. And…
Saffron looked between Felix and me and shook her head before she turned to my kitchen and started a pot of coffee with my coffee. I was a bit territorial at times. This was one of those times.
“Rue is the eldest of the eldest of the eldest of the Hallow. Her Mother, Aunt, and Grandmother were the Keepers of the St. Angelus Thinning. She can brew potions that most who have studied for decades can not make. She creates her own versions of potions and even entirely new ones. She was raised by a woman who is almost as morally challenged as my own mother. Veruca Hallow-Jones is on the top of the Presidium’s watch list.”
Lonely Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery (Rue Hallow Mysteries Book 3) Page 3