by Patti Larsen
I may have been seventeen, but hearing my mother say that made me feel a whole lot better.
***
Chapter Seven
I retreated to the basement for the remainder of the evening. It had been hard to find time to use the family pentagram with Dad hogging it all the time. I’d been forced to chalk one out on the floor of my bedroom or make one with string in the living room. Now that Mom had my dad confined to quarters after his little fireworks display, I had the whole space to myself.
Everything seemed to come naturally lately. Without the constant threat of puking holding me back and the actually pleasant experience it was to open up to my magic, I still had moments of pure terror when my demon’s power roared to life or when I felt Shaylee’s magic touch me. It was all I could do to keep myself under control, to not shriek like a little girl in a haunted house at a carnival every time it happened.
The trouble was I remembered how it felt when my demon took over. And while I knew we didn’t have that kind of relationship anymore, it still wound me up.
“Magic is about the unconscious mind doing the bidding of the conscious.” Mom loved to say that. I could hear her in my head, even, one more distraction. Yes, okay, fine. But my unconscious happened to be a little screwed up after years of being two people at once.
On the other hand, my brain also remembered what it was like to be the Sidhe princess I carried around with me. And every time I came in contact with her, all I could think of was how we’d been murdered by the man who loved us.
Not the most conducive situation to making my magic behave.
My witchcraft gave me access to the elements—earth, air, fire, water and spirit. My demon power fed me with more fire tied directly to spirit. No wonder demons were feared when they first crossed over. That much energy fed into flame made one heck of a display.
My Sidhe magic gave me a boost in earth, water and air magic, also tied to spirit. That was a lot of power to handle all at once. There were times when it wasn’t the others inside me that scared me, but the sheer volume of energy I had access to.
And, naturally, my demon was the one who always wanted to explore it, to play with it and see just how much we could handle. Shaylee’s side was the temperate part of me, always cautioning my actions. It was like I literally had a devil and an angel sitting on my shoulders, only these two were very real and both had incredible amounts of power at their disposal.
My disposal. I still struggled with the concept we were one person. Even though the split was gone, I was whole, I continued to think in those terms. I’d spent so many years that way it was hard to break the habit.
Which, I knew, was the core of my issue. Every time I settled in to perform a spell or summon an element, it was like I was forced to pause to decide which of the magics I should use. Rather than being automatic, it forced me to stop and make a choice and that was completely screwing me up.
I sighed in absolute exasperation as the bubble of power I was trying to maintain shuddered with first blue, then amber and finally green magic before wobbling, warping and collapsing in a pop of released energy. I sagged, not from weariness, but from frustration, wanting to pound the concrete with my fists.
“You’re fighting too hard.” I looked up, jerking sideways with a small cry of shock, to see Gram emerge from the shadows. She’d been watching me? Creepy. Still, she was right and I welcomed the help.
“I don’t know what else to do.” I glared at the candle in the center of the pentagram, snuffing the life from the wick with a snap of demon power. The spark remained, a thick tendril of smoke climbing toward the ceiling.
Gram sank beside me, resting her weight back on her hands while she crossed her feet at her ankles. Her long gray skirt hiked up, showing off her fuzzy pink polka dot socks.
I loved my grandmother. Just being around her put everything in perspective.
“You are unique,” Gram said, “even more than your mother. She came by her different powers as an adult, through magical means.” True. Mom’s Sidhe, vampire and demon energies were won when we fought Batsheva Moromond for the family magic.
“Yours,” she went on, “are by birthright. Which means you have them in full measure. And you’re coming to your control late.”
Nothing new there. This was all ground I’d covered.
“It’s like I’m three people.” I didn’t mind telling her. She’d been nutso for seventeen years. She’d never judge. “But I’m not. I know that.” I sighed. “I never know what to reach for.”
Gram nodded. “Of course not,” she said. “You’re thinking about the problem, not the solution.”
Huh? “Sorry?”
She focused on the candle, her power coiling out slowly, a visible thread, touching the now black and quiet wick. Gram didn’t need to show me. She clearly chose to. And I paid attention.
“The problem.” She let her magic circle the wick. “There is no fire. But you need fire. How to kindle it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I get you.”
“Do you?” Her faded blue eyes sparkled in humor. “Do you really?” Her magic whipped out, touching the tip of the wick. A flame burst into life as the thread of visible power recoiled and returned to her, but not before it tapped me on the tip of my big toe on the way by. “Then what is the solution?”
“Light the candle.” I shrugged. This felt like crazy lady ramblings to me. But I knew better than to underestimate my grandmother. She’d saved our butts enough times, fighting her way to lucidity long enough to offer the help we needed when times were tough. If I knew anything about her, she was smarter than me and saw things more clearly than anyone I knew.
“Yes, Syd.” Gram tapped her fingernails on the floor. “Light the candle. Don’t worry that there isn’t any fire. Just light the damned candle.”
The wick went out in a rush of air. I knew she’d done it. I stared at the curling black stem.
“That’s what I’ve been doing.” Oh the whiny voice. I hated it. But it found its way out of me from time to time. I wondered if I’d ever grow out of it.
“No,” she said. “You haven’t. Make fire, Syd. Don’t think fire.”
I opened my mouth to protest only to be pushed back a few inches by a blast of air.
“Syd,” she said, tone calm but eyes furious. “Make fire.”
I grumbled under my breath, turning to the candle. “Make fire.”
I reached for my power, felt my demon shoulder her way forward. This was her department. But my witchcraft was attached to the fire element, shouldn’t it take precedence? I gritted my teeth at the endless argument in my head, turning to Gram.
“This sucks!” I felt sweat bead up on my lip.
She didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stared back at me. And gave me absolutely no indication I was in danger until she snatched the candle from the floor and hurtled it at me with her magic.
“Don’t think!”
No time to think. My witchcraft reached out and formed a bubble of air around the missile at the same instant my demon blew it apart while my Sidhe side drew the energy from it and funneled it into the ground.
I gasped for air, glaring at Gram who cackled a laugh and slapped her thighs with both hands.
“No thinking,” she laughed.
I was pissed, but more because it rankled she was right. “How do I not think?”
She shrugged. “Either stumble from one disaster to another, like you have been doing,” she waggled her eyebrows at me, “or figure out how to relax, stupid.” Her teeth flashed in the light. “Relax. This is fun, isn’t it?”
I had to laugh with her. “Sure, Gram. Loads of laughs.”
She stilled, sadness filling her eyes. “It’s my fault.” Gram’s gaze fell away, fingers tapping together over and over in her lap. “I’ve done this to you.” She looked up suddenly, fierce and protective. “But I’ll fix it, Syd. I’ll fix you. I promise.”
It didn’t matter I never blamed her for what she did. I knew
she had no choice, hiding the core of her magic inside me when I was a baby. If she hadn’t she might be all the way crazy instead of mostly okay. Or worse. She could be dead and I could be following a leader with the last name Purity.
“I wish things could be different for you.” She reached over and patted my hand. “You have so much potential inside you. Someday soon, you will know how special you are.”
I flushed, uncomfortable, but feeling better. “Thanks, Gram.”
She clapped her hands together in glee. “Now,” she said, “let’s go eat muffins.”
I followed her upstairs as she bounced and jiggled her way to the kitchen, doing a little jig dance in her fluffy socks while she made up a song about eating a chocolate chip muffin.
Yup, she was brilliant and all, powerful beyond most witches, but there was something still very odd about my grandmother.
And I wouldn’t trade her for anything.
***
Chapter Eight
I stepped back from my artful hanging of a handful of balloons and eyed what I’d done. “This okay?”
Alison came running over, ribbon ends stuck in her mouth and an armload of some kind of sparkly fabric in her arms. “Mumph mumph!”
Um, what? I liberated the ribbons so she could talk.
“Looks great!” She beamed at me, flustered but clearly in her happy place. “Almost done. Can you help with the bunting?”
So that was what bunting looked like. I followed her to the doorway, hopping up on what was surely an expensive chair to support the weight of the fabric while Alison tacked it to the wall. I winced a few times as she hammered the tacks into the trim with the heel of her shoe, wondering what her mother would say when she discovered her perfect home wasn’t so perfect anymore.
Half of me was proud of Alison. She’d initially asked me to host, switched her suggestion Johnny’s, the local hangout, before deciding to have the party at her place.
“It’s time I stopped hiding who I am,” she said. “And my mother. Maybe she’ll go out, do you think, if I ask her?”
The other half of me felt terrible for her. Angela insisted on being home, which meant our friends would be exposed to the woman. But to her credit she’d drifted through a short time before, her heels tapping on the polished marble floor, and made some nice comments to Alison and I before moving off again.
Sober, nice and all-together. Hopefully she’d stay that way. I wasn’t sure if Alison would survive Angela embarrassing her in front of everyone.
I tried to stay upbeat, but I had my own problems. I sighed as Alison worked, the sound escaping me before I could stop it. She looked down, instant concern lighting her eyes.
“Mumph?”
Sigh. Again. “What?”
She slid the ribbons from between her lips. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sorry. Just bummed, you know?” Good excuse as any. And I was sad Blood was leaving.
Alison nodded. “I know,” she said. “It sucks. Hand me the rest of that, would you?”
I let her take the remainder of the fabric, watching with a continual wince as she leaned far over her present safety zone to finish the job. No, it wasn’t Blood that had me bummed.
It was my dad. I ran into him that morning in the kitchen, on his way downstairs. From the guilty twitch to his expression I knew he was doing so without Mom’s permission. Instead of giving him a hard time, I hugged him.
“I’m coming with you,” I said. “Time to send you home.”
He smiled at me, but I knew he didn’t believe. And just as well he didn’t get his hopes up. I tried everything to open a portal to the other side, but without someone to latch onto, Demonicon might as well have been on the moon.
I left him, disheartened but trying to hide it, and dragged myself to help Alison prep for the party.
Thus the sighs. And really, it was just the bunch of us. Simon and Beth would be amazed just by Alison’s house and Pain would be a wreck, no doubt, knowing Blood was leaving. No one cared if the place looked like an emo den or whatever Alison’s goal was in the whole décor thing.
Still, it made her happy. And if that was all it took, okay, good then. Decorating it was.
I had to admit, she did a great job. The bunting, as she called it, cascaded like shimmering silver curtains over the doorway, tied back with ribbons of navy blue and black in keeping with the whole Goth theme. The black balloons she’d allowed me to blow up and place floated overhead like a cloud of doom. Blood would love it.
Alison set out black and silver napkins while I tried to help and only got in the way. We’d totally taken over the library, though with a large table now in the middle ready to receive finger foods and drinks, it seemed more like a dining room.
“There.” Alison stood back, turning slowly as she observed her handiwork. She adjusted the position of a few balloons by the dangling ribbons and smiled. “Perfect.”
“You’re really good at this.” I batted at one of the slips of fabric as a balloon drifted overhead, tickling my face.
Alison beamed, vibrating with excitement and need. “You really think so?” She glanced around again, bouncing on her toes. “It looks great, doesn’t it? Just the perfect amount of angst.” She laughed, a silvery sound. “Thanks, Syd.”
I wished I could muster more enthusiasm. When she saw my gloom, she came over and hugged me. “I know you must miss Quaid,” she said.
Now where did that come from? And why all of a sudden did I want to bawl like a baby?
Instead of letting her see me break down over something that hadn’t crossed my mind, I swear, I forced a smile. “I better run home and change.”
“Oh! Great idea.” She beamed again, dimples showing. “Don’t forget—wear black.”
I showed myself out, climbing behind the wheel of Minnie, so choked up I had to swallow several times and breathe deeply for a moment before I trusted myself to drive.
The argument I conducted with myself during that drive home went as follows:
I don’t miss him.
That’s not why I’m sad.
I’m worried about Dad, that’s all.
Blood’s leaving, that’s it.
This has nothing to do with Quaid.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Where is he? Why hasn’t he contacted me? He could call or Skype or…
Oh. My. Swearword. This is about Quaid.
I pulled into my driveway a freaking mess. Lucky for me no one was around to see my near meltdown. One sympathetic face and I knew I would crumble. Even Galleytrot was out. I felt him outside and when I reached my room, double-checked to be sure. Yup, there he was, sprawled in the grass, soaking up the sun, a dog the size of a baby elephant.
And our neighbors didn’t think we were weird.
I took a moment, seated at my computer, to cry myself out over a guy I shouldn’t love as much as I did. I went through a handful of tissues, a bucket of tears and a whole lot of misery before shaking myself out of it.
Quaid would be back. He loved me, I knew he did. He hadn’t contacted me because he couldn’t. No, don’t go there. Couldn’t mean he was in danger or hurt or… I felt my chest hitching in panic, breath gasping in and out. No. So, he forgot me. Which was worse than being hurt or dead or whatever. That made me want to hit him and bawl all over again. Um, had no news. That seemed okay. All right then. Quaid hadn’t contacted me because he was news (clue) less. And until he had news (a clue, the jerk) I wouldn’t hear anything.
I reached out to him, felt the connection between us, but that was all I felt. He was either too far away or—damn it, Syd, stop that. Stop. That. Right. Now.
The shower was hot and immediate and helped with some of the redness and puffies I always got from crying. At least, it made the rest of me pink so I matched. I dressed in black jeans and a T-shirt with a pentagram screen printed in silver. The ideal apparel for Blood’s send-off. I even used some of the black eye liner Pain had given me for my birthday. My refl
ection was kind of badass. Meet Syd, el Gotho.
At least my prep had driven off my gloom. I left for the party in slightly better humor, nowhere near sobbing all over anyone as far as I could tell. Maybe I’d gone and finally cried myself out.
That would be a relief.
Trouble was, the atmosphere at the party wasn’t exactly conducive to happy thoughts and giggles. The others were already there when I arrived, sunk into the furniture like it was eating them alive.
Alison smiled painfully when I came in, shooing the glaring Rosetta away. “Syd’s here!” She leaned close, fingernails digging into my arm. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Save this party from itself.”
I bumped fists with Simon on the way by. He’d done as he was told, dressed in black, down to what looked like polished dress shoes. The whole getup, combined with his dark hair, pale skin and black-rimmed glasses made him look like an anemic baby vampire with no taste in clothing.
“Hey, Syd.” His nose wiggled his glasses back up into place.
“Hey, Simon.” I spotted Beth next. She perched on the edge of a sofa in the circle of seats Alison had arranged. Her right knee bounced with some anxiety, and I was pretty sure I knew where that tension came from. It had nothing to do with Blood. A guy sat next to her, looking awkward and uncomfortable, but he smiled when I stopped in front of them.
“Syd!” Beth lurched to her feet and hugged me quickly. “This is Tim.”
“Hi,” he said, standing as well, tall and skinny, his Adam’s apple dancing as he spoke. “Beth’s told me so much about you.”
A boyfriend? I almost laughed. Not because she had a boyfriend, mind you. No, because he was so freaking normal. And yes, I know. She was too. But she fit with us somehow, like Simon did. Normal and yet way more than that.
“Nice to meet you.” I turned away as he started to say something else, not out of rudeness, but because I had more people to greet.
Pain was curled up on the couch, her arms threaded through Blood’s, hands gripping his bicep as if she never intended to let him go. Her normally flawless black eye makeup tracked down her cheeks.