Casters Series Box Set

by Norah Wilson

  Mansbridge was waking up.

  She had to go now.

  Brooke looked down at the copper bracelets in her hand—or rather, what had been copper bracelets. That was another reason she’d paused in the concealment of the tree. She’d hidden a few extra copper bracelets in the branches of this oak just in case she, Alex, or Maryanne needed an extra boost of power. In the few minutes she’d hovered to collect herself, she’d manipulated them into a holder, a crude kind of cup. It wouldn’t hold water—there were too many cracks for liquid to leak through—but she hadn’t come here for liquid.

  Now or never…

  Brooke shot from her hiding place and zoomed right to the edge of the house, directly under what had once been the beautiful stained glass window.

  There was so much broken glass. It shattered her heart.

  Apparently even John Smith, the old caretaker, slept in on Sunday mornings. But whatever day of the week it was, Monday through Sunday, he always took a stroll around the house and grounds as soon as he arrived, to see if anything was out of place. If he’d made his rounds already this morning, there was no way he’d have left the broken glass lie there, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have missed it. The old coot was more than a bit OCD when it came to the property. Probably no one else had noticed the broken window either. If they had, they surely would have reported it, and John Smith would have been there at the freakin’ butt-crack of dawn.

  Still, she had to move fast.

  She was the fastest of the three of them, though nowhere near as fast as Connie had been. But right now, the burst of speed she put out came harder than usual.

  Damned daylight. That had to be it. It was really starting to bother her. Not in a vampire way—sparkly or otherwise. No exploding into flames or poofing into a pile of ash and blowing away. But the higher the sun rose in the sky, the heavier she felt. Thicker, somehow. It was a different kind of tired.

  Brooke reached the house and pressed up against it, slightly into it. She and the other girls had gone through these walls so many times now, she knew how thick they were and where the old iron nails were most heavily placed. From here, she looked down at the fragmented image of the Madonna and child on the grass, and it broke her heart all over again that she’d done this. She saw the brown of the thorns, the red of the blood, the greens and blues of the stained glass that had endured so long. Endured so much.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Her apology was as much to the mother and helpless child in her arms—to the glass itself—as it was to Alex and Maryanne.

  Rather than shattered to dust, the window had broken into mostly pebble-sized pieces. There were a few larger chunks of glass, some as big as the palm of her hand.

  What would happen if she were to pick up one of those shards of glass? If she even could pick it up.

  What if she picked one up and chanted I want in?

  Would her hand shoot back through? Would the rest of her then ‘suck through’ the small space somehow? Would her cast shoot the miles to Hants High Mountain to reunite with her original? Then she could save Maryanne and Alex!

  She was about to pick up one of the larger pieces but stopped herself.

  What if it didn’t work that way? What if it was like that hideous experiment they’d done four months ago?

  They’d been determined to get Ira Walker’s journal out of Bryce’s shed, but Bryce had fortified the walls against Heller invasion by pounding the boards of the walls and door full of iron nails. That left only the windows, but they didn’t know what might happen to their caster selves if they travelled through a second window while they were already out of body. Would they ‘split’ yet again? They’d decided getting that journal was mission critical, but rather than trying the second window thing for the first time at Bryce’s, they figured they would conduct a more controlled experiment in the attic of Harvell House.

  Alex, who’d drawn the short straw, had cast out through the stained glass window, then re-entered the attic through the wall to pass through the room’s second, clear-paned window. Alex had proceeded slowly, cautiously. It had seemed okay at first, but when half of her cast had disappeared through the window, she’d suddenly been sucked out into what she later described as an all-consuming darkness, an oppressive, crushing nothingness. She almost hadn’t made it back. Brooke had caught a glimpse of a black elbow poking through the glass and she’d grabbed it, pulling Alex’s cast back in. Alex had come screaming in, literally, unable to contain the horrifying, sanity-shattering, caster shriek. Brooke had pressed Alex’s caster face into her chest, absorbing the horror of it, muffling it to keep it from rousing the whole house.

  Though neither of them talked about it, she knew it still haunted them both.

  And yet, she had to try.

  Brooke inched down and reached for the largest piece of broken glass. Her fingers passed through it as they did through most objects, leaving her unable to pick it up.

  But not quite.

  There had definitely been some sort of feeling when her fingers passed through the glass. A deep tingle. A chill, but not with cold attached. There hadn’t been a literal pull, but there had definitely been some kind of tug.

  Definitely something.

  Inside the cave, her heart sped up. If she could only get some of these larger pieces to the cave, pick them up and carry them, then maybe if there were enough of them, somehow they could do…something.

  The sound of a car pulling around in front of the house grabbed Brooke’s attention. John Smith! With no way to grab the big chunks of glass herself, and no way to get Bryce here in time to collect it, all she could do was stick to her original plan. She knew she had very little time before Smith made his way back here.

  She hooked her fingers around the tiny improvised copper cup in her hand and used it to dig around in the broken glass. There! A few frustrating and frantic moments later, she had what she’d come for tucked into the cup. She wouldn’t let go.

  She had to get the hell out of here, now! Or hide. But where?

  She moved away from the house, edging slowly toward the river.

  Her abilities were limited now as she held the copper. She couldn’t pass through objects as she made her way back to the cave. If she went through the woods, she’d have to go around the trees rather than through them. If she had to go into hiding in some old, abandoned building till nightfall, then she’d—

  Pain struck her in the hip. Shit! She’d been attacked by a hunter! Back in the cave, her original cried out.

  She barely had time to curse when she took a second strike, this one to the shoulder. Iron! That second blow sent her tumbling, but she recovered. This time, she shot high into the air beyond reach. God, if that last blow had struck her more squarely, stunned her more thoroughly, she’d probably be lying on the ground right now. Her attacker could have pinned her there with the weapon itself, leaving her trapped, unable to rise and soar away, and unable to sink out of sight beneath the soil. If she hadn’t started off already…if she’d still been back there by the house….

  Brooke pushed higher into the sky and raced away, hearing the shouts behind her.

  “You murderous bitch! I’ll get you! I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do!”

  She looked down.

  No! No! Oh God, no! This was no ordinary hunter…this one was truly, indisputably, Heller made.

  Melissa Kosnick, clutching an iron poker. Her eyes were wide and round with hatred. Fury. Her long black hair hung down to frame a pale and haunted face.

  Chapter 5

  Girl Stuff

  Maryanne

  As always, everything was “away” from her when she cast. The grief, the pain, the anger and inhibitions were set aside as soon as she’d taken caster form. Yet this time as Maryanne reflected on the familiar caster feeling, there was a deep knowledge of the emotion being over there—out of reach. But just out of reach. There was more control.

  Did that difference have somethi
ng to do with the broken window? Or was it the fact that she’d been cast out for so long? Had she just become so very accustomed to casting? Maybe it was because of Jason somehow?

  Or maybe she had more control because it was permanent now.

  She rejected the thought so forcefully, she actually levitated a few feet into the air from where she’d been sitting on a ‘blanket’ of copper pennies. Her head partially disappeared into the ceiling. Embarrassed, she lowered herself quickly, praying Bryce hadn’t seen it.

  Of course, when she glanced over at him, he was staring right at her.

  Argh!

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She gave him an exaggerated nod as she settled back on the penny-covered bed.

  They were in Vesta and Ira Walker’s bedroom with the ornate, old furniture, the intricately patterned quilt—a quilt which still bore very faint evidence of soot from that disastrous day when Bryce’s shed burned down—and the picture of both long-dead Walkers staring down at them from the top of a high dresser. Just as it had the last time Maryanne had been in here, Ira’s well-thumped Bible rested on his bedside table as if at any moment he might come along to pick it up and start ranting and raging once again about the evil Hellers. Vesta Walker’s night stand still held her candles, as well as the pendant Maryanne remembered.

  No, it wasn’t a mere pendant. It was a hagstone. A piece of gray stone with a hole worn into its center by nature. Someone—probably Vesta herself—had tied a simple leather cord to it. For all its simplicity, a hagstone was a powerful and protective thing. Some, including Grandmother Beach, said it repelled evil. Maryanne had always been fascinated by Vesta Walker’s hagstone. But this morning, her attention was pulled elsewhere, to the other stones in the room.

  With a nod of his own, he turned back to the paper in his hands.

  She couldn’t help it—she had to smile at her boyfriend’s current state of discomfort. His typical and total guy discomfort. Good thing he couldn’t see her expression!

  Bryce had opened the trunk marked V.M. when they’d first arrived. As she’d pointed out what she wanted, he’d patiently removed tray after tray of Vesta’s treasured stones and laid them out on the floor for her. She had stilled when he’d lifted the black kyanite from its nesting place and set it down.

  Kyanite. Not just for dreams…

  “See the stone’s edges—they’re not smoothed out. That makes it a cutting tool. This kyanite will cut through your fears so you can speak your truth.” Maryanne had overheard Grandmother Beach tell a customer one day at her store as she’d handed him an unpolished piece. She’d actually ended up giving it to him saying, “It wants to help.”

  What had Vesta Walker so feared when she’d hid her grimoire within this bed of blackened healing stones?

  She looked at the old picture again.

  She recognized the setting; it had been taken at Heritage Park. Ira Walker stood with his arm around his less-than-adoring wife. He didn’t look particularly happy about that either. It was definitely a posed picture. But now, the more Maryanne stared at it, the more she knew, Vesta’s fists weren’t tensed just in anger, but in fear.

  “Okay, deodorant, I get, and you won’t use my Axe. Fine,” he said. “Bottles of water and Gatorade, I understand. Moist towelettes, no problem. Not very manly, but hey, I’ll deal. But come on!” His voice pitched comically high. “Adult diapers?” He hung his head. “If Hux Burns or one of other guys see me buying this stuff, I’ll never live it down.”

  Okay, now she was very glad that he couldn’t hear her snorts of laughter. She kept the shoulder shaking to a minimum.

  She’d used the copper knife and an old magnetic drawing tablet Bryce had dug out—the kind you can get at any dollar store—to scratch out a list of essentials they needed him to buy. She’d etched the words out one letter at a time until Bryce got it, and wrote it down on his own list.

  He stood now and shoved the note deep into a front pocket of his jeans.

  What a guy. What a sweet, sweet guy.

  And it wasn’t the first time she’d thought so.

  They’d been dating a few months now. It had been a rocky start, or rather a rocky re-start, after Bryce had found out that she was a caster and her near demise in the shed fire. So much had passed between the two of them, she hadn’t thought there could ever be any going back. But he’d wooed her back with his grandmother’s crystals and stones, phoning her to come have a look at them, or dropping off a small topaz or tiger’s eye at Harvell House. Some guys brought flowers; Bryce brought rocks. Now, they were an actual couple. They had tickets to each other’s proms—hers at Streep, and his at the local high school. They’d talked about their future plans.

  But those plans—their together plans, and her individual ones—were gone now. Until they got out of this mess Brooke had gotten them into. Or maybe they were gone forever. She was no longer laughing. But she wouldn’t let Bryce see that.

  With mock sternness, she pointed to the door in an I-mean-it way.

  “I’m going, I’m going,” he said. Then he yawned widely, and quickly apologized. “Sorry. Little tired. You’ve got to be tired too.”

  Was she?

  Her caster self just felt heavier as the time out of her body went on, as the sun came up. It was getting harder to move, like her limbs were stiffening.

  Rigor mortis? Temporary rigor mortis? Daytime rigor mortis?

  Crap! No kind of rigor mortis, thank you very much!

  “Will you be all right while I’m gone?”

  She nodded deeply. Thankfully, Hannah and Howard had gone to a horse show in Toronto for the weekend. They’d given the housekeeper those days off. Once Bryce left, Maryanne would be completely alone in Casa Walker.

  “It’s gonna be hot,” he said. “Grampy couldn’t stand air conditioning and Mom didn’t bother installing it in here after he died. This room gets really stuffy. I’ll open the window so you can at least get a breath of air.”

  She gave a thumbs up to his effort, though she couldn’t feel the day’s heat. It could get hot enough in here to make the wallpaper on the walls curl and smoke, and she still wouldn’t feel it. Just the same, she was much relieved to see that pane of glass slide up so that only the bug screen separated herself from the outside. She’d seen what going through glass could do to a caster. If she needed to exit before Bryce got back—her thoughts always flashed to being trapped in that fire when she pondered escape—she could race through the screen with no ill effect. Yes, she could go through the walls, but as heavy as she was feeling, she really didn’t need to pile on the rip of pain from the iron nails she might encounter.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Diapers and all.” Bryce closed the door behind himself.

  Maryanne watched after him for a moment or two. She cared for him deeply—loved him, probably—but she was glad to see him leave.

  In front of the trays of stones, Bryce had made her a mat of sorts kneel on, from the copper mesh that he and his dad used on the barn’s feed room walls to seal it against rats. He’d ripped a good length of it out and folded it into a roughly twelve-inch square. Hopefully he’d be able to put it back before his father found out and before the rats invaded. As long as she didn’t move around too much, it would work. She lowered herself down onto the mat and allowed herself to relax. Just for a minute. How easy it would be to just drift off and—

  “Snap out of it, Hemlock!” Maryanne shook her head and tightened her grip on the copper knife’s handle. Then she gently started moving the kyanite around in the wooden tray. It took only seconds to uncover Vesta Walker’s hidden treasure.

  It was small. About half the size of a campfire notebook and so thin it couldn’t have been more than a dozen linen pages. The black cover was a heavier cloth material, hand stitched at the seam with the initials V.W. intricately embroidered on the front in brilliant purple. The small book was old and covered with a fine, orangish-red dust that couldn’t have come from the black kyanite
.

  Maryanne turned the knife in her hand. The tip was so dulled from Connie scratching the cave’s wall, it hadn’t even torn the thin plastic sheet of Bryce’s old writing tablet toy. Yet she was reluctant to turn the pages of Vesta’s grimoire with it. This would have been a precious possession to Vesta. A holy one, its contents pulled from the deepest part of her soul. Okay, that sounded a little corny, even to Maryanne’s ears, but it was true! She could totally feel it.

  Yet it was vital that she know the book’s secrets. Find a way not just to turn the pages here in the Walker house, but to take it with her back to the cave. To share its secrets with Alex and Brooke.

  She hoped that was all right to disturb the book like that. Was it? She wished she could ask! Wished she had a sense of—

  Then it struck her: maybe she could sense something from the book. Get some sort of vibe from it. Some impression. She’d always felt places, albeit up until now, not so well in caster form. Maybe with something as spiritual and significant as Vesta Walker’s book, she could get a sensation of some sort from it. She let her caster hands drift over the pages. Then she steeled herself to let them drift into the pages, as only caster hands could.

  Except her hands didn’t do that.

  “Oh, wow!”

  Maryanne’s hand didn’t pass through the pages at all. As she set her black caster fingers down on the embroidered letters, they stayed on them. She felt the outline of each letter. Then she slid her fingers along the aged cover, with that strange orange-red dust…

  She stopped cold.

  Back in the cave, adrenaline jolted through her original like a bolt of lightning. Yes, her throat was parched and her back ached horribly from being in the same position too long. That part of her co-consciousness was hard to ignore. But right now, those bodily sensations were completely overridden as her original pulsed with what her cast was realizing.