Red Witch: Book Two of the Wizard Born Series

by Geof Johnson

  Red Witch

  Book Two of the Wizard Born Series

  Geof Johnson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Geof Johnson

  Cover Art by Dan Johnson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  eISBN: 9781624883576

  Chapter 1

  Fred fairly danced as she led her parents across the street to Jamie Sikes’s house. Her dancing partner was her shadow, made long by the setting sun on her left.

  “Honey, you sure are being mysterious about this picnic,” Lisa said from behind her. “And could you please slow down? Your legs are too long now. I can’t keep up.”

  They walked down Jamie’s driveway and Larry jogged up to Fred’s side. “Why are we bringing jackets? It’s going to be pretty warm tonight. It’s still September, for cryin’ out loud.”

  Her mother joined Fred on her other side. “And where are we having it? If it’s not in their backyard, and we’re not driving, then where? It’s not in their house, is it?”

  Fred bounded up the three red-brick front steps, pressed the doorbell and rounded on her parents. “Will you two stop? I told you it’s a surprise and you’ll like it, I promise.”

  The door opened behind her and Rachel, Jamie’s mother, said, “Hey, it’s the Callahans! We’ve been waiting for you.” She stepped back and held the door all the way open. “Come on in.”

  Lisa followed Fred and Larry inside the wooden-floored front hall and said, “Rachel, are you sure we shouldn’t bring something? I’ve got some leftover cheesecake in the ’fridge.”

  Rachel took Lisa’s jacket. “No, no, we have everything.”

  They entered the comfortably furnished family room where Jamie stood with his father, Carl, next to the coffee table. Fred flipped her curly mass of red hair behind her shoulders, wrapped her arms around Jamie and kissed him on the mouth, her foot rising as she said, “Mmmmm,” punctuating the end of the kiss with a loud smack.

  Larry shook his head. “I’m still having a hard time getting used to that.”

  Lisa laughed. “Jamie, seems like it wasn’t that long ago that you’d rather eat dirt than let Fred kiss you.”

  Jamie grinned sheepishly. “Oh. Yeah. Well, you know, uh….”

  “Now that he’s finally admitted that he loves me, we have to make up for lost time,” Fred said. She kissed him on the cheek. “I get to kiss him as much as I want, now.”

  Larry frowned. “Do you have to do it in front of me?”

  “Would you rather they sneak off somewhere to do it?” Lisa said.

  “Hmph,” Larry grunted and ran a hand through his stiff red hair, already gray at the temples. He turned to Carl. “So what’s the deal on this mystery picnic?”

  “We’ll show you in a minute,” Carl said. “But we have to do something first.”

  “You have to swear an oath,” Fred said.

  Lisa’s brow furrowed. “An oath? What for?”

  Rachel put her hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “Now don’t freak out. We’re going to show you something really special and amazing, but we can’t do it until you’ve sworn the oath. Carl and I did it already.”

  Larry stepped back, a suspicious look in his eyes. “Are we joining a cult or something?”

  Fred grabbed Larry’s arm and dragged him to the coffee table, where a Bible lay in the center. “Don’t be such a baby, Dad. Just say the oath, okay? I did it when I was eight years old, and I didn’t whine about it.”

  Lisa and Larry looked at each other. Rachel said, “It’s okay. It’s really going to be worth it.”

  “Trust us,” Carl said. “We’re your best friends.”

  “Okay, I guess,” Lisa said hesitantly. Then she took a deep breath, held it for a moment and said, “Oh, come on, Larry, let’s do it.” She looked at Rachel. “How does this work?”

  “Kneel beside the coffee table and put your hand on the Bible.” She picked up a sheet of paper from the shelf beside her. “Larry, kneel next to her and put your hand on top of hers.”

  Larry did, and Fred and Jamie joined them, placing their hands on last. Rachel placed the paper in front of them. “Read this aloud.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Larry said.

  “Dad!” Fred glared at Larry. “Just do it.”

  He looked at the paper with Lisa and they read, “I solemnly swear in the eyes of God and my friends to never tell or reveal to anyone what we are about to see and hear tonight.”

  Fred felt the familiar warm tingle flow up her arm. Their hands on the Bible began to glow, then flared brilliantly and faded.

  Larry jerked back. “Whoa! What was that?”

  “That was magic, Daddy.” Fred said with an impish smile.

  “That’s one of Jamie’s tricks, right?” Larry looked at Carl and Rachel, who shook their heads.

  “For real?” Larry said.

  Carl nodded. “For real.”

  “You’re joking,” Lisa said.

  “No.”

  Lisa gave a little nervous laugh. “Yeah. Right.” She looked at Rachel. “That tingle…it was kinda like what I felt when our bellies touched when we were pregnant.”

  “I know!” Rachel’s eyes went wide. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  Fred put her arms around Jamie’s shoulders. “And Jamie and I feel it every time we kiss.”

  Larry stared at his hand as if it were a stranger. “No wonder you want to kiss him so much.” He looked at Rachel. “But really, what’s this all about? And don’t say it’s magic.”

  “We’ll show you. We weren’t sure how to do it, so we decided to try this.” Rachel grabbed Lisa’s elbow. “Don’t faint, okay? I’ll stay right beside you just in case.”

  One corner of Lisa’s mouth pulled up in a huh? “Faint? What are you going to do?”

  Carl looked at Jamie. “Show them.”

  Jamie stepped to an open space in the room and outlined the glowing shape of a door in midair.

  “Whoa,” Larry said, dragging the word out.

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Fred patted her father’s shoulder. “Jamie, make sure you leave it open in case somebody has to go to the bathroom.”

  Jamie pushed the door wide, revealing a rocky landscape. Larry and Lisa stared, open mouthed.

  Fred laughed. “Told ya’.” She skipped through the doorway, grabbing Jamie’s hand and dragging him with her. “Come on. It’s wonderful!”

  * * *

  Rachel stood by Lisa’s elbow as Lisa exchanged wide-eyed looks with Larry.

  “Larry?” Lisa moaned. She turned and stared at the doorway as if she were looking at the gates of hell.

  “I know, Honey.” Larry’s face was drained of color.

  “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know. I…I’ll go if you do.”

  Carl grabbed Larry’s forearm and pulled him toward the open portal. “Come on, Buddy. You really gotta see this.”

  “But what is it?”

  “It’s another world. We’re going to have a picnic on another planet.”

  Larry’s eyebrows drew down. “For real?”

  “You don’t have to keep saying that. It’s for real.” Carl pulled him through while Rachel waited with Lisa
.

  “Are you ready?” Rachel said.

  “Unh huh,” Lisa muttered without taking her eyes off of the doorway.

  “I’m right here.” Rachel patted Lisa’s arm as she guided her toward the opening. “You’re going to love it, Lisa.” They stepped through onto the expansive rocky ledge. Lisa looked at the three full moons overhead.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Rachel said. “We waited ’till tonight to do this just so you could see them.”

  Lisa gaped at the sky, turning in a slow circle. “Where are we?”

  “We don’t know for sure. All we know is that it’s an uninhabited planet.”

  Lisa looked at Rachel and blinked quickly several times. “No. That’s not possible.”

  “Oh, yes it is. Now let’s go sit down and we’ll tell you all about it.” She guided Lisa to the far side of the broad ledge, where a picnic table covered with food stood. Carl tended a portable grill nearby. Larry sat at the table with the dazed look of a man whose personal circuit breaker had been overloaded. Fred and Jamie were about a hundred feet in the air, twirling with their arms around each other.

  “What are they doing?” Lisa asked numbly.

  “Dancing,” Rachel said. “Come on, let’s have a seat. We have so much to tell you.”

  * * *

  Evelyn Wallace drove down the street toward the Sikes’s house. A chocolate bundt cake was on the seat beside her. They’re going to love this, she thought. It’s one of Jamie’s favorites. I haven’t made one for him in a while.

  She pulled her white Buick into the driveway. It looks like they’re home. Wonder why they won’t answer the phone. She walked up the front steps, cake in hand, and unlocked the door with the key she’d had since she lived there in the mother-in-law suite. She stepped inside and called, “Yoo hoo! Anybody home?”

  She got no answer, so she walked down the hall to the family room. “Rachel. Carl. Jamie,” she called again.

  She stopped when she saw the open magic doorway in the middle of the family room with the eerie moonlit landscape beyond.

  * * *

  “I still can’t believe it,” Larry said, sitting, head in hands at the wooden picnic table with the others.

  Lisa shook her head slowly. “It sure explains a lot of things, though, like the magic shows, and the —”

  “What’s this?” came a woman’s voice behind them.

  Rachel turned suddenly. “Mom!”

  “Gramma!” Jamie said.

  Everyone looked to see Evelyn, standing nearby with a cake in her hand, her eyes showing thunderclouds. “Can someone please explain what is going on here?” she said in a level voice. “Why is your picnic table out in the middle of,” —she gestured with her free hand — “wherever this is? She looked up. “With three moons.”

  “Oh.” Rachel, put her hand to her mouth. “Uh, well, Jamie, why don’t you run inside and get her a chair, because the benches are full. Better bring the Bible, too, so she can do the oath. Then we’ll explain everything.”

  * * *

  “Yeah!” Larry shouted and pumped one fist after the rock exploded in a dazzling shower of sparks and debris. “Throw another one, Carl.”

  Carl looked at Larry. “Your attitude certainly has changed.

  “Well, I didn’t know Jamie could do this.” He grinned and pointed at Carl’s hand. “Are you gonna throw that or hatch it?”

  Carl bent low and then hurled the tennis-ball sized rock straight up. Jamie spun, pointed his finger, and fired a yellow-white bolt of energy that caught the stone missile at its zenith, pulverizing it into dust.

  “Whoa!” Larry and Lisa clapped. Lisa said, “That’s better than fireworks.”

  “Carl,” Rachel said, “why don’t you two take a break from the pyrotechnics and tend to the burgers before they burn.”

  Evelyn sat at the end of the table, leaning back in her chair with her hand to her face, one finger pressing into her cheek. “So Jamie’s been doing this for how long?”

  “He’s been doing magic forever,” Fred said. “I think he learned how to blast stuff when we were eight.”

  “And all of this came from some old wizard?”

  “Yes ma’am. His name was Eddan.”

  Jamie joined them and sat beside Fred. “Like I said, Gramma, he was a really powerful sorcerer who got wounded by the psycho wizard.”

  “Renn?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Mom,” Rachel said, “you seem to be taking this all very calmly.”

  Evelyn pressed her lips tightly before answering. “I’m not all that surprised, if you want to know the truth. I’ve had my suspicions all along, because we’ve had some strange things happen at your house, especially when I was still living there, but I couldn’t be sure. But it’s true, isn’t it.” She looked at Jamie. “You’re a real magician.”

  “Sorcerer, Gramma.”

  “What’s the difference?” Larry said.

  “Sorcerers have real power. Magicians use tricks. It’s a matter of professional pride.”

  Evelyn leaned forward in her chair and rested her hands on the table. “So this Eddan fellow was a sorcerer, too?”

  “Yes ma’am, a master sorcerer. The cream of the crop, I guess you might say.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I’m sorry, Gramma, but the oath wouldn’t let me tell. Mom and Dad just found out a couple of weeks ago.”

  “When you killed Renn?”

  “Yes ma’am.” Jamie looked at his hands in his lap.

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “He doesn’t like to talk about it,” Carl said. “He feels bad, even though it was self-defense.”

  “And that guy was a serial killer,” Rachel added. “Could you imagine what would’ve happened if he’d gotten loose around Hendersonville?”

  “There already was an unexplained death at a shop out on Highway 64,” Carl said. “Shopkeeper had a small hole burned all the way through his skull.”

  Jamie gave a tight nod. “That was probably Renn. That was his style.” He looked at Evelyn and bit his lower lip. “Are you disappointed in me, Gramma?”

  “For what?”

  “For killing him.”

  “No.” Her expression softened as she regarded her only grandchild. “I’m not. You did the right thing, Jamie.” She suddenly looked at Carl. “I think everybody’s hungry. Are the hamburgers ready yet?”

  * * *

  Later, Jamie walked his grandmother out to her car.

  “That was quite a night, Jamie,” she said as she pulled her keys out of her purse.

  “Yes ma’am, it was. Are you sure you’re not mad at me for not telling you sooner?”

  “I’m not mad, for the tenth time.” She leaned against the car door and crossed her arms. “Are you going to tell anyone else?”

  “Mom and Dad think I should tell everybody in the family —Aunt Connie, Uncle Ray, and Gina and Cory — because they might find out anyway and tell somebody else. We decided it’s better to bring them into our confidence than risk a slip up. That way we can get them to say the oath and they won’t tell.”

  Evelyn looked at her hand and slowly shook her head. “That oath is something, isn’t it? Do you and Fred really feel that tingle all the time?”

  “Most of the time.” He glanced at his feet for a moment. “I was so afraid you’d be mad or disappointed.”

  “You know me better than that.” She put her arms around him and patted his back. “I’d have to say I’m proud of you.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded and let him go. “I knew you were going through a really hard time there for a while, but I thought it was just problems with Fred or typical teenage stuff. But now that I know you were dealing with all that pressure…being hunted by a psychotic serial killer! I think you handled it very well.” She patted his face. “I think we raised you right.”

  “Thanks.” He kissed her on the cheek. “We’ll tell the rest of the
family soon, I promise.”

  She smiled. “I can’t wait to see Connie and Ray’s faces when you take them to that other world.”

  “We’re going to need a bigger picnic table.”

  She chuckled and got into her car. Jamie stood in the driveway until she drove out of sight.

  * * *

  Fred was reading in bed when she heard the knock. “Yes?”

  Lisa opened the door a crack and said, “Am I disturbing you?”

  “No, Mom. Come on in.”

  Lisa closed the door behind her and sat on the edge of Fred’s canopy bed. Fred lay on top of her red comforter, surrounded by lace-covered pillows and stuffed animals. Lisa said, “That was really something, what Jamie showed us tonight.” She pulled at a strand of her shoulder-length reddish-blonde hair, watching Fred as she did. “I’m still trying to get my head around it, though.”

  “Dad seemed to warm up to it, don’t you think?”

  “Hah!” Lisa shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. “Once Jamie started showing off and blasting rocks to smithereens.”

  “Jamie’s always keen to blast things. He doesn’t get much of a chance.”

  “I’m sure.” She tapped her knee and bit one corner of her lower lip. “Tell me, that tingle. Do you and Jamie really feel that every time you kiss?”

  “Well, not every time. Not if I give him a little peck on the cheek or something. But a real kiss?” Fred shivered. “Ooh, yeah.”

  Lisa stared at her, eyes wide. “I wonder what it’s like.”

  “Why don’t you kiss Jamie and find out?” Fred laughed with her mother. “Wouldn’t work, though. Only does for me and Jamie.”

  “Do you think it goes back to that time when I was pregnant and touched bellies with Rachel?”

  “Probably. But now we’re marked for life.” She smiled wistfully at her mother. “I’ll never be able to kiss another boy now.”

  “You don’t want to, anyway, right?”

  “Is that a real question?” she said with a straight face, then laughed. “No, we are in love, Mom.”

  “I know, I know. He told me, too, and I think that’s sweet. But do you think you’d love him even if you didn’t have the tingle?”

  “Of course! You know Jamie. He’s the absolute best person, and he’s cute as he can be, and he’s—”