The young witch’s breath caught in her throat. Is he feeding Mom’s lines back to me? “Because of how easy it was to get what they wanted.”
“Ah. Only for a time. The true reason—the bigger reason and the more fundamental reason—is that their power allowed them to forget. Do not let go of where you come from, Lily. People say, ‘Leave the past behind you.’ I’ve never understood why.” When John shook his head and gestured over his lap, his beard swung from side to side beneath his chin. “The past is the only thing standing between who you are right now and who you will become after every single decision you make.” His eyes widened, and he pressed a finger to his temple as if he’d given her a profound revelation instead of more riddles. “This Black Heron Society has forgotten the past. You can use this to your advantage, my dear. Even now, you are closer to the true black heron than they ever will be.” He chuckled. “Figuratively and literally, come to think of it. Isn’t that something?”
Lily could only shake her head in bemusement. “I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.”
“It means that when you finally reach your mother, take a page out of the old birds’ book, eh?” He leaned forward and raised his eyebrows. “Let them think the night has already come.”
A breeze rustled through the reeds behind them and stirred up a low, hollow moan. She couldn’t tell if it was the sound of it, the coolness of the breeze, or the man’s words that sent a shiver up her spine. But she thought she understood what he was saying.
“Okay.” Romeo clapped softly and rubbed his hands a little. “Thanks for the great advice, John. We really should… I mean, Lily, we need to get going again, right? Lily?”
“Hmm? Oh. Yeah.” She nodded at the strange wandering spirit who might or might not have actually transported them to the Nile for a lesson in magical deception. “Thank you. That’s much more helpful than I thought it would be.”
“The truth always is.” John winked at her and chuckled. “The tea’s probably cold anyway.” He slapped his hands on his thighs again and pushed himself to his feet. “Come on, then. Just because you haven’t wasted any time doesn’t mean there’s any time to waste.” With that, he stepped past the chairs toward the wall of reeds again and swept them aside. This time, though, he stepped through first, leaving them on their own in the sudden oasis they’d stumbled upon.
The young couple shared a glance. Romeo shook his head in disbelief. “I have no idea what just happened.”
“That’s okay.” Lily smiled. “I think I do.”
“That was an invitation to follow me, by the way,” their host called from the other side of the reeds.
They both pulled aside a section of the tall, waving stalks and stepped through. This time, instead of standing in the tall grasses again, they set foot somewhere else entirely. They weren’t in the stranger’s tent. They weren’t even where they’d left the Winnebago in order to investigate the tent and ask for help. The RV was still there, of course, but now, it stood beside a main road that stretched in either direction in front of them.
“What is going on?” Romeo muttered.
Lily turned again to thank their odd new friend for his help, but both the tent and John were gone. “Wow. I guess being stuck on the side of the road with no gas is better than being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no gas.”
“Hey, you know what’s even better than both of those options?” When she turned, he held two red, five-gallon gas cans, one in each hand. “Being teleported to the side of the road with enough gas to get us going again.” Beside him were seven more cans. “That old ghost actually came through.”
Laughing, she shook her head and joined him beside the Winnie. “He wasn’t a ghost, Romeo.”
“Okay, fine. I’d love to know what he really is, though.” He jerked his head up from the gas cans and shook his head hastily. “Actually, I don’t. It doesn’t matter.”
“I guess not.” She went to the fuel tank on the side of the vehicle and opened the panel for him. “Here’s to only looking at the future. And it’s…” She stepped away from the RV to see which way the annoyingly persistent yellow beam was headed. “That way.” The line it cut across Libya intersected the road in front of them a little, but they’d follow it off-road again if they had to. She would follow that beam of light anywhere, although the only place she was headed now was that shimmering orange light in the air and the doorway to getting her mom out of the Black Heron’s hands.
Romeo lifted the first gas can to the Winnie’s tank and poured it in. “We’ll fill up and then we’ll head out.” He studied her far-off expression for a few seconds and tilted his head quizzically. “What did he mean by letting them think the night’s already come?”
She turned slowly to look at him and a determined smile spread across her lips. “It means they have no idea what’s coming for them.”
“You have a plan now, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
“And I’m really not gonna like it, huh?”
“Definitely not.”
He sighed and nodded as the fuel sloshed into the tank. “I thought so.”
Lily stepped toward him and ran her hand through his dark curls. “At least you know what you’re getting yourself into before we get there.”
Romeo let go of the gas can with one hand to pull her toward him. His lips pressed fiercely against hers before he pulled away and grinned. “I knew that the minute you walked through my door after seven years, Lil. Whatever it is, I’m in.”
“Good. ʼCause there’s really no turning back once we get to the end of that yellow line.”
“There never was.”
Thirty-One
Greta Antony knelt on the bearskin rug in the center of the High Seat’s reliquary and watched the man with the fake eye pace slowly in front of her. She’d overheard the other society members refer to him as Carmichael, but she’d taken to calling him Mikey in the privacy of her own thoughts. The thought of it now made her smirk. For some reason, every time she thought of the name, she imagined a rubber ducky sitting on his left shoulder. Sometimes, it whispered jokes into his ear and other times, it merely squeaked.
If anyone knew any of this, they’d think I’d lost my mind. She watched the man in the smoking jacket move across the room again and again as he turned a hunk of rock in his hand. It was worn smooth with how much he handled it, which might have been a glimpse into his own special form of insanity. Sometimes, you have to lose your mind to keep it safe. Don’t worry, Mikey. You’ll never find it.
“You know what I simply don’t understand?” Mikey said and his low voice rang out below the high vaulted ceiling of the reliquary. “That girl is exactly like you, Margaret—stubborn, willful, and infuriating.” He stopped his pacing and turned to face her. “So how did she turn out to be so unbelievably stupid?”
She returned his stare, her smirk unwavering even though she swayed a little on her knees. “Feel free to ask her when she gets here.”
“Ah. Yes, I’m sure I could. I’m sure she’d give me an answer clever enough to make me doubt what I already know.” The smooth hunk of rock turned over and over in his hand. “It won’t be enough, though. Not to save you. Not to do what she’s coming here to do. I am days away from completing this spell, and once I have your daughter—your blood—standing at my altar, there’s nothing you wouldn’t give to see her spared. Isn’t that right?”
Greta bowed her head and chuckled.
“What’s that?”
“I think you have us confused.”
“Oh, really?” Mikey tossed the rock in his hand and caught it with a tight little smack. He approached her and squatted in front of her on the bearskin rug. “Do you think your daughter will give me what I need simply to keep me from hurting you more than I already have?” His cold hand settled below her chin and squeezed her lower jaw enough to make her look at him. “Do you think she has it in her?”
Greta gritted her teeth and fought to settle her gaze on his d
espite how hard it was to focus on any one thing anymore. “I know she does. And she’s gonna give you everything she has.”
The man clicked his tongue, and his lips twitched away from his teeth in a twisted smile. “That’s what I thought.” He released her, rose to his feet again, and stepped toward the reliquary doors. Halfway there, he turned again and spread his arms. “She’s almost here, Margaret. And we’ll welcome her with open arms, won’t we?” He raised his eyebrows, spun away, and stormed through the doors. They closed behind him with a loud bang, leaving her alone again in a room with far more comfort and considerably more magic than any in which the Black Heron had held her before.
Greta Antony sat back on her heels and exhaled a long, slow breath. Lily has it in her, Mikey. More than you could possibly imagine. As long as I’m alive, she’ll do what needs to be done.
Time’s running out. Injuries committed to Greta Antony by The Black Heron Society are showing up on her daughter’s body. Can she track her mother down before it’s too late? Find out in A Witch and A Hard Place.
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Dark Is Her Nature
For Hire: Teachers for special school in Virginia countryside.
Must be able to handle teenagers with special abilities.
Cannot be afraid to discipline werewolves, wizards, elves and other assorted hormonal teens.
Apply at the School of Necessary Magic.
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Author Notes - Martha Carr
November 7, 2019
Halloween has come and gone. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hand out candy this year. One obstacle in the way was how much I ate before the actual night (Reese’s are way too delish to resist. A few Almond Joy disappeared as well). The other was the enthusiastic barking from my dogs any time someone approaches the house.
But I came up with a plan. I spent the night sitting in my office near the front of the house binge-watching Jane the Virgin on Netflix. The good dog Lois Lane and the sweet pittie Leela were at the window nearby keeping watch. They were like an early warning system for trick or treaters who were still a block away.
Of course, the system has flaws. Lois has been known to bark just for fun at least a few times every hour.
But, once a tiny Spider Man or a little unicorn was spotted, I grabbed the big bowl of candy, sprinted out of the office, shutting the glass doors behind me and bolted out the front door to meet them on the sidewalk. Happy to say I am still light on my feet.
My neighborhood is fairly new and full of mostly 30-something’s and their tiny offspring. Most are still too little to go trick or treating. I wasn’t sure just how many little people would be showing up and was surprised at the pretty constant flow.
If the numbers are any indication, I’m going to have to buy candy by the ton in about five years.
There was a Harry Potter and his friend, Ron, and the usual superheroes. Even the parents were dressed up in themed costumes.
My go-to costume as a kid was to be a gypsy. It was convenient that for Christmas every year my little brother and I gave my mom costume jewelry from the local church bazaar. The bigger and brighter the better. Ten months later some of that conveniently became part of my costume. I loved all the shine, glitter and gold.
One snag, which was true for every kid who grew up in the Northeast – (Philadelphia in my case) - and still is. Every costume had to be big enough to fit a winter coat underneath. My arms never went all the way down. It didn’t matter. I loved everything about that night. It was like magic had been unleashed, just for one night. There was the neighbor who gave away pennies for every year of our age or the one who gave out full-sized candy bars. Of course, we had the dentist who gave out toothbrushes, but it was still all fun. Even the years it snowed I still hung in there for at least four blocks.
Then there was the annual counting of the candy with my brother before we touched a single piece. And trading away the sour balls or malt balls for something better, like Three Musketeers. It was one of the few times of the year we had unfettered access to so much sugar as kids.
So much harder to stay away from chocolate as a grown up… But that’s a story for another time. More adventures to follow.
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
November 19, 2019
Thank you for reading this book, and these Author Notes!
Ok, candy.
My most memorable moments with a shitake-ton of candy had to do with rain and leaving a brown paper bag of candy out in it.
And bees… Lots and lots of bees.
Back when I was in about first or second grade, we lived in a suburb of Houston, TX with lots of pine trees. We had gone trick-or-treating and had a good haul of the sweet elixir of life. Enough that (I am pretty sure) my mother didn’t want us eating it.
Come to think about it as an adult, I wonder if she put that bag of candy BACK out on the swing set so it would get wet?
Nah, I doubt that. But isn’t it strange that I think about this some forty years later?
Anyway, I searched a day or two later for the candy, to find it outside in the backyard on the swing set, bees buzzing around it. I gathered my courage and made a run for it, the whole swarm of bees trying to protect the nectar of nirvana from the young male stud.
I might have been forty pounds soaking wet.
Maybe.
Anyway, surviving the onslaught of stingers (there were seven total…maybe), I retrieved the massive bag of candy, only to find the rain had soaked the candy so bad that even the hard stuff I wouldn’t have normally eaten was affected. It was a seriously sad afternoon for me, and it was all thrown away.
I can’t stop thinking about whether my mother had really placed that candy out in the rain. I mean, even the hard candy with plastic wrapping was affected. That’s…
Just curious.
Hmmm.
I always said when I got older and had money, I’d buy all the candy I want. Unfortunately, I’m older and don’t want any candy. I think having money is wasted on those of us who are older at times.
However, I eat the hell out of juicy filet mignon steaks—and unlike my younger self, I don’t put ketchup on them.
Nor do I eat them well done anymore.
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Other Books By Martha Carr
Series in the Oriceran Universe:
SCHOOL OF NECESSARY MAGIC
SCHOOL OF NECESSARY MAGIC: RAINE CAMPBELL
ALISON BROWNSTONE
THE DANIEL CODEX SERIES
THE LEIRA CHRONICLES
I FEAR NO EVIL
FEDERAL AGENTS OF MAGIC
THE UNBELIEVABLE MR. BROWNSTONE
REWRITING JUSTICE
THE KACY CHRONICLES
MIDWEST MAGIC CHRONICLES
SOUL STONE MAGE
THE FAIRHAVEN CHRONICLES
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THE WITCH NEXT DOOR
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