Outside, they only congregated a moment longer. Bailey gave Thomas a hug, and a kiss on the cheek. “It’s good to see you again,” she said. Then, more quietly, “Don’t keep him away too long.”
Thomas only gave a wicked, handsome grin. “Of course not.” A moment later, as he looked at the photo in Bailey’s hand, his grin melted to worry. “Hopefully, with everyone out looking we’ll find her soon.”
“Yeah,” Bailey sighed. “Her parents are probably losing their minds. I’m sure she’ll turn up.”
They parted, and Aiden walked with Bailey most of the way to her car. Once Thomas and Avery were out of earshot, he bent his neck a little and spoke softly. “I take it we’re meeting at the Caves?”
Bailey blinked. “No. What? Why? We’re going to the Bakery. I need to find out what the coven thinks of this. But before that, I really do need to change clothes. If we’re going to hike, I can’t do it in these flats.”
Aiden looked down, snorted, and then shook his head slowly. “Right. Of course. Call me when you’re done, then, and I’ll meet you wherever you’re headed.”
“I will,” she said, and turned to leave.
“Bailey,” Aiden said.
Bailey turned back around, eyebrows raised in question.
Aiden reached for the back of his neck, but let his hand drop before it made the journey there. He straightened his shoulders a bit, and then waved her on. “Nothing. It can wait. See you in a bit.”
She nodded, and quickly turned back around to get to her car.
But she couldn’t help smiling to herself, even under the circumstances. Thanks, Thomas, she thought. Maybe seeing him and Avery had put thoughts in Aiden’s mind.
Maybe, after all this was sorted out, she’d find out.
Chapter 5
THE SEARCH DID TAKE place, some hours later. Teams were organized, each one led by a deputy. There weren’t many—Coven Grove had never needed a large Sheriff’s department—so each group had to comb multiple zones, which were all laid out in a wide grid. It went on well into the night, until everyone was exhausted and shivering from the cold. Some wanted to continue, and many did—but Sheriff Larson began to warn people about the accident prone nature of searching in the pitch dark, even with flashlights.
So, for the time being, the civilians were dismissed.
Most everyone went to their homes; it was past midnight, and it was under forty degrees outside. Almost everyone promised to return in the morning to keep searching. Bailey, Aiden, Avery, and Thomas were among them.
“We should get a good night’s sleep,” Thomas told Avery as the four of them walked back to town from the Sheriff’s station.
Bailey caught Avery’s eye.
Avery grimaced, and rubbed his temple with two fingers, before he tapped it meaningfully.
It took just a moment—it was late, and she was tired—but Bailey focused on Avery’s presence and very carefully tuned in to just the most surface thoughts, then gave him a nod.
“I assume we’re not done,” he thought.
Bailey shook her head, just slightly.
“Should I get rid of Thomas, then?” Avery wondered. Woven throughout the thought was a kind of anguished worry that made Bailey’s heart ache for her friend.
She wanted Avery with them, of course; the more brains the better, and Avery’s was a worthwhile brain to have around on its own. Then again, how far could he push Thomas before the one man Avery had ever shown a real interest in—and who had shown an interest in him—got tired of being pushed away?
With a sigh, she made a small shooing gesture. Go with Thomas, she thought.
The actual communication, however, was one way. There was nothing ambiguous about Avery’s thoughts to Bailey but the same wasn’t true of her gesturing and subtle cues.
Avery stopped, and took Thomas’ hand. “You should go home, get some sleep,” he said.
Thomas glanced at Bailey and Aiden, and the two of them shuffled ahead and out of earshot. Mostly. Avery and Thomas were speaking softly, but their voices grew intense very quickly.
“It’s not fair to him,” Aiden said as they walked.
“To Avery, or to Thomas?” Bailey asked.
He shrugged. “Either of them, I suppose. Both.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not. I wish it was different. We may not need Avery, I was trying to tell him to take Thomas with him and go.”
“Do you think he would have?” Aiden asked.
“He needs these visits with Thomas,” Bailey said. “Avery does a good job of hiding it most of the time but... he’s lonely here.”
“I imagine he must be.”
They were quiet a moment. Avery and Thomas’ voices were no longer audible at all.
Finally, Aiden sighed. “And you?”
“Me what?”
He looked down at her briefly before returning his gaze to the sidewalk. “Are you lonely?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bailey said softly. “I mean... I have friends and family. Lots of them, lately.”
“So does Avery,” Aiden pointed out.
She sighed, and tugged at a lock of her hair. She and Aiden were probably destined to do this song and dance indefinitely. What did he want her to say? If she could have read his mind just then, she would have. Like Avery, however, Aiden’s mind was specifically protected from abilities like Bailey’s—unless he wanted to be read.
“I stay busy,” Bailey said at last. “So... maybe I don’t notice. Avery does the same thing.”
“And if you weren’t busy?”
“Why are we talking about this?” She asked. There was a little more edge in her voice than she’d really meant, but there it was.
Aiden stopped, and turned to her. He had his hands in his pockets. He leaned in just a bit. “Maybe because I am lonely. And I’m not afraid to admit it. I’ve been lonely a long time. Wizards often are. It’s... something of a tradition, I’m afraid.”
She searched his eyes for more, but no more was forthcoming. Instead, the corner of his mouth quirked up just a little bit and he turned away and continued toward town.
Bailey looked back at Avery. Thomas looked irritated, but he was leaving, crossing the street toward where he’d parked earlier.
Avery watched him cross, and then turned to Bailey and caught up. She took his hand when he was close enough, and he squeezed it tight. “I’m sorry about before,” he said as they began to catch up with Aiden.
“What did you do?” Bailey asked, confused.
“I was angry with you for keeping secrets from me,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand then. I do now.”
“I wish you didn’t,” she said, and leaned her head on his shoulder.
The bakery was locked when the trio arrived, but the ladies were there and Chloe came to the door to let them in. They were not alone.
A distraught woman sat at one of the tables, hunched over a steaming mug and attended by Aria and Frances, who both looked stricken and guilty. Though Bailey hadn’t seen the woman before, or at least never connected a face with a name, she knew instinctively that this was Dala Kendleston. Why she was here, though, was a different thing altogether.
Dala looked up at the newcomers, her eyes widening a little before she straightened. “They... the article said... so, it’s all true?”
“Don’t be foolish, Dala,” Frances said with more gentleness than Bailey could recall hearing from the woman. She put a hand on Dala’s. “We understand. Believe me, we do. If we had the power to help any more, then we would. But witchcraft? Come now. This is foolishness.”
“Why are they here, then?” Dala demanded, on the verge of falling apart from the sound of her. And no wonder. Bailey was amazed she wasn’t falling apart at this very moment.
“We invited them here for cocoa after the search,” Aria said. “Just like you. We invited lots of people. It seemed like a kindness, given all the hard work they did.”
“There’s no such thing as magic, Dala,
” Chloe said. Bailey sensed the subtle psychic pressure of a very gentle compulsion in the room.
Dala gave a long sigh, and nodded. “Of course there isn’t. I know that.”
Aria took her hand in both of her own. “She’ll turn up, Dala. You have to hold on to that. Okay? She’s a smart girl.” Dala didn’t respond, instead staring into her mug. Aria’s lips thinned, and finally she gave the woman a soft tug. “Come on. Let me get you home.”
Dala nodded, and allowed Aria to lead her up and away from the table. At the door, she stopped, and looked around at the assembled group. “Thank you all... for helping... I’m lost right now. Just...”
She didn’t finish. A sob strangled her voice, and she followed Aria through the door.
Bailey waited until they were out of sight through the window before she spoke. “She wanted your help?” She asked. “Like... magic help?”
“Gloria’s article,” Chloe said. “She wasn’t lying about it. Only a few papers picked it up—tabloids, they’ll print anything. Dala is a fan of trash media, though, so... right now she’ll believe anything.”
“In fairness,” Avery said flatly, “it is a true story.”
“Not entirely,” Frances said. She tossed the three of them a folded paper with a full front page photo of Martha Tells in her prime—screaming at someone and pointing a finger. “They had to dig for that one.”
Bailey stared in horror at the headline. Deceased Actress Martha Tells: The Witch of Coven Grove - And She Wasn’t Alone!
“They took some liberties with the story,” Chloe sighed. “Or, Gloria did, one or the other. Satan worship, some talk about all that Salem nastiness. Turning people into frogs.”
Aiden chuckled, and Bailey shot him a glare before she flipped through the paper to the story. It didn’t take long to find her name, listed right along with the rest of the coven ladies. Two names were conspicuously absent. “Where are Aiden and Avery, then? Gloria knew about them, too.”
“Yeah,” Avery wondered, peering over Bailey’s shoulder, “we were both there when Gloria spied on us.”
Frances snorted. “Like Chloe said; they took some liberties.”
“A coven of women with magic powers is probably more compelling than a couple of men hanging around with them,” Chloe said, bristling. “Call it patriarchy.”
Aiden rubbed the back of his head, and took a seat, along with Avery.
“So, we can expect some new kinds of tourists in the near future,” Bailey groaned. “Bad enough we get the murder enthusiasts.”
“It will be fine,” Aiden said. “It has happened in the past, and it will happen again. We’ll order some souvenirs and make a joke out of it. Denying it will only draw more attention.”
“Oh,” Avery smiled, “little green witches with pointy hats. Maybe do a Halloween theme in this place.”
Frances looked like she might have an apoplexy.
“Fine,” Bailey said, dropping the paper onto the table and changing the subject before Frances dropped a hurricane on someone. “Dala wanted help from us, right? So, we give it to her.”
Frances and Chloe bit their lips, and looked at one another.
Bailey waited. She glanced at Aiden. He was rubbing his jaw.
“Is there... some problem with that?” Bailey asked. “There’s a kid missing. We can find her, right?”
“Probably,” Frances said. “But what then?”
“Then she gets to go home and her mother isn’t devastated?” Bailey asked, incredulous. “Are we discussing this? Really? Chloe—mother—put yourself in Dala’s shoes. Can you really just leave this up to chance?”
It was Aiden that came to the ladies’ defense. “Bailey, think about it. Dala asked for help; magical help. If magic is used to find the girl, it will confirm her suspicions.”
“Fine,” Bailey said, her voice getting louder. She didn’t care. It was ludicrous that they were even having this conversation. “So she knows and we tell her not to tell anyone, and she won’t because she’s just glad we helped her get her little girl back.”
“And when there’s another problem, and someone has us solve that one, too?” Frances asked. “Before long, the scorecard starts to add up.”
“But we can be careful—” Avery started.
“After that,” Frances went on, “someone gets sick. They want us to fix that, too, but it’s something we can’t heal. The tide turns.”
“People start blaming magic for problems,” Chloe said, though it clearly pained her to do so. “Soon, we’re responsible for every ill that befalls the community. When people don’t have something tangible to be angry at, they’ll grasp for something they can get their hands on. We would be easy targets. It’s easy to prove you can do something with magic, Bailey—it’s not easy to prove you can’t or didn’t.”
Bailey held up both hands, and tempered her fury. “We can at least work something behind the scenes. We can do something that will help us locate Isabelle, and then use that information. Make it look like it was chance. We can... scry or something, make sure she’s at least... that she’s...”
None of them wanted to say it, so no one did.
After a taut silence, Chloe sighed. “We can try something. But if we find her, we can’t simply go to the Sheriff and tell them. If we do, it either confirms that we used magic, or it casts suspicion on us. So... we confirm that Isabelle is... alive... and figure out where she is, and then make sure that one of us is in the search group assigned to that zone tomorrow.”
“And if someone took her?” Bailey asked.
“Then,” Aiden said, “we will find out who, and that becomes a different matter entirely.”
“A person, we can deal with,” Frances agreed.
“We might even be able to draw Isabelle back home in the event she ran away,” Chloe finished. She smiled at Bailey. “We aren’t entirely helpless here. We just have to be very, very cautious. You know that, Bailey. I know you do.”
Her anger gradually evaporating, Bailey huffed once and closed her eyes to let herself find a calm center. “Okay,” she said. “As long as we aren’t just... standing by.”
“Good,” Chloe said. She neared Bailey, and took her hand. “I do empathize with Dala. More than you can imagine.”
Of course she did. Bailey regretted having said anything, but wasn’t quite ready to apologize yet. Instead, she just hugged her mother tightly.
“So,” Bailey asked, when they parted, “what are we doing?”
Frances held up something. Bailey had to squint to see it.
It was a strand of hair.
“I know just the thing,” she said, and smiled.
Chapter 6
THERE WAS A GREAT DEAL of argument to be had before Frances finally agreed to retrieve the scrying mirror from the attic above the bakery. Taking Aiden and Avery into the sanctuary of the coven was out of the question, according to both Frances and Chloe—and even if they had been so inclined, Aria hadn’t yet returned from helping Dala home and all three of them would have to be in agreement for that to come to pass.
Given the vast differences between witch’s magic and wizard’s magic, Bailey didn’t see the reason for keeping them out of the attic in the first place—a wizard could no more utilize a witch’s spells than a witch could utilize a wizard’s formulae. They were different approaches to magic, drawn from different sources. Still, Aiden and Avery both voiced their acceptance of the mandate; as though they had a choice in the matter.
When Frances did return, she carried with her a small chest. “Draw the blinds,” she said, jerking her chin at the windows.
The three younger magic users in the room tended that task while Chloe and Frances set up a table for the scrying process.
The scrying mirror itself was polished silver, rather than glass. It was a dish, and into it was poured clear water from a stoppered clay vessel. The water didn’t slosh or splash like water should have—instead, when it entered the dish, it seemed almost to cling to the
metal like oil.
Chloe took the strand of hair from Frances, and placed it in a small metal dish. It began to smoke over a coal inside, and with precise, practiced ease she quickly pinched five powders and crushed herbs and sprinkled them over the coal as well. Thick white smoke began to plume up, and as it did Frances raised a hand and made a circling motion with it. Though there was no wind in the room, the smoke began to shape itself into a rough, spinning disc.
Chloe touched the edge of the scrying mirror on one side, and Frances on the other. Bailey watched attentively, trying to parse out the process. Fire for a message. The hair and the herbs and powders for the content of the message which probably involved symbols and essences for seeking. One of the powders she recognized as crushed acorns, symbols of offspring perhaps, further directing the content of the message.
At Frances’ behest, the smoke disc drifted down like a roiling cloud to the surface of the water in the dish, and when it did, Frances and Chloe began to chant. It was Etruscan, but there were words in it Bailey didn’t know yet. Something about opening eyes, eagles, and flight.
As the chant rose and fell, the smoke began to disperse—not into the air, but down, into the water, making it cloudy at first, until, after several long minutes, it began to clear again.
Bailey leaned over to look into the reflections inside.
Except, now, they weren’t reflections.
The images were watery, although the water in the dish was perfectly still. It showed, at first, a house—possibly Dala’s house. Frances barely tilted the dish one way and the other while muttering to it, and eventually the image began to shrink, as though the perspective inside the dish were zooming out and up into the sky. It drifted one way and another, seemingly at random.
“It’s following the girl’s recent movements,” Chloe explained quietly.
Bailey nodded, and Aiden peered with interest at the water. He was looking more and more concerned as the image cast about, but didn’t ask any questions or say anything just yet. Still, Bailey knew the look by now. There was something on his mind, some opinion beginning to form.
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