Clearwater Witches Boxset

by Madeline Freeman

  She reaches for Fox and I bristle. Is she honestly using this moment to make a move on him? I grab her by the elbow and spin her around. She has a couple of inches on me, even without her heels, and glares down. “What? Why are you even here?”

  I open my mouth to respond but am cut off by a male voice calling my name. Owen. When I turn, he’s heading up the hall toward us.

  “Dammit, Owen,” I say through clenched teeth. “I said wait in the car—”

  Fox tenses, his jaw clenching.

  My stomach sinks. Fox is already upset and worried about Zane—the last thing I wanted was to bring more drama. “I didn’t have my car. He just gave me a ride.”

  The tension drains from Fox’s body and he rubs a hand over his face. “You were together?”

  “I told you,” Lexie says fiercely, tugging Fox’s arm so he faces her. “I told you not to trust her. Since she’s not the best at magic anymore, she’s gotta get her power trip somewhere. Looks like she’s collecting guys so she can—”

  My hand connects with Lexie’s cheek, the resounding smack satisfying. She reels back, bringing her hand to cover the red mark blossoming, her eyes murderous. She steadies herself before starting for me, but I’m ready and launch myself at her before she gets any forward momentum. She pinwheels backward and slams against the wall behind her, pressing her palms against it to keep from falling. I draw my arm back, aiming a punch at her chin, but a force pulls me backward. At first I figure Bridget or Crystal have pulled me back, but I don’t knock against anyone’s body. Instead, I rocket backward until I’m pinned against the wall opposite Lexie. She presses herself to standing and grins maliciously before taking a step toward me. I fight against the invisible barrier holding me in place, but can’t budge it.

  Lexie is halfway across the hall when she buckles, her hands going to her head as she crumples to the ground. The force holding me in place dissipates but I’m too dumbfounded to do anything. Fox, Crystal, and Bridget moan, their postures copies of Lexie’s. I open my mouth to call for help, but no sound comes out. I cross to Fox, crouching so I can peer into his face.

  “I’m okay,” he murmurs, pushing me away. He’s pale, but his movements are sure as he presses himself to standing again.

  “No, you’re not.” I reach for his face, but he pulls back. “Fox, what was that? That wasn’t normal. Why did you all fall?”

  Fox takes a step back and Lexie snorts. She’s standing again, too, her hair mussed and her complexion ashen, but looking otherwise normal. “Take a hint. He doesn’t want you here.”

  I ignore her. “Fox?”

  His eyes flicker to Owen. “Maybe she’s right. You should go.”

  I grab his hands before he can pull back farther. “I’m not leaving until I figure out what happened just now. The four of you just collapsed in unison—clearly something’s wrong.”

  Lexie crosses her arms over her chest. “Like you care if something happens to us.”

  I turn, catching her gaze. “Honestly, I don’t care if something happens to you.” My eyes flick to Owen, whose face is tight. “Except that I do. I care more than you can understand.”

  Lexie’s expression clouds, her lips parting.

  Fox curses quietly as his cell buzzes. Pulling his hands from mine, he reaches into his back pocket and swipes at the screen. His eyes narrow. “It’s Griffin. He says, What the hell was that?”

  A thrill of dread courses through me. “You mean—did he feel whatever happened to you guys a second ago?”

  Fox shrugs. “Maybe. Why? What—”

  I shake my head, backing down the hall. It can’t be a coincidence. Zane was doing magic and collapsed when I was trying to work the de-anchoring spell, then everyone collapsed when Lexie used magic to pin me against the wall. Whatever I did is having effects for the circle. I need to get back to Seth, to figure out what’s going on. “I have to go,” I say, my eyes on Fox. “Promise me you won’t do magic until you hear back from me.”

  Lexie presses her hands to her hips. “I’m sorry, but since when does he take orders from you?”

  I point at her. “You either. And text Griffin. Don’t do any magic.”

  Crystal’s eyebrows lower, her expression pinched. “What’s going on?”

  Before I can answer, the double doors behind them open to reveal a female doctor in her forties, her brown hair streaked with gray at the temples. I figure she’s just passing through, but her eyes fix on Fox. “You came in with Mr. Ross?”

  Fox nods. “Yeah. I’ve been trying to get someone to tell me what’s—”

  She holds up her hand and a cold wave rushes over me. Before she forms the words, I know what she’s going to say. And when the news breaks and Fox’s face crumples, I know the cause—or near enough. Zane was tapped into the crystal when I tried to sever his connection to it. And although I didn’t finish the spell, I did something to alter the circle’s relationship to the energy.

  When Lexie used magic just now, it affected all the other circle members, including Zane. But he was already weak from before, and whatever affected them all was too much for him. Whatever was happening to him, he wasn’t strong enough to survive it.

  And it’s my fault.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I don’t speak to Owen the whole drive back to Seth’s apartment. It’s not until he makes a move to follow me in that I break my silence. “You should go.”

  His face tightens. “You’ll probably need me for whatever the next spell is. I want to help.”

  I shake my head. “You’ve helped enough. I asked you to do one thing, Owen. One thing. Stay in the car. But no.” I gulp down a breath. “If you hadn’t come in, Lexie wouldn’t’ve started in on me. She wouldn’t’ve used magic and Zane…” I clamp my hand over my mouth, not allowing the building sob to rise and escape.

  He closes the distance between us, pulling me into his arms. My body instinctively relaxes into his embrace for a moment before my mind demands I pull away. Owen presses his lips together, his eyes wounded. “I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen. I planned on waiting in the car, but I felt how upset you were. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  My emotions swirl so quickly I’m not sure how to feel. I want to be mad at him, to blame him for what happened to Zane, because doing so relieves some of my own guilt. But that’s not fair to him. I want to fold myself in his arms, to allow him to hold and comfort me, to make me forget the last hour of my life—hell, the last few weeks. But that’s not fair to him either.

  “I need to tell Seth what happened. I’ll text you if we need you.”

  Owen’s shoulders droop at the brush-off. “I want to help.”

  A pang of guilt shoots through me. I should let him come upstairs with me, but I can’t. My mind keeps conjuring the look on Fox’s face when he showed up, Lexie’s words, the resounding smack when my hand hit her cheek. I should be with Fox right now. I should be the one comforting him—not Lexie. But it’s more important for me to figure out how to fix whatever my spell did to the circle’s connection to the crystal before someone does magic and hurts the rest of them.

  Owen’s face tightens and he nods, even though I haven’t said anything. He gets back into his car and takes off.

  The sun is low on the horizon and the darkness brings with it a sharp wind that lashes against my exposed parts—my ears, my fingers, my neck. My feet pound against the metal stairs, which shake with every footfall. I bring my fist down on the aluminum door, hoping Seth’s figured out a way to fix things. I want the circle to be severed from the crystal, but not this way. There has to be something else we can do.

  The door swings open and my fist continues on its trajectory. Seth catches me around my wrist and smiles. “Eager to get back to work?”

  I press past him into the sparse apartment. The candles and circle still stand in the center of the room, like I never left, but besides Seth, the room space is empty. “Where is everyone?”

  He closes the do
or. “They ran out to get something to eat. They’ll be back soon.” His cocks his head to the side. “What’s the matter? Is Zane all right?”

  A dam bursts inside me, unleashing a heavy wave of emotions. Everything I’ve been tamping down since the hospital bubbles to the surface. My eyes fill with tears so quickly that my attempts to blink them back only result in sending them over my cheeks. I double over, my hands clenching into fists as I bring my arms across my chest. Seth crosses the room and takes me into his arms. I try to push away—I don’t deserve comfort, not after what I’ve done—but he’s too strong. I stop trying to choke back the sobs rising up in my throat and let them out, my body collapsing against his. He holds me up, making soothing sounds, but I barely hear him.

  “He’s dead. I did it.” I gulp, the words piercing my heart. “It was the spell. I did something and… I killed Zane.”

  Abruptly, Seth grabs my shoulders, holding me at arm’s length. His face is drawn, inscrutable, and the intensity burning in his eyes quiets my cries. “He died?”

  I nod. “And now every time one of them does magic, they all… collapse. I’m afraid… I’m afraid something bad’s gonna happen to them all.”

  Seth’s eyes glaze and he looks through me rather than at me. He runs his hand through his hair again absently. His gaze drops to the floor and his tongue wets his lips. “This changes things. I wasn’t prepared for this development.”

  I open my mouth to ask what he means, but he’s already turned, heading for the center of the circle drawn on his floor. He flips open a book and leafs through its pages. I edge closer. “Is there a way to undo it?”

  Seth gives no indication he hears me. His fingertips skim the text for a moment before he stands, crossing to a folding chair and grabbing a paper bag from Jodi’s shop. After pulling out a few bunches of herbs and sniffing them, he selects two and adds them to the bowl from earlier. He murmurs under his breath as he works.

  My phone vibrates in my back pocket and I pull it out. There’s a text from Owen. I’ve got a bad feeling. Are you okay?

  I stuff the phone back into my pants. I should text back, but I can’t bring myself to. But we might need all the psychics back for whatever Seth has planned. “Should I text the others? Tell them to get back here?”

  Seth stirs the herb mixture in the bowl with his hand a few times before lifting it so it’s level with his chest. In a swift motion, he stands, turning toward me. “That won’t be necessary.”

  My skin prickles. If the psychics were necessary for the spell that caused this problem, why wouldn’t they be just as integral to undo the damage? A wave of unease courses through me. We can undo the damage, can’t we? Otherwise, what spell is Seth preparing?

  The corners of his mouth turn up as though he’s heard my unspoken question. Flames erupt from the bowl and I jump back, yelping. The flames of the candles around us leap and dance rhythmically. I choke on the thick smoke emanating from the bowl.

  “What’s going on?” I step back, meaning to leave the confines of the circle, but the candle flames are too large, too erratic. I stare at Seth. He’s a witch—I know that—but I also know the limitations of his magic. He’s told me, yes, but I’ve felt the energy within him. The magic filling this room is more than he should be capable of. It swirls around, pressing in on all sides. It’s like he’s channeling it from somewhere, like I was doing with the psychics earlier—except he shouldn’t be capable of that kind of spell work.

  I need to get out of the circle of fire. I wait for an opportunity and leap between two candles, but the bottom of my long sweater catches as it passes through. The rote knowledge that I should stop, drop, and roll is overcome by a more primal urge. If the elements are working against me, I must subdue the elements. Magic wells in my chest and fills me to my head, fingertips, and toes. “Flame out.”

  Not only the flames on my sweater, but the red-gold firelight of all the candles disappears immediately, leaving behind so many puffs of smoke. Seth’s lip curls. Gone is the kind young man, the friendly distant relative, the mentor I’ve grown to know, replaced by a sneering stranger.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Blackness encroaches on my peripheral vision. I’m careening toward the floor and I can’t stop it. As the darkness overtakes me, Seth’s green eyes are the last thing I see.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  My eyelids feel glued together. Try as I might to open them, they won’t separate. I need to rub the sleep away.

  Ropes cutting into my wrists restrict the movements of my hands. With an almighty effort, I wrench my eyes open, only to close them immediately against the harsh glare of a bonfire several feet in front of me. Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t believe I couldn’t feel the heat on my skin. Warm air caresses my face, my neck, presses against the fabric of my sweater and pants.

  I passed out. No, I’ve passed out before, and this was different. Instead of coming from within me, this was done to me. A spell.

  Seth.

  I open my eyes again. The fire is at least five feet wide at its base, with flames leaping up nearly twice that into the black night sky. I’m lying on my side on the cool night grass, arms and legs bound.

  I scan the area for others—the psychics, Seth—but I see no one. I struggle to right myself, jamming my hand and elbow into the cold grass. My head pounds against my skull. Whatever Seth did to knock me unconscious, it was a doozy. And where could he be now? Why knock me out, bring me here, light a fire, and leave? The fire, surrounded in a circle of large white rocks, doesn’t seem to be set to spread to the nearby woods.

  Woods. I squint into the darkness on all sides. Trees are visible to my right and beyond the firelight, but I can’t see what’s to my left. I strain my ears. Am I by the river? If so, I can follow it to town. Of course, I can’t do it tied up. The rope around my ankles is intricately tied—twisted and looped back around itself. I can’t even locate the ends. My heart thuds in my chest.

  I take in a breath. I’m ignoring the obvious solution—magic. It can’t be much different than lighting a candle. With my mind focused on what I want to happen—the knots to unravel—I try to call up the energy inside me. But nothing happens. I close my eyes, searching for the surge of magic.

  A chuckle sounds behind me and I twist. Seth emerges from the darkness, a smile playing about the corners of his mouth. “Try all you like. You’ll not be able to access your magic.”

  I pull against the ropes, but that only makes them dig into my flesh. He’s right. The spark within me is there, but muted, like it’s behind translucent glass. I can’t connect with it. “What are you doing to me?”

  He shrugs as he positions himself between the fire and me. “A simple channeling spell.” He points at a ring on his pinky finger and my stomach clenches. It’s my ring. “Since your friend died while you attempted the spell earlier, I was fairly certain you’d be reluctant to assist me in finishing the work. I knew I would have to take matters into my own hands. I didn’t want it to come to this, but it has. I need the circle separated from the crystal. They have no right to use the energy trapped within it. It was never meant for them.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. His voice doesn’t even sound like the man I’ve grown to know—it’s rougher, colder. “And what? You think it’s meant for you?”

  “Meant for me? In a way, yes, but not the way you think. The magic inside that crystal belongs to me. I was separated from it the night you and Crystal returned from your foray into the past. Yes, I know about that.” A smile curls the edges of his mouth. “It was, after all, my idea.”

  His words clang and clash in my mind. “What? You didn’t even come to town until after—”

  “On the contrary—I’ve been in this town for more years than I care to count. Suffice it to say, I was here before your parents and their parents and their parents before them.”

  I stare at him. There’s no way he’s telling the truth. How can he be that old? He’s barely old
er than I am. But another thought tugs at my consciousness. I had visions of him before he ever showed up in my life—visions Jodi brushed off as simple foreshadowing of his arrival, that Crystal believed meant they were destined for each other. But what if they were more than that? I attributed my visions to being around Crystal, but that’s not entirely accurate. The visions occurred when I was around the pendant she wore—a shard from the quartz the circle anchored itself to. What if my visions had nothing to do with Crystal at all, but with the pendant? And the visions I’ve had since coming to this reality—the ones I thought meant there was something wrong with the crystal? Stones can channel energy, yes, but they can also store it. There’s no reason a stone would be inherently evil—it would have to be imbued with something dark.

  Or someone.

  “I never did thank you. Although, truly, I’m not thankful to be in such a pitiable state, it is preferable to what I experienced in your reality. For a brief moment when you rescued the stone from poor Crystal Taylor’s fire, I reconnected with the full extent of my abilities. And while it would have been preferable for Crystal Jamison to release me from the stone with my abilities intact, I’m not entirely sure she possesses the power to have completed the spell, and I’m unsure what would have become of me had she died midway through. So, in a way, I suppose I do owe you a debt of gratitude for intervening. When you redirected the crystal’s magic—my magic—you freed me from my prison.” He holds his arms out, wiggling his fingers. “It is wonderful to have corporeal form again. Still, it is unacceptable to be cut off from my power. Your circle anchoring itself is a complication that needs to be sorted out.”

  “That’s been your plan all along, hasn’t it? To kill them—like you’ve been killing other people in town?” I bite the inside of my cheeks, watching his face, wanting to be wrong. But the flicker in his eye is all the confirmation I need. “Why? Why would you kill them? Millie has young kids—”