All day Sunday I watched the clock and kept busy with another unsuccessful attic search for the keepsake, followed by more productive time spent finishing my wand. With coils of copper wire, I affixed Gran’s amber to the longest of the three tips. Another trio. The rule of threes seemed to be a theme in my life lately. Did the wand having three ends mean something significant? Would the three ends behave differently? Produce different magic? Under Wednesday’s Hunters full moon, I’d consecrate the wand. I couldn’t wait. With the wires neatly wrapped and ends secured, I applied another coat of finish oil to the wood.
Finally, the sun angled low. I changed from my jeans into a washable but acceptable thirties-style outfit, a flared skirt and simple cotton blouse, and headed to the carriage house. Logan’s dark red sedan was parked in the lot. I said hello to everyone along my straight-line path toward the sound of his voice in the garage.
None responded.
I rounded the rear of a carriage and found him in a small group that included Emily, the high school girl I’d met yesterday. Logan called, “Hey, Aggie! Come join us. We’re reapplying spells to these buggy frames.” He introduced me to the five women surrounding him.
Emily grinned, and a young woman beside her nodded, but the other three older women looked down.
Logan rested a hand on top of a spoked wheel. “Where people are likely to touch, we set spells that will activate sparking. The spells wear down with one night’s use, so we reapply them daily. With your natural sun energy, this should be easy for you. Maybe you can find a way to strengthen the spells so they last longer.”
I gave a nod. “I can do that. And I can show the others how to maximize their spark enchantments.”
“Great!” Logan said with enthusiasm that seemed excessive for a simple request of a New Wish sun witch. But I appreciated his support and hoped it spilled to the rest.
Emily’s green eyes widened as she moved beside me and whispered, “Teach me first. I want to learn.” Her pure heart and eagerness heartened me.
“Come outside and open your palms to direct sunshine.” I led her, with the rest tagging behind, onto the driveway.
Only Emily followed my directions. “How long do I keep them here?”
Using my own hands to judge the degree of energy accumulation, I added an additional minute to allow for those not as attuned. “About three minutes. Close your fists, then go inside fast and set the spell. Make sure to directly touch the object with your whole hand so the energy transfers. One hand, one spell, then recharge outside.”
With the group members jostling for a view, the girl pressed her palm to a buggy wheel, and within moments sparks overflowed from beneath her touch. She exclaimed, “Oh! Look! It works.”
Murmured oohs and aahs came from behind her. The oldest woman said, “Sun’s dippin’ low. Let’s get on this.” The other four women hurried outside, me in their midst.
On my return trip, Logan grinned at me from across the garage, and I smiled in return.
My group worked for the next hour on the task, probably overdoing the special effects since the women seemed excited to see sparks drip from under their fingers. With the sun sinking low behind the tree line, we took to the road to make contact. This necessitated real sprints back into the garage. And produced plenty of laughter when the women dodged and collided with workers assigned to different chores. In one instance, Emily and her aunt, with me on their heels, charged directly into a young woman dressed in a mini-skirt. Knocked her backward off her high-heeled knee boots.
In the tangle, I tripped over Emily’s long legs and crashed to the straw-covered floor.
“What the—?” the woman, clearly not from the coven, sputtered, and her cheeks reddened with a shade quite different than her heavy blush. With armfuls of bracelets clanking, she floundered to gain footing in the slippery straw.
Logan offered me a hand, which I gladly accepted and leaned into him for support. He steadied me with an arm around the back of my waist. “Are you okay?”
“What about me?” bracelet woman huffed. When he gave her a hand up, she muttered, “Who’s she?”
I joined Emily and her aunt recharging in the road. When I started the return dash, bracelet woman stood with hands on her hips blocking my path, her eyes beady and piercing. The shaggy layers of her dark hair and long earrings shook as she said, “You’re new here. I don’t know who you think you are, but Logan and I are already a couple.”
I scanned the area for Logan but couldn’t find him.
Caught off guard, I stammered, “Who are you?” I looked for a way to touch her and use my haptics to learn more, but no friendly touch would be welcome. Anger oozed from this woman. I did the best I could from that distance. She cast no vibrations of a witch.
“I’m Rachelle, a friend of Jancie’s. She told me you were hot for Logan, and that he was checking you out. Listen careful. He’s mine.” She stomped to the garage. The gravel crunched under her boots, as if to underscore her declaration.
Sun energy drained from my fingers, arms, and shoulders into golden puddles on the road.
I stared at my spent energy for at least a minute before I tried and failed to recharge. My mind wouldn’t focus. Jancie had been so nice and never mentioned her friend Rachelle. Why did this woman attack me? Was she telling the truth? Did Logan really like her? My plain garb didn’t measure up to her fancy clothes and jewelry. I mustered courage to glance inside.
Logan and Rachelle stood close, laughing, as she threaded her arm in his.
What little sun energy remained in me trickled off my fingertips, along with what felt like my heart. I clutched my arms to my sides, trying to prevent the emptiness from spreading deeper. Moisture clouded my vision, and I hung my head to keep others from noticing. I took a step toward the garage, but my hex bite stabbed sharp pain through my calf. My energy had unbalanced. Like this, I was no use to anyone…certainly not to Logan.
I stumbled in the direction of the homestead…a home, but not mine.
With each step, my throat tightened and my lungs constricted. I wanted my home in New Wish, my family. I reached the shed and flung open the door. I fished my keys from my skirt pocket and started the sedan. I’d never backed up before. The car stalled. And stalled again. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I gulped a deep breath and tried once more. The car surged backward and cleared the door far enough to make a turn.
I jerked the car through its gears and onto the road, past the carriage house without even a glance. With the back of my hand, I scrubbed tears from my eyes, trying to wipe off the hurt. More followed and with them, deeper pain, a torrent of blame. I’d been stupid to trust Logan. I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I didn’t even know myself.
At the next intersection, I turned right without thinking. Any direction would do. I just needed to get away. Away from the new life I’d made. Now falling in on me, smothering me. My face burned with the last traces of my sun energy. I cranked the window down. Crisp night air whipped into the car and soothed my sore skin. I gulped lungfuls of coolness, battering against the clenched tightness in my throat. Any way to stop the pain.
On a straight stretch of road, I stepped on the accelerator. Dried salt stung my eyelids.
Through a series of curves, I turned fast without any sense of bearing or memory. I cursed a hairpin curve, which forced me to slow my speed. The sedan leaned. Tires skidded. I slammed on the brakes. The hex bite seared, and my calf spasmed. My left foot rolled off the clutch. I steered hard in the opposite direction. The smell of burnt rubber clogged my throat, and the hard lump reformed.
The car pitched into a ditch and stalled.
“Damn.” I thumped the heel of my palm against the wheel, as if I could blame the car for my mistake. Luckily, I’d not hit a tree. I tried to start the car and drive out in reverse. I couldn’t feel my injured leg, let alone move it to depress the clutch.
My chest hitched. Salt trails streaked my cheeks. Where was I? I rubbed my eyes. The woods in front of the car had been t
hinned, and a few yards ahead stood a farmhouse.
I needed help. With shaking arms, I worked the car door open enough to exit. I grabbed my messenger bag and limped a few steps along the roadside, gritting my teeth every time I put weight on the hexed leg. Slowly, the house and an old truck with a wooden bed came into view. I knotted the bag’s strap in my hand. I was still in the coven. Why couldn’t I have made it away from here? I longed to be back home. There, I’d not worry how I’d be received at a stranger’s house. There were no strangers in New Wish.
I trudged onward, one painful step after the other. I looked down at the macadam. It didn’t matter what lay ahead. I had no choice.
A rustling in a tree above drew my attention. The barn owl I’d seen at Keir’s, Busby. “Follow me,” he said and swooped from the limb, past the house, to the open field beyond.
The positive vibrations of his energy gave me an option other than accepting the harsh judgment of strangers. Glad for the cover of dusk, I limped past the house until I saw the owl again in the grand maple that stood guard over the cemetery’s gate. The moon, peeking over the distant tree line, cast an ethereal glow on his wide, white face.
My heart beat faster. What did he know? Could a spirit there help me?
I sped up, focusing past the pain, and dragged the hexed leg like a dead weight.
Spirit songs wafted to me on gentle breezes, though I couldn’t make out their words.
With every agonizing step, sweat ran down the nape of my neck as I stumped the length of the long gravel lane to the tree.
The owl flapped and hooted. “Come inside.” He flew over the closed gate and landed on a nearby horsehead post.
I plodded farther and touched my hands to both huge iron gates where they met.
Voices of spirits inside grew fervent. Did the gate signal an invader approached? I swallowed hard. Or did the souls routinely behave that way with the falling dusk?
The gate remained closed. Balanced on my good leg, I pushed into it. The metal creaked but held fast. “Busby, it won’t open for me.”
Wings wide, he hovered above me. “I heard your name being called. The gate should open.”
The gate spanned twenty feet and rose at least fifteen high. I ran my hands over all surfaces within reach and found a lock. The moment my hand passed the lock, the metal groaned and shook. With a loud clatter, the two halves opened slowly inward, and I passed through.
They shut behind me and met with a sudden crash. I flinched. Total silence followed. The sweat coating my skin iced to a clammy chill. I was virtually helpless, with the bulk of my powers spilled and no sun or fire from which to recharge. I dug in my shoulder bag for my wand. I suspected spirits would sense the difference between an ordinary stick and a consecrated wand, but Gran’s amber might be something new to confuse them.
Busby wove circles of magic around me.
I clutched my wand’s base and held it ready. Glad for whatever support the owl familiar provided, I took tentative steps through a path of statues. The schlepping of my injured leg stirred the pea gravel and announced my presence too loudly. My eyes burned, trying to focus in the fading light.
Unspeaking marble heads faced me, and I froze. Alabaster eyes stared me up and down. Only foot-tall boxwood hedges separated them from me. I shivered. Under such scrutiny, stopping at the farmhouse seemed clearly the better choice.
Which spirit had called my name? Curious to know, I moved forward and met each gaze. Most stood as tall as me, in likenesses of how they looked as adults. Others were short as the children they’d once been. Groundcovers carpeted under their feet. Descending cold air of the night lifted warmer currents that carried cloying fragrances of chamomile and thyme, the last overly sweet notes before a first hard frost. Saccharin odors clogged my throat and made me cough.
A murmured note sounded on a path far to the right. I turned in that direction, and a soft soprano sang my name.
The hairs along my arms rippled, more as I drew nearer to the female voice.
“Aggie, over here.”
I spun in all directions. No person, statue, or animal spoke. The same gentle words surrounded me but came from nowhere.
“Aggie, behind you!” Busby called.
I spun, and he swooped between me and a diaphanous female ghost. She faded in and out of visibility. Her long white hair blended with her flowing gown.
I thrust my wand at arm’s length, but without any spell in mind. What could I cast on a ghost in her rightful home? I was the outsider here. Yet the wand shook. The firefly inside Gran’s amber lit with brilliant flashes. Had I done that? How?
A second form, more substantial than the other, appeared at her side. It was Maggie, Cerise’s mother, whom I’d last seen in the bedroom mirror of the homestead. Her white blouse glowed in the moonlight. And inside her chest, her heart radiated orange light, pulsing with the rhythm of the amber’s firefly.
My jaw dropped. What sort of magic was this?
“Aggie, how nice for you to come visit us here. Coyote Mother must have brought you. You wear her stone.” She giggled and grabbed handfuls of air, until she clasped something I couldn’t see. “My mother Ellie has begged me to bring you to her. Take her hand and enter her dream.”
Busby’s wings flapped wildly overhead, and I glanced at him.
Without guidance from him, I reached forward. The moment I touched Ellie’s pale hand, my senses closed to all that surrounded me. A new world opened. A meadow blooming with springtime flowers.
The white-haired ghost had disappeared. Instead, the same woman, now younger with dark, flowing hair ran to me, a white-gray coyote at her side. Her heart and the coyote’s also beat with flashes of orange light. “Aggie, I’m Ellie. This is the coyote mother I asked long ago to save us. She found you, the outsider with strength, courage, and power enough to break the curse. Because of you, hearts of the O’Mara women beat anew.”
I stared at them with unblinking eyes, letting her words soak in. My witchcraft connected to their hearts. Did that mean I was strong enough to overpower the banshee?
The coyote stepped to me and licked the stone at my wrist I’d received from Waapake, the same that my Gran had given to the coyote mother before him. The golden beryl gem illuminated from within, sending streaks of yellow so bright, I blinked. The coyote curled at my feet.
Ellie touched my arm. “You are now a dream-walker like us. Maggie will teach you as her mind is able. You can also call upon Coyote Mother’s spirit. But in all cases, rely on your strong instincts. Courage and fine intuition are within you, and the beryl will help those qualities surface. But know that with this wonderful gift, you are also marked. The banshee can now see you for who you are—its destined challenger.”
A gust of freezing wind swept between us.
“Aggie!” a familiar male voice yelled. “Aggie, run!” It was Logan.
In an instant, the meadow transformed to a blackness so solid that the air felt thick. I couldn’t see, much less run. I spun, arms outstretched, fingers clutching my wand. Where was I? In the dream, or in the cemetery? Or some other plane of consciousness?
A weight pressed upon my lungs.
I struggled to breathe. I gasped and choked. My mind went dizzy.
“Aggie, over here,” Logan yelled so loud, his voice caught in a raspy croak. He coughed. “Run toward my voice. The banshee is in the cemetery. Run to me! Busby, help—”
The demon’s shrill screech split the night air. Energy vibrated in all directions, attacking my haptics. Wind cycloned in wild circles, whirling leaves that stung my face. Wings beat against my back.
I prayed to the Goddess of Fire that the owl was who touched me. Adrenaline shot through my legs. I ran in the direction of Logan’s voice.
“Aggie, make a slight right. Now run fast and straight. Busby’s at your back.”
I ran with all my might, and the owl’s feathers stayed with me the whole way until strong arms embraced me. The clank of iron gates rang behind me.
As soon as the metal ceased to groan, the wind laid. And with it, my vision cleared. In a clear night sky, the nearly full moon shone upon a still, peaceful cemetery. A gentle breeze rustled the maple tree’s translucent yellow leaves and carried a chorus of ethereal song from the statues.
“Are you okay?” Logan whispered, his breath warm on my ear and his arms encircling my back.
“I’m fine.” I gulped air to calm my heaving chest. “Well, my hex hurts. The normal ache, like before I went inside. Is the banshee gone?” I pulled back to look into his eyes, in time to find my answer as the stormy gray of his irises receded to azure.
“Yes, for now. The spirits here have known me all my life. At my request, they sent it away. What happened?”
I lifted my arms to either side. The beryl glowed and the firefly flashed. “They’re still lit like in Ellie’s dream world. Coyote Mother made me stronger, a dream-walker. But then the banshee knew me as its enemy. After that, I don’t know what happened. Everything went black. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. I could only hear your voice.” My throat swelled, and I pushed my question past my lips. “What if you hadn’t been here?”
“But I was. I saw you drive away and was worried, so I followed.”
“Thank you.” I gave an awkward grin. “What about Rachelle? She told me the two of you were a couple. I saw you. Together.”
“That’s what she’d like to happen because her best friend Jancie is serious with Rowe. They both know I’m not into Rachelle. I’ll have to make it clear to her.”
After a long moment of silence, I tried to accept his answer and changed the topic. “How did you find me?”
He reached a hand inside his suit jacket and pulled out a quartz crystal fixed to a cord.
“Pendulum magic?” I looked at him with wide eyes. “I didn’t think anyone other than my Gran did that.”
“I’ve learned a thing or two working with our elderly. This pointed me along your path. But it did take me a while. You made a lot of odd turns.”
Above us, Busby gave a short hoot. I didn’t need to look to know there was no danger, other than concern over an owl jealous for attention.
Coon Hollow Coven Tales 1-3 Page 51